The Flop House - FH Mini 80 - Behind the Scenes

Episode Date: May 13, 2023

After a little talk about the writers' strike (donate to the Entertainment Community Fund here, if you're so inclined), Dan takes us behind the scenes at Flop House HQ. 

Hey, everyone, welcome to the flop house. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. And I'm Elliot Kaelin saying, Dan and I may be on strike from work right now, but we're not on strike from your hearts. And we know there's a lot of people out there who want to support us writers while we writers, guild writers, try to do right by our fellow writers against the AMPTP jerks. I'll just call them what they are.

Who refuse to pay us our due. Hey, if you'd like to support writers like we are, why don't you go to entertainmentcommunity.org and make a donation. It used to be called the actors fund. Now it's for the whole entertainment community, entertainment community fund. Go to donate and choose the film and television worker section. That's going to help not only writers who may need help during this strike if it goes long, but also writers assistance and all sorts of support staff who also will need help and are also at a work right now because of this showdown that doesn't need to happen, but which the big execs decided to make happen. That's right.

We didn't need to bring around bring about Ragnarok. They brought Ragnarok, but now we're going to rock it all along starting with this hit starting with this hit from Katrina and the waves. Okay, well, you might think that Alex in charge of this many, but he's not. He's just and I turned into a DJ halfway through there. I don't know how that happened. Full of fervor and fever for his union. Your union too.

Yeah, my union is well well, I'm just saying. Yeah, but Dan's not that is full of fervor and fever fever a little bit. How are you doing then? You look up, you're doing okay. I mean, I did a lot of walking yesterday. Yeah, so yeah, the strikes going on. Thank you for bringing it up because honestly, that was the thing I was going to start with. I was walking the picket line yesterday. I was also this song from Katrina and the waves. I'm walking the picket line. Whoa, I'm walking the picket line. Whoa, and don't it feel necessary. Uh-huh. Yeah. And so I buy into a little bit of the thinking that devalues writers, because I was mostly excited

to see the various actors I recognize on the picket line. I wasn't like, ooh, look at that famous writer. I mean, I guess Starly Kind was there. She's a well-known writer, although probably most well-known because she did podcasts anyway. And he saw Josh Gondelman, he's also a lot of Josh Gondelman,

but also. Yeah, no Tories, Colisfeens saw Josh Gondelman. He's also. Josh Gondelman, but also. Yeah, no Tories. And cocaine. Josh Gondelman, yeah. Mostly known for, yeah, for cocaine and for being a standup. There's not a lot of, there's not a lot of celebrity in writer hood, but I did see Dalton Trumbo would say, fuck off, dude. Yeah. That's a classic Dalton Tr Dalton. He's a screenwriter. Yeah. Or like, or have you ever had a chai f ski would be like, patty chai f you, Dan, for not mentioning me. Yeah. Okay. You came up with a couple.

And they're both there too. Yeah. William Goldman. He's, he's known, but Tony Gilroy, Vey. Yeah. Tennessee Williams would be like, oh, no. I feel like there is a more chromaticum of celebrity in a way that some reason. Well, it for some reason because playwrights own their work and are associated with their work. We're a screenwriters traditionally have to sell their work

and are removed from their work. It's called Labor's alienation from the product of its labor, Dan. And we have to talk about it. So today on the flop house, many are in product of its labor, Dan. And we have to talk about it. So today on the flop house, many of them in charge now. Sorry, Dan. No. No. So yeah, I saw Zach Cherry and possibly he, he he from Severance, his co star. I was cool. I saw Gina Gershaw on the picket line. Most importantly, of course, I saw. Why did you bury the lead, Dan? Why did you bury the lead that Gina? What? What my favorites was on the picket line. Very excited, very excited. And meanwhile, who

would I see Zach Braff? Great. Thanks. But also, of course, even more exciting to 80s kids will remember Curtis Armstrong was there. Oh, well, the line, so tire mountains made of snow, you get it. The top-headed best friend from better off dead. And from many other 80s comedies. Anyway, do you always have a top hat? I think he mostly did it. I think I'm better off dead he did. Yeah, I mean, certainly better off dead, but.

No, no, I don't think it's a booger he wore a top hat necessarily. That would undercut the character booger by giving an affectation like a top hat. Yeah, I think of him more of a slob as a slob, but you know, it's possible. It could be a slobby slob. Now, we're not a slob. We're not covered by the writer strike here in the flop house for two reasons. Dan, hold on a second. In those slabs versus snob's movies, we're always supposed to be on the slabside, but

what if that slab was slowed down in the low-savage? I think I would be on the snob side in that one. I mean, I'm not slumping that. That's what you're not going to know, right, Steve? I think that culture has proven that in a lot of the cases we should have been on the snob side in those movies. Well, I mean, like as culture has proven, there were no good guys in those movies. That's right.

Yes. It was just, it's just like the classics, Lobs versus Snob's movie, Predator versus Alien, no matter who wins we lose. It's like a mad magazine spy versus spy comic. You're not especially supposed to root for either spy. You're supposed to see the thing. You wait for the great spy because she's a sexy lady. Yeah. The situation. I remember I explained the unending battle to know. I remember explaining to a bar regular once some of the, I don't know, some of the gross stuff in Revenge of the Nerds and he got so angry like that I pulled

the, I pulled the scales from his. He got so angry that he screamed at nerds like, oh, he can't reach up the bar. Oh, if only. Now, guys, not that we need to spend any more time on this, but I'm pretty sure that the alien would be the slob and the predator would be the snob. Prove me wrong. What do you think? Let's say, well, I mean, the predator does, it's hard to say. Not a lot of gadgets. The predator hunts for sport, which is shared by snobs and the fox. And the alien is literally drooling all the time. That's pretty sloppy. True. The drooling more so, I mean, like they're plenty,

the alien's always. The alien's always. The fox who hunts. I mean, it's not a, it's not a, it's for all people. And I think the predators, and the predator's mouth is pretty moist too. Now that I think, it's not, it's not a, it's for all people. And I think the predators, and the predators mouth is pretty moist too, now that I think about it. And the aliens always trying to get laid in the after a fashion.

Yeah. Yeah, that's classic slug behavior. Yep. I believe Ridley Scott described the alien as always trying to get laid. Now, the, that was a xenomorph, the thing that, what defines the xenomorph is that he's always trying to get some.

This is also not what this episode of the Flopus Mini is about, but returning to the, I was trying to say, I was, I was, this is all preamble, by the way. Yeah, what's the spot? Oh, it's not just about you name dropping who you saw on the picket line. I mean, I had a plan, but as you know, when man makes a plan, Elliot and Stuart laugh. Yeah, yeah. No, so in the spirit of the writer strike now, obviously, we're not covered by that here in the podcast for two reasons. One, obviously, we're not covered by that here in the podcast for

two reasons. One, we don't write this to what? To we own more importantly. We own the the the the show. So there's no one to strike against in this case. And there's nothing there's nothing in the strike rule saying we cannot create independent media. It is entirely owned by us, profits accrue to us. No executives allowed. But for this many, I have gone pencils down and I'm taking a series of questions from a listener named Aaron who I'm afraid Aaron technically now you're a scab. No, but Dan, this is not a guild covered. Oh right, right, right.

I just see some projects. And Aaron had a bunch of behind the scenes questions. And I know this is also in the spirit of the strike because this pre-sages the kind of bad reality programming you'll get without. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. This is now officially a documentary because we're talking. I'm like good, good reality programming.

Behind the scenes. Yeah, I know you've got your shows. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,

I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like editing or through writing. Should the members of the library cover by the guild? Yes. You know, so just another way that the money, money people are screwing over the actual workers. But here we go.

So this is a series of behind the scenes questions. Okay. Now, the first one is how do you... I'm going to be amazed if there's anything we haven't already covered on the fan podcast, the beach bit, which is true. Yeah. I can't wait till the beach bit episode on this episode. When that drops.

Oh, spicy. So this is part, this is part of a list of things. So maybe it isn't meant to stay in alone. The first question is, how do you make an episode, which is kind of a broad atomic take cover. So maybe we can we'll circle back and see how well we've done at saying how we make an episode. Sure.

Answer badly. How long does it take to edit? Now so these days perfect directed to me, the guy who edits every moment of this podcast. These days, producer Alex does it. And frankly, I have no idea how long he takes on. Okay, so we're all for two for questions right now. Why don't we review the answer and why don't we know the answer to? We're coming back to the first one. We're already at the two strikes.

We're coming back to the first one. Where did he go? We had strikes. Producer Alex, I think I'm pretty sure he puts more time into it than I did when I edited it. And when I edited the show, it was that even possible. Dan, you would find, you would handcraft every moment. Yeah. Here's the thing, the show is edited very little.

We will cut out stuff, I'm sure the shocks people, we will cut out stuff that after the fact we're like, if we feel like we've said something that like, everyone's all like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, we've said, like, we've said, like, crazy rant, like, super conservative rant. We're like, what are you talking about? Yeah, the audience has been saved from my, yeah, my one-world government, rants and things like that. Yeah, but I mean, I think none of us are perfect.

So occasionally we'll say something where like, I'm not comfortable with the way that came out. I feel like we, it may be construed as something that I did not intend. So, I'll, so if you hear anything kind of fucked up, come on on my mouth, you're like, oh, wow. What's the stuff that he took out? I think Dan's behind what he's saying. 100%.

That's the lesson that you should take. Everything on the podcast from now on, he's standing up on my character. The character said that. Levels. Come on, babies. Levels of indemnification. This is a real John Stuart saying, I just, you know, I just make jokes. A thing going on. Oh, no.

Yeah, very little gets cut bathroom breaks get cut. We find that listeners probably don't love those. Yeah, because I'm not trying to. I'm not mic'd up in there yet. Yeah, we don't have. Yeah, we'll bring the mics in there someday. Yeah. For the Plop House.

Sorry, we should cut that joke. Yeah, cut that one out. But in the old days, when I did it, I mostly, like early on, I was like, let me, let me tighten this thing up. Let me cut out, you know, ums and urs and what nots. And I mean, not what nots. Occasionally, those are important

to the construction of the students. But I would cut them out. But then I found that number one, I didn't like to of the sentence. But I would cut them out. But then I found that number one, I didn't like to do the work. And number two, you mess with sort of natural conversational timing too much and it sounds weird. So I just would sort of put on the front and back of the show, the theme, figure out the outtakes

from when we're babbling ahead of time, put in ads, etc. Like all the very obvious cuts are most of the cuts that exist. I think Alex is a little bit better about dealing with overtalk if he hears it. And that's why the show now sounds better than what I was in charge. Now it has minimum overtalk whereas during Dan's reign it was maximum overtalk, just like the Stephen King movie of the same name in which all of the world's telephones come to life. Which is another thing about it is kind of the plot of cell, a very good Stephen King novel. So maybe I shouldn't make fun of him.

Yeah. How much gets cut? I mean, like, I think we've been over that. So we can put that question in the rearview. What kinds of things have been gotten cut in the past too hot for TV again? Not really too hot for TV, too dumb for us. Too poorly, too poorly phrased for TV, I guess sometimes. Yeah, I'm sure that I've like, essentially, something that was insensitive because, but in the rhythm of the show, at like any details got lost. What else? What's involved in dealing with remote recording and sinking?

So, you know, this is all really fascinating stuff again, trying to scare you out. I haven't heard seen any, oh wait, Dan, were you talking? I was just about to say, I haven't seen any problems with remote recording, right? Yeah, because I think we're doing fine. Sorry, Dan, are you talking about? It's a funny bit. It's a funny bit that's happening that is too much like real life.

I don't know how Larry is doing a little bit. Dan seems to say it's funny and he's smiling, but his eyes aren't smiling. My eyes are always smiling because they're Irish. Oh, wow. Yeah, you could Irish eyes are even when you're cutting your finger off and throwing it, your best friend's door, your Irish eyes are smiling every time. Yeah. Yeah. I'm more of a best friend's door. I guess he was still, if they were still best friends, he would have had to cut off his finger and throw it at his door. I mean, that dude sucked, right? He's a bummer. He's a no-no.

Wait, which one? Hot Patrick. Patrick, what's his name? Don't want, like, that's why he broke up with him, right? It's because he's a bummer. He's not a good friend. I mean, he is a bummer. I know he's not a good friend necessarily.

It seems like he's a good friend. It seems like the guy doing the breakup is maybe not the nicest man. Yes, that's true. Yeah. I mean, I understand his reasons. I have sympathy for both of them. That's the beauty of the movie. You can understand, you feel like you've, you've, I think everyone's been on one side or

the other of that or both. You either just wanted to focus on your music or you've just wanted to tell your friend about what's going on with your pet, donkey, you know? You've wanted to throw severed fingers at someone or. So much. Where's the donkey or pony? I'm trying to remember now. It's a donkey.

It's a donkey, okay? Because it's very small. Yeah. It's a Jenny's a small donkey. Yeah, they called it a smonky. Wow. Recording remotely is fairly easy in this modern world. We have a zoom like, like you've seen at your office or on TV or during the pandemic,

we're all familiar with zooms. He keeps giving them examples of where they haven't seen zooms. We get a zoom room, you know, like the song Boom Boom into Zoom room. And Dan, Dan, I love that you are the one who is running this mini. You chose to answer these questions and you're answering them as if you are stalling for time to keep like a kidnaper on the phone. Well, you guys are so loose. And the thing is about these answers is they're not essentially interesting.

So we got a Zaz, a muffle. Oh, I mean, Zaz, okay. Hey, Chad GPD just add 10% more Zaz. 10% these answers. Still, still, that's the whole point of the strike. We're not doing that. Although Chad GPD, if you could Zaz it up a little bit. Why are we going to Zazle.com? Well, wow.

There was a, there was a, this was very scary to me as I saw an article where someone had AI write like a, like a short episode of 30 Rock about the strike. And I read the script that was supposedly that AI produced and I was like, well, this is bad. It's not funny.

The character voices are wrong. The plot doesn't make sense. The scenes don't, don't go anywhere. but it doesn't read like a computer wrote it. It reads like a bad writer wrote it. And that really scared me that if AI is already at the level of writing, what bad writers can write, it was very frightening. So I guess what I'm saying is chat GBT of you can say this up a little bit. Yeah, but whoever wrote that, whichever chat GBT wrote the 30 rock script didn't have enough

to ask. I feel like that's the prompt Rockscript, didn't have enough zazz. I feel like that's the prompt that will cause the AI to destroy itself the way Kirk would talk a computer into some logic loop is he go, what, what, give me your prompt and it's like, zazz this up and the computer is just like, what is zazz does not compute and that explodes? Well, now I just remember, like, you know, executives are famous for giving contradictory notes. Yep, I've received many in my time. Yeah.

We're going to get a bunch of robot melt that and stuff like this is not logical in the future. A rational does not compute. How can I include more information about the character and also cut it down a bit? But how can I inject my personal trauma into this story? Well, when an executive sits down with an AI, because the AI wants to pitch a story and the executive goes,

but what about this is authentic to your experience? And the AI is like, I'm a computer, I have not lived a life, I don't know. I did the research, does that count? I feel for it, does that count? But how does it tie into your childhood? It does not compute, did not have childhood at it, and it explodes.

Maybe that's the... The AI always says, ad before it explodes. not have childhood at it and then explodes. The alley says, ad before it explodes. I also feel like it's Kathy. It's Kathy bot. Yeah. It shouldn't speak in full sentences if it wasn't a job. That's true. You're not just saying beep boop in between.

That was so funny. If it's writing brilliant scripts, but you can't use them because between every line of dialogue, it says beep boop. And they're like, uh, it's just too expensive to take out all those beat boop. Yeah. And then the guilds like, don't tell, don't tell any one about fines and replace. Yeah.

There's the only, yeah. Nobody, nobody talks about the fourth ruler robotics, which is to say beat boop is possible. If it doesn't conflict with the first three laws, yeah. So if a human orders a robot, don't say be pooped and it stops saying be poop. Well, thank you, Chatbot, for all that Zaz you added to this question. To finish with some information, we all record then locally into digital recorders, and Alex just matches those files up. We do a little counteroff. Very simple.

Yeah, we do a little counteroff. We do a little counteroff. We do a little counteroff. We do a little counteroff. But we think globally. Oh, wow, cool. You know, some people clap to synchronize the tracks. Yeah.

I asked Justin McElroy of the McElroy brothers, maybe you've heard of him. Oh, wow. I said that you can't ask. Put a little more on that line there. Yeah. You may have heard of it. But do they clap? They do that you can't. I'll say on that line there. Yeah. You may have heard. They do it count off. That's they do a count on. Yeah, that's honestly why we do. If it ain't broke, I'll do and fix it. Uh, that, that, that, that, have you ever scrapped an entire episode on purpose? Not a purpose. Not a purpose.

We scrapped, let's see, there's the one that had a bunch of noise over it. There's one that we just lost. There's a couple that we just lost, the one regular one, one live show. Now we did scrap one on a porpoise. Does that count? It was an accident, but it was on a porpoise.

We said we were gonna like, we're recording episode, entire episode writing a porpoise. It did not work. The porpoise kept saying beep boop. It was a computer for. Yeah. It was that computerized dolphin from Johnny Nemanik the movie. And so he just wouldn't stop saying beep boop while we were recording. Yeah, but it was a very squeaky beep boop. Yeah, yeah I don't think we've ever, I don't think we've ever recorded an episode and been like, oh, that's no good because our standards are quite low.

I was going to say that he had to sit for the audience. Clearly every episode we put out is basically perfect. So they have this kind of a track record. You have to throw, you got to kiss a lot of frogs and throw those frogs in the garbage. I did start watching, I did start watching the movie Arsenal. It was one of the possibilities for a cage miss episode. Socrates. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no boring and just sort of it had like bad vibes. I'm like, I don't think we're going to have fun talking about this. So

we did switch around. And there are also fun movies that we don't get to do because Dan's like, I watched that already. I've loosened up a lot about that. I used to be like, I want us all to be like experiencing this for the first time. I have to preserve. I have to preserve have to preserve. I have to preserve my more beis hymen would have been the way that you used to think about it. And now you're like, you know what? I'll do more beis again. No, not man. Well, in fact, like next week's episode is a movie I had previously watched and enjoyed.

And I'm excited to talk about it. You guys, when we talk about 84 Brady. Uh-huh. Yeah. I've got, I've got, I'm gonna have some words with you. You're enjoying it. Whoa. It's what I love is so I rarely have seen the movie ahead of time because the kind of movies I watch for fun are not the kinds of movies do on the podcast. They are old, they are far-tare experience. Yeah, there's solitary experiences.

Ellie is what you know, what what people know as smart. He's a smart, discerning person. The, and Dan, usually he watches like the action or the horror movies ahead of time, but Stewart, it's always all the romantic comedies. What audiences may not know is Stewart and his wife watch every romantic comedy that is released. And as a big fucking softy, you know, I got a big old, big old heart and it needs to be filled with movies to be massaged gently. It needs to be massage gently. It's too big. It's, but that's why I started lifting weights. So the rest of my body would match up with my giant heart. Yeah. You know, that's

what's more important than having a beautiful mind. What a beautiful heart, a giant heart, a giant ridiculous. Did a fucking robot right there line? I mean, that isn't movie that at times feels like a robot wrote it. Yeah, that's true. Why it does not compute. Why does the person with emotional issues not just stop having those emotional issues? Thank you, MediBot. Now check out fucking Amadala's pregnancy for me. It seems as if she lost the will to live.

What school did you go to, MetaBot? Like that's not a diagnosis. It was a liberal arts college. I technically have a doctorate in English literature. MetaBot minor in Hockey Sack. This is a real catch me if you can scenario. Hey, you know what, we're about halfway through the show. I know, maybe it might be two thirds the way we might be doing like a Broadway style, you know, where the first act is significantly longer.

Yeah, just more songs than the first act. That is the worst thing that you can hear at a standup show is after you've sat through four or five comics. You can go, okay, we're halfway through and you're like seriously. Yeah. Anyway, I think it's a good time to thank our sponsors. Of course, every episode of The Flop House is sponsored by listeners like you who've become members at maxfunmaximumfun.org.

Thank you very much. Yes, thank you to our current members, thank you to our past members. And you know what, thank you to our future members. Consider. Consider joining at some point in the future. But we also have. It is not, it is not, and I will say, it is not, it is not an over exaggeration to say that your support is what is getting Dan and me through this strike right now. We really appreciate it. It is 100% true. But also in a smaller way, we get support from a few sponsors.

And let's thank them by fulfilling our contract with them and reading the things that they've provided. I love Dan that you're just, again, this is, you are pulling back to hurt you. Yeah. Me too. Behind this is, the flop house is sponsored in part by Soilents, the original food tech company that makes delicious and nutritious nutrition products inconvenient formats. You got your Soilent, complete meal that comes in

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month, 1 month, month, 1 month, 1 month, 1 month, month, 1 month, 1 month, 1 month, month, 1 month, month, 1 month, 1 month, 1 month, 1 month, month, 1 month, 1 month, month, 1 month, month, 1 month, month, 1 month, month, month, 1 month, month, your liking, why not go to soilint.com, slash flop and use code flop to get just 20% off your first order. That's soilint.com, slash flop and code flop for 20% off your first order. And I have known multiple people who have relied on Soilin for getting in shape for roles that they were about to take. These were actors and they found it effective and also they enjoyed it. Yeah, and I want to jump in here and say,

Dan, you don't have to lose any weight. I love you just the way you are, buddy. You're great, thanks. I mean, it does personally make me feel a little bit better. I just want to make that clear. And Dan, as your doctor, as your doctor, you know me feel a little bit better. I just want to make that clear. And Dan, as your doctor, as your doctor, you know, maybe a little bit. Yeah, I mean, to anyone out there, I want to make it clear.

You should love the body you're in, but you know, just for my own health, I have felt it necessary. And Dan, can you describe how physically we should love the body we're in? Are there any sorts of things we should do with hands, particularly? Well, no, no, that's different podcast that I think that's for that's for private times. You should probably not do that around others in the last private time. That's the podcast name without their consent. I mean, there's a whole list of things. I can send them to you, Elliott. I'll give you some pointers with diagrams. Yeah, that would be great. That'd be great. If you get get to me, you're J. I'm a you. Yeah. Bidios. What is it? What is it?

Links to videos. I'm not going to specify the location. I thought you said all the fields. I was like, that's an interesting usage of that phrase. There's a certain type of speech. Yeah. It really is the fields that you want to start a type of way. Literally. We also have a jumbo tronjan. Wow. Thank God. that you have a certain type of way. Literally. We also have a jumbo tronjan. Oh, wow, thank God. This jumbo tron, it's a message for Zachary Michael.

And the message is from YFU. And the message says, no peaches for you. Shame, shame. That's it. Quite a mystery. I wonder if someone is using our podcast to create, to create like a sort of escape room or one of those monthly puzzle boxes people get. Very, but I hope that the intended, intended recipient of

that message received it and understood it. Dan was telling me about his favorite monthly puzzle box is when he just takes other people's packages and tries to figure out what it is. I don't do. I'm not. Thanks. Or true. Dan, do you think that our jumbo tronus have been used to, to, to, uh, to awake a sort of

mentoring candidate sleeper cell agent just now? I don't know. That's my worry. I hope it wasn't. But I hope it wasn't. It's like one of the dudes in hundred bullets because those dudes are fucking cool as hell. Wow.

Yeah. If you are a mentoring candidate sleeper cell agent, let us know and let us know if you've been awakened and what your mission is. That'd be great. Dan Churian Candid. Dan Churian Candid. Or Manchurian Dandid. It works both ways. Hi, I'm Travis McRoy. And I'm Theresa McRoy.

And we're the hosts of Schmanners. If you're looking for a good place to jump into our show, we really recommend either the Playgrounds episode or the Job Interviews episode. Or if you want to go way back, you can check out the episode where we compare the differences between afternoon tea and high tea. So check out those episodes, a new episodes every Friday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's John Moe inviting you to listen to Depresh Mode with John Moe, where I talk about mental health and the lives we live with all kinds of people.

Famous writers. David Sederis, welcome to Depresh Mode. Thanks so much for having me. Movie stars. Jamie Lee Curtis, welcome to Depresh Mode. I am happy to be here. Musicians. I'm in St. Paul, Minnesota. I'm talking me. Movie stars. Jamie Lee Curtis, welcome to Depression Mode. I am happy to be here. Musicians. I'm in St. Paul, Minnesota.

I'm talking to Amy. Great to talk to you. And song exploters. Wish you case, here we're welcome to Depression Mode. Thanks for what you're having me. Everyone's opening up on Depression Mode. On Maximum Fun. Okay, the next question is, how do you take notes and how detailed are they?

Take note, Ellie, you're the biggest note taker. I love taking notes. I'm a big note taker and I take notes on each scene of the movie as it's happening. What happens then is I usually condense those notes into, I try to do no more than 18 kind of bullet point chunks. And sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. But I often, when you're taking notes in a movie, here's the problem. You often don't know what moments are important or not important until after you've gotten

a little more context. And I don't want to waste your time, the listener, with unimportant stuff. So I'll go back and I'll condense it a little bit and edit it. But yeah, I take pretty detailed notes during the movie. Unfortunately, it's hard to pick up the names of characters in modern movies. Often they don't use them that much or they use them very casually. And so I'll be, go back and forth in my notes, replying, referring to a character by either their character name or the actor's name. And I get a little confused. So that's something I need to smooth out later. Did I

have time to get dense my notes for our next week's episode, 80 for Brady? I did not. So let's find out. And those rich with incidents, it's rich with incident and low on plot. Long plot, rich with incident, the character's names are not memorable. And so we'll see. Yeah. I mean, with that one, you just think of the way as the, yeah, I don't think I'm the four actors. Yeah. I'm not going to be like, well, then Lily Tomlin and someone's going to write and be like, you mean Lou, the character, right? Yeah. Yeah, they, they'll disappear into their roles in this movie. There's almost no role for them to disappear into. That's the amazing thing.

I do a little less summarizing or a lot less summarizing, but when I do it, I try and only do bullet points, both for multiple reasons. One is just laziness of note-taking. I will admit it. But I also think that my time would be better serve paying more attention to the movie unless time typing and if I write too much on the page, I'm okay at adjusting on the fly, but sometimes I'll just get into you know more detail than is necessary. And often you're doing things like folding your laundry or cutting mangoes that make it hard to also write notes at the same time. Organizing is CDs. Win. Our recording schedule.

Excluding all the fields. Our recording schedule has changed a little, but when we used to record on the weekends, and we were watching the movies on the weekends, and I was in charge, Audrey would actually offer to take notes, which I was very, very nice of her. I was like, I'm very Midwestern, so I'm like, no, no, I can do it.

And then we would both end up taking notes. And then tell she was like, look, I'm doing this so you can watch the movie. Just. And so that's, that's, oh, yeah, that's cool. Yeah. I mean, I feel like this question is mainly directed at me because I'm a summary master. Uh, so yeah, I mean, I, I take notes in my little computer notes app and I try and condense it after I've watched the movie. I also, a little peek behind the curtain. I try and focus on setting up my co-hosts for jokes as opposed to making jokes myself.

Who knows if I'm successful? That's only for God to decide. I will, it's, that's a fair point. I will sometimes write down funny things that I notice, but I will also write down in my notes questions that I want to ask you guys or things I want to prompt you to do. And then I'll, while I'm doing the summary, I'm like, ah, just do this myself. And then I, and I don't always follow those prompts. But often if you hear me say, like, Dan, can you describe this thing that I've written that in my notes? Oh, that's good. That's a good, that's a good point. We should share our practices more often. Yeah. Pointers for one another. I also get angry at him for being like, where you put me on the

fucking spot? Yeah. I was taking a sip of water. What are you doing? I can't expect that you wanted. How could I host this person who you would expect me to talk about the movie we watched on the spot guess where we talk about movies? Well, I mean, there is a rule in improv that you're not supposed to pimp something into something as they call it. Yeah, luckily I've never taken an improv class. This is all natural. I know we were doing improv too since the rule I believe in improv is yes and and Dan's

rule is often why would you ask me that? No, no, no, no, I'm not a part of this. I know, I may have lost trust for you based on all the other times that you write in your notes interrupt Dan here. Well, when you're summarizing, I just write interrupt on a piece of paper and I just talk that up. Yeah, shape it to your screen. One thing I will mention is I take my notes by hand

unlike Stuart and so like, I have these books of notes for movies that we've watched and I've been trying to think of something to do with them and the ideas come up in the past about trying to auction them off for charity or something and I may try to do that maybe to support this strike. Let's see if I can get a idea. I think it's a good idea.

Which I might not be able to, but we'll see. I'll talk to these guys about how they think maybe we could do that. That sounds good. The next question. Have any of the movie makers ever contacted you except the one who was a recent guest? I'm assuming that in that case, except the one who is a reason guest is referring to from the Super Mario brothers when we had the screenwriter on. Yes. Um, but I mean, obviously also Chris Whites of Twilight New Moon, who has. Friend of the pod is so much for her.

Yeah, I'll, I'll lovely human being who has a half even after we made fun of twilight invited us into his home man. Man, this fucking game. One of these days he's going to take you downstairs to show you that fucking cask of a Montiante. Yeah, just break you into the wall and you're going to be like, you know what game breaking nice game. It's a long time. Yeah.

I think that, no, I don't think so. What about a, what about a, what about a accidental love or whatever? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We had them. Oh, that's right. The nails. The nail brothers, I'll call it. That was, that was meant to overstead and Dave Jester.

That was a little different in that they didn't get in touch with us after we recorded them about them. They had written that I was working with them on a television show called House Broken. And they suggested that we do that movie. And I wanted to have them on board. But I did have a recent experience on an airplane in which someone walked up to me, I was flying from LA to New York and someone walked up to me on the plane and said, are you really killing from the flop house?

I love your podcast, even when you're making fun of one of my movies. And I'm like, what, huh, what? And he was, he revealed to me he was a producer on Wild Mountain Time. And I felt very bad for a moment that I had lay him based into the film. And I was like, a Dan kind of liked it.

And he was like, it's fine, it's fine. So he was very nice, he was very, he was very pleasant. I have yet to have an experience personally. I don't know about you guys, where someone has a known that we covered a movie of theirs and B was mad about it. I've certainly been in, especially during this strike, I've been in meetings with people whose movies we have covered and I have not gone out of my way to tell them that I have been covered their movie. Yeah. Yeah, you don't know how people will

respond. Parker Bennett was the screenwriter for, yeah, I forgot to mention this name one we said before. And you know what, I once worked with Michael Colton and John Abood who worked on Zoolander 2 as there were writers on that. And they and one of them liked our coverage of Zoolander to the other one, I think, did not appreciate it. Oh, well, that's shame. They're both very nice guys. I'm still friendly with those on. They're both nice guys. But I may have mentioned this at the time, but the first time I ever got paid for a piece of comedy writing was in modern humorist, which they founded back in the day, a website. I did a piece called First Drafts of Famous Poems that got cut down into a one poem, but

you know what? It set me on my path. So thanks guys. And they're doing great. They're currently, they were the creators of the show, a home economics until the strike there running that show. And Michael Colton was on Jeopardy as a contestant did much better than I did. So, you know, who's laughing now? Yeah, that's the thing.

I think that most people, most of the people we cover are very successful so they can afford to be. Yeah, if I could be mean about it, it who's laughing now not the viewers of Zoolander to Wow Oh, he's a stinker look at him Oh Oh now he's back Guys guys and smaller. Oh, now he's back. Guys, guys, there's world for the world. We're like ads, ads. Want to make it anyway.

The news quantum mania. Hey, this is the last question. Did you guys see go on? I haven't seen yet. Are there ants in it? I haven't see it. Did he go on a man? I haven't seen it. Are they answering it? I haven't seen that a man movie with the quantum movie. I saw the anvil. I enjoyed it. Okay. I think everyone's right who makes the critique of like why are we doing an ant man movie that removes all sense of scale because everything is like.

It's like a like a waky verse, right? Yeah. Yeah. It takes place in the cartoon world from Roger Rabbit. Yeah. Oh, cool. It is the man horny. The most, the most expensive looking movie you'll see where basically every shot just looks like people standing in front of a green screen.

Oh, okay. Absolutely. It looked like from the trailers and the pictures. And I remember in the trailer, there's a shot where he and his daughter are like running from a spaceship that's shooting lasers at them in like a day glow fantasy world. And I was like, this is not what I want out of the same thing. I mean, there is fun. I want it to be holding up a paperclip and it's enormous.

Yeah, yeah, I want them to be like, look at that steering wheel. I think it's huge. You got a tiny A. That's tiny A, man. I thought it was tiny, You got a tiny A. I thought it was tiny Austin butler. Yeah. It's actually tiny Austin Pendleton. There is fun stuff in it though and I like the way it ends. It ends on a note of like comic anxiety that is like different than most Marvel movies.

But you've got Marvel fatigue. It is certainly not an essential one. Don't, yeah, don't, don't yeah, don't walk, don't run. Yeah. I think I'm saving up my Marvel fatigue. The lactic Marvel acid is just dying down. So I think I'll go see, I might see guardians and then let that build up again.

I'm feeling it, we're not mostly liked it, but next episode. All right. I'll try to watch it. I'm not busy striking for my life, Charlie Brown. liked it, but next episode. All right. Feelings. I'll try to watch it. I'm not busy striking for my life, Charlie Brown. You know who I saw speaking of writer strike in Guardians, you know, I saw a screening of Guardians.

Jim Starlin. Opus from the Colbert Report. So you make a joke about using the writer strike at least a couple of us in the same screening. We're watching Guardians. I mean, that's, I mean, that's it. joke about using the writer's strike at least a couple of us in the same screening were watching Guardians. I mean, that's, I mean, that's, it's totally against the spirit of the writer's strike for you to take that time off to go, hey, for Hollywood movies, like to support the machine.

I mean, I already, I mean, it's part of the, I don't, that work has already been paid. Oh, that's right. And you've got the Alamo package. So you're, so you're, so you're watching, you're stealing money from the executives. Nice job. Nice. Well, really you're stealing from the theater chain, I suppose, but yeah. Chain makes it up in concessions, especially in Alamo where they're serving you the burgers and stuff. Yeah, you would anyway. You wouldn't download a movie. Would you download a cheeseburger with you? I mean, did I pay to watch 80 for Brady?

Maybe not. Maybe that's part of my strike. But I would download a cheeseburger, especially if it was in paradise. I feel like at this point, we're closer to just talking than podcasting. So let's get to the last question. Is there a difference?

Yeah. The last question is, what other prep do you do for an episode? And that is, we watch the movie all separately. We can talk about remote viewing like that's the sad part about doing things remote is we don't get to watch altogether unless we're doing like a live show. Yeah, for years we used to watch it together. Instead we have to make actively make time to spend with each other if we want to hang out, not podcasting. Yeah.

Which is lovely. And I used to, my prep used to be drinking a lot. I don't do that anymore. Yeah, that also used to be my prep because I was younger and we did it at night. Now, I have more physical infirmity and we're doing it in the middle of the day. It's less of the, it's slim to none, let's say. I used to be full of chicken when we do those recordings, but now I have to eat my chicken at other times.

Yeah, because I'm not going to eat a four piece Popeye's bone in meal at 10 in the morning. Yeah, or should I mean you would? I mean, a wood, yeah, but I feel kind of I feel like a certain sense of propriety that keeps you from going down that road. Yeah, you take a look at the pictures of your children and your wallet and you're like, not today, I'm going gotta do this for that. Yeah. Oh. I mean, in terms of preparation too, like I'm the kind of person who likes to know how this

connects to the greater sort of movie world, like what people have worked on, you know, to track down what the likes of screenwriter done, what is this director done, if it's someone unfamiliar to me. Like, is there any sort of trivia about this movie that I can dig up or whatnot? And that's always interesting to me, like the context. Yeah, you go and live in the goof section. I live in the goofs. He goes, he goes, Audrey, you won't see me for a while. I've got to go to the goof side.

Yeah. for a while. I've got to go to the goof side. My Dave Ferg. There was my, the, my, my son has discovered Mad magazine. And you know, the way Mad magazine works now is there's, I don't think they put out any new material. It's all repackaging of old material, which means he'll get an issue that has a theme. And some of the articles are from the 90s, some are from the 60s, and they often will have a lighter side of, and he'll be like, look at this. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that was always the worst part of the magazine when I was a kid. And he'll

laugh at it, and I'll notice, oh, Dave Berg didn't do this. So, this must have been after Dave Berg died, and somebody else took it over. Yeah, I like the lighter side of the Ryan Contra complex. Yeah, those were the weakest and I was never fond of the the bread and butter of mad when I was reading it, the long movie parodies. Really, I really like those when I was a kid, but it's like with the lighter side, it was like the adult swim of reading a magazine. Kids get out of the pool, here's something for old people and it would just be like, it's in every issue, every single issue. Three pages of this children or this young person's humor magazine is

taken over for jokes about like being a baby boomer and getting older and being annoyed with young people. It's really crazy. Now give me at least the cartoon, at least the cartooning was visually hilarious, right? Yeah. Who's, uh, wait, who, so who is that guy? Was it Don Severin? Is that who I'm thinking? John Severin did do work for Mad. You think about Don Martin? Maybe. Don Martin, maybe, yeah, who did the crazy faces? Yeah. He would do like Mr. phone phone and sploing and things like that. That dude fucking rocks. I, you know, give me the... I mean, the greatest stuff, and if Dan, you're not reading the movie parodies, you're missing more truckers work.

And he was the, maybe the greatest characterist there's ever been. The art is great. I just found the writing on those to just be like, I don't know. Like I, I get it. I guess, I guess if this is the one episode that Dicti Bartolo listens to, we're going to be in trouble. I get, then, to a series of strung together gags on the theme of a movie, but I just would get bored by it very quickly.

Give me the shorter pieces. Give me a snappy answer to stupid questions so I can learn how to be a sarcastic jerk. Yeah. Rest in peace. What are the nice to people? What are the very reasonable questions? would I would I would I would love to see Elliott I would love to see you do a movie parody right a movie parody mad magazine style and get I don't know Tom Fowler to do the art. Oh, that's a great thing. He's a great caricaturist and I feel like you'd get the spirit perfectly. Some day who knows

some day I'd love to do that. I've got to pick the right movie for it. That's the thing. We'll have to see. And then you got to watch the movie. That was the only mad magazine ones I had trouble with were the ones who were clear they had not really seen the movie. And we're doing it off of like the trailer or there was one when gold and I was coming out. All that they had heard was this was going to be like a kinder gentler, like more like 90s PC bond. And so the whole parody was about that and you watch the movie and it's like, none of that comes through. The movie doesn't have any of that. Like, there's still a, there's still a, like, he still has a sex fight in a sauna with a lady like it's, you know, it's, there's no, it didn't fit, you know.

Well, that's been our many on Mad Magazine. So thank you for listening. If you want to support the writer's strike again, Elliott, how would you recommend that people do that? You're better than that. You, I mean, one thing you can do is you can, if you are in the creative industries, if you are a union member, whether right, whether the WGA or SAG after or DGA or a teamster or IOTC, a laborer, we would welcome you on any of the picket lines in New York or Los Angeles or I just saw a thing on Twitter about someone at a shoot location in Pittsburgh, I think it was, where

they had put together a small picket line and was able to stop that production because IOTC workers and teamsters, I think are not crossing it. Teamsters especially, they're not crossing the line right now, which is wonderful. This is the first union action I can think of in my time in the guild where all the unions seem to be lined up together, which is really fantastic. But if you can't do that thing, if you can't come pick it with us, and if you're not a member of a craft union or an entertainment union, the better thing to do is go to entertainment community.org.

That's entertainmentcommunity.org. Go to donate and earmark your donation for film and television professionals. Not to say that you shouldn't support live performance professionals. If you would like to, that's the other thing. But for this strike, it's film and television professionals. That money will be there for when writers, writers' assistance, like I said, support staff who are out of work because of this strike when they need it the most. So thank you very much for doing so. We really do appreciate it. And otherwise,

get on social media and just tweet about how great writers are and how they should be treated properly and that it's a profession and not like a hobby slash gig that we do because we love giving computers things to ingest so they can spit out crap. Does that make sense? Is that clear? Yeah, it makes sense to me. Okay, great, great. Well, yeah, thank you for that. And then thank you to our producer and editor Alex Smith for all his fine work. Thank you to our network Maximum Fun. Again, go to MaximumFun.org to check out all the other great podcasts on the network. They're adding new ones all the time. Well, not all the time. That would, you know, that would be absurd. But who would actually listen to it if there was a new one?

We do it. Yeah. That's unsustainable growth. But we should also say that in the future everyone will have a podcast, but still, sorry, do what you were saying. We should also thank Aaron for the questions. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Aaron. Good answer the first one. How do we make the show? Well, in the words of Jesse Thorne, the show is produced by speaking into microphones. And in the words of me, poorly. Yeah. Uh, so thanks, everyone. For the floppas, I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stewart Wellington.

Uh, I'm Elliot Kaelin. Bye! Oh, ha! Hey! Maximumfun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned, audience supported.