The Greatest Generation - Meet the Neighbors: Dead Pilots Society x The Greatest Generation

Episode Date: October 14, 2021

The Greatest Generation and Dead Pilots Society got together to celebrate MaxFun Block Party!If you enjoyed this conversation we had with hosts Andrew Reich and Ben Blacker, be sure to subscribe to The The Dead Pilots Society!Thanks to Christian Dueñas for editing!

Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Hey friends of Disodo. Before today's episode, we just wanted to take a moment to talk about the historic labor actions being taken by writers and actors in the American Film and Television industry. If you're a fan of the work done by the people who make Star Trek, we hope you'll join us in standing in solidarity with the folks who actually bring these adventures to life. Over the past several years, the AMPTP, the organization that represents the American Film and Television Production Studios, have reduced the profit from movies and TV going to workers. And in so doing,

they've attempted to weaken the labor unions that represent those workers. They wouldn't even engage the unions on many issues in their negotiations. And so a strike was the only course of action to take. Adam, Wendy and I have been having a lot of internal discussions about how best to stand with the unions and we are continuing those conversations in a dynamic situation. We're doing our best to understand where the picket lines are in these digital spaces,

and we would never intentionally cross one. With the information we have, we feel like we can do more good talking about and supporting the strike and continuing our show as planned. We'll keep you informed about what all this means for greatest trek specifically. Today we're making a contribution to the Entertainment Community Fund. This fund exists to help all the people whose livelihoods have been put on hold because the AMPTP refuses to negotiate

in good faith with the unions. It provides financial support for writers, actors, and all the thousands of laborers who make the shows that we talk about here and without whom we wouldn't have Star Trek to cast pot about. Those folks are all out of work because billionaires, company shareholders, and the executives of these companies don't want to compromise on the length of their yachts. We hope you'll join us in supporting entertainment workers in a challenging time, especially after they've already endured several years of challenges brought on by the pandemic

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdisotoforlabor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Hey, welcome to Max Fun Block Party Dead Pilots Society X greatest generation edition. Yeah. So at the Block Party, we're the later drivers and we're like down the street We maybe we haven't like gone into the closed-off street part of the block party

Right, right. Yeah, we don't really know what we're doing outside to see if it's cool. Yeah I'm Ben Harrison of the greatest generation. I'm Adam Franica of the same show and I'm Andrew Reich of the pilot society And I'm Ben Blacker of the same show. So yeah, we thought we would just do this as a get to know your neighbors and you guys do really cool show on max fund. Do you want to tell folks what Dead Pilots Society, like what's the elevator pitch and what it's all about? Sure, I can do my well practice spiel that I do be getting in every episode.

If I can remember it, dead pilots society, we take comedy pilots from a list writers that were sold and developed at networks and streamers, but never shot, never produced, and we given the table reads, they never got a chance to have. It's an awesome show. I just listened to the recent episode that was a script that was co-written by Paul Sheer.

And I thought it was a great, for a greatest generation listener, a great first episode to listen to of Dead Piotr Society, because there's a lot of Star Trek alumni involved in that table read you got. I mean Paul Sheer and Eugene Cordero both on lower decks but also Kate Mulgrew does a voice on that episode. So cool. Really neat. You guys get like absolutely star-studded casts to read these things. Now you've got me wondering like how many other cast to read these things. Now you've got me wondering like how many others.

Alums we've had since neither better I would really would know. Yeah, could we feel a full enterprise from cast that we've had from our show? I would. Yeah, maybe you'd have like all of the jobs but not all from the same show. So you've got an engineer, you've got a captain, you've got a tactical officer. We should definitely try if we haven't already. And we should say that we'll, while we don't know anything about Star Trek, we are big fans of your podcast.

Honestly, I love a watch along. Yeah, I do hope. Oh, thanks. I've just been listening to some, and it's just, I love listening. I mean, there's something about all of the jargon. And the one I was just, there's a lot of, like, I think, ankle of sores and symbiants.

And it's just like, I mean, I have no idea what any of this stuff means. But to hear you guys talking about it, there's such joy in people who love something so much and have so much fun talking about it. We're all nerds about our own things. Why don't you say what your show is? Everyone at this block party knows that too. Yeah. Our show is about Star Trek. It started as a show about Star Trek the next generation, as a watch-along genre show. There are thousands of shows that do what ours does. Like, we are not claiming to have invented the watch-star-trip- We are super late to the party.

When we arrived to the watch-star-trip podcast, people told us not to do it. Yeah, yeah. It would be like if we showed up to this block party and they were like, enough neighbors, all right? We have plenty. You guys can go home. Ben and I weren't super close friends

when we started the show, and it's kind of a project that made us friends. As we did it, I was a guest on Ben's previous podcast for a few episodes, and I enjoyed the experience so much that I thought, God, I would really like to have a podcast of my own. Yeah. What would it be about?

What is a podcast that I could do where I didn't have to do a lot of pre-work or research or anything? What's something that I have down cold and Ben and I started to just hang out socially and it became super clear that we both had the trivial aspects of Star Trek pretty down in the sense that we could just, we could make fun of it in a way that we could both appreciate. We both made references to obscure things that we both picked up very quickly and it became kind of a foundation to a friendship that became the show that that it is today. Yeah, the jargon of the show is very much the

like shared secret language of two buddies that talk about the same subject all the time. Right, but I'm sure you guys have found in doing your pcast, that's what we call them. I'm sure you found that, like that's all people want. Like we just want to hear people who enjoy each other talking about something they love. It kind of doesn't mean what it is or who they are. You've been the hang is the thing. Yeah, right. Right.

And you guys now, how many episodes in our use since you started doing this? I think I was working on episode 385 of the greatest generation. And then there's another 130 some episodes of the greatest discovery, which is our spin off about all the new shows that they're making now. Yeah. Too much. Oh, that's a lot. That's a lot. What about you guys?

We've done 20 episodes. Over five years. What are we up to, Ben? We're in the 60s. Yeah, something like that. Maybe we've done over 50 pilots, 50s, 60s. It's unfortunate a little bit tougher to make one of these episodes happen. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. When we started our show, I was like, Adam, let's do something that's like super easy that we don't have to edit at all.

Like, that we just it and we throw it online and the joke was on us immediately because we started editing crazy and it takes eight hours to edit an episode. But when I think about all of the people wrangling, you guys must have to do to put a cast together and get everybody in the same Zoom room at the same time or up on the same stage at the same time, that's a lot.

That's so much of the work. Is wrangling those casts. And I can't decide, maybe it's easier now because of Zoom, then maybe a little bit. And when we had to get everyone actually to a comedy club or theater to do it, it doesn't feel that much easier. No, it's easier to get people to say yes, but actors are great at technology. Yes, getting everyone to sound that you can understand every one of these. That's tough, but yeah, it is putting together the casts is why we're not in the hundreds of episodes.

And also, we're trying to be finding the enough dead pilots that are worthy of being revived in this way. That's what I was gonna ask about, because we have a source that is never going to run out. Like, Star Trek keeps making Star Trek in a way that's going to keep us self-employed until we die. How do you?

Oh, no. Yeah, I'm not sure if you knew that, though. Damn it. How do you make decisions about what pilots to what pilots make good episodes? It's completely subjective. And part of the fun part is like we are kind of like we run our own little network here, right? Like we track things down, sometimes they come to us, sometimes you know people say hey you know I'd love for you to do this and send us something or

sometimes it's us hearing about a pilot that sounded intriguing and finding a way to get our hands on it and finding the writer. A lot of it is friends, but we can just, if we like it, we're just, we just can instantly greenlight it. And then just for one episode, we can greenlight one episode at a budget of zero. And we can cast whoever we want. And so that's really fun. I mean, I've had thought about it in the same way as sort of an inexhaustible resource. And I think it will continue to be TV's changing a bit where there's more street to series pickups. So a lot of the streaming services

don't like order a script and then decide not to shoot it. There's that is a little bit of a network model. I mean, it still happens, you know. So, but there's, there are fewer of these as time goes along because of the way the business has changed a bit. But still funny. Do you ever run into a pilot that you really want to do for the show, but the creator had such a traumatic experience

with it failing to launch that it's sort of toxic. Like I imagine there are a lot of weird feelings that come from creative work that for whatever reason didn't make it like it was intended to be. People, there's a lot of reluctance we've encountered. But we encounter that all the time because you're right. People are mourning that, you know, the springs of raw emotions. And I often, you know, Ben and I just really having, you know, we've done one of Ben's. We've done a few of mine. Like I just try and really assure people that that's not what they're going to feel.

Like they're not going to feel sad at the end. They're just going to kind of feel like, oh, that was really fun. Really funny. People read this. It was funny. Like I thought it was like I told everybody. of feel sad at the end, they're just going to kind of feel like, oh, that was really fun. Really funny people read this. It was funny. Like I thought it was. Like I told everybody it was. And no one's giving me notes.

I don't have to rewrite it based on this. I don't have to actually make the show, which is like a huge pain in the ass. So there definitely have been people I've approached you just like, oh no, it's just like it would be so sad and I can't talk them into it But there's been plenty of people where I'm just to sure them and I don't think that every writer we've had afterwards It's just like oh my god. That was so much fun, right? Yeah, I was gonna say like the ones who do want to do it and agree to do it and then get to either like watch the show live or Or over zoom are so excited to finally hear this thing read by actors.

Yeah, that's going to be great. Yeah, the nature of the show is they never had table reads for the most part, like because they were never shot. They were never passed. Right. So this is the first time getting to hear the scripts out loud. And it's the best part is seeing the writer get excited about watching their pilot. Did the pilots on the show have they ever been given a new life or like a second chance at going the series at all? Is it that kind of?

It hasn't happened really. There's sort of an asterisk to that. But not really. And we certainly get that's a common question and we're always hopeful that that might happen someday, but it's not what you're going to do the show and you guys take five points on the back end if something goes to series, right? Five major. Yeah.

We're all the pain in the ass of casting these. But also like we've complained about the casting, but genuinely the casting is really fun because Because it's always like the way, like we, Andrew and I will sit down about a month before we do the read and talk about like who do we wanna reach out to who's right for these parts. And it's always, the conversation for me is always like,

what five shows have I been watching this past month? Right. And like who did I love from those shows that I wanna work with and like put into a great pilot, even if they're doing it, like no matter where they are, no matter what else they're doing right now. Yeah. That's a very interesting parallel to our show because we were just talking about in the

editing process of our show. Like, we edit lots of drops and sound references, both from the episode we're talking about, but also from other things. And I think if you're listening closely, you can tell like, oh, Ben was watching a lot of like Vanderpump rules during the like six season of Deep Space 9. Or Adam was watching a lot of curb your enthusiasm for the third season of Voyager.

I was noticing all of those soundbite strapped in, and it made me tired. Thank you. I'm editing all of those soundbite dropped in and it made it maybe tired. I think of the event of editing all of that. It's impressive that you guys do it. Have you, so do you have a relationship, so you're saying there are other shows out there that are doing something the same kind of thing that you do with these these shows?

Have you have, do you have any relationship with any of those other hosts? Has there been any crossover episodes? Or can we help you destroy them? Yeah. I would say that the most interesting example of this was that our first break was we got written about when we first started the show. And the entire, it was on Ars Technica and there was an article about our show and the

entire comment section was basically what about Mission Log, which is a show that is made by Roddenberry Entertainment. And we got really defensive, and we were very new to this whole thing. And so we decided to try and start a rap beef with Mission Log, where we'd call them out on the show. But it turned out that the guys that make mission log are just nice dads that are nerdy about Star Trek.

And did not really get the whole, they didn't want to be the Nas to R.J.Z. or vice versa. And then we just felt really bad like laughing assholes to them. Because what we should have done is be assholes to the assholes right? Yeah, they just missed the target You know we we shot in the wrong direction When did you start the show we started in like early 2016?

Yeah, that's I thought I'd been around five years. So have you found and this is sort of apropos to what we're talking about in a second ago but have you found, and this is sort of apropos of what we were talking about a second ago, but have you found that like, those five years of episodes are autobiography? Like, can you look at those and really see, like, track where you were and what you were doing and how your life has changed in that time? I think a lot. Yeah, I mean, we just did this project

of like going back through old episodes for another block party episode, which was the introduce yourselves episode. And so I pulled a bunch of old audio and it's both amazing to see how far we've come just as a comedy duo because we did not really have any performers or anything before we started doing this. So I think we've gotten better at the kind of rhythm of our show and the, you know, what kinds of comedy we are really good at and like, you know, picking our battles well in

that sense. And also, we were making two episodes a week when we started, we both had full-time jobs when we started. Like, we were really burning the candles at candle at both ends early on and I think you can hear that in the edits. The show is not as tight and clean as it is these days. We also take the first five to ten minutes to just sort of talk to each other and catch up.

I think that's a moment in every episode where if we were to go back and listen to them. Yeah. I mean, that would definitely mark the time. Right. Yeah. That's great. That's what I love. I picked a somewhat random episode, but I think Adam, maybe you had just come from

jury duty. And that's what, you know, I mean, it's about the second. That's just so much fun. I either review guys, I was really just beating you, but it was just like that rapport of you guys just talking about your day. It's just really fun. Ben and I don't do that.

This is the first time I've been on a microphone. Wow. Well, I really love the interviews after the pilots. I mean, that's like a separate episode that comes out a week later, but I love, I mean, you talk about like what it is like for the writers to hear their work in the mouths of performers and like it's always cool to hear that reaction.

It really strikes me in listening to those like we both have shows that are kind of about TV that kind of come at it from the opposite angle. We're looking at a 30-year-old TV show that has like had its cultural impact and like looking at it in retrospect and you are looking at like the the germ of a TV show that never happened and like think I mean like I love thinking about like what would it have been like if some of these had happened? I feel like the impact some of these shows could have had is really interesting to think of as a thought experiment.

Yeah, it is kind of, I sometimes I do think there's this sort of alternate history of TV. And it does strike me. I just saw on deadline that Steve Levitan, Modern Family, has this show that Hulu is doing called Reboot. And in its log line as description, is almost exactly like a script that we had read a Dead Pilot called Revival.

Whoa. And it's not uncommon. Like there's this girl's 5 ever show on peacock is almost exactly in concept the same as this, whatever happened to Gigi's pants show, literally the same setup and the same. And so it really does show you it's just like, it's such a crap shoot.

The same idea, both executed well. One ends up on Dead Pilots Society, one ends up on TV. And the randomness of the business is something it took me years and years of doing this to really make peace with and understand that it truly is like this lottery random thing and You can't control any of that and I think of one of the things we try and convey in this show is to people It's like it is not like a total meritocracy. There's so much luck and and randomness to you know to this the same idea

Can fail, you know one time and you know, it's not like it's better executed and one of the others just timing and all kinds of things like that. So yeah, all these shows could be these could be the big success stories instead of there and you know these things I've never saw the light of day. That's a lot like the story of me and Ben to like a total failure to launch creatively or professionally. How did you guys meet? What's your, what's the genesis of your show? Yeah, it's funny, you know, so Ben has another podcast that he's done for a very long to be done writers panel.

God, almost 10 years. Yeah, Ben's kind of a podcast pioneer. And so he had emailed me at one point because he was doing an episode of Writer's Panel with with friend writers who had been on friends, which I had written on. And I didn't I said no, but then when I had the idea for doing this, which really came out of just frustration of a season where I had sold like three pilots and none of them got made. And I was just like, you know, I just I had sold three pilots and none of them got made. I just wanted to hear one of them out loud and that was like, I was like, wait a minute,

I could do that. I could ask a bunch of actors. That was a germ of it. Just asked another couple of friends who had pilots and got a taco truck and a bunch of beer and used a friend's production company's conference room. No idea where there's a taco truck. Yeah. I knew it was like, what could the worst that could happen is we have a great time.

So at the last minute it occurred to me like, hey, you know, maybe we should record these and maybe it could be a podcast. And the one person who I had any connection to in the world of podcasting was Ben. And so I asked Ben to, you know, if you wanted to come that night, which he did. And then we just had lunch like a couple of days later. It's like, so what do you think? And it was just like, it was so much fun. It was like the event itself was a good time.

And I had been doing writers panel so I knew hundreds of writers and I had been doing a show that I co-created called Thrilling Adventure Hour, which was a stage show that ran for a number of years. So I had this roll of decks of, a roll of decks is where you keep, using to keep fun numbers. A roll of decks of, for the kids listen to actors. So it just made sense for Andrew and me to team up and do this. Like we knew enough people that we could put this together and it wouldn't kill us. Yeah. And

it's so far it hasn't. Andrew, the story of Andrew and me is very similar. You just need to find yourself a bin. Yeah. With some podcast experience. Yeah, and you can make it happen all bends have podcasts You should know. Yeah, we're born. Yeah, we were like X-men Yeah, we leap from the forehead of our microphones fully formed They wanted us to keep us to some amount of time. Yeah, and it's probably been it's probably that amount of time. And it's probably been... It's probably that amount of time. I have like three rapid fire questions for all three of you. Oh wow, I like this. I like this. You're solid ending.

So first, Ben and Adam, what is your favorite Star Trek series? And of that series, what is your favorite episode? I think our favorite series is Star Trek, the next generation. Hence the name of our show, and hence where our show started. I don't know, do you have a favorite episode you wanna call out? It's hard not to pick tapestry, I love tapestry.

Tapestry. One that kind of divides us, one that I'm a little less enthusiastic about than you. So I would love to listen to like an hour of you guys do that. Even never having seen it or nothing. Exactly. I've recently re-watched the Survivors, which is an episode that has like really become important in the secret language of our show because of a character on that.

That's an episode about two people that are like the last two people living on a planet that was decimated by some evil aliens and the Enterprise finds them. But that episode is like endlessly rewatchable to me. And I don't know if it's just because of the role it plays in our show now or if it's just an episode that I find great, but it's like a perfect blend of like a very star trekky premise and also like very very silly in parts like there's a part where Warf says to somebody that they're trying to hold him up with an unloaded phaser was an act of unmitigated gall and that he admires gall.

I think about that all the time. I bet that would go over great with people who knew what a warf was and what a what a star track was. Yeah, whatever is. So if you're a big dead pilot society fan listening to this as your introduction, come on over. There's no barrier to enter. Andrew, we have done between 50 and 60 dead pilot society. Are there a couple that you would recommend to folks

to check out for new listeners? Oh gosh, I love, I always love Jet Pacula. That was so, so Rob Shrabb and I wrote Pat Naswald's Tony Hale. We did that one at Largo and it was just a great, great time. That's, like, you know, we do such a variety of kinds of pilots. On the, on the weirder side, you know, that's, that's one of the great ones. On the more kind of traditional mainstream one, the, the big adaptation of the movie, big,

Mike Royce and Kevin Beagle is a great pilot. That should be in its fifth season right now. Yeah, there's no reason to get that. Only child, John Hodgman's, one of the first ones we did. Sounds great. Just a great one. If Penn 15 hadn't happened, that should definitely be on the air. Yeah. I downloaded all of these as we were speaking. Nice.

Great. Thank you. Those are a few. Yeah. Yeah, those are great answers. And then, for you guys, are there like good jumping on episodes for folks? I would say that any like first episode of a series would be a good jumping on point, just if, if you're a big deep space nine fan or a big void or fan or whatever, um, that's,

that's probably like the best place to start. Uh, it does, it, it is a show that kind of benefits starting early and like... Yeah, it's weird like Star Trek isn't serialized, but we are. So there's attention in our show that works like that too. Yeah, and weekly there are posts on various social media like, what does it mean when they say X and there's actually like now a wikia like a fan curated wiki where people like track all the different nonsense we say and what it's origin and definition is I love that It's so helpful we we had fans make one for thrilling adventure hour, and we would go all the time. Because we can't keep that continuity.

We're all just churning out episodes. It's been an amazing resource over the years. What about you guys? You don't really have to have prior knowledge on a pilot because it's introducing the whole story, but do you guys have one that you think is like a great first? I mean, I think any of those that I mentioned would be good jumping up, but it's true. You could jump in anywhere. I think it's...

If there's an actor you like, or if there's a writer you like, check out that episode. Or some description of a show, like sounds like, okay, that's the, that sounds fun, that sounds like my kind of thing. I mean, I think we hit every kind of, every kind of show, every tone, single cam, multi cam, sort of more network kind of things, more streaming genre, weird stuff. Yeah, because it really is just like, we like and we, you know, our tastes are pretty buried. So, we just want, you know, we're always looking for things that just don't feel derivative,

even though some of them may be exactly like some show that did get on, but they're not derivative. You know, they have something unique about them and some passion behind them, because I think there are dead pilots out there that were just sort of phoned in by someone just trying to get the paycheck, but those aren't the ones we do, we do the ones that were for whatever reason. Really personal, they're passionate about it,

even though it wasn't personal. And so I do think, yeah, you can start anywhere, but chances are, any actor, if you're a fan of comedy, like there's an actor from whatever your favorite show is. If it's not comedy, even if you're a Star Trek fan, like there's actors that we've had. Yeah. We just get good actors.

Yeah. So if you like stuff, you will find stuff to like. Let me wrap up by asking all of you what you are watching on television these days. What's getting you excited or inspired? What are you talking about with each other and your loved ones? Oh man, great question.

My wife and I just wrapped up 100 foot wave. And we really like documentaries. And that was a documentary we evangelized to all of our friends as being just totally I was It's just the perfect combination to me of an eccentric and a story that's that you just wouldn't believe if it weren't If it weren't so visual like it's a crazy person, but also these giant waves on film,

that's a great combination to me. All the peripheral characters involved are really interesting and different. I found myself really caring about them in totally different ways and really feeling pain for them when they were in pain. I was totally invested in their story and I'm excited for the second season. So that would be mine. I just started bored to death,

which I'd never watched before, but I lived in New York for 15 years and 11 of those were in Brooklyn. And so it's like about a New York that was the New York I lived in. And as a fancy coastal white guy, I know that it's like a little unfair how many shows are targeted right in the numbers for a person like me. But like this one is like almost comically, like perfectly in my cultural wheelhouse. And I've just been enjoying the heck out of it.

It's a it's a key show and they Ted Danson Renaissance early Ted Danson how many Renaissance is there's one guy in it you know. And I guess I would say for someone who works in TV and does a podcast about TV I have since I got my criteria and channel subscription I have been watching far more movies than TV shows. It's embarrassing to say I will say too great too great Things I revisited recently that are really worth revisiting are the taking a poem one two three Which you could just watch so endlessly and man hunter Which I feel like just got like swallowed up by silence of the lambs and sort of forgotten but oh my god

Yeah, what a great film. So if anyone out there has either never seen those or hasn't seen them in a while Those were two of my criteria and watches this week and the criterion network in general like such a great value like oh Yeah, everyone should have every every Everyone should have it. It's I'm obsessed. Yeah. How about you Ben? Do you have a show that's taken up your your mental landscape right now? Oh, I read books. Oh yeah. Yeah. You just even have a TV. I'm rewatching succession and anticipation of the new season. I'm rewatching succession and anticipation of the new season. I'm rewatching sex education and anticipation of the new season, which is out, but I have to start.

I'm only rewatching. So I just watched Detroiters for the first time. Oh, man. I've only heard many things. The best. Wow. It is bonkers. It's so funny.

It's all of the like nascent Tim Robinson that you get from I think you should leave But like jammed into this sitcom premise and Sam Richardson is amazing as always and Sam We have a bunch of dead and we have a head 10. We got to get Tim Robinson on the show. Oh, he would never have us Guys, this was so much fun. Thank you, greatest generation, for talking to us. Thank you, Dead Pilots Society, for talking to us. I think I see a zeppoly tent down at the other end of the block party, so I'm gonna make my way down there.

Is that John Hodgman? Oh, greasy there. Thank you. Thanks guys. Thank you. Thanks. Bye.