The Kristian Harloff Show - Is Phase 4 of the MCU Directionless at the moment? | The Big Thing

Episode Date: July 10, 2022

Thor: Love and Thunder is out and the film is getting mixed reviews from fans and critics. Say what you want about the film itself, it does start the debate of Marvel's Phase 4. Does it have a direction? Is it working? What is the overall plan?! On today's SPECIAL Big Thing episode, Kristian Harloff welcomes Ben Bateman on the show as they discuss the MCU state at the moment, talk about the end of The Movie Trivia Schmoedown, how to pick yourself up in dark times and more. Join us in the show! #MCU #Marvel #phase4 ATHLETIC GREENS: https://www.athleticgreens.com/BIGTHING RUMPL: https://www.rumpl.com/BIGTHING. FIFTEEN PERCENT OFF! TICKETS TO SEE BEN LIVE: https://www.benbatemantour.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy Monday, everybody. Welcome back to the show. It's the big thing. A little quick note, we're doing a little pre-record here today. The results of Thor, Love and Thunder have not come out yet. So we're going to do some predictions and see how wrong or right we were over the weekend. I got Ben Bateman on the show. We're going to talk about what we think in general about how it's going down and how we think Thor is going to do Thor predictions.

But Kevin Feigy, apparently there was by our buddy Jeff Snyder. his report that he told Sony calm down on the Marvel universe yet that you're trying to put together because you got to build it first before just jumping into it. Speaking of the MCU, we're going to get into the fact of what's going on with this phase right now, phase four. What do we think? What do you think this is going to happen at Comic-Con, of anything, of any kind of clarity of what we got going on, all that?

And obviously, Bateman's here, so we're going to talk about some Shmodown. more or less about the overall impact, what we think spectacular is going to bring us and what the show in general has brought us. And if you're brand new to the show and you haven't been here before, make sure that you hit that subscribe button. Help us out there.

That helps tremendously. Really, really tremendously, actually. When you subscribe or I assume I'm hoping, I'm crossing my fingers by the time that this airs we've already hit 50,000. Who knows? I don't know. We're working on a tour that we're trying to put together in 2023.

My goal is to get this channel around 70,000 subscribers. I'm going to start putting the feelers out there to see, would you come see us? Do you want to see us? All that and more. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anywhere. Podcasts are fine. Do it. Let's get into it. It's a big thing. It's me, Bateman. Let's do it. What's up, everybody? I'll be showing some class on this Monday. Just announce. Find it hilarious when people get upset. I tell people to show class. So funny. It's like, why do you get upset? If you don't have any class, then you should get upset. But if you have class. What do you care if I'm telling you to show a little? All right. Anyway, here's the

wide shot. Everyone's in shorts during the wide shot. Hey, man. You didn't tell me I was going to be a wide shot. I wouldn't have worn it. I've never been on shorts. I didn't tell you. Let me tell you. Who's fault is that? That also shows me that you don't watch the show. If you watch the show, recently. I've watched a lot of it. When was the last time you watched the show before you had the wide shot? That's right. Apparently. So Ben Bateman is here. The boss, a legendary competitor in the movie trivia Shmowdown, which is coming to an end and we'll get into that very soon. We'll talk about that. Ben's got a tour.

Speaking of tours, he's been a very talented musician, been doing some stuff. He took it on the road. I've been on the road, man. I've gotten three of the shows done so far. That's great. Another handful still coming up. Weird are people besides like Apple Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Apple and Spotify, where do people find your music?

You have it on your website and stuff too? I mean, I think it's on, I have a YouTube, obviously, official music YouTube. It's anywhere you can find music. Amazon music, YouTube music, the distributor I use just goes to all the places. But yeah, I mean, Spotify is the biggest one. Spotify and Apple are the two places people listen to the most. And yeah, it's been a, it's, you know, I had three songs out, and then I had, I got injured last year. Right.

And so I had to postpone the tour, and I haven't put something out since October. But I actually just last night was in the studio finishing up the next single. And it's coming out probably here in five weeks or so. That's great. What's the name of the song? It's called Stop sign. Stop sign? Yeah.

I opened the shows with it. It's my favorite new song I've written in a while, and it's been great. I can't wait to put it on there. Yeah, it's fun to do that, especially you're telling me how it's fun that you have, you know, people like singing along to the songs and everything. They know the words. It's crazy, man. It's a really special thing.

Like, it's, uh, I think, I think people who don't do live performance or don't, like, do the whole personality thing that we do, they don't realize that a single connection, like a meaningful single connection with any supporter of your career is so huge. It's to them, it's like, you know, they're meeting you this first time or something. And it seems like a guy with an audience of your size, you've connected with so many fans. But when you have a really good one, it's really memorable. Yeah, of course. You tell your family about it.

You like, it's a story that you tell. Dude, you know how special it was to pack out Chicago with a thousand seat theater? It's crazy. It's like people dream to do that, like just for comedy shows and stuff. And like just I remember being in awe watching from backstage, watching it was Jay Washington and McCuga. Yeah. Like just introing in front of a thousand people.

And McCougas posted a shot when we announced the closing of the show. There's a great shot of him warming up the crowd. And it's just like it seems like it just goes on forever. And you're like at the time, you don't really, you don't take it for granted. You just kind of in awe of it, but you're going, okay, we're going to do another one. And then that's one of the main things that was such a bummer about the ending of the show. And even this year was that with no live shows, that kind of sucked a little of my sold out when we couldn't do any more live shows.

Yeah, it makes sense. And it makes sense why we couldn't do them. I understood completely why we couldn't do them. But it just, it, it was a big blow to me in general why we couldn't do them. Oh, not why we couldn't do them, but that we couldn't do them. And then my, the goal was, all right, well, we put enough into it. We get Titans going. We get it moving.

And then we'll start doing them again. And such is life. But that's why I posted a clip of stand-up recently. Yeah. because I want to start doing that again because I think that with I think that the big thing Sith Council stand up in general way easier on costs yeah to to do um we don't have to fly out a production crew we don't have to fly out you know all the I mean this is basically just the people that are going to be there plus schmodan when you went it was one show yeah one show on a Saturday

that that was it if you sold it out you'd either break even or lose money yeah unless you had a sponsor with a Sith Council big thing to stand-up or three stand-up shows for a weekend, you could probably recoup your losses and even make money in order to stick around. And that was the tough thing too, is because we started the shows, the live shows in L.A. And so the cost was so different.

Right. We're just driving in North Hollywood. Do you sell a few hundred tickets? You're going to make money for sure. You fly out an entire crew, competitors. The whole math just changes completely. It does. And free-for-all was always the one that would do the best

because there's always an understanding for free for all is the only event where competitors don't get paid. Because there's just too many people. The show would cost almost $100,000 to do. And you make it clear to everybody. You say, like, it's not a paid event. If you want to participate, you can. But all the other events are. And so when you're paying people not only to fly out, put people up, your own rooms,

and then even live events in L.A., you're paying people their rate for competing and all that. And it's, it just adds up. And if you don't have a sponsor, it makes sense why we can't, we can't do this because we're, it's just, it's at a loss at the moment. Remember we got hit with storms coming out of Chicago too? Oh, did. And everybody got stuck on the road for three days. Do you know how expensive that was?

I know, it was crazy. I mean, we were all stuck in different cities and hotels. That's what people don't understand is that. So something like that, like Chicago, a thousand seat theater. Yeah. Should have been probably one of the most profitable ones we did. I think we, and we weren't with Sky Mountain at the time when we did this. I think that we either broke even.

or made just a little bit of money because we spent so much in flights and hotels and extra flights and extra hotels because people were snowed in. I remember. So it was a, that sucked. My memory, my best memory from Chicago, there's a lot of them because it was an amazing show. And obviously that was the moment,

you know, we got to headline it, Riley and I along with the odd couple was incredible. But my memory of that was you're talking about the theater and it was the Athenium theater. It was this beautiful old theater. And it was one of these theaters for people that don't know. Hot down that basement though.

Yeah. For people who don't know when they look at it, it was one of those theaters that's higher than it is deep. So it has like, you know, it's wide and it goes, it stacks really high. And so the last seat at the top is pretty high up. And I remember like three hours before the show getting up there and just sitting at the top row right in the center there

and just trying to take it all in for about five minutes. Empty theater, just watching the rehearsal for a second. And like, I mean, it just was such an incredible thing. You talked about a thousand people. Thousand people got to watch you get smacked in the face. Yeah. And waiting. through the crowd. I mean, like, I just remember the signs and everything like that. It was,

it was wild. That show was a great show. It was a great show. And it was like, and that's, that's the type of stuff that I want to do more of. And I think that, so we did a, we did a show, um, on a big thing. A couple weeks ago. And it was, Roxy myself and, uh, and Brett. And it was, and Brett was talking about, he was just in a mood. And he was, he started talking about Peg boys. I don't know if you know what. It's. whole thing with the Greeks and what the Greeks did. And it was hilarious. I mean, tears flowing hilarious.

And I started to watch, I watched that clip a few different times. And even the other day, we did a couple things that we were laughing. It was like, just hysterical. And I'm like, imagine if that was in front of 100 people. Yeah, 300 people. The place would be in stitches. And I'm like, I want to do that. I want people to see that.

I want to get back on the, like, and I was curious to see, like, I haven't done, A lot of people, I can't tell you how many people want to put the clip up for me doing stand-up. Oh, I didn't know you did comedy. Yeah, right. I didn't know you did comedy. I didn't know you did that. And people were like, oh, that's, you actually, you have technique. I'm like, I did this.

This is what I did. This is my life, I went up seven nights a week, two shows a night sometimes. Like 10 years, right? Like a legitimate, like. So I started, I started in college. Yeah. And then during the summers, I would perform in New York at, ironically, at the Boston Comedy Club in New York.

That's where I would start. That's where I did my stuff and was pretty raw. I thought I was better than I was. Then I came out to L.A. Told that Sarah Silverman's story a million times over. I wasn't planning and doing stand-up comedy when I got out here to be a writer. Was Aaron Wilhelm, who was an editor and competitor on Shmodeown. A very close friend of mine.

Got me a job out here when I first got out here at a place that no longer exists called intermediate. Nigel Sinclair it was right next to where Madonna had our old building in like Century City or Beverly Hills around that area. And I was there as a receptionist. My first day, Francis Ford Coppola came in and I was like, I didn't know, I was still like,

where the hell am I? So I wasn't doing stand-up, I was just wanted to write. Then I the story that I've told maybe 200 times on the show, I don't want to bore people with it again. My friend took me to the improv. Got upstate, on stage.

to Sarah Silverman thing happens, whatever. But regardless of how that moment went down, it reignited the fire, and I quit Intermedia. Yeah. And I said, I can't do this. I'm answering phones every day, and I'm bored out of my skull. This is not why I'm here. So I met, there are these things called bringer shows.

You know if you're familiar. Yeah, yeah. When you came on my podcast, great conversation. You told, there's actually great. You can guys find out of the episode. It was a second episode of the show. Do you have a whole breakdown of this? Where you grew up and everything.

Yeah, yeah. So it was like, but it was. that thing where it was I did uh I did exactly that I I just brought five people to the show and remember saying to myself again oh this is I'm really cooking I wasn't I was I go back I try I watch tapes recently yeah it's it's very hard for me to watch it like it's it's there's no structure it's bad my my good friend Paul DiAngelo after I was going up and I got up at this place called Dublin's that was on sunset boulevard the j davis booked me at and this is like after I was doing stand-up in L.A. for about three or four months.

And I was super young and I had a lot of energy. And people were like, it was like, and I was really into wrestling. Yeah. So I brought like that wrestling thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, who the hell is? I used to come out to Sopranos music. I would come out to Chris Jericho's theme.

I used to come out to Triple H's theme when I come out. And people like, who the hell is this lunatic? Yeah, right, right, right. And Jay Davis booked me. And that's when like, Alonzo Bowdo. and Dane Cook and like everybody. This place was, this place was huge. Yeah, I had gotten a spot there somehow.

And I started doing stuff. I met my buddy Brett Ernst there, who's on Cobra Chi and everything too. And just performing with Brett a while. And then Brett was like, you know, why don't you, I only have paid regulars at the comedy store. Because I remember, so being at this place, Luna Park, which is no longer exists. It was on, it was on Robertson. And that's where I met Brett, Sheridan. He was the cameraman, taping sets and everything.

but he would also go up and do stuff. But my friend Sam Tripoli, who was comic, I remember him coming in, and it was like a scene at a good fellas. He walks in and everybody starts, because this was a place that everybody went up, and I started working at this place on the park,

but I was working, I lived there, I was there all the time, being around comic, because I was working there, I could get up and get spots and get more time and learn and just that's up. But again, my energy was at 200,

as opposed to where I eventually would go was balancing it. Yeah, right. But I was learning. But Tripoli comes in. And it was that scene at Goodfellas when, when Ray Leota comes in and they're all like, oh, he broke his chair, you know. Or they're getting excited that they got made.

Yeah, right. And Triplea had just become a regular at the comedy store. And there was like these whispers around like, Tripoli did it. Tripoli did it. He got made it regular at the comedy stores. And I'm like, I want to do that. Because when I first, when I first got into L.A., I stood on the stage at, this is before Intermedia,

I got up on stage when the door was open at the Comedy Store, no one was in there. I stood on the stage of the original room. Shouldn't have been doing that. I would have gotten a lot of trouble, or at least got kicked out. But I'm up there and I was like, this is where Carlin and Williams and everybody did it.

Yeah. And I went back that night with some friends or people, I don't even know who that were, but I remember the first two comedians I saw at the comedy store, my buddy Mike Young and Bobby Lee. were the two people that I saw. And I remember being in there and then eventually getting back. So, but anyway, so when all that happened with Lundon, with Sam Tripoli,

I was like, I got to do that. And then Brett Ernst and I became pretty good friends. And he called me. He's like, hey, man, listen. Regularers only get one recommendation every, I think, year or something, too, or one or two. I can't remember how many it was at the time. And he's like, I'm putting your name in with Natsy.

And he's like, so he's like, any legit. it and rightfully so said don't embarrass me you know like this is my this is my thing so go kill it i know you'll kill it but yeah fucking do it right and don't half-ass it and do it and not that i had a reputation for half-assing it but he was giving me just always looked at him as like a kind of big brother in comedy yeah yeah so and i've told this part of it a million times over when i was showcasing you the way that i don't know how they do it now this is early 2000 so they would you would go up on sunday monday and tuesday would they would give you the spot and you'd started like three minutes.

If you were really great and Mitzie would watch you on three minutes, she'd just make your regular and that's it. That rarely happened. Yeah. You got like promoted from three to six to like 10. So I remember doing three and she would come in. This is when she was starting to get, she was ill,

but she wasn't as bad as she ultimately got. She would come in, but she's coming in and Mitzie's coming in. I just remember, dude, these people would come in and you had spots. I actually liked when she wasn't coming in at first because I mean you could, if you were on that showcase list,

You can go up as many times until she saw you. Yeah. You had spots on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. And people who sometimes were like, I'm not coming. She hasn't been in a month. I'm not going, I'm not going up. Like, why? She's not going to be here.

I'm like, because you get to perform at the comedy store. Yeah. That's why. And I remember Ari Shafir telling me, like, one of the main reasons that he believed that I got in and why they made a play when people, when they asked them if what they thought of me, they all gave me their recommendation because I was the only one that was hanging out was there all the time. All the time.

Right. And I just, and I, you couldn't, I was there ever, not even if it was Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. I was there Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, even if I wasn't getting spots, talking to people. So, hanging out. Yeah. And it was just one of the, like, that to me was a career highlight of the couple times when Mity was just like, you're really good. I want to see you a little more time. And then you really good.

I think, you know, you should be part in this club. And I was like, and then I remember people saying sometimes she says that forgets. And then Duncan Trustle called me the next day. And he's like, Mitty loved him. in. And I remember like just running down the hallway at this management company I was answering phones for at the time. Yeah. Like it was, it was great. Those moments, man, those crazy, there's crazy moments when they happen. You know, I've gotten to, uh, to talk about it a little bit, but I haven't, there's a, there's a song of mine that's going to be in a movie coming out at some point. Oh,

I haven't, I haven't been able to share it on social media, but if you guys follow my stuff, you've kind of know what's going on there. And I remember when I, when I found out when that happened, yeah. I had that same kind of thing. I remember I leaped. out of my chair. I felt like I levitated for a second. I got the message on Twitter and I just like, yeah, it's phenomenal. And when that stuff happens, when those moments happen, you know, because they're rare. Yeah. Andrew Guy and I talk about this a lot actually, you know, in LA when you're doing the hustle and whatever the hustle is because there's a million of them out here. A lot of us do more than one. You have to bottle up those moments. Yeah. Because they have to

sustain you until the next one because it gets so dark and depressing and hard. No matter how good at what you do that, you know, it doesn't matter. Like, no matter what you're doing. you still have those low disappointing moments where you doubt yourself. No doubt. Absolutely. 100%. Yeah. So you got to bottle up those moments because that's what gets you from A to B, you know?

Yeah. I mean, that's happened recently. Like I've talked, I did a Q&A on this show not too long ago. And I was in that, I was probably in the most, that state that I've been in maybe ever. Yeah.

Of just like, why am I doing this? Like I should just give this up, go back, move, get the hell out of here, take the family and just do something else. I'm like I'm just something this is you know putting everything you have into something for like nine years and it's just and you know how good it is and it's just like it's not and you go on and because human beings are human beings you go on like that's why I just you go into certain threads and you see people and they're just hammering you just to do it to be dicks it's not like it's not there are people who have legit criticisms and there are people who say but then there's people who just just want to get you and that and human beings it's it's going to it's going to have an effect and I remember just being like just being a in this space and just like trying to get myself out of it and I couldn't get out of it. And it was affecting everything inside of like my life. And I was like I just, I just can't get out of it. And and then trying to push through and write all the episodes. I mean, because

Titans is another thing by the way. Like I wrote like you have to write, you have to write episodes. Like you're writing television. It's another thing people don't realize. It's like you're writing full on television. So I've got to shut my doors. I've got to shut off my cameras. I've got to turn my phone off to so no one bothers me and I got to write. And it's like you got to come up How does that angle make sense for today that's going to eventually play in tomorrow? And it's, and then when you have all these angles, it's like, oh, yeah, you're not going to be able to finish all those angles.

And it's like, oh, okay, that sucks. But such is life, such is the business. But that's why going into all this stuff, that's why I want to go and put that, and I put that stand-up clip up there because I feel like we could do, like this. We could do a show like this at the improv in front of 120 people. And I feel like that's what people.

do that's what podcasters do is what people have been doing something I always wanted to do hell man I remember back at schmose no days we talked about what we were going to hit like 300,000 I wanted to subscribers we wanted to take a tour and we wanted to do stuff and that was before I really knew how to do any of that stuff and really want like and and the business was so different back then and there wasn't all these different type of chances the way to sustain the business and everything to like and I just something I really want to do but I can't do it right now because I also know this business well enough with 50,000 subscribers and the views of this channel is getting at the moment. It's on a trajectory to kind of go up.

But at the moment, it's not going to sustain a full on tour. No. Just not until, you know, when I start to really get into it and start to say, all right, who wants to, if you're in New York, would you buy a ticket? Right. And when people write, yes, you go like, this is what I did for Shmodown. You would see, okay. So take out a percentage of people who want to, but probably won't. 30% of these people will buy a ticket.

Right. So if like 3,000 people vote of what they're going to do, and then you take a percentage of it, usually it's pretty accurate when I did it for Schmowdown of how that's going to play. And I would start to look into that, but I would do it so differently. So yeah, it's exciting, though.

It's just a matter of, but I want to give all the love right now and everything I have to the spectacular. To finishing it out. The other thing you mentioned, too, that really stands out to me. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. And it's a good lesson interesting for anybody.

not even just in entertainment, but, you know, depression and that kind of like that down feeling happens to most people. And the toughest thing to do is to check yourself and go, everything I feel down about right now, all these things that feel hopeless, these things that feel fearful and stressful and full of anxiety, I could feel totally optimistic about all of them tomorrow. Because there's a positive spin on all these things that a week ago I felt excited about. Right. A week ago, I was telling myself all the good things that these, the subscriber numbers, that the future was bright, the finances, and you can talk yourself into either version, depending on how you're feeling that day. But it's really hard when you're down to remember that it's going to go up again.

Well, that's the whole point, is that I said this to my friend, Steve Simone, years ago when we were talking to the comic story. I said, look, it's easy. You can't judge the past if you don't know the future because that's what happens is that you could be in the darkest place that you're in or if there's something that happens that you think is the, worst, it could turn out that thing could be a great thing for you. Think about a relationship you were in and you thought that when that relationship was over that, oh, this is, this is going to be terrible. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do without this person. And then because of that particular breakup, other opportunities show. It's like the sliding doors theory.

Yeah, right? You don't know. But that's why it's, you got to just keep going and you keep pushing because it does get better at some point. It does. Like it might not be. a month, it might not be a year. It might be five years.

Yeah. That's the harsh reality of it. It might be five years for, like, I have a friend of mine who was going through a really, like a bad, like divorce, you know, and was miserable. And I'm never, I'm never going to, never going to get over this. I'm like, of course you will. Yeah. I'm never, like it, I believe that he 100% felt that way.

Right. Of course you're going to feel better. Of course you're going to mean. I don't know when. And it's been, and it took him a while. It probably took him two years to get, like, back in that. that way that I knew him. Like he was a shell of himself.

Yeah. When I saw him, like a shell of himself. And I remember there was a particular time when I saw him. I go, oh, he's back. Right. And I don't know how he got there. But like you said, he just somewhere inside of everything, his process. Yeah.

He found his way back. I mean, time. You know, it is. Yeah, it's time. Yeah. It's the necessity. And it's wild, man. I mean, it's nostalgic to talk about the last nine years,

to talk about Shmodon and to think about the process and the the history. I didn't get to be there at the beginning with you. I was aware of it because you guys were doing the afterbuzz stuff with Shmose, and I was there getting my start at the same time as a host. And then you guys went to Collider in season three. Right. And Andrew and I came in season four. So, you know, I watched it in season three and I became a part of it in season four. A lot harder to get in back then, by the way. Yeah. Oh my God. Back then it was, it was Roxy Stryor, and I gave her a lot of credit for this. You know, she introduced us to you because we had the podcast, the Popborn talk.

And Drew and I were talking about this on Sunday on our action guys. And it's like, you just knew immediately that we had to be bad guys. I don't know if we wanted to do that and we threw it your way. You were like, definitely. Or if, but it was. I threw it at you guys. I remember. It was clear from like the first second.

Yeah, you guys were going to be this. You reminded me of like Shane McMahon's crew back in the early attitude era when you guys came in. And I was like, oh, they could be like this just obnoxious. Yeah. Totally. And I remember saying to myself going. God, I hope they're at least decent at trivia. And at that time, we were just decent.

You were just decent. And enough, when you guys came out and did your thing, I'm like, okay, well, they get it. They get it, but they're not that good. Yeah. And it had ones in that first match. But you worked. I mean, that was the thing is that you, and I think that Roka was really the first person to put in the, not only the character, but he was the first one to start, like, studying and stuff and, and, and preparing.

And people are like, why are you studying? Why are you getting crap for it all the time? And then everybody started doing it. but everybody's games started getting better. So, but yeah, I remember you guys putting in the work because when you guys played late to the party, like Andrew was the stronger player. Yeah, those first few matches.

It was he, he, because Andrew's a really good trivia player. He doesn't get the credit that he deserves. He's just not going to do what you do as far as locking himself down and studying and stuff. Yeah, and I would even go as far as to say, I mean, the peak Shmowdown, in my opinion, there's a lot of threads right now on those on Facebook and Twitter, you know, what's the peak, right?

And I think peak shmode on. It's funny, I haven't seen any of it. They don't care. Yeah. Well, everybody wants to ask the question. When was it? When was it as, like, it's, because I think the production of Titans is the best the show's ever been, but the juice, we talked about early 2020.

You look at like for WWE, like the golden era, the attitude era. Yeah. You know, the, what a, um, ruthless aggression era. So if it was, the golden era to me was like, season like three, three early five, right? And then that was like the golden era. Or even Golden area could even be one, one through like three. Because it's the beginning. It's like the beginning.

It's like the established character start to come in. I think three is when that part ends. Because I think four is when it changes. I actually think, we've talked about this a lot, but like there are moments you can remember. I think that top 10 action is the, that's the turning point. That's like attitude error stuff. That's the turning point. Because Iceman's there and the bad blood's kind of real.

And the show had started to really pick up pretty theatrical stuff. People were doing big entrances. Tables. But you know what's funny about that is I see, I see, I saw a few people and then Campia, who I get along with very well, where he puts me on a show and he too, and he's made, he said it a few times on a show and I've, we disagreed about it many times in person. Yeah. And he said it on a show the other day where he's like, well, I think that the wrestling angle, like, was the thing that didn't have people relate. And it's like, the wrestling angle's been

there forever. Yeah. Wrestling angle has been there. I mean, to, and also, if I asked John, John probably doesn't watch the show in years. Yeah, right. And he does, so he doesn't, he doesn't, And I would tell them this. It was face to face with him. He hasn't watched it, so he does it. Like, there was many wrestling things that we were doing when it was at peak. When it was doing 300, 400,000 views, people were going through tables. There were big flashy entrances.

There was crazy characters. There was all that stuff. It's been there since season three when it was at the most, when it was three to five when it was at the most popular. There's always been that wrestling. That's the best stuff. I mean, I really think peak, Shmowdown is it starts at the end of four because that's spectacular. That spectacular in particular is such a special one. That's the one that has the,

the Star Wars Iron Man match. Like, it's got the, it's got above the line Patriots. And Ken's in full heel mode. Yeah, it's amazing. And then, and I,

so then I think the peak Schmo down season is, realistically, it's somewhere, it's somewhere in that season five range. It's when we did all the live shows. It's the, it's Houston, Chicago, Orlando,

that, that whole run. And then I think we talked about it. Like, there was so much juice going into 2020 in that Atlanta match. The vibe was crazy. I remember, I remember flying out there,

the belt in the suitcase. I remember like all the craziness. Do you remember Roca and I were at odds because who was going to manage who? Do you remember this? And so, because Finstock could only manage one. And so he wanted to, and I was like,

I was like, what, you're going to manage Dan and Finstock's going to manage him? Yeah, we had a big, we had a big backstage about it. Oh my God, it was ridiculous.

And like, I called into backstage. I was in New York, a New York Toy Fair, I remember, and I mean, Roxy's on the show and we're all arguing about it. That's when backstage at that time was doing like 20 to 40,000 views an episode.

It was so fun. And I, yeah, I mean, And it was just this whole, like, strategy thing of getting, and the match itself, obviously, I hate the loss, but it's such a, it's such a memory. It's like such a crazy, crazy fucking memory. That's the one where I talked about it on the Q&A is that people don't understand where the Schmodeon was at that. I'm talking about with my wife, like all the time, like where it was at that point when Skybound came on in 2020, New York just sold out.

Atlanta sold out and that was like, okay, this is, this is the next level stuff because ESPN then, sending in people to do the, to do interviews. Three ESPN reporters were supposed to come to the free for all. I got to do a legitimate ESPN interview in the lobby of the movie theater at the Grove. And never going to see the light of day. With a scotch in hand. I hung out with Tyler for like two hours. He told him the whole story.

I know. So fun. It's great. And it just never see the light of day. And then free for all was, free for all was sold out for L.A. And it's like, we're moving. the entire skybound company was going to be there watching it. It was everything.

And then like everything else in the world, it just, it hit that iceberg in the Titanic. And you're like, okay, we'll recover. And it just never did. And it just bled for two and a half years. It's amazing. It continued on to even get us to this point when you consider how essential studio and live was for the show. Yeah, people take it for great. They don't understand that.

And I do appreciate how many people that did stick with it during the, during the, digital era, whatever, or, you know, remote time. Like, they, they, they liked it, they enjoyed it. And I, and I respect this. And I appreciate that they did. But people don't understand, like, how hard that was to do. Because that's just not what, it's not what the show is. Because I was, again, I was talking to a friend of mine the other night about this.

When Chris Jericho and Kevin Smith play each other, and it does three or 400,000 views. Yeah. And you're not seeing any benefits from that overall. that's because when they're coming there, they're not coming there for the Schmodel. They're coming there for those guys because they're not intrigued enough by what they see in the game

with two people just staring at a screen. They stay because it's Jericho and Smith, as opposed to when Whitwer and Freddie Prince Jr. played each other in studio with the entrances and the music and the rules and the announcers and everything. Then they go, I came here for Freddie and Sam. Yeah, but this is.

game is crazy. What the hell is this? Yeah. As opposed to just people answering trivia on the, the fans don't understand, a lot of them don't understand that. And that's why after a while, I can't even tell you how many people said I just, I dipped after digital. And it's not like you're going to say, oh, well, we'll get them back once you're getting studio. There's too much content out there. Yeah. Because if I'm a fan who watches religiously. I'm a patron and I watch all the time and I love it. And then it goes to digital and you're like, all right, I understand why they're doing this because of pandemic and everything. And then it's three months and you go four months a year. I don't really like this anymore right now. And

maybe I'll come back and you don't come back. You watch stranger things or you're finding a new channel, you're finding a new podcast and you simply say, I don't have enough time on my day to get invested anymore. And I understand. That's the hardest thing about the content platform right now, just as a creator, is like, there's such a glut of content. And I like, you know, it's like, I like sports, I like to watch

movies, I like to listen to podcasts, I want to read comic books. I don't have time to do all that. So, you just focus on whatever's in front of you. And if you get distracted, you don't come back to it. I mean, I'm two episodes into Miss Marvel. That show's really good. I like that show. I just haven't gone back to keep watching it because I've been distracted by other stuff. Right. And it's tough, you know, so you talk about the Shmo-down. I think

that's the other thing, too, that I, as I've gotten older, have to really acknowledge, which is never take for granted a hit. Do you listen to the Carvey Spade podcast, Flying the Wall? Oh, dude, it's so good. You'd love it. It's so good. But that's my point. I don't have enough time to. Of course, yeah. I'm trying to get through the, I got to finish the boys. I'm still haven't done it. Yeah. So they have Martin Short on the show, and he's talking, they always talk about their auditions and stuff. And Short is talking about only merged in the building and how it's a hit. And he's like, Steve and I, a year ago, were like, are you kidding? this is going to be the number one show on Hulu.

He's like, never, never would we even begin to thought that. He's like, the thing that no one tells you when you have a hit, though, is you probably won't have one after. He's like, it's like the hardest thing in the world is to get another hit, you know, and that spade's like, yeah, I was on just shoot me for eight years. It's like, everybody wanted to hire me. He's like, the show ends. No one wants to hire me.

He can't get a job to save my life. And I think it's just no matter what you're doing when it's working, when it's really working, and you can feel that energy, you got to appreciate it. And you really have to live in the moment because shit changes. on a dime. Yeah, that's, well, that's why, that's why I get frustrated sometimes,

but still, it's a human thing. Like, I get, like, I see a couple turds who will say, like, how many times there's Harlow's side? This is the boss thing he's ever done, or he just shuts up, Bob. I'm like, you got to pivot at times. Because if you don't,

I know that guy. Yeah, it's, you got, but you got to pivot sometimes. And like, the whole, like, it's where you stick with Shmo's, Schmo's no show for a while when it does. And when it's, when it's starting to bang against the wall and it's not working and you're not

enjoying it anymore, you can't sit in it and I just use schmose as an example for anything you just can't sit in it for a while and and I and I'm not using this same example for like Schmodeon because Schmodeon was a very different circumstance I would have liked to push Schmowdown into season 10 and seeing what we can do and get back to live it just wasn't in the cars but there's there's things like where like for example like Clyder Live. Clare Live was supposed to start in the conversations I had with Fernandez Fernandez wanted a show that was like the Schmo's no Live show. Yeah. So we wanted. And then the first thing I was doing, I was doing one-on-one with Christian Harleff at the time, which I still think if I would have stayed with that show.

And I'm glad I didn't because it would have been on Collider. Yeah, right, right, right. You know, but they, and nothing is climbed, just saying it would have my name and everything too, and it's not what I wanted to do. So we changed it over and we didn't. I said, okay, I can take that because then at one point he was like, well, why don't we do, like, I said, I always had an idea for, like, the Christian Harlov show.

It was something like essentially what this has turned into us. I always wanted to do that. And he, to his credit, was like, why don't we take, we'll take the main, the main studio, and we'll give you like that kind of Howard Stern desk and then who do you want on the show? And at the time it was like Roxy and a few other people. And I was like, we put like Roxy over on that side and that. And we were going to design the whole studio, like a big thing. And then I was, I said to myself, same thing.

I don't know if I want to do the Christian Harlov show for Collider because then they're going to have my name. It's really messy and it's going to know all that. And I was like, and I remember walking into Fernandez's office. go, why don't we just do like Collider Live? And it's, they had ready, they were doing this series that Frosty was doing called Collider Live. And I was like, let's just continue the brand and call it Collider Live. And we'll do it. I said, I'll do it.

I said, I'll do it five. And he's got to do it five. Yeah. Or he's got to do it five. And I go, okay. And when it started, I was in that vibe because it felt like Toad Hop. And I was getting the support and I was getting less often. This is the most fun.

This to me reminds me of the Toad Hop days. This is to me the best show that I'm doing right now. And it felt that way. Right. And then it turned into, and I hate that show now. Yeah. I hate that show. Like not working with, like working with Roxy and Josh.

Great. My experience overall, I don't even, when people bring it up, like, I love Clare Live. I go, good for you. Right. It's, it is like a, it is a memory for me that I don't like. And Roxy gives me shit about it all the time. She's like, I love that. I love working with you.

I love working with Josh. I love working with everybody. But that show, it's like, if I was to rank all my, all the shows, I put this one at the top. And I'll tell you. why I put it at top because I get to do my thing. Right. My way. How I want to do it.

Like the goal, we will talk about the Kevin fight and the thing, but no one's going to give me shit for not talking about it at 15 minutes in. Right. No one's going to say, oh, we need to do this. You tune in, you don't tune in. And you can do it this way, the stuff I always wanted to do. And it just took me a while to finally get here. But like, I had to go and put this, put the energy into it to finally get here.

So you have to go through roads and ignore fucking idiots who say like, oh, that's what always say, and it's like, it's like people are going to be dicks. They won't, yeah. Anybody who brings, anybody who brings negative or critical energy who hasn't done it themselves is, it's almost like, if you even acknowledge or you respond, you're just feeding something that's irrelevant. I know. Because it's like that you're not talking to somebody who's coming at, I mean, you ever

Googled like yourself or some of your friends to be like, how much is such and such and such worth that it'll be like, I remember Roxy Shriver once. She's like, Roxie Stryor is worth a million dollars. And she's like, oh, great. You know what I mean? It's like people's, people's sense of what it actually is like to do any of this stuff. It's so different than what the reality is. 100%.

Yeah. My wife, my daughter came up to me and she's like, I did a search and it says that you're married to a Canadian reporter and that you make $3 million a year. I'm like, no. None of that is true. I'm like, if you made, we wouldn't be living. We'd be living somewhere else. It was making $3 million a year.

So, and I was like, and I was like, no, I'd be. never marry before your mom is the only one. And it's like you said, I had a son. I don't know who that son is. I have no idea. So people make things up. And I guess it's flattering, though, too. Sure.

I mean, people assume what they assume and they just, you know, it's like the, yeah, that whole thing. And then the other thing I was going to say about when you were talking about the show and hitting a wall and all that is, I think when you're a creator and you put a lot of pressure on yourself to do something you like, there are really two things that are addictive. Yeah. Growth is one of them. growth and engagement, you know, is the same thing.

That's one of them. And then the financial rewards the other one. Now, most of the time, financial rewards not that common as a creator until you get to the stratosphere level. You're still always managing something that's pretty reasonable. Right. The other one, though, it's the hardest one because you can be doing a great product for a long time that you love.

But if it stalls, if the engagement, the views, it just starts to be the same thing every week. It doesn't matter how good it is. That addiction that you have to growth and engagement is not getting fed. anymore. You're going to start to get down about it. It's the truth. It's what happens. It's a truth. And it's that's why, but that's why community is so important overall, right? And that's why for, that's why

I've been, I approached this channel in the same strategy I approached when we're building out Shmos. And that you've got to keep, you got to be able to talk to people, engage, and there's, there's tons of people that I see now that comments all the time in this channel

that I'm getting familiar with. And I see them and go, oh, there's that person that comments all the time and is so supportive and is there all the time. And it makes them feel good when you respond and you talk to them. And it's hard for me now, which is a good thing. It's hard for me to respond. I was responding to every single comment and I would go to comments and there'd be no comments. I got great. I got them all. Now, because there's so many videos and there's so many comments coming in, it's hard for me to do. I'll go through times where I'm just knocking it down and it's not because I'm not doing it anymore. I'm doing

it a lot. It's just a matter of trying to keep up with it. But it's keeping that community engaged. So they feel what you're pitching. To me, what I've always pitched is that this conversation, that we're having here, I want the audience to feel like they're sitting in the room, having it with us. Watching us from the wide shot. They can see my shorts. That's exactly right. And they're sitting there.

They're watching from the wide shot. They can see the shorts. But yeah, but they feel like they're in on it. And you know, and you talk to them like human beings and that's the type of thing. And that's why, like, you said before, like when people, there are people that are just looking to give

you some shit. And you can't, you can't go after it. Because even when I did my Q&A, somebody did like its whole summary and what it and just misconstrued, like they took clips of it or, or wrote like what I said but didn't give all the full context. It may look like I was saying this when if you got to listen to the whole thing. And I'm like,

that's just a dick move. But like I get it. And then now he's going to watch this and say, oh, he talked about me. You get it. And he's, and he's fucking hates me.

Same guy. It's the same guy. And he fucking hates me. And it's like you, and I remember listening to like the Vince, Man. Yeah. And he's like,

people are going to hate you. You just got, you got to ignore it. Like, and I deleted, like, I deleted Reddit off my, off my app.

Yeah, and I deleted a, because Reddit put me in like a place where I was, I was like really depressed, like in a place like this one guy who just kept coming after me and no matter what I did, he just kept coming out and like, and like, and I'm human. Yeah. And it was like, it put me like a, I'm not a depressed person. I really, have never really been in. And I can say that I was. And it was many things, but that put me there.

And there were a lot of good people over there too. I'm not going to say. Yeah. And I don't know if this guy's a good guy or bad guy. I have no idea. But for some reason, he's, fucking doesn't like me. But he goes after me all the time.

And I just remember looking at it going, I can't do this to myself anymore. Yeah. I can. And I just ignore it. Because when I was going, because I was, I think that I was kind of always rooting, like, okay, you know what? I put this in there today. Maybe that'll turn them around.

Because on here and Facebook and Twitter, like, you're talking to people. And like, even if you have, like, certain people that have come after and you have conversations with them, they turn it around. And I'm like, all right, you know what? Maybe if we say these particular things and then we'll see some positivity over there and we can just kind of all get on the same page. And it's like it was just every single time, like I said, coming after me. I'm like, well, you just don't, you can't, you can't make everyone like you.

Right. You just can't. And I'm like, but I also can't take that away from them to let them say whatever the fuck they want to do. But I can't do it anymore because it's like it like, it was like dude, like really bad, like really bad. And I was in a place that I never thought I'd ever be in in my life. And I was like, I, because of an app. I mean, that's what that's what put me over the edge. I mean, there's obviously a lot of underlying things in there, but like, but that's what put me in that place.

And I'm like, I can't do that. I'm like, just let him talk and, you know, and then I'm just done. So our buddy, David, who was doing a lot of stuff for a long time to slowdown, you know, the social stuff. He blew up on TikTok a year ago, two years ago maybe. And now he's huge. He's all getting close to two million followers. But like a year ago or six months ago or something like that, I started posting a lot. And my main account blew up. And it was awesome. And I was getting like 1,000,500 followers a day every day. Videos are getting millions of views.

And it lasted for like two months. And then because TikTok's an unregulated app and they don't tell you what's wrong. They killed my account. It's been dead for months. I just lose his followers every day. And I had such an emotional reaction to the way that this app had started to, it started to infiltrate my soul. Right.

I was getting so much dopamine every day from. And all of a sudden it was dead and I couldn't figure it out. And I'm now looking back at it. I'm like, that was a pure 100% construct that was created by this app. And I would be, I would be disaffected by the performance of a fucking social media. Yeah. And look, it comes down.

It's, it's us and things that are going on in the way that we should perceive things for sure. And like you said, with the app, you pushed away from it. I just let them do their thing and I just kind of go on and do my thing. And I've been in a much better place. the last and and then and it was funny because i was coming out of the thing it get obviously get that news and it's not great news and it's like we got a stop doing schmo down and all that and you just push on and you know what else really has recently got me there i use athletic greens

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But I've been using it now every day because it's not really, it's not vitamins. Because I'm not, again, I'm not a big vitamin guy. So I wanted better gut health. I wanted more energy. I wanted an optimized immune system. And I had pills and that stuff. Nah. I wanted a supplement. And it actually tastes good when you, when you, when you, when you, you put it in there, it looks green. You're like, oh, this looks like a grass drink. Yeah.

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with your first free purchase. All you do is visit athletic greens.com slash big thing. One more time, athletic greens.com slash big thing. Take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. Wow. It's good, man. It's really, it's really good. They've been with us for a little bit now and the audience has really been responding and by the way so people have been asking like how do I support the show the easiest way to support the show every time is click a like comment that's the easiest that is the easiest way to do second easiest way in the same vein download the podcast on apple podcast Spotify wherever podcasts I found that is very helpful because it helps us get sponsors if you're able to get yourself a sponsor one of the sponsors that we have athletic greens to me

I think has been very beneficial to a lot of people. And if you do get it, put your comments of what you think in the comment section. I send that to the podcast rep all of the time. So that helps the show. Patreon, we're going to be doing some stuff with Patreon that I'll have more announcements with soon. Actually, by the time this comes out, I think I can make the announcement, if not with it, edit it out. But I'm pretty sure we made the announcement. The main Patreon will cease.

Well, not the main shmodot patron will cease to have the shmodon benefits starting September 1st. Got it. There's an SEM live Patreon at the moment. That's going to now be transferred over. So big things, Sith, Q&As with me, rewatches. That's going to be on the main Patreon. So we're going to consolidate into one big Patreon. So that way people that are there, stay there.

People that are on ACN can move over. So we'll put the proper link in the channel when it's ready. So if you're able to, and I'll start talking about that more once September 1st happens. but yeah so but but but athletic greens man it's a way to go it's really good you'll like it CVV is jacked man it's the stuff must be good he he loves it um let's get into some other stuff though when you have uh like Kevin Feigey so tell me I sent you the article yeah what did you gather from it from from the great we saw Morbius together actually that movie was just it's fun it's a bad movie it's a really bad movie I didn't hate it though but it's bad it's if

anyone says me says to me this is a terrible movie I'm not going to say what are you talking about It's terrible, but I didn't hate watching it. I mean, I think the key of the story and the thing that really stands out to me is like, if you take away the MCU and you just erase that from existence, and then you talk about the concept of a shared universe and whatever, it never has worked and it shouldn't have ever worked. And it only worked because they had like a few factors that really pushed this thing forward. And very recognizable popular characters.

Yeah, well, kind of. I mean, the biggest characters, yeah, but Marvel's biggest characters historically, the three big ones, Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Hulk were not, and yeah, it's Spider-Man they didn't get, right? They didn't get it way later. The Hulk movie was bad, the first one. I mean, it's fine. I mean, I enjoy it.

The Angley one was bad. The 2008 one's just not a success. It's okay. Right. I love that movie. Yeah. And then Wolverine, they didn't have, right? So, like, they banked on Iron Man, Captain America.

Captain America and Thor. And Thor was always pretty popular, but I mean, like. But they're more recognizable than Morbius, is what I'm saying. Oh, 100%. That's what I mean. Like, when you're probably build an MCU. off of, or Marvel or universe off of people like The Sinister Six and people like that. It's like, those are not recognizable names like Captain America and Iron Man.

I agree. Iron Man was not like this massive character that he is today. He was a subcharacter, but you still knew who he was. I mean, for me, like when I think about the things that have made the MCU so successful, it's really just a question of they caught lightning in a bottle and Kevin Fye, you did a really good, think about the Guardians, man. The Guardians is the fact that that movie turned out to be the hit that it was. is insane.

That's not a real thing. But they did it right. I think that they did it better back then than they're doing it now. And that's because they are just spoiled in the riches. Yeah. Right? Because Guardians had, this is 2014, where the first Iron Man was 2008. Yeah, it's 8, 10, 13, or the three.

Right. So 2008, you had time to build Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, the first Avengers. I think even the second Avengers came out, right? before, didn't it come up before, Guardians? Right after. He came up right after, but it was still in the work. So you had all of these heavy hitters in there. And then you're like, well, let's try this thing.

Yeah. Because if it doesn't work, who cares? We go back to these other things. They're also not all good. That's the thing that people have in their mind, the MCU, is this immaculate conception. It is, but not all the movies are great. No, but none of them have been bombs except, I mean, the only one is, there has never been a financial bomb.

No. And even the ones that I think are not particularly, good like they pivoted like i don't like thor one or two i love thor three they figured it out they're like i see four yet not yet no i'm so interested with like i said we're taping this on a uh on a thursday so we we can get back into the figy stuff and all that in a second but like what what do you what do you think because we'll have an answer to this when this comes out so people can tell us if we were right or wrong how much do you think this movie makes um opening weekend because i don't disagree with you at all.

No matter how mixed it is. I'm going to say, because I wonder what Top Gun made. But I think this movie makes close to $200 million. I think Top Gun was 200 plus, wasn't it? Yeah, I think Thor will do that, if not more. I think Thor's probably going to be in the high twos. I'd guess Thor's getting close to 300. For the weekend?

I think he's so popular right now. Yeah. I think people love Tyka. I think the vibe. I don't think you're crazy. It's in 240, I would say, but I think you're close to 300. Yeah, I think it's, I think this. movie is going to crush. I do too.

Everyone I've talked to that's seen it all the, you know, I've been on the road. So I've skipped every screening. What's the, what's the consensus been that you've talked to? That it's really fun. It's a straight comedy. Christian Bale is terrifying and that it is otherwise a fairly like low stakes kind of forgettable movie. Yeah.

It doesn't have a lot of meat. I agree with that. I mean, it's, and I've talked about it a few different times and I think that, wait a minute, this movie, this, uh, this, this, this episode is not. kind of come out on Monday. I just realized. Why? Because our spoiler review hits on Monday with Koi and Winston.

So this will probably come out. We might have a special episode on Tuesday. Hey, man. I'll take it. There we go. So we might have a special episode this week, everybody. So as I've been talking about how this is Monday, I don't know, maybe I'll figure it out.

Put it out tomorrow. Just put it out tomorrow. I mean, honestly. Oh, fucking Saturday. No. The problem, the problem, I'm going to put up, so I, people kept asking me about this Andrew Santino and Bobby Lee clip that they brought up me on the show. And I tried to play it on the show the other day and I didn't have the sound.

But I don't know. We're all over the place, but I want to show you. The other thing I got to show you, before I forget, I got to show you this. I'm addicted to this pizza. Portnoy. Yeah, I'm addicted to it because, like, I want to find good places in L.A. And I look at the places that there's, I think I know about most places in L.A. Yeah.

He's recommended, too, that I really want to try. But this is like, my brother sent me this. And then it popped up in my feet. This is the most, this is the craziest pizza reviews ever done. Watch what happens in the course of like three minutes in this. Okay. Because I watched a ton of these. Yeah, they're really good.

Joe and Pat's in New York City. Okay. Yeah, watch. Second he walks out. What's happening? Good. We got pizza review. We got, no, I'm going to do the pizza.

You eat the ice cream. I don't know what's happening, Frankie. You get striking up a conversation. 15 seconds. We're not filming you. Yeah. If you works there. Well, I'm just eating the pizza.

We just, no, we're just reviewing the pizza. I'll tell them to make it more obvious. What? Now look this. Who's this guy? What? Plastic machine. I don't know where the plastic machine is.

What's that guy I've been into? And she's still screaming. This is crazy. The guy is leaking blood out of his nose walking by, looking for the plastic machine. This person's talking to you. I doesn't want to be on camera. You got to choose. I'm trying to do a pizza review here.

It doesn't stop. Crazy. That guy had me speechless. I didn't want to make fun of him because his face was just like, bro. Got a napkin? You're offering me a slice or no? Well, you've got to be on camera if you want to do a slice. Well, then we got to, I got to do this pizza review.

I'm not trying to embarrass you. I'm not even talking to you. It's not my pizza place. Joe and Patz. Can I eat the pizza? Now watch those to these guys. Joe and Pat's. Horrible.

Worst experience I ever had. It's like, it just doesn't stop. We never got our food. There's nobody in there. I don't know what that else is going on. Frankie, what's going on? Is it good pizza? He said, I think he gives it a pretty good.

He gives it a pretty good review. Just one bite and he has three bites. Yeah, but I've been watching a lot of his pizza reviews lately. Because like I said, there's a few places out here. Like my favorite places are like Sherman. He doesn't even have it on their on their app, but it's it's Pizza Wagon of Brooklyn. I've never been there. You love that place.

I do. But the other two places that I've always wanted to. go to Prime Pizza, which everyone talks about. Prime's good. Yeah, and then this Apollonia place is the one he says is the best. And it's like, it's like Mid-Wilshire. That's the one I want to go. It looked really good. I got pretty, after you recommended it, I started ordering on Prince Street,

and it's a little too much of a gut bomb. I don't like Prince Street here. Oh, it's not as good? Oh, I don't like it here at all. I like it. Prince Street, I only recommend in Manhattan. I went to the one here and I was turned off by it. Interesting. I thought it was too heavy. The Sicilian. It's like, yeah, it's crazy heavy. I didn't like it. I didn't like it here. And I don't know if it's changed since I was, I was

so excited when it opened here. I was, I like, I ran out to get a pizza. And I was like, and my wife goes, this is the one you were raving about? I was not good. It's not good. Maybe you got better. I don't know, but I didn't like it, but I, but I haven't, I've never gone back. It's the only time I've gone on, pizza wagon in Brooklyn is my favorite.

And then I'm going to try these two. My daughter and I watched his review in the Apollonia place, whatever it is. And she's like, can we go? And I'm like, I want to go too. Oh, Joe's pizza in Beverly Hills is really good too. Not bad. When you do, when you do, uh, when you do, uh, pizza, like when you test it or do you, do like him? You eat cheese only or do you do like...

I do cheese only. Really? Okay. So how do you get pepperoni? Yeah, but where are you from Seattle? Yeah. Yeah. What a dick. What you know about. You know of a pizza. Pepperoni. I mean, it's better than pineapple. Pepperoni is like the most popular. It's standard. It's standard. It's the Seattle thing. You idiots in Seattle. Pepperoni nobody's so you care about us. No. Pepperoni is pretty is that's a, that's a, my buddy in Queens was pepperoni only. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so back to Figeyke.

Faggy basically tells them you jump in the gun. Take it easy. And why wouldn't you listen to him? Because you're just trying to capture this lightning in the bottle like you were talking about before. And it's like you've got to establish it first. And that's what I think D.C. has done very well lately.

They stopped trying to do that. Like, okay, you're making movies that are, they want to make this movie. You make the Joker. You know, they did the suicide squad, which if it ties you. Who cares if it ties into stuff if it doesn't. That's the Harley Quinn that was in the other one, but we're just going to make movies. And we're going to make them good.

And if you like them, the Batman, another example, doesn't tie in anything. And then you get like Shazam and Black Adam, and if they kind of tie into each other, fine, but it's not like this.

You're not leading up to everything and throwing in Batman be Superman and doing all these things anymore, and you're just not trying to do. Like, we've got to stay on par with the Marvel. They fired everybody that was doing all that stuff, and they're just concentrating on. Now, what the hell they do with the Flash?

Who knows? That is. I looked up yesterday. I just Twitter, I just, you know, Ezra Miller, just looked it up, right? Because I was like, wasn't he, wasn't he like, didn't he kidd? He's, he's, like, accused of kidnapping somebody. He's in a house with guns. I don't even pay attention to it anymore. I was like, is he still just missing?

I mean, what's. Someone found him, some like, some like fan found him in a store or something. Yeah, and he found out before the cops did. Yeah, and the fans like, hey. And he's like, I'm nervous. And as Mr. Miller said to him or something along, it's like, oh, yeah, I can knock you out. That usually helps. And the guy's like, well, what?

I don't know what is happening. It's like, it's like, as your middle might as well shown up in that pizza review. That would have been,

that would have been hilarious. But, but, but yeah, so the flash is, is one of, like those poor bastards who, like Discovery,

who bought Warner Brothers and then they had this project because that project should be one of their biggest, you got fucking Michael Keaton coming back as Batman. And yet the first time you see him back

will probably be Batgirl. Yeah. Because they're going to have to, what I would do now because people were, like it's it's very hard to say this but like that movie probably costs close to 200 million dollars without marketing to make so if you put it out maybe because of michael keaton it'll do really well but people just don't want to support as for miller right now there's

also a lot of people who just casual movie fans are still don't know what the hell's going on right but either way you can't do another movie with the guy at least not now don't see what the hell's going on. You can't do anything with that. So that movie, um, you either put it on HBO Max, which sucks. Yeah. You release it in the theater with some kind of reshoot where you just try to get Michael Keaton to do his own standalone Batman movie, which again, that could be tough. Or you do reshoots for the, for Batgirl to where you just really are playing off of Michael Keaton more than anything else and introducing him there. But it's not an easy situation for them to be in because that movie was, was supposed to be massive.

It was supposed to come out this November. Yeah. I mean, the Flash was like a, I think it's one of the more bizarre movies I can remember in recent memory. It's, it's even more crazy than the Amber Heard situation in Aquaman, which seems like that would be...

Smaller role. Yeah, that seems like it would be a nightmare. But it's, I feel like that one is being totally overshadowed now at this point. People almost don't even care. They're like, just should give me Aquaman. I don't care. I think the thing with, well, I don't think that that's necessarily true

because there's still a big pocket. of people that don't want her anywhere near that movie. Right, right, right. But I think that that one is going to be easier for them to do. If they put her in, they go, okay, we're going to take a little bit of the head for the people who are yelling and screaming about her being in it. Cut her down eight minutes. Cut her down a little bit more.

She's not the man. It's still Jason Momoa heavy and it's Aquaman's movie. She's barely in it. She's in it for here and there. When she shows up, they boo whatever. Who cares? But the flash is the guy. It's the flash.

It's the flash. Yeah. And it's like that, that's just, I don't know how you cut around that. I just think that, like, you're, they're getting to the moment that's happening right now that you always worried might happen with the idea of the MCU, which is, okay, we've been doing this whole, like, D.C. Movies that are interconnected, additional films that were crossover characters. We've been doing it now since 2013. Right.

So we're going on 10 years. Some of these people are aging out of their roles. Some of them aren't going to get recast. They're going to get cast as different characters. And we're also doing these other. projects now that confuse fans. So now it's this weird hybrid, like, is it a shared universe or isn't it?

Some things are and some things aren't. You can't really do it halfway. That's what I was going to ask you, because I saw you post about it with MCU. Right now, I know they're going to do some announcement at Comic-Con. And maybe you get a little bit more clarity. You can be there, by the way? No.

It seems all over the map, this face. Like, what is it? It's like, it's a multiverse. It's got celestials in it. It's got Thor in it. Like, it doesn't, nothing tied, nothing's really, I mean, the post-credit scene on Thor, something happens to introduce somebody, and then in, in Dr. Strange, no, internals.

Yeah. Internals, there's someone that introduced, so does that tie in? How does that play? Are they going to play? Like, what, I don't, like, the other phases had clear, like, oh, that's going to go to this, that's going to connect here. Loki sets up this whole show where you think, oh, that's going to explain all of this. Yeah, right.

I know season two is coming out, but it has nothing to do with the movies. I think, dude, that if I'm being 100% honest, this is a little bit of a little bit of a hot take. I don't think that the MCU has put out a pound for pound great movie since Avengers Endgame. The only one is no way on. Spider-Man, yeah. That's the only one. Yeah. And that's a Sony movie that has Tom Homba.

It's still an MCU movie, though. So I will say, I will retroact. I will retroactively say that is a great movie and I just rewatched it and it's just as good as I thought. It's phenomenal. That movie is so good.

That's the only one. And if you include the shows too, by the way, I think Wanda Vision retroactively is so much worse after watching Multiverse of Madness now. Like they ruin the character basically. Everything cool about it is dead. All the rest of the movies have like,

you know, like Chongchi's got a lot of really cool stuff in it. I really like the bus fight. I like... Changchili, how does that play in there? Like half that movie. There's like stuff about, the different movies that I appreciate, but when you talk about like, you know,

it's late, you're on the couch, turn on Disney Plus, go watch an MCU movie for fun. I'm not picking any of those. No, not a single one of them. Going back to the old school. I'm not even remotely interested. And I just think like, I think that it's been going on pretty long now.

We're in year three of this experience where there's one good movie, one really great movie anyway, and a bunch of okay ones. I could not stand Malthyvers Maddus. I mean, some people like that movie. I thought that movie was garbage. I'm not going to say garbage.

I just think it's, It's very similar to both Iron Man 3 and Thor, the latest Thor. The latest Thor is a Taika movie. Iron Man 3 is a Shane Black movie purely. And obviously, well, of course, they directed it. But I mean, purely. It's not the other movies are like John Watts. It's a John Watts movie, but it's a Spider-Man movie.

But it's fully a Spider-Man movie. These movies, and whether you enjoy him or not, if you're Sam Ramey head, you love Multiverse of Madness. I'm not a Ramey guy. I think he's a very talented. and a director. It's just not my, not my style. And I was just kind of like, and I wanted, like, multiverse, the multiverse was handled in everything everywhere all at once.

That's the kind of shit that was fascinating to me. I thought they left a lot on the table with, with multiverse madness. I like the horror elements of it. I like certain things about it that I thought worked really well. And they took big swings sometimes, but I thought overall it was kind of like all over the place. And it's the same thing like, like Thor. The new one is very funny.

Yeah. But it's, it's, I'm telling you remember the, the, the, spoof movie top secret. Yeah. There's a scene, dude, that reminds me, like, and it goes on for, like, four and a half minutes,

and it reminds me of, like, top secret, that tone. Interesting. The whole tone. And I'm like, it doesn't seem like, Thor's a clown now.

Yeah. Thor's a clown. He's not even, like, he's not even, like, he's used to, he, all the stuff that he's been through. Yeah.

Like, remember how in, like, Infinity War, how devastated he was that he couldn't take out Thanos and how guilty he was about it. And that sounds like one of his best act of and he said,

rocket when he said, What else can I lose? In Endgame, the depression he earned going to that state of the comedic stuff, but he still was going through some stuff. Right. So he was about, he's just the goof for the majority of the, he's like Spokoli. Yeah, well, they also like even, this is one thing about Endgame that I think is so awesome is, you know, he comes back and he's, you know, he's gained all this weight and everything,

and he's funny in all these moments, and he's great comic relief. But then when they have to fight Thanos at the end, and he's still heavy at that point, he does the two hammers and the beard. And he's ready to go. And he's a badass, and you're like, oh, yeah, because he's a god still who's going to still fight. It doesn't matter that he's put on some weight. That's irrelevant. And he still kicks ass and stuff in this when he has to.

And he throws some stuff in it. But it's like there's just so much. I just feel like the first 45 minutes, minus stuff with like Gore or Gore, which Christian Bale and Natalie Portman. I think Natalie Portman's her best in this, out of all three movies that she's in. This is her best. And it's the best chemistry that they've had together for sure. I liked her angle. I thought Tessa Thompson was great.

underused, right? Like, I thought the stuff that they actually did when they port. Natalie Portman has the most to do emotionally. And when she does it, it's great. Great actor. Yeah, she's a great actress. It's just that 45 minutes for the most part is, is like 90% like almost feels like spoof. Interesting.

And then once she started, like by the time you get to certain moments, there are emotional moments in the movie. It's just like, it's just so overpowered by the comedy of it all. You're like, oof. I am really excited to see it, to be fair. I mean, even though my opinion of the MCU is what it is at this point, I am still, the movies still get me super hyped. Yeah.

You know, and like, I've had a lot of conversations with people about just like, in general, the Disney brand, what, what Disney has now done, what the introduction of Disney Plus and the streaming shows, the way it's changed our perception. Yeah. The blue chip nature of these franchises and how they've all kind of, there's a, they all have less juice than they used to because there's so much more content now. And you do a little bit feel like, like, I don't have really much any interest in watching Lightyear.

I just don't care at all. Right. Or you know that animation guy, though, too. But I love Pixar. Every pixel you multiple times. I'm a huge toy store. I just... Light light year.

I just, I mean, again, I've been out of town. I'm definitely a minority, I think. Well, a lot of people, I really enjoyed it. But a little cold in here, right? Yeah. I'll tell you what, you should get yourself a rumpled blanket. That's the way to go. I'll tell you that I'm enjoying these blankets.

I take them actually goof around, but I take them to when my daughter play soccer, I take them with me, and I love them. They're really great. and they're comfortable. We went to Mill Valley recently, and we took them with us. We sat outside.

We just, we relaxed on this blanket and it's really comfortable because there's not a lot of blankets that you can really take on the great outdoors, but they have over 135 prints. Rumble's perfect, whether it's indoors or outdoors. You take it to the beach,

take a camping, picnic, or just on your porch. I love it. It's just very comfortable. It's weatherproof. It's durable. It's just a cozy blanket. It's got the same technical materials used

in premium order, outdoor gear. and active wear. They're on a mission to introduce the world to better blankets and they're doing it. Same thing. If you're enjoying these blankets and you get yourself one, please let us know what you think of them

and we'll send them right to Rumble. You got to save 15% off, but you got to use the code Big Thing. You can just visit RumpelR-U-M-P-L.com slash big thing and learn more. But I'm telling you, this is something you want to get. You want to get one of those blankets that's just very relaxing and chill.

It's Rumble. blankets. They're really good. They're really comfortable. Have you, have you heard them? I have not until just now. They're great, dude.

They're really good. I mean, that's what I was, who are they talking about with this? I think it was Winston. Where one of the, he's like,

I always get the stuff that you, tell me on this show because I know that, because you, when they tell you, hey, so-and-so is interested in being a sponsor on the show.

Yeah. And I've turned down a bunch of guys. It's not, right? It's not, right? Like, you know, there are people who vape,

right? I don't, and I don't really, I'm not going to endorse it on my show. Right, right, right. Like crypto, yeah. Well, with certain things that we did, like Coinbase we had for sure. But like, but when it comes to certain things, I say no, but they're like, and when they told me about Rumpel, I was like, I need a good blanket. Because I'm sitting there always have this stupid thing that can't do anything.

And they send it and I loved it. So anyway, before you, Ben's got to get the hell out of here in a second. But I'm trying to think if there's anything else as far as money goes with the movies. I just think that. I mean, you're getting to the initial article about Faggy and the way that he's talked about it. Look, just because the success of the MCU at the moment feels a little convoluted. I also think there was a little bit of a feeling of it being convoluted in 2015 when Ultron came out. I think before you hit Civil War, that 17 build up to the 2018 Infinity War,

I still think there was a little bit of a feeling of what are we doing. We got Avengers in 2012. That was awesome. You know, I think it, I do remember seeing Civil War in theaters in 2016 and being like, oh, I'm pretty in now. There's something cool happening. Right. is this is getting good.

And I do think we have some pretty great characters. I really like, I really like Changxi. I think he's great. I think, uh, whatever they, set up his story very well.

I think he had, out of all the new movies, he had the best, um, he had the best story of everything that was going on with him, who was his sister, his brother, his dad,

like all of that was really done very well. The other ones I haven't really been, it's like the legacy characters, the, Dr. Strange and Thor, yeah, haven't delivered. I happen to really like Eternals.

I was last year anyway, though, too. But, But it was this phase. I know. I think Koi and I are the only ones who liked that movie. But I really enjoyed that movie.

But yeah, but even that movie, how do they play in? Like you're saying with Civil War, all that stuff played into each other. Yeah. Where does this play in? Well, it built up. And then I think, you know, you had one Civil War happened. I remember seeing it and being like, okay, so all these characters that you've strung together from the last five years have now all of a sudden, I'm like, okay, I want

to see X interact with Y. And, you know, like, because one thing that I think, think is really interesting is if you remember in Infinity War when the Wanda Vision stuff happens, you know, they had been pretty bad characters prior to that. Like Ultron was their movie, and that's a crappy movie. Like that's the, Spader's the only good thing about that movie. But it didn't matter. They did a good job with those characters in that movie. It didn't matter that the setup was kind of bad. Once the movie came out, we liked them enough and we recognized them. And I think to that end, like there is a certain amount of, you know, I believe, for instance,

as much as I dislike Captain Marvel, which I think is maybe the worst MCU movie. I think she's still good enough in her role that if she has a significant role in the next phase, I'll bet you I like her way more. She's going to show up in Ms. Marvel, I'm sure. Yeah. And then, because I think that they,

what are they going to do? Like the Marvels or something. There's something that... Yeah, yeah. And I just, it's the same way I felt about the Dr. Strange movie, the Derrickson one. I didn't know the biggest fan. It's okay.

Which one? The Scott Derrickson, Dr. Strange? Oh, I like, see, I like the first one. It's okay. I don't think it's bad. It's just not one of my favorites, but I like him so much in Infinity War. Like, I think he's so great there.

That's where he shines. And some characters are like that. You know, you get an okay movie, and then there are a character now. You recognize him, and it's way more fun. And I still have enough faith in Fagie and all the decisions they've made to think that's what the next big thing is going to feel like. But it is, we're getting pretty long in the tooth here. Like, I need to start to see some cohesive stuff. It gets me excited.

Well, he made some announcement that he was going to say, you're going to learn more at Comic-Con. So, and what I will say about them is every year at Comic-Con, when Hall-H, they usually deliver pretty big. It's usually the talk of the, of the whole thing. It's like one of the reasons you asked me earlier if I'm going. One of the main, one I kind of double down, went to celebration this year. And the difference is to me, as far as celebration goes, besides the fact that Star Wars has always been kind of my thing that people want to hear me talk about. But I, the other side of that is Star Wars gives you a lot of, Star Wars celebration gives you a lot of exclusive stuff. that you can't find on the internet.

Right? And you can find it, but you're not supposed to find it on the internet. Like whether it's the Mandalorian thing or the Asoka thing, like that was exclusive stuff. That is very rare now at Comic-Con. Usually when it goes, when the trailer goes up at Hall H,

goes right up on the internet. Yeah. And I might be better off here. Reacting to it, talking about it, doing a big thing show that, as opposed to going there, doing all that stuff,

and then having to run back to the hotel. And it takes me a while. I don't have good service to get the fans aren't going to get the best quality show out of it. And over the last few years of Comic-Con, what I was doing was going for the networking and the parties and stuff, too. And I'm just like, I think that this year, I'm just going to, I'm going to bow out this year. That's how I feel. I mean, I'll be on the road. You're not going either?

Yeah, I mean, I'm just, basically I had to, once I got to May, I was like, all right, so once this period of summer starts, because remember, I also am the vice president of this toy company, so I travel for them as well. So I have 14 trips between now and October still, and I'm just never going to be here. So if I'm here for three days between trips and I'm trying to respond to get a movie screening, it's like that night is important. I need to not stress about it. It's the same thing with the Comic-Con. It's like trying to jam a bunch of parties and late nights and drinking and hangovers in a Comic-Con

for the purpose of paying thousands of dollars for hotel rooms. It's like, if I was even available on those days, that would be like the only days off I'd probably have. and then I'd go right back on the road. It'd be exhausting. So I sort of had to accept that this summer it was going to be about the tour and about work. That's it. The tour is the most important thing. And I'm just trying to hit all those shows.

Speaking of the tour, tell them where to get the tickets, tell them do all that stuff. Yeah, Ben Bateman Tour.com. You guys also, if you can't make it to one of the shows, the tour shirt is up on the site as well. There are like seven shows left or something like that. And this weekend, you guys, I guess I'll see this probably after the Orlando shows happen. I don't know.

I might, as I've been contemplating in my head, I might very well put it up on, uh, tomorrow. Yeah, I might. That'd be great. I'm playing Orlando on Saturday the night. It's going to be a really fun one. It's like a private patio on, like a brewery that I rented. A bunch of people are going to be there. Then next week I have two smaller shows, one Atlanta, one in Nashville.

Those are going to be awesome. And then it continues on Seattle, Chicago. The New York show will be the big kind of capper. And then the L.A. won the album release, which will be amazing. So Ben Batemantor.com, go get your tickets. You know, message me if you have any questions about it. And it's, it's been really fun. They're all basically private, 20, 30 people hangouts, some even smaller.

And they're just like getting to hang out in a coffee shop, essentially. Play a set. Well, there you go. So make sure you check that out. And I show you, Ben, thanks for joining us on the show today. Once again, you guys just subscribe to the show. If you haven't done that already, please do that. Apple Podcasts, anywhere podcasts are found, Spotify, the whole damn thing.

Get yourself some athletic greens, get yourself a rumple blanket, whatever you can. Make sure that you do that. Check it out, everybody, please. And that's all I got for you today. I might very well double up. I might have a show. You might get two big things today. You might get a morning episode, which is this one. And then you might get the rewatch of Ragnarok a little later on in the day.

So we're going to get two of them. Because I figured with next week, with Monday, you got the Thor spoiler review on Monday. and then on Wednesday we'll have Sith Council. On Thursday, we're going to have, what the hell is it? Thursday, well, Thursday will be a big thing with myself, Roxy, and Brett. And then Friday, next Friday,

we're going to make a little detour. It's going to be myself and Josh Robert Thompson coming in on the show. It's the best. Those are always fun shows. Every time we come on, he and I just go, we don't know where that show is going to go. He's like Caliando is maybe the only guy I can think of that I'm more impressed by the impressions.

He's like, Caliando more than Josh Robertson. Just because the width. Caliando does like 400 of them. Josh Robert Thompson is, and Jamie Costa, nothing against him. Oh, yeah, Costa is incredible. They are far superior because the difference is, in my personal opinion. Caliando does impressions.

Yeah. Josh Robert Thompson and Jamie do not do impressions. They become the people. Because that's the thing that Josh does and when I've gotten to meet him, he can actually stay in the character. He turns out of conversation. You ever talk to him as George Lucas. It becomes George Lucas.

It's unbelievable. And Jamie like, some of the most impressive stuff I've ever seen. Look at what happened when Jamie did. that Robin Williams thing. Yeah. It's like those dudes become. Frank Kellyando is a very good impressionist. Yeah.

These dudes are not impressionist. Yeah. They are actors and they become the people. That's why they're so good. And so Josh is going to be on. I'd love to get, you know what? Maybe I'm going to try to see if Jamie can come on too. Josh and Jamie on the same time.

Wow. That would be crazy. Yeah. Anyway, that's what I do. I think I just kind of think out loud here. So thanks for joining us with Ben Bateman. It's a little longer show today. So keep the podcast going.

keep everything going. We'll see you guys soon. Peace.