The Press Box - The Madness of NFL Free Agency, and Tucker Carlson’s GOP Takeover

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

Bryan and David are back to discuss all that’s happening throughout the NFL "legal tampering period," a.k.a. free agency (0:40), and they touch on the biggest stories involving Aaron Rodgers, trade inflation, and more! Then, they switch gears and review Tucker Carlson’s media position while more information is released from the Dominion lawsuit (22:24). Plus, David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Host: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everyone, it's Ariel Hawani, and I wanted to let you know that each and every week, I'm part of a great program called The Ringer MMA Show. I hosted alongside two absolutely brilliant minds. Their names, Chuck Mindenhall and Pizzie Carroll. And every Thursday, a new episode drops where we preview the weekend in mixed martial arts and react to all the biggest news. Plus, after every UFC pay-per-view, we give you a post-fight show. So this is what you have to do.

Just follow the Ringer MMA show on your Spotify app. So you don't miss an episode. We'll talk to you then. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to PressBox. Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker, producer Erica Servantis here. David, I got two topics for us today. Mm-hmm.

NFL free agency. Yeah. And Tucker Carlson. Which would you like to do first? Wow. Wow. This is a proper full meal, full press box meal. Let's do NFL first.

Both ridiculous in their own way. but let's start with the NFL. Good idea. Question number one for you about the NFL's free agency period that's been percolating all week. Why are we still calling the beginning of free agency the legal tampering period? I don't know.

Legal tampering is one of the all-time great sports contrivances. It's, I don't even know what to do. I laugh every time I hear it. especially when you look at it in conjunction with the NBA where there's just this constant refrain every offseason about how tampering is formally legal but they're just they have to just like give you know like play as if it's not um yeah legal tampering i'm surprised they didn't come up with something better for it but uh but at least they're calling it is you know i mean it's It's the time when the real power players and the NFL get to flex their muscles.

So the distinction is you can't really make a deal with an NFL free agent until Wednesday. Correct. But starting on Monday, you can talk to the free agent's representatives. And then you can come to a hypothetical deal that then Adam Schaefter and other insiders will put out on Twitter. Yes. And somewhere between the fact that it's publicized on Twitter, it has a, if, if there were any, if there were, if there were, if there were any insincerity in the, in the negotiating process,

once it gets out there, it has a sort of gravity to it. And then also, there's the reality behind everything, which is no matter what the NFL rules say, if you're a general manager or even a player, you probably are more worried about running a foul of these agents, you know, about your agent. and the agent on the other side of the equation in any sort of negotiation, then you would be about breaking a rule. So there's really no distinction between, you know,

a handshake deal and a formal contract. I just love how legal tampering makes everybody feel like they're in the know. As fans, you mean? Yeah, we all get to do that world-weary Mike Florio thing of here's what the NFL wants to tell you. But here's what's really going on. But it's better a term than, you know, just to say what it is, just than to use some sort of term of art that obscures it, right?

And it's a better system than the NBA where it's going on without a name or just under the broad umbrella of tampering, i.e. tampering we're not going to pay attention to, you know. I hear you. But isn't it funny that there's a show on NFL network devoted to the legal tampering period? Yes. Like, why does it have this shadowy title if we have a television show devoted to this event? Right.

And also, doesn't it just beg the question of, I mean, is the day prior to illegal tampering, the beginning of legal tampering period, the formal illegal tampering period? And if so, is the illegal tampering period worthy of a show of its own? That should be a show. Yeah. We got Rapsheet and Tom Pelliserro given the latest on the illegal tampering period. Wouldn't you watch a show that was just the illegal tampering period? watch a show that was just the illegal tampering period and it was just like a weekly show of just

blurred faces and distorted voices making making deals and you end the names are all bleeped out so you have to sort of put two and two together. It's like, oh, a free agent running back. Oh, look out. Let me think. Four years, 17 million. Who's worth that? Yeah. I like that idea. I was searching for the dates today to make sure I had them right. And I found an explainer on NFL dot com titled what is the legal tampering period. So I'm going to make a suggestion. What if we called this week free agency? And once an hour, Rich Eisen or whoever's at the helm of the ship just said, you know what?

Contracts aren't official till Wednesday. Right. But here are the deals. This is NFL free agency. And we don't need to put this again, this cloak and dagger thing of like, here's what's really going on guys. No, no, they're actually just free agency. It's just what it is.

The league has embraced this. Yeah. It's a thing. It reminds me of when ESPN embraced Black Monday in the NFL network too when all the coaches got fired. It's like, it's a holiday. It's coach firing day. This doesn't seem so dangerous anymore when the league's official network is doing this.

Can we have a separate holiday when the leagues hang out all the various iterations of the franchise tag and just call it like the capitalism tampering period or something? the human the human freedom tampering period. I think that would be that would be a show that I would watch too. The single biggest story

of the legal tampering period was not a free agent move at all. It was Aaron Rogers. Would Aaron Rogers decide to retire? Or would he decide he wants to play for the Jets? Some people would compare to retirement. The news was broken,

David, on Monday. not by Adam Schaefter Jay Glazer, one of the roll call of NFL insiders we typically turned to. It was broken by Tray Wingo, former ESPN anchor who's now doing work with Caesar's sportsbook.

Wingo tweeted this on Monday. Hearing Rogers to the Jets is done. History about to repeat itself between New York and Green Bay, meaning Brett Farr once went there, time is indeed a flat circle. Now that was, was really interesting because when we get a huge news break like that, that's not from the

gold tier insiders. And when the gold tier insiders don't come in and say, wing goes right, I'm also hearing this. They didn't dispute his report, but it was kind of like, well, you know, I think things are still happening here. And say it was wrong, but they also didn't come in and confirm the story. Yeah. kind of funny right because everybody was left in this free agent legal tampering limbo where you're like i have no reason not to believe tre wingo who's been doing NFL stuff forever but we have all been conditioned that until we see an adam schifter tweet the thing we are being told is not real is your presumption that the people who know who should normally

know better or should know better or have been co-opted into this process somehow into the delay? Have they been given the embargo that you're not allowed to report until the Pat McAfee show or something? No, no. I think we're about to find out Adam Schaefter and Diana Rossini, we're definitely trying to break news on this. I think Wingo had somebody or some buddies who were telling him from some angle that people didn't have. Yeah, it is interesting. Well, I mean, I think we are conditioned to, like, you see Tray Wingo. There have been enough people who are wrong, right? Or enough people who are deliberately wrong, you know, stirring the pot, putting out fake news items under false Twitter handles or just, you know, going off of one obviously incorrect source instead of really pinning it down.

Every free agency period in every sport, we get, you know, somebody get something dramatically wrong. And so I think we're a little bit not just conditioned to wait for the main names because they can get it wrong too. But you sort of, you know, anything that seems too much like a cry in the wilderness, you have to, you know, proceed with some caution on. Totally. Because whatever we say about Adam Schaefter and the people like him, they have a very high hit rate of being correct. And that is essentially the confirmation in a lot of our minds that this thing is. actually going to happen. And I think what was so funny about the Aaron Rogers deal is Aaron Rogers is different,

right? He's probably not leaking or making his agent available to leak to the same people. So weirdly, the two go-to stars of the Aaron Rogers deal, which was by far the biggest deal in this period, you know, in terms of just probably importance and also just, you know, in terms of bigness, media-wise, the two go-toes were Trey Wingo and Pat McAfee, rather than the usual constellation of insiders. That's kind of funny.

Speaking of McAfee, so Rogers goes on a show Wednesday, one day later than normal, and beyond announcing that he would be interested in playing for the New York Jets, he had some media criticism he indulged in. Listen to this. When he somehow got my number in Texas, to me. You know, I didn't respond

to Diana Rossini, I think her name is. Yes, Diana. You get a great word. But like, I would say the same thing that I told Sheffey, Shephti, lose my number. Nice try. A couple of things about that.

One is, when was the last time you heard the phrase lose my number? Then that feel like it's from a different era of technology? Yes. How would you lose someone's number now? when phone numbers are no longer written down on pieces of paper or in a physical rolodex?

Yeah. Would it be possible for Adam Schefter to lose Aaron Rogers' number? I guess he could delete it or block it. That seems like a little bit of unwise move if you're in the information business. But yeah, I mean, how much... Do we really lose anybody's number these days unless you really have to go out of your way to block somebody

for something they've done? Yeah, I don't think you would do that by choice. We talk a lot about quarterback mortality. Here's a sign that Aaron Rogers is 39 years old and pushing the bounds of he is using the phrase, lose my number. Yeah, just quit asking. Quit ask. I mean.

Go away. I guess at some point, I guarantee at some point he's going to have to, he will be, he will use the fact that he has Adam Schaefter's number or vice versa or Dan Rusini to get some word out there. The Pat McAfee show is a pretty good megaphone, but you know. Yeah. By the way, Schaefter tweeted out a pick, and he did really use those words. I saw that pick. I didn't know that it was real.

Now, what he's talking about there is the fact that Adam Schaefter and Diana Rossini, both of ESPN, were trying to break news about Aaron Rogers, and we're taking the step, which for some reason Aaron Rogers did not like, of actually trying to check it out with Aaron Rogers. Shepter, of course, is reporting on this story. Dina Rucini tweeted out that Rogers had a wish list of players he wanted to come to the Jets if he were to come there. Which was when we got that really weird deal where the Jets were signing or trying to sign all of Aaron Rogers' former teammates before we actually got news on what he was going to do. Yeah.

It's a pretty good tell, you know, where was Aaron Rogers going to go. But I don't know if you listened to McAfee clip beyond that, but. Rogers just like purposely misinterpreted what Rossini said. Rossini was like, this is a wish list, right? Here are some players I'd like to join me. He's like,

I wouldn't make a list of demands like this. What are you talking about? This is the media is getting everything wrong. I'm sitting in a room, you know, just with a list of demands, you know, do this or else you can't sign me.

It's like, and she didn't say that. It was just one of those moments where you're just like, dude, it's just the most, straw man media bashing that you and I see, usually in politics. Yeah. I'm just going to find a way to just get mad at reporters who in this case are trying to check

out a story with me. Yeah. I mean, I think this is a particularly, this is a very particular case, right, where there's no agents being particularly forthcoming and both teams kind of seem to have a vested interest in keeping everything, you know. quiet. And these reporters are trying to do their jobs. You know, they've got a limited number of options here.

The media bashing, the Control V is usually, they didn't even call me to check it out. Yeah, exactly. In this case, he's reversing it and saying, they called me to check it out. Yeah. That's why I'm mad. Lose my number. Yeah. Yeah.

Should he just send a link, like just a promo graphic to his appearance on the McAfee show as a response to any other reporters asking? Would that be more? I mean, at least that would be, you know, that's how we did get the news at the end of the day. Well, the news such as it is, right? Such as it is. It's a very weird news story. I mean, we're very deep inside, you know, whatever, the sports media bubble. But it seemed like, I mean, the vibe I got as if you would ask me on Sundays, it's just like, yeah, I bet Rogers.

The Jets seem like the right team, but regardless of where he goes, you know, obviously he could be good. But it just felt like everybody in media and just in the sort of circle of diehard fandom was just sort of, not a. exhausted. That's over the top. Just sort of lightly tired of the Aaron Rogers story, not really interested in where he's going to go, not seeing like there was a team that was just going to he was going to go to and immediately would put him over the top. Like it just didn't feel like it mattered that much.

And then, of course, the moment he goes on McAfee, the internet breaks and every new site, the ringer included has 15 stories up about the fit and about what it means for the future of football and everything else. I mean, obviously, your average reader really cares a lot about Aaron Rogers and where he's going to be playing next year. but also just the way that he broke the news and saying that he wants to, I mean, what was, what was his wording?

His intention is to play for the Jets and now they're just working out compensation. But it does seem like a pretty, I saw Schafter reporting on it on TV this morning. It seems like there could be a pretty significant chasm between what the two teams, you know, what the Jets are offering and what the Packers are asking for. And I guess there's, you know, going to be at some point a push, maybe even from higher up in the league to reach a resolution here, but it just seems like, like, I don't really know who. It seems, again, maybe I'm reading the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, getting in on this doesn't actually move the ball in one direction or the other. If anything, I might make the Packers dig in a little bit, you know, to kind of be like,

hey, it's their fault. They're not letting me go. Yes. It's the first thing we needed to know, which is would Rogers be willing to play for the Jets? Mm-hmm. But then came the thing that has to happen. before he can go there, which is, yeah, the Packers have to say, well, this is a, this is a decent return for Aaron Rogers.

Yeah. And eating his salary, that's been part of this, the whole salary kind of thing. There's all, there's all kinds of stuff for insiders here. Speaking of which, when you and I have talked about the idea of insider, we have said that insiders have two problems. Yeah. Boy, than two problems, but two big problems. One is if you're one of these people, you have to have a constant stream of news or news

in quotation marks that you're breaking. You can't be like, no news today. Sorry, nothing happening. See you later. Second problem is you have to pretend that the news you're breaking is significant. Because if you come out and say like, this would have been something that would have been an agate type on the back page of the Kansas City Star 20 years ago,

something that nobody, even a real football fan would care about, about people are like, wait, why am I reading this? Why am I hanging on your every word? I want to read you in that spirit some of the tweets that I have seen during the free agent and legal tampering period. And you just tell me if you don't detect a little inflation in some of these player descriptors. This is from Tom Pelliserro of NFL Network.

And let me tell you, NFL Network is the prime inflator of reputations, at least the ones I've seen on Twitter. Pellisero tweets another top running back Domino to Fall Alexander Madison agreed to a two-year contract to remain with the Viking. Yeah. I'm sorry. Alexander Madison has agreed to a two-year contract.

I'm, you know, you know me, football fan, right? I'm like, can I remind myself who Alexander Madison is? He had 283 yards rushing last year, average 3.8 yards an attempt. Been in the league four years. His biggest rushing season is 462 yards as rookie year. So that's the big domino to fall in free agency. Because it reminds me of a little domino.

Like when you take your kids on an airplane trip and they have the many versions of the beloved board games, these are airplane-sized dominoes. Alexander Madison. Let me give you some more of these. This is from Ian Rappaport, Rapcheep. The Raiders are signing wide receiver Jacobi Myers, adding a big-time weapon for Jimmy G. The Giants' big splash of free agency.

Sources say they've agreed to terms to terms with Colts free agent linebacker Bobby Okareke. The Vikings are working to finalize a deal for Cardinals quarterback Byron Murphy, a big-time defender lands in Minnesota. The Bucks are reciting Jamel Dean, a major member. move. Here's a good one. Sources, the Rams are in talks to trade all pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey to the Dolphins, a blockbuster.

Now, Jalen Ramsey is a really good player. But what kind of compensation would have to come back to the Rams, Dave, in form of draft picks for you to agree that this is a blockbuster trade? I think you've got to start with the first. If it's not a first, is it a blockbuster? I know it's all, the

trade value is so whack in the NFL, but it feels like it has to be a first to be a blockbuster. But if I told you it was a third round pick and a backup tight end. All right. Close enough. Blockbuster. Everything is so descriptive, shall we say, that

whatever I see one of these insiders tweet out a deal that doesn't have any adjectives in it. I just absolutely suspect the worst about the player. This is rap sheet again. Saints signed defensive tackle Kalin Saunders. Another move

for the Saints adding heft to their defense. So not a big time who, but it is adding half. So this guy's just big. That's what you're saying, right? And I'm looking at, I'm looking at Schfter's timeline right now. When the Panthers signed or the, when it was announced a Panthers had an agreement with Miles Sanders, Jeremy Fowler, VSPN tweeted source, colon, the Carolina Panthers plan

to sign running back Miles Sanders. Shefter retweeted it or quote tweeted it and added a big, another big running back off the board. I wasn't sure how to feel about it until I got that quote tweet. Now I'm super excited as the Panthers. Ben. And at least he was, he by the Pro Bowl.

Mm-hmm. Like, Kyle Sanders was really good last year. It's for sure. As, also as a, as a designer, the thing that kept,

that I kept wondering this week was at what point a free agent signing reaches the level of graphic is designed for this on Schaefter's timeline. Because it's not all of them. They don't all get the breaking news

from Adam Schaefter with a photo of the player. It's, it's, I mean, is it just pro bowlers or former pro bowlers? A certain like salary cap number, I'd be very intrigued to find out. I think all those rules are correct. I'd also had any member of the Dallas Cowboys gets a graphic.

Yeah. Welcome back, safety Donovan Wilson. Graphic. I definitely saw the thank you Zieg stuff getting passed around. Oh, that was a go. So the goodbye graphic is another funny part of this. Mm-hmm. It's like, we're releasing you.

because you are not good at football anymore, but we've designed this tasteful graphic to say goodbye. Oh, man. You feeling okay with that? Was Zee going goodbye? Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember in 2016 when I was walking around Ringer headquarters

with that shirt that said Dag Zeke, 2016, that looked like a presidential campaign shirt? Yeah. And I wore it like multiple weeks in a row because the Cowboys were having a great season. Uh-huh. And then 2016 took kind of a turn. both football-wise and societally, so I kind of took off the shirt.

Not so funny anymore. Can we talk about Tucker Carlson? Yeah, please. So in that Dominion lawsuit, that filing that came out, we learned a lot about what Tucker Carlson really thinks about Donald Trump and other subjects, stuff he might not have been saying on the air.

Well, of course, we heard that Tucker Carlson finally did the only respectable thing he could do, He apologized on television. Oh, wait, just kidding. He didn't do that. He's more powerful than ever. He got Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, soon to be presidential candidate, to commit to a sort of policy statement about Russia and Ukraine, said it was not a vital interest for the U.S. to be involved in defending Ukraine.

Ron DeSantis called the invasion of Ukraine by Russia a, quote, territorial dispute in this statement. He did not talk about withdrawing aid, but it was fascinating. And this came out because Tucker Carlson sent all the Republican prospective presidential candidates and actually declared presidential candidates a questionnaire that they were expected to fill in because he is conducting the Tucker Carlson primary for Republicans. So just consider that split screen for a moment. Incredibly embarrassing story for Tucker Carlson and Fox News. The heart of which is he thinks things that he is not telling you on the air or telling you explicitly on the air.

At the same time, Tucker Carlson is running the Republican primary. for president of the United States. How do we make sense of this? Well, as low as I am to give him credit, it's the right time to make your power move, right? It's like before anybody gets it twisted, before he has the chance to really lose anything, just put everything you have behind,

basically launching this TV primary plan, right? No one has the guts to say no to Tucker Carlson this week, no matter what's come out. Now, maybe the power will wane. But before it does, let's get DeSantis pin down. Let's just, you know, let's start the process. Because it's going to be hard for people to say no after DeSantis has been on doing it. I mean, listen, I was talking to this whole thing with my wife this week and she said,

through the Tucker Carlson Dominion stuff. And she said, well, does it matter? And I was like, well, that's a tough one. And she's like, the people care. I was like, eh, a lot of people care. A lot of people are talking about it. Does it matter? Who knows?

I mean, just who knows. I, I, this does feel like one of those things that is pretty well isolated to Twitter and maybe MSNBC too. You know, it's the right wing media, right wing media broadly defined is not covering it. I don't believe. Certainly Fox isn't. There are a lot of funny, you know, imaging JPEG is going around this week of the things Tucker was covering instead of. the news that he was a huge part of. Even Howard Kurtz got the hands off the Dominion story.

Yeah. But, I mean, it feels like of all, it's almost like there's the Trump parallel here, which is, and Fox has this, has built this into its DNA, which is, you know, your audience clearly believes you, or, you know, loves you, wants to march in lockstep with you. they don't treat you as an entertainer,

but if anything negative comes out, then the first defense that you hear from the supporters of, in this case, Tucker, but, you know, obviously I'm talking about Trump too is he's just an entertainer. He's just trying to make us laugh. He's just, we all know the real story, but that doesn't mean we don't love him,

and then you can go back to believing him, sort of. So I find it hard to imagine it's going to mean a big shift. I think that the biggest, obviously, see the the biggest issue i think for tucker that would arise from this is whether trump actually you know takes exception to it and does more than just not appear on his show you know i mean if if trump if trump were to go after tucker that would obviously be become a big issue for him but if they sort of have a you know they taunt some sort of mutually assured destruction situation

uh then then i think he'll just keep plugging along just fine yeah there was some Somebody had a clip of Tucker talking about Trump in somewhat optimistic tones right after the story came out. And even, you know, I mean, there was obviously, there have been stories written over the years about, and, and, you know, I'm not trying to paint the entire, you know, conservative movement in a broad rush at all. But there have been stories written over the years about actual racists, actual white supremacists who are fans of both Trump and Tucker crossing, different stories, right? but the way that they, I mean, there's stories about people watch Tucker Carlson both times, you know, both airings of Tucker Carlson, because this is, because he's speaking directly to them, even though he's using coded language, whatever, like all the replacement theory stuff, all kinds of stuff, right? And similar stories about Trump and their disappointment with him more, you know, at certain points and whatever else.

You know, there's always sort of, it's always sort of felt to me that Trump was a, was a, if not a useful idiot, sort of a useful tool for that just, wacky part of the spectrum, uh, evil part of the spectrum, uh, and, and Tucker was whether or not he's being an entertainer, more, uh, in step with them in some kind of real way. I think in, in ways like that, Trump, I mean, Tucker actually has the diehards pin down, uh,

but, uh, you know, and there's definitely some people out there who I think would be okay with it, with him saying, you know, Trump's a buffoon. Um, but, you know, Trump does have a very, very, very dedicated fan base of his own. He does. First of all, I would like to thank Dom for setting up the question for this segment. Doesn't matter. Exactly the question I was going to ask you. I think your point about the kind of when you live in a universe that only admits certain kinds of information, will viewers even hear about this or hear much about this is a hugely key

point here? I mean, this is Tucker Carlson, who's retelling of the events of January 6th was so notorious that Jimmy Kimmel made a joke about it in the monologue at the Oscars. So, you know, Fox Viewer are going to just hear this story or hear much about this story? I don't know. The other thing is just like, I just think there is also, when you think

about audiences that watch this stuff and consume this stuff, there is a need and a desire for kind of a fantasy version of events more broadly. Doesn't really rely on what the person really thinks at all. I think it was so funny

whenever I read my college message boards about the University of Texas, there's like a segment of the fan base that's like, why are you being negative about the team? I don't want to hear this. And if I hear, if you go down this road, I'm going somewhere else. And the team could finish five and seven that year.

I just don't, I am, I want a website that tells me this thing and whether the person actually believes it and whether it's true, I just don't care anymore. And by the way, this is like, this is a, you know, a larger human thing than Fox News or message boards.

Remember those Twitter accounts that when Trump was president that had the marshal of the Supreme Court joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe to, you know, arrest Trump or whatever the hell was going to happen there? Yeah. Like, there were a lot of people who, despite that stuff being not believable, we're like, I'm coming back, right? I don't, and I'm not worried that this is, you know, that who's doing this or whatever. Like, I want this to be true.

So I'm going to keep coming back to this source of information over and over again, Twitter account, whatever it is. So I don't know. So I just, I just feel that there is probably, there are probably watchers who are just like, I just want to groove on this guy, whatever this is, right? You could show me text messages about what he really thinks and all this stuff. But this is the story I want to hear died after night. and beyond that, I'm not really worried about the particulars too much.

Yeah, I think that kind of says it all. Speaking of people coming back for something every night, or at least every week, it's time for David Schumacher, guess is the strain pun headline. Yeah. Last Monday's headline about a law that makes it illegal for Amtrak to sell alcohol while its trains are trundling through New Hampshire was live free but dry. today's headline comes from those comedy legends, David, over at National Review. We had spy magazine, we had Esquire.

We also have National Review. This is a blog post in National Review's The Corner about Maryland Governor Larry or former Maryland Governor now, Larry Hogan. Okay. Was also mentioned as a possible presidential candidate. this is a, well, how should I describe this blog post? It's in praise of Larry Hogan, okay? A statement that he made talking about Republicans and performative politics and all these kinds of things.

Use the phrase empty calories. Love that. I don't think you really need to know many of the particulars. It's just a blog post in praise of Larry Hogan. What was National Reviews, strain pun headline? Is it Hogan, hero? We're done, folks. I didn't even have to tell you, hey, remember that TV show that's way before our time, but was kind of on Nick at Night and UHF stations?

It was still on on weekends, weekend daytime, I'm sure in reruns when I was growing up, I know this, because about every week I would try to convince myself it was a WWF show and turn it on. Hulk Hogan, Hero. Yeah. And Hogan's Heroes, this is like the cartoon, right? Is that what it's called? I'm so confused. I was so disappointed every freaking week. I had that exact same feeling, that same desire.

And I'm, I shit you not when I would look at the TV guide, because it was a physical TV guide in those days, and see the 700 club was on. I think it was about the handful of baseball players that it hit 700 home runs in their career and then be extremely disappointed when it was a religious themed broadcast. Oh, look at that. It's on for four hours. This must be a real, like, high-level documentary. It's not about Hank Aaron and the babe.

Whoops. He is David Schuemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Erica Servantus. We're back Monday. I want to talk to you about Quentin Tarantino's new movie, which is called The Movie Critic. Mm-hmm.

It is apparently going to be about a movie critic. Is it time, David, for David Denby, A.O. Scott, Dana Stevens. To write the most meta reviews they've ever written in their careers. Yeah, didn't you say, Scott was going to the book section? He might stick around for this one.

Never mind. All right, we're counting on Dana for this one. Plus more Luke Worm takes about the media. See you that, David. See you later, Brian.