The Press Box - Trump-Musk Fallout and ESPN's Finals Coverage. Plus: Alan Siegel on 'The Simpsons.'

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and David parse through the very public Donald Trump–Elon Musk breakup (0:41) before sharing some notes on Games 1 and 2 of the NBA Finals; Warner Bros. Discovery, which is splitting into two companies; ABC's Terry Moran's suspension; and a hefty edition of "sliding doors" metaphors (15:28). Finally, The Ringer's Alan Siegel joins to discuss his new book, 'Stupid TV, Be More Funny: How the Golden Era of "The Simpsons" Changed Television—and America—Forever' (43:53). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline! Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David ShoemakerGuest: Alan SiegelProducer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Folks, it's Jay Kyle Mann from The Ringer, and as always, basketball is so freaking, freaking good. It's so good, in fact, that the Ringer's NBA draft show is finally back just in time for a ramp up to June. We've got you covered every week as we take an in-depth look at who's got next for the NBA's future. We'll talk the rising and falling stocks of the best and the brightest prospects in the 2025 NBA draft class. From Cooper Flag to Dylan Harper, the BJ Edgecom, and more. tap in with me on the Ringer NBA draft show every Wednesday and make sure that you follow, subscribe, and hit us with those five-star ratings. Yes. I need some help because I'm a little lost in the Donald Trump Elon Musk news cycle.

Okay. I'll see what I can do. Just to be clear, did we discuss this last week? It feels like it's this been going on now for like six months, but it wasn't going on when we last spoke, right? Yes. I believe we had a slight pause. but let me recount both the news cycle and previous press box episodes. Okay. Elon went on his mission accomplished interview tour. Mm-hmm. Then we had a round of Now They Tell Us Stories about how strained his relationship with Trump had become. Mm-hmm.

Then last Thursday, they had their Twitter fight. And then we had a second round of Now They Tell Us Stories saying the relationship was even worse than it had been portrayed and now they tell us round one. Yeah. And that's where we find ourselves today. I think. The kind of post now they tell us doldrums, yeah. Yeah, there was a lot of rehash in round two, I noticed,

but we did get some new details, which we'll get to it at one second. I know you were watching Twitter on Thursday and enjoyed such highlights as Elon saying the Trump tariffs will lead to a recession by years end. Agreeing with a poster that said Trump should be impeached. And then we, of course, got to the fabled Clinton body count Jeffrey Epstein portion of the proceedings, which you had to know was coming. Yeah. Elon Musk tweets, time to drop the really big bomb. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files.

That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day. The strangest thing about that, well, there's two parts of it. One, that it barely made any waves. I think there's this weird thing where, like, the people, a lot of people on the left were aware of this or assumed this, so it's not too surprising. And the people on the right are still sort of in denial of it. But the other side of it is that it didn't make any waves and that Elon was stupid enough

to do that anyway. I mean, almost the most jarring part about it is him prefacing it by saying, and now the bomb, you know, like, as if, like, because there's only, if the bomb doesn't go off, you're the idiot holding the, like, the undettonated bomb, you know, just ready to get shot at. I don't know how far I can extend this metaphor. But, but, yeah, it just, it just landed with such a whimper, you know, like, it would have been so much more effective for him just to drop it kind of, like, in a reply or something, you know, as opposed to just as like a failed press release.

Just very just the whole thing has just been so bizarre. A lot of people on the right. I know this from perusing the internet seem to think that, or at least consoling themselves into thinking that this is a W.W.E. style put on this whole feud, which is just like just sort of mind-boggling that anybody would go this far. but it is just sort of bizarre, just in general, how sort of primal it seems to have gotten so quickly.

Yeah, and there were some more primal details to come. So Tyler Pager, the New York Times, calls up Steve Bannon. And one of the things that I realize when reading this latest round of now, they tell us, is just how important Steve Bannon is to the Washington journalistic ecosystem in Trump, too.

I mean, he is all, availability team. He answers every phone call seemingly. And he will also say things that are instant news. In this case, he says to Tyler Pageard, they should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status. He's talking, of course, about Elon Musk, because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien and he should be deported from the country immediately. I read that and I was like, okay, everybody is tweeting this. This, of course, is this, you know, it as part of this one-on-one between Trump and Musk. I'm also like, this is news that Steve Bannon is saying this?

Like Steve Bannon says a thing would seem to be a huge category of just content. Yeah. And I'm like, do we need to get Donald Trump actually like toying with that or is just outside, on again, off again, advisor to Trump saying it enough to get us across the line there? I don't know. I mean, obviously there's a whole, a lot of the. Immigris Well, a lot of the things,

I'm not going to blame coverage. A lot of the things you see online about Trump's just like ridiculous deportation policy has had a sort of on the left and just sort of on in the wild on the sort of like agnostic parts of the internet a sort of leopardsate my face aspect of the whole thing. You know, it's just I did like everyone just pointing out

at just the ridiculous ways that this thing is gone. And how everyone's going to come to regret it. I think Elon Musk being deported would be this sort of like zenith of that. And so it's it's a story that people would want cover to discuss. But yeah, does Steve Bannon saying a thing? Should that merit news? No, especially when he's just playing, you know, a conspiratorial talking head, which is, you know, it's one thing if he's giving insight into the Trump's way of thinking.

But if he's just doing like, you know, podcast stick, I don't. think that really counts his news. And he wasn't done yet. Because in the Washington Post story about the whole breakup, which had five bylines, there was an amazing anecdote of Elon Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bassan getting into what could best be described, I think, as an altercation after a meeting in the Oval Office. Apparently, Bassant said, you're a fraud, you're a total fraud.

And then the post reports, Musk rammed. his shoulder into Basant's ribcage like a rugby player and Bassant hit him back. Multiple people stepped in to break up the scrum as the two men reached the National Security Advisor's office and Musk was shuffled out of the West Wing.

This happens back in April. The funny thing about this anecdote is it is being told to the post by Steve Bannon. Bannon said he was told no. is that Bannon is hearing about this anecdote and then relating it to the Washington Post, which then runs it down, apparently.

So they have sourced it outside of just Bannon's secondhand information. It's not totally clear to me. We're not. It doesn't matter. It may be Steve. It may be, by apologies and reporters that they have, but what I looked at yesterday looked like Steve Bannon's story time. Oh my gosh.

But again, he presumably might know. I mean, this is, again, this is somebody who would have information about things that happened in the White House, certain. Sure. That seems like something you'd want to run down. But just in the, as an aside, and the only in journalism, just only in journalism department, it's amazing that they use the word scrum in a very only in journalism sense right after they referred to Elon Musk making a rugby type tackle.

So it weirdly just fits perfectly. Speaking of only a journalism alert, Pressbox listener Shirmes tells us that this was the occasion for the rollout of this treasured Washington term Trump and Musk trade barbs on social media.

So good. That is an Acapulco gold only in journalism word. I don't think accusing somebody visiting being a frequent of Epstein Island is really a barb. But I guess, you know, it is what it is. No one has ever said the word barb outside of a news article.

That would be a great one to try to work into regular conversation. I always joke with my wife about these things too. But just like the next time it comes up, just be like, oh, like he really got me with that barb. Did you hear that bar? Quite a barb on your part. Yeah. Might I venture a reposte, your elegant bar, madame? I think you implied this earlier, but this to me feels like such a low-calorie political story.

I mean, we know that no one does jazz hands online and off better than Donald Trump. And if we were making a power ranking, Elon Musk would probably be number two. Yeah. So, you know, if you can show me that the big beautiful bill is going to be threatened by this, when it comes back to the house because Musk is given air cover to Republicans who didn't want to vote for it the first time and might not vote for it the second time.

Okay. But otherwise, this seems to be somebody who really likes attention going to war with somebody else who really likes attention. I was going to say, who is this for somebody? Feel free to go to interchange them as you wish. But two people who love attention going to war with each other. Uh-huh. enjoying at some level the attention that that itself throws off,

but are there actual consequences to this? I mean, the cover thing that you mentioned is interesting. I mean, I kind of think that it won't amount to anything because the lesson we see over and over again is that in Republican politics, like nobody has the guts to take on Trump. Or nobody wants to. Maybe they're perfectly happy to, you know, follow along. But I don't think that I don't think that even Elon Musk and his money is going to sway somebody from becoming the Washington stand in for Elon Musk.

I mean, I don't think anybody wants that job. You know, just the anti-Trump Republican in D.C. That's, that could, that could be a lot of headaches, you know. And obviously, it's probably easier just to. to go along with what Trump says. But if somebody were to do it, I mean, there's got to be some level of attractiveness there, right? With all the money that Elon Musk had put into a campaign.

And I mean, that's what's really intriguing. Outside of that, I just don't know. I mean, it clearly just gives a lot of ammunition to anybody running any, like Democrats right now running on an anti-Trump platform because they can say, look, even Elon Musk says this doesn't work. Even Republicans in the Senate, will it affect the passage of the big, beautiful bill? I don't know. It doesn't seem like we're particularly

getting down to the, gonna get down to the wire on anything. If anything, if nothing else, if Marjorie Taylor Green admitting she didn't read it doesn't change the calculus at all. I don't really know, I don't really know that this will do anything.

I don't know. What do you think? No. I don't, I don't even think by Elon was sort of backing it on by Thursday night. Yeah. And again,

it feels like something very delicious to cover to then go back and find little, you know, ripples in the relationship. that were not discovered the first time around, then you sort of call it a day. But yeah, I mean, and by the way,

when you say this is a sort of low calorie story, I mean, part of that, to me, the calculus is that like, we all knew this would happen. Yes. You know,

and it's not, and maybe it's that it can't, you know, couldn't possibly live up to expectations or whatever, but like it just kind of feels like as wild as some of that stuff was. It just sort of fell flat, you know,

like we all really, and maybe it's the, maybe we're just processing things way too quickly these days, but we were all very invested in it for 25 minutes on Twitter, and then we moved on, like everything else into the Trump era. You mentioned it was a big day for people saying that this breakup was a lot like professional wrestling. Well, our favorite metaphor was ventured by such writers as Ellie Mistal, the liberal commentator,

and Monday morning quarterback Albert Breer, MMQB author Albert Breer. By the way, at which point we have covered the waterfront when we've gone from Ellie Mistal to Albert Beer. Absolutely, yeah. Mistal wrote this on Twitter. Elon is doing a classic heel turn. This builds tension and keeps ratings high. By 2028, liberals will try to tag Elon in, but he'll refuse.

Then when Trump is about to be pinned, he'll hit Dems with a steel chair. Oh, that he's actually not turning heel, that it is a put on. That's the argument there? Yeah, I think that. liberals, Democrats will think Elon is their ally, but then they'll try to tag him into the match and he will walk away, leaving them to be double-teamed by Trump and Vance.

It's a little bit perplexing. I mean, this is more like a face turn, right? He's attempting a face turn, not realizing that the crowd's never going to be on his side. See, this is why I come to you for these things. This is, you need to be the official arbitrator of politics is like professional wrestling. Yeah.

There's a lot of fine grain. Yeah, I wear the referee shirt in this one. Is that the deal? You are the jacked honey of this category. I don't think it betrays my personal politics to say that this is a face turn. This is like the, I thought we were in this further. I thought we were fighting the good fight. I thought we were in this together, but you're just, all you care about is these belts.

You'll do anything to get him, you know? And then he turns here, and then everybody in the, and then everybody in the crowd is just like, nah, we kind of like the other guy better. All right. Coming up on a no rest holds edition of this podcast, we're two games into the NBA finals, David. We got a ton of notes on digitally added trophies,

the Doris Burke saga, and the Oklahoma City fan crisis. Plus media headlines, Alan Siegel reads early reviews of The Simpsons, and yes, another batch of sliding doors metaphors. All that and much more on the press box. A part of the ringer podcast network. Hello media and consumers, Brian Curtis.

David Shoemaker and producer Kyle Crichton with you. David, we're one-one in the NBA finals after the Thunder's blowout win last night. I know you were excited to see that ESPN was digitally adding Larry O'Brien trophies to the court. After people got mad that there was no Larry O'Brien trophy present in game one. be aware that this was a controversy at all? Yeah, because I saw somebody that I followed tweet about it, which I thought it's a funny tweet because it was like a funny thing for someone to care about, right? The fact that it actually became a real thing probably says more about the day and age

when we lived than anything else, right? That just like sort of, you know, please, like, like ironic complaints and ironic pleas for solid. just end up being real issues that many people that people just gather around and that it actually gets like addressed by whatever digital special effects

on a national sports broadcast is pretty bizarre almost at the level of scorebug Twitter which is where I depart close scrutiny of sports television I'm like I can't I can't quite care

the bigger point here, though, was about ESPN treating this game like a regular season game rather than a special basketball game. So they didn't not just have the trophy on the court or the teams, we should say, the Thunder didn't have a trophy on the court. There was no national anthem from ESPN, which is that kind of subconscious cue, hey, this is a big game. We're hearing the anthem.

They didn't have the starting lineups announced before the game. which is really that's an interesting one to me because we're talking about like selling the NBA which is part of what all these TV partners do the starting lineups in the finals would seem like the most obvious idea you could possibly do. Yes.

First off, it's cool. And secondly, you're teaching America who the players are. Yeah. Like, dude, let's just be honest here. If Aaron Neesmith had walked up to your door and my door at the beginning of the playoffs,

would neither of us have recognized? Well, I would thought he was very tall. I could probably have picked Eric Neesman out of a lineup, but if he had showed up at my door in street clothes, I don't know. I don't know. Just like, who am I? Not I'm a basketball player, but which basketball player am I people that work for a sports website? Your point taken.

I would not have known and NBC's already said when they get the contract in the fall, they are going to do starting lineups. Yeah. Including for regular season games. And I'm just like, you got to sell who these people are. People might know who Tyre's Halliburton is at this point in history. They may know SGA, but I think for again, for a lot of sports fandom, he is still a new thing. Yeah, for sure.

A relatively new thing. But just making it feel familiar and making it feel big. this is the thing you should pay attention to. You have to carve out a little of that pregame show. We're going to do that. Mike Breen, David, last night, was making up for a lost bang. You notice when Halliburton hit his winning shot in game one, there was no bang. There was no bang.

Here is Green last night. Aliburton fires three-pointer. Bang! I owe him that one, so I had to do it early. I was in the first quarter. In that split second before Breen explained himself, I was sitting there going like, man, this feels early for like a major shot to have happened in this game.

Did you hear Richard Jefferson shout out to Bill Walton in Heaven last night? Oh, God, no, I totally missed it. Everybody did. There was like one or two tweets about this that I could find. It's 706 left in the second quarter. Ched Holmgren dunks the ball and this one, Bill, is for you. I can't just move to the ball

Big fella. Just throw it down, big fella, throw it down, big man, throw it down. Yeah, it's pretty good. Have we moved on so much in history in an American culture that we don't recognize a Bill Walton reference when we hear one? Come on.

about those announcers, David. Yeah. I will say this before we get into the nitty gritty. I think this is as good as the ESPN number one team has sounded all season. They seem to be really in sync. They seem to be working together. Criticize them throughout the playoffs saying it just felt like three different parts to me functioning separately. I thought they've sounded really good through the first two games.

Yeah. Of course, the big story was the athletic report that ESPN wasn't sure that it wanted to bring Doris Burke back as part of its number one team next year. Richard Jefferson, according to the same report, ESPN does want back, though he's got a lot of interest from Amazon. Then we had something really interesting happen. Pacers coach Rick Carlisle before came one came out in defense of Doris Burke. I saw the things that were leaked yesterday about Doris Burke, and I just want to say a couple of things. She has changed the game for women in broadcasting. I have a daughter who just turned 21, was in her second year at UVA.

She's not in the basketball industry. But Doris is a great example of courage and putting herself out there. It was just so sad to see these reports leaked really unnecessarily before such a celebrated event. Not a surprise that Carlisle interjected himself into this story. I thought it was kind of a surprise that they floated this news about potentially removing Dorisberg. It just seems like a real misbegotten trial balloon, if that's what it was. You know, I mean, like Dorisberg gets the exact sort of reaction from fans that you would sort of, in these sort of moments, you would sort of expect, you know, there's a,

there's a, there's a, uh, sort of, obviously like a sexist impulse, it's a company to her entire career and, um, and, um, and just like unnecessarily just like changes the narrative of this, a normal story about replacing a color commentator. Um, I don't know, man. If you want to get her out of the booth, just take her out of the booth. Why are you like, why are their story? Why are you posting, you know, like planting stories about the potential to sort of feel it out? You know, just you're you're begging for responses like the one that the Carlisle Gait. It's interesting, too, to see Richard Jefferson the next day he was at the softball world series, the final there, wearing a t-shirt that said, my favorite broadcaster is doors burnt.

Yeah. Just to make the point, which good for him. I will say part of my criticism of this team has been that he has not. worked especially well with her. Yeah, they're clearly trying to be better about that, or it seems like they're being very deliberate about that. Much more deliberate. In the past couple of games,

and they are kind of flowing seamlessly in and out of each other, thoughts and backing off so that they all have their own sort of time and space to make points. I like Jefferson a lot. I would have a hard time listening to any of these broadcasts in the playoffs and making the decision that he is a must bring back figure and Doris Burke as a question mark. I mean, I just would not. I think there's not a lot of daylight between those two in terms of how much I appreciate their contribution. That's the weird part about this team.

And maybe it's just that Richard Jefferson to fully unlock him needs to be A on a one person or two-person team. and B needs to just go do Amazon with Ion Eagle who's his partner on many a yes network broadcast where he can just be funny in the way Richard Jefferson can be funny you saw little parts of that last night where he's talking about like his therapist and like little little moments are coming out during the game

like oh okay here we go this is that guy and I never want to flatten it out and just say like oh this person doesn't like that person which feels like such a Twitter way to talk about anything. But I think there is a challenge when you have three people in there that you want to say stuff. And sometimes, to use a basketball analogy,

you just got to go stand in the corner. Yeah. And wait for the pass. And if the pass doesn't come to you, you just got to run down the other side and play defense. Yeah. You cannot do that. And we talk about this on podcasts all the time.

Like somebody's just like, Man, that guy's going to start talking, and three minutes later, they're going to be done. Yep. That's not good, but that's what they're going to do because they just have points. Mm-hmm. And this was a moment from Game One. This is the fourth quarter. SGA goes in for a contested layup that he makes.

And just listen to the way this unfolded on the ESPN broadcast. KC clinging to a four-point lead here in game one of the finals So I've been totally tell what Richard Jefferson was saying there But the idea that Doris Burke saying that was a great finish You can't just let that rest Yeah. We have to have like a minor correction or take it to a different place in the fourth quarter of a game that was like a six point lead for the thunder at that point.

Yeah. Come on, man. Sometimes you just got like, let's just let the moment go. I'll get my turn next time. And there's been so many examples of that. Yeah, they've done a better job. Like that was a good job of just strictly talking about balancing it, right? I mean, just you can imagine them being like, okay, Doris is going to come quick.

And then Jefferson, you like have the have a slightly longer take. and then with like in moments like this. But you're right. I mean, there does seem to be a lack of, of the willingness to wait, which is, I guess it makes sense if you don't feel like, if, you know, if you feel like you're being overshadowed in a moment, you know?

It's a, I think it's, that's, that's, sort of thing humans do. But it could be a lot better. Or even not just overshadowed. You just got things written down on the page or thoughts pop in your head. It's like, I just want to say this. Yeah. Sometimes you can't say it.

A couple more notes for you. I texted Bill after game one. I was like, I've never agreed more with the point he made about a broadcast. When he said on his podcast that the miced-up moments in game one were actually good. Yeah, I totally agree. This in my mind is the first time miced-up moments have been good in any sports broadcasts and Sam Darnold saw ghosts. There was one where Tyrese Halliburton was talking about how he was. He was moving too fast.

And there was even a Carlisle one at halftime that was good. Yeah. From the locker room. Yeah. I don't know if this was the only good miced up performance since the ghosts. But it's one of those things. Like to me, the mic'd up moments, I don't pay attention to them at all unless they're particularly good.

And then it jumps out at you, right? Like, I very rarely have a negative opinion about mic'd up moments. They're just sort of the wallpaper of a basketball game. They're noise. They're like, settle down guys. Like, okay. Which I'm sure is that, you know, can be construed as an insult. But really, I just don't care that much.

It's shocking when I find myself caring, you know. I'm just like, oh, my God, what a, that was cool. Our friends at ESPN are once again showing us pictures of old basketball players during the finals. Chad Holmgren had a block, I think, in the first quarter. And we were going to commercial and they put up a photo of Dirk Novitsky. well they're kind of alike later we saw pictures of the 2010 Lakers the 2005 spurs

and the 1984 Celtics during game two okay 1984 Celtics what do you think this is a ringer podcast it's just trying to take the popularity of those like historical photo Twitter accounts and bring it into a basketball game

you know it's just like oh cool an old thing You imagine if we went to Bill. It's like, hey, can we put up some pictures of the 2010 Lakers on the site this morning? So we thought that was kind of fun. Just a photo album? Yeah, that'd be great. Here are some other teams that won the championship. Finally, the Oklahoma City celebrity fan crisis.

You knew this was coming. I feel like we do this every year. Well, we did it with Denver two years ago. Because Ken Jong was doing a scrum with reporters. That's how bad things got in Denver. No offense to Kenjog, but there was not the lineup you might expect in other cities. This was amazing. I want you to listen as ESPN comes back from commercial to show us some of the bold-faced names in the house in game one.

You're here third quarter of game one with 2025 finals. Pacted House, including NBA commissioner Adam Silver. As he's watching this historic team, 68 wins in the regular season. we got Adam Silver, the commissioner of basketball. And they showed him again last night. Do you think he says this? What he's like,

he's like, I don't really want to go, but somebody famous has to be there. ESPN has to come out of commercial and show a bold face name. So I will volunteer. Yeah. Oh my God.

That's so sad. By the way, I made a little mistake of the podcast. The other day talking about the Pacers. I said Omar Epps was courtside for the Pacers. That was Mike Epps. was court side for the page. My apology to everyone involved.

Got some media headlines for you, David. All right. As we woke up this morning, Warner Brothers Discovery announced it was splitting into two parts. Oh, yeah. Part one is going to be streaming in studios. And part two, as often part two is in these stories, is going to be the cable channels.

CNN, TNT and, forth. The cable channels are going to get these sports rights in the divorce, which is interesting because T&T not only had French Open on this weekend and that men's final that everyone was watching, but there was a story out, I believe it was, remember who reported this, but they are going to license a college football semi-final game from ESPN. I think Ross Delinger actually reported that in May or was it last May, so I guess this shouldn't count as news, but it is news. It's a weird thing. I'm not exactly sure. What is this just like? We're trying to prop up the entire cable bundle right now. Is that what ESPN's motive is here? Or they just have too many college football games

to go around? I mean, I don't know. It's so strange. I would expect lighting money on fire to pay for all these sports rights and needing to claw a little bit of it back. Okay. That makes sense. The answer to that question. But like, by definition, there's only two semi-finals. Yeah. So you are selling one of them or licensing one of them to another network. That's a big when you bought the entire college football playoff, not just those first round games that Turner had been taken over for them. So that was... I mean, it's not a terrible idea if you're allowed to do it, right?

It's just like if you have the money to buy the whole, to buy the entire package, you know, it's like, you, then you just like, you sublet, basically, right? It's like, listen, I have enough money to live in this apartment all by myself. But if somebody wants to pay me like a million dollars to live in my guest bedroom, come on in. You know,

you could take over the place for a while. Yeah, it is very weird. The, the, the, the, the,

time war and discovery thing is not terribly shocking. It follows sort of the breakdown of some of these previous splits that have happened. And, um, townware discovery was kind of,

has been in a perpetually awkward state since they merged. But yeah, I mean, this, it's, I guess that counts. is big media news. We're getting HBO Max back, so some people are excited.

I had just gotten used to Max, frankly. Yeah, I'd give it in, too. Now we get to have the slightly better title, but it's too late. Do you follow the Terry Moran Twitter controversy? Yes, I did. He is a senior national correspondent

at ABC News, and at 12.06 a.m., that was the timestamp here. He started tweeting about Stephen Miller. The thing about Stephen Miller is not that he is the brains behind Trumpism, Terry Moran writes. Yes, he is one of the people who conceptualizes the impulses of the Trumpist movement and translates him into policy. But that's not what's interesting about Miller. It's not brains, it's bile.

Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He's a world-class hater. You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spirit. nourishment. He eats his hate. Trump is a world-class hater, but his hatred only, his hatred only a means to an end. And that end is his own glorification. That's his spiritual nourishment. So that was a lot for 1206 a.m. Sometimes you read a tweet and you're like, was that, was that supposed to be a DM? This clearly was not. No, it was too well put together and kind of too well-pired together to be like under the influence of anything. But who knows? You would

assume from a late-night tweet that was so misguided. There is some sort of substance involved. I know nothing of Terry Moran, so don't mean to impugn the man's integrity. It's also a point that I think, like, it's just, I feel like has been made so many times before, you know, how many, like Stephen Miller, like, Smeagel jokes have there been out there? You know, like, this is just, this is, this is something I feel like I've heard. And it's not, I guess, in all in all, I think the thing is it's not particularly incisive or deep. You know, it's just like, this guy's a hate,

hater is just the dumbest word, especially in this context. Yes. This guy is filled with violent hate, okay. He's a world-class hater. Yeah. It's just more weird that it happened. And of course, Terry Moran's been suspended. And of course, everyone up to it, including J.D. Vance has said they are offended by this tweet.

No. Which, of course, they are not. No one's offended by this. Robbie Sov, who is not going to be accused of being a liberal, tweeted this. It was obviously not a great idea for a senior news correspondent to tweet such a sentiment. But look, this whole news opinion distinction among mainstream networks no longer makes much sense. New media is full of people just giving their take, even if the take is Stephen Miller as a charmless vampire. If you don't like it, don't subscribe.

Cringe of the White House to complain about this, cowardly of ABC to comply. yeah i mean it's cringe of the white house to complain about it but not shocking i mean that's course they're going to complain about it this scores them points dude they might even trump might get a 20 million dollar lawsuit settlement out of this you know like you know uh but yeah i mean come on it's it's not not utterly shocking and was it like sad of them to comply i mean i don't know if they complied i think that maybe if the white house said nothing you still may have been suspended you may not get suspended before they said anything like you know it's this is the sort of thing that you suspend someone for.

I don't know if I agree with it. I definitely don't agree with it. I mean, God, so much of it depends on knowing the person. But, yeah, I mean, I don't agree with it, but it doesn't shock me that somebody would be suspended over saying something like this, right? No, no. I mean, it feels like there is, however unfair it is,

that journalists should have to be priests and that people in an administration, particularly this administration, could just say anything they want. And that those are the rules. It's like, oh, you called him a hater. You, sir, have overstepped your bounds. Oh, yeah, I totally agree with the distinction between, you know, hard news and opinion piece of the argument for sure. I mean, yeah, but just as, let's just say as as crazy as that crazy quilt is. Yes, for a news, for a news guy who works at ABC News to tweet that, he knew.

he was going to get in trouble for that, right? There's a certain Jim Acosta quality to like, hey, I'm going to press the button here. Yeah. And maybe tomorrow I'm going to wake up suspended. And I don't think you're just trying to like on Twitter doing just, you know, I'm just trying to do some deep analysis of the administration I'm covering. He was interviewing Trump in the Oval Office not that long ago. Yeah. I mean, listen, in a perfect world, people would be smart enough to distinguish an opinion from the journalistic efforts.

And that sort of stuff wouldn't matter. But none of this is too shocking. And final headline, David, journalism lost a sovereignty at the Belmont. Do you have to redo the pins again? No, no, the pens are at the printers. Okay. Journalism won once, damn it. Journalism, the horse.

Oh, my gosh. I can't believe they lost the sovereignty. Finally, a batch of sliding doors metaphors for you, David. Yeah. I keep thinking we've run this feature into the ground, but they keep coming in from our brilliant listeners. This is from Polly K. Sliding Door nominations for the press box.

Once more to the breach and band of brothers. Fun fact, I have read Henry V. Thank you, Polly. This comes from our friend Michael Moynihan in Ireland. Great sliding doors today. Can I suggest Joyceian? Oh, yeah. I mean, the number of people that have read Joyce, is that the, is that what's in question here?

I believe so. Tilting at windmills. I think that's one that people do know, but I don't, but maybe not. Well, there's, there's nowhere it came from and have read Don Quixote. Yeah. Right? Like, we had a lot of people send us quixotic, you know, and I think you're, there's probably a good, probably a pretty good ratio. Remember, it's just the ratio. It's not necessarily knowing where it came from, but, uh, one hand continues, slouching towards Bethlehem and the center cannot hold all of Yeats, which is really funny. Those come from the same poem, by the way, which is called the Second Coming.

Sisyphian, Lilliputian, Vognarian. I almost actually bought a copy of Gulliver's Travels this weekend from an estate sale. Got some great mystery novels from one of the just incredibly most comprehensive home mystery collections ever. but I picked up Gulliver's Travels and I was like, oh, this will be a nice illustrated edition. I was like, I'll get this from my, I'll read it to my child in bed and then I started ringing it out loud. And I was like, no, I'm not actually going to,

not going to do this one. Michael Moynihan also adds Marxist. It's pretty funny, given that sloppy deployment of that word. Dennis Reichold also brings us back to Jonathan Swift, David, a modest proposal. Uh-huh. How many people have made modest proposals in print?

Oh, yeah. Versus how many of them have read a modest proposal. Yes. Robbie Carroll gives us the butterfly effect. In this case, I have read a sound of thunder by Ray Bradbury, but I'm not sure how many people who make that reference have. It doesn't count if you've just seen the butterfly effect with Keanu Reeves. Is that count?

I thought it was Ashton Coochre. Was it Keanu Reeves? Oh, maybe it was, yeah. This is where we need Bobby to step in. Eamon O'Neill gives us Z-Lig, which is probably, Pretty funny because I feel like no one younger than us or very few people younger than us have seen Zeeleig. But probably understand the reference. A great one from Elijah Wolfson, Pollyanna.

Oh, God, that is a good one. How many people have read the 1913 novel by Eleanor H. Porter? And here are two of my favorites. Tex Avery gives us Rube Goldberg device Yeah We'll know that

Rub Goldberg What is the bar in that one You have to have Familiarize yourself With a Rube Goldberg An actual Rube Goldberg device Um I don't think so

Watch it watch an episode of Looney Tunes Where a Rube Goldberg Type Vice was was created Do we do would we put it at Knowing Rube Goldberg Was a cartoonist who worked in a newspaper Yeah, I guess that works. I think that's the line for me.

And this is from Alicia Butler, my friend and your friend Alicia Butler. Keystone Cops. That's a great one. Coming up in 30 seconds, Alan Siegel on The Simpsons. But first, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Senior nominees are at the press box pod where they are always, always gratefully received. No surprise here, David. The winners were Elon Trump breakup jokes.

Yeah. Are you ready for some of my favorites? Please. With Elon and Trump getting a divorce, who will get custody of cat turd? We would have also accepted that joke, but with Scott Jennings. We continue here. This is like the Kendrick versus Drake, but with two drakes. A pick of Donald Trump shaking hands with Mark Zuckerberg and saying,

Your name is Elon now. Bill Ackman is currently writing the longest post in the history of the app. That's good. Our friend Pat Moldowney tweeted this, All Things Considered really tough day for Mason Rudolph. Steelers fans only, but that one hit me hard. And finally, truly, we live in a doge, eat doge. world. If you finally unblocked Elon, congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week.

All right. In the notebook dump, David, we need to bring in our friend Alan Siegel. He is the ringer's Hollywood bureau chief. It's one of my best friends. And he's now an author of a great new book called Stupid TV, Be More Funny, How the Golden Era of the Simpsons changed television and America. forever. It's out right now. You are commanded to buy it. Alan, welcome back to the press box. Thanks for having me on, guys. It is surreal to be able to talk about the Simpsons in a professional context, which, you know, I think I've been bothering everybody with for the last 10 years. Yeah, a lot of lunchtime conversations about the Simpsons. I'm glad we got it down in print. This is how we make the money. I thought we'd start here. So the Simpsons debuts on its

own in December 89. It had originally been a cartoon inside the Tracy Oman show. Alan, can you read us some early Simpsons reviews from TV critics? Absolutely. So this is a rare time where the critics got it right almost immediately, which is pretty impressive. And I guess that's how stunning the show was, at least at the beginning. So here's Howard Rosenberg from the L.A. time. They're a pickering family of five, lovable mutants with yellow skin, golf ball eyes, and no resemblance to the Brady Bunch. Do not miss this half hour. It's a flat out howl. It's also warm, I think.

So that's the first big rave for sure. Wow. It sounded like Howard was kind of writing for the poster there, but please continue. So, okay, so then I'm going to move to a strained pun headline immediately. This is from a piece called It's a Wonderful Life and then Parentheticals in Hell. That's a reference to Matt Graney's comic strip, Life in Hell. And let's see. So this is like really prophetic.

The Simpsons might end up on kids' lunchboxes someday, but they're really ready for grownups who grew up on the Flintstones and the Jetsons. And if they're wonderfully zesty pilot as any indication, the Simpsons are destined for the TV cartoon Hall of Fame. Pretty good. Yeah. Pretty good. Was the overwhelming, were the reviews overwhelmingly positive when the show first came out? I would say overwhelmingly positive. There was like a little bit of sort of adult skepticism, which is how I would describe a lot of reaction to the show.

For example, James Enders from the Hartford Current, he called the show an acquired taste and he called Bart, Evil Kid Incarnate. So there was definitely like a little bit of, oh my God, this kid says hell and damn to his parents. And it's scary. And this critic also compared it to married with children. Yeah. He's not totally wrong about both those things, by the way. It is kind of an acquired taste. And that was part of, I think, what made the Simpsons magical in the 90s was there was this big divide between people that got it and people that didn't get it.

There definitely, there was sort of a misconception about the show that it was. was not only transgressive, but just like anti-family. Like that critic that I just mentioned literally said, you know, it's joining a spate of anti-family sitcoms like married with children, which, again, is really weird because the Simpsons, even back then, like, it was the ultimate family show. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I guess you got to, you correct me if I'm wrong.

You're the expert. But, I mean, I think the important thing about the Simpsons is that they were deliberately playing into tropes and then subverting them, right? I mean, and that was, it's been a long time as I watched the first season. Was that immediately obvious and should the reviewers have got that right off the bat?

Absolutely. I mean, in the first episode, you know, you have sort of this dueling crazy stuff and then really family stuff like the family is struggling to make ends meet to pay for Christmas presents and then Bart gets a tattoo in the same episode. Right.

And then, you know, those two things play off each other and by the end, they adopt a dog from the Greyhound track. And it's like the most, it's the most wholesome thing you could, you could ever get. And again,

it was a very smart move by the creators of the show like Matt Graining, Sam Simon, and James L. Brooks to sort of use that family dynamic to soften the real subversive elements of it. A couple of big moments in all three of our

childhood slash teenage years. First comes in the fall of 1990 when the Simpsons switches to Thursday, nights to go up against the Cosby show. Alan, what did that represent culturally speaking in America? So the Cosbys at the time were, you know, the number one show in America and they had been for years.

And Barry Diller, the head of Fox and, you know, Rupert Murdoch, who was the head of the whole company, Barry Diller was the studio head. Like, they really wanted to make a splash. It was kind of like, let's put it in ringer terms. It was like when you have a sports team that has an easy road to a championship, like people sort of are like, maybe there's like an asterisk there. They didn't have to beat anybody. But they really wanted to go after the number one show because Fox at the time was still

kind of a fledgling network. So they really wanted to put it against the number one show. And the funny thing is, is like the people who made The Simpsons were really pissed about it. They were like, we have this cash cow and you're going to risk. screwing it up with, you know, by putting it against the number one show in America. And it's kind of a testament to how good the show was that not only did they survive it, like they almost beat the Cosby's week to week. Yeah, it's really incredible.

The Thursday time slot was like how much of America, the point of your book, or one of the messages of your book is how The Simpsons change in America. And that's, you know, a subtitle that we get to a lot in book publishing. But I think you really make the compelling case here, right? I mean, like, was, do you remember, and we were pretty young at the time, do you remember there being the Simpsons versus Cosby Show argument there in the Thursday, for Thursday nights when you got to school on Friday morning or whatever? So I don't know if we were talking about ratings in second grade,

but I will say, like, a great moment that I think sums it up was this battle, this ratings battle was the lead story on entertainment tonight. Think about that today. Like, I remember John Tesh was the anchor at the time, and he was talking about it. And they interviewed people from The Simpsons just about like almost beating the Cosbys. And again, like, I don't think that today there would ever be a story like that. Like it's a cliche, but like we just don't have that kind of monoculture anymore. It's really interesting too because I think, and again, I think I speak for the three of us.

There were a lot of people that were raised on Cosby. I'm like, this show is awesome. And then the Simpsons came along. you almost switch teams. You're like, no, actually this is the awesome and superior show, just because you gotten older. Yeah. And you're sort of funny.

I remember, like, had a middle school teacher who was not a cool teacher at all in any circumstance. And then one day we came in and she just had a Bart doll hanging from the ceiling. Like, as a, she was team Bart. And we were like, whoa, you are. You have gone up in our estimation. Uh, something fierce. I do want to ask you too, Alan, about another moment. A couple years later, in the middle of a presidential campaign,

President George H.W. Bush picked a fight with The Simpsons. How did that start? And what in the world was he doing? So there had sort of been like minor beef between the Bushes and the Simpsons. Like Barbara Bush was quoted in a People magazine interview in 1990, saying it was the dumbest show she'd ever seen. And that led to a fun back and forth where the Simpsons producers sent a letter in the voice of March

sort of politely defending her family. And that led to like a really nice little exchange, like Barbara sent them a note back. And you sort of thought it was dead. But then when Bush was running in 92, one of his speechwriters, Kurt Smith, he watched The Simpsons and he just didn't like it. He thought the word he used, I think, was uncivil.

He thought it was crass. He sort of misread the show as being anti-examines. family, anti-heartland. And so he slipped a line into his boss's speech. So the first time Bush said this was at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in January 92. So you had people like Billy Graham and James Dobson from Focus on the Family. They were there. And so as part of his speech, he said, we need more families like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons. And that is an incredible time capsule because the Waltons was a show set in the depression that was made in the 70s. And it just, it was a very memorable quote. And like it started

showing up in all these newspapers like the New York Times. Their recap it, the kicker of the story was that quote. But again, it totally misread what the show represented. Like, as I've been saying ad nauseum now, people in Nebraska watch the Simpsons. People in Texas watch the Simpsons. And so I wouldn't say that it cost Bush the election, but it definitely was a sign of him being out of touch. I've completely forgotten how the Simpsons responded to this, which you recount in the book. They watched the clip of Bush, and then Bart says, hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end of the Depression, too, which is a very funny 1992 joke. And the thing with that is they repeated it.

So Bush said that line again before the Republican National Convention or a version of it, And immediately the show replayed that sort of fake cold open with them watching the footage of the speech. Was this, do you think that that back and forth was a part of the Simpson sort of pop culture takeover? Did that actually positively affect it? And if not, or even if so, what do you think was the real moment that led the Simpsons sort of crossover to kind of grow beyond that cultural divide if ever was one. I think it's hard to pinpoint exactly, but so you had the first season of the show, which was just a complete phenomenon, right? So Brian has heard me talk about this, but in the first year of the show alone, they sold 15 million BART T-shirts. They're mostly part T-shirts.

And so you had this giant phenomenon. And I think a lot of people didn't realize quite how good the show was, but I would say 92 and Bush talking about it from the campaign stuff. like oddly did legitimize it. And it sort of showed like, this isn't just a flash in the pan. It's a genuine cultural phenomenon that again, the sitting president is critiquing it from the campaign stump.

When did the Simpsons stop being funny, Alan? That's a tough question. So I would say the dividing line would probably be about season nine is when people started to talk about, how it wasn't as good as it was anymore. I mean, the show was a victim of its own success. It was so damn good for those seven to eight seasons that any drop off would be really noticeable. And I mean, the original writers, most of them left and some animators left. And it just like wasn't quite the

same thing. And the funny thing is, is if you look at message boards from like 1992, people were saying the show is going to shit. So this is a. a cycle that happens in TV. But yeah, it was definitely noticeable by then. That's so funny. I mean, there's a point to which the show being so brilliant was a little bit beside the point at the beginning. I mean, I know it was like, like, when you talk about all the t-shirt, I remember those t-shirts. I have a vivid. And my mind immediately goes to my friend Bridget's front yard and seeing another friend wearing the shirt. But all those shirts were Bart saying like, like, Kawabunga Dude or don't have a cowman, which was like more significant in the early

seasons, but not a real representation of him as a character at all. So was it, was it a, I mean, was it a merchandising machine that happened to be brilliant? Or was it a brilliant show that happened to make great t-shirts? I think it was kind of both. And the funny thing is, it's a cop-out, I know. But the funny thing is, the funny thing is about those catchphrases is that the writers told me that, like, they were supposed to be satirical. Like, it was supposed to be like, Bart is impressionable and he watches TV and he hears somebody say, eat my shorts and he copies it, which is fun. But then you think about it and is like, is that kind of bullshit? I don't know. But the point is, it's just very ironic. They're trying to satir satirize like this consumerist

phenomenon of like, you know, capitalizing on, you know, bad TV catchphrases. And yet the show is doing the same thing and making hundreds of millions of dollars off of it. I thought we'd end with a lightning round, David. And Alan's quick reads on a few things here. Usually Joel handles this, but I'm going to step in since it's a Monday. Alan, who is the main character of the Simpsons? The main character of the Simpsons is Homer. It started as Bart, and then as the show progressed, I think the writers realized that there's just more to tackle with Homer.

And George Meyer, who is legendary writer, basically said that he thinks Homer's... maybe the best character in all of fiction. And if you look at every comedic TV show, like with an oaf at the head of it, like you have the Simpsons at least partially to thank. Who is your favorite Simpsons character? I would say, sideshow Bob.

I think like there's something so funny about like a basically a Republican attempted serial killer. Like he basically like if you want, if you sort of, watch him pontificate. It is like watching sort of a right-wing politician these days, just like using flash and verbal flourishes to try to get their point across in like a really surreal, evil way. What is the best Simpsons episode? I'm going to go with Mr. Plow, which, you know, if you guys haven't seen or if anybody hasn't seen it, it's, you know, Barney and Homer

become rival snowplow drivers. And I think it's the best example of what the right talked about why they love working on The Simpsons, which was making TV that you couldn't do in live action. So, you know, there's these big snowstorms and it's just an incredibly surreal episode. And there's like a fake commercial with Linda Ronstadt singing. It's like something that no other TV show could do. And that really was like the heart of the Simpsons at its peak. That name again is Mr. Plow. Real heads know what we're talking about.

The best Simpson's celebrity guest star who is not Kelsey Grammer. Albert Brooks by far. He did maybe, I think in the early days, three or four episodes, he was Jacques, he was Marge's bowling instructor. He was like an RV salesman and he was Hank Scorpio who is a tech billionaire who really wanted to be liked and who tried to be funny and then secretly wanted to take over the world. So there's some impressions there. You interviewed Joe Montania for the book, who plays the gangster Fat Tony, and I was very jarred to realize this was Joe Montania's longest running role in his career. Not David Mamet, none of the other wonderful things he's done. It's Fat Tony. He was very worried that this would overshadow his role in Godfather 3 because it had just come out and he like got a big, big splash with that. But I think he got over it. Thank God it did for his sake.

All right. And finally, your favorite line uttered by the late great Phil Hartman on The Simpsons? I think my favorite is when he, you know, it's a Troy McClure sort of like you've seen me in such films as get confidence stupid is probably my favorite. Or maybe dig your own grave and save is maybe number two. So yeah. I was going to go with you might know me from such educational films as lead paint, delicious but deadly. And here comes the metric system. And I think designated drivers, the nerds who save our lives might be up there as well. So I can't help it. I can't help it, guys. I can't help it.

All right. The book is Stupid TV. Be more funny. You need to go by it right now or lose our number. Alan, thanks for coming on the press box. Thanks, guys. David, it's time for a feature that always benefits from Troy McClure Voice. It's time for David Shoemaker guesses, the strained pun headline.

Yeah. Last Monday's headline about the black eye Elon Musk got from his son was X marks the spot. Today's headline comes to us from listener Michael Salerno. It's from the Atlantic. A story about something that annoys both of us, David. AI slop, particularly the AI slop that is creeping into American newspapers. You saw that Chicago Sun-Time summer books list that had been. books that did not actually exist.

So Slop is taking over the newspaper. What was the Atlantic's strained pun headline? Am I using the word slop? Is slop like a term of art here? Yes. Slop is your phrase that pays. Slop. Slop. What if we think of newspaper movies?

Slop. Oh. maybe an editor character in a newspaper movie uttering a particularly profound phrase right as we get to deadline or maybe a shade past deadline this editor character says slop the presses

slop the presses thank you very much sir some good work there by the Atlantic he is David Shoemaker I'm Brian Curtis but thanks a magic by Kyle Crichton Coming up Thursday on the press box, Logan Murdoch is going to join Joel and I to talk some NBA finals, talk about the critical turnaround on Tyrese Halliburton or the critical turnaround before game two anyway. David, I'll see you in this spot one week from today with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, bud.

See you later, Brian.