The Prestige TV Podcast - Everything We've Learned While Watching 'Big Mouth'

Episode Date: December 11, 2020

Amelia Wedemeyer and Danny Heifetz recount everything that 'Big Mouth' has taught them over the span of its four seasons. Hosts: Amelia Wedemeyer and Danny Heifetz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello? Oh, good evening. Are you the puberty fairy? The fuck did you just call me? The puberty fairy? I'm the hormone monster. I'm just here to give you a nocturnal emission. Last night, you spent two hours deciding what to wear to the party.

This morning, it'll take you two minutes to list it on Deepop and make your money back. Just grab your phone, snap a few photos, and we'll take care of the rest. The sheer dress and platform heels you'll never. never wear again, there's a birthday girl searching for them right now. Your one-and-done look is about to pay for your next night out, or at least the right home. Your style can make you cash. Start selling on Deepop, where Taste recognizes Taste. Hello and welcome to TV concierge, the podcast where ringer staffers help you figure out what to watch instead of just scrolling through Netflix until you give up. My name is Danny Heifitz, and I'm joined by Amelia Wademeyer,

and today we are talking about Big Mouth. There is no show I'd rather be talking about right now. There's no person I'd rather be talking about it with than you, Amelia. How are you doing? I'm doing really well. Thank you. It's so good to be here doing a podcast with you. I think the last time we did a podcast, you did a little,

you talked about fantasy football on T-time maybe. Yeah, it was like a little Avengers crossover. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yes. So it's great. It's great to be back here with you. Yeah.

So Big Mouth, Season 4. came out on Netflix last weekend. It's almost like an event now when Big Mouth comes out. I feel like it stands out even among the sea of TV where nothing stands out. Big Mouth and the Crown kind of cover everything. Cover everyone in America is covered by one of those. If you don't know, Big Mouth is the animated show about puberty. There's nothing else really like it.

It's incredible. The cast is nuts. It's created by Nick Kroll. But it also has John Mullaney, Jesse Klein, Fred Armisen, Maya Rudolph, Jordan Peel, Jason Manzookas. The cast is unbelievable. Season four came out, but we're going to mostly stick to the first few seasons. So if you haven't seen season four, we're not going to get like spoilery or anything.

You're not going to be excluded. But just to start it off, Amelia, why do you love this show? I love the show because like you said, the cast is so stacked. And I think both like the writers and the cast, they're so, they're just people that you follow on Twitter and that you love all their other shows that they've ever done. Like, I'm a huge Nick Kroll fan. huge Nick Curl fan. I loved him on the Curl show. Did you ever watch that show? I did a little bit. I didn't love the Crull show to be

honest. Really? Okay. Yeah, but this show is so much fun because it tackles like something that we've all gone through, which is puberty. And so it's like, how can you not relate to it? And they do it in such a way that it's so funny and relatable and it's not like shameful, which I love. Yeah, no, to your point. If comedy is like tragedy plus time, then this is the perfect show because everyone has their own personal tragedy of like going through puberty. And

And what I think the most amazing thing to me, and the hardest thing to convince people of until they see it is that it's dirty, but it's not toxic. It's hard to explain that. Like, yeah, there's a hormone monster and oh, he talks about his dicks and he keeps dicks in a briefcase and, you know, just sex jokes at every point. But it's strangely progressive. It is like all these. It has melded potty humor and like progressive sexual politics in this crazy mix of ways that it's like, this is the funniest thing I've seen. I get more belly laughs per minute watching this than any of the show. It's wildly inappropriate.

I don't have kids, but if I did, I'd probably let them watch this when they went through puberty. That's exactly how I feel. Because it's like a better form of sex ed than like I, it's amazing. Totally. With that said,

let's go through, we're going to do a little ping pong here. We're going to do a back and forth. Let's just go through just things we learned watching Big Mouth about ourselves or life or puberty or whatever. Just feel. We get in our feels. I'm going to make you go first because I'm 10% afraid of

fired on the show. Okay. No, say, me too. I'm a little, I'm feeling it out. But you know what? They said we could get a little weird. Okay. I blame Andrew. No, I'm kidding. Um, so I want to talk briefly about the Rock of Gibraltar, which is the book they mentioned in the season one episode, Girls are horny too. Do you remember? Oh, is this like the fake shades of gray? Yes, yes, yes. Gustavo, who turns into a horse. And Fatima, yeah, they have like a Torrid love affair. And I just, this just brought me back. Like you were saying it's, it's, it's, the show is so funny and they do so many funny and dirty bits. But they do it in such a way that is so informative and just accepting.

And I love that. And it's like, yeah, girls get horny too. And we do like to read these romance novels. It reminds me of making fun of like Cosmo magazine and then buying it solely to read like their hot reads. I don't know. with, that sounds familiar, but yeah. I've never picked up Cosmo, although I probably did and pretended not to. I guess I probably picked up the one with the cleavage on the cover and pretend to not to.

But that one's a great episode. I think that's the one where I don't remember which boy character, but one of them is like, girls get horny too and his head literally explodes. Yes, several of them. Yeah, exactly. No, that's a fantastic one. I mean, I think I have a similar, is one of just, for me, I think watching the show, looking back, something I think I kind of learned is just, oh, I see why I got Bar Midsford

when I was 13 years old. Like, they're like, oh, congratulations, you're a man now at 13. And at 13, I was like, oh, I guess I'm an adult now. And now I look back and it's like, actually, that's the age that all the little boys start wanted to jerk off. So they're like, all right, we have to have all ceremony now. And, you know, you're a member of society now. You actually can procreate.

So we're going to do a whole thing. And it's crazy to me now thinking about it, watching this, how much of our society is about we got to get these little freakazoid and this tweener, phase as far away from as possible. Like my middle school was a separate building than the elementary school and the high school. And now I get it. Now it's like, oh, yeah. It's like little kids are caterpillars and adults are beautiful butterflies.

And like puberty is this cocoon where it's like, let's not, you don't want to look inside. Like this is a gross period. And I guess you know it's the awkward years in the moment, but seeing it was so awkward for everyone else is so reassuring. Oh, 100%. And that you mentioned that your middle school was separate. My middle school was separate as well. And they had grades 6, 7, 8, and 9.

So we took the, like, even the most awkward year of high school was back in the middle school. And I just remember those years were full of just really, like, greasy hair, bad skin, and just the most awkward, like, adolescent urges. So I told, I, oh, my God, when you say cocoon of like, yeah, I get that. Like a hot, sweaty cocoon. So when you're in middle school, did you have like sex ed in middle school? Because some of the best scenes in the show, I think, are involving sex. The first scene of the show is sex ed.

Yes. Maybe the funniest one. It's totally. So we had sex ed, I think, in like seventh or eighth grade. But it was so shameful because they had us take home like a, the section of the health book. And they're like, okay, well, we're getting into the, they called it the meat and potatoes. my health teacher called it the meat and potatoes. And he was like, okay, so we're going to do this unit.

It's going to be take home. And you guys are just, you know, going to go through the packet and fill it out. And then... What do you mean the meat and potatoes? Meat like... Like, meat is the penis? Like, what is the meat and potatoes of the sex ed class? I don't know.

He was just like, this is... It was in the health class. And he was just like, this part of health class is the meat and potatoes. And so we were all like, oh, all right. What a terrible phrase to you is. It was a little weird. But we literally never discussed it in class. It was all outside of class.

So I just, like you're saying, I think, God, I would have benefited so much if I had this show back in the day. I mean, this just shows you that we need a better sex education in this country. But, you know, I'm not even going to go. Yeah, no, I mean, I feel you on that too because I think one of the best parts of the show is the shame wizard in season two. He's not like the funniest character, but this idea that this dark, like he's like a dementer from Harry Potter descends on you for your thoughts. And I think that's such an important thing because you learn all these words about puberty. It's like puberty and you're going through hormonal changes and you learn like the words. But what they don't prepare you for is you're going to have some weird fucking thoughts.

You're going to have some weird shit in your head. And it's a startling concept to say, hey, you can have bad thoughts but not be a bad person. As long as you control how you act on those things. And that is such a hard lesson to learn and you probably learned it by failing over and over and over again. But that's such a brilliant thing to. introduced because I think that's the part of it that's missing. It's like you're going to have bad things and that can be separated from who you are. So the thing I keep coming back to is there's a one episode from season four.

I don't remember it's the first or the second, but there's a character having an argument with one of the hormone monsters, which are these little monsters that follow them around and are their horniness embodied. And it's the best part of the show. But one of them has an argument with the. Bonnie. Bumble back. But there's an argument with the hormone monster. and the character's like, I don't want to go through puberty.

And the hormone monster is like, nobody likes puberty. That's why they made the fucking show. That was a good impression. I'll take it. But that to me, it's such a great idea. And I think that I think the shame part

is so crucial to all of it. But anyway, all right. So Cosmo magazines, you get why. And then better sex ed. What's the third thing you learn? for Big Mac. The third thing I kind of learned, and there are so many things I feel like I learn watching this show.

But something I think is really important, and I know they addressed it in the fourth season and when they were taking a break and everything. But, you know, representation matters. I know that's not the most sexy thing to realize, but

I just think that only, like, fairly recently has this become something that I really think about. And obviously you cannot see me because this is on a podcast, but I am Asian. And I just remember growing up and there just weren't a lot of Asian people I saw on shows. And even though this is like an animated show, they do a really great job of just giving us a lot of diversity with these characters. And even I know they had Jenny Slate, who I absolutely love. They actually

replaced her in this fourth season. She voices, I think, up to episode eight, maybe, and Missy goes through transformation. But with someone named Iyo Edibiri, who is a black actress, and she's great. And but again, it's just, it's, you know, it's really great to see them, you know, preach these things and then actually back it up with, by doing, you know, actionable change, which I appreciate. So, I mean, when, when you were growing up and you were going through. puberty is weird that, I mean, at that period in time, a lot of the people being sexualized in culture were white men and white women, obviously. Yeah. I mean, I didn't really think about it

that much just because I went to like a really predominantly white school. I'm adopted so both my parents are white and stuff. And I just didn't, it wasn't something I really thought about, to be honest. And only recently have I started to actually think about those kinds of things, which I'm like kind of embarrassed to say. But, um, but, but, but. Yeah, and only recently, I think, have they become something that's important to me because it is, I mean, you know, representation, you know, does matter. So again, it's, it's just good to see not only, like, racially diverse, but just sexually diverse. And, you know, they've portrayed people with disabilities and whatnot. And again, I think, but I think it's so great that

they include all these perspectives. So. Yeah. And I mean, the mystic characters, you mentioned, there's a, there's a great episode where they go visit her. So she's half black, her father's black, and they go visit her father's family in Atlanta. And so there's her white mother, and she confronts kind of her identity with the black family. And it's really a funny episode. But there's a lot of things. Like one of my favorite episodes is the Guy Town from season two or three. I can't remember.

And Matthew, who's one of the gay characters, and he meets this older gay man who just tells him like, so I'm like being young, mean, and gay is not a personality. And it's just, it's funny. Like the diversity of experiences is really funny. But to me, the thing that I, I think the most jarring part to me watching the show is just the experience of women. Like that, that's the thing I've learned the most about.

Specifically, there's a great scene where Jesse was like the young redhead girl is watching porn. And obviously the porn is made for men. And she, you know, the guy, you know, who ups at his dick and like, you know, the thing's like a freaking egg plant or something.

It's huge. And she looks at it and she's like, is that supposed to go inside me? Which is hilarious. But I don't think until I saw that moment did it click for me what representation and body image and how impactful it can be on young women? Because you know, you hear about that stuff and you hear how important representation is. You hear how important or how molded young women can be with body image and all these ideas of identity. But until I thought about it, like, holy shit, young women and I mean young people in general, their first exposure to porn.

And the show handles porn so intelligently where this is not even like skewing what they think. This is just what they think. They watch this shit. This is their only exposure to what they think sex is. And what young women think they have to sound like, what they think they have to do, what they think they have, who they think they have to be watching this stuff. I don't think I ever really grasped how crazy monumentally large the challenge of like trying to navigate young women through this weird time on the internet was until I saw that. And then you layer things like race and sexuality on top of that. And it's freaking hard to be a kid right now.

It's crazy. And that's why I love the show so much. It's just and also, but the best part though is it's educational at its core because it's doing all that for you while making you laugh so hard. You don't realize you're learning. And that's really what education is supposed to be, right? That's the best part. No.

And it's, it's mind blowing. And even I was thinking about that episode, I think it's in the second season where they talk about it's the Planned Parenthood episode. like that is like it was education at its core but they did it in such like a fun way with like these four vignettes of little mini stories and it was like they spoofed the bachelor and they had like some like Star Trek references it was just so funny and entertaining but also like you learned a bunch about Planned Parenthood so just amazing amazing job it's amazing job Amelia you did an amazing job this was an amazing job oh my

God. I had a great time. Kaya, thank you for producing. This was TV concierge. Check out Big Mouth. Season 4 on Netflix is out now and subscribe to TV concierge if you want. You know how to subscribe a podcast by now. Thank you, everyone for listening. Thank you, Kai and Amelia. See you next episode.