The Prestige TV Podcast - Fantasy Drafting Animals From 'A Perfect Planet'

Episode Date: February 22, 2021

Craig Horlbeck and Danny Heifetz from 'The Ringer Fantasy Football Show' talk about their love for 'A Perfect Planet,' narrated by David Attenborough, and then fantasy draft some animals that appear in the documentary series. Hosts: Craig Horlbeck and Danny Heifetz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are so beautiful. They say perfection doesn't exist, but that's not quite true. Can't you see it? There is one planet where every element has fallen into place perfectly. Planet to volcanoes, to weather systems, ocean currents, to the heat of the sun. these forces allowed life on earth to flourish. Welcome to TV concierge, a podcast on the Ringer podcast network that helps you navigate the vast streaming landscape.

And we'll be discussing landscapes today or the lack thereof because we're discussing perfect planet, which should maybe be called an imperfect planet, a show on Discovery Plus about the infinite wonders of the earth and the ways that humans are ruining it. I'm your host for today's episode, Craig Horlebeck. I'm here with Danny Hyphitz. We are co-hosts on the Ringer Fantasy Football Show

with Danny Kelly, High Fits. Tell us a little bit about a perfect planet. This is my new religion. I think that this is, I don't want to be hyperbolic, but I'm serious. I think that this is the best use of TV as a medium.

I mean, this is in the family of like Planet Earth, Planet Earth 2. It's the same crew. It's BBC. It's David Attenborough. They make Perfect Planet. This one is five episodes. It's called A Perfect Planet.

It's on Discovery Plus, which, I mean, who knew that was a thing, right? But hey, they got me there. it's five episodes so it's volcanoes the sun weather tides and humanity those are like the five forces shaping wildlife right now and it's just you know if you ever seen planet earth one or planet earth two it's like that but just great again it took them four years to film the freaking thing they went to 31 countries they captured six different volcanic eruptions i don't know what else you could possibly want in a show they're showing you know marine iguanas and all these stuff you've never heard of and also discovery plus it's like you get the first seven days free it's like 699 a month you can cancel it before you pay for the first month. It's five episodes. This is my favorite type of television. And I honestly could not recommend it higher. Yeah. So I signed up for the $6.99 a month.

Hyfitz basically was like, yo, you got to watch Perfect Plan. I was like, okay, I'll do it. I already forgot about the $6.99. I'll probably pay Discovery $5,000 by the time I die because I will never cancel it. I'm not actually going to remember to cancel. No, me neither. It's incredibly worth it. How did you, like, what was your biggest takeaway? Because it's kind of, it's such an overwhelming show. Like, your point is so right about it's the best use of the television medium. Because this show just smacks you in the face with the, like,

with things you can't even imagine. I don't know. What was your main takeaway after watching this? It's hard to talk about it like I lived in L.A. for too long because you start talking about it and then eventually you get into the mystical oneness of all things. You know what I mean? It's like, oh my God, like life itself. But I think my biggest takeaway from it, I mean, first of all, obviously, it's visually, it's beautiful. You're seeing monkeys staring at their own reflection. You're seeing fire ants in a colony floating through

the flooded forest of the Amazon. Like the actual imagery is insane. They have way too many volcano shots. Like live magma flowing. Maybe I'm just basic. But you know what? The fact that liquid rock is a thing just flowing, I could watch that for 10 hours. You said there's way too many? No, not enough. More volcano shots. A lot. It's great. Not overwhelming. I'm welled. I was very welled with the magma. But that that's just like the surface level. It's not just because it's pretty. I think that I watch this show what I think of, and really just the lineage of Planet Earth 1, planet two, these kinds of it took five years to film and we have all these things. It gets me thinking about the circle of life.

And specifically, it's like, obviously, you know, humans live, die, born, and repeat. But this show shows all the other shapes. Humans, we think of it as a circle. But in reality, all these other species have such radically different life cycles and things that we take to be like capital T truths about life and life. and death and rebirth and our experience is just one woven fabric of this larger quilt in that all these other animals have completely different lives and like completely different relationships with their mothers, their fathers, their ancestors. They never meet their parents, things like that.

You're just born on the Serengeti and you're a wildebeest. And by the way, there's a lion coming if you right right now fucking run, run. It's insane. And I think that what never gets old to me is seeing how each of these species actually really do different lives, live different lives. Well, and they're having to live more and more different lives every year because of human beings, which is the fifth episode. I mean, the real scope of the show is basically the first four are, this is each aspect of what makes the world go around, what makes every animal live, and how they depend. How beautiful it is.

And how they depend on the sun, volcanoes, the oceans, and the weather to live and how it affects their lives. And then the fifth episode is just like, just dumps on the entire thing. And it's like, well, that humans came in and industrial. The actual world and now all the animals are dying. This is why we can't have nice things. No, it's a funny approach because these nature docs are so nice and peaceful. And then Al Gore had to go and fuck everything up. And then now we have to talk about the whole climate death thing.

And so now it's like, how do you do this? Because like planet Earth 2... You can't not say it now. It's quite literally the elephant in the room. Exactly. And the elephants are dying, by the way. That sucks. But Planet Earth 2, it was kind of like it would be 55 minutes of beauty and then five minutes of,

but it's all dying and sad. And then Netflix. did the Our Planet, and they paid a billion dollars to get Attenberg and Air rated, but it wasn't the same. And then that was just like, you know what? Screw it. Every one of these little stories, every eight minutes will end all sad. And then this one was like four episodes of happiness.

Fifth is just all sad. I kind of like that balance of it, honestly. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely, it hits home a bit harder, which I think is the damn point. And it should be the point. I don't think I should leave this documentary being like, the world is beautiful anyway. I'm going to go drive my car. I shouldn't think

like that. I definitely left the show some guilt, shame as a human being, not only just for like what we're doing to the world, but also me personally not contributing to trying to save the world. Like, I really know how to recycle. What do you mean? Like, do you really know how to recycle?

I feel like I don't even totally understand how to properly recycle. It's like I get my little jelly jar and then I'm out of jelly and I wash it out. I'm like, you know, when can I recycle it? Like, I don't even know this. Paper straws. I get annoyed at them. Is that in the top 1,000 things we're going to have to do to fix the planet? No, it still annoys me.

I want back to plastic straws. And I watch this and I'm like, wow, like we're actually going to have to change the way we live our lives. And I'm just every time I put cardboard near the trash can, I'm like, wow, I wonder where that's actually going now. Yeah. And when you see all these people, there's like kids all over the world helping plant trees in Africa to make this green wall to try and save the desert. And people in the Amazon trying to bring back the trees. And it's like, man. I'm on Twitch watching people play Minecraft.

We're doing fantasy. We're doing fantasy football rankings. Speaking of which You want to just like recklessly rank some animals Sure So we got to do awards first What are you going to do? Buy low, sell high MVP

What are we supposed to do Branch out too much? No, it's not If I learned one thing about the show It's about stay in your niche Right, who's your uh So if you were going to do a buy low Who's a by low?

Explain what a buy low is Bylow is I mean, you know, buy someone it's cheap I feel like if people get it Right You don't want to buy high Dude, I gotta go with those wildebeests on the Serengeti.

Can I say something? I mean, this is embarrassing. Yeah. This is a safe space, even though it's a podcast, but it's a safe space. People are going to listen to. I'm not 100% confident

that wildebeest are still around. I thought they're like Sabre 2 Tigers. Like we do trivia on our fantasy show. If somebody was like, Craig, are wildebeest still alive? I would have thought about it. Sure. I mean, it's barely.

That was my takeaway. One out of ten of them makes it to adulthood. Yeah, I don't know if I, like, associate them with woolly mammoths or something, but when I just hear the word wildebeest, I was like, damn, I don't know if I knew those were around still. Why are they a by low for you?

Oh, I just, I mean, I'm just the perseverance. I think anyone who has to get born and just, like, start running from predators within, like, 90 seconds, really impresses me. I also, like, respect the show because they showed a lot of birth, which usually doesn't make it to TV, but honestly, you know what? You know, we're dudes.

Like, you know, we probably should not. not, you know, really complain about that. Like, I thought it was actually wild, like, to see, I don't know, will the bees fall out, stand up, wobble, and then just run. That was crazy. Yeah, we watch sharks give birth, too, in the oceans episode. They really just, immediately, they're just out. They're ready to go.

But then they pop them out. And then they're like, all right, peace. Like, I'll see later. Like, someone just leaving like a, like a party and you're just like never going to see that person again. It'd be like, if the second you had a baby, you're like, hey, you got to go get lunch for yourself. Like, what are you going to do for lunch today?

Like, you start walking away from someone. You say goodbye. and then you walk in the same direction. Like, oh, I'm going, and you know what to say? Like, that's the Sharks giving birth. You're like, no, I got my dinner planned. I don't, I'm not sure what you're doing.

My Bailo is, I'm going to just give it to all birds. There's a lot of birds in the episode. My Bilo is on birds because everyone hates birds. What the fuck hates birds? Everybody fucking gets birds. Birds singing is like famously a great thing. No, it's another take of mine. I think birds singing in the morning people,

at the end of the day, I'd rather not have it. It's annoying. It's cute. It sounds pleasant for like 30 seconds. Then you're like, okay, I'd rather... Do you get those Instagram ads that are like birds aren't real? And I don't know if it's a merch company making memes or a meme company selling merch, but they're like, birds aren't, birds are like a government surveillance thing. And I'm like, why is Jeff Bezos made birds? Yeah, it's like, why does Instagram think I want to buy these shirts? Maybe it's because I did a West World Pod. Okay, but here's why I was baffled by birds. I think it's just like the physical feats that birds can accomplish are so impressive and underrated. There were birds that had to fly literally thousands of miles. without a break to get to a habitat that they can live in. Every year they do it.

10,000 mile trips these birds make. I hated that because at first they were like really fat and they were joking that they couldn't get off the ground. I'm like, fat birds. And then they flew for like 10,000 miles. And I'm like, oh shit. That's so unbelievably. I wish I had like could go beer gut directly to the marathon because that's what they did.

They fly for weeks and weeks on end without stopping. I don't know. With the land. Just to get to the eight, just to get to like a good thing. vacation spot. It's unreal. I'm just, I'm just shouting out birds. They don't get enough love. Every time people see birds, they want to shoot them away. Birds are quite impressive. I think that, so that's your by-low? It's my by-low, birds. All right. Sell high, which obviously just out, someone you're out on. I'm out on wolves. Really? I watch five episodes

and I was like, you know what? Wolves did not impress me. They couldn't catch the muscox. And it's like, come on, like, it's game time. Then they give up on the muscox. And then they couldn't catch the rabbits. There's like a thousand rabbits. And I'm like, wow, there's so many I didn't know that. And they was like, oh, right, they have sex like rabbits. And then they couldn't catch the rabbits. And then they couldn't catch the sea otters. And I'm like, I see why we turned you into dogs.

That's your take. Yeah. What about wolves are cute though, right, don't you think? Yeah. But I don't know. I just was surprised that they were pretty unsuccessful hunters. Like I get that, you know, most hunts don't go well. But I just thought they'd be better at it.

The other bi-low, the other cell high I had was just the crabs that wandered, like, what, in a certain crab world must be like 100,000 miles. to get to the ocean to lay their eggs, and then some of them missed the ocean. Imagine, like, your only purpose in life is to, like, throw eggs into this giant crab orgy of eggs and sperm, and then you get, like, all the way there,

and then you miss the ocean with your reproductive eggs. That is the toughest beat I can ever imagine. My cell high is... This doesn't really make any sense, but for some reason this hit me hardest. I think it's definitely in the Tides episode. But selling high on fishing, just in general. I want to, we need to, as a culture, fish less.

I felt so bad for them catching these. So they have these massive nets. And some of these people do it illegally without permits. And they catch these large groups of fish. And these sharks get caught in it and they get injured. And they do it. It's just so horrible. I want to get rid of fishing.

I obviously know it's important. And it feeds millions and millions of people every year. But was that not one of the more depressing parts of this of the show? It isn't. I don't know why. But so fishing, on one hand, you feel worse, you don't feel as bad for fish as like other animals, right? Like even some people give up meat but not give up fish because you're like,

oh, it's a fish, whatever, whatever. Yeah. But at the same time, if you actually were to one for one moment, consider, all right, animals have equal consciousness. Fishing is like a horrifying thing because at least animals understand like hunting and like the game is the game. Fishing is basically alien abductions. Imagine just being pulled up to the surface and then you're just fucking in the air right now.

I can't imagine a more scary feeling than like a fish being plucked by a bird and you're just flying, not just like I'm going to die, but I'm being pulled away into a world that I didn't know was there. Yeah. It's like literally the underworld, but it's the overworld. And you're flying away, watching your reality fracture. Horrifying. So I guess I'm selling high on fishing.

I'm buying low on birds. I'm going full sky. I'm getting rid of the, I'm selling high on sky on ocean. I'm selling, I'm buying low on sky. All right. Breakout star? Yeah. I got to go to the sun.

literal star source of all life on earth I just came away really impressed with the sun and I know You had no idea that the sun provided so much for the world They had great shots of the sun I think that was CGI though Because I was like that's just a little too cool shot of the sun I don't think there's any CGII

You can't film the sun can you I just assumed You got some crazy telephoto You're the film major Can you film the sun or not Yes I think I mean all their aerial shots Are aerial space shots Of the Earth are coming from satellite

so I imagine those things can turn and point towards the sun and they have these insane telephoto lenses that can zoom incredibly close. Otherwise, I don't know how we're watching like a turtle or I mean, we're watching ants in the desert like run for their lives. We have to have unbelievable magnification skills. Oh yeah, right.

Filming the ants the same as filming the song, I forgot. There's no way they're just adding little mini explosions on the sun for us. No, I think they did. That sounds... Anyway, I'm impressed with the song. Who's your breakout star? My breakout star is plankton

Oh, it's a good choice Unbelievable So these microscopic plankton Fill the oceans And they give off more oxygen Than all the forests combined in the world Did you have any idea That plankton's were so essential

To the atmosphere? Yeah, they're super underrated They're the glue guy I've heard Spongebob completely denigrated the plankton I don't know why they just plankton It should have been called plankton And then SpongeBob's a annoying character

Like there's also one plankton and bikini bottom and it's like clearly there are trillions. Yeah, I don't know why we made him the bad guy because, man, plankton's do a lot. Good guy. Good guy. Good guy. Okay. Do you want to before we go, you want to do a quick, I mean, we host a fantasy show. So I feel like we wouldn't be doing ourselves justice if we didn't have a draft. Yes. Okay, so we're going to draft three animals each. Any type of species from the show that we saw. We're power ranking. We're just drafted them based on, you know, what they bring to the planet, how we feel about them.

You want first pick? Yes. Oh, I'm dubious. You've been offered to me. First pick for me is the fig wasp. Legit, the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life. Like, I can't know how to do it justice to people, but I mean, it crawls into a fig, which has a 24-hour window where, and the hole is so small that it rips the wings off

this wasp, this pregnant wasp, gets in there, lays the eggs, dies, millions of eggs. The male eggs wake up, penis, twice as long as long as. their body. Impregnates. Their unborn sisters. Unborn sisters, wake up, born, males, die, and then the females go and do it all again. They live for a day and a half. I thought that was the most stunning thing I've ever seen on television. Great pick. One on my list. Awesome pick. There's a lot of animals to choose from. My first pick is a rule in fantasy that when someone's penis is twice the length of their body, it's an auto number one overall. That's fair criteria. My first pick is the frozen frog.

Oh my God. Who live in a cryogenic slumber for half the year when the northern hemisphere begins to melt, they literally, they freeze for half the year, their heartbeat stops, and they come back to life.

And it's, it really, I think what the show, what you're going to take away from the show when you watch it in high fits, let me know if you agree. I'm unimpressed with humans physically after watching the show.

I think you're right. Do you know what I mean? Like, there's iguanas that can hold their breasts for 30 minutes. These frogs can freeze for half a year and then just come back to life. Birds fly for a month straight. Yeah, all these things have claws. What do we do? We're just flesh sacks of meat, just waiting to be eaten.

And it's just like, oh. Why can't we figure out, can we like check the DNA in those frozen frogs, figure out something? Can we learn? Jurassic Park told me not to do that. That's true. Well, that's another thing. So continue. What's your next draft?

you want to go back to back here I guess it doesn't matter, does it? No, go ahead. I want the Storks. I was told my whole life that Storks bring you babies. Apparently Stork kill babies. That was absolutely crazy to see.

That was an ominous scene. Really dark, but you know what? I kind of want them on my side. I don't want to go against the Storks. The Sorcs are freaking scary, dude. My next pick is the Ocean Aguanas who can hold their breath for 30 minutes. Those things, that, I mean,

that felt like we went back to, you know, 300 million years when that looked like a damn dinosaur. Those were the adult versions of the iguanas from planet Earth too that wake up and then have to escape all the snakes. Oh, you know what? I don't know if I saw that. You didn't see that? That's the best scene. Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, is that where the guy's narrating it?

Yeah, and then Marshall Lynch also narrated it once. Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, those are great. Yeah, these iguanas, man. They're swimming through the ocean. They're holding their breath for 30 minutes and they've got to come back on and this massive rock climb up it. It gets easier when they're older, but not. by much. Absolute Swiss Army knife, those iguanas.

All right, who's your last, who's your last pick here? Vampire Finches. Oh, I had vampire finches. Those things are crazy. So they're one of the world's newest species, and they've appeared on the Galapagos Islands, and they literally feast on blood. Dude, that was bizarre because I was just waiting for the reason that this larger bird, which is the only other life source on the island, lets them eat their blood.

And then they were like, yeah, we don't know why. the bird just does it and it's dumb. Well, and they're like, oh, the birds may be confused because they used to, the finches used to, like, pick the bugs off of them and they may think they're just doing that

even though they're, like, digging into their flesh, unreal. That was stunning. You know what it is? That's, I want blood finches because they want it.

Like, they're gamers. Also, shouts, I just love that we named them vampire finches. Like, we didn't really beat around the bush with that. We're like, you know what? Yeah, we're going to call them vampire.

Finches. It's a good, it's a good name. You need a good name. You got to have a good name. All right. Last question for you. You think we're going to figure out this whole climate change thing? I mean, I think we got it under control. You know what?

David Attenborough went back and forth in that final episode. He did. He kind of hit you and then he brings you back. And he hits you and he's like, oh, but people are, oh, you know, the rainforest. There was some crazy thing about the Amazon forest is reducing by two football fields every minute. Two soccer fields, because they call it pitches. Oh, yes. Two soccer fields a day.

Every minute. Every minute. Every minute of trees. But then, so then that hit you and you like want to slip into a depression, but then they're like, oh, but these people are planting 60,000 trees a month or something. And you're like, okay. So I don't feel great about it. You know, I'm obviously taken, you know, we're the underdogs, I would say, to come back and save this planet. For sure, underdogs. Yeah, thanks, boomers. We really appreciate that one. But I do, I do think that the last, the past few nature series in this, like, kind of lineage were a little too depressing because you have to, explain the scope of the problem. But I think the thing we've learned last 10 years is when you explain the scope, we all get depressed and feel absolutely nothing we can do in our lives are meaningless. I did like the raise of hope of like, actually you can help.

And I think that it was important to be like, oh, no, you know what? Maybe we can fix this thing. Take ourselves out of the hole. Totally agree. Hyvidz, you and I. Let's start planting some trees. I'd be honored. All right.

That'll do it. Thank you, everybody, for listening. You can find me and Danny Hyfitz as well as Danny Kelly. On the Ringer Fantasy Football Show comes out every Wednesday in the offseason. in check us out and you can find more TV concierges later this week.