The Watch - ‘Dune: Part Two’ and ‘Shogun’ Anticipation Meter, the Possible Paramount-Peacock Merger, ‘The Dynasty,’ and ‘The Greatest Night in Pop’

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Chris and Andy talk about rewatching ‘Dune’ in anticipation of ‘Dune: Part Two’ and how seriously Denis Villeneuve takes this world that he is creating (1:00). Then they talk about ‘Shogun�� and why the show reminds them of ‘Game of Thrones’ (18:03), before talking about the rumors that Paramount+ and Peacock might merge (32:38). Finally, they discuss two documentaries they are enjoying: ‘The Dynasty’ and ‘The Greatest Night in Pop’ (56:32). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to the watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio with his aracas spice latte. It's Andy Greenwald. You got that dune fever, baby.

Well, we have fever for two things this weekend. It's a little bit of an anticipation episode on Monday here in the Year of Our Lord 2024. Because we got Dune 2 this week. week. Technically, I think, open today, although I don't see it really showing anywhere until, like, I think it opened in your mind. I saw it last night. I saw it last night. I saw it last night. And we're also going to talk about a series that's airing this week called Shogun on FX. We're very excited to be talking about that, and we're going to be covering that throughout the season.

And a couple other bits and bobs, but Greenwald, great to see you. You know, this podcast has always been about Dune Two. Dune Two things at the same time. Am I right? What are you doing at the same time? talking about something that I watched. I'm looking at Twitter while you talk. I'm like, oh, Chris Hayes, that's a good point. Interesting. This is not normal.

I want to talk about these shows. I also want to talk about Kaya had a wilderness experience that I just kind of feel like she should share. Here's the thing. We haven't had a get-bear-get moment a long time. People who have joined us post-pandem

might not remember that I think the highlight of all of those podcasting years on Zoom, This was, this was a pretty pandemic, wasn't it? No, this was like mid-pandemic. Did you go camping during the pandemic? Yeah, what else could I do?

First wave camping. Yeah, it's like, what else are you supposed to, that was the only travel you could do? That's right. And that's when the California bear population got rampant COVID from Kyle. All those bears were like, I can't smell. So, Kayo went camping and chased a bear away from her camp.

from her campsite. Was the bear going after your tequila? The bear mess with her mess cow? Yeah. I left a box of food out, which was my bad. Was it labeled bear food? Was it? No, and it was our food for the camping trip,

including an unopened bottle of tequila, which the bear then knocked over. Yeah. Which was sad for me. Savage. Gosh. But so, Casamigo swept.

I kind of wanted an update because it was a beautiful Saturday here in Los Angeles. It was like, it was like summary. I love your weather updates on tax, by the way. It's one of my purest forms of expression. It's real nice out. I just like my friend to know. I just wanted to enjoy it. I was a driveaway dolls.

I'm like watching like a lesbian romp. I can always tell when Chris is crushing tape for the big pick because there's just these big... I wasn't watching it for the big pick. I was watching it for cinema. Well, there are these big windows. They're kind of these pockets sometimes where I'm like, I don't hear from the kid. But so Kaya and people who follow her on Soch know this, that she was out and hills, you're taking a beautiful hike, coastal hike. Yes, coastal hike, Pacific Palisades.

Oh, yeah, it's a spot. Los Leonis Canyon. Very nice. But it, but what happened? But yeah, about, I would say, maybe 15 minutes into my hike, I came across a very, very large rattlesnake, just kind of musing its way along, across the trail, and I look, nobody was around me. I was like, is anybody else seeing this? And I'm pretty, I'm like 99% sure it's around sake, Sakes. I saw a little rattle. But yeah, that was not great. Now, are there good and bad rattlesnakes, right? Like, are there, like, poisonous rattlesnakes versus like... Oh, I said they meant, like, politically. Like, they're aligned with you? Yeah. For me, all rattlesnakes are bad rattlesnakes. I think that's fair. I think it's... Sorry, I just, for me,

it's not all rattlesnakes. You know? When you came across, you say you came across it. That's better than it coming across you. Yeah, exactly. Luckily, it was like a few feet up the trail and it was going... across the trail, so I gave it a nice wide bird. And this was a solo hike? Yeah. Did the rattlesnake have a large nalgae in of water to stay hydrated? No, it had her tequila bottle.

Exactly. That's just been passed around the way. Staring at you. Okay, so we know your limits now. So in a bear attack, when it's threatening your liquor, head on a swivel. Yeah. But solo snake.

Yeah, I like gave a good, like, it went into the bushes and I waited like maybe a good five minutes until I like passed. where it was. And even then I did like a quick jog pass because you just, you never know. Do you have a snake phobia, Chris? I'd rather not be involved with them, but I actually think rats are much, they occupy more of a mine and share. Well, you've, you lived in New York a long time. Yeah, I just, I just really hate, I hate mice and rats. Do you? Yes. You know what I don't like? Birds. This is controversial?

But can I just say something? Yeah. I think you rightly picked up on a little bit of like, you know, dark clouds hovering over me. Oh, sure. It's been a tough weekend because rest and power to my guy, Flacco. Oh, I forgot. Your household, in your household, you respect. You respect air rats. In this house, we believe in Placco.

Do not besmirge him. Because if on the off chance, my wife listens to this one episode of the watch. This won't be the one. Also, if you said something bad about him, but I feel like she and I get along pretty well. I would just take a little while before you start calling it an air. rat. I don't. Birds creep me out. Okay. That's fine. They're fucking little dinosaur feet.

Also, do you know how long owl's legs are? You ever think about that? But are you cool with rats? They're fine. They're just trying to survive in this big city. Yeah. Okay. Guy, you want to weigh in birds versus rats before we get into the content? I think I'm fine with both. Yeah.

She's northern California. I know. It's just idyllic. I don't want to deal with that, but I mean, I see a rat running across my balcony. semi-frequently. What's a rat going to do to you? Yeah, exactly. Like, rat is not interested in you. Am I bite you?

What's that? Get into my food stores? Yeah, I don't like it. I don't like it. It's just, it's some sort of generational trauma from my father. Oh. And his, like, experiences in England during the 40s. Okay.

So this is your personal trauma story. This is your origin story. The entire next episode of the podcast is a bottle episode flashback. I was just trying to share it. You've fucking negated it. It's true, though. I've never seen you so vulnerable. At this moment.

How many Zins are you on right now? You want to talk about Dune? You want to talk about Shogun? We're not going to talk about Dune in any kind of supporter way. This is more just like... We're giving you guys your prescription for the week because Shogun is out.

First two episodes are up Wednesday. Kristen Handy recommended this movie, Dune Part 2. It's not out. Despite what you think in your rarefied screener air. I googled it and it said February 25th. I don't know where it is. Like in the Emirates, maybe.

What do you mean? It's not in the theaters. Okay. Okay. And neither is Shogun out. Shogun comes out on FX on Wednesday with the first two episodes. Yes. So this is the Shogun.

Shogun 2. Show Dun? Show Dun. Yeah. It doesn't work. So we're going to preview both. Yes. I think we should start with Dune. Yeah.

Because, to be clear, it is not out. And you have seen it. But we joined House of Trades this weekend. We both rewatched the first one to get ready. I had seen it. I have to admit, I never had the, last night I saw Dune 2. Doom Part 2 in IMAX. That's cool.

And I was, I was like, I really fucked up. I mean, what could you do last time? Because it was basically released onto Max and was the pandemic and everything. I did not get a chance to see Dune Part 1 in any kind of big screen way. Me either. And I would say the experiences is like pretty close to being essential. Like is the big screen big, the music and the sound effects are like vibrating. in your chair kind of loud.

And what just an absolutely amazing achievement, really. I'm so excited for this movie. I, you know, we did, we talked about it at length in the podcast. I haven't wavered that I was a big fan of the first one, but I kind of had forgotten what I liked so much about it other than the cast or whatever. I mainly forgot, and this is a point that we both agreed on all those years ago, that this movie is metal as fuck. This movie is so hardcore in the most fun.

way and I was really struck by and I feel confident saying this to get ahead of the second one it breaks so many of these kind of like soft rules that I feel like I have for entertainments in this day and age I mean it doesn't just break my rules it breaks

the larger sort of the Marvel way like the way that we've come to accept blockbusters over the past two decades this movie is not glib this movie is these movies I feel like safe saying that even though I've seen the second one yet These movies are not tongue-in-cheek.

No, they take themselves incredibly seriously in a great way. You're absolutely right. But I kind of want to stick on that because I generally am allergic to things that take themselves very seriously. I like a little humor. I like a little awareness. I like joking. But there is something that is so charismatic about Villeneuve's and his entire production team's commitment to this and their belief in this. I mean, it comes from clearly deep fandom of these super freaky books that I have never engaged with.

but there is such, such reverence for the text, but it's not like a stodgy reverence. It's a celebration of what it could be and what they can do with it now with not just the tools they have with CGI, but with the practical tools, with the casting possibilities. I got real hype watching it again

in a way that I haven't watched. I haven't been in a long time watching a movie at home. You know, that's such an amazing, really, like, astute observation, especially because I know you haven't seen Dune Part 2, like I have. Have you seen it? No, but I was just joking. The idea that the only way to communicate humor

or personality is through dialogue, right? Or that the idea that something incredibly dramatic or serious or world at stake level stakes is happening and the character would turn and be like, guess we're going to need a bigger sandworm.

You know, like that idea of this sort of like Whedon-esque pitter-patter that has kind of dominated this blockbuster era for the last 15 years is so absent from Dune in such a great way and that that doesn't mean it's overly serious.

It means that personality and humor and those moments come out through character and through performance. So without getting too deep into it because I don't want to spoil anything. I feel like Javier Bardem's character in Dune Part 2

is that thing, which is both like he's a true believer but he's also very funny and he's playing. His character is like definitely the most dialer up in the entire film with the exception of some Harkins. And I got everything I want from a movie in terms of humor and lightness, but also like,

you know, vulnerability and all these like human emotions, but it wasn't communicated necessarily through self-knowing referential dialogue. No, it is a, there's these little things that just actually do show roadmap for how these kind of entertainments can go. And casting is one of them. I was thinking about in the first movie, it's a really brilliant and savvy curation of actors who are great actors

and no matter what they are in, whether it's like Rebecca Ferguson or Oscar Isaac or even Chalameh or Zendaya, but it's also the integration of action stars who have something more. So it's Dave Battista, it's Jason Momoa, and the first one. I love that.

And I was thinking about the scene when Bardem meets Oscar Isaac and he goes in, you know, and he spits on the ground, and that's a sign of respect because he's sharing his moisture. Yeah. And the scene is super serious and super brief.

But I'm like, in that room, you've got Bardem, you've got Brolin, you've got Isaac. I'm like, they must have been cracking up the whole time. But in a kind of a celebratory way, not just like, I wonder what movie this is for. When's my flight out of Atlanta? Exactly. There's no, like, what Dune is this?

You know, and maybe one day it'll get to that point. Maybe Discovery is going to be like, we have to pump Dune out. I have no idea what happened to the, Dune's Sisterhood show. It's still something version of it is coming. But I think that that's the other point I wanted to make about it, that I, again, it sort of runs counter to a lot of what we've been articulating when we've been discussing

the, I don't know if it's a downfall or the interregnum of quality Marvel projects. But like the thing about Madam Webb, these movies shouldn't be said in the same sentence. They're not literally the same genus of product. But the arrogance of Madam Webb, which is just like, this is going to be a series with characters we're not going to introduce. I mean, Dune, huge gamble, was called Part 1. There was no world where they weren't really going to make a sequel, right? They were committed to it.

But what I love, especially in the second time, because the first time it's very sensory, it's noisy. If you aren't already high on spice, maybe you're just struggling to hang on and follow it. What I loved about it in the second viewing was realizing how quickly it moves for a two-hour-and-40-minute movie. It is classic movie. And what I mean by that is, there is enough. in Dune Part 1 for two seasons of a television show. Yep. The Duncan Idaho character, the MoMAO character,

has essentially three scenes with Shalame. And it's enough. It's enough to communicate their history, their friendship, their respect, the power dynamic, and then also why Duncan Idaho does what he does at the end of the movie. There's a shorthand that movies used to do

that I found really noteworthy on the second viewing. My first viewing, I was definitely not like, wow, they could have made this much longer. Yeah, right. But I kind of respected the decision-making because sometimes the art is what you choose not to do as much as what you choose to do. Yeah, it's at once really it's got the bones of something that you could say, okay, they can make two or three more of these. Or if for some reason the world had rejected Dune or the pandemic had made the economics of it not work or Timothy Chalomey decided he didn't want to do it anymore, Deny Villeneuve

decided he didn't want to do it anymore. That Dune movie would have been a significant contribution and people would have kept watching it for years to come. The thing that I'm really responding to to what you're saying is like the level of

care that Villanouf puts into each frame of this movie, each shot, each composition, kind of obviates the need for communication, like dialogue. You know, like you, You can essentially follow this movie as like a not silent film because it's so fucking loud and so important that it's loud.

But I think that you are like the power of the images and the power of the costumes and the power of the settings is so communicative that the dialogue is pretty secondary. And I just read this interview with him where he was sort of talking about with Villeneuve. Like a project that he had been thinking about, he had been attached to do a Joe Nesbo book called The Sun. And I think he was going to do it at Jollen Hall. And it was going to be a show. and obviously a lot of our best directors have been dabbling in TV for some time now but he was just like it's just not my medium

and he's distinguishing he's just like when I watch movies I never think about the dialogue I never remember the dialogue I don't remember movies for great lines I remember it for its visual aspects and that he is one of the great practitioners of this sort of essential quality of cinema like the idea of like taking this rectangle

or this box and filling it with something wondrous that only he could do. And it's like him and Nolan and a couple of other people who do that. But I would argue, I would just add some shading to that. I totally agree with you. But the shading that I would add to that is,

it'd be easy to express that sentiment and be like, so therefore in film director as king and writers don't matter. Yeah, I don't think he's. Which I know you're not saying that. I know he's not saying that. And one of the things, last points I wanted to make about, and I hope it stays true for the sequel,

is in my rewatch, I was watching with someone who had never seen it before. And what was really, remarkable was that the questions that were coming from the couch were answered in the subsequent scene or even two lines later of dialogue. That this was a very thoughtful and intuitively constructed screenplay that walked you into a really, really trippy world. Have you read the books? Never. I think we said this when we talked about it last time, that I was so traumatized by the paperback covers in the spinner rack at my library in elementary school, that I was way too freaked out.

Yeah. But do you know what I mean when I say that? That like generally one of the main differences between seeing a movie in a theater and seeing it at home with friends or loved one or family is that the questions are set out loud as opposed to nudges and save for later. And so Dune is super trippy. And so to have questions being like, wait, what is this relationship? Is that guy dead? And then the characters sort of effortlessly, the screenplay assumed the audience's ignorance in a way that did not feel overly handholdy and certainly did not feel. feel like pedantic.

Certainly not. It's certainly not. It's a really interesting act of adaptation. I'd love to talk more with you about it once people have gotten a chance to see it. All right. Let's talk about Shogun, which is coming out on Wednesday. We tend not to do kind of sight unseen. We don't like to get too far ahead of ourselves with shows because we want people to get a chance to see them.

I just am so excited about Shogun. Me too. That I think we both are really want to encourage people to check it out on Wednesday. Can I announce something now? Yes. We're broguns. That's what we are now. Two episodes in, I'm ready to say it.

This is the official podcast for the brogun movement. So this is a show on FX. It is a huge gamble for them, I think. You can tell by every single frame, every costume, every setup that they have in there, that this is something that they poured a lot of money into, a lot of time. I think when we talked about this last week,

I had mentioned how it felt like this had been being worked on for quite some time. And I believe the reason now why I remember it feeling like a very extended development process is it goes back to 2020. And I think the first things that caught my eye was the fact that this was initially being worked on by the creator and writer of Top Boy, Ronan Bennett. So he was the original sort of creative attached to it. They eventually moved it to Justin Marks and Rachel Condo. who are, are they married?

They're married couple. Marry a couple. Justin Marks were on... Both are writers. Justin Marks created the Star Show counterpart. Yeah, and he also wrote on Top Gun. Yes, he's a screenwriter, movie career as well. And, yeah, like, tell me, like, let's do a little bit of setup for the plot.

I should also say, you're not, I mean, this has been in development for so long that in order to maintain the rights, they FX paid for a single day of shooting in 2019 with Hiroyuki Sonata, who's the star of the show, just so they would retain the rights. To be like, we're working on it. Yes, that was five years ago. That was like the Madam Webb version of Shogun. So, yes, this is based on a famous James Clavel novel that was made into a mini-series in the 80s with the 18th, and to Shiramafune. Yes. And when it was released in the 80s, was considered something of a turning point for, like, in the history of television, just in terms of its cinematic aspirations, I think you could say, like in terms of they shot on location in Japan.

I think the levels of like violence and sexuality that were on screen were pretty progressive for its time, I mean, to the extent of that. It was also one of the signature shows of kind of TV's epic era. Yes. This, Roots, the Thornbirds, also starring Richard Chamberlain, Winds of War. There would be these huge multi-night men. mini-series events. Went some dove eventually?

Yes, right. Yeah, I guess that was a bit later. But this is now a different era, a different era for television, a different era in storytelling, a different era on, I think Daniel Chin has a great piece today on The Ringer with interviews with Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, and they were talking a lot about how the awareness of like a kind of internationalism, I guess, or like a feeling that you can trust the audience to go along and understand, hey, we're going to spend a majority of our time

with Japanese-speaking characters, bringing you into their culture, bringing you into understanding their systems of power, their systems of gender, their systems of sexuality, all these other ideas, that you can do that now in 2024, and audiences will go along with that. And I think it's really interesting to watch this

because part of it is historical fiction and part of it is Game of Thrones, and they've sort of merged it in this very perfect way. I mean, it is a very thronesy show. That's one of my main takeaways, too. I want to start by saying I could not have been more skeptical. Really?

Well, not skeptical of their ability to pull this off, but I was skeptical in terms of my own interest in it. Right. I was completely wrong. I'm super into it after two episodes. I think, though, what you're, I think you're correctly laying out the varying strands that they had to service,

and so tying them all together is no small feat, and I'm very, very impressed by it because it's not just, it's the adaptation of a classic material. The book is, it was an enormous global bestseller and is still read and regarded. The miniseries is a foundational TV event. Obviously, that was now 40 plus years ago, so it's not like the viewership is the same, but it is fixed in the minds of some viewers. And even if it's not, I don't think, did you ever, I never saw it,

but it's fixed in my mind as an old thing. Yeah. So that's some work they have to do against that. I think of it more also just as this, as a programming experiment, is there a way NBC was like for four nights, you know, and it's just like all showgun everything on this network for four nights. I think just to go through the other challenges here, one of them you were touching on as well, which is, so this is a story that is loosely based on historical events in real Japan that was written by a non-Japanese writer. an Australian-born British, he then became an American citizen writer, whose perspective on it was undoubtedly mostly from the white Englishman's perspective. The idea of doing that now, there is a bit of, inevitably, a bit of correction that is going to be done

in terms of balancing the white story versus the Japanese story and being respectful of the history and also giving those characters a lot more depth and a lot more presence and a lot more, you know, in this case, they speak Japanese on screen. doing that in a way that feels consistent artistically with the project. And when I say consistent artistically with the project, I mean not sapping out the big, noisy, gloppy mini-series of vent, historical, fucking let's-go bonanza of it. Because otherwise, why do you do it?

And that brings me to the last point, which is John Landgraf, who's the head of FX, has for over almost two decades he's now been at FX, always tried to be the scrappy underdog in terms of seeing where TV is going before the rest of TV sees it. And I feel like that, me saying that, I've been saying that as long as I've had this microphone, whether it was like, ah, half hours are more fluid,

and we can create shows like everything from you're the worst to Louis to Atlanta, the mini series or the limited series or the event series he was way in front of. And that's how we got people versus OJ and phenomenons like that, of the feud series, which is still going. American Horror Story.

It's been interesting to note recently that FX has not so far kept up with the dramatic series curve trying to figure out what people want in week-to-week continuing dramas. But this was interesting, that picking Shogun was interesting and felt out of step

with where the other networks were going, because when the other streamers and services were like, yes, we will do event series and we'll pour money into them. And the money usually went in terms of getting like a best-selling book and filling it with stars

and getting movie stars to do it, right? The big little lies model or even going further back, the true detective model. Doing an old-fashioned epic felt very out of touch. And you know what? This show does really well

is the TV, the sort of special dust of TV, the magic fairy dust of TV, which is giving Hiro Yuki Sonata a starring role for most audiences. They're going to know him from John Wick. They're going to know him from sunshine.

They're going to know him for a bullet train. You know, they're going to know them from the Hollywood Blockbuster. They're going to know them. They're going to know that face.

But they don't know this guy can be the fulcrum of a 10-part season of television. And then furthermore, introduces us probably, for the most part. I mean, you'll recognize a lot of faces,

Nester Carbonell, like you'll see people that you've seen before, but it really introduces us to a bunch of new actors or a bunch of actors that have never gotten this kind of exposure,

I don't think, before. Yes. And the last piece of it is, how is this type of thing going to compete with the currency of the day, which is often genre IP? And that brings us back to your last point, which is the Thrones thing. Yes. I love that about this show. I really responded to it.

You know, it is super, super thronesy in that it is like there's clans and castles and jealousies. Wait until you see the credits. And it's not... The credit sequence is just the Thrones credits sequence. Not in a bad way. I mean, it's very knowingly saying, like, hey, this way for sex and violence. You know, like, it's going to happen. And it's not giving any of that short shrift.

And I feel like, again, this is only through, we've only seen it through two episodes. But I love so far that they're walking the tightrope between sensationalism and seriousness. Yeah, Catholic Portugal's plans for, like, global trade and military domination. And the papacy versus, you know, Protestant, emergent Protestant, English. and, you know, like, the level of historical depth, at least in terms of, like, how much information you have to process as a viewer that's being communicated, you know, in some really slick ways, like, you'll see that there are several scenes that feel the character, like, it's the joke of the character's name is Basil Exposition, because it's like a character who sits down and explains everything. And there's a couple of scenes like that that I think are very, very effective in the first two episodes. But for the most part, you're asked, to dive in to the waters off of Osaka and really understand, okay, so there's Spaniards and there's Portuguese, and they've been sort of keeping Japan to themselves as a trade route and as a missionary. Until the 19th century, Meiji Restoration, Japan was closed to the world, except for these Portuguese traders who brought Catholicism and then also brought guns.

Yes. And no one else was allowed in. And then this show starts with a Dutch vessel crewed by British Protestants. who are making their way, they are trying to find their way to Japan to basically set up... They're trying to find the Japan's. Yes, the Japan's,

and they are trying to essentially, like, set up a bulwark of Protestantism there and also along the way, maybe massacre some Catholics while they go about it. And they're led by the sailor, the sort of pilot for the boat, is this guy named John Blackstone.

Blackthorn. Blackthorn, sorry. John Blackthorn, who's played by an actor named Cosmo Jarvis, where I think I joked with you that this is if Tom Hardy and Logan Marshall Green were put into a test. This guy's Tom Softy. I don't know how they found.

He's like Chat GPT, Bain, which is, I don't mean to be disrespectful. I did a lot of Googling in the first episode being like, why does this guy somehow look like everyone I've seen before, but is different? But he's quite good. He's a fascinating actor that I'd never seen before who is from Jersey, born in Jersey, but raised in, like, Devon. Yeah. And he is playing the Richard Chamberlain.

character and in another era would be the star of this show. It would be mostly about him. But instead I think Hiroyuki Serrana is really the star of this show. And he plays a lord who is

sort of trying to navigate a period of time in Japan where the country is governed by these four regents in the absence while they're waiting for the air to the five regions. Five regions. He's the odd.

man out. He's the fifth. And they are waiting for the air to the throne to reach a certain age so that he can become the leader. But they obviously all have their own plans for the country. And some of them, and again, like, this is a lot of, this is a lot of dense real life history that I don't think American schools cover very deeply in terms of like how some lords and just citizens in Japan were full Catholics in the year 1600 and many others weren't. Yeah, some were Buddhists. Yeah. And the way that that would play out. in a power structure. So, yeah, so our guy is trying to navigate the void left when the previous Shogun has passed away. His son is not yet 16. And so he's, before he died, the guy was like, you five, just share everything until my son's ready.

Yes. Four of them are not into the one guy who's clearly the favored one and the best, played by Sonata. And it's fraught. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it throws you right into it where we've got like a,

essentially like dueling hostage situation. We've got the Catholic Church trying to continue to tighten their grip on the country. We've got these mysterious Brits in town. We've got lots of pretty out there. Not out there, but we got a lot of sex. Well, I mean, we've also got Tata Nobu Asanoonu, who people will recognize from the Marvel movies and a bunch of other Japanese movies, of course. He plays a great character to keep an eye on, keep an eye out for her name Yabushige. Yeah, he's awesome.

He basically invents cucking in the first episode. So I don't want We're talking about that later I just can't stress this enough I'm clearly You're some guy in 10th century England who's like, I invented it.

That was my idea. I had to wench sit over there, right? And I, um, no, no, you stay. You,

you there. Your idea is like Norman Conquist England is just a Guy Ritchie character. Oy. You lad. He looked like a bright and ready boy. This is all I want to say

for people. Check it out. We'll come back. We'll talk about it. There's 10 episodes. First two dropped this week. What made me happy wasn't just that they pulled off, at least through two episodes, this very elaborate balancing act and made something very entertaining. It's that I was at once taken with it, fascinated by the history, fascinated by the performers, but I was also like, we're going to have fun with this. It's a nice balance. And in that sense, if I may, I know you're the Segway King. But Dune and Shogun are two very, very ambitious properties that take their material very seriously, but not in a way that is off-putting. I cannot wait for when you see Dune and we can have this conversation about how these

incredibly dense stories are told in different ways. Because I think that Shogun is about as good as you can do with material like this on television, and I think Dune is about as good as you could do with that kind of material in film, and they're in many ways very different. How lucky are we to be alive in 2024 to experience this? What a great year. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses.

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Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash ActiveCase. Cash, terms apply. I had a couple of other things I wanted to talk to you about today. Okay. You and I have both been just sort of channel surfing the last couple of days. So we both saw different things that I wanted to talk about. Like we wanted to chat about the We Are the World documentary on Netflix. And I wanted to tell you a little bit about Dynasty, which is the doc on Apple about the New England Patriots during the Belichick Brady era.

Before we get to that, though, there was one piece of news that we didn't really hit. that broke, I guess this was like last week, yeah, basically around February 15th, around Valentine's Day, which was a Wall Street Journal report that came out about a week a half ago about talks between Comcast and Paramount about merging their streaming services. So my immediate reaction to this was,

do you think they will call it Cockmount? Well, I heard it was Mount Cock. Which one would you like better? Which one would you be quicker to sign up for? Would you like me to answer that in the voice of the Canterbury Tales era? Cuckerman. Count Cuckula. No, what if the originator of cucking was Dracula?

Just do that. Oh. Oh, I see. Okay. I want to sit on this stool. Stool. Get yourself a chair with a back. That's true.

You're going to be there a while. I don't have a proposed name for it. I'm going to have to workshop that. This is, I don't think this has been taken particularly seriously. By us in the last 45 seconds? By Hollywood. I think Hollywood has since kind of moved on. I think that for our purposes, I'll just look, looking at this variety report from the day.

And what day was this? The 16th. And it was like, could Paramount NBC Universal's Peacock joined forces to take on streaming sector's biggest guns? maybe, but while Paramount Global and Comcast, NBCU's parent recently discussed the possibility of netting the services in some kind of partnership or joint venture, there's no imminent deal expected. So this is like maybe two, maybe these guys had a phone call, whatever. I think also very interestingly, this news came out after Sports Hulu was sort of announced, the idea that Disney, Fox, and, I'm forgetting one. Was it Paramount? No, it was not Paramount.

Oh, because they might be, they didn't want to keep their powder dry. Oh, and Warner. Disney Warner and Fox were talking about merging their sports offerings into one giant streamer. Bundled stream. It's worth noting that Peacock and Paramount would have complementary international soccer rights. So you would be able to essentially watch at least most of Premier League and Champions League, if you so wanted, on this prospective streamer. And I was sort of thinking about whether or not this would matter at all. You know, like, for the most part, I think I am in the 98th percentile of being aware of what's on each service.

And I'm trying to think about whether or not this is like helps them particularly. Like if you were to put together a behemoth like this. Yes. You mean from a sports perspective or a programming perspective? From a programming perspective. Okay. Well, I think there's, I think yes, which is why the story exists. I think it's also worth noting that since it's been a couple of days or even more than a

week now, almost two weeks, since this was announced, it hasn't gone anywhere. There's been no further conversations that we know over no further leaks to the press. I thought that over on the town podcast, Matt Bellany and Lucas Shaw, were pretty quick. Skeptical in it. Yeah, for a number of reasons. One of which was Warren Buffett, who inexplicably held, held an enormous amount of paramount global stocks, suddenly liquidated it, causing the stock to tank. This news then was floated like a day later, hoping that the stocks would rally. So that was, that was, that was, that was there was clearly some gamesmanship going on there. There are also all these reasons to sort of at least be skeptical of anything deeper than a potential bundling of the services

because the Justice Department, as long as we have one through the end of the year, would be very skeptical of two broadcast networks merging. Sure. So there would be a lot of things done. They just shot down Kroger's and Albertsons. So, you know. Right. And you live near in Albertsons. I do.

So that's, were you upset about that? That Albertsons I live near is pretty good. Yeah. Do you think it would be better as a Kroger since? I've never been into a Kroger. Have you? Should we step down and just like do a little reporting? Kroger's more Midwest, right?

Yeah, I don't know. I've never been in one. Is it nice? Let us know. Have you ever been into Kroger, Kaya? Never. Yeah. I saw Kaya's face as she was like, they're going to ask me. And I definitely haven't. So, okay, so the chance to be skeptical of it,

but I think that there's some, there are some tea leaves to consider here. one of which was that some kind of merging, some kinds of takeover, some kind of more than just a casual bundling through your phone carrier or whatever is going on between Netflix and Max is coming and is inevitable. And the credulousness with which this was treated was like, oh, is this the domino? And I mean that both because any outside observer, whether you're on Wall Street or Main Street or whatever, sees that something has to change in the way that this industry is currently structured. I'll also say that from an internal perspective, everyone who works within the industry is like,

things are bad right now for writers and actors and everyone because we're all waiting for that first domino. And once the town understands who's buying, who's selling, and who's left, things will be back. So there's a lot of desire to see something like this in some form. I think the other takeaway that was a little concerning, I would say, was that for, not concerning,

a little bit eye-opening, is that for a long time, at least since it launched, Peacock, not just because of its name, was kind of a joke, not because of their many services and good shows, just more like that was kind of the red-headed stepchild, no offense to your hair of streaming services. Sorry, I've moved on.

Appreciate your maturity in this. And what this information suggests is that Peacock and Universal are in much better shape than Paramount and Paramount Plus. Now, that's a large assumption to make from this. But if you buy the structure that, or if you buy the contention that this information was given to the press so that Paramount stocks would rally. And for Paramount stocks to rally, Paramount was floating, look, we're going to be over with these guys at Peacock soon. That's noteworthy.

Matt and Lucas were also very all over the fact that Peacocks coming off a pretty good run. A lot of what was fueled by. And it was fueled by its NFL playoff game. But they have the Olympics coming up. The Traders is a hit for them. The office is now getting traction as like, oh, that's where I can go watch it. They still have all the Bravo stuff. There's a reason for it to be there now in a way that maybe wasn't as understood before.

Yeah, they have kind of skewed the need to have any show, any one given show. I think the only peacock show that we have ever covered in real time was Pokerface. And we didn't really do episode to episode. And Vigil, which I think that was probably more of a personal project. for me. The library is effective if you are like me and you like watching Law & Order and Law & Order related shows. Obviously

Kaya, a day one with the Bravo stuff, and that's enormously important. They seem to almost be quietly going about the business of being like this is how people actually use streaming TV services. Which is smart. That being said, when I was reading about this idea, and I've been reading, you know, every time I read one of these

stories that's about like the state of Apple or the state of this, and if it's in a felony news, or if it's in any kind of industry reporting. A lot of it is about the relationship between being a seller or a library. Like, you know, Max has obviously gone through Warner's gone through a period of sort of selling some of its crown jewel HBO titles to Netflix for licensing them for a while. I watched Dune last night on Netflix, which was supposed to be the whole Jason Clarke thing was come to Max to see all these first run movies. And I was kind of wondering whether or not we would ever again be in a place where, because I was like, could they come up with a streaming service behemoth that was essentially for first run TV?

That from release day to say plus six months. All new shows were on this one thing. So if you were a very active, I like watching new stuff that comes out the week it does, you would have, I essentially in my head went all the way around to build cable so that we could have a place where TV shows were on. That's basically the project of this podcast.

We're trying to give TV TV. And that would never happen. But I do find the relationship between library and first run stuff and new stuff to be very interesting right now because you see places that I think when all this started,

you and I were like, all of TV of all time will be available to us. And the truth of the matter is, is that there's just so much stuff that I don't really have a ton of time to watch Colombo reruns or Cheers reruns or what have you. So I kind of do really need TV

to be my first run avenue there. And I don't really, I just wanted to bring that up because I was kind of like, what is merging these two things do? Like you get to watch CSI and SVU on the same streamer. I guess that's cool. Yeah.

I mean, I think that it would, it's a question of, it's tough to, the reason I'm stammering is because there's just two completely different sides to any conversation. Yeah. One is, does this make sense for the companies or does it make sense for the consumer? Nothing meant sense for the consumers. And that's certainly not been the driver of any of this for the last decade plus. From the company side, there is a streamlining here that starts to make sense. There's also a case to be made for its existence only because in a monolithic streaming. universe where like Netflix is everything and Disney has another huge amount of things and Apple

can do whatever it want with the things and then Amazon's like sure us too. The nicheness of a paramount or a peacock, it's just a scale thing. Like they don't make sense. Put them together, then they make a little bit more sense and they could be a little hardier and survive longer. Those two make sense to me to merge from a consumer perspective, mainly because they both have good programming. But those are the two that seem to be in just casual conversation. It's an either or, if any. You know what I mean?

Like if you just talk to people, the ordinary consumer on the street, which you and I like to do a lot. You know, we go at cab rides, we talk to Uber people, Uber drivers about. What are you watching, brother? Yeah. And what are you paying for? The, you know, we saw it firsthand. We were talking about the gold show, which is now no longer streaming, but that we

love. Is it not? It's off Paramount. Yes. It is. It is. Maybe it's back. But that was my feedback that I got from people after like a month after we were done podcasting about it. From Uber drivers or from like Lyft drivers actually. Okay. Yeah, sounds good, but we don't have Paramount. Or conversely, that sounds good, but I don't have Peacock. So it suddenly gives it another reason to exist. But I don't know if this is like. Yeah, it's on Roku. Oh, it's on Roku. See, if you have a premium subscription, you can watch it on Roku. A proku. Yeah. Great. I mean, I realize that my response to this is, there's no way to understand, first of all, it's probably not happening, but something like this might happen. And I still kind of believe that in the same way I was just mentioned in passing, but I do believe that there is a existing Netflix and Max bundle that you can get. I don't know if it's just through like if you're a Verizon or whatever customer, you get this deal.

But it's not in the same service. They're not in the same service. You are just getting a reduced price to have both. a price that is still more than either one of them individually. I think we are headed back towards those bundles, regardless of the corporate connection between these companies. But I'm realizing now, as I've just been talking through with you, that I'm still kind of in that other camp where I'm like,

okay, something has to happen because there is, from personal experience and from those of my friends and people who are in the business, there is a paralysis that people are feeling, that people just want something to move. And that feels callous to say, because if something of this magnitude happened, people would lose jobs. There might be fewer opportunities because I can't imagine that a combined Mount Cox service

would be making the same number of originals that Paramount and Peacock have currently committed to make. Yeah. Let's do a little bit of what we've been watching. Okay. Okay. So I want to talk about these two docs, but can I just say one really quick thing about Masters of the Air? Yeah, I'm really curious. I'm living vicariously through your mastery of the Air.

Masters of the Air the third sort of amblin play tone World War II epic the first two the Band of Brothers and the Pacific are largely considered

some of the best miniseries ever made especially Band of Brothers is just still watch to this day I think it had another spike when it also was licensed over to Netflix

Masters of the Air was the much touted highly touted very expensive account of the U.S. Air Forest and the 100 there, 100 division, like the 100 division of it, Flying Squadron Lake, and their, and their missions in Europe during World War II.

So this was going to be the plane one. And stars Callum Turner and Austin Butler, and initially was announced that Kerry Fugendaga was going to be the director, I think at least for the first batch of these episodes. Five years ago or whatever, that was like, that sounded like a pretty good idea. So we finally get the series this year. It's been met. I see it's still one or two rankings in the Apple TV currently on right now playing but I think it's been a pretty quiet reception for it. I've been kind of ticking away at it at my own

pace because we're not discussing it on a week-to-week basis and for his sort of wooden and something was off about it. There was just some no there there. I found that like everybody looked too pretty. The dialogue made every character feel like the same person. I thought that they had a major dramatic problem with the fact that like guys sitting in planes is just frankly not as interesting as guys moving across the countryside and interacting with each other in that way. But something really weird happened. For some people, if they're current with the show, this happened about a week or two ago. For me, it just happened over the last couple of days, which is that the Fukunaga episode batch ended. And the, I think it is the fifth episode.

The fifth episode is directed by Anna Bowden and Ryan Fleck. it is crazy how much better it is. And I don't mean this as like, I think that what Fuganaga was doing was doing, I'm going to make these painterly images. And a lot of the storytelling stuff fell by the wayside. So there are breathtaking, albeit CGI heavy images in the first four episodes that if you're interested in the show,

you should definitely check it out because there's stuff to see. But it is a huge what if to me now about what would have happened if Anna Boone and Ryan Fleck who directed the first Marvel Captain Marvel movie but Half Nelson. Half Nelson have done a bunch of TV stuff that's really good. I was like,

this is a different show. It feels much more concerned with dramatic storytelling rather than painterly images. Although I would say that the direction is much more visceral and exciting within this episode. Now granted, this episode is a particularly

dramatic one. Not to spoil it for you, but this is one where they lose basically the squadron over Germany on a particularly doomed mission. But it is incredible the impact that these two directors had on the quality of the show. And I really now am kind of like, oh, I wonder what would have happened if this had been in different hands. That's really. I'd be very curious why that is.

You know, is it a question of the material got better, the people have the writers, the people making the scripts. Yeah, John Orloff wrote a majority of the episodes and he developed it. Did they find their voice? Was this a different development process? Was there overhaul of the entire visual team? Like, was it done, did they block shoot it? So, well, Carrie Fukenaga was making his episodes, Bowden and Fleck with a different line producer, maybe a different cinematographer or working on their episodes.

Or was there, or did they hire the wrong guy, you know, which we don't. don't know. Yeah, Adam, Arkpaul, who's, Carrie's cinematographer, has been historically did the first bunch of episodes, and then there are three other credited cinematographers after that. So I don't remember who shot this one, but your idea about block shooting may be right. I mean, I imagine, I mean, most things on this scale are block shot to a degree, especially when you see directors doing blocks. I mean, that's why it's called that. But the mind goes to more like salacious or like gossipy places, because, as you said, when this was announced, Carrie Fukenaga was a get. And his star fell both

professionally because of the James Bond movie, but also personally, because of you can feel free to Google it, but he's not really working at the moment and seems like he has some stuff to work through. So who knows, but it's interesting.

And maybe a cautionary tale for projects that are almost like it's not too big to fail, like so big it would be hard for them not to fail. Yeah. In the sense that like this was shopped around the way that you just introduced it on the podcast being like, hey everyone, it's us with all the Emmys, we're back and we're going to do this again. You in? And HBO is like, I think we're good. Yeah. And Apple, because they're still establishing themselves and money is made up to them. We're like,

yeah, go. But even, you know, the first few episodes had these two characters at the center of Gail and John, who were both nicknamed Buck and Bucky, you know, and it's played by Callum Turner and Austin Butler. And they were these kind of like cipher, like were really cool guys who wear leather jackets and being up in flying fortresses while being shot at by fighter jets and anti-aircraft missiles is just really not that big of a deal to us. Like, we're just coolest cucumbers. And then all of a sudden in five, you get like this much more like human and like real version of these people.

Can I throw in one thing that we, it's sort of one extra shading to our, you know, part of the project of this podcast is like trying to figure out Apple TV. as it's figuring itself. Yes, that was sort of... And one thing that we haven't mentioned, and this is, I want to be clear, I don't have this opinion necessarily. I have not met these guys,

but the people in charge of Apple TV are Jamie Ehrlich and Zach Van Amberg, who were head of Sony TV for 15 years, and were responsible for a lot of major shows, including Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. And then they took over Apple TV when Apple TV started in 2017. And they have clearly been a success internally.

they are established their big project after big project and shows that we like. But one thing that I remember hearing early on was that Apple might not have understood the difference between being a seller and being a buyer. And when I say, that's, again, even that is reductive in glib because everyone in quote unquote this town understands everything, especially about jobs that aren't theirs. But when we talk about some of the things that we notice in Apple shows, which is that they seem picture perfect from a distance, that they are packaged within an inch of their life. life, that they are going to, like, when I was talking about the new look last week, when I was like,

what if I were to tell you there's a star-studded show that's about the birth of French couture, but also the French resistance. And you're like, whoa, my God, tell me more. I'll buy it in the room. That's different than being like, okay, now we actually have to whittle it down, make the show the best version of it to exist on television and communicate it to audiences. Yeah, and I also think that, you know, to go back to what the conversation we were having about, Denisville and Just to say, just sorry, I just wanted to clarify, the reason I say that sellers and buyers is because at Sony, they were responsible for selling things with the log lines,

and now they are buying it from the other studios or from themselves. Yeah, I think that, I mean, if you go back and you watch these episodes, the first few episodes of the show, you'll see, like I said, like these gorgeously, clearly like pre-vis, like, here's what I want, is this formation of B-52s in the air, B-17s in the air, whatever they are and like they're going to be in this kind of like uh structure so that it's like perfectly spaced and they're after burners or they're they're going to have uh trails coming out of the back of them they're gorgeous going across this almost like you know Nathaniel wyeth sky

of over europe and stuff and it's just so beautiful to look at and then in this episode that bowden inflected it's like handheld inside the cockpit but then walking down to where the balter it is and all of a sudden after four hours you get a sense of like how claustrophobic these planes must have been, how loud they must have been, how dangerous it must have been when shit was exploding and they couldn't get their sleeve out of like

a window or it gets like they get caught on something and it's like this is a different show. This is a different reality. This is the thing I wanted from the beginning. Do you know what's interesting to me about this, especially in light of the conversation we started with about Dune is maybe the difference isn't maybe it's a little too reductive to say buyers and sellers

but in terms of making something at scale to communicate to an audience is you have to balance the divide between experts and newbies. And what I'm thinking of, because I was just thinking of Dune, was one of the most incredible sequences, I think, in that first movie is when the Atreides, when Paul Atreides arrives on Aracas for the first time. Yeah, and they do the whole like ceremonial kind of. And they land and there's the huge reception and there's the city and there's the natives and there's the light and there's the heat and there's those bug planes, copter things. And what that scene does so brilliantly and almost without calling attention to itself is every single thing on that screen has been considered.

There's an expertise to it, right? That like the people presenting us, the viewer with the images, has thought about it. And even within the fictional world of the movie, this is an established place that has existed before. But the movie never forgets that we are experiencing it with Paul. So it has to be something that feels new and surprising and that the fact that it has existed before, and has its own history feels exciting, not like you're being lectured to. And that dynamic, I think, is crucial

for anything on this level, and that's a really tricky one to pull off. I would say people should... I mean, look, like, I would necessarily say that you would understand what you're going to get if you just jump into the fifth episode

of Masters of the Air, but I would be very curious to know if people felt like they noticed a difference. Let's just do quickly, like, some other stuff we've been watching. I guess continuing along the Apple thing, I, for my sins, I'm watching the dynasty,

which is the documentary about the Brady Belichick era. A couple nights ago, I was just like home. My wife was out to dinner. I was like, oh, there's a bunch of stuff I can watch. But like, here's the thing about me. The heart wants what it wants. Sometimes I just like to put a nicotine replacement mint in and watch football. But in keeping with our larger discussion,

you watching a documentary about the Patriots Dynasty, is a little bit like Lord Cuckaberry, right? It is very much like, I don't know what compelled me to do it other than I really like love this like sort of the fact that sports and nostalgia

is now catching up to my childhood. Sure. So with Last Dance and now with this like games that I remember and yes, your childhood in the early 2000s. But disturbingly, well, my young adulthood in the early 2000s, but disturbingly like games and I'm like

Andy and I were at Dram Shop for that. We sure were. We sure were. I think I was at your house for this Ram Super Bowl. Like these games where you're just like, not only am I remembering the game itself, but I remember what I was doing for the game? Do you remember the turkey chili I made?

I do. It was delicious. It was better than the result. Yeah. So is this about Satan and his concubine? Yes, it is. Do I, and I was trying to remember, like, why did I start hating these guys so much? Because I lived in Boston.

I have a lot of affection for that place. And I was like, what the fuck happened to their patients? Why did I hate them so much? I was like, oh, yeah, Spygate. And it's not like I hated SpyGate because I was like, nobody should cheat this way. I was just, I can't believe how fucking tired I am of talking about whether or not Ernie Adams

orchestrated surveillance of the Jets. And that is, so it's really interesting to see how they break down these episodes. So the first two and a half are pretty much the first Super Bowl. Right. And then it kind of skips ahead. But, you know, if you're into Saddamasks,

I would definitely tune in. Sure. I just really love that era of NFL, the Manning Brady stuff, that 16 and O Patriots team was pretty incredible. It was just the guys were getting hit still, you know? Blink twice if Bill made you say that. Okay. I really love that era. I tried to get you to watch this and you were just like pass.

You know, we were talking about this right before we started. Like, I don't think I love sports. I love being miserable. with my teams. You don't love being miserable with your teams. No, I hate it. You like being extremely happy and parisocial with your teams when they're good. That's fair. You do not like when they are in deep anguish.

You're like, goodbye, I'll see you next season. Yep. Yeah. And then I just drive in silence because I have no podcasts to listen to anymore. It's really sad. I'm an adult. Willie Gladstone Day on WTF, thank God. Again, I'll just listen to it again. My favorite bits. I don't think this needs my pitching it because I think it's kind of a hit for Netflix

but I really enjoyed the greatest night in pop that we are the world doc I started it last night and then switched back to Dune you were like this is not for me no I was just like I'm duneed out I'm just I'm on the spice You couldn't dune into anything else I need to get back on my Dune

I thought this was a really great doc because speaking of things catching up to childhood like we were children when We Are the World came out and the video was on all the time and like I remember watching it constantly not knowing who some of the people were, but then being surprised and interested in why some people were there and some weren't and what they were actually saying to each other.

I never, ever gave a single passing thought to how it was pulled off. It never occurred to me, nor did I ever ask, that it was done in one night that the entire recording session happened beginning it from 10 p.m. till 6 a.m., the night after the American Music Awards that were hosted by Lionel Ritchie. That's so smart that they were like, okay, there's. an award show, they'll all be in town. That's what they figured out. But there are these details to it that feel so interesting, but also so pure about, speaking

of Merrim, and he's always like, there used to be a show business here in town. Like, there is that piece of it. Yeah. Where these enormous celebrities, not just galactic celebrities in 1985, but still to this day, just showed up. You know what I got to say for what I saw of the doc, and I will finish, and I was just being clip. You know, the last half hour was directed by Bowden and Floodin.

and it really, really steps up. I was really impressed with the gets that they got. Yes. Springsteen's there? Like, they have a lot of people talking. Oh, you mean the doc? Yes. And the doc itself.

And I, you know, in the dynasty, they get Belichick, but Belichick's sitting there and being like, not going to talk about that. It's just like, all right, then why the fuck are you here? The thing about this doc that I found really charming is, look, it doesn't, there's many different styles of documentaries. But one thing that this doesn't traffic in is that at no point is it like, here's what this says about the culture.

Here's what this moment says about the 80s or about pop music or about the professionalization or celebrification of charity. It's not interested in that. What this doc says was we have a lot of tape from something that is culturally significant and we're going to share it now. And for me, that was enough because there are these moments that are just wild. Just wild between like Steve I, like Bob Dylan being super nervous and Stevie Wonder drawing him out of his shell because that's what Stevie Wonder can do. but also Stevie Wonder, showing up to the session three weeks after Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson called him and said, would you write this charity song with us?

And he didn't get back to them. But he showed up at the recording thinking they were going to write the song. Oh, and he was like, oh, you mean I should have had it beforehand? But then he was fine, but he did derail the thing that was being held together with spit and glue in Quincy Jones by being like, you know what, this is a charity song for Africa, we should put in a bridge in Swahili. So he was teaching everyone Swahili,

and Waylon Jennings was like, fuck this. and walks out. That's why he's not in the video. And finally, they brokered a piece with Stevie Wonder by being like gently, respectfully, Stevie. They don't speak Swahili in Ethiopia. So then they pivoted and they got back to work.

Can you power rank these three events in terms of like where they are in your... The Patriots winning their first Super Bowl, the recording of what? We are the world. Hands across America. Yeah. And live aid.

In terms of what they meant for me? Yeah. Well, Hands Across America meant nothing. I did not participate. That was a thing, right? Yeah. And when was that? Around the same time.

Yeah, I remember Hands Across America being a big deal that summer. Kai, have you ever heard of Hands Across America? It was 1986. It was a year later. Did you do it? No, let me guess. Travel baseball got away. Wow, Chris.

You could have been a better citizen. I was too busy going two for five against Fishtown, baby. Great job. Advanced some runners. We are the world. has to be the winner because it was like a cultural blackout event. Like it was on all the video was on all the time.

Bought the Kisingle. It was on the radio. It was a huge, huge deal. Live Aid, though, was significant for us. Live Aid was in our city. Yeah, and Bowie. Bowie was really good at Live Aid. And Phil Collins played both.

Remember that that was... He flew, the Concord. And do you remember what he did? Didn't he play... Why do you think they were like Philly's a good place for Live Aid? There's a reason behind it. I think one was, they have... had a big-ass stadium and not a lot of other traffic coming in and out. That's true.

This is the RFK Stadium, which years later, were you at the Lollapalooza there in the ruins of it? No, I only did Lollapalooza in Camden. I went to that too. But the Lollapalooza in 93, they held, what could have gone wrong. They had decimated RFK Stadium. It was just a field, and they had Lala Palluza there. You make it sound like it's like Pompeii. It felt like that. I got the worst sunburn of my life. But that was also the one where Rage Against the Machine came out for their set. opening the festival, they came out nude with tape across their mouths with the words P-M-R-C-R-M-C-P-R-M-C-P-P-R-M-S-M-M-M-Sysic Resource Council.

That was a Tipper-Gore. Yeah, but they were protesting censorship, and they protested by not playing songs for Philadelphia. Fantastic work by them. Anyway, but they did it. They defeated censorship that day. Anyway, um... And feel better off for it. But wasn't Phil Collins, like, didn't he drum for Led Zeppelin? Yes. I believe he played with page of plant or something like that

and then flew and did like his own solo set. Do you remember who opened? So for people, this is a big charity event in London and then later that same day in Philadelphia. Do you remember who opened the Philadelphia concert? Was it the Hooters? It was the Hooters. Had to have been.

Love the Hooters. What a trip down memory lane. I really, really, had a great time watching this documentary. I will check it out. We'll do... You know who comes off well? Hughie Lewis. I mean, he always does. He's kind of just like... He seems like a good guy. Loved to have a beer with that guy. Do you know who had too many beers? Al Jaro. If you watch to the end... Do you think Wayland Jendon got a couple? He did whatever he wanted because he left. Al Jaro gets turt in this and it's kind of funny. So on Thursday,

we'll talk about the first two episodes of Shogun. In more detail. In more detail. I know everybody loves an hour and ten minutes in plug in Stick the Landing. I didn't mean to do that, but I think Bill's on this week, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So he talked about that on his pod, so people probably know Andy and Bill did Larry Sanders for Stick the Landing this week, so I can't wait to listen to that. It was an honor doing that episode with the number one Larry Sanders fan. Yeah. Bill Simmons. Bill Simmons. And then so yeah, Thursday we'll do showgun and probably some other stuff. Hopefully we'll do do next Monday. I have Andy react. I got to get. I want to see it in a big, real big screen. You got to go do it. Did you see it in the same room we saw Madam Webb? I did. Did you feel any of the vibes still from our screening?

Like, did it have the same? Yeah. I think that some of the people who were there from Madam Webb just stayed for... Just camped out? Yeah. Like for the new iPhone? Thank you to Kyra for producing us today and we'll be back on Thursday. Stay away from snakes.

Freakings.