The Worst Idea Of All Time - Overlooked 3 - 2: No Reprieve

Episode Date: January 10, 2021

Tim has become openly hostile to Guy because of the project and becomes interested in the hard job of being an audience member at a comedy show. Meanwhile, Guy reflects on the difference between American and kiwi audiences and ponders what would happen if Rob Schineder appeared in a comedy venue he was at. Attempts are made to understand how gifted piano player, Takeru Saito, was selected to participate in this project. Shout out to Tom Furniss and Rose Matafeo’s special Horndog available on HBOMax and Neon NZ. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

today you ready okay let's go the hunt for the wildest movie of the summer everybody ends here this is your super friendly and not aggressive reminder to buy tickets immediately borderlands now playing welcome to episode two of i guess this is an emergency season of sorts of overlooked and undercooked because very important materials has been released from rob schneider that myself tim and my esteemed colleague guy montgomery must examine Once a Day for seven days. It is his new comedy special at a runtime of arguably 39 minutes. What is it called again? Mexican Mama Asian Kids?

Have you not listened to anything this man has been saying? Asian Mama Mexican Kids. saying asian mama mexican kids but i think the subtext and the subtitle is i'm awesome and all women are crazy yeah guy i i don't know what i have to give to you today we were talking on the chat um the way that we're doing this is we're doing little watch parties so we watch simultaneously and uh we chat to each other online as we're watching in real time and i'm i don't i i don't like to be so negative i don't like to be so critical about someone's work, I guess, in a way. But this special and the prospect of watching it like once at all

and then more than once has just fucked me up. Yeah, man. You've got a real scary energy. Less so when we're actually on the record, but all of my communique with you around facilitating this, you're openly, and I would say possibly understandably hostile towards me. If I have to put something off by five minutes, I do so with great trepidation.

I feel like I'm somewhat on eggshells around you what i said to you in the chat was that um i'm very angry at you and i know that that's not fair to you but i also know that that's probably not going to change yeah and i that's okay like do you think is there anything to be gleaned or gained from this exercise? Is it making you think about comedy, your own comedy, jokes, society at large? I just shook my head the entire time you were saying that. But now I've actually, I think I do have something. The big takeaway for this special for me is just, and we kind of like we talked about this i think on the

chat yesterday but the importance of confidence on stage just how much that can carry just getting out there with a swagger and pretending like what you have to say is good and funny and a joke even when it isn't it is very it's like magic to a crowd you just trick them wholesale it's like hypnotism you just go out there and you're like i'm gonna say a bunch of stuff with the cadence of jokes that are really like good and uh and you guys are gonna laugh yeah and it's this bizarre contract that you have with the audience where they're sitting there. It's very weird being an audience in a comedy show. It's quite a like, it's a big job. And I think that doesn't get talked about enough.

It's actually quite a big role to be an audience member in a comedy show. The bigger the audience, the smaller each independent audience member's job is. Like if you're in an audience of 10 you are sharing a tremendous workload but if you're in an audience of 500 you've got a low a low level of commitment very true but it's different to seeing a movie for example where you do not have to uh sort of output any of your energy responding to the thing that is being shown to you at all you just kind of quietly absorb it all um or even like a band because like a band does they want a reaction from you obviously but i think music's a lot easier to get on board with which might be why rob graham so much into a special um but like

the band kind of has something to do where even if they sort of quote unquote bomb and that the audience don't get on board, they can still kind of deliver the same show. But that doesn't really happen with comedy. No, well, because there's an agreed upon desired outcome. Like everyone is entering this contract and they understand that there's one very clear purpose. And I understand that there's one very clear purpose. And yeah, like there's no, I think in music, people can go to a concert for different reasons musically. But if an audience of people at a comedy show are largely there to laugh. And I think, I remember, this is more unique to new zealand but while we're talking

about the the idea of it like this doesn't really happen in america in america i feel like they're excited that you're on stage and they believe that there's a reason you're on stage like american exceptionalism makes them very confident audiences they believe in the process they believe in the performer until proven otherwise whereas in in New Zealand, there is immediate doubt anyone who would be arrogant enough, is sort of the collective read, to think that their ideas are funny enough to share and say aloud into a microphone.

Even though the same people who are carrying this energy have paid for tickets to watch the show. In America, it's like, here you are. God, I hope you're funny. the show in america it's like here you are god i hope you're funny and in new zealand it's like yeah here you are you better be fucking funny and like i was just gonna say i saw a similar observation on twitter and i i am kicking myself that i can't remember who made it but the difference between male and female audiences i don't know if rose it was rose retweeted this was it she no she make that observation she made the observation we did a show on our tour in uh and it was um fucking fire and it would have been like 70 percent woman who were more or less all there to see rose and i was just a a very happy benefactor um yeah but then she was talking about it to me in the car afterwards.

And there's this alchemy. The tipping point seems to be 51% non-men. Yeah. But I just remember... Hold on, say the observation, because the observation was the key thing, is that men go to a comedy show with an attitude of what you said like you better be fucking funny and women go to a comedy show to have a good time and i'm mangling the wording a

bit she put it more precisely but like that kind of that it's so fucking true women are very broadly speaking obviously but as a comedian like women are there to have a good time and enjoy the night and so often dudes in the crowd are there to be convinced they're all they're they're threatened um yeah yeah and but like so in new zealand just further to the point i was saying is i remember tom furnace said this to me he's a very funny he used to do stand-up comedy he's a director and a writer now um but i think he's still got a clue. If you look him up, Tom Furness on YouTube. When I started Comedy in New Zealand, he was my favorite New Zealand comedian. But he was saying how funny he finds it in New Zealand

where comedy is a job where you're getting up there with the express purpose or desire to spread joy or laughter. And if you do it, people are somewhat surprised perhaps in new zealand but also grateful but in new zealand if you do it and you get it wrong the response isn't like oh well that's a shame it didn't work out it's like hey you know what fuck you i hate you i hate you for trying and failing to entertain me. It's just so insane. And I suppose to an extent, you know, we are carrying some of this energy towards the great Rob Schneider.

Hey, very good point and way to pivot back to the subject matter. I think you could be right. Maybe, like, we are going into this with all the wrong attitude and that is too much colouring our experience of the special. I don't know. I mean, I say that and it is definitely true, but it's a different sort of disappointment. Here is a multi-millionaire, internationally formally recognised superstar

who is... Formally recognised is such a funny... Formerly successful comedian, Rob Schne rob schneider yeah who is the funniest version of that is in that adult swim one about boom shakalaka former father yeah yeah broom shakalaka um oh god that is so funny i i can't i was gonna say just that i just so it's it's frustrating that he's he's bad to the point of being offensive. He's lazy to put... All of his observations are from when he lasted comedy,

which is in the 90s. And it's different from seeing famous people decide once they're famous, that's when they'll try stand-up comedy without having had any miles on the clock. I believe a stand-up comedian, the point at which they sort of cross over to becoming capable of selling out a ren arena no matter what they're saying whatever the like if

you haven't had if you haven't got enough miles on the clock as a comedian to that point you're sort of trapped at whatever development level you're at when you become that famous because yeah it's impossible not to like it's impossible not to be beloved because everyone's buying tickets to see you not the comedy show but to see you and so even when you do drop in spots at small clubs

still the people who are going to comedy shows if you've reached that level know who you are anyway so you can't even do it that way I would argue that's different though people don't bother to do that because that's a genuine litmus test of material like it's the people who want to work do but famous and lazy people don't because you'll get given 33 seconds at the top where they go i recognize this person this person is famous and then eventually like if they're not paying to see you if they're paying to see a lineup

show or a different experience and you drop in you're held to the same standard as other comedians whereas if it's just your show everyone's just excited you're in the fucking room and i think why i wouldn't say that you get treated to the same to the same stand like if you're super famous and you go in and bomb on a lineup where you're not announced i still reckon there's so much love in the room for you for being well-known. Beyond that 30 seconds, I reckon. I admit that you're still going to do the work at some point in the set,

but I think when you get to Rob Schneider's level of fame, if he did a... I don't know. Even... I saw him. My heart would sink. What would it be like if you were in a comedy show show guy and and it was totally unannounced and rob schneider just dropped in am i watching or performing fuck that's a good question

uh well audience member first um i would i would be i would be tessellated. I would be curious. And then I think maybe I was articulating my own experience before, but then within however long it takes for him to launch into a joke, I would immediately, I imagine, based on the evidence of watching a special twice, I would be very underwhelmed and frustrated. As a performer, I would be probably fearful

that he's listened to some of our podcasts. My question to you, Tim, is you're producing a comedy show in New Zealand and for whatever reason, someone registered on behalf of Rob Schneider and says, hey, Tim, Rob's in town,

any chance he can jump up and do a quick 10 minutes on your show tonight? What do you say? Absolutely. 100% yes. Yeah. Why? Because the audience would get a fucking massive

kick out of seeing that. I disagree. Who is Rob Schneider's audience? So being in New Zealand, if we hear anyone with an American accent on a stage, we've got so much love for it. Can you imagine the fucking star of The Hot Chick and The Animal and Deuce Bigelow's one and two jumping up and doing his set, people would lose their minds. No. Do you know how narrow the number of people

who know who that is? Like, nah, you're insane. Because once he got up, they'd be like, oh, that guy from the fucking Adam Sandler movies. They would know who Rob Schneider is. That's what they'd say. That guy from the fucking Adam Sandler movies.

What's he doing here? That's all it takes. He got old. That's all that's needed. I just disagree. I think he would be, I think we'd go badly. I would not program him on a lineup. Firstly, I love asking me a question, me giving an answer and saying I disagree. I do. Not for you. Not for you, but for me. Like my response to that question is different. Do you not think the audience would love to see

rob schneider appear out of nowhere on a new zealand stage it'd be amazing if i was an audience member and rob schneider got up i'd be like this is fucking crazy how can you say that after watching this i would this is completely different seeing him in a live context would be like one off first of all cannot stress that enough and also not an entire show of him but to see him do a drop in spot would be thrilling and novel in the same way watching a an accident is thrilling and novel don't you think that there is a very different bar with which you treat live comedy shows and like a special that you watch on tv absolutely that is 100 true but like so i think a lot of it's to do with that yeah to be honest i think so for me is like i there's a certain amount of personal

responsibility i assume if i'm putting together a show that the audience will be safe and based on the evidence put forward by rob schneider i don't think i could in good conscience program without being like well people are going to be fucking white knuckling it through 80% of this set. Do you know what? That's actually a really good point. And I was more like thinking of the idea of Rob Schneider in spite of the fact that I've literally just watched his stand up special twice in

two days. And yeah, if I did think about it for 40 more seconds and, and remember the kind of material that would be expected at the show yeah i would have to have a big think about it because like i you know i always feel weird kind of broaching ground like this um especially being uh us which is a pairing of two straight white cis dudes who do podcasts which is like a fucking parody of a podcast basically but like essentially so much content of this show is rape culture like laundered for laughs or an attempt

at laughs it's fucking crazy yeah like so many of the premises are um women are insane and you shouldn't really listen to them and all men are bad but you should sort of forgive that fact and coupled with all of the like the jokes about him grabbing his mother-in-law and being himself it's just like when you kind of take your step back and look at the whole thing you're like this absolutely sticks to high heaven and sucks but then you kind of like the reprieves are the absurdity of the production the fact that it's the little things like i noticed today what he's wearing on stage which is a dark navy sweater and dark gray pants against a black curtain grey pants against a black curtain. What

the fuck are you doing, man? Have one single thought about how this is going to look on camera. When you kind of look at it, he just looks like a face that a spotlight is hitting and two hands floating in space. The fact that he's got

a trained classical pianist who appears halfway through the show because all he can muster is getting through 20 minutes before he knows that he needs to borrow from other art forms to emotionally buoy the audience to get through to like the 43 minute mark and then like stacking on top of that the fact that not only does he have this live pianist i did not realize the first time i watched this that when he gets his daughter, legitimate bonafide pop star Al King to join him on stage, there is a live fucking band which he does not acknowledge that are playing the song for them. people who have taken time and energy and money to dedicate themselves to their instrument and the the utility of that is a fucking rob schneider special which contains like maybe three jokes in

44 minutes it is absurd though the endeavor is absurd your description of the reprieve has wound you up tremendously which is the traditional role of the reprieve has wound you up tremendously which is the traditional role of a reprieve today you ready okay let's go the hunt for the wildest movie of the summer ends here this is your super friendly and not aggressive reminder to buy tickets immediately I want us just quickly go back to the pianist, who is Takaru Saito from Japan. When I was watching it, the piano sort of rages on. And at certain points, if you try to listen more to the piano score than Rob schneider

you can almost enjoy or find solace or meditation inside of the special what is their creative collaboration like how did they get put in touch with each other has either rob schneider listened to this guy play piano before or has takaru listened to rob schneider do comedy before does rob schneider have any creative input into the style of piano that is being played beneath his jokes like what's the deal here i'd love to know so well what are the clues that we have what do we know about rob schneider we know that he um is uh like sort of a practicing buddhist like he's very into into the practice of buddhism Buddhism and I think Buddhist meditation

and that kind of leads me to believe that maybe he does listen to some chill piano music maybe that's not completely out of the box so maybe this like popped up in his travels on Spotify and he's like I wonder if I could get that guy I don't know the guy the person who you're hiring

I guess everyone needs a job but they have to be at a pretty interesting point in their career to... I'm just looking them up on Spotify now. I think this is the thing about musicians, though, in a way. Especially people who aren't super famous can be super skilled and even prolific. Yeah. aren't super famous can be super skilled and like even prolific yeah um like almost virtuoso level without being that well known especially if i don't know i just think that there's probably a

lot of phenomenal piano players out there who who just aren't super well known outside of real piano enthusiasts yeah i would maybe we should look at doing it guy maybe we should hire some like really great musicians to just to score this podcast doing a show yeah show a podcast whatever i yeah i just i i just wonder like i just feel like he tagged this young sort of promising but probably not super established pianist and was like i'm pretty famous this is going on netflix i give you what do you reckon ten thousand us dollars he's hemorrhaging money on getting the thing online in the first fucking place i reckon a little less than that to be honest i i think like the payment of musicians would

be kind of less than we expect but but I reckon probably somewhere between five and 10. Okay. You'd do it. I could play the piano. I'd do it. Fuck. Absolutely. Imagine like this.

Another thing that blows me away is because the way you summarized all of it and all these insane constituent parts that don't go together at all and just sort of paper over the fact that this is not a product. This thing had a fucking director. This special had someone who was not Rob Schneider who was in charge of creating some sense of cohesion or product. His name is Tyler Spindle. Give me dates on this dude.

Well, he actually directed a comedy film that you've watched this year. What? Any guesses at what it is? It's a Netflix-released comedy film. It's a Happy Madison production. Oh, I've forgotten what it's called. Tell me the actors. The Lauren Lapkus one with David Spade.

Yeah, yeah, the wrong Missy. The wrong Missy same missy same director does that make any sense to you it's interesting you kind of because like i think heading into lockdown if there's any hope of any work you're just like yes yes yes yes yes yes yes because you can see what's happening on the horizon so like rob reaching out to him yeah it doesn't shock me to hear the thing with the wrong missy because i i reviewed that for a um a publication here in new zealand and the movie like wasn't great it was just the fact that lauren lapkus is so phenomenal that that made it anything

yeah it was a pretty great watch but it was purely just because of lauren lapkus well can i read you this self-penned mini-biography of Tyler Spindle from IMDb? Love to hear it. I'd love to hear you read it. Overview. Height. Six foot two. What the fuck is that?

Let us start with height. After graduating from Harvard University, Tyler Spindle moved to Los Angeles to pursue his childhood dream of performing stand-up comedy. Touring the country and hosting a weekly show at Hollywood's Laugh Factory nurtured a deeper understanding of comedy as an art form, eventually leading Tyler to a new

and overarching passion for directing. What? Tyler's early foray into the field began with directing viral branded content What? Wow. Tyler's film career has included directing second unit for six studio Adam Sandler-Happy Madison features in writing, producing, and directing the much-acclaimed short film Love and Germophobia, which won awards from several film festivals. Blah, blah, blah. And then he's got a film on in the summer of 2017

tyler co-wrote and directed the netflix original feature film graduates which will premiere this june on netflix the film was produced by happy madison and stars david spade and nat faxon fuck this is just this guy just sounds like he's in the adam sandler fucking mafia it's like he's doing awesome he's making so much stuff. God bless him. You love him. This is the other thing, man. It's like what you said yesterday,

which is usually my sort of battle cry on Overlooked and Undercooked. You know what? Rob Schneider went and made this, and they went and found a pianist in a band, and they put it all together. They put it on a show, and they filmed it, and they put it online. And it's an inescapable uh thing that is good that he did 100 like but i guess that when you when you need to start referring to something's existence

like that's a pretty um that's that's basement level if you like if you if you click through these profiles long enough you know like i've now on his instagram this guy's only got a thousand oh has it 1069 followers it's not great this isn't rob he doesn't know how to use his main properly this is tyler spindle yeah i just went on it oh i see he's just got like the same super similar posts from the wrong Missy over and over again, which fair play to him. He directed a film, which was number one on Netflix briefly. So like I did.

Yeah. What are we doing? We're watching Rob Schneider's Netflix special. Exactly. Exactly. The fuck are we up to? You know, admittedly, like, you know, right now we're in lockdown, but I don't have a special and I wasn't in lockdown for the first 32 years of my life.

So I guess fuck me. I don't have a special either. Yeah, and fuck me too. I don't like what this project is doing to us, Guy, because it's like we're shitting on the special so much, but then we're kind of putting ourselves lower than it because we don't have a special and um i can't think of anything more self-destructive not not everything is uh you know not not the people who get specials aren't always the best comedians yeah yeah that's um demonstrably true hey i didn't even realize the Olive Garden had a salad bar.

What are we doing here? Is that one of the jokes in the special? That's usually where one Filipino person in the crowd goes, Woo! But not this time. That is something that he left in. Yeah, that's fucking crazy, that bit is crazy because like often and and this is kind of a um a standard bear of newer comedians when you kick off it's like you'll have a joke

generally which is designed to provoke outrage or it could just be recognition and when that doesn't come you haven't you haven't written an alternative where no one reacts to it so then you've got to say what the reaction was supposed to be from the audience but like i'd be tempted to say as you kind of progress in your comedy career and become a better stand-up you you never ever ever write a joke that relies on a specific reaction from the also it's not it's not. Also, it's not a joke. It's literally just him saying, I'm Filipino. And then ordinarily, I guess,

some audience members who are also Filipino cheer. And in this instance, they don't. And he says, normally, someone would cheer there. This time, they didn't. Okay, in the room, I understand that piece of decision-making. I get it. You're just, like, processing muscle memory. But you are in an edit suite.

You don't need to leave in this not-funny, worthless observation that usually something different happens that is not funny or worthwhile that has not happened in this instance. Do you reckon anything's on the cutting room floor like because it is possible that we keep going on about the runtime of comedy imagine if imagine if this special was actually an hour and this is the cut down i mean who edited it did he i reckon the director how is his wife not a separate editor now this is probably what we need to talk about so patricia or patricia because they do say it both ways in the show that she stars in um she's on stage in the special after being just denigrated in two different ways there's the explicit way which is rob schneider um making

so much fun at her expense which is kind of like is what it is but then there's a very hacky trope of like you know male comedians it's like you know the the most iconic and uh forever one will be the most iconic and uh forever one will be um rodney dangerfield's take my wife no seriously take her i've always i've never quite cracked it but i always wanted to write a joke about that about like what the fuck was going on with comedians in their marriages in the 80s like what was the deal why were they getting hitched who were these poor women like what was going on it was just it was misogyny was uh more somehow more rampant then than it remains today there's um the second way in which rob schneider is denigrating his wife so badly in this special is is just because you get access to so many of rob schneider's thoughts

so then you go anyone intimately connected with this person kind of fucking sucks like anyone who's do you know it is up it is it is upsetting but that is like she executive produces both this and real rob and so it's sort of it's the you know it is it's proximity to to a bad thing it's like you are also somewhat culpable for the bad thing but then there's another layer which is like does love triumph fall is this about like a supportive spouse who who loves rob schneider's core his heart who he is and like supports him because we kind of think that everyone who's super famous is super talented and that's obviously not the case but it's sort of an assumption we make but sometimes you get afforded the platform and ability to put your work out

there and you're just not that good but for whatever reason the doors have still been opened for you and if you're the spouse of that person and you love them and you want to support them and be there for them, then like, I don't know. Is it your role to like red light something like this that they want to do? I don't know. That question and more to be answered in the next episode of the Schneider Special Chronicles, overlooked and undercooked emergency season. May God help us all. Thank you for listening.

Maybe we recommended Rose Matafayo's HBO Max special on the previous episode. Maybe as a palate cleanse, we could take the opportunity at the end to recommend a piece of comedy at the conclusion. Oh, wonderful. What do you think?

Have you got another one? Well, if you haven't seen The Wrong Missy, honestly, it's kind of worth watching just because Lauren Lapkus is so good. There's a couple of dicey bits in it, but on the whole, it's a fun watch. And if you don't feel like watching The Wrong Missy and you haven't already, might I recommend um ronnie ching's netflix special i actually can't remember

the title of the special but that guy's a fucking crusher it's one of the funniest specials on netflix right now in my honest opinion hold on let me get the name of the special it would be criminal for us to not just take two seconds uh asian comedian destroys america that's the one it's that one right yeah yeah yeah yeah awesome all right guy well i sort of do apologize for how i'm treating you but in some ways i don't at all because you initiated this yeah yeah yeah i'm a piece of shit fuck you i'll see you tomorrow today you ready okay let's. The hunt for the wildest movie of the summer. Everybody run! Ends here.

This is your super friendly and not aggressive reminder to buy tickets immediately. Borderlands. Now playing.