Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Stu Stone: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1658

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

In this 1658th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with FOTM Hall of Famer Stu Stone about Kraft Dinner, Dark Side of the Ring, Don't F**k with Ghosts, Michael Jackson, Wayne Gretzky, Donald Trump, Ross Atkins and more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Welcome to episode 1658 of Toronto Miked, proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma pasta, enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Recyclemyelectronics.ca, committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past.

Building Toronto Skyline, a podcast and book from Nick Aienes, sponsored by Fusion Corp Construction Management, Inc. and Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Joining me today is FOTM Hall of Famer, Stu Stone. Welcome back, Stu. Thank you. Good to see you.

It's great to be here. And you know, as we said, when we greeted each other outside, seeing each other's names in each other's schedules, I mean, does anything make you happier, Mike? Because nothing makes me happier. When I saw Stu Stone, firstly, we should tell the listenership of this was in the calendar for like a month ago.

Yes. And I was getting excited and you got COVID. I did. How are you feeling now? Well, you know, I've been vaccinated, so I didn't even get it. No, I don't think that's how it works. Oh, really? If Wilner can get it, anyone can get it.

Yes. Well, actually, COVID got Wilner. I will say that it wasn't as bad as it used to be, but still it's a, it's a, it's a pain in the ass for sure. Did it knock you on your butt? Like, I felt like lethargic. I was definitely like sleeping for like two days, which like, that's a positive. So it's like, if COVID means just like getting rest, then maybe it's not so bad, But yeah, definitely. You know, it's still around all these years later. It's the five year anniversary of us locking down and starting Pandemic Friday. I think the first Pandemic Friday was March 27. No, no, March 20th. It was March 20th.

So that's five years ago, like this week. Yeah. So happy anniversary. Happy anniversary to pandemic Friday. Now to imagine that that's already five years ago, like where does the time go? And what has happened in the last five years? Like, can you take stock of your life? Something huge has happened for you recently, which we should talk about.

Well, do you want to talk about now? I mean, I've, you know, like when I see Stu Stone in the calendar, all these thoughts come in my head and I take quick notes to make sure I don't miss anything. But where would you like to talk about now? I mean, I've, you know, like when I see Stu Stone in the calendar, all these thoughts come in my head and I take quick notes to make sure I don't miss anything. But where would you like to begin? Well, I mean, listen, Mike, arguably over the last five years, a lot of great things have happened to you in your life. That's not COVID. That's just a regular sneeze. Thank you. A lot of good things have happened in your life. Obviously you had that huge write-up in the Toronto Star.

Right. It's behind you. Like full page. Yeah, I framed it. Yeah, the old frame job there. The Alejandro Kirk frame job back there. You also have had done like another like 10,000 episodes in the last five years. But the most coveted piece of Mike media yeah happened very recently Mike

when I was flipping through the channels of my television like someone my age does you know we still flip channels I'll still flip channel sure and who should I see bright and early on CNN you you saw live I did that's unbelievable to me I don't know anyone was would be watching at 6 45 a.m. CNN. I'm still, well maybe I was watching a rerun of it then because it definitely wasn't, if it was 6 45 then maybe I fell asleep on the couch with the TV on. But I saw you on television, on CNN.

You were the guest on CNN. Like that is actually mind blowing. When you say it out loud I don't believe you like it's like I don't believe you but I know what happened. Like a live hit on CNN and like they're looking for like someone to talk about like Canada and like where we all stand right now and like Mike is the guy that they go to which is unbelievable. Like it's hard to believe, but it is believable. You definitely have established yourself as a member.

Like, you know, you are, you are a pundit in your own right. You definitely are a home for pundits to come in your basement and talk stuff. I'm a pundit. I'm an accidental pundit. Yeah. Well, you became a pundit on CNN that's on your resume. And from, from what I understand from watching it, they even were like, we'll have to have you back sometime.

You don't say that to someone who you don't want to have back. I don't know, maybe they were being nice, but the producer even said we're going to have you back. It would be wild if I became the Canadian correspondent. And you had the jersey, you had your hair all done. Did you? Okay. So, so. Your CNN hair. The hair was unnatural as always.

Yes. But I did have this moment of like, what do I wear? I was going to wear a t-shirt and then I'm like, I'm going to wear my Canada jersey. That was good. I'm sending a message. I'm speaking to Americans. First of all, people go to Turkey to get hair like yours. It is absolutely amazing how much hair you have. And John Gallagher, I think did it on, uh, what was it? 2020? Do you know this story?

I think it was 9 11 and John Gallagher, the, the, the, the 2020 was going to have John Gallagher on there. We're going to talk about hair plugs cause he was getting hair plugs. Yeah. And then 9 11 happened and they of course scrapped it yes they decided maybe we have other things to talk about other than John Gallagher and hair plugs or whatever so was it life-changing for you to be on CNN it was definitely in the moment for sure it had to be okay so it all came together so I didn't have time to like get nervous I had a little time but I got notified I got the request on the Thursday night so I guess I read that email about it. How did they find you?

Somebody, a producer there said, we've been listening to Toronto Miked and we hear you talking to guests about the 51st state annexation threats. And they said, would you be our guest for CNN this morning with Audie Cornish at 6.45 a.m. tomorrow morning? So I get this email and you know you kind of look at it like is this a joke and you see oh it is at CNN calm and it's

got a real looking signature and I just replied with like sure like what do I have to do and they said oh click this link at 630 we'll do a level check and then at 645 you'll be live and you saw the rest unbelievable and so after you were on it's crazy it is because I did it right and in the moment you do it I was nervous I did it then I got to see the video recording of course my wife had a pirate stream she recorded because we don't get CNN like I don't have CNN in my cable package you should have mentioned that. Give you a password. But then CNN producer emails me an MP4 and said here is. Oh great. So this and then I put that on my YouTube and then shortly thereafter I see there's

a CNN's got their own YouTube channel and they've also uploaded it. A lot of views. Yeah it was at last I checked it was like 400,000. Wow and are people in the comments being like nice hair or anything like that? I didn't I was looking for hair comments. I saw a lot of people like supportive of course there were the odd you know I didn't read. What are the mean ones what do they say because I know that you would get great pleasure if the roles were reversed here and I was on CNN and there was potentially mean comments you would get great pleasure having me acknowledge those so I'd like to know fuck of ghosts was a bad movie should I go on and look right now research the way it goes with the default sort for the comments it's not like it's not chronological so

everything I saw like in the first couple of scrolls were very positive like we're with you, Canada, things like that. Pulling it up. And now there's 2433 comments here. And that's just the VP of sales. But if you scroll down, you get to the people who are like, I think the one comment that irked some peer poly of fanatics is I claim in that five minute chat I said that Pierre Poliev's

Conservative Party of Canada has viewpoints that align with mega like I don't think I said mega I think I said your president and I think that if you were like a big Pierre Poliev booster and you might not want to be to hear that on CNN that I think it's aligned with mega the crazy part about all this Not to like stray from this conversation because I want to come back to it sure but This whole Trump thing that's happened with Canada Tariffs, etc. Etc. 51st. State. Yeah, it's unbelievable to see

You know, I would say that I have not seen a comeback like this since the Leafs blew a three, one lead or whatever it was for one lead against the Boston or, or, or even your poly I've had a four one lead. Like literally, like these guys were 30 points down, like a month ago, left for dead couple months ago. Yeah. Which is kind of interesting. Cause like, technically speaking, if you were to look back a year ago today, Donald Trump was left for dead.

Like this guy was facing charges and court. Like he might be disqualified. There's no way this, you know, it's, it's just politics over the last couple of years has been remarkable. It's kind of like WWE, right? It's like, like, it's kind of like wrestling and we'll get yes everybody We're gonna get to dark side of the ring talk I have a note from Canada kev on that subject real quick question though from a fellow FOTM Hall of Famer Leave a phone cut. Oh, you know, when are you gonna join the cuz you're in it, but you don't contribute

But are you gonna join the FOTM conversation? Yeah, perhaps when we're done here, you can show me what I'm missing. Okay, because you're there, but you're, you know, you're, you're an absentee landlord. I don't really use WhatsApp. I was really comfortable when we were back, back in the old days when we were on Cam Gordon's Twitter. Right. Right. But, you know, that all changed.

Okay. I get so again, you just tell me if you've got to leave because I have a million questions. I'm here, man. Because I could talk about CNN for 90 minutes. But yeah, but let's wrap up that CNN conversation. Let me get back to the Twitter when you're done the CNN. When you are on, coming off the air, like obviously it's at 645.

Okay, so I'm sitting here. Yeah. So I'm here. Yeah. And I come down, so normally my alarm goes off at 730 because I wake up at 730, then I wake up more again, and then we bike to her YMCA before school care. Okay, this is like my typical Friday or whatever.

So I set my alarm for six so I could make sure I was out of bed and sounding okay by 630 because at 630 I was told to join via what's it called? What's the citrus? Citrix? WebEx? WebEx? Yeah, I think it's called WebEx. So I was told to click this link at 630. So I do that. And I'm hearing CNN live in the headphones like I can hear it. And then a producer comes on to do like a level check and check out my camera and stuff. And then at 6.45, I hear the intro to my segment,

which is a scene from, is it Canadian bacon with where America's gonna invade Canada? And then Audie Cornish is talking to me for five minutes. So I'm feeling very nervous at the beginning. And by the end, I felt kind of normal, but then it was over. Like it was like you blink and you miss it. And then you come out of it. And then you're kind of like, I'm going upstairs to ask Monica if I sucked or not. Like,

did I suck? Cause she watched it live on the pirate stream and she recorded it. And then I kind of watch it. And anyway, that's, uh, it's all like real fast. It's a blur. And I don't know why I was chosen. Like did Strombo not answer his email? Like I'm like, am I the first guy that, like, did they ask a hundred people and then I'm the 101st person? I don't know why I was chosen. Like did Strombo not answer his email? Like I'm like, am I the first guy that, like did they ask a hundred people and then I'm the 101st person? I don't know. So after you get off the air, it's obviously early. So there's not probably text messages

and social media stuff coming at you. No, stuff came in right away. Oh, right away. For example, FOTM Mike Apple. Do you know this? Yeah, yeah. He's at, I guess he's live, I don't know if he's on breakfast television or 680 or both, but he's live from the Rogers complex doing stuff and they have

a CNN on one of the screens. So he's working away and he looks over to his left and he sees it and he has a double take. It's CNN, but that's, you know, that's the same view you get if you watch live.torontomike.com and I'm in my Canada jersey, which I've been wearing a bit since the Four Nations there, which we can talk about in a bit. That was awesome. It's amazing. So, uh, yeah It's right away you get right away. And so throughout the day is there like a like obviously there's a bump in text messages and in social media stuff. Huge bump. People come out of the woodwork like people like Chantel So I say her name wrong every time. Chantel Kravizac, my buddy. Yeah, sends me an email to tell me she saw it and she loved it.

Great national anthemist, Chantel Kravizac. I defended her even though Elvis had negative things to say about it. I actually loved the fact she did something. Like she said, you know, we can talk about whether it was effective or we can talk about, you know, changing the listen, they won. So that's the best thing that could have happened. So many. So wait, so anyway, we wrap up the CNN.

So yeah, that's that's the thing. I don't want to everybody. I don't think you're boring anybody. You have a lot of out of your mom. I'm gonna hear this. She's probably listening right now. She's doing okay. She is the out of the woodworks people, you know, that's

something that people who appear on television, they deal with that type of stuff, you know? If you have some kind of a big moment, you know, I'm a guy that's had a long career, let's just say. You were in Donnie Darko. But occasionally I'll show up somewhere and then I'll get like out of the woodworks people hitting me up. Have you ever been on CNN? I've never been on CNN has anybody was there What was the weirdest you don't have to name names, but like the most random out of the woodworks person like that wrote you That's a great question because I was you know you get it left right and center like it comes at you Especially the first few days like that first weekend to all weekend long you're hearing from people

I go my god might just saw you on CNN or like randomly the YouTube clip was shared. Oh, here's the best one. And I think I might've shared this on a Toronto Mike before. So pardon me repeat story, but Elvis, the aforementioned Elvis, who's my buddy, Perry. Okay. He's at his kid's hockey game in Oshawa. So he's in the arena watching his kid play hockey. Another family is there watching their kid play in the same game. So he's in the arena watching his kid play hockey. Another family is there watching their kid play in the same game and the grandfather of the family is talking to his family about this guy he saw on CNN. I saw this guy on CNN standing up for us and here's what he said and I was so moved by it I sent this guy an email and he actually wrote back. Like

Elvis is just hearing this out loud in the wild That's so funny. And then Elvis according to Elvis. This was the greatest world's colliding moment of his life because That's me. I wrote this guy back now. I've been out with you in public before yeah And I'm and I'm not ashamed to say that I've been out in public with you before Mike several times. And I have seen people come up to you and recognize you and sort of like, you know, mark out for you, so to speak, in wrestling speak. Right. But I've seen people pop for you. I've seen people be like, I'm Toronto Mike. Hey, and like they come up to you. It happened. Now does CNN elevate that even more? Oh, good question. We'll see if I've yet to have the whole, you're the guy from CNN, like

that hasn't happened yet. But I actually had a brunch last weekend. I had brunch with the Broad Squad, which are- I know them. Lieve Fumke. Great group of Brods. Moose Grumpy. Yes.

And Stephanie Wilkinson. Love them. We're having brunch in South Etobicoke and- Where'd you guys go for brunch? Who ordered what? It's called The olive and what? What does uh, it's near sure way. Okay And Juan's there as well. Juan came as well. Juan drives levi thumka because she had a backstreet

Does he does she make him sit at another table? Shout out to one but anyway, so I get there on the first note So Juan and levi thumka are there and then I arrived so we Moose and Steph haven't arrived yet, but almost right away I sit down and a man kind of comes straight for me and says you're Toronto Mike. That's so cool Yes, I am Toronto Mike and he goes on this wonderful. He's been listening for three years He had heard Friday's episode of Holly Cole So he was really up to date because this was on the weekend and he had heard Holly Cole already. And he was telling me how much he loves it. And even if he doesn't

know the person, he enjoys them after hearing them talk to me. Like the most. And I honestly, I said to leave it like I hired this actor to go do that. It would be something you'd hire somebody to do this to make yourself look big and important in front of somebody else. Are you on cameo now? How much should I turn? I'll do your cameo for free. Quick mind blow from J-Ho on the live stream. He just found out that Biff Naked was in the boys club. I knew this of course. Just now we found that out?

Yeah, J-Ho, where have you been buddy? We've been talking about that for years. Quick, quick question from the live stream for you. Jamie Kennedy was on Tori Spelling's podcast. Oh yeah. And the question is, when is Stu Stone going to Kennedy was on Tory Spelling's podcast and the question is when is Stu Stone going to be on Tory Spelling's podcast? Probably it was a better chance for me to be on Dean's podcast. Although I did appear. You mean Dean McDermott? Yes. Not Dean Blendell. Correct. Okay. Dean's got a podcast? Well he did with you for a second until People magazine. But I will say that... Why doesn't CNN have me on to talk about that?

They should. They should. Fun fact, I was on an episode of Beverly Hills 90210 in the 90s. That's a fun fact. You were David Silver's buddy and you went to a gap. Right. So there you go. It was in Urban Outfitters, but yes.

Wasn't it? Wasn't a gap? No. Okay. I've been misled. That's a fun fact. I don't think she'd bring me on her pod to talk about that though. And you were buds. I know this because Dean's been on my show and Dean McDermott called you Stu the Jew. Yes, he did, which you know, in today's day and age might have different connotation, but I will say that I am not probably going to be on Tory's podcast, but I was on Jamie

Kennedy's podcast and that was a really cool thing that you should check out on YouTube. How old is this? I did see you on recently like this was in the last month. Okay, I haven't seen that one. It was like a two-hour sort of a no-holds-barred conversation. It was pretty good. I like the fact when I first showed you this that I got from Mark Weisblatt, fellow Afotam Hall of Fame. And you got it for free. You pointed out that this marker here.

Promo. Means it was a promo copy. And $12.36 did not cough up the $12.36 for this CD. See what I did there. Yeah. You're still active on Twitter, yes or no? Not like I was. I don't think anybody is like they were.

But I mean, I still go to Twitter for breaking news kind of stuff. Can I tell you what Mike Willner told me the day before the CNN thing? So a lot of things happen because something so this was a Thursday. I did the CNN on Friday. So on Thursday, Mike Willner visited. I'm going to get back to that because he he mentioned you. Oh, I know, you know this. So Mike Willner's here and then he's talking about how I wasn't on Twitter, but I was still pasting promotional things onto Twitter. And then he said to me, Mike, he asked me a question. He said, if you enjoyed going to a bar and

you were drinking at this bar, you were drinking your Great Lakes beer at a bar. And then that bar was bought by a Nazi. So now a Nazi, a guy you believe to be a Nazi now owns that bar. He said, would you continue to drink at this bar? And I had a moment of like, no, I would go to a different bar. Sure. That's what I was doing by still having a presence on Twitter.

So I posted one final X or tweet or post or whatever that basically I'm gone, but I'm on blue sky if you care about me at all. And then I haven't actually visited since. Wow so is it hard to not go back? No I thought it would be hard because I'd been all into it since like oh eight or something which is many many years and I used to really enjoy it back in the Cam Gordon era. I mean if you think about Elon Musk five years ago when we were doing our Pandemic Fridays, and the evolution of his character

over the last five years, it's pretty, like I said, kinda like wrestling. Politics is remarkable, like this guy, it's pretty crazy. I don't know that the guy's a Nazi, that might be a bit of a stretch, but does. Well, you have to start with, do you believe he's a Nazi? If you don't believe he's a Nazi,

then you don't go forward with the flow chart right ever I happen I've seen the salute like he did it twice and to me to me. Yeah, Gentile Mike sitting here I have no doubt what that was right. I have determined based on the fact he did that intentionally He's a Nazi It's a Nazi sympathizer You know, they're a sympathetic group of folks. You know it's like you should, if you're not going to sympathize with Nazis like what are you doing with your life?

Twitter is obviously not what it was, but I still think that you know if you know when a celebrity dies or something like that like you used to go to TMZ to like verify these things and how I think you kind of read it or something. Yeah well, I still you know pull up twitter and like if some Ongoing live in the moment thing that needs to be it still has like a town hall quality about it, but But will there's gone will there's gone. So now it's much better both will nurse Norm's gone as well. He left first actually norm left first and then then Mike left and now Toronto Mike has left. All the Mikes are gone. So have you found, like I don't know Blue Sky, but do you have the same sort of engagement on there? I would argue when you you get less followers right, but you have more humans engaging

with you. At least I do. Like so I mean I have no regrets and if ownership changes I might end up resurrecting the account on X Hopefully they rename it Twitter. That's a wild branding decision. They made but his son's name also X He's got us. He's got a child with an X in the name. Yeah, okay. He's had an obsession with X. I think forever He's got SpaceX. Yeah. Oh, that's true Yeah, he's got an X in fatuation there. So speaking of Wilner, He also has a few X's. He does. He does, including the Canadian X.

Wilner tells me you're in his baseball fantasy draft. Yes. And he added on, this is in the episode I was talking about, which was recorded the day before. We'll call it pre-CNN, one day before CNN. He says he's fine. He said on the record that it was frustrating to

talk to you about Ross Atkins because you're so personally close to the man who I sat behind when I went to see Don't Fuck With Ghosts. Yes, you did. So a couple of things here. One is, is it fun to be in Mike Willner's fantasy draft? Like any other big celebs in there? I mean when I think of fantasy, I think of Mike Willner. Often I fantasize about Mike Willner. Do you know he's dating a girl who was on Degrassi? Who?

Nancy. Do you remember Nancy? Yeah, I knew that she's like some sort of baker that he's with. Yes, okay, so she was Nancy on Degrassi. I feel like this is for Andy Pandy. But after the recording, Mike. Is that something he spoke about candidly?

After the recording by the tree, when we were taking our photo. He's like, oh, after the recording, he spoke about candidly after the recording by the tree, we were taking our photo. He's like, oh, by the way, he said, would you have my girlfriend on? And then I'm like, who's your girlfriend? And he said she was on to grassy and you immediately snapped. You were like, yes. And I said, yes, I would have your girlfriend on. And now she's in the calendar.

I'm happy that Mike has found a significant other. He's a the calendar. I'm happy that Mike has found a significant other. He's a good guy I am in his fantasy league and As far as me first of all we haven't seen the whole thing play out for the Blue Jays this year So who knows if Mike's right and I'm wrong say that but anything okay? Well, I'm just saying specifically you can't say that Vlad's not gonna be on the Blue Jays until he isn't well That's for sure and you can't say that Vlad's not going to be on the Blue Jays until he isn't. Well, that's for sure. Uh, and you can't say that they played it wrong until they didn't. Can you say they played it wrong in 20 for 2024?

Maybe that's rear view mirror stuff. I mean, I, I, I, I can't change what happened in the past. I can only look forward. Blue sky, Mike. Uh, I will say this. Maybe Mike just doesn't know what it's like to have really good friends because if people were shit talking Mike Willner to me, I would defend him. Can't you separate the human from their baseball decisions? Let's talk about Kanye West for use him as an example.

He sells swastika. I had somebody in a, I'm in this like a chat group for people in the music, in this taste makers in music and they're constantly sending music and I don't for people in the music, and just taste makers in music, and they're constantly sending music, and I don't really participate in the chat so much, but you know, occasionally they'll send something and I'll be able to discover some new music or whatever, okay? Somebody in there posted a link to Kanye West's new album,

and I wrote, fuck Kanye West. Yeah, he's a Nazi. And, someone was like,, I didn't mean for it to be divisive, just enjoy the music. And I'm like, fuck the music, fuck him. Like, no thank you. And so I would say that like, you know, and I got some heat for that from these folks.

This is a good song. This is a segue to something else, but I am interested in this conversation. Can you separate the art from the artist? See, like, that's what I see on one hand. I can't. I feel like Kanye has had too many chances. And he's not just problematic the way many an artist is problematic in 2025. He will he's selling T-shirts with swastikas on. And like then my one of the guys in the group was like, oh, he's just trolling. And I'm like, great troll.

I mean, like so genius. Like what a great way to troll people to like stir up Nazi. You know, you can say that Elon Musk did a Nazi salute, but Kanye West actually says it out loud and wears swastikas and puts it on his building and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I can't be down with that. Now, I don't feel like Ross Atkins has done anything

to make me have to separate him from his work. No, no. But when you criticize a baseball decision from the general manager, you're not saying this guy's an asshole. This guy's stupid. This guy's a loser. I can't. I never said that the Blue Jays never made like a bad move. Like that is over. You guys are over exaggerating and embellishing that but because it's makes for good radio you know but in reality entertainers do yeah but in reality I will say that for someone and I've heard this expression and this is something that Mike Willner and anybody else should listen to that once the general manager starts thinking like the fans he becomes one of

the fans and ends up watching it from the stands with the fans they know what they're doing that's why they're there they know more than we do they know more about the inner workings and what's going on behind the scenes than we do they know more than we do they have more information about the subject than we do Ross you trust I do trust him I do. Has he done everything perfectly? Of course not. Nobody has. But I would say that more often than not,

I think he's made the right moves. More often than not. And I can point to some great things that he has done. Okay, one last question on this. And I wanna ask you about this song. And I think the Blue Jays, for the record, are a playoff team this year. Yes, but almost half the teams get in now like it's possible

they I feel like they're gonna make they're gonna have a great year and boba shets gonna have a great year and Obviously Vlad is gonna have a good year I hope it's I think this is an exciting time to be a Blue Jays fan And I know you said you checked out, but you might want to consider checking back in well funny I checked out, but I'll be at the dome Saturday I would consider checking because I think it's gonna be an exciting year for the blue Jays Do you hear that sound right there that? Yes, okay, so I'm actually playing this for a reason not just because Michael Jackson is problematic

Here's why I'm playing it Here's why I'm playing it. I've heard it all before, Michael. So I'm bringing down The Girl Is Mine. That's on Thriller. I'm sure you had multiple copies of Thriller. Great album. Great album. I had, again, you were booked for a month ago.

You got COVID. We postponed it. So a fresh episode at the time that you were originally going to be here, which is like a month ago, I had on a guy named Amin Batiya, okay? His name is Amin Batiya. I want you to listen to, Stu, I want you to listen to two and a half minutes of me talking to Amin about that song you just heard.

You ready, Stu? So you can check in on, tell people to go to live.torontomike.com if they want more, we're just warming up here. This is Amin B Batia on Toronto Mic. ["Toronto Mic"] That shows up about four or five times on the track. It's like a wind chime or something. The, vocalize it, can you vocalize it?

Turn the page. It shows up a couple more times in the song. So do you appear in the credits for the album Thriller? Oh, I wish. No. I was an intern for David Foster. Holy shit. It's a mixed blessing of thank you David Foster for introducing me to LA, and David Foster, why didn't you put my credits on the album? I am credited on Keyboard Magazine, Rob talked about that,

and I think at the time Keyboard was talking about how they used eight keyboardists on Thriller, which at the time was unbelievable, that had that many keyboard people involved. Because Keyboard's rose was new back then, right? The eighth one. So this song, if you look it up later on, there's a song by Lionel, is it on Lionel Richie's album? No, it was on someone else's Al Jarreau's album. Oh, yeah

I know the song morning. Yeah, that's the same thing I'm sorry, but Foster was playing David had heard some of my earlier tapes from a Roland competition And he really liked the synths and this tape things that I was doing and so we flew me to LA pretty much the same songs for a week And he had a 24 track studio in his basement. You lived in David Foster's home for a week. I did. I did in David Foster's home for a week. Thank you, David. I would have you on just for that. Okay, we could just talk about tears are not enough. That's pretty amazing. Actually the thing I think is amazing is when he had Natalie Cole singing with Nat King Cole.

What a brilliant idea and how beautiful that must have been for her, you know, for his daughter to be singing with her dad, you know, through the magic of tape. I thought that was, he's an amazing guy. He's absolutely amazing guy. But this little effect was actually meant for another song. And you know, when you're in a studio and you gotta quickly come up with something to please, you know, Quincy, He just grabbed this from that.

It's a sample, I guess, if you will. They tried to recreate it, but they didn't know what the synth was. So they just used that. Do you have the outro song? I can tell you now officially it is a Jupiter-8 synth. Oh yeah. And everybody wondered about the sequencer that was used because the Jupiter-8 doesn't have a sequencer and how did you get multiple voicings on the Jupiter-8.

Quite simply, it's a pair of notes. I just basically played a major triad chromatically coming down. So I was trying to duplicate it on sequencers and computers and stuff, but I basically just kind of played it in. That's so cool. This bell-like sound.

I would come on here just to talk about stuff like this every week. It would've been, yes. And I would do that. It would have been nice Did you receive a? Did I what we see the penny? So I heard that album sold a few units. I know I know

That album sold blowing up type numbers. Yeah, right. I'll say something really quickly like I'm gonna play morning Yeah morning morning is almost the same song as the girls's almost the exact same song. Okay, so again, Amen Batia is talking about how he's on The Girl Is Mine, which is on Thriller, but he's uncredited and he talked about Al Jarreau's Morning. Yeah, yeah, of course. And it's almost the same song. Now, just to say, you know, this Michael Jackson music on the Thriller album is no stranger, and Michael Jackson off the wall even is no stranger to borrowing other people's songs. Because this may have been on a Pandemic Friday before, but Rod Temperton, the guy that wrote

Thriller and a bunch of stuff, he's in the group Heatwave, which sounds exactly like Off the Wall. Like, I can find that. You can pull it up. But let me see. Hold on. But let's listen to this. This is great. Find the song Boogie Nights. The God Dog Gone Girl is mine. OK, I'll look up Boogie Nights. The God dog gone girl is mine. Okay, I'll look up Boogie Nights. Boogie Nights by Heatwave.

It sounds exactly like Off the Wall. Michael Jackson. It's the same story as this. I love this. By the way, I like this Al Jarreau song. It's the same fucking song. I am old, and now at last I know Okay, check this out because this is off the wall Michael Jackson to a tee obviously not this intro but Too hot to handle too cold to hold

Try to Mike in the morning was his some you know, they show you were going to get. Should've. Got shuttered. It's gone. Okay. The same music. What a neat. Listen, this is a long one. I wanted you to hear the Amen Batia because when he talks about Thriller and Michael Jackson and Mourning and Al Jarrell, I think about you. Like yeah, Stuart enjoys this. I love it. But Rob

Pruce, do you know the name Rob Pruce? Of course. Mr. Spoon. Some say he replaced you on Toast. You know. I think you're irreplaceable. I think he's done a formidable job. He's done his. And that outro that he recorded for you, that's him right? That's him. That's unbelievable. He recorded something for your appearance on Toronto Mike this month. What? I am going to play it for you right now. Hey, Mike, it's Burlington Robb.

I loved your chat with Amin Batiya, a thin tortilla. And when you mentioned that you and Stu would be going over some of the coolness today, I made this little recording which I was going to share with you of the bit that he talked about that he used his synthesizer on Michael Jackson's song, The Girl Is Mine, which David Foster basically stole a sample, borrowed a sample from an Al Jarreau song that Amin had worked on. The song is called Mornin. And as soon as he mentioned it on your show, I recognized it. I knew exactly what he was talking about. Yeah, me too.

I made a little clip of Michael Jackson and a little clip of Al Jarreau. And I will, I'll point them out when you hear them, but it's so obvious and it's hilarious. The two songs sound almost exactly the same. Okay. Here it comes. I'm now in my studio at home again. I love this guy sitting in a diner this morning and I've just realized that my microphone can be staring. Oh wow. Look at that here. It's going left and right all the way back over to here, but that's not what I'm talking

about. Here comes the Michael Jackson song. You will hear the intro to the girl's mind. Yep. Here comes the sound. Ready? Go! That's the sound. That little twinkly descending sounds like stars falling.

Okay. This is Al Jarreau. Mornin'. We know the song. Here comes the sound. It's coming up right now. Same sound. David Foster sampled that sound and added it into The Girl Is Mine. Comes back up. How cool is that? Anyways that's my little musical interlude, my musical interpretation. And there it is. So back to you, Mike and Stu. I think this should

be the show, like, where we chat about all the stuff going on and we have recordings like that from the... I love it. I mean, listen, and the fact that he knew that I would like geek out over that stuff, he knows, he knows. That's why he's a great host. Because he knows, he knows the seat that he's successfully filled and then some. So shout out to Rob. Shout out to Rob Pruse and shout out to Bob Willett. Of course.

And look at how he's doing. He's six days a week. He's saving radio single-handedly. Do you know that I am so happy about that? I think that it is so tremendous that a guy who we saw who was probably feeling like he was kicked in the stomach at one point, you know, he was back in the basement, so to speak, not this basement, his own basement, such a great guy, such a great, you know, just an inspirational sort of story this is. Here's a guy that felt like he had maybe,

his time had come and gone. And he has somehow got his way from doing like, you know, I don't know the specifics, but like the weekend midnight shift to now he's like six days a week. Like this guy is the man. He's the Liberal Party of Canada. Yeah king like forget Corey Feldman it's all about Bob I will say congratulations to Bob I'm very happy for him and excited

for him and this is not a coming out of the woodworks sort of celebratory thing it's I watch his content I've clicked like on his stuff when I see it on socials very happy for Bob and he's kicking ass and Rob, you know, you cannot state how Creative Rob is for like I said that outro that he made for you is so tremendous So listen to it together at the end of we will but those are two great guys And I'm very excited for them both both obviously for Toast being so successful, but also for their own individual efforts that are paying off.

And for those who are new or maybe you're just tuning in or maybe you're just sliding in as a FOSS, it's worth noting that it's not like Stu and Cam Gordon were replaced for a variety of reasons, both Stu Stone and Cam Gordon needed to stop doing toast. Like you basically were in the States filming Dark Side of the Ring. Right. And then sometimes you're filming your own movies, like Don't Fuck with Ghosts.

Yes. All of which we're going to talk about. Cam had a whole, you know, looking for a new gig type deal. He seems to be very happy in his current job. What's his current job? Seneca College. What's he doing there? He's back at school. He's like Rodney Dangerfield. Adam Sandler?

Yeah, he's Adam Sandler slash. What's he doing though? Is he the head of comms there? Yeah, I think so. Good for him. And I will point out on Tuesday, which is April 1st, he's no April fool. Cam Gordon's back here in the basement for FOTM cast every quarter He comes in with Tyler Campbell the VPS sales to recap the previous quarter and I'll be honest with you I was looking at what's happened in the past quarter in the TMU the Toronto Mike universe. It's bananas. Like it's CNN

It's Charlie Angus. It's Scott Thompson. Yeah, it's I mean there's there's a guy named Alan Gregg who at the time We thought this is the greatest and it's like oh, yeah That's a footnote now most amazing quarter and I was on this hour has 22 minutes. I saw that too So this was quite a quarter. Yeah, this is uh, you know, listen, you're just getting started here. You're just getting started, baby And we played let's get our word in here during the last toast. I'm happy to hear that cam is is happy Yeah, and I see is I see MF on television all the time. This Trump thing has been good for her brand. Gives her something to talk about.

What are your thoughts? I'm just curious what Stu Stone... I know you're a proud Canadian, but you spend so much time in the US of A. What are your thoughts on the fact we're in a trade war with our one-time closest ally? It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, Michael. I don't understand why. It's like, you know, and I'm sure other people have made the same kind of comparison, but like you have like a really great neighbor and they're, you know, if you ever need to borrow sugar, they're there for you. When I was in LA and the LA was on fire, Canada sent planes to come put it out.

This is kind of a figure of speech, but it's like the largest open border basically on planet Earth is between Canada and the United States. Longest undefended border. We've always been supportive of USA and, you know, we've definitely been the punchline of, of USA, but like happily, you know, we've accepted our little brother's status in a lot of ways when it comes to like them making their jokes, but we've always kind of known where we stand and we've kind of always been sort of respectful of, uh, you know, we've been a great neighbor.

So now a new guy buys the house, moves in and and all of a sudden, like, he doesn't want to hang out with the neighbor. Not only does he not want to be best friends anymore, he kind of wants to be enemies. You know what? I feel like chaos is part of the brand, the Trump brand, and I don't know how much of this is political theater and how much of it is real I guess we'll find out in April when these tariffs are either happening or not happening But I will say that you know, it's a bit of a shell game going on here

You know, it's like a bit of a misdirection a lot of the times, you know If he can put 20 things in the headlines every day Then it's hard to keep up with what's happening and then you don't even know what's happening that we're not even hearing about so part of the strategy of him is to create chaos and a lot of it is probably trolling you know he knows that he can say stuff and it'll rile people up and get them talking about that instead of something else I don't know I don't think that it's gonna be helpful for anybody in the end and I hope that it's gonna come to some sort of amicable conclusion I don't know. I don't think that it's going to be helpful for anybody in the end, and I hope that it's going to come to some sort of amicable conclusion. I don't know what

the election in Canada is going to, is going to solve it or not solve it, but you know, I don't know what the approach is with this guy, because like he said that this is about fentanyl, then it isn't about fentanyl, then it's about fentanyl then it's about this and now it's about 200 percent tariffs on cheese or whatever he's saying it's like every day it changes Mike but he had said to at least one reporter he said he wanted to devastate us economically so we'd come crawling to him to be the 51st I don't think that's going you know I'm not a prognosticator Mike I'm not a psychic But I would say that You know and by the way I could be you never know in this world I mean they're all bets are off, but like I would says no more bet I would say that

Canada is probably going to stay Canada like I don't see a scenario where we become the 51st state as funny as it is to Trump But you know what? I will say this. He is a remarkable guy. And I've said the, I've said the word remarkable a few times here to describe various things today, but I do think it's very fitting to describe him specifically love him or hate him. And a lot of people do love him or hate him.

He's very polarizing, obviously, but it is quite remarkable to see where he was in 2020 to where he is now. The comeback that was made is remarkable, Mike. This guy was literally face down in the water and he's the president now and he won the popular vote, Mike. It's unbelievable that we saw that happen and you can love him or hate him, but you at least have to acknowledge that that is an incredible good or bad. That is an incredible thing that we witnessed. And you'll probably never see anything like that again. Well, two things.

One is never underestimate the misogyny coming out of the populace. It's absolutely crazy. And you have people, you know, I'm not saying that I like him or don't like him. It's irrelevant at this point. We just have him and like it's obvious what I think about him but like I don't have to say it out loud. But I'm saying that it's remarkable. It's remarkable what he has done and the chaos that he's sowing now, I mean like that's what people voted for. So that's what you're going to get. This is what the people wanted. And he's doing what he said he was going to do, which is what he's doing.

So I mean, the good news or bad news, depending on which side of the aisle you sit on, is that, you know, there's midterms that come up two years into this thing. And if, you know, the Democratic Party, who are in shambles at the moment can figure something out you know maybe they come up with a way to like some of the power out of his hands so that he can do all this stuff but i don't know i honestly you can't

you can't predict anymore anything about the united states and it is truly you know they will be talking about this man in the history books for completely different reasons then we would have had he not won the election this year. I feel like his legacy has completely changed. Whether it's positive or negative, it has completely changed. I know you spend a lot of time in the USA and I respect that.

I'm not defending the USA like I defend Ross. Even at home, because you keep saying love him or hate him. In Canada you can't really like him. USA like I defend rocks. Even at home. Yeah, because you keep saying love them or hate them Like you are in Canada. You can't really like in this country. Sure overwhelmingly of course anti Trump and Yeah, yeah, I mean I can't I can't argue with the sentiment that is going on currently in Canada towards this gentleman For sure. He is he is causing problems here for sure. He is causing problems here for sure. But I don't know. Like is that just posturing? Is that just theater? Is that just a way to sort of misdirect? But regardless of whether it's posturing or not, there's real life effects in terms of

anxiety, for example. Canadian anxiety is higher because we have to worry about the most powerful military in the world having a commander-in-chief Who wants to make us a part of their country? I don't think that there's like a military Takeover of Canada that we need to worry about but again All bets are off bets are off But like fuck this guy that I have to worry about whether the tanks are gonna roll I don't think the tanks are gonna roll. That's a bit extreme side. Are you on if they roll? Obviously, come on man. I'm elbows up brother. But I will say that that that it's it's frustrating for

sure. It's it's not easy. It's frustrating and the best thing to do and I hate to say it is to be an ostrich and put your head in the sand. That's like... It's easier to do when there's no tariff. Yeah. Well you don't have to pay a tariff to stick your head in the sand unless you're using American sand, but I will say it's like, you know, and this is not necessarily good advice, but I feel like the people who have stopped paying attention are living a happier existence, although it is almost impossible to not pay attention when it's actually affecting Canada. Yeah, you can't ignore this. That was my plan November... And I'm not, I see your chat saying that I'm threading a line to make sure I can still

work in the US. That is not the case. Okay. I am an American citizen. Although I don't have a problem working in the US. I'm learning. I can cross the border whenever I want. It's not about being American or being Canadian.

I was born in Canada. I love Canada. Canada, I'm team Canada. Okay. Let's just get that straight. I'm glad to hear that but but I will say that You know There's 99 things that Trump does that I don't agree with and there's one thing that he does that I do like and

I'll just leave it at that. Can I say do you know this there's a person on the live stream? I'm about the block because I just don't want to see his shit on my site, but he goes by the name Guy Smiley. Do you have any friends or acquaintances you've messaged who go by the nickname Guy Smiley? A great character from Sesame Street? I don't know who Guy Smiley is, but I do, I am seeing what you're seeing and like, listen, let's just address what Mr. Smiley is saying because that is a narrative we should from others that is a narrative that the other side that you are on has that they smiley wrote in the chat where there's wonderful people like like yy

z gourd and and and Jeremy Hopkins and cam brio is there and the original family oh baby hey ref 1236 a lot of good good FOTMs I'll be seeing at TMLX 18 on June 26th at Great Lakes Brewery. I cannot wait but Guy Smiley writes four more years which by the way would violate the Constitution so that's a whole separate discussion. He's had his two fucking terms right so that's a whole different conversation. Is he a dictator now? Four more years?

Is he Putin? You gotta stop being you gotta gotta stop buying into the, to the panic. Okay. Well, Guy Smiley, right. I'm just quoting Guy Smiley here. Four more years. Canada is a bunch of pussies. What do you, Stu Stone, have to say to Guy Smiley, who I know came in on the FOSS train? He's not an FOTM. I don't think that Canada is a bunch of P words as he says especially not in the four nations finals that was fantastic amazing right but listen man it is in wrestling let's bring it into wrestling here okay I'm ready to segue in the

1990s the late 1990s 1997 when WWF at at the time was trailing to WCW at the time. Do you remember WCW, Mike? World Championship Wrestling. World Championship Wrestling was dominating in the ratings 83 weeks or whatever it was. WWF decided to do an angle, as they say say where Bret Hart would become a Canadian patriot and it did big business and in the United States people were booing Canada and in Canada people were booing the United States and it was a big storyline and big business and got patriotism ironically wrestling garnered

a lot of patriotism in Canada. I feel like Trump has always been wrestling and a lot of his playbook comes from wrestling and this could be what we're looking at right here. You know, the silver lining to what he's doing, if you can find one, and I'm a pretty reasonable guy Mike, we've had a lot since we've started doing Pandemic Fridays. Think about all of the crazy shit that's gone on in the world from the pandemic to protests and riots and all the other shit that went down. Ukraine was invaded, October 7th.

A lot of stuff. And I've been pretty reasonable with my takes, especially knowing, coming on your show in a platform that CNN is listening to. And I'm trying to garner some, maybe I'll become a pundit if I get the right sound bite out here. But my point is, is that the silver lining, if there is one is that Canadian pride is at an all time high right now because of this and Canadians, this whole team Canada thing, that's a thing that we have not seen and experienced in this country for a long long time

So silver lining, you know if if there is one it's that you are more proud to be Canadian Outwardly than you were yesterday. We should am I wrong about that? I'm going to agree with you 100% that we should send a thank-you card to Donald J Trump what did it take to get Quebec to be proud? That's what I saying. It's like you have politicians that you never thought would get along getting along. Not maybe the two at the top of the ticket. Nothing unites the people like a common enemy. That's what I'm trying to say. So it's like the silver lining here is that like in the end of all of this, Canada is going to be more united than the United States, which is quite divided.

Right. They're on the brink of a civil war. Well, again, this is all hyperbole. Is that how you say that word? Yeah, hyperbole. Look at that. So silver lining. You're coming to me with how to pronounce words. Silver lining.

Have you heard Toronto miked? I think that Canada will be fine in the end, Mike. Just like, you know, life will go on, you know, and life always does go on, you know, people. Life finds a way. It just. Jess Goldblum. Exactly.

Exactly. Now, you know, I mentioned in passing my humble brag that I was on this hour has 22 minutes, which got lost in the CNN thunder. Okay. So let's not forget. So, but they, they took a clip of me and Charlie Angus that was recorded in this basement from my youtube channel And they aired it without attribution firstly that's bullshit right they should put like Toronto miked on the screen right yes Thank you, okay, so I'm just a long build-up

I'm gonna play a very short clip of Charlie Angus on Toronto miked And I'm wondering what Stu Stone has to say about this well. I think back in the the day I probably watched every one of Wayne Gretzky's games. I hated the Boston Bruins but boy I cried when Bobby Orr couldn't play anymore you know. But when Donald Trump announced that he wanted to run Wayne Gretzky as this puppet candidate, I thought that's what Putin does.

You know, Putin creates these puppet candidates that he's running. This isn't what you do in a democracy and Wayne Gretzky should be ashamed of himself. Absolutely ashamed of himself. Don't bother coming back to Canada if you're even willing to consider being a puppet candidate. You should do the decent thing and say, in no way would I ever undermine my country. Wayne, you failed us. Steele and I are similar vintage, which means we grew up idolizing the great one. You know, you live long enough to see yourself become the heel, you know? John Cena, baby. Batman.

I would say that, uh, now I don't know, like did I, I don't, as was Donald Trump's like anti-canada rhetoric happening? And then we've seen Gretzky like palling on them since then. No, well, he was at Mar-a-Lago on election night. Okay. Well, I mean, I think we're past the days of like hating people for who they like. But no, no, no, hold on. I'm only interjecting because we're not hating Gretzky for being a Trumper necessarily. I don't think you can hate someone for liking.

I think the reason Charlie Angus is saying things like that, and I've been calling Wendell Clark the Great One, because someone now needs to assume the mantle of Great One. It's got to be Wendell, okay? I'm saying the problem is that he was spotted wearing the MAGA hat. He's been to Mar-a-Lago. He's clearly a friend of Trump, according to Trump himself. And since the 51st state rhetoric, which Trump has brought him into saying he should be the

governor of the 51st state, Wayne Gretzky has said absolutely zero on the subject. He has not issued a statement. He has not said a single word. See, so when you have people like Mike Willner criticizing me for my friendship with Ross, look at that. He's not criticizing you for your friendship with Ross. He's critis- So I'm saying Wayne is the same thing. It's like the same thing. Like Wayne has his buddy Donald that he probably golfs with.

Yeah, but one is baseball. The other is our sovereignty. Right. I will say that it's disappointing to say that- It's disappointing obviously. I'm sad about that because Wayne Gretzky is the greatest about that because Wayne Gretzky is the greatest now Wayne Gretzky is about to get passed by a Russian guy Ovechkin are people gonna be upset about that because Alexander Ovechkin has repeatedly said that he likes you know he's a Putin guy not specifically for invading Ukraine or anything like that but he's planning on finishing his

career from what I've read and heard in the KHL. He's a proud Russian. He's a Putin. Yeah. He had the picture of Putin on his social media profile way after the invasion of Ukraine. So are you people, are you upset with Ovechkin? Cause people are celebrating him still. Yeah, yes, of course. But Ovechkin, yes, we're upset with Ovechkin as well. He's also not welcome in this country.

Okay. You know what? I think that like booing the national anthem and making threats to Donald Trump from our politicians, that's not going to solve this. I think that Canada is classier than that. We've always been sort of carrying ourselves in a very classy kind of way and I think we're above that. It's fun to boo and it's fun to criticize and it's fun to say things like to ramp up you know get people all riled up but I think

that you know at the end of the day we're going to rise above this. Canada will be okay. There could be tough times ahead which I hope there isn't but I do think we'll be okay. And when we go to war you're going to be above this. Canada will be okay. There could be tough times ahead, which I hope there isn't, but I do think we'll be okay. And when we go to war you're gonna be wearing the red and white. There will be no blue. I don't think we're gonna go to war. But if we go to war on the hockey rink, then I think we're gonna win. Well we always do, right? Andy says, Ovi is a proud Russian, but Wayne is not a proud Canadian. That's Andy. Yeah, I see that. I don't know if Wayne is not a proud Canadian, but it's definitely a difficult spot for him. He's lost his ability to communicate because he hasn't said boo. Yeah, he's definitely lost the plot. As far as like the damage to his

brand here in Canada, that's definitely happened. I agree with that. And if I was working with Wayne and I was his manager or his agent or his PR person I would do everything in my power to try to get him to sort of eradicate whatever ill will he has towards him because as someone personally who owns a Wayne Gretzky rookie card the value of that card is worth the most in Canada because Canada has hockey fans so if Canadians stop liking him then my card is gonna go down in value you know it's not it's not technically a rookie card as well his nhl rookie card his nhl first year sure which i have that's gonna plummet in value worse than tesla stock if he keeps this up so

wane get it together man get it speaking of powerful brands, can I send you home with a Palma pasta lasagna? You can try. Do you know, sadly, shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Oh no. What are you about to tell me? Palma died last week. What? Yeah, that's, this is serious Mike here. Palma, 96 years young, I believe. Palma passed away. Palma Petrucci, the namesake for Palma Pasta, named after the matriarch of the family, Palma Petrucci, passed away last week. That's terrible. Palma Pasta way. That's what you just said. I did say that. Sometimes I'm too clever for my own good. I mean obviously 96, hell of a run. Hell of a run and her husband of many decades, Marsilio, he had just passed away seven months

ago at the age of 100. Wow. So mom and pop gone in seven months. Well listen, there's a lesson to be learned here that you eat palma pasta, you're going to live a long life. It's the sauce. They're 196? That's pretty good runs. So our condolences to the Petrucci family. Definitely condolences. Lovely folks and lovely pastas. Delicious. They've actually repackaged their pasta from what I've seen. Yeah. They're now some longos are selling lasagna. So congratulations to them on that. But obviously condolences on the loss and I'll say this Even though someone lived to 96 and it's like they had a hell of a run when my aunt anti Sandy passed away at 4tm anti-sandy was 96 years old I believe as well and I Still wanted more and I'm sure they fell the same way about their loved one

It's sad my condolences shout out to the Palma, Palma's family. Shout out to the Petrucci family. We lost Palma pasta. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Subscribe to Brad's podcast, Life's Undertaking. It's a great podcast. Brad from Ridley Funeral Home. He sent over the measuring tape for you, Stu Stone. You can measure it. Yeah. I mean, I think I got to measure how tall I am, right? How tall are you? Well, didn't you say you were going to... What's the film production called? Five,

seven films? You, you, this bit where you pretend not to know is really fun. I don't think this measuring tape goes high enough to measure me. Five, seven, uh, are we measuring downstairs or are we measuring like my whole... I had, my last guest was a woman from No More, No More Noise, Toronto. Her name is Ingrid, and she made a dick joke when I gave her the measuring tape. She was looking for six inches, she told me. Well, good luck. What are you packing there, Stu?

We know about your... I'm taller than this. So whatever this is, I'm taller than the maximum length. Listen, you're talking to a guy who's 5'9", so no judgment from me here, okay? And also, I'm a dear friend of FOTM Hall of Famer Peter Gross here. So I do want to quickly shout out Building Toronto Skyline. Nick Aynes is the newest sponsor of Toronto Mic'd and he's got a great podcast called Building Toronto Skyline.

Thank you, Nick. He was on Toronto Mic'd a few weeks ago. And last but not least, you know about RecycleMyElectronics.ca don't you? So that's where you go if you have old cables old electronics RecycleMyElectronics.ca Yes, okay, I'm playing something again. We are gonna get to Dark Side of the Ring We're gonna get to the movie We got lots to cover, but I'm gonna play something vintage from the early 80s And I'm hoping you'll give us a deeper dive into this. I don't think we've ever properly covered this through the many, many, many appearances

of Stu Stone on Toronto Miked. Let's listen to this. I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with hot dogs. I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with meatloaf. I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with chopsticks. Everybody loves Kraft dinner with meatloaf. I love, I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with chopsticks. I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with meatloaf.

I love, I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with chopsticks. I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with meatloaf. I love, I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with chopsticks. I love, I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with meatloaf. I love, I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with chopsticks. I love, I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with chopsticks. I love, I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with meatloaf. I love, I love, I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with chopsticks. I love, I love, I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with chopsticks. I love, I love, I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with chopsticks. I love, I love, I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with meatloaf. I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with chopsticks. Everybody loves Kraft dinner macaroni and cheese.

The only one made with Kraft cheese. And only Kraft cheese could make macaroni taste this good with everything. I love, I love, I love, I love my Kraft dinner with my dad. You know, even hearing it now, I kind of choke up and say, I loved it at the time. I was like similar age as we discussed and that kid who said my dad, what a cute kid. Do you know who that kid was? I do. Obviously, that's me, Mike.

I'm the my dad kid. The Kraft Dinner commercial. I will say that the memories that I do have of it, there are some memories, like I do remember. How old were you? I don't, young. I was probably 14 or 15 at the time. No, no, I was probably like six years old or something,

five or six years old. Yeah, five years, yeah. But I do remember that they were serving us Kraft Dinner there and there was like a garbage can next to that I could like spit out the Kraft Dinner in between takes if I wanted to. But I liked Kraft Dinner, so I don't remember doing too much spitting out.

And it wasn't cold? It doesn't matter, because Kraft Dinner is good cold. It is good cold. It's good, Kraft Dinner is delicious. Now the funny part about that commercial is that they're sort of advertising Kraft Dinner as a side dish in that commercial that you know, if you really...

Because it's with hot dogs, meatloaf, right. Whereas like Canadians, Kraft Dinner is the main course. So I think they missed the boat on that one. But I will say that at the time and for many years after that, that was the most famous thing that I had ever been a part of. Bigger than, bigger than Heavenly Bodies, bigger than all of them, because that commercial ran for years all day. And people would come up to me and say, like, say my dad, say my dad.

Like, say the line. Like, I was Simpsons. Yes. And so I was definitely like Kraft Dinner famous for at least three to four years off of that. And there's still people of a certain vintage, Mike, like your age, that will run into me now as an adult and bring that commercial up. The ironic part and I said this in jack-of-all-trades is that I actually never ate Kraft dinner

with my own dad. Jack Eisenstein. Yes but I definitely remember the commercial and I had a it was huge it was massive and I probably made, it was huge, it was massive. And I probably made more money off that commercial probably than I did off anything else because there was residuals involved back then. Did you see that or your parents kept that to you? You know what? Gary Coleman divorced his parents, didn't he?

Yeah, I would have divorced my parents after that one, had I known. Emancipation. But I will say that that was the most, that was the biggest thing that I did and still one of the biggest things I've done just based on the fact that like you think you're CNN famous. I was, I was Kraft Dinner famous for and that was a hell of a run. No, I, you, I like at school teachers would come from other classes and not like, like it was. So I'm only a couple years although it depends on your

Source for the stu stone birth year, but I'm a couple of years older than you a few years older than you You're not yet 50. I have cleared that Demarcation line but that I remember as a kid that ad all the time Yeah, and it was very memorable because it was catchy. Yeah, but it was sweet It was like sweet and even though I didn't necessarily, life didn't imitate art. Shout out to Art Bergman, but that which I learned from Jack of all trades many decades later. I still can't believe you're in my life.

I owe that to Cam Gordon, who I completely ignored for decades, not decades, but for years, I completely ignored him. And that was the name of his brand was completely ignored. Right, that's what I'm doing there. I'm playing 3D chess over here, Stu. You are. Ever since CNN, I'm ignored him. And that was the name of his brand, was completely ignored. Right, that's what I'm doing there. I'm playing 3D chess over here, Stu. You are, you are.

Ever since CNN, I'm on a different plane. I see that. I'm on a plane. Yes, great song. Great, okay, speaking of great songs, I have to get the story on this real quick. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] This is so fun, just being here, just doing this with you. Just warming up.

Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage. This I tell you brother, you can't have one without the other. Now of course, me playing this Frank Sinatra diddy means this episode has X number of days left before Spotify removes it. This is something I've lived and learned, but I'm okay with that because you can hear this episode many other places. But can you give me the definitive true story? How close were you to being Bud Bundy on Married of Children? That's really funny. Who told you that?

Yes, this is like when they were, you know, the chat where they were giving up the war plans to the journalist and they were called in front of Congress or whatever to answer these questions and they asked these very specific questions and then the person tries to evade and they're like. That's really funny. So how close were you, Stu Stone, to being bud bundy on Married with Children? I don't think it's reasonable to say I was close to being bud bundy,

but I will say that I was cast to be in Married with Children and I did not have a visa to work in the United States at that point and could not do it uh so that is that's the story behind that but I definitely was uh had a role that was ready to go to be on the show and a friend of bud uh it was supposed to be someone that was like in love like someone who would be following Kelly around and have a crush on Kelly You would have killed and tried to take Kelly to the prom I don't know who they ended up casting in that role, but that kid ended up being in a few episodes But I was definitely

Had had I was I was right there Mike. I was right there I played that craft dinner ad that we played ten minutes ago I played it for my youngest daughter who's now turning nine and has this new found desire to be in like movies and do theater. Oh wow. She's taking singing lessons. I don't know where this I think she watched High School Musical. There you go.

That's all it took. Okay. But I showed her. Which is a horrible movie. You know what? My oldest daughter loved it the first round and now they remade it with Olivia Rodrigo Oh they did so it's so she did go back and see the old one with Vanessa Hudgens which is the one my oldest daughter was into when she was watching a lot of Disney Channel So they keep kind of read some certain something funny about Bud Bundy. Yeah David Faustino. Yeah, I will say that he had a longer run

Yeah, I will say that he had a longer run on married with children for sure as bud Bundy But I think that me and Jamie Kenny sold more rap records than he did He was a rapper at one point and he knew that He had a rap song Austin green also had a rap album That was produced by I maybe even the guys from the far side. I want to say produced it was it better than Kevin Federline's album yes your your rap album sold 300 000 units that's what they say Mike but I had Patrick Pentland from Sloan here last week I almost bring that up but I thought about it do I do I tell him don't tell him that that Roland with sag it and circle circle dot dot which by the way but bangers back to Morgan really quickly

I played that craft dinner ad on YouTube and I said the kid and she likes it and this cute kid at the end of the curly hair whatever and she and I tell her the mind blow which is that boy grew up to be Stu Stone that's really funny she did not like she simply couldn't believe she didn't believe it like that's Stu Stone like it was too much for her I think it's crazy that you know what like the craft anything like I said I was like craft inner famous the only thing comparable to that back when I was a kid would have been my pet monster because like that was such a big show but like you know people come up to me and like literally just call me Chucky like they wouldn't even call me my name anymore but there was a

difference because like you'd have to know me to know that I was Chuckie and for the Kraft Dinner like you could just see like the commercial was on so often that it was almost recognizable. It definitely got me more attention that's for sure. Well now I'm thinking around the same era maybe a little earlier but around that same age Life Cereal had a series of commercials. Mikey likes it. Right and I was a Mikey so I was really paying attention. Oh that's good. Right it right and I was a Mikey so I was really bad That's good, right? So Mike well, I was a Mike Well close up Mikey likes it and then I remember years later adult Mikey came back to do an ad like Mikey still likes It or something and I think Kraft dinner if they're listening should bring you back

And maybe you're eating the craft with my son with an urn No, no. No, but they could have like me with like some kid playing my son saying my dad and like I'm the guy. Now my kid likes eating it with his dad. But isn't this a great idea? It is. Like if someone from Kraft is listening, which they probably are because this is the highest rated podcast, I will say that you should do the commercial. I would be willing to do it we should bring back that I think you'd probably have to recast the segment with the chopsticks that's a little problematic now but they're Asian yeah well I mean

it's just a little on the nose but I would say that I would like to say that I would be willing to do that commercial for sure for sure craft if you're listening and when we did jack-of-all-trades by the way yeah and I cleared that commercial to get on and be a part of the movie, they were happy to do it. So maybe this can happen, Mike. We're going to make it happen. VP of Sales wrote in to... Wait, before you say that, there's a thriller mind blow that I've discovered recently. This is breaking news. When you picture the Michael Jackson cover of Thriller, what do you, what's you wearing? Uh, white. White what? Isn't it like a white suit? Like a tux almost like, like I feel like it's a dressy kind

of suit. Like black pants maybe, white socks, white top? Try again. Okay. Picture it. It's iconic. You're close. I know I'm trying to break. You know I can see him It's if it's a white in a black. I don't think yes any other color in there. It is what the black top White I feel like there's white saw like a white Tuxedo you think yeah help me out with like a black tuxedo you're gonna show me he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt No, I'm not but I am gonna tell you that like if you zoom in he's wearing a Toronto tee No, he's not like this is the picture. Okay. Yeah, right. So white coat and then black shirt now like recently It's been discovered like you zoom in on the shirt. Yeah

Yeah, it's gonna blow your mind. Okay, this guy's actually wearing underneath the white thing Can't be true, Isn't that crazy? It's 100% true. It's like a hoodie. And this is not doctor. No, it's not AI slop. You're handing me here. He's wearing a black zip up hoodie underneath the white.

I think that's a Great Lakes brewery octopus wants to fight hoodie. It could be. So for those of you who are wondering, I'll show it to the camera here, but he's literally wearing like a zip up hoodie underneath that white thing. And I never, well people can Google a Thriller album and zoom in for sure. That's a mind blow. Absolutely. But I do have the VP question, but be, um, yeah, maybe I go there right now. So VP of sales wants to know, how much did you have to pay to license Doug in the slugs for don't fuck with ghosts?

Ah, uh, do you want me to say to answer that? I don't want to pigeonhole myself to have to like pay this rate again. Guess is the home of real. Yes, I see. I don't have a frame of reference. If you had to guess how much do how much did Jan Arden get for that was a favor because she was in the movie. You know, she's a movie. Oh, this is a movie. If you noticed, say what she seems to be distancing herself from the film. Well, it's a great film.

Vandits, by the way, I met snow at the movie premiere for Vandits. Yeah, I didn't talk to him, but snow was there. I think I think Ian service was with me and there's snow and I didn't want to bother him. Snow is now in the Toronto Mike calendar. Snow is going to visit the basement early May and do a deep dive with me. I like him. He's an interesting guy. Darren O'Brien.

Crazy story. I actually saw him recently. I was at the trailer park boys have a new movie that they put out at the end of last year. And that's how he got to your bandits premiere because the guy from trailer parts in that movie no i don't think maybe that might be how he got there but either way i saw him at the trailer park boys right premier thing and we got to talking and we started you know i was like fascinated by his story i'm like oh someone should

do a movie or he's like oh there are we're developing a show about my life and my story And I'm like, holy shit, and he was telling me he's got stories Mike Well his his longtime manager Paul Farberman who has been down here and loved it and thinks Darren's gonna love being down here Said that he thinks that this is that that Darren's gonna be telling me everything I think that Darren's gonna be a great guest and you should definitely tell him that I say I'm gonna talk about seeing him at the vandit's premiere. Yeah, but don't fuck with ghosts is the the new movie Yes, and I I saw it also another great great movie from you and your brother-in-law adam excellent work on don't fuck with ghosts Thank you

Now we need to know how much uh, you had to pay the Doug and the Slugs family. How much do you think? Okay that's that was a question. Okay let me think. So this is in a film, a license, a song from Doug and the Slugs. Ten thousand dollars. Now listen, if you were an independent fiercely independent brewing company like Five Seven Films, do you think that we would even have ten thousand dollars to spend on a song? You number I can't be wrong in my now I'm giving you some more insight so now I'm gonna allow you $2,500 closer $2,000 you're pretty much right there that's what that's a deal that's a that's a steal and we were very lucky to get that as well is that sticker price I don't

think that a sticker you know I think that's a much better deal than sticker you would 2,000 bucks to get a song for your film. That's gonna air on Hollywood Suite. Yeah, that's what it's a David Kines That's what it cost and I'll tell you what the money that we saved we end up using to make this product Which I don't know if you've seen before no, but this is the official don't fuck with ghosts Ranch dipping sauce, which doubles as a salad dressing over Paul Newman. This is edible by the way, but I don't recommend it. It is the Rodney's family secret recipe for ranch. And this is we have me and Adam somehow ended up with 100 bottles of the

and it's got an expiry date. It does have an expiry date. So the clock is ticking. March, oh no, 2025, June 15th. Okay, that is my anniversary. Okay, so just, I wouldn't use this. I would just keep it like, you know, on your shelf. And the next time I come, Mike, I am gonna come with something to stick on the wall because I do feel like one of my movies

needs to be on the wall here. So I wanna get back to a movie I saw last night actually, but I want to tell the listenership that Don't Fuck With Ghosts is the most recent production from Five Seven Films. Yes, yes. And it is playing on Hollywood Suite, it's playing on Apple TV, but Hollywood Suite is where you should watch it. Well we're big fans of Hollywood Suite on the show. David Kynes is a beloved and he gave me a ticket to go see gladiator 2

at a Hollywood suite employee function and I invited some FOTM like Leslie Taylor and leave a Fumka That's great. And I will say real quick just getting back to this dipping sauce Mike that the secret ingredient is pheromones So if you're thinking of cracking that open on your anniversary over a nice salad, it might be a special night for you. There's something else I want to promote but I'm not quite there yet. I want to tell you, ask you if you know the name Avi Federer-Green. Of course. He's a fiercely independent filmmaker himself. He's prolific producer of films in this country.

He can make a movie for less than I paid for, Dug in the Slugs. Avi is a very resourceful producer. Okay, so let me tell you this, this will be interesting to you and I think it'll be, so I met Avi because Avi went to his lawyer, his longtime lawyer, and asked, and said he had an idea for a podcast and this woman said, I love Toronto Mike, you should talk to Toronto Mike next thing you know I'm producing a podcast for Avi Feddergreen it's called Unleashed it's about indie filmmaking in this country. I should go on it. Honestly you should Avi you should I'm gonna tell Avi get get Stu Stone on Unleashed but yesterday I was at Canadian Film Fest I was at Scotiabank theater where I saw your last two films debut. I think one of my buddies movies

It feeds played there. Did you see that? No, I only saw one movie which was called home free Okay last obvious movie all the federal going directed really its directorial debut for him And I just want to tell hopefully obvious listening and I mean this sincerely no bullshit It was a beautiful film are hindles in this stars. I don't doubt that of he has a lot of of he has a very Under the radar prolific career where guys that are in the industry not like, you know to be like I'm in the industry But like people who are in the industry, we all know him, you know, we've all we've all met him We all know him we all know of him. And when you think of literally the resourcefulness that it takes to be a producer in Canada of independent films,

Avi could be at the top of the list. Arguably he is at the top of the list of guys that know how to like get shit done. You know what I mean? And I remember early in our journey, Adam and I's journey, we had several conversations with Avi, not only just to try to collaborate with the guy, but just to pick his brain. And he was so resourceful and so willing to be open and with us about some tips and tricks of the trade that he had picked up over the years. He's a good dude, but more importantly,

he is somebody that, man, it's unbelievable. You talk about productivity. I thought that me and Adam, you know, we've been in business for a few years now and we've done a lot of movies and we've cranked out stuff, but obvious, you know, he cranks stuff out, you know, he makes it happen. So good for him. He cranks them out. And this is something completely different though.

Home free, if you get a chance to see it. And I saw the Hollywood suite logo at the end. Oh that's cool. So I'm thinking maybe it'll be like a trick from us. Maybe it'll be like it. Yeah maybe. I haven't talked to Kynes about this yet but uh Art Hindle is the star but there's actually this whole family including uh gosh don't fuck up her name. Tara Spencer Nairn. Oh yeah, I know her. From Corner Gas. Sure, she's great.

She's in it as one of the three daughters. Anyways, it was beautiful, touching, and I think the story behind how it was made is even better than this wonderful film I saw last night. And Avi will be on Toronto Mic to tell me that story, and it's quite something. Well, please tell him that I send my love and congratulate him and you know whereas like I feel like with the exception of Jack of all trades the movies that I make with Adam are more you know light hearted and funny and clever but funny. Well you're in bed with Kevin Hart.

We're doing funny stuff but Avi's you know the fact that he gets to tell stories that are like that that's I'm jealous in a lot of ways because like you know part of me wants to do stuff like that. Well Jack of Old Trades was very serious. Well Jack of Old Trades was that but but you know it's like what Billy Corgan said on on on Howard Stern I don't know if you've heard of him he's a podcast host but Billy Corgan when on Howard Stern, I don't know if you've heard of him, he's a podcast host, but Billy Corgan, they were playing Disarm, the song Disarm, it's a great song, one of the best, right? And Billy Corgan's like, do you know, like after I made that song, not one time after

I made that song, did anybody from the label or anybody tell me to make another song like that? And like, that's how it kind of is for me with Jack of all trades. Like nobody has ever tried to ask me to tell another story like that. They want the funny stuff, which is fine. I enjoy it and I think that making people laugh is just as hard as making people cry. It is. You know it's not... It's hard to make a good comedy. It's probably harder to make people laugh than cry. Ghostbusters was not easy to cook up. Right.

And don't fuck with ghosts, doesn't just write itself. No, and it's not much writing there anyway. There's a lot of like, on this, there's a lot of spontaneity to make, is that how you pronounce that, Mike? Spontaneity. There's a lot of spontaneity to- How do you say pasta?

Well, it depends which side of the border you're on, but you know, is it palma? It's pasta. Palma pasta or palma pasta? Well, it depends which side of the border you're on, but you know, he's in palm It's pasta palma pasta or palma pasta. That's the eternal question drama or drama sound of one Foyer or foyer, which one do you say couch or Chesterfield? TV remote or coke or now I'm old enough to remember changing the channels on my TV with a converter Yeah, me too. I still call it a converter. That's true Do you remember the the one that was like why it was like a hard wire thing? It was like, of course, almost like a like a like a like a phone operator, like connecting two lines you'd have to do to get to the chair.

I'm older than you, of course. Of course, I had a wonderful, beautiful, talented person named Andrea Romolo was here on Monday night. Okay. Just tremendous. Uh, got to listen to Andrea Romolo on Toronto Mike. She was wonderful, but we talked about, she's an occasional teacher. They lost sound on your, uh, did you say? Yeah, I didn't, I, you know, I'm busy making a podcast here. I can't be worried about the, the, the live stream. I don't think they've lost sound. Like I think, I think, I think we're still loud. They made they need to refresh their browser is what I would say to them. But OK, to continue. So she's an occasional

teacher, which is also known as a substitute teacher. But when I was growing up, we called these people supply teachers. We have a supply teacher. Sure. They're not called that anymore. No. What are they called? Well, now they're called occasional teachers. Shut up. Some people call them substitute teachers, but they're never called... Well, some people do, I've heard.

They're never called supply teachers. Why not? I don't know. Maybe the name never did make sense. Is that an offensive name? I don't know. But here's what's not offensive. I have a note from, and I don't know, you'll tell me if you know these people, Matt and JessTV. Okay.

So this note comes in and it reads, Stu is so awesome. Oh, I met him a million years ago when he was touring with Jamie Kennedy and Stu was so sweet to everyone. Matt and Jess TV. That sounds right. Is that your burner account? No. Matt and Jess TV. It's not. Okay. But shout out to man and just TV. I mean that sounds about right. I mean listen Mike, you've met me before. I am a real, a pleasant young man and I think whoever man just TV is for coming out to whatever show that was to do to when we met and crossed paths. Canada kev. Do you know that name? Canada kev writes in icon. Is it a coincidence that the new season of Dark Side of the Ring starts when Stu returns to the basement? Before you answer that question, can I play a trailer for season six of Dark

Side of the Ring? Sure. Here we go. I want to sell hit you like a mallet to the consciousness. The dark side of the ring is back He got brain damage for a wrestling angle on television and added to the storyline He would have liked to die in the ring Welcome out of this mouth. Don't trust it was too controversial for TV

Holy with 10 all-new unforgettable episodes We have what you hear and nothing of what you see. Dark Side of the Ring. New season premieres Tuesday, March 25th at 10 on Vice. Okay. That was yesterday. Yeah. Hell in the Self is available now on Crave. You can watch it on demand. Yeah. Tell us about like, what do you do for Dark Side of the Ring?

And where are we at with that? This is a very popular series. It is. I mean, we've done six seasons of it I personally have done 40 episodes of this show Mike I am the guy who's the documentary director of the of the series So we hear your voice often you hear it often because I don't shut up But I will say that this season is quite An exciting one and as far as me personally like the personal

uh... an exciting one and as far as me personally like the personal uh... craziness that i got to experience one of the episodes is about a guy named billy jack haines who is a uh... wrestler from the eighties that you might remember wrestle hercules a wrestle many a three and ever to meet uh... billy jack haines is now in jail for uh... he's on trial for killing his wife uh... i actually went into prison and interviewed him in prison like that's crazy right I never could imagine that that I would do

something like that and so this show has really been an incredible experience for me personally not only because of my massive fandom of wrestling which is well documented here but also oh and by the, when we first started Pandemic Fridays, I didn't work on Dark Side of the Ring. Like that happened since we started. That's the TMU bump. Yeah. Enjoy. That's what it is.

If you don't have to be a wrestling fan to enjoy the show, I feel like it's got like a real ESPN 30 for 30 vibe. It's real talk for wrestling fans. And it's also human stories. It's like the people who are in this world of wrestling are characters like like Beyond and I'm not just talking about like the subject matter their family their friends their co-workers are also characters and the places that I get to travel to to interview them are places that I Wouldn't even be able to point out on a map half the time

You know we land in a city and we drive four hours to like who knows where. And that's, you know what? I also want to say this whole, let's take the whole Trump-Canada thing out of the equation just for the sake of this conversation. Obviously that's changed the opinion of Donald Trump for what we've had here in Canada. And anything else that he's done

that's made you not like him, okay? Take that out of the equation, alright? The fact that I, doing the show Dark Side of the equation. All right. The fact that I Doing the show dark side of the ring has taken me to all sorts of places high and low in United States of America And I would say that like 80% of the time where I am traveling is in these sort of like Trump counties That's where a lot of these wrestlers live That's where their friends and family live and like the outskirts of almost every city in America is that. So I think that I've been exposed in ways that most people haven't to both sides of America. And you know, I'm

not going to say like, oh, there's fine people on both sides. Like I'm not using that quote, but I will say that like it wasn't as evil as I thought it was gonna be when you actually go and you meet people and you're in the community and you're at the diners and you're at the restaurants and I went to a karaoke bar and there was the people with the red hats and I would like saying with them and it was you know it is what it is it's like I don't I feel like we were hypersensitive the first time around again I'm taking the Canada thing out of the equation here.

That changes the whole context of this conversation. Yeah, we'll put that on the side. Yes, but the whole idea of like, oh, if you don't agree with me politically, we can't be friends thing that was going on in 2020 during that run or 2016, I should say to 2020, that run. I don't think that's reasonable behavior anymore. I mean, again again taking the Canada thing

I'm gonna be so should I take the Canada thing out just a couple of like I'm not here to have the political debate I'm saving it for CNN. Okay, I gotta save my fire my heavy artillery Sure, two things that jump jump in my head is one is a woman's right to sure. Listen I I knew you were gonna go there first body autonomy for I'm saying like I can I could be in Trump country without having Those types of discussions and I'm not there. You're a dude and I'm not trying well I'm just saying like I'm saying like I didn't have to sit there and have political conversations And I have a feeling most of those folks don't even know what the public you know It's it's like pick a side. You know it's like

Their neighbors wear red hats so that's what they're it's like you're side, you know, it's like their neighbors wear red hats. So that's what they are. It's like you're a product of your environment. Oh, that's a third base song. Is it? Well, I think you are a product of your environment, like how you grow up. Like in Canada, if you are of our age or within five years of our age or, or less, you grew up in a primarily like liberal. Depends what part of Canada, because we're learning that Alberta, Canada

is very different from Ontario. So if you grew up in Thornhill, Canada, or Toronto, Canada. With Chiang Gomeshi. In the 80s and 90s, you were probably like, just like a liberal person, and like that's just how you were raised. Right.

Because it's interesting to me that the CNN five minute hit I did included a short excerpt off the top of the Scott Thompson visit, which by the way, I highly recommend Scott Thompson. And you promoted it on CNN. I did because it's so good. And the story of how that came to be

could be its own micro episode, but we'll touch on that on FOTM cast when Tyler's in the basement with your buddy, Cam Gordon. You're still tight with Cam? Of course, I just haven't seen him in a while. But yeah, the audio is working, by the way, so no more distractions from the, you know, if it doesn't work for you, reload the browser and say a little prayer to your, your almighty there. Okay, but I just decided myself again, the Canada thing out of the equation, that's changed things.

Right, but okay, I have to finish that thought. I have a bad habit of I start a thought, I go off in ten tangents, and sometimes I forget I got to come back to it. But they played an excerpt off the top of the Scott Thompson episode of Toronto Mike, which was just earlier that week, and this excerpt was FOTM's Colin Mochrie and Deborah McGrath talking about buying Canadian. Keep your money in Canada, supporting Canadians. It's from the pro bono group. Then I was thinking just in real time, didn't comment on it, but I'm thinking, oh, I had a great chat with these two who are so proud and scared for their transgender daughter. Okay. And I realized what you're saying here, you know, they're just human beings. They voted for

Trump, but part of the deal beyond the autonomy for women's bodies Which as a father forget a forget the father of daughters as a human being upsets me, but the way that Transgender people are treated by Trump's administration I don't have a transgender child, but I feel for all transgender people and all parents of transgender people I think it's horrific. That's definitely not. It's definitely not a good thing. So we can't even if you take 51st state rhetoric aside. Yeah, no, there's obviously issues that are that are you cannot separate yourself from and I'm not but I didn't like I said I didn't sit there at like some barbecue joint in like where the whoever the fuck Missouri and talk about transgender rights with some guy and I'm had I done that, I probably would have been upset with the result of that conversation.

Because they legally now in the States, thanks to an executive order, there's only two genders now in the United States. Yeah. And if you were assigned the male gender at birth and you were a transgender woman, you have to put on your passport male. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's not, who knows how long that will last for. Three and a half more years. Yeah, so I feel like, you know, you got a transgender folks have had a hell of a fight. You know, when we were kids. It was gay, right?

It was, yeah, but I'm saying like, just look at that. Like, when you look at how gay people were portrayed on television growing up, they were the punchline. Delirious by Eddie Murphy. Yeah, like they were not, you know, like they've come a long way. A long way. And you know, the acceptance in the public. Like when I was in high school, nobody was out of the closet. And there was for sure gay kids in our school and you maybe you knew they were but nobody nobody was out and now out is just like it's not even a

thing it's like there we've come a long way as a society in our growth in acceptance and especially when it comes to that type of stuff like with sexuality and I feel like you know stuff like with sexuality and I feel like You know progress takes time mike and I feel like the transgender community has made a ton of progress Obviously in the last five ten years And sometimes you got to take you know, you two steps forward three steps back five steps forward This is just part of it and I feel like they are Thick skin and tough enough and i've dealt with a lot worse than the name calling or whatever's coming from Trump. But they'll hopefully, you know, things will will shake out in the in the wash or however you say it. And things will be okay for them as well.

And as they should be. I think that trans rights are human rights, obviously, well said. And, and, you know, it takes time. People are ignorant, more people are ignorant than not ignorant. And, and you know, it takes time. People are ignorant. More people are ignorant than not ignorant. And it's, you know, you think about any sort of minorities that had issues in the past that are still obviously having issues. It took time for people to learn in a new generation to come in. Now I'll say this, it's an old school mentality. You still, you know, Donald Trump still represents a generation that had no tolerance for this type of stuff, right? When it comes to sexuality, when it comes to certain minorities, I don't need to say that out loud, you know what I'm implying here. I would say that the

generation under us, Mike, your kids and other people who are watching this right now and their kids, they're completely different than we are. They are very accepting. Now, I worked on a set with somebody who identified as they, them. And for me, personally, that was new. You know, I'm in my fortiess depending on which website you look at, Mike, and this was something new for me and I was, it was hard for me, not consciously hard, but it's like, oh tell her to come over here or whatever, tell them to come over here, you know. You have to work at it. And it's like they would be, I'm telling you Mike, these 20 year olds that were working with me slipped right off the tongue. I know. They're coming. It's like we, the future is bright

is what I'm trying to say. So it's like, yes, it's tough right now and we have to support our friends who are getting, you know, held down in, especially in the transgender, in the gay community, etc, etc. All the different folks who are affected by that, but they need to know. And I'm here to tell you folks out there, it's going to get better because the next generation coming does not have the same view of you that the generation that's here right now has and the future is going to be bright and prosperous for you. That's the best I can put it right now and that's based on my own personal experience dealing with this type of stuff. So yes, it's definitely we're in can put it right now. And that's based on my own personal experience dealing with this type of stuff. So yes, it's definitely, we're in a gross place right now,

but it's gonna get better. It has to because I've seen it and you've seen it. Kids that are coming up today, they don't even watch television, Mike. They don't even know what it is. They literally don't know what it is. Just like they don't know what it is to like hate on a gay person or a trans person

That's not how they're taught. That's not how they're raised and that's not how it is Is that how we're finishing up On that on that on that soapbox spiel I thought you did a good job there and you know trans rights are human rights and that is as Tobias Vaughn writes in the live stream That ain't political. No, it's not You know, we could talk off microphone about this topic for for a while here But it's been a real pleasure to come here Mike I always have a good time and we should put another one in the schedule sooner than later

I would love regular stewstone appearances, especially if it comes with like Rob sending videos like that or He's a sweetheart he'd do it. Yeah, he looks forward to your appearances He had big shoes to fill when I needed to recast The roles of cam and stew for toast because I didn't want to stop toast. No, I'm happy you did and I said Bob Willett I'll make him a radio superstar. I've succeeded you have Bruce. I make him a musician Prodigy I succeeded. You did. And now everybody's doing well.

And I got to say, dark side of the ring, every time I hear somebody talk about it, they have this look on their face, like that's great television. It's a good show. And you're a big part of that, a huge part of that, the biggest part of that. I would say I'm one of the big parts of it for sure.

And there's a huge team, of course, Jason Eisner Evan Husney and then the camera crew and the art department and the wardrobe everybody who does who works on that show is so passionate about it and uh there could be another season coming Mike maybe by the next time we talk. Speaking of that do you know who slid in oh it didn't slide into my dms they texted me last night and we confirmed it this morning Mike Richards. Oh yeah. In the basement Monday morning. That's huge.

He's making a big announcement. He says this is the biggest announcement. Well, this is the place to do it. He won't do it anywhere else. So not a drill, everybody. The next episode of Toronto Mike will drop Friday and it's Hill Korkutis, who is a Juno nominated engineer, musician, very talented woman. It's going to be amazing. But live in the basement Monday morning, I think 10 AM live.TorontoMike.com, Mike Richards, huge announcement.

And then Tuesday, your buddy Cam Gordon returns with Tyler Campbell for FOTM cast. We'll be talking about this appearance. I love my Stu Stone conversations. I love you man and I love the the FOTM universe and the TMU that you have built here so shout out to all of you who are loyal mic listeners and just know that your loyalty to mic is only reflected by my loyalty to Ross. And shout out to Guy Smiley. Yes. Yes. I think that's JD Vance's burner account. Could be. Guy Smiley.

And that. And that. And that. Brings us to the end of our 1,658th show. 1658. Wow. Only a hundred of those stars do stone. That's a lot

Go to Toronto Mike calm for all your Toronto Mike needs I'm on blue sky at Toronto Mike calm watch dark side of the ring Please do and watch don't fuck with ghosts sure and you know Hollywood and use the don't fuck with ghosts Yeah, dipping sauce Mike. I can't wait to show Monica what we're gonna enjoy in our Anniversary some nine and a half weeks type stuff Here's the friendly giant. Yes Dipping sauce, Mike. I can't wait to show Monica what we're gonna enjoy in our anniversary. Some nine and a half weeks type stuff. Here's the friendly giant. Yes. Much love to all who made this possible.

That's Great Lakes Brewery. They're hosting us on June 26th. I hope you can be there. Me too. Palma Pasta, they're gonna feed us. RecycleMyElectronics.ca, here's the pizza nova theme, but Palma Pasta's better. Building Toronto Skyline and Ridley Funeral Home. Again, Friday. Here's the pizza nova theme, but palma pasta is better. Building Toronto skyline and Ridley funeral home.

Again, Friday. Hill. There's some spoons. Yeah, that's romantic traffic. Which Rob Proust co-wrote. Yes. Is he in the credits? He's in the credits.

Pour him in, okay. And speaking of Scott Thompson. Hey, there you go, kids in the hall right here. Are you gonna listen? Of course. Okay, let me know Are you going to listen? Of course. Hey, let me know what you think of it. I will. See you all Friday with Hill and then Monday with Mike Richards and then Tuesday

with Cam Gordon and the VP of Sales.