Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - The Remarkable Stu Stone: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1946

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

In this 1946th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike catches up with the remarkable Stu Stone. Stu takes about Dark Side of the Ring, his live event with Samoa Joe, his Don't F**k with Ghosts event in Banff, his surprise role as Cygnus Hyoga in Saint Seiya, his thoughts on the current Toast duo and his Drake Take before he reviews Toronto Mike'd one-man-show at the El Mocambo.A version of this podcast without programmatic ads is available to all Toronto Mike'd Patrons at patreon.com/torontomike.Toronto Mike'd, an award-winning podcast, is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca.If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is F-O-T-M Hall of Famer, Stu Stone. And you know what's going to happen right now. You're going to continue listening to the Toronto Mike show because you are going to get what you came to get. The real talk, the real laughter, and we're going to create some new memories together because that's what the upk we do. That's what we do, Mike.

You censored yourself. That's what the upk. You got those sponsors now. You know, I don't want to kill that business for you. Paul Mopost is a family organization. I'm going to do this intro. You're going to find out if there's audio on the live screen. Just confirm it.

Welcome to episode 1,946 of Toronto Miked. An award-winning podcast proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. Order online at Great LakesBeer.com for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entree. From Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Visit palma Pasta.com for more. Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball.

Catch a game at Christie Pits this summer. I was there last night. No ticket required. Fusion, Corpso, Nick Aynes. He's the host of Building Toronto Skyline. And Mike and Nick, two podcasts that you ought to listen to. What they can say to you, what you ought to do.

Recycle MyElectronics.c.c.a. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. And Redley Funeral Home. Pillars of the communities. Pillars. That's pillars. Not killers. Some people think I'm saying killers of the community.

Pillars with a P. Joining me today, making his return. to Toronto, Mike. It's the remarkable Stu Stone. Yes. How you doing, buddy? Very good, Mike.

How are you? You know when you have like eight places you want to go right away and you're like almost like the wires cross and you don't know where to go for it. There's too much. Too much excitement in the air.

You could cut it with a dull knife. That's a gorilla monsoon. There's touched in the air. You can cut the intensity with a knife. How are you doing, Stu Stone? I'm doing pretty good, man. And it's crazy how quickly the summers is just flying by.

You know, you wait for it to come all year and then it comes and it goes, doesn't it, Mike? Already back-to-school ads on the television, that's depressing to see. Even when you're 20, 30, 40, 50 years removed from... It never leaves you. You know, it does not leave you. The PTSD of seeing a back-to-school ad means the fun is coming to an end. But you know what the greater indicator, the one that still affects me, is opening day of the C&E.

Yeah, that's a good one. But that also means that summer's, like, you got like, this is your last, this is last. But that's like a countdown. Yeah, that's like last call. Like, that's what that is. Oh, you know what? I had, like, it's been the best weather I've been out in a boat.

By the way, you're looking great. Thank you, you too, man. Like, I saw you the other day. We'll get into it. So it's not like it's been a long time since I've seen you. But I'm always, I find it remarkable how, uh, how, how fit you are. Are you serious? Yeah, like, you look chiseled?

Shut up. What are you doing these days? Stop it. me what you're doing these days. Tell me what you're doing. Please stop it. What is your secret, Stu's doing? Are you being serious?

Yeah. You look good. You're not Cam Gordon thin, but you're not the thin white duke. That's Cam Gordon's new nickname, the thin white duke. Is that what his name is? TWD? He borrowed it from Bowie. But just tell us, like, what are you doing for fitness?

Because you're doing something. I'll tell you what I'm doing. For the people who are just listening right now, what I'm doing right now is blushing. Because Mike has said something that has just melted my heart. There's nothing that somebody who exercises, wants to hear more than somebody compliment them on their appearance. That is the drug that you seek when you are putting in the work, when you are putting in the schvitz, the sweat, the blood, the tears,

the scrapes, the bruises, the bumps. The guy from blood, sweat, and tears just passed away. Shout out Ridley, Funeral Home, Pillars of the community. And don't confuse blood, sweat, and tears with earth, wind, and fire. Which is a very different man, so I like your shirt. Thank you. My shirt likes you as well. And I told you before we press record,

I have just recently watched the documentary about Earth, Wind, and Fire made by Quest Love, and it is very good. I recommend it. I haven't seen it yet, though. You can't recommend what you haven't seen. I haven't seen it. I recommend it. But I do trust you. Mm-hmm.

So if you say you like something, then I probably like it to. You know who's looking good? I feel like I'm just going to flatter everybody, but like looks chiseled like he works out a lot. Wait, let me tell you who? like whoever you're about to say. You said chiseled about me. You better not be throwing chiseled around like it's nothing. You ready for the name?

I saw him. I saw him at the Royal on college the other night. We'll get into that. You were there. We're going to get into it. I didn't have a question for you from someone else who was there. Great. David Alter.

David Alter. Yeah, he does look chiseled. Shout out to FOSS, David Alter. And I appreciate him showing up and giving and supporting the other night. He was there. Leif's reporter for those not in the know. frequent guest of Toronto, Mike. Yeah, when I can get him to come over here from practice,

which is only down the street. But good to see him there. Great guy. And yeah, he does look, he does look good. Now, here's the funny thing. Yeah. Two people, three, if I include you now, three people in the last four days.

And I am blushing as I say this, folks. Mike is looking right out, but he can see. I am like beaming. Three different people. One person said to me, Mike, Hey, Stu, look at you. You're looking jacked. Somebody said jacked.

That's like being chiseled. Yes. Then another person said, Hey, Stu, you're looking svelt. Whoa, that's good. No one calls me smell. And then I came down the stairs here, Mike. And you said that I'm looking chiseled.

So I'm trying to understand. There is a difference between all three. Right. So am I jacked? Am I chiseled or am I spelt? Maybe we need to look up the definition of these words. and decide once in from what I am. Like, I don't know exactly what that means,

but I would say you're more chiseled than you are jacked. Like, jacked means you've got python. I agree. I agree with you on the jacked. I was a little bit dismissive of the term jacked, but I still took it as a great compliment because as I said earlier, any compliment is like a drug.

It's like, wow, it's working, you know? Hey, you're the director of some fine film, so make this call. Do you want to do a little shout out to Ridley Funeral Home segment off the top and then we'll get into the other night at there's a couple. Yeah, let's do it. So I'm going to play a special audio clip

from a fellow FOTM Hall of Famer. Okay. Let's listen. Stu, it's Cameron Gordon. I have two questions for you about Dory Funk Jr., the latest wrestler that we sadly lost this week. One, what are your memories about working with Dory for Dark Side of the Ring? And two,

why do you think Vince McMahon brought Dory Funk Jr. into the WWF in 1986? He seemed very out of place in the rock and wrestling era, but did have a good one-year run with his brother Terry. Fun fact about that 1986 run, their first match back, or his first match back, rather, actually took place in Brantford, Ontario in the TV taping. He teamed with his brother, Terry, his shoot brother, Terry. They defeated the jobber tag team of Chuck Simpson and CFM. superstar George Wells. Stu, look forward to hearing you

talk about your memories of the late great Dory Funk Jr. Wow. If I wasn't blushing and beaming before, first of all, hearing Cam Gordon's voice, automatically I'm smiling. And then, like, someone's asking me to talk about wrestling and I'm beaming even more, Mike. And this is a rare instance where we could talk about

a pro wrestler who passed away at a ripe old age. Yeah, he was, he made it. He was. How many wrestlers make it to 85? Not too many, Mike. And 85 was the rock and wrestling year, which Dory was a part of too. So 85, a big number. I was with, I was with Dory last year, interviewing him for a Dark Side of the Ring episode that aired last season on the original Sheik.

If you watched that one, maybe some people did. But, yeah, I met him. I was with him. And I would say that even last year, you could see that this was here in the presence of a legend, but that he's, like, getting up there. ironically, and I'm saying this not ironically, but I can't even believe I'm saying this out loud, but in the last three years, I was with both Terry Funk and Dory Funk.

Both of them have passed on, but both of them legends, both of them icons and obviously brothers. Dory, I have some pictures I could show you or video if you want to see, but I don't know what good that's going to do on this audio format, so you'll just have to take my word for it. I trust you. But I do remember Dory still wanted to get into the wrestling ring

to be filmed for his, like, portrait shot and it was not that easy for him to do that and it took probably 12 15 minutes to just get in the ring but when he was in there it was like you see those videos of older kind of people and they someone plays like some song from the 1930s and you see them kind of like light up like you saw there was like a spark of dory when he was in the ring he's holding the bull rope he went to shake my hand and he gave me like a little like a like a like a thumb lock that I kind of went I sold it I went to my knee like ah dory dory and uh We had a nice laugh.

And, yeah, wrestling legend was in the WWF. I think that his run got cut short due to the travel schedule, his age at the time. His brother didn't want to be there. And just the whole thing kind of just didn't work out for the Funk brothers. But there was a place for them in the Rock and Wrestling. I don't agree with Kim. They were cowboy characters. That's a character.

You know, redneck kind of evil cowboys that brand you. Like, that's a cartoonish character. So who knows? but rest in peace, Dori Funk, and I'm trying to find the photo to show Mike because I think he'll enjoy it. Okay, while we're remembering some people. Now, that one was kind of, you know,

we can celebrate that gentleman's life because he lived to be 85. That's a pretty good age. Had a very good run. But you did lose somebody far too soon at the young age of 35. One of your co-stars from Donnie Darko passed away.

Oh, that is true. David Chase. Yeah. Wow. Any memories? Am I saying DeVie right? I think I am. DeV-J-D-A-V-E-I-G-H is how she spells that first name.

She was in Donnie Darko. You know what's so crazy? I do have some stories about her. 35 years old. Fucking brutal, man. Enjoy every sandwich. Here's this while you can. Okay, yeah, I'll look at this and then we'll remember.

See the story I'm telling you. telling you there. That's Dory. You know what? He's got a spark because he's got the hat on, he's back in the ring. I'll hold it up to this. I don't know if... See the picture.

Eventually this will end up on YouTube. So yeah, I wasn't completely invested in what you just asked me, but I caught the tail end of it. But to be, it was on July? No, June 16th. Okay, so listen. Yeah.

She was in Donny Darko. Of course. She played Samantha Darko. Of course I crossed paths with her. She's in all the bus stop scenes with us. She's in, what do you mean? She was, she was the kid actor. I was trying to help you out because you seem to be struggling.

I was just trying to find that picture. She was a very, very, you could see that this is a kid that is like a little star when she was doing Donnie Darko. I mean, she steals all the scenes that she's in. Right. And she's in there with Jake and Maggie and the parents. And she's like stealing the scenes. And we were at the bus stop and she's just this cute little kid, a little blonde, you know, just a kid that you would say like this kid's a star right and it turned out that way for her

um she was the girl in the ring yes she uh was in a lot of like iconic yeah she was the liloh and stitch yeah she was the lilo and stitch so that's like three fucking iconic roles for her i remember running into her in it had to be like 2000 sometime between like 2009 and 2013 it's all a blur for me but I remember running into her and I didn't even know that I was running into her you know what I mean? She was a grown up woman Right, it was like, oh, who's this?

Like, and it was her. And I remember just being like, wow, like she grew up. She's a beautiful girl. She has a career. Like you don't really think that things could be not going well for somebody who just seems to have it all, you know? She was so talented and definitely, had a great look and she was just a great kid.

I worked with her when she was a kid. Now, here's a story from Donnie Darko that has not been shared before. Maybe it's been shared, but not with you. And not, like, on the record, if that's what this is. So we were working on Donnie Darko, which is a film. And there's this, we have, like, a little break, and we are on, there's, like, you know, the bus stops. I don't know if you remember the movie, but we're, like, hanging out, waiting,

always waiting at the bus stop for, like, the bus to come pick us up. and so in between takes behind where we were waiting for the bus stop there was a baseball field there may have even been a baseball scene that got cut out of the movie because there may have been you know or like just some extras playing baseball in the background of like there was some baseball shit going on right during a break i pick up one of the bats and i'm just like having a swing hitting some balls out just doing some practice swinging and i start getting into some where I'm doing like, oh, Julio Franco. And here's Jesse Barfield and here's Lloyd Mosby and, you know, whatever it is, right?

Mickey Teddleton. Otis Nixon. Otis Nixon. And I go and take this huge swing and I hear. Garthor. I hear a, I turn around. I hit her with the bat. Oh, my God.

She's, I hit her with the bat. Like what part of her body? Like her head. Oh, my God. Yes. She could have killed her. I could have killed her. She didn't really cry as much as she should have.

Well, that's actually scary. You want a little cry if you don't get a cry. That's real serious. It was scary. She got hit with this bat. She had a huge knot on her head. I felt like shit. But she walked right behind where I was swinging.

And this wasn't like a Catelli bat you get at Exhibition Stadium. A real bat. A chef boy R.D giveaway. giveaway. They took over for Cotelli. Yeah. It's not that either. Right. It's a real bat.

Right. And it made like a gross, like... You could have knocked her teeth out. Luckily, I didn't. Okay. But she walked into your swing. You're swinging and she walked into it. She did.

So, not so fun fact. Okay. In some of the scenes where you... She had a lot to overcome. She has her hair covering... Oh. She had a little gash. So she had her hair covering it and she was a trooper.

I felt terrible. I feel terrible saying this. Now, it was an accident. Of course. Obviously she... You didn't maliciously go into it. No. Are you crazy?

The poor... But obviously she forgave me and we went on to have some great scenes there. But yeah, she grew up to have a great career, a very tragic ending. I don't know all of the circumstances behind it, but it's obviously not a good thing no matter what. She was very unwell, so unwell that she died at the age of 35. Yeah, so that's obviously not a good ending. But I will remember her as a vibrant young child star, in my opinion. She was a star.

She stole the scene. She was so cute and so funny. and uh... Think about it Dory Funk Jr. lived 50 years more. He did. Got another half a century. Both legends and you know more people probably know her than Dory

so that's the wild world that we live in. Although... I take that bet. Yeah. That's a good bet. That's, you know, that's true. Yeah. It's like two different eras.

You know, one's 85. Right. Although the ring was huge. The ring is massive. Right. I know. I know. Let me play...

They also did a spin-off. Donnie Darko like a sequel that I've never actually seen, but it's called S. Darko, and she may have been in it. Well, she is S. Darko, right? That's what I thought, yeah. Why weren't you invited back for the Donnie Darko sequence? Well, it wasn't, my character wouldn't have existed. Because if Donnie doesn't exist, then I wouldn't exist.

Right. You know? That makes sense. Hey, let me play a little, like, a 30-second teaser because there's a whole realm I need to explore with you here. You know, they say that fame changes folks. A real reality is, fame doesn't change folks. It reveals folks.

Dark Side of the Ring is back. You're not supposed to hang people on television. This is not fake. They just beat the shit out of each other. It is Dark Side of the Ring after all. Seven new stories with a can't miss three-hour premiere. Our biggest story yet. Impro wrestling, people get drunk with power.

Jumped out all the backstabbers, backstabbing the backstabbers. Somebody's going to die tonight. Dark Side of the Ring. New season premieres Tuesday, July 7th, 9. Advice. Stu, before you say a word, there's a code read here, which is my battery is being drained. I unplugged and I gave you the outlet. I don't think it's working on this.

Take it back. Take it back. I'm good. I got half a brick. This is an emergency. Yeah, I'm good here. I'm good. Yeah, I'm good here. Let's see if that kicks in.

We'll go down if we lose that battery. Okay, so please, I play that promo because I want to congratulate you. You know, I'm your biggest fan. You know, maybe Trudy's your biggest fan. I'm your second biggest fan. Is it true? Dark Side of the Ring won some Canadian Screen Awards. It did.

It did. It did. Toot your horn for a minute. Like, tell us about that. We celebrate your success. Well, you know, it's crazy because the show has been nominated so many times and it's lost every single year. And it finally won. Season 6 was the one, the, basically like in the documentary category, the doc series category, the best doc series.

Dark Side of the Ring won the CSA award. And it was nominated for a few others. But the big war. The big award was this best doc series, which we've been after for a long time. And we finally got there. And the crazy part is that season six, which was the award-winning season,

season seven just started and it's even better. And more to come, P.S. Well, more to come on season seven in one episode in particular, which I'm going to get to in a minute. But Al Grego chimes in to say hello to you, Stu. What's up, Al? And he wants me to ask you something. I was going to ask you anyways,

but I'm giving credit to Al because he's a good man. He's a cuddly guy. Ask him how Bantf went. Oh my God. You forgot about him. Oh, it was so good. Are you kidding me? Let's hear about it.

It was incredible. There's so much to catch up on my. I know. I'm telling you. That's why I need a battery on this, Dan. I'm happy you got the battery. Did you crack your beer? Aren't you supposed to drink beer in the show?

Yeah, normally, but I like to drink with the guest. I brought a can of something else I could drink. What do you got? Just like a sparkling soda. Okay, do you want a hop pop? What's that? Hot Pop is a, a tasty beverage from Great Lakes

brewery that is non-alcoholic. I'll check it. So basically, let me set you up. I'll look at it. Tell us all about, yeah. No, you'll enjoy it actually. Do you like coffee? I have a coffee infused hop pop that I kind of want to get your review of.

Does it have a lot of sugar in it? Well, you'll read the label before you consume it. I don't think so. I don't think so. Please start telling us about why were you in Banff. What did you do there? How did it go? I'll try to tell the story slow because like I don't want Mike to miss out on the

opportunity to hear. all these great details. But just for some context, for those who don't know who I am, I am a filmmaker who grew up a child actor, et cetera, et cetera. Now me and my partner, Adam Roddenis, we have a film, five, seven films. We're both five foot seven. Yeah, how about that?

We do these films. Some of them are hybrid of nature, meaning that we shoot our movies under the guise that we work with real people who don't know that they're part of some sort of a plot a movie. They think that we're just sort of shooting a documentary. And it's a style that we absolutely love. And it's a style that you've seen other folks have a great success with in their own way. I would say this is a good stall job because it's giving you a little history lesson.

But like Sasha Baron Cohen, for example, Borat or the Nirvana the band, the movie, which is a fantastic 10 out of 10 Toronto movie, uses that style. So the way Adam and I do it is a little differently. We don't play characters. We play ourselves. So the people who are in it really have no idea if they're being messed with or not being messed with. That being said, we have a film called

Don't Uff with ghosts. I have the salad dressing. You have the salad dressing. It's actually dip, Mike. It's like a wing dip. Okay. Oh, I thought it was salad dressing. It looks like salad dressing.

It is salad. But let's not, you know. Sorry, I was listening to you. And you make a good point. You come on so regularly. You just assume. I just assume the listening. Like, I do assume the listenership knows who you are,

but you're right, you should reset because there's somebody hearing you for the first time. But also, like, chances are if they've made it that far in the episode, you know, they probably knew already because who's going to listen, like not knowing who I am like this long. But you're, I like this reset. So I want to tell the listenership, I check the label, zero sugar. Okay. So crack it on the mic.

And there's no artificial sweeteners in here? Well, I take it, I don't, you read that. Can you see that? Oh, this looks great. Like, I want you to pop it on the mic. There's no alcohol in here? No alcohol. I promise you.

Let's go. Okay, you've popped, so I have alcohol in mine. It is a late logger. I usually get the Sunnyside, but I'm going to drink Sunnyside in Trillium Park tomorrow before the metric broken social scene star show, and I'll be drinking with some people you know and love. If you're going to that show studio, you should join us. Here's our first time having it.

Yeah, I want an honest review. I just, who just drank one? Oh, Andrew Cregan, Andy Cregan was like an OG member of Bare Naked Ladies who left the band after two albums. And he just had his first hot pop and he enjoyed it, but no pressure. You just tell me what you think of it. You know, it's interesting, Mike. It's a, it tastes like if you were to drink like a boule or a, like a Sam Pellegrino or, you know, one of these sparkling soda sort of offerings that they have out there.

Of course. That have like a hint of peach or a hint of mango. Right. This is that with like a hint of coffee. I like it. Okay, there you go, everybody. So even if you're not, I was going to say,

even if you're not an alcoholic, but even if you don't drink alcohol, Great Lakes can take care of you. And I am enjoying my light longer. But it does trick you into thinking you're drinking beer, because it does have like a beer. It has like a beer with a hint of coffee kind of taste. Well, you're here, it's the hops, right?

Is that what that is? Is that the hop? It's a hop, and you're tasting the hops. So it's, you can enjoy it with, for example, I'm drinking a logger. Is there hops in other sodas? I don't think so. Is hops a flavor?

Hops is a, these, I see they're like these, like an organic plant substance that you use to make beer. Got it. But it's only in beer? It's only, as far as I know, it's only in beer, the hops. So where's the alcohol come from? The fermentation. Of what?

They ferment beer, what is it? Yeast, barley. Ferment is like a fancy word for like let it go spoiled? I don't, like, they have like big machinery at breweries. which is able to ferment it into alcohol. I don't, like, I got to bring in Troy Birdshare. So there's no alcohol in what I just drank. There's no alcohol.

You can read the label. There's no alcohol. I would, well, you think I would trick you, Stu Stone. The hop-pop has zero alcohol. This is a very good product. Zero calories? Good, full flavor. And it's tasty. And you can, if somebody's drinking beers and you don't enjoy beer,

you can drink a hot pop, and you're kind of part of the communal thing, even though, you know, you still got a little. It's like smoking grass whenever everybody's smoking weed, right? Shout out to Canada, Cav. who is on the live stream. So tell us about Banff, and then I want to talk about

a couple of nights ago. Yeah. So anyway, we were going to Banff to promote our film Don't Fuck with Ghost, which is coming out in the United States of America in September and October.

We're doing a big push. Coming in September and October. Like a U.S. push. We're doing a big U.S. push with a big PR campaign that's going to launch. We're going to be hopefully everywhere and anywhere. Good morning, America.

Whoever will take us. Is there an empty? anymore? There is not, but we will be pushing the movie September, October, pushing hard, big campaign coming, so you will be seeing a lot of me on your social media promoting this movie that some of you have already seen because it is available in Canada on Hollywood Suite. I've seen it several times. It's a good movie.

It's a great movie. And I was going to ask you, like, is 5-7 films working on anything? Oh, yeah. So are you going to film something else? Let me tell you what happened at Banff. Okay, talk about Banff. You're right. Like I said, eight places I want to go with you, Stu, the lines are crossed.

So we went to Banff. Now, Banff has this festival, Mike. It's like a conference where everybody from around the industry, America, North America, overseas, internationally, etc., etc. Mike, they are the distributors, the networks, the production companies. They all congregate in Banff, Alberta, Canada for a week. And at the Fairmont Hotel, the Fairmont Hotel. Stanley Goodspeed, what kind of a name is that? Sorry, that's my Sean Conner.

I know who that is. Okay, just making sure. You're pretty good at it. Thank you. That's, uh, so Adam and I got invited to do a panel at Banff. Do you know what a panel is at a conference? I've been a part of a panel or two. That's why I asked.

That's why I teed you up like that because you were a panel all star. Many other people are panelists who you've heard over the thousands of episodes of this show. Alan Cross is on a panel every couple of hours. Arb Pulasik was probably on panels back in the day. 100% Bar-Palusco. You know, there's a lot of panelists. So Adam and I, we were offered a spot to do a panel on hybrid filmmaking.

Now here's, I'm going to try to make this a fast story, but it is an entertaining one. And for those of you who are going for a walk listening to this or on the treadmill or on a bicycle ride, you're welcome. I'm going to get you a couple kilometers, a couple miles just on this story. Love it. So anyway, I was about to say any who, but that's so I would don't.

That's something Barb would say. That's Bar Poulouskovich would definitely say that. We get this panel opportunity, Mike. And so we're going to, here's a little backstory. We did the film Don't Fuck with Ghosts. As you know, we went to Manitoba to Winnipeg. We went all over searching for ghosts. One of the most haunted locations in the country,

according to those in the know, Mike, is at the Fairmont Hotel in Banff. Mind blow. There is a ballroom there. where a haunted bride, you can look this up, I'm not making this up, this is not hyperbole, Mike. Is it like the shining? It's like the shining, Mike.

There is a woman who is a young bride who is on her way down the stairs to go to her wedding, fell down the stairs, broke her neck, never had her first dance. She's been haunting the ballroom ever since, Mike. They don't let people go ghost hunting at this hotel, although they can't stop people from walking around. You know, people don't typically get action. to this ballroom. Now, we have a panel in this ballroom, Mike.

So we invite Kevin Healy, the creator of Scare Tactics, Mr. Rob Wells from Trailer Park Boys, to be a moderator. And Adam and I begin to put on a panel discussion on hybrid filmmaking with all sorts of hijinks and sort of shit happening while the panel's sort of unhinged, we'll say. Okay. We finally bring out Bridget Marquart, who is from our film. She's a, the, you may remember her from the show Girls Next Store, Hugh Heffner reality show. She is a ghost hunter.

Right. She was in our movie. She had the ghost equipment. We bring her out, and then we stop the panel, and we tell everyone, we lied. There is no panel. The only way we could get in this room to hunt for ghosts is to come in this room under the guys that we were doing a panel. But we have Bridget, we have the equipment. And if everybody doesn't mind, there is a ghost.

ghost in this room that we are hoping to find and get proof of right now. And obviously the audience is like, oh, yeah, wow, let's do it. So we take out Bridget, we call up some volunteers, we interact with the audience, we go on a thing around the room and we're going. And it's set up with tables, Mike, this room, it's a ballroom, a big ballroom, and every table has, like it's the Netflix table and the Crave table and the CBC table and everybody's got a table, right? And I forget to mention that some of the dignitaries who are in the room that are sort of volunteering for this to help us find this ghost.

You have the great Mitsu, Canadian legend Mitsu. Oh my God, do I love Mitsu. She was there? She came on stage to volunteer with us. I couldn't, I go, British is like, what's your name? And she's like, Mitsu. And I was like, what? Yeah, yeah.

I was like, what the fuck? Bye-bye Mon Cowboy. Of course. So it was a bonguer. And you heard the Steve Anthony's story on Toronto Mike about Mitsu. Mitsu. My God, I had a big crush. I still, she's still hot.

She's a beautiful. woman still to this day and just a wonderful gal and she was on stage with us. But anyway, Jason. Agnew. Jason Priestley's son was another volunteer. People were volunteering, right? So Elena Arkin, am I saying that right? Ellen Arkin?

No, I think I'm saying that wrong. Ellen Barkin? I don't know what name. Harkin. Harkin, okay. There's a Harkin, okay. No, she's a big star. Say the name again? I'm fucking this up.

Say the name again. Atlanta Harkin is her name. There's a lot of big stars I'm unaware of. Emmy Award winning big timer. Huh. She is the host of the Banff Media Festival this year. Okay. Atlanta Harkin.

Look her up. She's a big star. You'd love to have her on this show. Trust me. She's a Canadian comedian and actress. And I'm going to find out where I would know her from. She's from Hamilton. That's going to be a plus for her from the Hammer.

and she had a comedy play. Let me see what she's full frontal with Samantha B. Yeah, she's big time. So you want her on your show. She worked on that show. That's a big show. Anyway, we got her to be our conduit, our vessel to help us get the ghost. And she didn't know, right?

So she's joining us. She's married to a mic. She's walking around with the equipment. She's hilarious, by the way. We all have the equipment. We get to the table. And the equipment starts going off. And we're like, oh, my God, bring in the love.

lights. We got the van. We bring out this ghost rope. We have 400 feet of like Christmas lights essentially that like spark that like, you know, make the lights go on and off. I don't know what the hell's happening. We pass it around. There's a bit of chaos. And all of a sudden, boom, boom, boom. We have Avery Pearson, by the way, the pianist and comedian on the keys playing this along with us while we're doing this. And da-da-da-da, he starts playing. And he's playing Friday night, by the way, at the comedy bar, Avery Pearson. I may, you may see me there too. Wow. Boom, boom, boom, the equipment goes off.

Everybody's freaking out. And then it calms down. And then all of a sudden, boom, from the table from behind, from the middle of the table, what nobody knew is that we had hired a contortionist and dressed her up like a ghost. He cut a hole in the table and had her hiding for two hours under this table. Oh, my God. No one knew she was there.

And through the center of the table, she comes rising up and everybody's freaking out. And we rip off the thing and she's in the outfit and people go wild. and everybody just loves it. And you've got tape rolling. You capture this on video. That's amazing. We bring her, she has her wedding dance with Rob Wells, who's dressed as a groom,

and everybody gets up in dances with us, and it was just like the most fun anyone's ever had at a panel ever. Best panel. And it literally killed, and it couldn't have gone better. And it was so good. Shout out to Pam, who worked with Banff to get us to be able to do all of this. But is this you and Adam just brainstorming ideas? is.

Yes. And you guys get in a room or something. Myself and Adam came up with this concept with Kevin Healy and we sort of dragged Rob Wells into it. He kind of was like the unsuspecting guy also. He didn't quite, you know, his role was like to sort of just go with the punches. And of course, Bridget didn't fully know what everything we were going to do either. So it was like we've, at the end of this, we were able to say to the audience, like, you

want to know what hybrid storytelling is? You just lived it. Wow. All of you just told the story for us. and blah, blah, blah. And then everyone was like, wow. So it went really well. And it couldn't have gone better, Mike.

Banff was awesome. And Banff is beautiful anyways. Oh, my God. And you made it even more beautiful. It was so amazing. And we had great meals and we had some great hangs. And shout out to Mario and Rudy and the gang that came out with us. It was so good.

It was so good. Thanks for asking. I'm glad to hear it. El Grigo's glad to hear it. I have a crazy Comic-Con story to tell also. Okay, tell the Comic-Con story because I'm aching to get to... Let's just get to what you want to get to. Well, no, because you're going to forget to come back.

Do the Comic-Con story first. Okay, well, the Comic-Con story is that we did the Magic School West 30th anniversary reunion at a Comic-Con in Connecticut recently. It was a few weeks ago, and I hadn't seen these people in 30 years, really, like since the 90s. Maybe I ran into Carlos a few times. You should have him on the show. Daniel DeSanto is his name, a very talented actor with a great career. You had me at Hello. I could get him to come on here, Carlos.

Call him now. We'll do it for 90 minutes. We'll do it live. Fuck it, we'll do it live. Him and Erica LaTrell, who played Keisha on the show, and she has gone, you know, she has a prolific career as a voice actor. She was also on Shining Time Station as a kid, too. She was a big kid actor at the time. Danny Tamborelli was there, who played Arnold, who was the star of the Nickelodeon show Pete and Pete.

He was also on the show All That. He was also in The Mighty Ducks. I mean, this guy's an amazing child star as well. That's huge with Joshua Jackson. So all of us getting together for the first time in a long time was amazing. The other cast members who were not there, because there's eight kids in the class, and only four of us were there. I'm not sure whether they were not invited or invited or they declined.

I don't know. But shout out to them too, obviously. I have so much. They were missed. They were definitely missed, but, like, you know, I'm sure there'll be other opportunities. Anyway, so I'm there at this festival, and I'm going to save you some of the details. I've shared this story privately with some friends. And I'm going to cut out a lot of, I'm going to censor myself a lot of what I say here.

But I will say that we are selling Magic School Bus stuff at the table. And this is like a very anime heavy convention, Mike. So people there are really heavy into anime more than they are into stuff that we would be into. You know, it was a younger demographic. Right. Anyway, this guy comes up to my booth, we'll say, and he's got like a red wagon behind him with a bunch of crap in it. I don't know what's... Like a radio flyer.

Like a radio flyer, but like one of those ones made out of like canvas material. Like you'd see kids getting pulled in it. Gotcha. So he's got a bunch of like memorabilia in there. And he says to me, and I'm not going to do an impression of him, Mike. I'm just going to speak like myself. Just, I'm going to spare you my impression. But he says, can you sign my Funko Pop?

He says in a timid sort of voice. And I'm like, you're what? He's like, my Funko Pop. And I'm like, uh, what Funko Pop? Like, there's no magic school bus funcopop. Little Sprout. That's my thought. Initially, it's going to be like Little Sprout.

We discussed that on another episode. So it's not Little Sprout. And then I'm like, oh, well, there was a My Pet Monster Funko. That's got to be what it is. And I'm like, sure. And he pulls out this Funko Pop that's like an anime kind of character. And it's like this blonde-haired sort of anime-looking. You'd see it in like a Pokemon or one of these kind of shows.

And he's like, can you sign this? And I'm like, why do you want me to sign that? he's like, because it's you. And I'm like, no, I think I would know. He's like, no, you played high yoga. And I'm like, high yoga. He's like, yeah, from the show, St. Seya. And I'm like, I was never on the show, St.

Seya. And I don't know what you're talking about. He's like, St. Sayah was a very popular show. It's the biggest show ever in Brazil and in Latin America. And it just never got big in America. But it's huge in Japan and in Korea. It's a massive, massive show. And I was like, okay.

He's like, and you played Hayoga. I'm like, no, I didn't. And the person who's there as like your sort of like handler, I guess, for lack of better term, that's what they called them. I wouldn't personally say it's a handler, but. Right. A nice, a nice volunteer type person that's there to sort of like be with you, right? And that person, she went on to the phone and was like, no, no, he's right.

And I'm like, what are you talking about? Yeah. They're like, yeah, you were the voice. There were 73 episodes of this show. I'm like, when was this? They're like 2002. And I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about. I look at the thing.

I'm like, okay, sure, I'll sign it. I sign his thing, right? And then I'm like looking on the phone and I'm looking at this thing. And it's like, I look up the character in the show. And it's like, Mike, there's like bed sheets and video games and Happy Meal toys. It's like the biggest fucking show. And Brazil's a big country. It is a massive show.

And I'm like, I look it up and sure enough, I did the voice. I'm the voice of this character, Hayoga. I had no idea because the show never was part. Like I never, I must have just done it and never heard about it ever again. But you don't remember? Okay, I'll let you finish. It's coming to me now because I'm like, okay. And this guy had this funco pop.

And all I see is people lining up and selling funco pops all day. So I said to the handler, I'm like, here's a hundred bucks. go find as many of those funcopops as you can. So she goes on a mission, comes back with a couple funcos. Now those are for sale on the table, Mike. They did very well. But the guy comes back.

Such a capitalist. The guy comes back and he's like, can you sign another one? And I'm like, sure. By the way, along with the funcos, I made sure to get prints. Big stack of prints. I should have brought you one.

I leaned into this credit, Mike, because it's the anime show. All of a sudden, it went from Magic School Bus. Ripped down the signs. It's Hayogi. I'll show you. Meet Hayogi. Mike, I'm going to show you a picture of the banner.

That's hilarious. A giant. How do you spell Hiogi? Hyoga. Hyoga. Hioga. Hioga. Hioga.

How do you spell it? H-Y-O-G-A. This story gets crazier, okay? Okay. I'll buckle up. So now I'm leaning in, and now I'm Hayoga, and people are seeing the Hayoga, and now I'm starting to sign some Hayoga stuff. Right.

I got my own prints now, right? I got a stack of, like, 30 prints. Right. and I got a couple funco pops And I'm a hyoga And I'm like hell yeah Hyoga Like was I Hyoga

Of course I was Hayoga Like you know what I'm saying I was like One of my favorite roles I was like Ralphie Schmalfi We're here for Hyoga So we were Hiogaing it up

This guy comes up It may have been the same guy Came up And he's like hey can you sign My Funko Pop I'm like Hyoga sure Takes out the hyioga

And I see Mike Some other guy's Signature on it I'm like, someone else already signed this. He's like, yeah, that's fine. I want you to sign the other side. And I'm like, well, who's that guy? He's like, well, there was another dub after your dub.

I'm like, what are you talking about? Here's where it gets exciting, Mike. The show is called St. Sayah. It's also called Knights of the Zodiac. There's like several different things. But here's like a little cartoon history that like blew my mind. So now hopefully it's going to blow someone else's mind. And by the way, Bob,

Basement Bob, Bingo Bob. Let's talk. Bob Willett. Yeah. Who I thought was my buddy. I heard him say on a recent show that all Stu does is going Wikipedia to look for fun facts. First of all, I invented the format of getting fun facts. I have to explore this because I took heat on this and I want to talk to you about this.

That's fucking crazy. Gip, make sure right after this amazing story. And you should watch what you say, buddy. Well, we're going to return to that fire. So finish this great story. Here's a mind blow. We'd get back to that. This is not from Wikipedia.

This is from life. Okay? This is from the streets. From keeping my ear to the ground. And hearing what the streets are saying. So listen to what I'm saying here, Mike. The show was called St. Sea in certain territories it was called. So back in the day, you had shows like Voltron, Robotech, Astro Boy.

Shows that you remember that had the distinct look. Battle of the Planets. Battle of the Planets. These are shows that were popular Japanese cartoons that were dubbed over in English. many moons later and like some of them hit some of them didn't right Pokemon is an example of something that massively hit Power Rangers other things You know Voltron whatever right

Astro Boy was a huge hit So this was a show St. Sayah that was a hugely popular 80s cartoon show in Japan That had 70 plus episodes That was licensed in like 20 years later In the year 2000 or 1999 the rights came up for North America. Finally, right?

They piece mealed out the rights to three different places, which is unheard of. So there's three iterations of this same show. There's the Japanese original version, obviously, as well. There is the Deak version,

the Deke dub, it's called. Deke Entertainment was the name of a popular animation company. Is it DIC? DIC. You would... I seen it at the end of many a show. Did they do Transformers?

They probably... I know this logo. Transformers, G-I-Joc, etc., etc. Yeah, I know. Dick and Sunbo Entertainment was another one, too. Dick, Dick. Dick. Dick. But I was in some other Deke cartoons back in the day.

You know, Nelvana wasn't the only show in town. Right. Had some things going on here, too. Shout out to Wish Kid, the McCauley-Colkin cartoon. A. Shout out to Clive A. Smith, F.O.T.M. Yes. But so, yeah, I did the... Melody, Melanie.

So, Deek had the rights for television. The television rights. Right. Some other company got the DVD rights. So they could do whatever they're all. Do you all with it. Well, initially, they probably were going to do just the Deke Dub, but we'll get to that. Right.

Then there's a version of the show that airs on Netflix currently where it's just Japanese but with subtitles. So somebody licensed it with the ability to put English subtitles. Okay? I'm with you. They pieced it out three different places. Three different places. I'm on the Deke Dub. For North America.

The Deke Dub, Mike, is known as the worst one because there was one character on the show that was so out of character and so not on brand for what the show is. and it's as if some actor came in and just, like, did what they wanted to do without paying respect to the history of the show, etc., etc. That character's name is Hayoga. That voice actor's name is Stuart Stone. So...

I knew you were going to say, hioga. I almost said it. So this other company redid the dub. Of course. Because you did such a terrible job. Because I did such a terrible job. Now... The story's unbelievable.

There are stories online, Mike. I was doing a little research that's like... corroborate what I'm saying. It's like, oh, Stu Stone, like, ruin the show, essentially. Because I now have gone and watched it, and I've looked at it. And first of all, it's like, I was playing it like a surfer kind of guy. He's like this blonde-haired surfer dude. Right.

There's a director that's, like, directing me. That's not correcting me if that was my instinct to play it like that. They didn't say, like, no, do it this way. But do you now remember recording the dialogue? I mean, not really, but I... But you work a lot. Yes, but I remember it enough. I remember it enough that, like,

like somebody would have told me 73 episodes later if I was doing it wrong. That's hilarious. So only the first 50 aired until they just killed it. But was it big in Brazil? Like Brazil was okay with this surfer character. No, nobody likes the deep dub. So when somebody's getting my autograph on a St.

Sayah, Hayoga thing, it's almost done in like a 20 years later, ironic kind of cool like, oh, I'm a white whale because like I'm the villain in this. You've been disowned, basically. I'm the villain. I'm the villain of this, of this, of this, of this, of this, of this, of this fandom. I'm the heel. So for these guys to get the autograph. Now, listen, I went on eBay, Mike.

The other guys autograph is selling for those funcos are selling for $400. This is a huge show. Right. So from now on, I'd like to be introduced as the voice of Hioga from the deek dub. And if you see me in public and you want to bring up Hayoga, I will gladly trade, uh, share stories of the recording process. Honestly, I'm taking another sip of my GLB because there's a lot of That story worth telling?

That is actually, so have you told that story in public? No. I was going to use it on, I was going, I may tell it again. Tell it again in a minute 59 for Instagram. Okay, hold on, let's press record here. That was amazing, Stu Stone. You know, you're already like the Forrest Gump of the TMU, like all these unbelievable things you've been a part of and done.

Hyoga. We're adding high yoga. And today is the day I learned. you say it, Deke. I have seen that logo my whole life, and I have always thought it was Dick. Dick, Dick, Dick, Dick. But it's Deek.

DIC. Oh, man, a whole bunch of great shows I watched for that. Hold on one second, okay? You talk to. Ayoga. Okay. Do it ad read. Do an ad read.

I'm finding the picture of the hyoga. Palma pasta. They literally feed us at every TMLX event, except for this one coming up, but I'll explain that in a moment here. But I want to thank Palma Pasta because their lasagna is delicious. Stu Stone loves the lasagna.

Everybody loves the lasagna. I do. Frozen lasagna in my freezer, Stu Stone, for you, courtesy of Palma pasta. Love Palma pasta. I mentioned the upcoming TMLX event.

This is the capped event. Stu, I know you're multitasking now, but maybe you can hear me? I can. I ask, are you able to make TMLX 23 on September 28th at 6 p.m. at the GLB Brew Pub at Jarvis and Queenske.

If I'm in Toronto, you know I'll be there. Okay, so I want to let the listenership know. This is unlike the other TMLX events. Typically, you just show up. I don't care if it's 100 people. We're going to feed you. We're going to have poma pasta.

For the GLB brew pub TMLX events, of which we have one a year, there's actually a cap. And we've hit the cap. So I'm here to tell you, if you have not been notified, you're on the list, you know, you can show up. It's a restaurant. They're not going to turn you away. But I'm just telling you this isn't that kind of TMLX event.

We are capped, although I got the cap. What's the cap? Well, last year it was 40. This year I said to the GLB people, 40's not going to do it. This is a huge award-winning podcast. So this year, 60. So we have 60 people on a list. These are 60 people who have RSV-Ped.

They will be there on September 28th, that GLB brew pub. I now have a, that's Hyoga. He's right there, front and center on the banner now. Okay. I'm sure people are Googling it as we speak. Yeah, he's got blonde hair. He's like a surfer dude, right? I'll just say he doesn't look very javis.

Japanese to me, but... Doesn't he look like a California surfer dude? Yeah. Or a member of flock of seagulls. He looks a bit like Rob Proust. By the way, that's so crazy that you said looks like flock of seagels. Okay? Okay.

Ready to have your mind blown? Can you pull up on YouTube? Oh, are you gonna tell me, you ran. Look up Nights of the Zodiac show intro on YouTube. All right, standby. Standby. Night of the Zodiac. You just said flock of Zieg.

Holy shit. Is this a film? No, it's a... There was a film, by the way. Yeah, in 2020. Did like a massive, like, $150 million dollar budget movie. that like I could not believe is part of this show. Okay, I'm sorry, what am I looking up?

Night to the Zodiac, show intro. Oh, show intro, okay. Yeah. Because I see here. This is going to blow your mind. Okay, I'm excited. And they'll be able to hear the audio? Yeah.

Okay. All right, so here's the U.S. opening. And Hayoga looks like I look, and this is the show. So did I play it wrong? Did I play it wrong or did I play it perfectly? Let's hear this. Oh, my God. Right?

I feel sick. That's like Mysterion right there. That's the theme song of the show, Mike. Is this the coolest show of all time or what? Hyoga! I'm like Walter Cronkite over here. I'm taking off my fucking glasses. JFK was killed.

I mean, who played it wrong? Them or me? Like, that's the song. I'm definitely a surfer guy, right? I don't feel good, Stu. I feel like... It's magical stuff right there, Mike. Can you name the band covering?

in this flock of seagull song? Is it like bowling for soup? It's bowling for soup. This is bowling for soup covering flock of seagulls as the U.S. opening of Knights of the Zodiac. How crazy is that?

Okay, that's... So I've been mind-blown by this for weeks. And you know who's in... No, that's actually... Yeah. Guitarist for flock of seagles Gordep from the Spoons. Really?

Huh. That's a fact. That is a fact I did not know. Did you get that off Wikipedia? I got that from Gordep himself. So, you have Carlos from Magic School Bus on, you should ask him about my experience

learning I was Hayoga. Oh my God. Slam dunk. Slam dunk. God, I could do a whole episode about Hayoga. That was unbelievable. But you said something in the middle there. I'm going to poke at for a second here,

if you don't mind, which is that... It's funny. We just talked about Flock of Seagulls and Gordep's in the band. Gordep was in spoons. Rob Pruss was in spoons. Rob Proust is now on toast. By the way. Yeah.

We're going to go. I'll set it up and then you take it away. But the most recent episode of Toast was a little controversial. I'm going to bring it up with the guys the next toast. But I got a lengthy, detailed review from a devout listener who... Can you read it to me? Yeah, give me a second here. I will read it to you.

Because I feel like I'm on the advisory board at the very least. I wish... I don't actually have it here. But I'll give you the crux. And then I'll try to dig up the exact... terminology. In a word, this person who I won't name thinks I hate Rob Pruss and had a few thoughts. One was that basically he's detected this hatred a while ago and he thought I was very mean to Rob Pruse in the most recent episode. This is going to tie into what you quoted Bob Willett

is saying. But also that opening theme for Toast says your name and Cam Gordon's name. And I think that's funny. Every time they come over, I play the original opening of your name. You know the one, right? Yeah. And then Boba let will talk over it as like a joke. And this is a recurring gag I quite enjoy, but this person thinks it's not funny. It's disrespectful to Rob and Bob.

Anyways, it was quite a detailed kind of calling me out for being mean to Rob Pruss and accusing me of hating Rob Proust. So I'm passing the baton to you because this came out of me. I was disappointed that every toast, Rob Pruss seems to lack the fun facts and the mind blows. He plays a song and that's it. This is a song that fits the bill.

But what I like about Toast, and previous to that pandemic Fridays, which you, me, and Cam Gordon gave birth to it the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. What I like about it is, yeah, the song is there. It satisfies the criteria or not, but anyway, it satisfies a criteria. And now you're going to tell me,

give me some context, give me some mind blow or fun fact or something I didn't know about that song. That's my favorite part of Toast. And Pruse has not been delivering, and I called him out and then I got accused of hating Proust. I'm here to say one thing is

I do not hate Rob Proust. I love that man. And two, I just expect more from him on toast. Am I the wrong guy here? I just need to hear your thoughts on that because I know you listen. And then tell me what you thought

of what Bob Lillette was saying because I threatened to replace Rob Proust with you. Well, you don't need to do that. Come on. Rob's a great guy. For comedic purposes. Fair. Okay, it wasn't real.

It wasn't real. Yeah. And then Bob's like, oh, Stu. Yeah, I heard what he said. Fun facts are overblowers. because you're just going to Wikipedia and reading something. You take it away, Stu Stone.

Well, first of all, Bob, you seem to enjoy the show when we were doing it, and you were entertained when we were doing it so much so, Bob, at one point, based off of the lazy work that I was doing, you even were talking to me about going down to Kingston, Ontario, my brother. So I would have brought my wiki reading ass over to Kingston and doing what exactly? Boring the people with bullshit?

Come on, Bob. You know better than that. I'm going to let it slide because I love you. you, but come on, man. Come on, man. And Rob, I'll say this. Rob gets credit because he makes the schlip, right? He drives from New York when he, you know, unless he doesn't, which.

Well, we'll get to that later. Unless he doesn't. Unless he doesn't. We'll get to that later. But he does drive all the way from New York to be here. So that in itself deserves the credit. I mean, that's the credit right there. That's amazing.

So as far as him putting in the work or putting in the effort, like no matter what happens, happens after he gets out of his car, he already put in the work just to arrive. But if I may, he's visiting his mom in Burlington anyway. I'm not saying, I just, I'm not here to say that's not a big deal with Rob Proustic. However, Mike, I will say, he's in town is what I'm telling you. He's passing through. I will say to this about Rob specifically. And maybe this is just some like colleague to colleague.

You know, and Bob is a colleague as well, because they both are working in a great medium and they do a great job. I listen to Toast. You want to ask me how I stay in great shape? How do I look chiseled? How do I look sveled? How do I look jacked? Because I listen to toast episodes while I'm exercising, Mike. And I do.

I love them. I think they're great. They're fun. So when you're on the treadmill, you go on. Now, here's the thing about Rob. Yeah. Now, Rob should, now, I know what point Bob was trying to make, which was like Rob has, he's a rock star.

He's a musical legend. He co-wrote romantic traffic. He has been, he has big hit, songs. He's been in multiple bands that have hit songs. There's very few people that have had that type of experience that Rob has had, not to mention the great talent that he has as a musician, but surely there is some inside baseball and insight that he has, whether it's stories or some sort of like, oh, this song reminds me of when me and the boys were fucking rattling them off backstage or whatever the fuck, right? That's what Bob maybe was saying Rob should

lean into more, which Rob should do that. too. But to your point, Mike, you know, coming here and just like playing the song, like, that's not the format either. Right. So he should get the credit for showing up. He should get the credit for picking great songs. And I would say most times he does bring it in there. Not lately, Stu. Okay. Well, I'm just saying like the songs at least invoke conversation where you pick up the slack. But I'm not thinking, I don't think you were wrong in wondering why there was no information or fodder at all on the songs that he played in the Euro dance. you know, there was nothing.

And there's so much meat on the bone. Right. So I don't know. I take exception to Bob saying that, like, what do you want him to do? Go to Wikipedia. Like, yeah. Let's start there. Yeah.

Like, maybe there'll be threads. Like, I often go to Wikipedia that I'll pull the thread and then he'll dive into that through a different channel or whatever. But we say Wikipedia, like, it's fake or something. Like, this is all well-sighted good information that I don't think. I don't think the average listener of Toronto Mike is. well versed on the two unlimited Wikipedia page. None of them are. And so that's what makes this interesting. And if anything, it might cause somebody to fact check and go and fix the Wikipedia

if we got it wrong. So we're doing a service if you're using Wikipedia. But not every story's from Wikipedia is my point. And someone like Rob should have the family tree, connective tissue for enough musicians or songs or six degrees of any song that he could have some sort of personal sort of insight into like what he heard, what he didn't. He's hear what he was doing at the time that song came out, how his band reacted, whatever. Right. There's definitely more that he could burn. And then he says, oh, there's no more info on this.

Then pick a different fucking song. Yeah. You're not wrong about that. But listen, I can't give Rob. But I don't hate Rob Pruse. I need to make sure everyone knows this. Why would you hate Rob Pruse? I should have, I should have copied and pasted this message by this unnamed.

But this person is not just a listener. Is the person's name Rob? No. Pruce? No. But this person's not just a list. This is why I value it so much. because everyone's got an opinion.

They're like assholes, too. Everyone's got one. But this person's opinion is quite valuable to me because this person actually backed this show by cutting a check. Oh. That's a smaller universe, right? A lot of people will consume the content.

Well, then I would listen to whatever they said, Mike. You need those checks to keep coming in. I will address this with the boys. I'll say this. I'll say this. I'm a fan of toast, a regular listener of it. I like it a lot. I love the guys.

I love you. I love the banter. love the song selection and I think that you know if Rob wanted to put in a little bit more it would only make the show better but if he didn't then the show is already good and as far as Bob goes no notes he's great as far as you go no notes you're great as far as Rob goes I wouldn't have normally given a note but you did last episode so it opened up this can of words I don't think you I was told maybe I do that in pride somebody who somebody who was once in that hot seat that Rob was in for many, many weeks.

Yes. I never had a song where I didn't know something to say about it. So, you know, it was a little bit... Because otherwise you wouldn't pick the song. Yeah. There's like, pick... We're trying to make a show that's enjoyable. Okay. Speaking of shows...

Anyway, I don't want the guys to think I'm talking shit because I'm not. I love them and I love the show. Well, it's a work or a shoot? I never know. So this is the, God's honest truth. I've had this chat with Cam Gordon a hundred times. Is it a work or a shoot? Right now.

Who the fuck knows? No, it's a shoot, brother. I love those guys. I love the show. I do listen. but it is also a shoot that, like, you know, you're not wrong in what you were saying either. And I don't think Rob would say you were wrong either.

And if he does, then he doesn't have to do fun facts. Prague Rock, I have some picks for you for Prague Rock if you need some. But for Prague Rock, let's see if he comes back and he's got some stories. It doesn't even have to be like, oh, this song was written in three different time signatures. Let's say it's a Jethro Tull. And he could be like, oh, did you know the guy from Jethro Tull also invented fruit roll-ups? and true roll-ups came in 36 flavors and 36 flavors is a couple more than Baskin-Robbins.

It's like kicking out a monkey's song and sharing the fun fact, a member of the monkey's mom invented white out. That's a true story. See, you just, yeah, you love dropping that one. That's a good one. See, because you could, like Neil Diamond wrote a bunch of the monkey songs.

People might say that. Yeah, I'm a believer. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay, so Stu Stone the other day. I love toast. Well, you know, you better love toast because you gave birth to toast.

Like, toast is just pandemic Friday. Yeah, with a different, but those guys... You're the OG host of... Those guys are killing it, and I listen, and I love it. And it's been years. Like, we're talking... It's not like we just, you know, swatch up... And I did, at first...

Remember, if we remember the context, the history of toast, there should be a Wikipedia page about toast. There should be. And then, like, but Bob's not allowed to go there to find any fun facts. Where does Bob go to find his fun facts? You know, that's, yeah. I think we're giving Wikipedia a run here because it's not like... The encyclopedia Britannica at his house?

Like, where is he looking up his facts? And I didn't know because sometimes I do drop a fun fact I learned on Wikipedia because I know the listenership will be probably unaware. I didn't know that was a bad thing to do. No. Bob was like chastising me. What does he use? He thinks...

I got the vibe from Bob and he can speak for himself at the next toast. That he felt fun facts and mind blows were overrated somehow. Like they're not no big thing. But to me, that was the crux of it all. Yeah, I agree with you. And then he was like, You. And then I had a moment where I just took that in.

I'm like, yeah, like it's my fucking show. Well, what do you mean it says me? That's like you, the director of don't F with ghosts. Now, listen,

if Bob, again, like I don't have notes on what Bob brings to the table, so I don't think that he has some changing to do. I think he takes it the right amount of serious. Bob's great. And he comes in and he brings it. And listen,

Rob comes to whether he's visiting his mom or not. Rob's great. So all that to say, what's the deal with Wikipedia? Is it a bad place? What's Bob using? What's he doing that? We're not.

Where does he want? Do you want us to go to the library and fucking look up the micro-feet? The reference library. Yeah, like what do you want from us? What do you want from us, Bob? There I am. Late into the night of the reference library going through the microfeed. Yeah.

Like, what does he want? Look, there's an article here that says Mike Nesmith's mom. Right. Invented Whiteout? Yeah. Is that what is called Whiteout? Yeah. Liquid paper.

Whiteout is the brand. Okay. Like Kleenex. Cute. Right. You know, you can't buy Kleenex in Canada. anymore. Really?

It's like you got to get Scotty's or no name or something. Hey, this is an important thing that happened the other day. Because remember, we actually have to close with your review of my one-man show at the Omicombo. Oh, that. Don't forget. So we can't do all night. But the other night, I was invited to the Royal Theater on College. Yes.

Okay, how do I set this up? I have a question from somebody. So I actually gathered a small but mighty group of FOTMs, okay? Nadia, Canada Kev. Andrew Ward, Joe Louis. Murderers Row. Massimo, that's a new name to people, but I think he's tied to Joe Louis,

Massimo's son. I had this small and mighty group and we took over like a whole row of the theater. That's great. Because we were there for an episode of Dark Side of the Ring. And remember, you and I met at accidentally, bumped into each other at Cypress Hill, and you introduced me to your friend, Samoa Joe.

Yeah. And I was unaware of the legend of Samoa Joe. And do you remember I did the two-handed handshake? And I said, what a pleasure it is to meet you, Samoa Joe. He didn't say anything to me. I didn't know what his voice sounded like. He's a well-spoken guy. He's the best.

So I was invited to the royal. I was there. I biked over. Medali's great guys. I think Andrew Ward bought me a beer. It was a great time because we were going to watch an episode of Dark Side of the Ring. A infamous fight between a wrestling match between Samoa Joe and a name I only learned for the first time the other night. Necro butcher.

Yeah. Drink that name in. watched this episode, which I hadn't seen before. Others had seen it. I was a bit behind in my Dark Side of the Ring. It was unbelievable. It was wild. And then we had a Q&A. You mentioned panels. You were on the panel.

Samoa Joe was there. FOTM John Pollock was hosting it. I was a little disappointed. I didn't get asked to host it. He's a wrestling journalist. I know. I know. He's a him and Wei Ting. They're FOTMs. Okay. Series creator Evan Hussein was also there.

Right. Dark Side of the Ring creator. Of course, you're there as a director. I'm going to play a question from Joe Louis, and then we're going to get into this in more detail and more things to say about it. But Joe Louis recorded this for you. Stu Stone, Joe Louis here. I'm not a wrestling fan,

but I have to say, after attending that live screening of Dark Side of the Ring on Monday with Samoa Joe, I can see why people get hooked. That story was pure insanity. So the question is, is there such thing as a wrestling fan that asks a simple one-part question?

because it certainly wasn't in evidence that night. So there was a Q&A, and I will say, you know that's Simpson's episode? Homer's playing poochie. Yeah, of course. And they have the panel, and the nerds are asking like, and that question, why is it like this?

And then that's episode 14 of episode second of this. It's, I hope somebody got fired for that blunder or whatever, you know. And that's what it felt like. These wrestling fans are really, I'm not going to call them nerds, but they were really into it. And they would ask these questions that had, Part A, Part B, Part C, and Samoa Joe would, like, can we do one at a time?

He was, like, drowning in all the multi-part questions. But what a great night. It was a great night, and I will say that, Mike, fandom is fandom. In any, you know, there's people who are hardcore fans of a lot of things. I would say that wrestling is probably on the list of things that are probably, it could be worse. You know, people are hooked on wrestling. It's better than being hooked on some other things. and there are hardcore fans

and Joe, someone of Joe's stature, he's a top level talent. I know you just learned of him but someone who's a hardcore wrestling fan would have... But I read his WikiPage. Sure. Don't tell Bob. Yeah, don't tell Bob.

But Samoa Joe is of a different... He breathes a different air. He's towards the top of the mountain. You know, he gets the respect from his peers, from the fans from everybody. He's just a dude, right? Yeah. So the people having an opportunity to ask,

Ask Samoa Joe a one-on-one question is a bigger deal to them than you, and I even realize, because it's like it would be like you getting to ask Lloyd Dmosby a question. Oh, the shaker. You know, you'd be like, Lloyd, remember when you were, it was two or three. Remember you did the ad for Be nice, clear your ice? Oh, my God. Wendell did one. He did one.

Be nice. Yeah, that was Ben Wicks. Yeah. But Lloyd had a line like, you should see me with the baseball, but he says it really quickly. And he's saying something to Wendell, I think. should see me with the baseball or something. You should see me with the baseball.

That ad is just classic, like, mid-80s. You mentioned 85. We were talking about Dory Funk Jr. there. Yeah, classic mid-80s, Toronto. Wendell Clark, Lloyd Mosby, Be nice, clear your eyes. I thought, I just want to say the episode because I didn't know anything about this match, the Samoa Jovers, his necro butcher. I thought it was very well produced, well directed, if you will.

And I was all in on this story. Like, it was almost as wild as your Hayoga story. It's a pretty wild story, right? You're going to do an episode of Dark Side of the... Dark Side of Hayoga. Right. You know, I actually learned something very interesting in speaking with Evan this week about Dark Side of the Ring, which I'll share with you in a moment.

But I do want to say that Samoa Joe versus Necro butcher is a deep cut. So if you're like somebody who, like, loves Prague Rock and you want to listen to Toast, hopefully one of those guys is going to come with some like, banger that, like, you don't even know about and you're going to learn about it. you're going to be like, holy shit. I have a lot to learn about progress. Like the way that I learned about Hayoga. I was like, I didn't even know

Hyoga was a thing, and it turns out of... And now it's your identity. I'm surprised you have an earthwinded fire shirt. You didn't have a Hyoga shirt. It kind of looks like Hyoga, though. Oh, yeah. But I'm saying, like, now I know there's a huge fandom for this show, and I didn't even know.

So there's a huge fandom within the wrestling circles for this match. It took place on a matinee show 20-plus years ago, where Necro Butcher, a death match wrestler, was pitted against Samoa Joe, who was the wrestler's wrestler. Samoa Joe was on the precipice of becoming a big national wrestling star worldwide on television. This is right before he got his first deal to be a TV wrestling star, and this is Necro butcher who has been fighting for any scrap of attention. He had nothing to lose.

They put on a hell of a match that looks like a shoot. It's a work. It's a shoot. It's just crazy. It's madness. It's literally madness. And the fact that the story behind the match from the two competitors is so different that it makes such a compelling sort of like...

And I say people who are there at the screening, my family included, who were like, oh, my God. Oh, I have a note about your mom in a moment. They're like, oh, my God, the show's so good. That was so good. And I'm like, guys, I keep telling you to watch the show. Like, there's seven seasons for a reason because it's a good show. You just got to air each episode at a theater like that.

It's like every episode has that. Like, they're all great. Like, Dark Sives Rings is a good show. Like, I keep... It won a Canadian Screen Award. I keep begging people to watch it. You don't need to like wrestling. They don't get out those things.

It's like, the storytelling is phenomenal. The show is gripping. The characters in this world are unbelievable. They're colorful. They have... It's relatable. Like, you find yourself getting emotional with a guy called the Necro Butcher.

Well, can I speak to that? Sure. I never knew that name until I watched this episode or something. By the end, you were feeling for him, right? he... Yeah, he's like, what a... find he is because he's the genuine article and like you really get to

know oh that's what it's like for those type that level of wrestler and the style he was doing you know he's not on he's not on WWE okay he's not going to be on national television or whatever but Necrow butcher just puts in the work and then when you see you mention work and shoot and we never know with you if it's a work or shoot

I honestly I watch that doc and I think Joe Louis would agree he's not a big wrestling guy himself but like this is a real gate that's being slammed on someone's head. But those are not fake chairs. And I'm watching a chunk of his scalp was like out and he's bleeding. Like this wasn't the old fashioned like, oh, put some ketchup or do that little cut that they do sometimes.

Listen, for professionals. Like he could have died. Of course. Several times. For professionals, there is, and they said it in the show, Joe may have even mentioned it in the Q&A. But they're in order for wrestling to actually work in any manner and work, underline the word work however you'd like. but in order for it to work in any manner, there needs to be some speck of cooperation

between the two people. There needs to be, even if they want to kill each other, there needs to be even 1% of a speck. So you could actually have two guys that hate each other and want to kill each other, go out and try and kill each other, and it's going to be a spectacle.

Necro butcher went in there thinking that Samoa Joe wanted to kill him that night. Samoa Joe had no eye. idea what the fuck Necro Butcher was even talking about. So the fact that they went out and had that match, it's beautiful. I want you guys to stop hearing me talk about it. Go watch it. It's on Crave.

You can watch the entire season seven up to this point. There was a new episode that aired this week on The Renegade. Next week, there's an episode on Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorf. Who I saw it, the great... What was that called again? The exhibition stadium. What do they name that? The big event.

The big event. I was there. So that's next week's show. There's still a couple more episodes to go after that. and more to come, etc., etc. But yeah, great show. I loved the screening.

Samojo is one of my favorite people on Earth. I just smile thinking about Samojo. He's the best. There's not a better guy. I'm serious. He's literally the best. Does he live here? He does not.

He's here filming a show called Twisted Metal, which he plays Sweet Tooth, which is a look it up, twisted metal. It's basically a little bit like the generation under us would know it. It's like if you bought the PlayStation, that's the game that came with PlayStation,

the way Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt came with Nintendo for us. So they all know Twisted Metal. It's a popular show. It's season three. Anthony Mackey is on the show. My friend Devonsawa, I don't know if that's a spoiler or not, but he's on the show.

I don't know if maybe I just blew the surprise there. Casper the ghost, the friend that goes. But he's on there. And if I wasn't supposed to say that out loud, then I'm not fixing this in post. Okay. But I do want to say at this event, I was outside waiting with Canada Kev and Andrew Ward

and we were just chatting it up. And before we entered the theater, and your mom spotted me. I had like, I'm just here, it was like, like we've been dear friends forever, like the embrace, the conversation, the sparkle. Well, there's this warmth about you, Mike, when you do care about an episode.

I don't get that from everybody. Like when you're sitting with a guest that you actually are, when you're not rob prousing it, and you're here actually like doing stuff. Exactly. When you're rob prussing it as well, you know, we can tell. But my mom listens to the episodes where you're on with me. Right.

So you're always warm. That is true, because I do get, like, giddy when you're on. Like, I can even feel it. Like, I just would just, oh, it's like I have a little, like, a crush on you or something. No, stop. It's a bromance. It's a bromance. But your mom reveals to me, excitedly, she goes, oh, I camp now.

Okay. But then I said, oh, I said, like, what kind of camping? And she explained, like, not me who goes to leg here on and pitches a tent and sleeps in the tent for a few nights and, you know, watches the sun. watches the sunsets over Lake Huron. She's like, no, like she's going, I don't know, Alaska. Yeah. All these really wild places with a new boyfriend. And she showed me photos of fish she's been catching.

These, this is like giant salmon or whatever. Like the fish is. She's a real outdoors woman. So, and she's saying, oh, yeah, she's met this guy and he's a camper and she's embraced the lifestyle and everything. So what do you think of your mom's new boyfriend? I think he's great. I mean, she's out there living her best life. She's someone that is an adventure.

She loves fishing and woodwork. But did you see that coming? Like, did you think your mom would be a fisher person? Yes. I have always known this side of her. She's always had it in her, and the previous partners that she was with weren't exactly compatible in that.

So maybe she didn't get to do as much. She obviously didn't get to do as much of that stuff with previous husbands, etc. But I'll tell you what. She grew up, I know my grandfather was a fisherman. They had a boat. She went out as a little girl, always on the boat, always on the water, fishing with her dad.

He was a woodworker. He was a carver. she probably did it too as a kid. So this is stuff that she enjoyed doing. Now that she doesn't have to raise us anymore, us kids, although I'm still probably a bit of a pain in her ass. Oh, I saw your sister too.

My sister was there as well. She gets to, she's living her best life. She found somebody that loves to do that stuff too. Before she met him, she was going to woodworking classes and going fishing and doing that stuff. Now she has somebody to go and enjoy it with.

I'm happy. I'm happy to hear it. I know every time I see her I light up, I see Canada Kev on the live stream is saying that it was sweet meeting Trudy at the show. Trudy was a highlight. I introduced her to all the FOTMs.

Moose Grumpy, right? So you can tell me what this means. Oh my God. He's sweet tooth. Yeah, that's, that's awesome. That's a Moines Joe's character on Twisted Metal. He's like the main guy. So he's, uh, he's there.

He's doing it, baby. Okay, well. It's a Will Arnette show as well. It's a big show. It's on Amazon. He talks like me as a peacock. It's an NBC show in the States. Okay.

So, I'm learning to do, Twisted Metal. Okay. So great seeing your mom was a great event and the show was great. Thank you. Congrats on your awards. I appreciate it. And congrats on your award. Thank you.

Best podcast. Yep. Best personal journal. No, it was best news and commentary or something ridiculous like that. I know. I have a T-Sh, I'm wearing my End-That t-shirt because you kind of told me to lean in on End-that and I've been doing it ever since. And it's worked out.

So I'm wearing it for you. Yeah. But I also have an award-winning podcaster t-shirt that I might have to break out for tomorrow's episode. Okay, so one quick hit here. Then I'm going to do a sponsor mention. I had a Drake take that I promised Lindsay, my friend Lindsay, who's listening. Go ahead. I told her that I would be debuting my Drake take on your show.

I'm ready. And she's been like, well, what's your Drake take? And I'm like, I have this take on Drake that I want, and I'm going to save it for the next time I'm on Toronto Mike. That's a teaser. So she's like, oh, well, when are you going to be on Toronto Mike? And so. This is the next time. And I'm like, well, here I am.

I'm on it right now. So this is my chance. Okay. I thought what you were doing there was telling me next time you're on, you're going to do the Drake Take. I'm like, I won't be able to sleep. No, I'll do it now. I'm ready.

Or I can wait. Okay, let me do this. So I have a note here for Drake Take. Let me just ask you, did you listen to the episode of Toronto Mike with the creator of the Raccoons? Oh, yeah. Kevin, yeah, of course. He didn't really, uh, it's funny. Mysterion, by the way.

Keep talking. Yeah, talk about Mysterion, because Bob called out. Bob was really something in that toast because he called out Mysterion during that toast. I kind of call out. Do you want to do like a dramatic meeting of that? I want to call out Mysterion for a second too because you did say my name to Mysterion and he acted very mysterious

that he didn't even know me. And like this is a guy that's worked at my wrestling shows with me, knows me, has tried to get involved with Dark Side of the Ring a few times. Like it was shocking to me. Is he a work or a shoot? I guess he's a work. He was working on that one.

Okay. What I put in your hand there and... He's a pretty unbelievable magician. I'll give him that. Yeah, he's got a good slight. And he's got an amazing action figure collection. You know what his move is? I reviewed the tape.

He kind of fooled me a few times in real time, and then I had it on video when I watched closely. What he does is he asks you a question that you have to think and answer in real time, and that completely withdraws your focus on what his hands are doing and everything. He's actually a master of his craft. But that's slight of hand. That is magic. I'll tell you what, Mike. I told you this when we first met.

I told you this when we first met. Angel, remember? Right. I produced 200 magic illusions for Chris Angel, or with Chris Angel, I should say. Right. I told you, Mike, that wrestling and magic are the same. So the fact that Mysterion can do the magic, he's born for wrestling. Or if he knows how to do the wrestling, he's born for magic.

He's very, very great with the magic stuff. He's one of the better guys I've ever seen do it, and I've seen the greats. And he's great. I thought he was very good. He's very good. And he can blow your mind with. without going to Wikipedia, Mike. He can just blow your mind.

So because we're going to get the Drake take and then we're going to close with your review of my one-man show at the Elbecombo. Can you read that? Kevin, Kevin, Kevin wrote this, right? Kevin Gillis. Kevin Gilles. Is it a...

Gillis. Yeah, that's what I thought. But somebody once told me, there's like a French, like Clark Gillies. Yeah, from the Islanders. Yeah. Hi, Mike. Just a quick note.

He's got great handwriting. You will not see generations of handwriters anymore. I doubt your kids can write like nice. They do teach cursive in school. But it's going to be done soon. They don't use it too much. It's going to be done soon. I don't use mine.

AI, you don't even have to use your brain for anything. Thank God we have Wikipedia. Hi, Mike. Just a quick note to thank you for having me on your show. It was a great fun. And I was completely impressed with how you managed to get me a heart. Hop-hop. Sorry, a hop, a, oh, a near beer.

Yeah, it's the hop-op you're drinking, actually. While you were hosting a show live, miracles do exist. The care and best, take care and best of luck with your show. It showed, it should be recognized, sorry, it should be required listening. Wow. Warm wishes, Kevin. That's a handwritten. And mailed and a snail mail with a stamp on it.

That's a good man. That's the sign of a good man. He's a keeper. I just wondered if you listened because you, of course, For the final season of the raccoons, you were a voice. More than the final season, but I'll let that. But somebody, like, hit puberty, right? Noam Silverman.

So he was the original voice of Bentley. He was, he was, do you remember the outside chance of Maximilian Glick? I do remember this. He was, he was Maximilian Glick. Oh, wow. And then he was also, I think he was, definitely he was on the Edison Twins with me. But he was also on My Pet Monster in a few episodes. There was a character that he played like a bully.

kind of character. But yeah, his voice changed and I slid right in there. And I didn't ruin the series. No. And now it's coming back. And I think if you heard that episode, I told him he had to cast you. And I think we have a binding agreement. Okay, he better.

Okay, let me know. Come on, Kevin. I want a hand to your note. So Stu Stone, you decide. I need your review of my one-man show at the alma combo because you were there. I was there. Only the second guest, I think, to be on Toronto Mike, who was there. Oh, other than the two.

two gentlemen from FOTM cast, Tyler Campbell. We should talk about them too. Those pricks. So let's close with the Drake take. Or we just save it. Well, I don't know. All right, let's get through this review first. Is Lindsay going to be upset if you save it?

She's always upset. So, I'm just kidding. She's not. She's never upset. Don't backtrack. Own it, man. Well, do you want to say anything about the FOTM cast? Do you listen to that?

Of course. All of it. I love it. I listen to the show. I'm telling you. I'm going to see those guys tomorrow night. You ask me what I'm doing to exercise. I'm listening to your show.

So I like it. But you only listen. Okay, you listen to, do you listen to everything? Well, I listen to whatever I'm working out. So you release a lot of shows. So sometimes there's a few. It's been a busy week. Yeah, so sometimes you miss a few.

You'll enjoy Rebecca Rankin, I think. She was yesterday. You'll enjoy it very much. Yeah. I'll give it a listen. So here's my review of your show. I'm going to sit back and listen. I'm ready to take it.

It's been months now. Mike tells me he's going to be performing a one-man show. at the Elma Combo. The Elma Conbo. How soon we forget. The world famous Elma Combo. May 21st, 2026. What a day it will live in infamy.

And I hope Rob Proust and Rob Pruse are listening to this because their name's going to come up in a couple ways here. In a way that I'm going to use your experience there to defend Rob in certain ways for the attack that he was laid on on toes. So that's sort of the opposite of what I see. said earlier. So hopefully Bob is still listening too. I know he's very busy. He's doing the morning show. He's doing the weekends. Now he's doing afternoon. He's doing the afternoon drive. Adam is on vacation. So he's very busy, Bob, but hopefully he didn't turn this off yet because I think

he'll like, he'll quite enjoy hearing where I'm going to go with this. But you told me that you were booking a show at the Elma combo. And I was on your show the day before, I believe. You took the stage. And as of that day, you had not rehearsed the show one time. Correct? 100% correct, yeah. Okay. So you, now this is my take.

Because I think you actually ended up correcting it. But at that point, you were on the precipice the night before going on stage to perform for paying customers at the Elma combo. And you did not even rehearse. And then you have the nerve to yell at Rob for coming here, playing a song that he chose for your show and didn't have something prepared? Relevancy, Your Honor. You're a son of a bitch.

You son of a bitch. I'm just saying. Apples and oranges. All right, back to our regularly scheduled review. You son of a bit. I gave you a tip. You're lucky Trudy's watching or I would be calling you on the carpet right now. I gave you a tip to put a set list together, which you did do.

I followed your advice to a T. And I think it worked. And it was on the floor. I'll tell you what. I'm going to give you this review, but I'm also going to going to give you this review based on the fact that like I myself have worked and put my heart and soul into projects that don't always get great reviews but I know what went into it and the reviewer doesn't okay so I'm going to give you a review based on knowing what went

into it and what the outcome was okay the fact that Rob was supposed to be there with you on stage that he was supposed to open the show and then he was supposed to provide musical accompaniment perhaps some banter maybe he had a live mic on there were cues I had a fake grand finale that really revolved around the fact that he was not there mike the fact that he did not come to the show that he did not make it happen he got a whatever his car Cadillac converter however you say it catalytic converter whatever the fuck it was was stolen couldn't get another car couldn't figure out another way to get here whatever the case may be he couldn't get here and i i i'd like to think that if there was a way

for him to be there he would have been there i'd like to think i'd like to think i'd like to think there was no option whatsoever for him to be there. I'd like to think because I respect Rob as a colleague, someone who I consider, just like my mom listens to your show and considers you her friend. I listen to Toast. I consider Rob my friend because I listen to his voice. He's talking and I'm exercising, right? So I'd like to think there was no way.

Zero. Not a plane, a train, an automobile, a hitchhike, a bus, a piggyback ride, a wagon with Hayoga Funko Pops in it. There was no mode of transportation that this guy could get to Toronto. So I'm going to give him that. Knowing that, you automatically get respect and points from me, Mike, because you did your show. You pulled it off.

You pulled in another opening act. You did well. You came up on the stage. You did your thing. Some stuff may have come off awkwardly than others due to the nature that you still went with your material without, it's like Ashford and Simpson with no Simpson. You know what I'm saying?

I don't know why I used them as the example. The captain with no Teneal. Yeah, you went up there, and it's like salt and pepper, and it's just salt. I did try to self-edit on the fly, some parts that were heavily reliant on Rob's audio, but there were some parts that I kept hoping it would still work,

and you'd be the judge. So I wonder what the performance would have been like had Rob been there. Had his Cadillac Catalytic converter His catalytic converter not been stolen Had there been any way It's like sliding doors, right?

Had there been any way for him to be there Anyway A plane, a train, automobile, Mike, a wagon With high yoga, Funko Pops in it, Mike If there was any way for him to get there I think the show would have gone completely different And it could have been better Okay, but the show you saw

Okay, I'm not done, I'm sorry, I'm sorry It could have been better. It could have been worse. I'm only going to review the show I saw. So knowing what I know now and knowing that Rob was supposed to be a part of it and you had some bits worked out with him and he wasn't there, automatically you get props. And as somebody, Mike, who has been on several Titanic type,

I hosted a New Year's Eve special. I don't even know if we've ever talked about it on this show. No, but my daughter saw it and told me she's, she said. Well, we should have a whole episode just about that. It's my daughter's like Stu Stone Touchpoint. So this New Year's Eve special that we hit an iceberg. and I stayed on board for the whole thing, and you did the same thing, Mike,

so automatically you get my respect for that. Now, the greats, Mike. The greats. I'm talking about the comedy legends. Who are your favorite comedians of all time, Mike? Oh, like you're talking like a Dave Chappelle. Sure. Who else?

Glory Days, Louis C.K. Okay, Louis C.K. What about old school? Like, you know? Oh, you mean like George Carlin. Sure, George Carlin. Who else you got? Richard P.

Richard Pryor. That's a good one. Give me one more. Let's get your top five. Hold on. Let me think on who would be somebody who makes me laugh with Stand Up. Give me a second here. On the spot here. I'm glad this didn't happen at the Elmo. One more comedian. Just throw one out there. Any name. There's so many that you could throw a dart. Yeah, there's just too many. Jerry Seinfeld. There's too many. There's five comedians that you have named all icons, all legends of the game. Right. And when those guys perform for their paying customers and they go up on the stage to do their set, Mike, how long is their set?

I'm talking about the greats, the iconic greats, the people who are the greatest, the profession. One hour, Mike. Right. One hour. Right. That's the model for this thing that has been set for centuries. Why didn't you tell me that the two days? I didn't know what you were planning on doing.

I was clear to everybody forever. I was going to do 90 minutes. And that was, now, listen, I'm just going to say this. Again, knowing what I know, I'm giving you props because you blew past the hour mark. You did 90 minutes. You kept people captivated. I did 90 minutes. And then lowest of the low came on.

Right. So you already exceeded expectations that the greats. They wouldn't even attempt to do what you did. Quantity was good. You wouldn't, you know, they wouldn't even attempt to do what you do. It is very hard to keep somebody's attention. Right. Well, Humble, how.

Howard told me I die on stage. He says you can't do 90 minutes. It's tough. If radio had Mike, a great band, if they played every single night for three weeks, by the third week, you probably wouldn't go because you've seen it already, right? It's like 60 minutes seems to be like the thing for comedy.

For comedy, yeah. But yours was sort of a spoken word thing. It was more of a one-man show, like a John Leguizamo Broadway show without the bells and whistles, I would say. And you know what? I'll tell you what. People who came to see Toronto,

I think the girl who booked you was expecting something different than what you did. Oh, 100%. I think that's been discussed on F-O-Thing. I think she was expecting me to come up, bring out guests, to do what you do live. She never told me, though, I'd like to address this for a moment, which is that she never, ever, ever said to me what she was expecting. All she said was, I rented the Elma combo for you to headline. That was it.

Yeah. And then I said, okay, and I went off and did the thing I did. So I would say what you did was you had this opportunity to do something. performative thing that was more about like the so it's like you're going to watch i want to put this in the easiest terms mike the cherry blossom was a great touch i want to put we needed rob on stage for that i want to put this in okay i don't i'm not saying your show was the godfather too so that's why i don't want to use the godfather three that's why i don't want to use the godfather too as an example but that's an example of you're going to see expecting to see the godfather and you get like the

origin story right of the godfather right and i think think that was your mechanism of what you did with your show. It was like less about the Toronto Mike show and the Toronto Mike that she booked and more about like how did we get to be Toronto Mike and what's in the DNA? What's in the sausage that makes Toronto Mike? What's his childhood like? When I wrote this on bike rides and I started piecing it together, a rule I set for myself was I said, okay, you're doing 90 minutes and you're going to tell, say things that you have never said

in the almost 2,000 episodes of Toronto Mike. So a lot of stories have come out in episodes of Toronto Mike. I wanted it to be all original content. Right. So it was. And I think, like I said, I think you would have done well doing whatever vision that she may have had or others.

But when I asked her post, and I had a chat with her on the phone, and I understood from this conversation that what I did was not what she was expecting. I then kindly said, why don't you tell me what you were expecting? and she was unable to do so. Well, because I'm doing it on her behalf.

But she didn't, she doesn't know what she was looking for. It just, that wasn't what she was looking for. Well, then, I didn't even. Also, I wouldn't have done it if I thought I had like a program manager. Yeah, listen, man, art is art. I'm telling you, as somebody who came and watched my friend go up on stage at the Elmo, with his name on the stairs, in his name on the headlines, and holding the audience's attention for 90 minutes,

telling stories, giving us background that none of us knew, A lot of us didn't know. Hearing you sing, it got emotional. There was ups, there was downs, there was in-betweens. I thought that it was an impressive display. I think that you, your mother, whether it's true or not of your balls being the size of beach balls. That's the other rule I had.

Everything had to be true. I would have to say that like even if it's not true, metaphorically it's true, because to go up on the umma combo for 90 minutes and do what you did requires giant balls. So you do have giant balls, whether they physically or metaphorically are you proven that. And I give you full marks for that as well. So was the performance perfect? Nothing is perfect.

But under the circumstances and what it is, what you were told, what you thought it was, I think that it went beautifully. And I give you full props for pulling it off. Thank you. And I think that you could consider doing another event. But maybe like the TMLX events are more like what you. he thought where you're there and you're kind of hosting a show and people are coming up and I don't know.

I don't know either and I'll never know and it's part of, it's a little frustrating, but I would say being told ahead of time that, hey, you have a night where you headline and then me going off and saying, well, it's exciting to do whatever I want. And you're right, I didn't have to do 90 minutes. I made that rule for myself. I'm not even sure why. I think I think movies, a good movie should be 90 minutes. So I thought it should be 90 minutes.

But for whatever reason. And I nailed it, and that was kind of exciting to me, to hit the 90 minutes. Oh, and then the ending was great, too, and those guys were fantastic. And the fake, like, the cherry blossom fake ending, like, in my mind, remember Rob was supposed to be there. So it was a little different in my mind, and I kind of had to change it live. Well, the whole thing kind of fell a certain way just because Rob wasn't there. And that's why it would be, like, amazing to get to see a Mulligan where Rob is there. But I don't know.

But I'm never doing this again. Yeah, so we'll never know. I'm never doing again. But I want to say thank you to lowest of the low. They were fantastic. I had this, in this bike ride, I'm like, no, I need a fake grand finale. When hearing you talk about the don't F with ghosts panel and how you and Adam spitballed and stuff, it's like, oh, I just spitballed myself on rides.

I'm not saying I'm in your camp, and I'm not going to win any Canadian Screen Awards. But I had this idea that the guys from Lewis Lowe are just at the show quietly out there. And then when I start biting into this cherry blossom, they just storm the stage and it's a hostile takeover. It's like January 6th, all over again. That's not how you end a frickin' show And they were going to bust into Rosie and Grey And then the fact that we got that to happen Like that happened

So even if you bought the ticket to see Toronto Mike Do whatever the hell he was going to do You got Lois to the Loeb playing Rosie and Grey Worth the Price of Admission right there At the Elma combo A definitive Toronto song They were great They were great

That was great Also seeing all the folks was great And getting your name up on the thing was cool Listen you're a guy that's put your name your work in. You know, you do this podcast game. This was a good review.

It's a thankless job sometimes being a podcaster, especially one. And you would know. CSM. Especially someone like you has such a robust catalog of episodes,

like thousands coming on to 2000. Yeah, 1946. Yeah, you're right there, brother. And you've got your Toronto Star article. You've got your podcast award.

You've got your various things. You've now played at the Elmo. Your name's on the stairs there. I was the Grand Marshal for the Lake Shore Santa Claus Parade. You should definitely, yeah, you led the charge of the Santa Claus parade. So, you know what? You're already made a mark in ways that you could have never imagined when you first started this.

So, it feels good, man. So I would say that this is. You are chiseled. This is a great milestone for you to be able to check off. Like when you first started this journey, there's no way you could have ever imagined that you would have people paying money to come see you, do 90 minutes at the Elmo. And they did. And they were happy.

I didn't see anybody leave there saying that was a rip off or that sucked. Nobody said that. And I have people that watch my movies that I, that say that sucked. And they got a comp. But they don't even know. They don't even know what went into it. They don't know the equipment got stolen or that the guy didn't show up or the bird died. Okay.

But you know what I'm saying? Like scarecrows. We did the movie scare crows. We hired a guy to bring a scarecrow to the bird, a crow to the set. The bird died the morning of. So when you see the crow pecking in the close up in the thing, it's something else. that we had to pull off to make it happen. And you, my friend did that.

Well, thank you. This was a very thorough and appreciated review. By the way, the Joe Louis, who was at that screening the other day at the Royal, is the same guy who lives on Kirby Road and cursed you. Before he heard you on Toronto, Mike, he was cursing you out because people would come to see the house on Kirby Hill. Kirby Road, yeah. Kirby Road.

So that's the same guy. And shout out to Jeremy Hopkins on the live stream who says he predicted it would be lowest of the low. a bunch of people thought it might be snow and that you know that could have happened because snow's guy was there as you as you saw as i heard as we were there yeah no but he also talked a lot i heard him because he's a loud guy well i love that guy i know banjo dunk told me that the the VIP section in the back where uh the benefactor was sitting had a lot of talking going on so maybe that that explains some of it but thank you for that review did you want to do your drake take before i play us off with uh rob pruse performing thoseing I don't know. It's like it's up to Lindsay.

I think you gotta do it. Like I don't think you can tease it. When will you be back? I don't know. I think she took exception to me saying that she's always angry. So that's not true. I need to backtrack that big time because like I was just joking. I think you have to give us your Drake take.

I was just joking when I was said that earlier. We know. It's a work or a shoot. Everybody knows. It's a joke. I think we need your Drake take. I'm burping just like Andrew Kriegan here. We need your Drake take.

All right. Here's the Drake take. I don't know if you're from aware of this. but Drake released three. Three albums. Of course, Sam. Ice Man and then two others, right? And I think from what I suspect,

he's owed three albums left to get out of his deal, so he just like was like, see ya. Right. Here's three albums. Okay? Yep. The Ice Man album came, that's the one that I paid attention to.

And after like, you know, a couple of listens and a couple more listens, I was really impressed by it. I thought it was really great. I was like, holy shit. Like it's, you know, you don't have to like Drake, but the fact that it was like, wow, okay, he did a video for every song and he just like killed it.

The launch was just so amazing and the hype was just so, it was just so well done, the rollout, right? I found it to be remarkable. And my Drake take is that, Drake is the Donald Trump of hip hop. And I'm going to tell you why. I'm listening. Drake was left for dead several times, Mike.

And I wanted to save the Drake take for this show because I called Trump's rise back to the presidency remarkable and you've never let me live that down. I still stand by it. The guy was literally dead in the water after January 6, after the trials, after there was no way this guy. He was a pariah. And somehow he became the president again. That's remarkable. That's why I said he was remarkable. And you've never let me live that down.

Drake is the Donald Trump of rap. Because this guy has been left for dead so many times. And look it, he's back again. He's back on top. Would you ever imagine that after the Super Bowl, with Kendrick Lamar and the whole stadium singing disc tracks against Drake, and at the Emmys and at the Oscars and at every fucking show, Drake was the punchline.

up A minor, whatever the fuck, right? Drake was dead. They're not like us. He's dead. Over. He's back. Before that, he had his feud with Meek Mill. I don't know if you remember that.

Meek Mills, yeah. They released tracks of ghost writers rapping Drake's raps. That should have killed him right there. Like, we're talking about hip-hop. This guy, it was like the tracks were released of other guys spinning a, demo track for him to go in the studio and go over.

People heard it and nobody, he, he's, nothing happened. Back to back. Before that, started from the bottom, now we're here. Now, listen, people will criticize that because it very easily came to, to, to the hip hop world, that he was on Degrassi. And he played Jimmy and he was, and he was from Forest Hill. And he's from Forest Hill, and he was in a wheelchair on the show. There's so many things that, like, rappers are bully types they could pick at and make fun of.

They tried that. You cannot stop this guy. Drake, number one again, the Iceman album might be his best album. I don't know if it's his best album ever, but it's really good. There's a lot of great stuff on it. Lyrically, you can tell that, you know,

he really worked his ass off on this, but more importantly, he's back. Again, you cannot kill this guy. So that's my take. Drake is remarkable. and congratulations to Drake. Welcome back to the top in Toronto, back on the map.

Thank you for putting us there. Stu, you're remarkable. Thank you. That's my Drake take. Every time you visit, it's another remarkable episode. I just wish you'd visit more often. You're amazing.

Thank you. You're amazing. This was a great time. Did you want to like, you tease something earlier with the gentleman who makes a dark side of the ring? He told you something. Were you going to drop a bomb? Some kind of a... No, we'll save that.

We'll save that bomb. But is it going to drop somewhere else? No, no, we'll drop it. We'll come back again here. Don't you worry. Okay, because... Will there be another season of Dark Side of the Room? I would imagine.

There's some... Maybe two. And you'll be directing. I hope so. You're very good at that. Thank you. And that's... Read my T-shirt, everybody.

Checking my notes. Make sure I covered it all. We got Hyoga in here. Hioga. Samoa Joe versus Necro butcher. What a name that is. Necro butcher. That guy was fascinating.

Necro butcher watching him talk on that screen. Wow. I can't imagine what it's like to interview a guy and get that coming out. That was amazing. Your review of my one-man show is fantastic. We talked about the raccoons. You're going to be in the reboot. I hope so.

Kevin better live up to that. We talked about what happened in Banff. Yes. We talked about your Canadian Screen Award. Yes. And we talked about Trudy. catching some big fish. He sure did.

And that. And that. And that. And that. Brings us to the end of our 1,946th show, 1946. Go to Torontomike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. And hey, go to Crave, if you're in Canada. And watch Dark Side of the Ring because it's a very good documentary series.

Directed by Stu Stone. Remarkable one. Much love to all who made this possible. I didn't do all my sponsor mentions. Okay, so we'll do it now. I was at Christy Pitts yesterday for the Leafs game. Yeah. It was great.

What a beautiful night. Met some nice people there. Katie Laura was there. I actually was texting with Keith Stein recently. Shout out to Keith. He's so hyper-focused on the WPBL. Yeah, that's what you told me. As am I, because I produced the official WPBL podcast.

Oh, nice. And I'm watching closely, because in Canada, that we watch on YouTube and it's great baseball. And yeah, they're playing real games now. That's exciting. Recycle MyElectronics.ca.C.A., Stu, you know that's where you go. If you have old electronics, old devices. You don't throw that in the garbage.

You go to Recycle My Electronics.com. Put in your postal code and find out where you can drop it off. Brad Jones visited me yesterday and we recorded a fresh episode of Ridley Funeral Home and he gave me a new and improved measuring tape slash bottle opener slash leveler slash flashlight for you. So you can thank really Prog Rock right here for you. We should talk Prog Rock

because I've been trying to educate myself. I don't want to make a fool of myself. I got a good one for you. I'm going to give you one. I'm going to hand you a silver platter pick, okay? Okay, beautiful. See you all tomorrow. Speaking of DeGrassey.

See you all tomorrow. A man who tells me he's the lead singer for Canada's first punk band. Oh. His name is Ted Axe. three times he was in the calendar and three times he buffied me and then he begged

for another chance and because I am such a benevolent dictator I gave him one more shot will Ted Ax be in the basement studio tomorrow tune in to find out see you all

then