Two In The Think Tank - 97 - "GANDALF THE GREY'S ANATOMY"

Episode Date: September 18, 2017

Potion Marketing, Wizard Ally McBeal, Buford, Appinion, Armleg, Ball Wars Thanks to Harry's Shavers for supporting this episode! Visit harrys.com/thinktank for $13 worth of FREE SHAVING STUFF for NOTHING BUT THE SHIPPING COST And you can support the pod by chipping in to our patreon here (thank you to our Patreons!) Two in the Think Tank is a part of the Planet Broadcasting family  You can find us on twitter at @twointank Andy Matthews: @stupidoldandy Alasdair Tremblay-Birchall: @alasdairtb And you can find us on the Facebook right here Thanks to George Matthews for producing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbecasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. Alistair, if you could remove one thing from your face, what would it be? Well, I suppose it would be this disgusting melanoma. All right, well, after you've got that off... Yeah, then I would say the hair around it. The hair, okay, right. Well, because you can remove not only the hair from your face,

but also the look of disappointment with the conventional shaver industry well i thought that that was permanently plastered on oh no absolutely alistair that is just a a temporary disfigurement if anything okay you can that you can slice off with a smooth five blade razor from harrys.com slash think tank slash think tank harrys.com slash think tank harrys are the supporter of the the podcast today well it's very kind of them did i hear that they that they are men those razor blades are manufactured in germany alistair you heard correctly if you did hear that if you didn't hear that, then wow, you've fluked onto it. Because they bought a German razor factory with over 100 years of manufacturing experience in this very industry.

Well, that's good because... It wasn't like a cheesecake shop or something that had been around for 100 years and then they bought it and they were like, now you're making razors. But a cheesecake shop still would have 100 years of manufacturing. Absolutely. That's why I specified that this was in the related field of razor manufacture. Yeah, right. You can go to harrys.com forward slash think tank right now

and you can get $13 worth of value for just the cost of shipping. Whoa. Yeah. I am going to take up that offer secretly through my girlfriend because I've already got some and they're amazing. Hello and welcome to TuneIn The Think Tank, the show where we try and come up with five sketch ideas. I'm Andy. And I am Alistair George William Trombley-Virchel, and it is a goddamn pleasure to have your ears wrapped around our lips.

Your ears wrapped around our talking gears. Absolutely. Oh, boy. Hey, look, I'm going to just start because some people have been so kind to donate to our Patreon account. And I'm just going to go straight away and thank them very much. A lot of other podcasts, they thank their supporters at the end. Yeah, it's so disrespectful. It's so disrespectful. I mean, if you want to be cared for, donate to our Patreon.

Cancel some of your other Patreon subscriptions and donate to a podcast that treats you right. Yeah. First of all, thank you so much to Neil Doddsworth, Jason Ballard, Glenn J. Meesday, Casey Baker, and Curtis Brennick for being our first Patreon supporters. That's amazing. Taking us above zero.

Woo! Yeah, and much appreciated, you guys. You don't see magic potions very much anymore. Well, Alistair, I was going to bring this up if you didn't. Yeah. Yeah, there's a dearth of magic potions yeah absolutely i mean sitting that are sitting idly on shelves right now because they're not being used oh you you think that's what it is you think the potions are out there well they're under the sink they're right at the back behind all the hair sprays and all the failed

attempts at shampoo i mean i imagine that that the magic potions are still being manufactured. They're just not in the zeitgeist at the moment. They're not being used. Sure. I imagine there's a lot of sort of cabins in the woods where they're stored. It's a marketing issue. It's an optics thing. It's a market penetration, right?

Right. Well, there's a lot of products that, you know, you'd be surprised. Like we bought a Jolly Jumper for our boys recently, which is like a classic product from back in the, I don't know, 50s or something. Yeah. Bouncing thing for babies. Yeah. And you look at it, all their like pamphlets and stuff that are in there, they look like

they haven't been updated in about 40 years. They haven't needed to be. They haven't needed to be because they've got the word of mouth. It's a long-term product, right? But, you know, I guess a lot of the risk is that you become complacent, especially when you've got a good product like that or, say, a literally magic potion that can transform anyone into anything and basically bend the world to your will. Yeah.

Right? Maybe even turn a person into a jolly jumper. Indeed. You probably assume that the product's good enough that you don't have to market it. But that's not true. But I guess it comes to a certain extent with a complacency of you just accepting that I think we've got most of the market share we're ever going to get. It's not going to really – like there must be some evaluation where you go, yeah, we could spend $100 million on a campaign and that's – there's just not enough people that want this kind of product. Now, but hang on.

Are you talking about Jolly Jumpers or Magic Potions? Jolly Jumpers, obviously. Right, because I think Magic Potions, that's the thing, isn't it? That everyone would want a magic potion. Well, everybody could use a magic potion if they only knew what they could do. Now, what do we do with this? Well, I think you need to kind of,

first of all, you need to start at the bottom. You got to go to sort of a lot of festivals or in supermarkets. Right, and those little sample trays. Where you can get people to sample things. Oh, man, those people seem to have the most depressing job in the world. You'd think that giving out free food

would be something that you could that would be great, right? You'd bring so much joy to people, but there's something about the context of those pathetic little stands at the supermarket that's just depressing. Oh yeah. All over that little electric fry pan when you're cooking up like a little something, something.

And then you're offering people. But it's because everybody who approaches the stall, they're all pretending to be interested in the product. Yeah. Right? What they're really interested in is just having a tiny bit of food right now. Right? And I guess it's a similar situation that can occur with the magic potion. Sure.

Right? People are going to try it. But obviously, this is going to be the problem with the magic potion, is that the magic potion might be there to transform somebody that you don't like into, say, either like a stone. A sofa. A sofa. Possibly like, you know, three rounds of drinks or something like that.

Yeah. Because, I mean, why turn them into one round of drinks? Because then you only get one drink per person. So you're drinking the person. You're drinking your enemy. Well, I'm just saying you could. But this is the problem, is that people will show up at the stall

and they're used to normal food stalls. And this, I guess, is where the problem is. Maybe this is why magic potions have disappeared. So that people just show up and they just want to grab a shot and just try it and take off. Anyway, they're all turning into rounds of drinks, three rounds of drinks.

You know, there's 18 drinks sitting there on a little tray. Then someone else shows up, drinks one of those drinks. Yeah, and that's fine. But then now they're suddenly having alcohol while they're at the supermarket. That's probably illegal. Well, it's not illegal, but they're supposed to be driving home after this.

They're on the way home from work. He doesn't know the percentage of the alcohol in there. I think, like, I'm... Yeah, you're right. You can see the legal troubles that these magic potion people are getting into. Yeah, don't envy them. You need, like, a responsible service of alcohol certificate to be able to sell this alcohol. Suddenly, the ground is now just giving away free rounds of drinks

and people are picking them up off the ground and drinking them. That's then getting the supermarkets involved, even though they didn't realize... And they don't need that trouble. They're going to say, all right, John, sorry, we're not having you back. We're going to get the guy with the cheese on sticks. Yeah.

He didn't do any of this. I think this does explain in many ways with the cheese on sticks. Yeah. He didn't do any of this. Now... Well, I think this does explain in many ways the lack of visibility of magic potions now. Well, that and the fact that a lot of them are invisibility potions. That's true, yeah. But also, it's the litigation.

They've been shrunk back due to litigation, due to the huge amounts of litigation. Is it litigation now? Is that the word you were looking for? They're just stuck in the courts. They're still making their way through the courts. I think that the idea of magic potion, right? It is this amazing product, right?

It's amazing. It is totally world-changing. It is totally world-changing. But the idea that they are somehow stopped from selling it because of just these ridiculous obstacles, like are these people just idiots? Like are they totally incompetent? Or is it just that they are just trapped in these totally unforeseeable nightmare situations?

Well, I mean, I guess in part it's the lack of power of the person who serves the little samples of food at the thing. Like serving something of great power. Yes. And so he doesn't have the ability to contain all that. You know, there's three people at the stall. He's trying to tell somebody about the product. Somebody comes in, takes a shot, turns into three rounds of drinks. Yeah.

This has already gone off the rails for him. There's nothing he can do. And he's not getting paid very much. He doesn't have the antidote, you know. And if he does, these rounds of drinks don't have mouths. He doesn't have the antidote And if he does These rounds of drinks don't have mouths He can't feed the rounds of drinks The antidote

Oh gosh I guess it's a lot of pre-planning that wasn't done So I guess there is an element Of yeah some of these people are idiots But I guess The problems start At a higher level right he's just a pawn in the game he's just some low-level door-to-door wizard driving from town to

town with his little briefcase absolutely setting up his little stall and supermarkets he's probably just an apprentice for big for big magic potion big magic because i think it you know it would it would make sense to me if he may not like may only just know somebody in the magic industry who kind of was like oh yeah they're looking for somebody to do like you know face-to-face stuff with the customer base because i mean you wouldn't use your good magic people to be even in the supermarkets the magic people are developing other other potions back at the back at the headquarters back Back at the – I think that's great. I think – I don't think this guy's a wizard at all.

Yeah. I think he's just responded to an ad that said, looking for regional sales marketing manager. Yeah. And he's like, oh, that sounds good, right? And he goes in and there's some crusty old castle with light glowing out of the windows and it's the wizard headquarters they uh they take him through the spiel about how you got to sell these potions and then he's he's stuck in this job and it's oh man it's it sounds the worst

yeah and and i i for some reason i picture the the magic headquarters is kind of being a little bit lab like so they're still wiz, but for some reason they're wearing... And witches, by the way. Thank you. They've got a lab coat, but it's covered in stars and moons. Yeah, I like that a lot. I mean, for some reason, I don't know why this has entered my mind, but I picture some of the wizards and witches are having affairs with each other.

They've sort of got magic families at home, but then on the job they're kind of saying that they're going to be home late and things like that and they're having affairs with each other in the headquarters. I think that's great. I think that makes me think of like a Grey's Anatomy kind of a show, but with wizards. Oh, this is... I don't know if this of a show, right, but with wizards. Oh, this is...

I don't know if this has been done, right, because, you know, in Grey's Anatomy it's not really about the medicine, right, it's about the relationships. That's right, yeah. And I think in the same way, this would be not really about magic. This is just about, you know, a group of hot young wizards who are thrown together in this high-pressure situation. Yeah.

Wizards and witches. And, you know, they've got unisex bathrooms, Ally McBeal style. Oh, that's right. And, I mean, for some reason that makes you think that that's where the sex is happening. Yeah. I've always, not having watched Ally McBeal,

I can say, you know, that that's what I assumed. I think, look, not having seen a little bit, but only remembering Uka Chaka, Uka, Uka, Uka Chaka, and then a dancing baby. Which sounds a bit magic. I mean, that is kind of magic. I think there was some magic realism in this. And I think that our new...

This is going to be real magicism. Yeah, real magic. So it'll just be a totally magical universe with occasionally something really normal happens to take you out of it, like a baby lies down and cries. You're like, oh. There you go.

We could have a crying baby. You know that famous crying baby scene? We were pitching this to executives. It's sort of like reverse Ally McBeal, but still with a unisex bathroom. The only thing that remains constant is... I don't think they had sex in the unisex bathrooms, but I reckon they definitely

made out. There's gotta be at least one scene. They're like pushing each other up against sinks. Exactly, onto a bench and then really making out. Legs wrapped around. The skirts are kind of being hiked up a little bit. You never see the man getting pushed onto the bench

and lifted up and having his legs around the woman. In our show, that's what will happen. That'll be exclusively what happens. Then occasionally we'll mention... Well, the man will have skirts as well, because he's wearing those wizarding robes. Of course, the robes. Yeah, he'll hike his skirt. And I think maybe in this world,

I don't know why, all the men sit down to pee all the time. Great. Yeah, because little hiker's skirt. And I think maybe in this world, I don't know why, all the men sit down to pee all the time. Great. Yeah, because I guess with the music. Once again, with the robe. Yeah, with the robe. It makes a lot of sense. Otherwise, you're lifting up that whole robe. What are you doing?

You're wrapping that around your waist. It's a lot of material. You're somehow holding that. And then you've just got one hand behind your back or bunched up your robe. Your other hand's holding your penis. Yeah. No, this isn't going to work at all. Absolutely not, no.

And so the other option, I guess, would be bunching up the robe in the front and then holding it all in your mouth. Can you stop smashing the microphone? I don't think I can, apparently. I like that he's holding the robe in his mouth. Yeah, so that he can just be... But then can you see? Can you still see? I think you might be able to just's holding the robe in his mouth. Yeah, so that he can just pee. But then can you see? Can you still see?

I think you might be able to just see over the robe. I guess it's probably pushing your beard up a little bit. But now that hem of that robe is dragging in the dirt all day, and you've just walked into the bathroom. Who knows when the floor was last cleaned? Now you're putting that hem in your mouth to hold. This is going to be a great conversation they're going to have in there. They go, like, how do you pee here?

How do you pee? He goes, Jesus Christ, it's been all along the way. I perform an antibacterial spell before... You've got to perform an antibacterial spell? Oh my god, can't you just do a hover spell on the dress?

It's a robe. I'm not going to deplete my mana by having a hover spell going all day long. Jesus. Some of us like to teleport here, and I need to have enough mana to get back home. Okay, I think Wizard Ally McBeal or Grey's Anatomy is really good, and I almost feel like this conversation about how do wizards pee is a really good one to have. You'll note that that wasn't addressed in Harry Potter.

Absolutely. I think we're going to go all the places Harry Potter didn't dare to. Because thinking back, did anyone really wear that full robe apart from Gandalf? I mean, Dumbledore? Yeah. Dumbledore had like the full... Yeah, I guess he was the most traditional wizard from what I recall. But I don't remember enough of it.

And we didn't see him pee? I don't think there was that. Is JK Rowling, she's clearing up a lot of stuff in her tweets. I'd like her to address this. Yeah, how do they pee? I don't think there was that. J.K. Rowling, she's clearing up a lot of stuff in her tweets. I'd like her to address this. Yeah, how do they pee? I think that would be nice. Maybe she already has. I'm going to have to do a search after the pod. But while we don't know,

I'm going to say that we're boldly going where J.K. is too cowardly to touch. To tread. To tread, yeah. I guess you don't want to touch something. Not this stuff. No.

So can we have wizard pee conversation as a sketch? Like it's some wizards come into the urinal. Sure. Can I put it here as a little mini sketch with it? Yeah, sure, if you like. You know, you think that that's just a subset of the broader Ally McBeal. Yeah.

I definitely do. But I think there's a lot of shows that have that kind of exact feel. Like a Boston Legal. You know, Grey's Anatomy.

Maybe like a... Do you think ER was a lot like that? I think ER was a bit more medical. I think it was probably quite soapy as well. But I think like there was more... like that? I think ER was a bit more medical. I think it was probably quite soapy as well, but I think there was more...

Not that I've watched really either show. But it's good to have a strong opinion, though. I try. I really do try. I like having a bit of strong opinion. Well, I don't know. I think we've already...

That one is done. That one's done. Great. Is there something in having a strong opinion, right? About like maybe like a book that just is a book full of opinions that you can have about things? Oh, yeah. You know, or... Andy's Big Book of Opinions. Andy's Big Book of Opinions.

It could be just an app. Probably be an app these days. Right. You just press a button, just tells you an opinion. Okay. be an app these days right you just press a button just tells you an opinion okay like uh uh i can't believe this is still happening in this day and age yeah or it would be nice if if maybe there was an app that gave you an original opinion so they're like they're one use only so let's say you you pay for this app yep 9.99? I know that's a lot for an app, but you're getting original content. Maybe like once a week you can tap in there.

It's kind of like, it's like Audible, but for opinion. So I think Audible, you only get like one book per month or whatever? Yeah. Man, Audible is so fucking expensive. Yeah. Yeah. I guess it's like buying books. Unless they want to sponsor our podcast

I'm really, really sorry I said that Look, I don't think we're getting audible numbers Well, good Because they are such a rip-off I'm just telling you right now This is Andy's first strong opinion That Andy's going to be putting into the app Yeah, so it's like that Just think it's Spotify This is Andy's This is the first strong opinion That Andy's going to be putting into the app Yeah so

It's like that Just think it's Spotify $9.99 or whatever it is a month And you can listen to all of the music All the music that there is Including some books Including some books Audible

It's like $14 a month One book It's probably much nicer to the people who write the books, though, I imagine. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I would hope so. I would hope that the Audible CEO individually goes and massages each author.

And gives them some money? Because I think that's the money that they're really going to want. Oh, you're right. But the massage would remove a lot of the stress that comes from not having any money, Alistair. That's true. I mean, maybe he could sort of massage a $50 note into their palm. Into their spine.

Into their spine. Yeah, work it in there. There you go. And the skin slowly covers over. Forms over. Yeah, forms over. I guess that would be a nice thing. Wait, I feel like I'm going off the opinion thing. I'll come back to it. But while I have this idea.

You know when you tie a bit of rope to a tree and then that tree grows over that rope? Is there a human version of that? I think it's probably losing a limb or something like that. Losing a limb? Well, with the tree, you see it gets all messed up it's not like it grows over it and then it's fine it has this written it has this really messed up all scarred ring around there and i think that like i don't know if it's reforming like you know it's xylem and phloem around that uh that wound xylem and phlolem. I think it's still...

No, I think that's real bad. You can kill trees doing that. Oh, you could kill them with a copper nail? Is that what I heard? Kill a tree with a copper nail? Apparently so. Yeah, apparently that's the... It's like the stake through the heart for a vampire.

Yeah. But for trees. Yeah, silver bullets for werewolves, stakes through the heart for vampires, copper nail for a tree that's blocking your view so that you want to add a million dollars to the value of your house, you just go down to the national park and then you just stick a copper nail, which I don't know where you would find.

Probably a hardware store, I guess. I don't think they have copper nails. Copper is a real soft metal. This seems like implausible. Yeah. I can't picture you being able to hammer in copper because it would just bend. Maybe it's an alloy. Could be an alloy.

Don't you think? Yeah. And also, what other circumstance other than tree killing do you need a copper nail? Like, I'm just building a house, but I want a bunch of nails that are just a little bit better than regular nails at conducting electricity. Please. Please. This is real Buffy the arborist stuff. An arborist probably cares for trees though.

That's true. But they also do cut them down. They do? Yeah, if they have to. They put them down if there's nothing we can do. Yeah. I guess, look, there's something in that idea of like a sort of, it's like a vampire slayer, but for just killing trees, which is,

like I guess he just gets phone calls every now and then about trees that have bad juju. Yeah. You know, this one, this tree is giving me the creeps. Scratching on the window at night. Because I think it's a little bit like, you know, the medical marijuana stuff where like, you know, you go in the States to go get like your health care, your pass that allows you to buy marijuana. Yeah. And you go in there and you sort of say like, oh, yeah, I got a sore back or I got like anxiety or something like that.

And then the doctor's like, oh, okay, well, then you're probably going to need a medical marijuana. Yeah. And so it's the same thing with this. We'll call him at the moment Buffy the Arborist. See, Buffy could be a guy in this case. It could be Buffardson. Yeah, but it could be a girl. I know, but i'm just saying

i'm just saying like you know if we're doing gender and if we're changing gender stuff sure i think the world is ready for a male buffy absolutely you know it's about time so buffardson gets this phone call maybe buford buford buford it's actually a beautiful name i like the name buford yeah well it's bufordord gets a phone call, and then the person still has to kind of make it sound convincing because he still has sort of a code of ethics, even though his code of ethics is something just has to sound like it's reasonable. Yeah, he's just a mercenary, basically, but he wants to be able to convince himself.

It's how he sleeps at night he's still he still has like has you know has taken the the the arborists oath to care for for trees and all that and and so then they you know he goes over to the person's house and then they kind of show him the tree and then he's like so you know what? And they're like, oh, I don't think it was there last night. And then this morning it must have come through some hell mouth. This is not a tree of this world. Look at the way it arches over us. Looms against the sun.

Look ahead, it cuts out the sun. Spreading darkness across the land. Look at it. It cuts out the sun. Spreading darkness across the land. Okay. And it also got the root system into the sewerage. And it's ruining my septic tank

of doom. Well, that seems good enough for me. I'll get one of these copper nails. And then it should be dead within six weeks. Six to eight years. And then I'll give you my card for my brother. He cuts down dead trees. And you can get him.

He's got a big trailer. Unless you want to burn the wood yourself. But if you do truly believe it's got an evil spirit in it, you probably don't want that stuff in your house, even if you do truly believe it's got an evil spirit in it, you probably don't want that stuff in your house, even if it is in the furnace. Do you think that's a sketch? I think so. Buford the Arborist.

It's interesting. There's a few levels going on in that sketch that I'm sort of, it's a bit hard to get your head around. Like there's this interesting idea in there of like what if Buffy, the vampire slayer, had like sort of, she's got this skill, right? You know, a lot of people have a skill, but in this modern world, it's very often your skills get co-opted by capitalism, right? You can have this amazing gift for playing the clarinet,

but you're going to end up making jingles for corporate ads or something like that. Like the fact that Buffy managed to maintain the purity of a vampire killing from commercial interest. From day one to day zilch. Yeah. Until, you know, when the corporate capitalist machine sees something that has that much uh potency that the youth are interested in yeah that you know

i feel like there could have been so much marketing done around that and she could have wound up as some sort of you know mercenary vampire killer just doing it for the corporate dollar well having not watched most of buffy yeah i haven't watched any of it it occurs to me that there's a chance that in the end she was tricked into sort of slaying a whole people's wow you know like her i don't know if she did she ever have like i'm asking questions i'm asking you who doesn't know and i'm i don't know answer that – did she ever have – I'm asking questions. I'm asking you who doesn't know and I don't know. I'll answer that. But did she have a direct line to the information of where – it always seems like it was through some other people that were like, oh, this is the guy and he's coming from this place and he's this demon and he's going to get you for this reason and things like that.

She was never – she wouldn't have a direct line to wherever the source of information is. I don't know if it's just old tomes or whether there's like a guy on the other side who's like, yep, there's a 16 sort of vampires coming and they're working for a demon on the sixth level of hell. She was really very much judge, jury, and executioner, right? There was never any warrant. There was never any probable cause kind of... I'd be interested to see some statistics of just exactly how many innocent vampires were killed.

Well, essentially it's a TV show about a genocide performed by American teenagers. You know, even if the whole thing was in self-defense, I think at some point, once you've killed, I guess, 50-plus in self-defense... Sure, it starts to look suspicious. I mean, a genocide in self-defense is quite an interesting... You know, and I wouldn't be surprised if if that is a justification that has been used a lot i'm sure yeah in fact that

would probably be the most common one that you are defending in some way your race or something like that yeah which is what she was doing so So, interesting. Buffy. Yeah, I think it's turning out that this fella there who wrote that show. Buffy the war criminal. What's the name of the guy? Joss Whedon. Yeah. Might have some questions to answer in the Hague.

Yeah, at least the fictional Hague. Yeah. The Fague. All right. Now, what were you going to say? At least the fictional hag Yeah The fag Alright So Now What were you going to say? What were we at? What was the thing that you wrote down?

The opinion So I think this is great It's like Audible It's hugely unaffordable And you get one And you get one But like at least this one

It's like Audible But you get one a week Yeah You get one original opinion a week. And so they're just, this app has a team of writers. Yes. And they just write down one original opinion that you can have and then it gets destroyed. Now, is the opinion about a specific topic or is it a sort of a general opinion, right?

Mm-hmm. Is it, because, you know, general opinions right is is it because you know general opinions i'm thinking i'm against it or um i'm worried about how this will affect our children or there's altogether too much of that sort of thing these days sure you know that you could use in almost any scenario great but i think that those are very much off the shelf kind of opinions those general ones i think you could still have a general get those opinions from a department store or something yeah you could you know you could you could sort of just sit in a cafe and then just listen to what other people have to say i think you you've got to be giving people i mean the market here is bespoke is bespoke i don't know

what that word means but um it sounds like something to do with bicycle wheels it's nothing to do with bicycle wheels um i can see where you would think that. Yeah. I think you're giving people original opinions. And so I think maybe like to answer your question about whether they're general opinions or whether they're about a specific thing. I think that that's where the premium account comes in. So you can have general opinions. And those are freely accessible?

No, no, no. They come from the $9.99. You can have a general opinion. But if you want to be requesting, like, I want an opinion on, let's say, dolphins. Okay. If you want to be able to nominate the topic. What a great thing to have an opinion

about. What's your opinion on dolphins? Yeah, and you know, a lot of people do. A lot of people don't like their sexual conduct and things like that. That's kind of a popular opinion these days. Oh, wow, yeah. People have opinions. Some people love them and they think that they help sick children by swimming near them.

I mean, I guess what we're learning is that dolphins are complex. Dolphins, like many things, are complex. Could that be the opinion? Yeah, look, that's one opinion. It still feels a bit vague though, right? It's a bit vague, but, you know, look, if you make it a little bit more specific so that nobody else would really come up with it,

they're complex, but at the same time, they're simple. Yeah. You see? Like that. And then you could sell that to somebody for $9.99. Oh, no, that would be a $14.99 kind of thing because you get to nominate the topic. That is such a great way to sound clever about something, right? They're complex but at the same time they're simple, right?

You really are totally saying nothing and contradicting yourself. But the way in which you structure that sentence the way in which you contradict yourself makes you sound so clever right that you're able you're somehow able to acknowledge nuance or that you're seeing things on multiple levels yeah absolutely i think uh well there you go that's like that's quite an interesting thing is that if you add contradictions to what you say it makes you sound much smarter. Yeah. But at the same time, there's a possibility that you're really dumb. And that's a contradiction in itself, which makes you sound smart.

Really smart. Yeah. Well, I guess in one sense, I'm really, really clever, but in another way, I'm really, really dumb. You know, I make myself sound smart, but I don't know what I'm talking about. I make myself sound smart, but I don't know what I'm talking about. But, you know, which is, you can tell that that kind of drive to want to sound smart probably comes from a form of intelligence. But to need that kind of satisfaction from others, that kind of, you know, is probably quite a dumb animal urge. My ability to justify this to myself takes quite a high level of reasoning to be able to continue to function

in such a hypocritical way. But to cease to be able to function due to not getting praise and people thinking that I'm smart shows a real... Weakness of character. Weakness of character and idiocy. But my ability to analyze myself such as this.

Yes. Smart. But my inability to stop analyzing, dumb. Yeah, or to put any of that analysis into action. Yes, you know, dumb. Okay. Is that something? Is that like how to sound smart?

Whilst being dumb? Yeah, or I don't know if that's a sketch in any way. It just feels like a thing that you see happen and is annoying. And surely that makes it a sketch. That's a sketch. I mean, what is a sketch If not something that you see That is annoying That is annoying

I mean look I can see a sketch Where there's a person talking about that Like I don't I don't know whether it's in a broader context Of like you know This is a guy in a show I don't want to turn this into a 12 part series here

Yeah I mean I feel like I could turn it into a bit of stand-up maybe, but I just, I don't know, because it is, it's purely observational without any, I don't know, sort of narrative or character elements to it that I feel like the thing that kicks something into gear as a sketch. Yeah, gives it a little narrative story. Yeah. Alistair, are you looking for a smoother way to shave?

I'm constantly. You're casting about. I see you in the morning with that hungry look in your eyes. That's true. That is me. I wish I had a smoother way to shave. Yeah. But you know what, Andy?

I found one. Did you? Yeah. Oh, great. What's yours? Because I'll tell you mine, but you go first. Well, mine was a hot blade that I ran over a Bunsen burner. Yeah, no, that's not it.

That's not it? No, I'm talking about harrys.com forward slash think tank. Yeah? Yeah. No, you can go along there, get yourself a precision engineered five blade razor for half the price of the leading five blade razor in the industry. Half the price? Half the price.

That's almost 50%. But forget half the price, Alistair. How about free, right? You're kidding me. No, you go to harrys.com forward slash think tank. You get a free $13 worth of razors. All you've got to do is cover the cost of shipping. What more do you want from me?

harrys.com slash thinktank. Well, somebody sent us a sketch. It was amazing. It was amazing. Do you want me to look up who it was? Sure, yeah. It was a physical

sketch because they sketched it as a drawing. And it was one image and it was a person wearing underpants. And then there was another image where the person was exclusively not wearing underpants, but every other part of their body was covered in cloth. That was pretty badly explained, Alistair,

but I'll take it. Well, no, but I mean, maybe you can use your sort of... Well, I'll hold the picture up to the microphone. Well, that'll help. There you go. Oh, yeah. Can you see that? It's from Damp Slug.

At Damp Slug, it's Lewis. Yeah. Profile picture is Daniel Radcliffe. And yeah, it's a real good tweet. It's a real good picture. Absolutely. From one of our listeners. It's opposite underwear.

It covers everything except your genitals. See, that's good. And that's good. And that's the kind of content that you can only get by listening to us when we read out funny things that our listeners have sent in. And so that, as an underwear sort of idea, I guess like

you're the covering of your face I think maybe is where what it suggests is that you're going to then put clothes over the top of that. Absolutely. Right? But now you're sort of your ass and penis and stuff

that will now sort of take the position of your head. Right. So do you leave that exposed as well? I guess that you would leave exposed, right? Because then it's not needing of undergarments, right? So that is, it is the finished product. This sounds like a sort of a story that sailors would bring back from foreign lands. Like, you know, I've been to the island of Gindanu.

There you go. And all the people there are so strange. Their genitals are exposed, but their faces are covered. Yeah. And then you draw it. You produce a map that features that there as like a little illustration in the corner of the land of Jindanu. And then you have it in the other corner. And they also have a man who has one leg where his hand should be and one hand where his leg should be, isn't it?

Yeah, right. That's a leg where his hand should be, not where his arm should be. So he's still got his arm, right? And at the end of the arm is a leg. Is there a foot at the end of the leg, or is it just like a really long extremity? I think there's a foot at the end of the leg? Or is it just like a really long A really long extremity I think there's a foot at the end

I think there's a foot at the end of the leg I like to think that He's got a leg at the end of his arm Yes And then at the end of just like The bottom of his hip Yeah Right

It's just a hand There's just a hand and a foot On both sides So there's one There's a hand and a foot on both sides. So there's one, there's a hand and a foot like that on one leg, but there's no leg now. So it basically goes genitals and right next to it is a hand and a foot. They're kind of like, they're kind of, they're sort of out like flippers a little bit. The problem with that would be that your genitals would be resting pretty much on the ground. Yeah, I know. Look, Andy, there's a lot of problems with it. You'd have to get up on your fingertips if you wanted to.

No, no, but you might be balancing on your arms. Oh, your arms are so long. Yeah, your arms are so long, so you kind of walk around them like they're stilts or something like that. Yeah, right. But now if you want to grab anything, you're grabbing it with this hand that is right next to your penis. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, but I'm just picturing you're moving things around. If is right next to your penis. Yeah, well, that's fine.

Yeah, but I'm just picturing you're moving things around. If you're trying to keep anything sanitary, it's going to be bouncing against you. But this is not necessary. Let's say now we're away from the underpants, no underpants thing. You can now wear underpants over your genitals. That's true. So now, instead of having hands at the end of your arms, you've got legs at the end of your arms,

and then you've got hands next to your feet, which are now kind of essentially a second pair of kind of just bad hands. But in order to pick things up off the ground, you just kind of lower your arms down like that and then you kind of just pick it up with your hands and then you lift yourself up. And so then it kind of just dangles in the air. So now we're saying we've got two hands either side of your genitals.

That makes sense. Yeah, but one looks like a foot. Why? Why does it have to look like? Why can't it just be two hands? Because you've still... No, well, you've got two hands on either side. Like you've got one hand on each side of your genitals.

Yes. But then you've got one foot on each side as well. Well, okay. Wait, so there's hands and feet are down there. Then where, so what's at the end of your arm legs? It's just the end of your ankle. There's just a stump. There's just a stump, yeah.

And so you kind of, I mean, like, I guess you could put like a sort of, like a rubber shoe type situation at the end of your leg. Oh, this has just suddenly got so much more horrible. Yeah, but Andy, this is just, this is the scenario that we're in. Like, you know, I'm not going to, like, I'm not going to let the world. Sugarcoat it for you. I'm not going to let, you know, like try to make the world any better for you when this is the scenario that we've come up with. Look, I mean, all I'm saying, Alistair, is that I can imagine managing my life if I had my legs at the end of my arms, right, with a foot on the end and I walked around on those, right?

And if I had two hands that just came out next to my genitals. Like I can see it wouldn't be great, but I can see how I would get along. But your stumpy foot hand weird thing is so horrible. What? Andy, I'm still a human being here. Look, I think you could get a nice rounded pad, sort of new shoe type thing. Maybe it looks closer to a boxing glove,

but with a rubber sole. And that will go at the end of your leg stump. Yep. Right? Also, I'm uncomfortable about the join between the wrist, the end of your arm, and I guess what would be the top of the wrist, the end of your arm, and I guess what would be the top of the thigh where the leg starts. Because the thigh, for most of us, is a lot thicker than the wrist.

So what have you got there? Just like a ledge? Is it like a flat join? Look, to be honest, I think you could almost get rid of the wrist. I think the wrist will definitely be a weak point to be able to bend. Oh, that was the one thing that I liked, though, was that you would have an extra point of articulation there between

those two things, because otherwise you've got a really long, stiff midsection to your arm, leg. That's true. No, you need that. It'd be great being able to bend them around so much. I guess that wrist will kind of become just a second elbow. Yeah.

But like a weaker elbow, but a more versatile elbow. Now, but the knee, what would you call that? Would that then be a third elbow? Oh, the knee will be. I forgot about the knee. And the calf, you'll have that calf muscle. What were you picturing when you were picturing a leg? I know, I forget what legs look like sometimes.

You've forgotten about the knee and the calf? Yeah, and so... What is a leg to you, Alistair? Look, man, it's just bone. It's just a long bit of bone. Just a flesh tube. Yeah, well, it's not flesh, it's mostly bone. But I imagine if you were fighting with your friends...

Which you probably would be Accusing them of pumping their genitals Against your sandwich When they were handing it to you Look I imagine I'll live in a society Where we're a little bit more polite than that And you know

I don't know Is that something that you fear that people are going to rub the food that they give you on their genitals beforehand it's it's up there yeah great it's that nuclear war but yeah i think i picture the the calf muscle is like when you're play fighting with friends is that you'll swing your arm leg around like that and just hit him on the side of the head with sort of the calf muscle. So it's the kind of softest part. If you don't want to hit him with the shin, that'll knock him out.

Sure. But it'll hurt you as well. Oh, yeah, I guess it would. But you're not trying to kill each other. You whack him with that fleshy calf. Yeah, and the flesh calf. Seeing this fight take place It feels like You've seen that video of giraffes fighting

Where they whip each other with their necks It's such a bizarre Uncomfortable foreign world I don't know if any of that's a sketch It's got to be a sketch Legs at the end of your arms I think the sketch is We're representing the world

And what it would look like if this slight change occurred. Yeah. I mean, I also – and I feel like this is too common a thing that we try and do. But the idea of somebody who has had this as an idea and who thinks it would make the world a better place or who's trying to convince the government or something that we should do this. Because there's people who are like, well, if people were smaller, like people have made this assessment that if people were smaller, resources would go much further. And there's that movie now with Matt Damon, Downsizing, right, where people get shrunk down to a much smaller size.

People say that if we could breed human beings to be half the height or a third of the height, we'd need much less resources, we'd be able to have a bigger population. People would be better off and the planet would be more sustainable. Yeah, but what about world records? What if you had arms at the end of your legs? Your legs at the end of your arms? I think...

And then somebody's just making the case for why that would be a much better society to live in. Oh, God. Anyway, when we were talking about rubbing genitals on food is there something in this idea right alistair that well this is i'll tell you the two things that came to me one is that instead of nuclear weapons right we nuclear weapons have never been invented what has been invented instead is like a huge intercontinental ballistic pair of testicles that you could say north korea is threatening to fire them at north america so

basically these testicles would come down and sort of squish onto america and bounce and bounce on them right and i guess basically teabag the entire country so there's that yeah right which i don't know. Look, it's something. I think, but I, like, I think picturing if they were just launched like a catapult, like in like a catapult, and then you just kind of see them like flying through the air and then they kind of bonk, bonk, bonk across America. I think there's something funny in the visual of that.

Certainly. Certainly there is. Now, the other idea was that like during wartime, very often a military strategy is to try and destroy your enemy's food supply, right, to starve them out basically. So often that will take the form of bombing campaigns or even chemical weapons attacks like the Agent Orange kind of a thing. So this instead

is that you are somehow rubbing your balls on the enemy's food supply so that while you haven't destroyed the food they don't want to eat it yeah and i guess and i guess that has the added thing of yes they're also starving but also you've broken their spirit their spirit yeah and also you've got to rub your balls on something. Which I guess while not feeling necessarily good, definitely feels like something. It's adventure, you know. That's what war is about for a lot of people, you know, a sense of adventure.

But there's also, I guess, you get to that point where, you know, now it's become a job though. You know, there's a guy who got into the army because he wanted to be able to – like some jock, he got out of – he finished college and he was like – he really got a taste for rubbing his balls on things there while he was living sort of on campus playing pranks on people. Then he got into the military because he thought, well, they need people who rub their balls on stuff

because we're going to help the war effort. We've got to cut out the food supply of our enemies. I'm going to do this for my country. And then he gets into it for the love of ball rubbing. Yeah. But then when he gets there, suddenly it's like this is a full-time job for him. Yeah. And he's like in enemy lines, which you would barely feel comfortable.

So it's not the ideal. You don't get to relax. Yeah, it's not like some toilet cubicle that you've just quickly sort of... Ducked into with a friend's mobile phone. Yeah, or their toothbrush or something like that, you know. And then it's not that. You're now in the line of fire, potentially, rubbing sort of like, you know, cans of Spam.

I guess you're opening cans of Spam and sort of rubbing your balls on that. And then he comes home Right And he can't rub his balls On anything anymore Because it's too traumatic Yeah and that And he's lost who he was

He's lost who he was He's probably got A certain amount of chafe Going on Oh yeah He'd be red raw It's a sensitive bit of skin You're around a lot of

Open cans You know Those edges The sharp edges A lot of sharp edges You you know? Those edges, the sharp edges. A lot of sharp edges, you know? I was picturing like fields of grain or something like that. I mean, he could go and he could sort of just dunk his balls in the silo or something. Maybe they fly, they get him into a plane and they fly him really low across a cornfield.

With just his balls dangling down. And it's just like the blades of wheat are just... And he's chanting, USA! USA! They destroyed 15,000 hectares of prime corn in one day. And then they've destroyed all our canola. We were going to make oil like that to power our vehicles. To fry the corn, to make popcorn. An army marches on popcorn.

Is that anything? Yeah, that is definitely something. I think we've probably got enough sketches today. I think we do. This whole time I've been casting around, feeling in my pockets, trying to find my lip balm. Yeah. All this talk of chafing. You found it?

Yeah, I found it falling on the ground. Probably going to take us through the sketches, Andy. Take us through the sketches. We've got magic potions and why they're not around anymore. And then we get to see all the litigation that has occurred due to them trying to sort of launch them in supermarkets with the samples and people turning into three rounds of drinks. Alistair, I'm so confident that that is not a sketch that anyone else has ever come up with.

No one in the world has ever said, magic potions, what can we do with that that's funny, and go on down this fucking stupid angle. But anyway, well done to us. It's a classic me idea I think wizard Ally McBeal or Grey's Anatomy I think did this this you could pitch we could pitch this today or tomorrow and we would have a show on CBS on within the week within the week I'm if anything it's bad that we're putting this out because this is gonna get's got to get a hot young cast.

Man, they're going to be so hot and so young. Yep. It's basically that. It's not about the magic. It's about the relationships, people having affairs, people using unisex toilets. There's going to be that conversation. But it will have that kind of humor that that a Jane Silent Bob movie might have. With the wizards talking about peeing and things like that.

How do you lift your robe? Do you lift it or you sit down? It's a bit mall ratsy. It's a bit mall ratsy. But there's still that emotional hook of like I said. Will they, won't they? Will they, won't they? And I don't know, other things.

Then obviously we've got... Won't they, will they? Then we've got Buford the Arborist, who's a tree killer. But he wants to do good, but also he does just need business. And so people give him reasons to drive um copper nails into trees and uh but but yep i think that this is good okay great so it's basically it's it's it's sort of like a buffy it's like a buffy uh parody but but in many ways he's his own man and he's a good guy he's just a small businessman he's like a a Jim's mowing or something like that.

Yeah, exactly. He got like, you know, and he studied botany, you know, and deep down he's good, but his job is still to kill. Yeah. You know, but to kill things that he loves and studies and, you know, so. He has to justify it to himself somehow. Yeah. Maybe his price.

Okay. So this is it. He's an arborist, right? Somebody's like, got to call this guy Buford. He's great. His prices are really reasonable. But the only catch is he really loves trees. So while it doesn't cost much financially, there's a huge emotional toll in convincing him that it's a good idea to kill this tree that he loves so you know but you know save 50 bucks yeah oh man that would be tough

having to talk to a guy who really cares about trees yeah to cut to like kill it for you yeah like especially because you just want the view or whatever to increase and he's like oh man are you sure oh it's so beautiful. Look at this root system. That is deeply ingrained. That is... So strong. It would have lived long after we'd all gone and...

Yeah. You know. Look at how many creatures live in here. You know, about 650,000. But all right. And he's doing it anyway, slowly pulling on his protective gear. Because he knows he needs the money as well. There's not that many people that are willing to...

And when you start coming around, he's like, no, no, no, but if you've got to get rid of it, you've got to get rid of it. He's convinced you not to cut down the tree. Great. Because he needs the money. Then we've got the Opinion app, which is a subscription service

that will give you an original opinion that you can have and that nobody else will have. Yeah. Right? It's like Snapchat. That's gone. It'll be gone after that. And, I mean, I'm sure there's going to be a way

that we can, like, in the programming, probably sneak it, you know, to somebody across the world, maybe. Oh, Alistair, you're already compromising your ideals. That didn't take long, did it? I mean, I'm just... It's a bloody scam. Yeah.

Well, you know, this is what we're going to find. This is the kind of stuff that we'll find out in the sketch. And then obviously there's the world where legs are at the end of the arm. And how would society be better or worse from that? And you've kind of got a foot and a hand at the end of each sort of hip step. How would society be better or worse? Or better. Or better.

Probably better. Probably better. I think we would move faster because of the... The swinging, the strides. The long strides like that. But also slower because those wrists are going to be really weak and we'll be falling down every second. I know, but they would adapt, right?

They would strengthen up. They would strengthen up. No question. And I think I like the way that we would kind of like, if we were to sit down or stand on our feet, like we would kind of have these long folded arms, sort of like either like an elbowed squid or like a spider. So we would kind of always be like almost in the crouching position,

ready to pounce. Right now we're never really that ready to pounce because we kind of lock our legs in. I can't remember when I was last ready to pounce. Right now, we're never really that ready to pounce. Because we kind of lock our legs in. I can't remember when I was last ready to pounce. Yeah. It's been ages. And then we've got balls out for the war effort. And that's

when we rub our balls on the food in order to not only make it inedible so that the enemy starves, but then also break their spirit. So before we wrap up, I'm just going to say thank you very much to everyone.

We should do the little song first, right? So thank you very much everybody for listening to the podcast. I am at AlistairTB on Twitter. I am at StupidOldAndy. And we are at 2andTank. I'm at TrombleyBirchall on Instagram. There you go. If you want to check us out on Facebook as well, 2andTank.

Anyway, so we've got the patreon thank you so much for uh for everybody who already donated you can support us on there it's amazing just thank you so much it's the kindest thing uh we're we're working towards maybe paying george for the editing and also maybe feeding our children with uh with this not not not gonna pay george for for feeding our children yeah to pay george feed our children. Thank you so much, George. And we're also building up to something big coming up because this is episode 97. Oh, yeah, exciting. We're going to attempt for the 100th episode. We're going to try to come up with 100 sketch ideas.

So we're going to do an episode which, you know, maybe off the back of this episode, you might think that that's a terrible idea. Sure. But we're going to do a – we're going to come into the podcasting booth and we're going to stay here for as long as it takes to come up with 100 sketch ideas. Yeah, 100 sketch ideas. Look at this. We've got one, two, three, four, five, six. We've got six in the last.

Six and a half, maybe. Six and a half in the last hour or so. So it potentially could take about 20 hours. Could be a 20-hour episode. 20-hour episode. Clear some space in your phone. Or you can just stream it on Spotify. And so if there's a possibility that you want to be mentioned on the 100th episode for, let's say, for having supported the Patreon, if you want to be on this, this is going to be, I wouldn't be surprised if some national archive would save this to remember.

I wouldn't be surprised if some national archive would save this to remember. I wouldn't be at all surprised. So if you want to donate to the Patreon to be mentioned on this amazing thing that will probably be one day sent into space to explain. If only to get rid of it. If only to get rid of it. Or in case, you know, maybe to show alien life what's the kind of things that we do here. We come up with sketch ideas and we donate kindly to people. And we're also going to be

going to get some guests on the day that we film it. Possibly there's some people from the weekly, from the Planet Broadcasting Network, which we are up on. And we're going to see what people that you love and care about that we can get on this show.

And destroy them show and destroy them while we're slowly losing our mind over the sort of between 10 and 20 hours that we will be recording a podcast trying to come up with 100 sketch ideas we've already booked in a whole day in order to do it and I think it'll be good I'm excited

so thank you very much for listening, take care of yourselves and we love you this podcast is part of the planet broadcasting network visit planetbcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates i mean if you want it's up to you