Wonderful! - Wonderful! 102: Lazlo's Pyramid of Desire

Episode Date: October 2, 2019

Rachel's favorite rhythmic movement! Griffin's favorite hotel TV channels! Rachel's favorite silly street art! Griffin's favorite fake world movie! Music: "Money Won't Pay" by bo en and Augustus - https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. This is Greg McElroy Oh, ghost. And this is Wonderboo. Wonder Graveyard Fall. I'm your host, Griskeleton Finn. McElmurray. People are going to think this is a Halloween-themed episode. As far as I know, it is not. It is not a Halloween themed episode.

It is just the month that we started. It is October. Folks, we're fucking in it, man. Ooh. What? My dad's birthday is coming up. Just remembered. Good. I'm glad. Walk me through how you got there was it something but your dad loves mummies no my dad has an early october birthday and anytime october starts i have to like have that moment where i'm like oh we're getting there you are getting there okay well let's you know put our heads together what do you get for the man that has everything um don't say blues memorabilia he's got it he has it no matter what it is he has that uh yeah

it's just you remember last year i did october as one of my segments because we're just like we're on that holiday creep now we're gonna get we're getting into the good stuff baby but i've been trying to force fall on austin for several weeks now yeah uh has not happened yet no and i've been trying to do my usual stuff trying to block out the sun uh i hired a fleet of blimps to block out the sun and drop ice cubes on everyone you bought all of those leaf blowers and positioned them at the trees yeah and i thought this sir surely this but i just uh i got in trouble with the city for two me leaf blowers which they didn't hey folks send out a brochure or something send out a pamphlet if that's a law now okay

i don't see why i have to go to jail for 10 years because i didn't know you just saying it says in the constitution yeah every man should have the right to as many leaf blowers as he wants a leaf blower is an arm if you think about it and i have the right to bear it leaf blowers as he wants a leaf blower is an arm if you think about it and i have the right to bear it so that's all i'm gonna say about that do you have any small wonders i do actually i have two small wonders oh shit uh one is john hodgman's new book oh yeah medallion status i stole it from griffin and i have been reading it aggressively i'm 180 pages in yeah john sent me early copies like i want i want you to read this i'm i treasure your opinion on this griffin i was like tight and i got it we were on an airplane

rachel's like give me your fucking book she took it she fashioned a shiv out of one of those biscoff cookies and she said give me that fucking book right now if only we had flown delta oh god what a sweet dream that would have been uh what's your second thing? My second thing is the unaired sketch that I shared with you today. Yeah. It's a cut for time sketch. From SNL. Yes, starring Bill Hader. I believe it's from at least four or five years ago.

And it's just called Alan. And I noticed it because there was a, and I'm going to say gif because I'm more comfortable saying that. There was a gif on Twitter that was circulating of Bill Hader just kind of dancing in this kind of like sly sarcastic way that people were using to

talk about things that they liked but didn't really like. And I was like, I gotta see where that came from. And I watched the whole sketch today and it is incredible he's like a dancing robot man it's a it's a wild sketch yeah you should uh you should check it out he bill hater just does a lot of sly dancing uh vanessa bayer bayer vanessa bayer it's pronounced by air actually she's in it she's in it uh and it's just it's a good sketch it's a good it's a i recommend it it's bill h actually. She's in it. She's in it. And it's just, it's a good sketch. It's a good, it's a-

I recommend it. It's Bill Hader does good work in it. It is a sketch. You know what? I'm going to say broccoli. Ooh. Yeah, broccoli is a vegetable that I can really get behind. It shows up in a lot of, you know, Asian rice bowl dishes,

and it just soaks up all that good flavor. Hate the stems. Love the tops. Good old broccoli tops. Broccoli tops tennessee there it is uh yeah uh i like it there's a lot of good things you can do with it roast it give it a good char on it yeah baby that is a game changer i still do some sous vide stuff we're still doing sous vide around this house and i'll do up a you know some salmon or i'll do up a steak or something like that and just roast some broccoli, throw some garlic and maybe a little bit of lemon juice on there.

Oof. Oof. That's a treat. Put some parm on top too. Throw some parm on it. Why not? You've been good. Hey, what's your first big wonder?

Ooh. Yeah. My first, appropriately, I didn't even think about this. It does relate slightly to- To broccoli? My small wonder. Oh. Dancing. Oh. We didn't even think about this, it does relate slightly to My Small Wonder. Dancing. We hadn't really talked about dancing. Yeah, this is sort of, because it's such a broad concept, but we have set no limits. Well, we talked, so I, one episode I brought the fact that I like songs that have associated

dances, but I never talked about dances separately as a concept. Okay. here's the thing about dancing right i have two real like deep emotional connections to it one i took dance class basically from age three to age 17 um pretty much regularly but always in like a very like low stakes community center kind of environment you weren't on some black swan shit when you were 10 years old no never did point you know all of my dance classes were a combination of like at least two styles of dance every right one and a half hour session right uh love it always loved it that was my sport second is when i knew that i was real under griffin oh do tell we uh we've been dating a

little over a month and we went dancing with a bunch of friends at barbarella oh barbarella and i saw i saw your moves i laid it down i had a real good time with you and i thought i think i think i'm starting to maybe one day potentially fall in love with him yeah you gave me the bachelor sort of couching. Yeah, that was a, we didn't do that that often. We didn't go to that place that often, but that was one of the best nights ever. Like that was such a fun, that was such a fun night.

Dancing, man, dancing is fun. You're right. I'm glad I convinced you. Well, no, it's such a broad thing that I was like trying to figure out how it applied to me in my life. And we used to go to a dance club in Huntington like every Friday night for three years or so and had just like the best time ever. It's just it's always a good time if you are in a room full of people that are also dancing.

Now, I will say if you've been in a dance environment and there are not other people dancing it is very challenging yeah also if you have not had anything to drink also challenging yeah for some folks uh but there's a lot of benefits to dancing and there's a lot that we know about dancing through science okay do you want to hear about it i do okay so first and the reason this came up to me is you mentioned through your beat sabering that you've been burning a lot of calories. Got back into it. Damn. It is a sweaty mess in here.

There's a university of Brighton, uh, which is a institution in the UK. Uh, their study says that dancing can expend 300 calories every half hour. Wow. Then I'm slacking off. Cause I'm only getting about 200 out of my beat sabering. I guess it's mostly upper body. What kind of dance are you burning 300 calories i think that's when you're really like you're full on that's what crump that's where crumping came from they somebody was dancing and they were like more calories more calories uh therapists have also prescribed

dancing as therapy for those who suffer from social anxiety or fear of public speaking uh the idea is that the more you're comfortable dancing in front of people likely the more dancing as therapy for those who suffer from social anxiety or fear of public speaking. The idea is that the more you're comfortable dancing in front of people, likely the more comfortable you would be speaking or, you know. That's, I literally felt like I was such an antisocial guy. And then we just, like all my friends started going to this dance club, Club Echo in Huntington. And I started going to that and I started to like like that's where i made like all of my college friends because i was like well as long as i'm not embarrassed about this that's so interesting there's also research to say that dancing can encourage social bonding

because you are in an environment uh all dancing to the same music and it helps you feel a connection and sameness with the people that you are with. Well, especially if you're doing the bump and grind. That's a connection. I'm not prepared to talk about that. Yeah. I don't know how to. Are you trying to think of the last time? We've been together for almost, what, for a long time now. I'm pretty sure that's a thing that you give up in your 20s.

Yeah, we don't need to bump and grind anymore. You give up in your 20s. Yeah, we don't need to bump and grind anymore. Dancing also has been shown to positively impact mental health. For adolescent females that took dance classes, they had more positive thoughts and more confidence after dancing. Here, this is interesting. So there are, researchers have studied what the most appealing way to dance is in both men and women. What?

This, I love this so much. And if you look for this study, so this is a study done by the University of Northumbria. And so if you look for it, you can see little 3D images of the most appealing dances. Ideal sexual dance? So in 2017, researchers used 3D motion capture to record 39 dancers and turn their movements into computer generated avatars. So these video clips were then watched and rated for dance quality by 57 men and 143 women.

Do you want to know what was determined? The most popular dance? I mean, yeah, I guess. I don't know how you put that into words. The study concluded that there are three types of dancing that contribute to top female moves. Greater hip swing, more asymmetric movement of the thighs. Asymmetric movement of the thighs?

So like a different, you know, like you're not doing the same thing. You're not doing like the tootsie roll or whatever you're doing. You are doing the tootsie roll sitting down right now. And I've never been more attracted to you. And finally, intermediate levels of asymmetric movements of the arms.

I couldn't follow it. I didn't follow that. Do you want me to show it to you? Yeah. You can see this animated too, if you were to search for it. Okay. I'll try to describe what Rachel's doing. So she's scooting back in her office chair.

Are you going to stand up? Oh, damn. Okay. Let's see. So you're, oh, right. Okay. So she's doing the thing where she kind of puts one hand up and she's just kind of swaying to the music. And the one hand is just like doing a queen's way.

That was hot. Yeah. Well, thank you. Do you want to know what it is for men? Yeah, what do I need to be doing? Okay. So this. Number one skanking it to some ska punk.

Now, I haven't seen videos of the men movement because this was done back in 2014 when I'm guessing 3D motion capture was not as advanced. Right. And our science was a little bit more gender normative than it is in 2019. So, yeah. So, this study was judged only by women and they discovered that, quote, large variable movements of the head, neck, and torso. Oh, my God. Made a man more attractive. It's fucking dancing.

Like you just described all dance. Wait. As well as bending and twisting of the right knee. Don't get that left knee out there. Nobody wants it. Just the right. Okay, now you describe. Is there more? No.

Okay, I'm going to try and do this. Okay, so let me say it again. Large variable movements of the head, neck and torso, as well as bending and twisting of the right knee. Griffin looks like he has a rock in his shoe. And also he's using his arms as if he were holding ski poles. There's a lot of wiggling too. Ow. I've made a terrible mess of things

um so yeah I would encourage if you're curious to see what this dance looks like yourself you can search again this is

the University of Northumbria this is a 2017 study um video clips of 39 women's dance styles rated for dance quality. Catch it. Uh, do you want to know my first thing?

Yes. I'm a little exhausted. My first thing is what I am calling the holy triumvirate of hotel TV. When I travel quite a bit these days, folks, and I'm always curious what you watch because I know what I watch. Right. And I think the answer is the same for every single person in our age bracket. I'm not even necessarily, when I talk about these television networks, I'm not even talking

about like, I love the programming or, you know, I actually watch the programming on a day-to-day non-hotel basis. I'm talking about when I'm scanning through the hotel TV, there's three channels that never let me down. It's HGTV, Food Network, and Travel Channel. Yes, yes, yes. Travel Channel's on the bubble. Food Network and HGTV mostly. Yeah, for sure.

You know what I think it is? I think it's because the shows are basically the same. So if you like one show, you more than likely will like other ones and they just rotate different people out. Like being the key word there. I think that this triumvirate of TV networks is like the TV equivalent of like, I'll stick with water for now. Thanks.

That's a good illusion or comparison. Yeah. When I have time to spare and I'm in a hotel environment, like it's late and I just got comfy and I want to watch some TV, like I feel slightly unmoored because we have like cable at our house, but we never, ever, ever watch it live. No, we got it mainly for the DVR. And so we never just like turn it on. Right. It's all on demand. So now I'm faced with a million strange channels with programming.

I don't know. Schedules, I don't know. Channel numbers, I don't know. It's all on demand. So now I'm faced with a million strange channels with programming. I don't know schedules. I don't know channel numbers. I don't know. And I'm a very anxious person. And so when I have this free time at a hotel where I'm not like prepping for a show or, uh, you know, about to run out to, to make a call time or anything like that, like I start to get a little panicked that I'm not going to spend that time well. I'm not going to spend that free relaxing time efficiently. You got to get in that bathtub, baby. That's what I do. Maybe. Yeah.

Really just pretend like you don't have a bathtub at home. Well, I have, can I tell you this? I have a schedule that I like swear to. It is gospel to me. Okay. And it is that, and it makes me fresh for every show. I'll have lunch and then our call time is usually 4, 4.30. And I will lunch, nap, shower, and head right out the door.

Like out of the shower, right out the door. And I feel so fresh the whole night. I save my shower time until right before I'm about to go to the show. So I can't take a bath earlier. Anyway, if I'm flipping around, I'm going through an ocean of espns and c-spans and a bunch of garbage i don't know and then as soon as i hit food network or hgc they're traveling they're usually right next to each other in the little home economics block yeah i love that shit and it's gonna have something on it i don't really like chopped all that much but i'll

watch every episode of chop that you got on your shelf. I'll watch a Halloween, you know, cupcake baking tournament for children. We did when we went to Disney. Every night after Henry would go to bed, we would kind of find our way to Chopped, it seemed like. Find our way to Chopped, and then Chopped would turn into Good Eats. I'll fuck with Good Eats.

Yeah, why not? Diners, drive-ins, and dives. The shines come off that particular apple for Rachel, but I still am down to clown with Guy Fieri and all his things i'll even go with him on guys grocery games i don't give a shit fucking house hunters there's a fine line though where the formula turns on you right okay like there it's definitely comforting but if i watch enough of it i start to resent the formula i start to like resent the way each episode follows the same pattern. And then I've got to move on.

You're talking about the Triple D right now? I'm talking about all those shows. All those like Food Network and HGTV shows. It's just like, you know, you kind of know how it's going to work. And that's comforting at first. And then it starts to feel real stifling. That's the thing. It's just for a little bit. It's just for a little bit. And then, you know,

I'm out of the hotel. I'm doing my own. i'm doing some more shit and when i come home i don't watch these channels i can't stress that enough when i'm at home i never watch these channels ever it's just my little hotel snack i turn it on there's chopped there's like you got this brisket this chocolate cake these pickled yams and my own fingernails turn Turn it into a picnic lunch. We tried to watch a little bit of Shark Tank at Disney, and I got real angry about that too, if I remember correctly. Well, it wasn't on the Triumvirate, was it?

It's fair. I just, I don't know. As I become, as I am an older gentleman, and my leisure time is more limited, I like knowing that when i'm in a strange place i have this weird little security blanket and i can turn it on and and you also don't like there's no uh linear story from episode to episode so unlike if you're scrolling past like a tnt or usa you don't have to worry about like oh i'm not familiar with this plot

line or even if i am familiar with it, it's highly unlikely that I've tuned into the exact episode that I needed to watch. What am I going to do? Watch an episode I've already seen or skip a few episodes? No, I will watch somebody make a picnic lunch out of, you know, a Rice Krispie tree and a spider.

And a spider. I have a theory. I didn't look up any science on this because that'd be fucking wild but i have a theory about why i find these so comforting and why these were the channels you were thinking of when i was talking about hotel comfort food right yeah i think it's because of lazlo's pyramid of desire needs lazlo's pyramid of desire please was the original working title of it where we just want some food and some shelter yeah and some water parks we need that to survive and here are these three channels here to show it to us okay and then you just stop going up the pyramid at a certain point at a certain point

you stop because you got tired it's a pyramid folks pyramid climbing's not on the pyramid so whatever man hey can i steal you away yes got tired. It's a pyramid, folks. Pyramid climbing's not on the pyramid. So whatever, man. Hey, can I steal you away? Yes. Can I read a personal message for you? Only if it's for Tim. It is for Tim. Then you may proceed. It's from Liz. And the message is, what I think is wonderful is you. Swiping right on the cute, shy nerd who liked podcasts was the best decision I've ever made. I'm still in awe that I get to be yours and I'm so thankful for our little family. Here's to a future full of packed lunches, pep talks, big beds, Gerbert voices and learning to love ourselves and each other better every day. That's so sweet.

That's so sweet. That's very sweet. It's also a pretty tricky needle to thread, I think, to present yourself as a shy nerd who likes podcasts and get that good, good right swipe. On the Tinder is the one that swipes? I think so, yeah. I mean, more might swipe now, who knows? You know what this made me want though

is for you to pack me lunches oh shit okay what do you like i can make a ham one sandwich do you like wheat thins i'll throw some wheat thins in there why are you naming things we don't actually have in the house right now we have old wheat thins we do have old wheat thins we have really old wheat thins folks you would not believe the age of these wheat thins. They could drive themselves to work. They could. They are. They are responsible drinkers, these wheat thins. I have another message here from mom and it's from Parker who says, hi mom, it's Parker. I just wanted to say through your favorite podcast that I love you so incredibly much and that I'm sorry for always

making you late. I promise I'm working on it. You mean the world to me and thanks for being the best parent ever and supporting me through my transition. I love you so much. Now that's a good mom. That's a real good mom. That's a slam dunk mom. You know, we hear all the time that a lot of folks can share this podcast with their parent. And that's really nice.

That is sweet. Yeah, it's so sweet. And it makes me think that there's some, you know, hip parents out there that know all the cool teen lingo. Yeah, that's definitely what it is. Like we do. Like us. Macho man to the top rope. The flying elbow.

The cover. We've got a new champion. We're here with Macho Man Randy Savage after his big win to become the new world champion. What are you going to do now, Match? I'm going to go listen to the newest episode of the Tights and Fights podcast. Oh, yeah. Tell us more about this podcast.

It's the podcast of power. Too sweet to be sour. Funky like a monkey. Woke discussions, man. And jokes about wrestlers' fashion choices. Myself excluded. I can't wait to listen. Neither can I. You can find it Thursdays

on Maximum Fun. Oh yeah. Dig it. Do you want to know my second thing? More than anything. Googly eyes. Is that your second thing? No. I'm... Are you anti-googly eye i'm a little bit over it oh no griffin what happened who hurt you the googly man you know there is actually a googly eyes and here's why. So I like personifying inanimate objects.

It's just something I've always been big on. You remember when I brought that like faces Twitter account? Right, sure. The googly eye makes this so possible for anybody. You just go to a craft store, you get those like adhesive googly eyes, you stick them on a stapler. Oh, and now it's your friend's stapler and you're not alone. All right. So there's a more layered view, it seems like.

What I used to do, so in my younger days, when I was a little bit of a prankster, at the job I worked at, I would spread googly eyes all over the building and my friends' little cubicles, and I'd put them on their phones and on their computer mouse. And it was just like a fun little like, hey, I'm brightening your day gesture. And I still enjoy it to this day. I don't practice as much as I used to, but I still see the value in it and I support others that do. Yeah, I support you. This was, I will say this happened a lot on the Joko cruise that we went on, which, by the way, hey, just announced we're going on the. We're doing it again. We're doing it again in 2020 and we're very much looking forward to it.

But yeah, there were googly eyes all over and that was fun. There was a lot of fun treasure hunting on the boat. But one time our friends put googly eyes on like an old, old thing of syrup that I had in our spice drawer that was there for like a year. And as we were like packing up to move out, I saw it with the googly eyes and I felt betrayed. Like, how long have you been there? These googly eyes have been here for so long and they knew they were here and i didn't and that makes me seem like a real plant stayed at our house oh we were in japan for a honeymoon culprits so this is like over a year later

the prestige uh here's the history of googly eyes and i'm not 100 on this but this is what i found there was an artist named billy de beck and he created a comic that he called Barney Google and Snuffy Smith. And his characters had these big eyes, and he decided to create a craft product to make it a way of further promoting the comic strip. promoting the comic strip so the culmination of the work came in 1923 when he developed a song for barney google which you can find online uh and it's called barney google with your goo googly eyes um drifts drips right off the tongue goo goo googly i have like five questions this is 1923 by the way okay so google just fully stole the name then from barney google just like fully took it i mean possibly i always thought googly eyes was a descriptor of the craft product and not a name yeah but think about where would the word googly, like, that's not an intuitive word for describing eyes. These particular eyes, I think.

If you looked at these eyes and Barney Google never, you know, was a thing. What else do you describe in your life as googly? Um, I mean, my favorite search engine, Google. um i couldn't find any any certainty with this but it's kind of the earliest known uh listing of googly as a word and so it seemed only natural that the googly eyes sure come from these cartoon characters with the big eyes uh here's another thing i found uh googly eyes took uh like a global phenomenon when the googly eyes foundation formed and and i think this may be extinct now because i haven't found a lot of activity since 2017 but they uh would take donations and then fund projects all over the world to place googly eyes in in public spaces

oh okay i thought it was going to be something you know good for mankind or whatever no okay so we're not curing anything okay good um boredom so so people used to be able to go on this website and just request a packet of googly eyes to do like you know street art all over the place um there were artists in bulgaria that were taking advantage of this as members of the Googly Eye Foundation. And so they would find oddly shaped trees and cracks in the sidewalk and they would put googly eyes on it. I like that, actually. Yeah. And so this is what I really appreciated.

So they called this eye bombing. That sounds out of context. That sounds awful. it does sound awful um but there is an instagram account so you can still see some of this early work from the googly eyes foundation um i i just this is like an example you know when people would put those little like yarn crocheted things around lampposts just, I like this kind of like out in the wild art, you know, that's just kind of like there's no purpose for it. It's just nice.

It just kind of brightens your day. See a googly eye on a fire hydrant and you just think, well, that's a funny little guy. What's your name? Little mister. Yeah. It's nice. You full of water pressure.

You guys help fight a fire later. Look at you. Oh, I bet you've seen a doggie or two, huh? Also, those of you that haven't seen the Christopher Walken sketch called The Googly Eye of this Gardener. He puts a bunch of googly eyes on cactuses. It's pretty great. It's quite good, yes. It's pretty great.

And, of course, Stick Stickly repping those googly eyes. And to an extent, Cookie Monster. And to an extent, Cookie Monster. Some googly eyes. Still don extent cookie monster and to an extent cookie monster some googly eyes still don't know how those work how does the pupil move around the sphere no one knows no one knows it's like a non-euclidean object that they that they've whipped up there on the on the street can i hear your second thing my second thing's a movie i never do these but i was reading about like a 20 year anniversary of this movie. And it just reminded me like,

Hey, I really liked this movie. The movie is the Truman show. This movie beats ass. It's just a good as heck movie. It is good. I remember the first time I saw it, I walked away like thinking like,

wow, that's a, that's a good movie. And also that was the man who makes his butt talk in the Ace Venturas. And he didn't, he didn't really go quite as hard in this one. I feel like that's where he started to twist it a little bit. That's right before Jim Carrey did Man on the Moon. And he was like, I can be a serious actor.

It's not all butt-talking folks. But The Truman Show is a good movie. And reading about this, Van fair did like a 20 year post-mortem it came out in 1998 so this article came out uh last year and like interviewed everybody who was in it and when i mean everybody who's in it i'm talking about fucking laura linney crushing it i'm talking about ed harris crushing it uh jim carrey and ed harris won golden globes for their roles and And I think Ed Harris was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. The movie had three Oscar nominations.

I didn't realize it was like, you know, critically well received in its time. I always thought it was just kind of a, you know, a weird dramedy with Jim Carrey in it when it came out. But you and I recently rewatched it, right? Like, didn't we rewatch it like last year or something like that it seems possible i don't know why we would have it was it showed up on stars or something like that and we were like hey yeah let's just watch the truman show and see what happens and it holds up um so there are an infinite number of lenses through which to like look at this movie as being like profoundly prophetic for the the the future that we live in now uh and we'll talk about that but like

i just think it's a good movie uh even without all of the commentary on reality television culture that it like predated just barely uh it's If you've never seen it, Jim Carrey plays a guy named Truman Burbank and he's just an average dude. He lives in a town called Seahaven Island. But that town is actually like a high-tech film set where everybody inside it is an actor and it's just this big dome

and the ceiling is a screen that projects the sky. And there's thousands of hidden cameras everywhere and everybody just watches this person who was adopted by this corporation when he was a baby grow up without knowing he's in a TV show. That was unnecessary. Everybody knows what the Truman Show is about, right? No, no, maybe not. Well, because it's become sort of a part of the consciousness. Like somebody saying there is a psychological condition called like the Truman Show condition.

condition called like the like truman truman show uh condition and it's a super super rare thing uh that is like real and you know obviously kind of horrific where people actually believe that this is true um but obviously in the movie it is a a light sci-fi romp exactly that's my favorite kind of sci-fi is those light romps when i was writing about this i realized like this movie and groundhog day actually have a lot in common like i like a gentle sci-fi morality play which is kind of what the both of these are let me tell you about a show called quantum leap it's fair um so yeah you just like get to see how this like tv show works and go behind the scenes and then you start to see truman figure it out and then the movie starts to take on kind of a madcap tone i didn't know this robin williams was originally slated to play truman burbank which would have been great too yeah uh but the uh director who was peter weir uh he he saw ace ventura and saw jim carrey and thought he had

like some charlie chaplin energy and uh and so he he put him in the movie and thought he had like some Charlie Chaplin energy. Yeah, I can see that. And so he put him in the movie. And I think that like that's a great choice because as he starts to realize what's going on, he has this full-blown like slapstick collapse as he like tests the limits of this fictional world. That is so great. And if you think about it, like the casting for that is kind of great because like as you mentioned, people kind of knew Jim Carrey as this entertainer who really just existed to make people laugh. So to put him in this role

is kind of like a nice transition of like, here's this character who's existing for other people and we get to see who he really is. Shit, this must have been right before Eternal Sunshine also, which, man. No, I think it was several years

before Eternal Sunshine. I think it was maybe like five or six. I'm trying to remember. I saw Eternal Sunshine when I was in high school. Yeah, this would have been several years before Eternal Sunshine. I think it was maybe like five or six. I'm trying to remember. I saw Eternal Sunshine when I was in high school. Yeah, this would have been several years before Eternal Sunshine. Man, that's a good movie. Damn. We need to do a Michel Gondry deep dive on this one.

Yeah, I don't know if those hold up, though. I'm hesitant. They're on every streaming service. Let's dip in. I'm curious. I'm curious. So in this Vanity Fair piece, basically everybody is reflecting on the – this movie came out a year before Big Brother debuted on TV. Yeah, they had to have like picked that up a little bit from this movie.

Maybe, but like it is – it predated just barely like reality TV. It obviously predated by a decade or so the idea of social media. And so in this Vanity Fair piece, they're all reflecting on like how, how wild it is that they made this movie about running away from cameras that are documenting your life, which is the opposite of kind of the norm today. And I don't want to go all Banksy, like everybody's just obsessed with their phones. Everybody's so obsessed with themselves and looking, looking at your phones. You should look up at the trees,

folks, look at the face of your loved ones. Because I don't think necessarily the movie was saying that either. Back when it came back, when it came out, like all we had to talk about, like in this sort of vein was paparazzis and obsessed, obsession with stardom and stuff like that and

also it just spoke to something really fundamental about like having these relationships with people and you just realize that you have like a fundamental misunderstanding of what your connection with them is like when i saw this as like a teen it just reminded me of like having a lot of these teenage friendships where all of a sudden you look and realize like oh they're not on my side at all right like we were never the friends i thought we were so there's something about this movie like even though it was like a kind of a science fictiony premise it was like oh yeah i get that but it also like cast the people who are making this show as these like uh you know machiavellian yeah like uh power obsessed monsters uh and also like really makes

a big deal out of how like fake and bullshit this world is uh i love when we re-watched it uh which i remember we definitely did the amount of product placement that is in the movie and the way that it is so like they actually don't make a huge deal out of it except when it's like made as a joke but like in every single shot there is something uh there is some sort of product placement uh around it like it is it is portrayed as not necessarily the best thing it is kind of portrayed as like kind of a uh a terrible fate that has befallen true moon burbank and it again like just barely preceded like this influx of all reality television which obviously we are not above we cut our teeth on that shit with this podcast uh but it is just it is weird how uh

how very close to that genre of television becoming like the biggest genre in television this movie was like it's like if nosodromus was like yo next year uh check it out uh we're gonna invent the horse-drawn carriage or whatever it's not necessarily the best i thought you were gonna call like the next big piece of technology right here on our very little podcast no no i was trying to think of what like nosodromus would have been but then i realized that i have no fucking idea when that dude was alive and really don't really know who he uh is especially uh i don't know who he is i don't know much about anything uh anyway i just i like this i like the movie a lot and i think that it's a fun watch and what i like about is how conflicted i get when

i watch it because like the whole back half of the movie is jim carrey's character trying to like escape this fake world and trying to like uh get out of it and and seeing the producers kind of try and identify ways to keep him in it right and seeing but like when i watch it i'm conflicted because i'm like but this is such a like a neat concept. And I don't want you to, like, if you leave and the TV show ends, which is like exactly what everybody watching the TV show inside of the movie is doing. And so you feel like super guilty about it.

It's really well done. It's a really good movie, y'all. And also it almost killed Jim Carrey. I didn't know this when I was researching it at the very end like he's he's trying to escape and he is uh on a boat that capsizes in in the ocean and uh there was like a hand signal that Jim Carey was supposed to he's like wearing a wool sweater and like yeah clothes and stuff like that and so he went under when the boat capsized and there were divers safety divers down there and they just didn't see his hand signal his like distress signal uh and so like he hit the bottom of the tank and like just barely pushed

himself out and almost drowned oh my god and he was upset about apparently there was some friction again much like groundhog day there was some friction between jim carrey and peter weir throughout this movie because jim carrey again had rewrite power just like just like uh bill murray did on Groundhog Day. Wow, there's so many similarities. Wow, Griffin, looks like you have to go to graduate school. Oh, no. Write a whole thesis on this.

I don't want to go to graduate school, baby. Do I have to? I'm sorry you have to. Oh, man. Anyway, Truman Show. Good one. Good flick. Good flick.

I like that. What do our friends at home like? Glad he didn't die. If he had died, we wouldn't have gotten Dumb and Dumber 2. That one's so funny. Better than the original, I think. Michael says, I love a good sandwich that comes with a dip or a sauce on the side. You get the exact amount of sauce you want with each bite and no soggy bread.

Yeah. French dip. You know, I have never done a French dip. You are kidding me. I don't really know how it works. What is the sandwich and what are you dipping it in? It's usually roast beef and some horseradish mostly maybe and some like a provolone maybe melted on there. And then you dip it in au jus.

Au jus. Okay. What is au jus? The juice. I don't know. It's the juice, I guess. it's the juice i guess it's the good that's uh french for the good juice uh emma says something i find wonderful is trolley tours i love being able to ride around the city and learn a little bit about its history while also enjoying a breeze because the windows on the trolley are so wide and open you feel refreshed and just a little

more knowledgeable about uh once the tours are done never been on a trolley tour never been on a bus tour i don't think you know what we did ride the trolley in new orleans if i remember but and we were just packed that was a survival we were just packed in there so tight yeah it was brutal that was really we were there during mardi gras we went like way out to the world war ii museum and there were no like cabs or this was pre-lift in Uber. And so we had to pack into one little trolley. It was not breezy or educational, but this sounds great. Meg says, my small wonder this week is when airplane pilots point out landmarks

to the passengers as the plane passes over them. Something about seeing places like the Grand Canyon or Yosemite from the air is pretty magical. I also love the sudden sense of camaraderie that brings the airplane cabin as everyone peers out the window and points it out to one another. I've never, ever, ever had this happen. Me neither. Ever. Not once.

Never. Me neither. But it's possible that we just don't fly in areas where this would be happening as much. Possibly. I mean, every time I fly to L.A, I like looking out the window at the mountains, you know, the mountains as we fly over them. But what's the pilot going to do? Just be like, hey, there's some badass mountains outside, folks.

Some cool mountains, guys. I think I see a goat and a bear. Oh, cool. It's also possible this has happened and we were not paying attention. Entirely possible, yes. Anyway, that's it. Thank you to Bowen and Augustus for these for our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description.

And Maximum Fun. Thanks for having us on the network. Yeah, thank you Maximum Fun for hosting our show and lots of other great shows. I would recommend if you have not checked it out yet and you like films like The Truman Show but even worse and significantly worse the flop house

yeah maybe they did what's the movie he did like last year that was like a so terrible dark crime i think it was called dark crimes i think i was gonna say it's a dark crime thriller that was apparently abysmal and he was in it. I think it was called Dark Crimes. I bet they've done that one. Anyway, that's a bad movie. And the number 23. Wow. Okay.

Actually, he was in a lot of bad movies. But that's okay because he did Truman Show. Mm-hmm. And I think that's probably it, right? Go to macroy.family. We got some new merch. We're working on some wonderful merch now. Hopefully going to have that up next month i promise and um i mean what else can you say you want should i take him out with one of my dances i think i've been thinking about it in my head what it's supposed to look

like so maybe we could do it again and you can you want me to describe it yeah yeah okay okay it again and you can describe it yeah yeah okay okay uh griffin is standing he's moving both legs favoring the right one though oh he's just rolled up his right pant leg and is really wiggling that knee back and forth i need to see some head and neck movement um he looks like he's going down a ski jump he's got his arms behind him his head's very low what's up he's going down a ski jump. He's got his arms behind him. His head's very low. What's up? He's very close to me now. You come here often?

Let me buy you a drink. What's up? You come here with your friends? This is how we fall in love. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. The Greatest Generation is a Star Trek podcast that de-stigmatizes the very idea of having a Star Trek podcast.

We're Ben and Adam, the hosts of The Greatest Generation, and the technology we've developed is that nobody knows what you're playing in your earbuds. You know, with legalization, it's easier than ever to find out what's in your buds. But we suggest that you legally find The Greatest

Generation wherever you download your podcasts. We'll send it to you in a discreet, unmarked package that nobody has to know but us that's the greatest generation the star trek podcast that you didn't know you needed yet makes you feel like you belong