BONUS The Friday Show - The First Temptation of Kris
Guest:Well, there was that time you asked Gary Sinise why he made the movie.
Guest:What was that called?
Guest:The Big Bounce?
Guest:Yes, The Big Bounce.
Marc:I was like, that movie sucked.
Marc:Why did you do that movie?
Marc:And he's like, it was in Hawaii.
Marc:Hey, Chris.
Marc:Brandon, my condolences, pal.
Marc:Oh, why?
Marc:What happened?
Marc:I saw NYPD shut down your favorite watering hole.
Marc:What place is that?
Marc:The tunnel.
The book...
Guest:A literal watering hole.
Guest:Like I go to sit down there to take a bath.
Guest:You know, it's so funny.
Guest:You said that.
Guest:You said NYPD.
Guest:And I was like, is he going to make a joke about the tunnels in Brooklyn?
Guest:And then you said watering hole.
Guest:And I was like, oh, no, there's some bar that must have gotten closed that I embarrassed myself at or something like that.
Guest:And no, he's still talking about the tunnels.
Guest:This tunnel, this Brooklyn tunnel is fascinating.
Guest:It is.
Guest:But I will say this.
Guest:I did the worst thing.
Guest:I try to stay off of, you know, if I go on to social media, particularly Twitter, it's specifically to find something like a go to look for it and and pull it off or whatever.
Guest:I go check something out that based on something I was directed to find it.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:I use it as a resource tool.
Guest:I do not like to look at it anymore because algorithmically it's, it's fucked.
Guest:So this story breaks about underneath this synagogue, there's tunneling going on to connect the synagogue with an old building and,
Guest:And it all blew up one night in case you don't know about this story, because the city was like, no, you can't do that.
Guest:There's building code violations and you need permitting.
Guest:And they went and shut it down.
Guest:And there was a big fight between the members of this Hasidic synagogue and the NYPD.
Guest:A lot of video.
Guest:So it got out all over the place.
Guest:And I, as a New Yorker who, you know, has grown up with these stories my whole life, the
Guest:These types of stories are the lifeblood of New York.
Guest:You know, just like crazy shit happening in New York City.
Marc:It's why the New York Post, it still exists.
Guest:Yes, it's the whole reason for the New York Post.
Guest:And I'll even say this.
Guest:I couldn't even enjoy the New York Post on this one because...
Guest:immediately so i i was looking at the videos on twitter right all right and twitter is such a cesspool now that it immediately starts kicking back to you other things that you that it's suggesting you look at similar yeah because of what you're looking at now and i was looking at like news of this but because of all these blue check idiots who are like racists and anti-semites and nazis real anti-semitic real quick oh
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:It went so bad so fast.
Guest:Like I couldn't even enjoy this great, crazy story because it was so hateful and bigoted immediately.
Guest:And I couldn't even enjoy the New York Post front page, which was Subvey, S-U-B-V-E-Y.
Guest:And it said, Chabad boys, but with B-A-D in quotes, like bad boys, Chabad boys, spark holy war, H-O-L-E-Y, by digging illegal tunnel under Brooklyn Synagogue and with all the appropriate photos.
Guest:And I'm like, oh man, you know, it's like in a normal day, that's like a perfect New York Post headline.
Guest:Now I look at that, I'm like, oh, that's so fucked up.
Guest:What a bunch of anti-Semites these guys are.
Marc:So your worst thing that you did was you looked at it on Twitter and then you just got a bunch of anti-Semitic posts.
Marc:I'm just going to say, that's not the worst thing that you could have done, okay?
Guest:Sure, yes.
Guest:All right, you're right.
Guest:No, the worst thing for my own enjoyment of it, I guess, is the point.
Guest:Because it's also, that's the other thing.
Guest:It's like a victimless story.
Guest:It's an actual perfect story to laugh at and, like, enjoy the way we enjoy goofy things here.
Guest:Like, you know, and hey, I'm not, I don't keep this to just New York.
Guest:Like, this happens all the time.
Guest:Remember that time there was, like, something about, like, 30 to 50 feral hogs in some guy's yard or something?
Guest:You know, it's like...
Guest:These just weird things that doesn't bother anybody or whatever.
Guest:It's just fun for a day.
Guest:It would have been really fun if the Jewish tunnel story was like divorced from just horrible hatred for like more than 30 seconds.
Guest:I had no time to enjoy it.
Marc:For me, though, so I'm at this place where I don't believe anything online anymore.
Marc:And I couldn't find this Brooklyn Tunnel story anywhere else other than like this video of what it appeared like a guy coming out of like a sewer grate.
Guest:Hasidic Jewish man dressed fully in his appropriate religious clothes coming out of a grate.
Guest:It wasn't like a manhole cover.
Guest:It was like a subway grate where a portion of it had been sawed off so he could crawl out.
Marc:And from the angle, it doesn't look like anything sawed off.
Marc:So I just think, am I watching like a video game and this guy is just like glitching on the video game?
Marc:It was nuts.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So yeah, I watched that a whole lot because I still don't believe that that's a real thing.
Guest:Well, also, yeah, it's, it doesn't, it's not like he struggled to come out either.
Guest:No.
Guest:He just popped out of this thing and ran away.
Guest:So, and then people wonder like, you know, are deep fakes going to cause problems with the information and that?
Guest:It's like, I don't know.
Guest:That was the real and it's causing problems.
Guest:So yeah, very interesting week.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's apparently interesting for me because that's where I go to drink and I can't do that anymore.
Yeah.
Guest:That cop, by the way.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Again, also the most New York thing ever.
Guest:So there's this video.
Guest:Again, if you haven't seen the full thing on this New York tunnel story, the cop is standing there keeping people at bay while they're trying to shut these tunnels down.
Guest:And he's just the most New York cop you've ever seen.
Guest:Just like...
Guest:Like there's a ridiculous thing happening all around him.
Guest:And his face is the same face as when they have to tow your car and you're begging with them.
Guest:Like, no, no, I didn't even know it was alternate side.
Guest:And they just give you that face of like, come on.
Guest:It's just, there's not, they're just going to, it's going to, this is what's going to happen now.
Guest:We're just towing this, you know, that same face.
Guest:And yeah,
Guest:I guess these, they were students.
Guest:There were people in the shul and they were telling him like, but no, these are our tunnels.
Guest:We, we built, we did, we did this.
Guest:We, we did, we dug these.
Guest:And he says to them, no, maybe in Israel, you can do this, but this is America.
Guest:We don't do this here.
Guest:And I'm watching this and I'm like, there's no way that guy grew up more than two blocks away from that.
Guest:like they are all everyone in this footage is like the quintessential outer borough new york character like there's you you guys are so much alike the only thing different are the clothing you're wearing and probably the the the place you worship but otherwise everything else is very very close
Marc:On a day like that, it always reminds me of like the paper, the movie The Paper, where they're all in the editorial room and they're all talking about stories.
Marc:And man, I would love to just know the alternate headlines that the post or the daily news had.
Marc:Because man, oh man, like do we have color on the tunnels?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Oh, I would love to know which ones got scrapped.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah, that was a big thing that happened here this week.
Guest:What else?
Guest:Anything else going on for you?
Marc:Well, I fell into a rabbit hole myself.
Marc:It was not a tunnel in Brooklyn, but it was a WTF rabbit hole.
Marc:So...
Marc:It actually originated because our buddy Chris Rosen told me he saw Magnolia in a theater.
Marc:And I'm dying to see that movie again.
Marc:My wife's never seen it.
Marc:But it got me thinking about that movie.
Marc:And I saw an audible.
Marc:Amy Mann has like a podcast or like a.
Marc:like a sight and sound episode where she talks about her traumatic childhood.
Marc:And I'm listening to it.
Marc:I'm like, wait a second.
Marc:Did she, did she talk about this to Mark when she was on like all those years ago?
Marc:And so I just stopped that podcast and I put on episode 363 of your show.
Marc:Wow, it was that long ago, huh?
Marc:It was so long ago.
Marc:It was so, so long ago.
Guest:It feels more recent to me than that, but that may be because we had her back.
Marc:Yeah, you had her back for an Anne Hathaway episode.
Guest:Well, it was a new album she had out, so she came on to promote it, and yeah, we put it up with Anne Hathaway.
Marc:363, dude.
Marc:That's so long ago.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:First of all, Mark is completely different from back then.
Marc:Like he's just like, you know, talking shit about his audio book producer and just like really, really fun, like a time machine, honestly.
Marc:But I'm listening to see if he sells that Amy Mann had this traumatic story happening and he does not.
Guest:You mean like the intro and the setup?
Marc:Yeah, and the intro.
Marc:He doesn't mention it at all.
Marc:So wait.
Marc:First of all, I gotta know.
Marc:Did you know, in your research for Amy Mann, did you know about this story?
Guest:I don't think... I mean, I think if... It's so long ago, so I don't really remember.
Guest:And we didn't used to do, like, sit-down packets of research or anything.
Guest:We barely do that now.
Guest:But...
Guest:At the time, I think what we knew was like – and, you know, Mark knew Amy Mann and Michael Penn casually prior to this.
Guest:Like they were – he'd been over to their house and, you know – To their pool.
Guest:Yeah, when he was married to Mishnah, yeah.
Guest:And so I think he had a –
Guest:There was something he knew that like, oh, Amy Mann had like a fucked up childhood.
Guest:But I don't think he knew the specific details of it.
Guest:But he knew enough to go into it and that he raised the question.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I will say, though, it was definitely the case.
Guest:It was an editorial decision.
Guest:That I would say probably for like the first 500 episodes or so.
Guest:And that's not a line in the sand.
Guest:It could have been, you know, 420.
Guest:It could have been 780.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:There was a... In the initial years before we got like, you know, Obama level attention to the show...
Guest:I was always under the impression that we were playing to a very specific audience that had a limit on it, limited to the number of people who listened to podcasts, which prior to Serial and, frankly, prior to Apple putting the podcast app on the home screen of your new iPhones in 2014, it was a very limited audience for podcasts.
Guest:And the ceiling was pretty noticeable.
Guest:And so I was just kind of thought the audience we played to then that was our audience growing.
Guest:It was going to grow incrementally in either direction.
Guest:And if they were on board, they were on board.
Guest:And so because of that, one of the things that Mark and I were like very clear about was like this, every episode is like,
Guest:A mystery, you know, like you don't know what you're going to find out about this person.
Guest:You might not even know who the person is and we'll just let it be discovery.
Guest:If you listen to a lot of those early episodes, you know, we were very clear, like he wouldn't even say who, like what the person really did ahead of time.
Guest:He'd just be like, you know, my guest today is Rob Delaney.
Guest:He's a comic.
Guest:I know he's got a good story.
Guest:We'll talk to him in a little bit or whatever.
Guest:Like he would not really lay it out.
Guest:He wanted that to happen in the talk.
Guest:So I'm sure what you're hearing and you're wondering like, oh, is Mark going to set this up?
Guest:That was a conscious decision not to do that.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Gotcha.
Marc:Is it because you figured people would tune out for the guest portion?
Guest:No, it was more of just like, it's more fun to be surprised.
Guest:Gotcha.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So Mark is shocked to learn this, which is awesome to see his honest reaction or hear his honest reaction.
Marc:And it is just...
Marc:Amazing.
Marc:If you haven't heard this story, by the way, listen to this episode because it is such a... First of all, they have such good chemistry throughout the entire thing.
Marc:I know they knew each other and Mark basically admits that he had a crush on her or just knew of her when they lived in Boston.
Marc:But it was so cool to see him talk to this incredibly talented artist and just their back and forth and just her just...
Marc:Just like, yeah, my childhood.
Marc:Well, my mom kidnapped me, you know, and like it just was blowing my mind.
Marc:So now I got to ask, when you heard the story, were your eyes bugging out of your head?
Marc:Were you like, holy fucking shit?
Marc:Like, what was your reaction to it?
Guest:I think my reaction was always the same back then.
Guest:That was not an unusual thing to happen.
Guest:I'm not saying everybody came on and had a crazy story.
Guest:But it was almost like if the episode didn't excavate something...
Guest:It was kind of at that period of time, like, well, what's the point?
Guest:What are we doing here?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it could have excavated something as simple as like someone being like, yeah, I, you know, started doing this with my career and I really didn't like it.
Guest:And then Mark would just try to mine what that was.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, uh, you know, that became less, uh, uh,
Guest:available to us over time as it became people who were you know more strangers to mark than the people we were getting on in those early years but yes in the early parts of doing the show all that that would tell me when when i would hear that kind of thing was like ah great yes we did it we got there we got there yeah yeah that's how i feel too yeah so
Marc:Okay, cool.
Marc:I mean, I loved, I still love Amy Mann when she talks to Mark about like, yeah, I can't believe I'm at Town Hall and people are like going nuts for me.
Marc:I was one of those people going nuts for her.
Marc:So yeah, it was great to hear her and also hear her perform twice, you know, right before Anne Hathaway.
Marc:Like that, that album does in fact roll.
Marc:Mark is totally on point.
Marc:It's like her best album.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you were just watching The Big Lebowski.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So again, my weekend was filled with like Amy Mann and then like also movies.
Marc:Like you mentioned The Big Lebowski as a buddy film.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:Last week.
Marc:Yeah, and there was a DVD sale, and I got the 4K DVD of Big Lebowski, and goddammit, she's in the Big Lebowski.
Marc:Indeed she is.
Marc:I had no idea.
Marc:She's the German woman.
Marc:His girlfriend gave up her toe.
Guest:It's not fair.
Guest:She's the nihilist.
Marc:Movie is perfect, I gotta say.
Marc:It is just really, really perfect.
Guest:So wait, you know, Amy Mann and Michael Penn tend to have these things happen where they kind of show up in small roles in movies.
Guest:Do you remember what happened when we worked at Air America?
Guest:Michael Penn came on as a guest.
Guest:We rarely had celebrity guests come on.
Guest:Every now and then.
Guest:It was mostly news people.
Guest:The most regular guests were getting people on the phone to talk about the news.
Guest:And if it was a famous person or someone in entertainment, a lot of times they were either over the phone or Mark would do a pre-tape with them.
Guest:like that we would have taped the day before at a decent time and then, uh, aired it, you know, the next day.
Guest:And, and so it was very rare to have like an actual, uh, you know, person who was known in entertainment come and sit in the studio at like seven o'clock, you know, seven.
Marc:I can only think of like five or a handful of folks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, there was that time you asked Gary Sinise why he made the movie, uh, the, what was that called?
Guest:The big bounce.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:The big bounce.
Yeah.
Marc:Like right to his face.
Marc:I was like, that movie sucked.
Marc:Why did you do that movie?
Marc:And he's like, it was in Hawaii.
Marc:And I was like, all right, fine.
Marc:It was a free trip to Hawaii.
Marc:And I was like, well, I can't argue with that.
Marc:I mean, I was like my $15 back.
Guest:He was so like, it did not affect him at all.
Guest:It was a great reaction.
Marc:Were you like, holy shit, what is Chris doing right now?
Guest:I know it was like the first thing you said to him too.
Guest:You're like, oh, hey, man, I love your movies.
Guest:Except that one, The Big Bounce.
Guest:That one was a piece of shit.
Guest:Why'd you make that?
Marc:Brendan, I am who I am.
Marc:What can I say?
Guest:Yeah, no, hey, don't change.
Guest:But speaking of not changing, and I'll throw myself right in with this.
Guest:Because like, yeah, I was producing that show.
Guest:I had to, you know, and there wasn't any time where I would have like really like
Guest:acted strange around a guest hell we had Mick Foley come in and I did wrestling with him on the air and I was totally fine I wasn't I wasn't like being a fanboy around the guest but Michael Penn comes in and I don't know if you or I like I don't know if we like juiced each other up for this but we were like you know he's from Boogie Nights and
Guest:And he's the guy who records Dirk Diggler and Reed.
Guest:You got the touch.
Guest:Yes, doing You Got the Touch.
Guest:And we were both like, oh, we got to ask him about that.
Guest:We got to talk to him about that.
Guest:I don't remember this.
Yeah.
Guest:He was, like, you know, he's, like, a quiet guy.
Guest:Just picture, like, Sean Penn's quieter brother who plays music.
Guest:That's Michael Penn.
Guest:And, like, I think we waited until after they did their, like, on-air segment.
Guest:He played a song, I think, or something.
Guest:And then it went off, and I come in the studio, and you're already in the studio.
Guest:And we're, like, so, Boogie Nights.
Guest:And he's, like, it's 730 in the morning.
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:These guys are answering about Boogie Nights.
Yeah.
Guest:And we were like, you are the guy who recorded the thing.
Guest:And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, it was.
Guest:And I was like, was that awesome or what?
Guest:Like, tell us everything.
Guest:And he was like, oh, yeah, it was a pretty good day.
Guest:He had no stories.
Guest:He had nothing.
Guest:And we were just retelling the scene.
Guest:That was all we were doing.
Guest:We were like, and then he does this.
Guest:And then Mark Wahlberg throws a karate kick.
Yeah.
Guest:We're like doing this to like everyone in the room who, as though they haven't seen Boogie Nights.
Guest:And he's just like, yep.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was the thing I did one time.
Marc:That was a Wednesday in 1970 or 1990-something.
Marc:Yeah, hilarious.
Marc:Oh, he no-sold it so hard.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Man, I guess that's why I don't remember, because that is awkward.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Did you happen to get a chance to listen to the Greta Gerwig episode yet?
Marc:I sure did.
Marc:First of all, can I just say?
Marc:In Mark's intro, he talks about the host of the Golden Globes.
Guest:Dude, that's what I wanted to bring up.
Guest:I love the talk with Greta, but the whole thing, I was like, this is the best take on that Joe Coy thing.
Marc:It really is, right?
Marc:He has such a great take, but I feel bad for the poor people who are just minding their own business, listening to your show, and
Guest:who are working or in the Irvine improv and Mark just just takes a fucking side swipe at them like for no reason oh okay well wait so go put a little context on this the Irvine improv is like one of the improvs um the improv right which is a comedy club and it franchises across the country so
Guest:So the Irvine improv in Irvine, California is thought to be like it.
Guest:I've heard comics bring it up with shorthand all the time where it's like if you're doing the Irvine improv, that's like you're you could you're basically like generic comedian X. That's not to say anything about your personality or what style of comedy you do.
Guest:But the bookings at the Irvine improv, they're just booking comedy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like it's like, you know, it's not it's not L.A.
Guest:where you have 20 options of what you want to go see, but it's close to L.A.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So people do the Irvine improv drive down to Irvine to do it.
Guest:But you're essentially like it might as well say on the marquee tonight comedy.
Guest:right you get it so the idea being that if joe coy just came off the irvine improv which he probably does like he's probably booked at the irvine improv regularly he's a he's a good generic comedian that's not a knock on joe at all like he like i think that's what mark was trying to get across that this is a guy who can do the job of stand-up comic but like it just doesn't work in that room which is a hard room in the best of circumstances
Marc:And what Mark said was on point, this guy isn't allowed to knock these people.
Marc:He's not in the club or in that sort of social sphere, right?
Marc:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:It was the best take on it that I heard all week.
Guest:And I didn't want to bring it up to Mark or anything.
Guest:I don't want to put my thumb on the scale of those things.
Guest:So when it happened, I just said like,
Guest:Oh, Joe Coy died a death on there.
Guest:And he was like, do I need to watch it?
Guest:Do I need to react?
Guest:And I was like, no, I'm just letting you know that that happened.
Guest:And sure enough, he watched it and then shoots me all these texts about like, it wasn't that bad.
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:And I was like, hey, maybe you want to talk about that.
Yeah.
Marc:And he's great.
Marc:Like, look, my Aspen show, you could look up the Aspen show.
Marc:I bombed.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:People bomb.
Marc:It's okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, that was my, but look, I really liked the episode, but that was my favorite part of it that, that he had that, that in there.
Guest:What I liked about the Greta conversation was it made me want to rewatch Barbie because I feel like this is like a DVD commentary track.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:without question like can you guys put it on the dvd like it was it was perfect for that movie holy cow i love when we have directors come on and basically just do a full-on breakdown of like making of i loved it a couple weeks ago with that guy blitz bazawouli about the color purple it was like it's one of my favorite things that can happen uh on the mic and it doesn't happen necessarily with actors right because an actor's
Guest:scope is limited like i love hearing the stuff about how she got these people who did like the woman who did the costumes for little women and it's like you're gonna do these costumes for barbie and it's like at first you think well those don't really line up but then you're like well that totally makes sense if someone has the skill to create a period piece like that they could have the skill to create this world and this universe like all this all that stuff is fantastic
Marc:And I loved her being like, oh yeah, you know, my friend was saying like, oh, I liked when they were all saying hi to one another.
Marc:And cause like, that's the stupid thing that I think Barbies just do all day.
Marc:They just say hi to one another.
Guest:Yeah, it was her 10 year old stepson saying that, right?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:By the way, was that liquid death at the beginning of the Greta?
Marc:Yeah, I knew it.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:I'm always on the lookout for some liquid death.
Guest:Well, also, the other great thing about that, as opposed to it completely tanking the interview, as it has done in the past...
Guest:The liquid death there, it became a runner throughout the thing.
Guest:Like, she's burping at one point and called herself out for burping.
Guest:And then at the end, it's a joke again, a callback.
Guest:Like, I love when that kind of thing happens.
Guest:Totally.
Yeah.
Guest:But I also wanted to bring up to you that, uh, the bonus content episode that we had this week.
Guest:I'm not sure.
Guest:Did you get a chance to listen to that?
Guest:Uh, the, the, the WTF origins about Luna lounge.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it, it, I listened to it twice actually.
Marc:Cause the first time I got, I go, I, I got like, I was sad and,
Marc:At the end of it.
Marc:Sad.
Marc:Yeah, like I was sad and I didn't know why I was sad.
Marc:And after I listened to it a second time, the reason is I was sad because I didn't realize that Mark, when I met him and when I knew him, he was going through such a low point in his life, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like he was getting, you know, like his wife didn't want to be in New York.
Marc:Here he is being in New York and like he's going to be getting divorced, you know, obviously in the future.
Guest:I think he was divorced when we,
Guest:You know, I think he was divorced for a couple years by the time we were working with him.
Guest:Oh, was he?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But still, it had just led up to that.
Guest:That was the general portion of his life right there.
Marc:And it just felt bad that, like, we were there and, like, he was, you know, obviously upset for his life.
Marc:And I don't know, just, like, it made me realize, like, oh, man, you never really know what someone's going through.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, yeah, I really enjoyed the Luna episode.
Marc:We'll listen to it twice.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, good.
Guest:I'm glad you listened to that because it's kind of, uh, you know, something we're going to do fairly regularly on the full Marin.
Guest:Um, at least until we've, we've filled it out, you know, there's a bunch of things from Mark's life and career that happened leading up to WTF that we haven't really, you know, spent a lot of time talking about to people who don't have any familiarity with them.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:luna lounge was one where i had to legit ask questions about it because i didn't know the answers right and uh you know obviously we've documented uh the time we spent doing morning sedition uh but there was other stuff you know then we went back to air america to do the mark maron show in la and break room live and then there's literally a chunk of time you know how we always talk about when guests are on we try to find the gaps and
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's a two year period of time with Mark where I don't know what the fuck was going on.
Guest:And I was in touch with him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like from 2006 to 2008, I have no idea what his life or career looked like other than that.
Guest:I know his marriage was falling apart, which is like the stuff I would talk to him about at the time.
Guest:If I ever talked to Mark during that stretch, it was like him dealing with the end of his marriage, not having to do with anything career wise.
Guest:So, uh,
Guest:There's a bunch of stuff that I think we'll get back to in other episodes.
Guest:But then it was making me realize, hey, that's the case with you.
Guest:I've known you now for 20 years, 20 years this year.
Guest:And we've been close friends.
Guest:We've worked together.
Guest:I have a knowledge of what you did before I met you.
Guest:But I don't really know the details.
Guest:And so if I don't know them, our listeners definitely don't know them.
Guest:True.
Guest:Why not do a little Chris origin story here, particularly about how you came into radio, which then hooks you up with Air America, which puts you on with Morning Sedition with us and and and how that all happened.
Guest:And the only thing I really know is that you worked at WNEW here in New York.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And I started there as an intern and I was, it was my second year in community college.
Marc:Like this, I guess this is like two years I've been on my own at this point.
Marc:My parents got divorced and they both left.
Marc:Like my mom for an apartment, my dad moved into his girlfriend's condo.
Marc:So I was in my childhood home by myself at this point for two years.
Marc:And so I'm in community college and this new talk radio station started.
Marc:It was basically billed as like Howard Stern talk all day.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It's like when you say this new station started, it was that WNEW, a famous New York rock radio station.
Guest:The format had gotten blown up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So so they were done with that.
Guest:And what you're saying is true.
Guest:They were moving to the hot talk, which was what that format was called at the time.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Based on based on basically a stern format.
Guest:And it was it was classified as hot talk because you didn't want formatically you didn't want it to get confused with like Rush Limbaugh talk, you know, which would be political talk or, you know, sports talk.
Guest:Yeah, you didn't want to get confused with sports talk.
Marc:And honestly, I wanted to be a part of it.
Marc:I listened all my life to WFAN and Mike and the Mad Dog.
Marc:I loved talk radio.
Marc:And I faxed my resume to someone at WNEW because I had to fax my resume.
Marc:And basically, my resume was just like a bunch of shitty mall jobs.
Marc:It's like Old Navy, Sam Goody, nothing having to do with the radio.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Good humor truck?
Guest:You didn't have that on there?
Marc:Yeah, I did not.
Marc:I did not put the good humor truck on there.
Marc:I got a call for an interview and I went in into the city and met with the person and they hired me as an intern right then and there.
Guest:Now, wait a sec.
Guest:So my question to this right away is maybe you didn't know this at the time.
Guest:Maybe you don't even have any sense of this in hindsight.
Guest:But do you get the sense that you got hired for your personality or they just were filling spots?
Guest:They just needed a body.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Because I wonder if it was more like, hey, this guy who just walked in our office here, this dude from Staten Island who's very outgoing and extroverted, is a good fit for the type of environment we're creating here.
Marc:I don't think so because my job was an intern for this show, The Radio Chick, and I just had to stuff envelopes with autographed photos of The Radio Chick and get her coffee.
Marc:It's not like I wasn't hired to be an on-air person or running, doing bits or whatever.
Marc:God, The Radio Chick.
Marc:She went national too, didn't she?
Marc:Yeah, she went national.
Marc:I think she's like a Fox News radio person now.
Marc:Oof.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Good times.
Marc:Good times for the radio check.
Marc:By the way, I just want to point out, I'm in community college, and it's only my second year.
Marc:There is no internship program that I'm a part of, right?
Marc:Just lied to get in the door there, you know?
Marc:So, like, just want to point that out.
Marc:I just was like, yeah, I have an internship, you know, possibility.
Marc:And, like, they were just like, uh-huh, great, great.
Marc:So...
Marc:two days a week it was like tuesdays and thursdays i went in i got everyone coffee i uh i talked to this this terrible you know sidekick chuck nice do you know chuck nice oh yeah he was a comic yeah he was a comic
Marc:He rubbed me the wrong way.
Marc:Anyway, so that's what I would do.
Marc:I would show up two days a week and just do my job and, you know, hope that, you know, I can maybe get a permanent job.
Marc:And by the way, like I got to do some weird shit.
Marc:Like I went around Central Park and like hung up radio chick stenciled bras on like the statues in Central Park.
Marc:I actually threw a bra in Al Roker's face on live TV on the Today Show to drum up publicity for this show.
Marc:Wait, okay, pause, pause.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where does that impulse come from?
Guest:Like, so now you're there.
Guest:Are you like, and you're like an intern, like you said, you're packing envelopes and you're a street team, whatever.
Guest:Like, did they indoctrinate you with like, look, this is what you got to do.
Guest:You got to do everything you can to promote the show.
Guest:Or was that your mentality?
Guest:Were you like, I'm going to, I'm a self starter.
Guest:I'm going to go at this, you know, with all my get go.
Marc:I do remember my friend Lisa, like, making the, you know, stenciling the radio chick bras.
Marc:Like, so I think it was something I did on my own, which is so sad to say.
Guest:But I do remember you doing that when we worked at Air America.
Guest:Like, you were one, like, when, you know, all these kind of stodgy execs who didn't know what they were doing, they came from TV, and you were the one who was like, we should just go outside and put stickers on every...
Guest:you know, phone booth that we see or every, like, and we were like, oh yeah, this guy worked in like, you know, real shitty radio.
Guest:Like he knows, he knows how to do this stuff.
Marc:Yeah, guerrilla publicity for sure.
Marc:And yeah, I just, I was trying to, and like, you know, I wasn't exactly reinventing the wheel.
Marc:You know, there were, I think there were like,
Marc:the big show on this network was called opie and anthony and it was like howard stern ask like these were raunchy guys who would be doing things and you know they i believe they like said something you know or threw something at al roker at some point i was i was probably just copying them at some point but i was just trying to do something to like drum up publicity um
Marc:So after three months, all the other interns, they're all like saying their goodbyes as the semester's up.
Marc:And like, I didn't want to leave.
Marc:So I walked into the program director's office.
Marc:This guy, Jeremy Coleman, I think you worked for him, right?
Guest:I sure did.
Guest:I worked with him at Sirius, yeah.
Marc:And I walk in and I'm like, hey, man, I would like a job.
Marc:I never miss a shift.
Marc:I'm able to come in on time.
Marc:Whatever you can do, I would love to work here.
Marc:And he gave it a think, and he offered me the job of dump button operator and overnight board op.
Guest:So that was my first job in radio.
Guest:Dump button means you're the guy in charge of the seven-second delay, essentially.
Guest:That if somebody says something on the air that needs to not go out on the public airwaves, you're the line of defense for that.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So the dump... Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Now, this radio station...
Marc:had three dump buttons.
Marc:So it's a 24 second delay.
Marc:So I had to sit in a room and listen to a show live.
Marc:And if someone curses like a caller or a guest or a host, I then have to confirm what I heard by turning down one dial, hearing another dial that's on an eight second delay.
Marc:And then I can then press a button that zaps out four seconds of time.
Guest:It's like the radio equivalent of the Mission Impossible fuse being lit.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So that was my job.
Marc:My first job in radio was just being the dump button guy.
Marc:So yeah, that was...
Marc:It was like slightly stressful, I got to say.
Marc:Like there were FCC fines that were always, you know, touted, you know, if I missed something.
Marc:So, you know, I was kind of stressed out.
Marc:But I was assigned to a show to do the dump button.
Marc:It was the RonandFez.com show.
Marc:They, you know, back in the, I guess they had a very online.
Marc:So they weren't even on the air yet?
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:They had, I guess the internet was like kind of new because it's like, oh, wow.
Marc:It's 1999.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:Yeah, they were like the RonandFizz.com and like that was like their show.
Marc:Like it was strange.
Marc:That's wild.
Marc:Yeah, isn't it?
Marc:And I honestly didn't know too much about it.
Marc:It was a nice little show though.
Marc:Funny, tame compared to like the lewd shit that was happening on The Other Times.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that's definitely true.
Guest:Ron is a guy named Ron Bennington who, you know, I don't know if he still does it to this day.
Guest:But when I was over at Sirius, he hosted a show that was not unlike WTF.
Guest:Like he was like doing a sit down interview.
Guest:It was like called like Ron Unfiltered or something like that.
Guest:And he would just interview other comics and they would talk for an hour and do like a long form interview.
Guest:Yeah, Ron's a good guy.
Guest:Yeah, seemed like a pretty thoughtful, you know, reasonable guy with, you know, with a little radio scumminess in him, but not like a ton.
Marc:I mean, he I think he came from he was like a like a comedy like promote or like he owned a comedy.
Guest:I think that's right.
Marc:So like, you know, he, you know.
Marc:I'm sure there's a lot of stuff going on with it.
Marc:But yeah, after their show ended, I then had to man the board until six in the morning.
Marc:And that was something I learned from an outgoing DJ named Harris Allen.
Marc:And he taught me everything I know about radio.
Marc:He would just tell me about the spot breaks and how to do the microphones and everything.
Marc:So every night for about a month, he watched me do the board and get the programs like Loveline on the air from the satellite.
Marc:So also one weird thing, I had to sign every night.
Marc:I had to sign for a package from a courier, and it was David Letterman's top 10 list.
Marc:And it was on a reel-to-reel.
Marc:It was delivered, hand-delivered.
Marc:And so every night at like 2 a.m., I had to set up the reel-to-reel to play, instead of a commercial break, David Letterman's Top Ten.
Marc:It was really fucking weird.
Guest:Was it fully set up and ready to go?
Guest:Or did you have to cut it at all?
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:It was ready to go.
Marc:Like someone else cut it.
Guest:Did you ever have any experience with that?
Guest:Because I sure did.
Guest:no cutting reel to reel the reel oh my god the worst we could get into that some other day but yeah i'm so by the i mean kids today don't know how good they have it right now like wow push a button you mean you mean you think push a button is pretty good yeah i'd say so
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:So there it was.
Marc:I had this overnight job, you know, and I'm like 19 years old.
Marc:Like, this is like a dream.
Marc:Oh, you must have thought I got life by the bizalls.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I just thought this was cool.
Marc:This is my life now.
Marc:You know, like I leveled up.
Marc:so yeah you know um so i would do the jump the dump button job nightly and uh the board hopping without really interacting too much with ron and fez until one night our caller was being a jerk and i thought it was a good idea to dump that guy from the airwaves like he didn't curse he was just being disrespectful and uh during commercial break i casually told ron that hey i dumped that that jerk from the air and uh and he like kind of freaked out
Guest:I'm sitting here with my mouth.
Guest:I got my jaws open as you're telling me this.
Guest:I can't believe you dumped a collar.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he brought me to the studio, asked me why I did that.
Marc:And I'm apologizing.
Marc:And they're putting the screws to me.
Marc:On the air?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:On the air.
Guest:Oh, so they weren't really mad.
Guest:He knew this is going to be good content.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So, you know, afterwards he was like, yeah, don't worry about it.
Marc:It's fine.
Marc:But, uh, but the next day they do a segment about Ralph Cramden getting a statue at the port authority.
Marc:Uh, you know, a, a Jackie Gleason's character from the honeymooners.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And again, during commercial break, I told them, hey, you know, my dad, who's a bus driver, he loves the Honeymooners.
Marc:We actually have a framed picture of Jackie Gleason above our doorway.
Marc:And it's Jackie Gleason and below him is Jesus.
Marc:And well, now he's like, okay, you've got to come on and talk about it.
Marc:And so now he's got a recurring character on his hands, right?
Marc:I'm the dumpy, the dump boy.
Marc:So that's what, you know, kind of led me into do talk radio.
Marc:But I was telling him about riding with the bus with my dad when I was a kid, like it's a Bronx tale, how we used to pee out the back door when we had to go to the bathroom.
Marc:Like they loved it.
Marc:By the way.
Marc:Again, 19 years old.
Marc:OK, no experience in radio.
Marc:I had a speech therapist up until like five years ago.
Marc:OK, I couldn't say a sentence without stuttering.
Marc:And here I am on the radio in New York City.
Marc:Like it's it's crazy.
Guest:And it was a big deal at the time.
Guest:Like this was not you were not on like a minor station.
Guest:They were making a very big push.
Marc:Yeah, this was like big time.
Marc:So at some point, they had a falling out with their producer.
Marc:And they asked me to be one of their two new producers.
Marc:So now, like six months into my run as the dump button guy, I'm now the producer of this show.
Marc:And now I'm shadowing Fez during the show.
Marc:And he is like, you know, I'm setting up the commercial breaks for him and the bumper music.
Marc:But I'm also like the sidekick of the show.
Marc:I would pop my mic on and like, you know, talk whenever I had something funny to say.
Marc:So, yeah, that was like my life.
Marc:And by the way, Fez would stand up the entire time.
Marc:So I had to stand the entire three or four hours of the of the show.
Marc:So that was like that was like part of the gig.
Marc:So, yeah, it was – I honestly forget how much time elapsed.
Marc:But it was just – at some point, it was just me as the producer of the show.
Marc:And I was in the studio during the show instead of in the side room anymore.
Marc:And, yeah, it was – they had me do some really –
Marc:weird shit like like they they started changing the show so you know it used to be like we could fill a whole episode with hey which is the favorite starburst color you know and uh now it's like hey why don't you uh box some women and uh you know have a baby oil wrestling match or a hot pepper eating contest like stuff like that it was like starting to film stuff too
Guest:They weren't, thank you.
Marc:Oh, that's good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, no, that was still not a thing.
Marc:I mean, I guess camcorders were a thing then, but yeah, it was not, nothing was online.
Marc:Luckily, none of that stuff was online.
Marc:I remember guys taking like pictures of me, but yeah, nothing that you can probably find on the internet these days.
Guest:So did you, you know, you going along with that was like, was that like a, I don't want to be dramatic about it, but like, was that like a kind of bottoming out for you of how it felt as a job?
Marc:Yeah, that was like the beginning of like, oh, wait, I made a huge mistake.
Marc:Like this was I mean, I'm not at bottom, but I'm really, really getting there.
Marc:Like it was turning into like the Jerry Springer show.
Marc:And I was like, wait a second.
Marc:I like I should probably go back to school at some point.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And yeah, it was it was a problem.
Marc:So at some point we got moved to the daytime because we got like great ratings and we actually got a new producer and elated at this point because like I'm again reaching my breaking point.
Marc:And I remember the actual bottom for me was Ron and Fez had one of their old producers pop into the studio and they fed this guy an enema live in the studio and
Marc:And that, that was the bottom for me.
Guest:I was like... Literally, his bottom was your bottom.
Marc:Dude, I was like, what the fuck am I doing with my life?
Marc:Like, am I going to end up like this fucking guy?
Marc:Like, getting an enema, like, on radio?
Marc:Like, yeah.
Marc:I'm like...
Marc:I'm done.
Marc:So we eventually moved back to nights and I'm ready to tap out and not coincidentally, I make like a really bad blunder.
Marc:Like it's a blunder.
Marc:I still think about like during the overnight, like I would usually talk to my girlfriend who lived in Seattle and we would talk every night and I would just be running the board and chatting to stay awake.
Marc:And, uh, and,
Marc:And one night I didn't feel like talking because I was tired and, you know, really kind of depressed and, you know, kind of silly because talking is the only thing keeping me awake basically.
Marc:And I fell asleep on the board for like 20 minutes, dude.
Marc:There's dead air for 20 minutes.
Guest:At like what time?
Guest:Like in the early a.m.
Guest:?
Marc:Like 4 a.m.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:It was, I mean, I woke up disoriented and there are alarms going off.
Marc:It's like a, it's like a, like Defcon one.
Guest:It's like, it's like when a Homer does something wrong in the power plant.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I'm Homer at that point.
Marc:And I'm just pressing all the buttons to make it go away.
Marc:Eenie, meenie, miney.
Oh,
Marc:I can't believe I'm actually saying that.
Guest:I know your face is red right now.
Guest:It's like I can tell that this is a terrible trauma memory for you.
Guest:I don't mean to make you relive it.
It's fine.
Marc:Oh, so I had to go to the program's office and apologize.
Marc:And Ron and Fez, they said that they vouched for me and begged him not to fire me.
Marc:And I'll be honest with you, I kind of wish they didn't because I was planning to leave anyway.
Marc:Like it's been three years now and I abandoned school for this job and it wasn't going anywhere.
Marc:And I realized I got to go back to school.
Marc:You know, my buddy was going to Australia for a month in August.
Marc:And asked if I wanted to come with them.
Marc:And I was like, yes.
Marc:Yes, I do.
Marc:I gave my two weeks notice.
Marc:And they fucking hated me for it.
Marc:Because I honestly think they really thought I was going to be a lifer with them.
Guest:Dude, Jeremy Coleman brought it up to me.
Guest:What?
Guest:When I went to work for Sirius.
Guest:I was saying where I worked.
Guest:And I came from Air America.
Guest:And he was like.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:Like, it was just like, oh, Air America.
Guest:I knew a bunch of people that went there.
Guest:One of them, Chris Lopresto, he left and went to Australia.
Guest:Like, it was a memorable thing for them.
Marc:Are you serious?
Marc:Totally serious.
Marc:First of all, I can't believe he said he went to Australia and not, oh, yeah, he's the guy who fell asleep on the board.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:No, I never knew that story until you just told it.
Guest:So, yeah, he didn't say that.
Marc:I got to say, my heart skipped a little bit.
Marc:That's amazing.
Yeah.
Guest:But I should say, he wasn't saying it in a happy way.
Marc:No, yeah.
Marc:That's fine.
Guest:He was clearly not happy with the memory that you had abandoned him for going on vacation in Australia.
Marc:Guys, sometimes you just need to pull the ripcord.
Marc:You just need to make a change.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:And this was the perfect excuse.
Guest:When you saw your future, a guy literally up his own ass with an animal...
Marc:Yes, I did.
Marc:I'm not I'm not here for it, man.
Marc:But yeah, this trip to Australia was awesome.
Marc:I highly recommend it to anyone.
Marc:Go see the fucking world.
Marc:Like do that shit when you can when you're a kid because you cannot do it when you're an adult.
Guest:You know, it was just you need very specific circumstances to have to break your way and do it when you're an adult.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I came back refreshed.
Marc:I went back to college.
Marc:I can't believe this, but my first class back, I'm asking a question to the professor, and the girl in front of me whips her head around and is like...
Marc:are you dumpy what are you serious she like recognized my voice so yeah that was that was fun oh my god that's hilarious yeah i i later uh set that girl up with uh chris rosen actually no kidding our friend chris so now chris worked at wnew as well
Marc:Yeah, he was another dump guy.
Guest:Yes, he was ONA's dump guy.
Marc:Yes, which was like the primo.
Guest:Yeah, he's the prime dump guy.
Marc:He's the Cadillac of dumpies.
Marc:He later was the dump guy for like...
Marc:Who did it after Howard Stern left?
Marc:It was like... David Lee Roth.
Marc:David Lee Roth.
Marc:He did the dump button.
Marc:He was the dump button extraordinaire for the high-end folks.
Marc:So, yeah.
Marc:Our buddy Chris Rosen.
Guest:Chris Rosen, who you could go look at all his Oscar predictions at goldderby.com.
Guest:That's where he works now after a long period of time at Entertainment Weekly.
Guest:But so now, okay, you go back to school.
Guest:What's this transition to Air America?
Guest:How does that happen?
Marc:Well...
Marc:After I went back to school, 9-11 happened.
Marc:And I was, like, just kind of bummed I wasn't there on the radio.
Marc:So I was, like, I started, you know, getting involved with my school newspaper and, like, their radio station.
Marc:And, you know, this entire time I was working a night job to pay for college because, like, my parents used up all the money that they saved from my college on their divorce.
Marc:So...
Marc:You know, I've been, you know, my, my days were like, you know, busy.
Marc:And then one day my dad and his wife decided to move back into the house I was living in and they threw me out.
Marc:And now I had to find a place to live, pay for that place, work and go to school.
Marc:It was a fucking nightmare.
Marc:Like my grades tanked.
Marc:I found like a full-time job as an assistant to an art director in the city.
Marc:That's actually where I was when the blackout happened in 2003.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was like, that was a continuing to low point of my life.
Marc:Like this was, you know, I had no parental support for five whole years.
Guest:I had a pretty important time too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I was just out there on my own trying to do what I thought was best.
Marc:It was like, it sucked.
Marc:It was like, it was not fun.
Marc:But throughout all that time, I was still good friends with our pal Chris Rosen.
Marc:And he's the one who told me about Air America and that they're looking for board ops that filled some shifts.
Marc:I met with the woman doing the hiring.
Marc:I think it was like Amy Winslow.
Guest:That was, yeah, that was Amy's job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she, and she assigned me to your show.
Guest:Well, that's funny because she was an old radio head.
Guest:Like she was, she went to, I think maybe not WNEW, but like WABC or something like that.
Guest:One of the, one of the Midtown radio stations.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think she, that's the reason why she did the interview.
Marc:She was like, oh yeah, I can tell a radio person when I see one.
Marc:So yeah.
Marc:So that's, that's luckily for Amy, I got a job on your show.
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And meanwhile, Chris Rosen was still the Cadillac of board op guys.
Guest:He gets Al Frankenshaw.
Guest:You're stuck in the morning with us losers.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Which was funny because I would later go on to do Rachel's show, which was on right after you.
Marc:Rachel Maddow, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, so Chris Rose and I would just have a nice two minutes to chat, laugh it up, talk about movies, probably bad boys, and then off he goes to do his shift.
Marc:So yeah, that's how I came into your life.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:That is the origin of Chris Lopresto into the WTF universe.
Guest:Amazing.
Guest:Jeez.
Guest:Hey, look, that is not a straight line, dude.
Guest:There's not a lot of people
Guest:who have that story of like, I just showed up at one of the biggest radio stations in New York City and they gave me a job.
Guest:So that's pretty crazy.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It was kind of traumatic thinking about it back.
Marc:Like I know Mark was saying, it's like, you know, trauma does so much to like your memory, you know, like gaps.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, there's so many gaps.
Marc:And just thinking about this stuff just brought up so many emotions.
Marc:And I don't know, I just feel so vulnerable by just sharing it, honestly.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, I will reciprocate at some time when we have another one of these WTF Origins.
Guest:with Mark.
Guest:I think the next one we'll plan to do is on the Mark Maron show.
Guest:And I will offer to flip the seats here.
Guest:You can ask me about my progression to becoming the producer of WTF in whichever way you want.
Guest:I will gladly lay myself bare for that.
Guest:It does not involve any enemas, I can assure you.
Marc:You see what happens, Larry?
Guest:Well, let us wrap things up here quickly with some of the reaction that we got for recent things that we did on the show here.
Guest:The Matt B. Davis episode, episode 1499, still continues to get so much reaction.
Guest:And now it's not just reaction coming into the emails to the show.
Guest:It's reaction coming in directly to us based on our Friday show.
Guest:And I love all of it.
Guest:I really have to say there has not been one bit of feedback that's come in that is, you know, in any way, particularly troublesome to me.
Guest:They're all just it's all people reacting in their own way to the show.
Guest:And that includes people saying that.
Guest:that mark was an asshole matt was an asshole they loved the way we handled it they didn't know why we handled it the way we did it's it's really perfectly great and so i don't really feel the need to have to you know kind of highlight any one particular opinion on the episode over the other but i did want to bring this up this is from uh ryan who i think is a ryan who has sent stuff to us before it might not be might be another ryan if you're another ryan sorry
Guest:But I think this is a Ryan who has sent questions in to us before.
Guest:And he had this particular question.
Guest:Hey, guys, did either of you get the sense that Matt Davis was trying to manufacture a classic WTF episode?
Guest:It seemed that way to me early on.
Guest:And when he came out with those questions, I thought, here we go.
Guest:It was like engineered authenticity or something.
Guest:Ooh.
Guest:And listen, I am not going to try to guess Matt Davis's motivations.
Guest:You picking up on that is interesting, though, because Mark and I have absolutely had to be on guard for that in the past for people who have said, I'm a huge fan of the show.
Guest:One of them specifically, I remember this very clearly, was Jon Favreau, who...
Guest:who knew the show very well he knew it like like quoting back episodes to mark like oh i loved when this happened i love when this happened that happened and he was definitely trying to produce his episode as he was a guest like interesting it it definitely happens so like you know there's did that happen with matt davis i
Guest:I don't want to say for sure, but like I could understand why it would feel that way.
Guest:And yeah, Ryan wasn't the only one that noticed it.
Guest:I had seen another email or I think it was a comment coming directly to us that said, was the Matt B. Davis episode a bit?
Guest:It almost seemed like a bit at times.
Guest:And when I first saw that, I was like,
Guest:why would this guy think it was a bit?
Guest:I was like, I just explained what it was, but now I get it.
Guest:It's like, this person was listening to it going like, there seems like something's manufactured here.
Guest:And very well could have been that like.
Marc:A super fan trying to bring back like a good old fashioned, you know, WTF moment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like I remember with Favreau, there was like at times where like Mark asked him something and he was like, oh, okay, well I have this.
Guest:Like, and like he like shifted the conversation to another point, like where he was like talking.
Guest:Now he's talking about like, oh, this thing that happened to him when he was younger.
Guest:And it's like, oh, he thinks he's supposed to go back to the childhood here.
Guest:Like, cause that's what the structure of the episode is to him.
Yeah.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Marc:That's episode 344, which I'm going to listen to as soon as we're done with this.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Go right ahead.
Guest:That's a really good one.
Guest:And Jon Favreau, I should say, has not just been a fan of the show.
Guest:He remains a fan of the show and is one of the people who convinced Albert Brooks to eventually do the show.
Guest:How did he do, how did he convince him to do that?
Guest:He just kept on him forever.
Guest:He was like, they apparently go like on walks together.
Guest:And Jon Favreau was like, you gotta do WTF.
Guest:Like, I want to hear it.
Guest:And you know, Albert was like, I don't know.
Guest:And yeah, he eventually, uh, you know, helped seal the deal on that one.
Guest:I think, I mean, I would just think that over time being like heckled by Jon Favreau is going to do that.
Marc:Well, you would think he would stop taking walks with him if he was really bothered.
Guest:Yeah, he'd just run the other way.
Guest:Okay, real quick here.
Guest:I want to address some of the buddy movie things that came in.
Guest:Some of the things that we didn't talk about, and it really is probably just because of some blind spots.
Guest:Like, Sonya recommended Dude, Where's My Car?
Guest:I've never seen it.
Guest:Have you ever seen it?
Guest:Never.
Guest:Never.
Marc:I only know it from the name.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:And I think it just fell in a period of time where I was like not going to movies that often.
Guest:Another one that came in that this person said, hey, this is not just a good buddy comedy.
Guest:It's one of those ones where the sequel is as good as the original Rush Hour.
Guest:I have never seen rush hour two.
Guest:I remember seeing rush hour one, but here was the deal with me and rush hour one.
Guest:I was way into Jackie Chan, Hong Kong action films.
Guest:So like rush hour was a step down for me.
Guest:And I was like, I don't do it.
Guest:Like it was only like five seconds of him doing actual Jackie Chan shit in this.
Guest:So I didn't ever have a real soft spot for rush hour.
Guest:And it never, like, I never hung around with it.
Guest:But I've never watched Rush Hour 2.
Guest:I should give it a shot.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Did you ever see those?
Marc:I never did.
Marc:It's like on my blind spot.
Marc:I'm just like, I like Jackie Chan movies.
Marc:I just, I feel like it would be like, like you said, a step down or just like a parody of a Jackie Chan movie.
Guest:Yeah, I guess I got to give it.
Guest:I know that I remember Rush Hour.
Guest:I don't remember much about it, but I remember also Tom Wilkinson.
Guest:The late Tom Wilkinson is the bad guy in it.
Guest:So if anything, I should give it another watch just in honor of him.
Guest:Yeah, for the bread.
Guest:It's so soft.
Guest:All right.
Guest:So then we got this comment from Dylan, who had a very nice detailed comment about WTF in general, what it's meant to him over the years.
Guest:So Dylan, thank you for sending that.
Guest:But then he had this as well.
Guest:He said, I know you guys were talking about buddy comedies, and I thought one that fit the mismatched pair of cops would be Black Rain.
Guest:I always thought it had funny parts, but it turns from buddy to mismatch right in the middle.
Guest:All right.
Guest:So if he's talking about Black Rain, the Michael Douglas Yakuza movie.
Guest:All right.
Guest:I definitely saw that when I was younger.
Guest:And my only memory of it is that his buddy cop partner, if he's considered, if this is the buddy cop he's talking about, it's Andy Garcia who literally gets his head cut off like an hour into the middle.
Marc:They're an odd couple.
Marc:One of them has a head, the other one doesn't.
Guest:This guy's looking this way.
Guest:This guy's not looking at all.
Guest:So, yeah, Dylan, I'm not sure that's exactly what I was thinking of with buddy cops.
Guest:But, yeah, they're definitely mismatched.
Guest:Ridley Scott directed that movie, huh?
Guest:Yeah, I don't think it's a comedy at all.
Guest:But look, it's been probably 35 years since I saw it.
Guest:Someone else recommended the movie Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.
Guest:Again, never saw it, but I've heard it recommended a lot.
Guest:I probably should check it out.
Guest:But this person also asked about Abbott and Costello or Cheech and Chong films.
Guest:Do they qualify?
Guest:And I would say...
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:I mean, Abbott and Costello, that's a buddy comedy.
Guest:That's the whole point.
Guest:And that goes back to anything like Hope and Crosby movies or like, I don't know, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Guest:There's just so many, you know, Cheech and Chong, classic, you know, stoner comedy buddies.
Guest:But I think that for the purposes of modern movies,
Guest:buddy comedy formula, you're going off of 48 hours, right?
Guest:Like that was the, that's like the diehard of this conversation, right?
Guest:Like obviously before diehard, there were a, you know, disaster in a place movies, but diehard set a certain template.
Guest:And I think 48 hours did that for the modern buddy comedy, but yeah, absolutely Abbott and Costello or like, you know, uh, road to Zanzibar, anything like that could work, uh, in, in this format.
Guest:Um,
Guest:Okay, last thing.
Guest:And this is a great, great shame of mine that we forgot this one.
Guest:What's that?
Guest:Someone said that the best buddy comedy is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Guest:and it's like that hurts yes it hurts that we forgot it absolutely yeah oh my god one of the great movies of the last decade and one of my favorite movies and Chris and I what would you say we've seen it six seven times in the theater yeah another dozen times or so outside of the theater we've seen it in the theater together I think three times yes that's right we got drunk at one of them yeah yeah
Marc:Whiskey Sours, baby.
Marc:Yeah, we drank a lot of Whiskey Sours.
Marc:Can I tell you why it hurts me most?
Marc:Because I was thinking when you tasked me with this buddy comedy or buddy comedies, I was thinking, well, does Pulp Fiction fall into this category?
Marc:And I decided, no, it does not because there's all these other characters.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That's a problem with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, too, that it's so deep and there's so many rich elements of it that go beyond the two buddies.
Guest:But man, it's about buddies.
Guest:It's totally a buddy.
Guest:It ends with the guy sending his buddy off to the ambulance and telling him he's a good friend.
Guest:Like, that's a buddy movie.
Marc:Damn it.
Marc:I'm watching that movie tomorrow.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, here's the other way we're going to rectify this.
Guest:And this goes back to a suggestion that came in from the very same Ryan who asked us about the Matt B. Davis episode.
Guest:He asked if we had any plans to talk about Pulp Fiction, which this year celebrates its 30th anniversary.
Yeah.
Guest:Is it really 30?
Guest:30 years.
Guest:30 years in May when it was at Cannes Film Festival and then 30 years in October when it was released.
Guest:And so because it's 30 years in October, I think what we will do is once a month, Chris and I will do one of the nine Quentin Tarantino films in order.
Guest:Oh, hell yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:I'm in.
Guest:And that will get us up to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Guest:And maybe by the time we get to that one toward the end of the year, we will know something about his 10th film, which he has not announced other than that it's called The Critic.
Marc:The 10th film thing is so stupid.
Marc:I'm sorry, Quentin, if you're listening to this.
Marc:Oh, I'm sure he is.
Marc:You don't have to just make, you don't have to make 10 movies, guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:This guy's watching Martin Scorsese show up at every award show, like the most celebrated American alive.
Guest:And he's like, yeah, you know what?
Guest:I'm going to be done at 10 for no reason.
Guest:How about, how about no?
Guest:Come on.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, so keep that in mind.
Guest:We will do that in the future.
Guest:And if any of you have suggestions for us, things to cover here on the Friday show, in addition to all the WTF content we have, just send it in.
Guest:Go to the link in the episode description.
Guest:It's right there for you.
Guest:We'll keep track of them because there were a bunch of other ones that I haven't mentioned here that will definitely come up and we will we will do them as topics here on the show.
Guest:So thank you for your feedback.
Guest:This Friday show is your show as much as it is ours.
Guest:And until the next time, I'm Brendan, and that's Chris.
Guest:Peace!