BONUS The Friday Show - Gladiators, Ready!
Guest:They had the joust, which was pugil stick boxing, right?
Guest:You look like giant Q-tips.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And they hit each other with those.
Guest:The one that's just, these guys were just getting so creamed.
Guest:It was basically like what we used to call, we used to call in recess, kill the guy with the ball.
Guest:That was literally what they were playing.
Yeah.
Marc:Hey, Chris.
Marc:Brendan, I just booked my three day, two night stay at Milf Manor.
Marc:So I'm ready to talk.
Marc:Oh, Milf Manor.
Marc:Very good.
Marc:You know, I don't know if you know that there's a twist on that show.
Guest:Okay, wait, hang on a second.
Guest:In case anybody didn't listen to the bonus content from earlier this week, Mark and I were talking about Succession, but I pointed out to him that far be it from HBO having any kind of prominence on the new Max app, in fact, I couldn't even find Succession.
Guest:I had to search for it in the toolbar.
Guest:So stupid.
Guest:And meanwhile, the thing that they were featuring, the thing they very much wanted me to watch when I logged into Max was Milf Manor.
Guest:And you're telling me there's some, first of all, that was the first time I ever heard of it.
Guest:I never, and I'm tapped in.
Guest:I didn't know there was a show called Milf Manor.
Guest:I don't know what it's on.
Guest:Now I know it's on Max because I saw it on my app, but I don't know anything else about Milf Manor.
Marc:What can you tell me about Milf Manor?
Marc:Well, I guess my algorithm is set to MILF.
Marc:You're getting fed that very frequently?
Marc:Yes, apparently.
Marc:Even MILF-adjacent shows?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:The whole MILF universe.
Marc:Spider-Milf.
Marc:The MCU.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Milf Cinematic Universe.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But do you know that there's an actual twist to this show?
Marc:You're going to tell me because I did not know.
Marc:Eight single Milfs, which is such a weird sentence to say.
Marc:And the eight single men that they're in the manor with.
Marc:Are also Milfs?
Marc:They're all their sons.
Right.
Marc:No.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That's perverse.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely it is.
Marc:Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Guest:Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
Guest:Hold on.
Guest:So many questions.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Do they know that they're their sons when they signed up, when they showed up?
Guest:No.
Guest:So they showed up and they see all these hunks and it turns out they're all their sons?
Marc:They walk them through with a little partition and then they open the partition and each woman one after the other is like, wait a second, that's my son over there.
Marc:So yeah, it was a twist for the Mills apparently.
Marc:So wait a minute.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Next obvious question.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Are you allowed to pick your own son?
Marc:Well, no, apparently, because some of the challenges, and I'm guessing it's like a survivor type format.
Guest:Oh, I bet it is.
Guest:Survive with your soul intact.
Marc:So some of the challenges were that a MILF had to be blindfolded, and then they had to guess their son by feeling their torso.
Guest:No.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Is Kay Parker the host of this show?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Is this called Milf Manor Taboo?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Another challenge was the sons had to massage the women and the milfs had to guess which masseuse was their son.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:Critics have described the show as a psychological torture and a Freudian horror.
Yeah.
Marc:That's from Wikipedia.
Marc:How about that?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I had no idea you were going to spring this on me, and it is actually so appropriate for what we are going to talk about today.
Marc:Why is that?
Guest:Well, the whole...
Guest:Let's just get into it.
Guest:So here's the deal.
Guest:Let's kind of pineapple upside down cake this episode, okay?
Guest:Because normally what we do is we kind of front load the show with stuff about WTF, some of the episodes that just happened.
Guest:I can give you some behind the scenes stuff.
Guest:You know what we're going to do?
Guest:We're going to hold off on that because this is the perfect segue for the thing that we were going to actually talk about today, which was American Gladiators.
Guest:What?
Guest:Why?
Guest:Why are we going to talk about American Gladiators?
Marc:Why not?
Guest:Well, there is a new documentary on ESPN as part of the 30 for 30 series.
Guest:And I said to Chris, hey, we should watch this because I started thinking about like...
Guest:Other things that were like wrestling adjacent when we were younger.
Guest:And like, what happened to them?
Guest:Like, why is wrestling the only one that kind of survived?
Guest:Is there like a reason for that?
Guest:Because there were lots.
Guest:Like, I used to remember watching a thing called Roller... Was it Roller Jam?
Guest:Or Roller... Roller Games!
Guest:Rock and roller games.
Guest:It was called it was it was roller derby, but it was like done like WWF like it was it was a full on like they attempted to turn it into a thing.
Guest:It did not succeed.
Guest:You know, I grew up in upstate New York for a large portion of my childhood.
Guest:We didn't have cable TV.
Guest:I remember seeing tons of commercials for like monster truck rallies, slot car races, you know, uh, uh, you know, on the Simpsons where they do like the truckasaurus.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like Homer and Bart go to truckasaurus, a commercial they watch, they see while watching wrestling, by the way, on that episode, total same exact thing used to happen in my house.
Guest:Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:We did have Mark Green, uh,
Guest:We didn't go to them.
Guest:We never were that interested, but we sure saw them.
Guest:And American Gladiators was one of those things that just came on and it had to run, you know, I guess it was like maybe five years or so before it went away.
Guest:Uh, but you know, it just got me thinking like, this is a weird, like footnote in television.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And why did this happen?
Guest:What was it?
Guest:What, you know, was it trying to capitalize on wrestling or something?
Guest:And so I figured let's watch this documentary and we could talk about it.
Guest:And, uh, and you, and we both did, right.
Guest:You, you watched, uh, well before I did, I, you certainly told me, oh yeah, I watched the whole thing.
Guest:It's done.
Marc:yeah yeah and i i gotta say i first encountered this show during like saturday afternoons usually after reruns of knight rider or the a-team or or even like the wwf had a sunday morning show like i think it was called like superstars of wrestling or something exactly what it was yeah was it yeah and i used to watch that religiously um and this show came on and it's basically double dare for adults and
Guest:Totally what I thought while I was watching it again right now.
Guest:It's like, you know, the one thing that lasted longer than this thing were the kid versions.
Guest:Like it was Double Dare and Guts and the Legends of the Hidden Temple.
Guest:And it's like, hey, you know why those things lasted?
Guest:Because they weren't killing the people.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Like the floor is lava.
Marc:The floor is lava is working because no one's going to, you know, pop out a shoulder.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Maybe not.
Guest:I mean, like, I don't know.
Guest:Sometimes I watch that floor is lava and I'm like, that person just got fucked up.
Guest:Like, I can't believe they're not dead.
Marc:I would not do well on that show.
Marc:I still, like, hold my nose when I go underwater.
Marc:And I don't want to be in that red water.
Marc:I don't know what that is.
Guest:Yeah, you don't come up, apparently.
Guest:You just go down and it's the end of you forever.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But I will say, American Gladiators, kind of a blur for me, like, because it is mindless TV, right?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:No brain cells to it.
Guest:I mean, I never got attached to the gladiators.
Guest:This documentary was trying to make it out like they all had these personalities.
Guest:They were all interchanged.
Guest:There was one I, as a kid, I had a crush on.
Guest:Her name was Lace.
Guest:And she wasn't in this documentary.
Guest:And I was like, oh, I love Lace.
Marc:I had a crush on Blaze.
Marc:And that was the only gladiator I actually recalled.
Guest:Yes, same.
Guest:By name, I only remembered.
Guest:And then when they were showing these ones, it was like, oh, yeah, Nitro, Gemini, sure.
Guest:But I had no attachment to them while I was watching it.
Guest:None, right?
Guest:And Blaze also did not participate in this documentary.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But yeah, I didn't have a sense of the show.
Guest:It had no lasting nostalgia with me from like, oh, I was really attached to these people or I got into the competition of it.
Guest:But I will always remember the games, like the actual events that they did, which were awesome.
Guest:That's the reason the show succeeded was because they had these very clever...
Guest:type of physical competitions that merged sports with like weird technology.
Guest:Like they had that one where they raced around on the sky, the sky race or whatever that was.
Marc:I actually don't remember that one, but I saw it and I was like, I kind of want to do that.
Marc:That looks fun.
Guest:Except they said everybody threw up when doing it.
Marc:Yeah, that's not great.
Marc:But there was Atlas Fear.
Marc:There was Assault.
Guest:Assault was great.
Guest:Assault was really great.
Guest:That was where you had to go behind these little bunkers and use some type of weapon to try to shoot a target.
Guest:And under the target, the gladiator stood there with a tennis ball cannon and just tried to obliterate you with tennis balls.
Guest:Which actually, of all the things, it looked like the most safe.
Guest:They show one guy getting one in the eye, but he had goggles on, and that one didn't look so bad.
Guest:There were plenty of ones where people got concussed or broke bones or something.
Guest:That was like the human cannonball was one where they would put a person on a pedestal, and then the competitor would have to swing into the gladiator, try to knock him off the pedestal.
Guest:They had the joust, which was pugil stick boxing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You look like giant Q-tips.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they hit each other with those.
Guest:I mean, I guess that's as violent as actual boxing.
Guest:You know, you take a shot to the head, you could get really hurt.
Guest:The one that's just was was these guys were just getting so creamed was it was basically like what we used to call or we used to call in recess, kill the guy with the ball.
Guest:That was literally what they were playing.
Yeah.
Guest:That's like the old shoot the freak at Coyote.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:And this was like, there were these little buckets around a football green, but there was no grass.
Guest:This was like a little thin carpet rolled out over the floor.
Guest:And you would have to run and try to dunk these balls into these baskets that were, you know, upright.
Guest:They look like, you know, like bouncy clowns, you know, like where you punch a clown and it falls over.
Guest:So, like, if you went to dunk your ball into this basket, there was a chance you would push the basket over and not get a score.
Guest:Like, you had to have a skill in throwing it in.
Guest:Because, meanwhile, there's a gladiator chasing you, trying to throw you to the ground.
Guest:So, like...
Guest:Yeah, all these things you're thinking about.
Guest:And and they were showing the footage of it.
Guest:And like, you know, people just getting wrestling takedowns on people like by the waist, full like suplex onto this ground and dead, you know, like head head and shoulders into the mush.
Guest:Pancaked.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So that looked like it was no fun.
Guest:Also the one where they were doing arm over arm on like rings.
Guest:There were rings hanging from the ceiling.
Marc:Oh, that one sucked.
Guest:And you had to just do arm over arm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the gladiator would just get a hold of you and just yank you to death.
Marc:Like they would climb on you.
Marc:And so you have to support now the gladiator and you're just ruined.
Marc:Just dead.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They also didn't go through the final game, which I always loved.
Marc:Great.
Guest:Well, what's interesting, I thought the same thing.
Guest:They didn't show this final game, which is the one thing that which I think was called the Eliminator.
Guest:And it was basically an obstacle course.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that is the one thing that has a legacy.
Guest:Because it's what that American Ninja Warrior or whatever.
Guest:Like, there's those many shows.
Guest:There's one on Netflix that's called Beast Wars or something like that, I think.
Guest:There are all these kind of popular obstacle course shows that are mainly taking on, like, just total physical skill tasks.
Guest:Like, you have to have good upper body strength so you could do, like, a bicycle thing with your hands and get over a, you know, swing over a gap or whatever.
Guest:Or a treadmill that's inconsistent.
Guest:Yeah, there's like a definite like parkour element to them too, right?
Guest:Like you have to be able to like jump from place to place.
Guest:And that, yeah, I found it weird that it didn't include that in the documentary because it is the thing that had the closest legacy.
Marc:And also at the end, you have to bust through a thin sheet of paper where- There were four.
Guest:You had a choice of four thin sheets of paper and there are gladiators behind three.
Guest:Yes, yes.
Marc:So if you burst through a piece of paper and there's no gladiator, you're basically free to go.
Marc:If you burst through a piece of paper and there's a gladiator waiting with like a pillow and just like beating you with it, it was horrific.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, this documentary, now this documentary, let me just say this.
Guest:It did not have to be two parts and three hours long.
Marc:It really did.
Guest:You could have told this story in one hour.
Guest:And I mean a TV hours, right?
Guest:So like 44 minutes.
Guest:So listen, if you're interested in watching this on ESPN as part of their 30 for 30 series, you can maybe like watch, you can skip around.
Guest:Because there's this big story that they're trying to tell underneath the telling of American Gladiators about how the guy who...
Guest:created it, stole the idea from another guy who, you know, essentially invented these gladiator games as part of a steelworkers picnic, right?
Guest:Like they lived in Pennsylvania.
Guest:This guy was a steelworker, big badass arm wrestle type of guy.
Guest:And he invented all these
Guest:like field games that they would do during steelworker picnics.
Guest:And they eventually started like selling tickets to them because people just like going drinking beers and watching guys do tug of wars and pugil boxing.
Guest:Like they were doing the stuff that you literally see on American Gladiators, which I understand why the guy would want to steal it from him.
Guest:It's the one successful thing about the show was how cool some of these games were.
Guest:So anyway, there's a whole story about the guy stealing the idea from him.
Guest:I found no interest in that.
Marc:I don't know how you felt about that.
Marc:Yeah, same, same.
Marc:If anything, I felt throughout the entire thing, I was like, wow, this feels so familiar.
Marc:And it felt so familiar to me because it's the...
Marc:Same old story that I've heard from shitty promoters ripping off people, be it WCW or Vince McMahon.
Marc:It just felt like, oh my God, this is the same.
Marc:I've seen this story a million times now.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, okay.
Guest:The seeing of this story a million times is interesting because...
Guest:Forget about them stealing the idea from his buddy or whatever.
Guest:The central guy here in this documentary is the one guy who is the huckster, right?
Guest:Like whether he thought of the idea or not, he was the salesman.
Guest:Johnny Ferraro is his name, right?
Guest:He was an Elvis impersonator.
Guest:He's exactly what you think an Elvis impersonator would be like.
Guest:And, you know, basically a unscrupulous,
Guest:Ambition-driven fame and money chaser, clout chaser.
Marc:I mean, he's basically the perfect combination of Elvis and the Colonel from the Elvis story.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You just smoosh them both together and you get this guy.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:You look at a guy like that, and it is just like you said.
Guest:You've seen this story many times.
Guest:You've seen this in Vince McMahon.
Guest:You've seen it in, frankly, Lorne Michaels, right?
Guest:Just like someone who basically is an impresario and has an idea for their vision to become the dominant form of some type of entertainment, right?
Guest:The main difference is...
Guest:With those things, WWF, Saturday Night Live, those things had staying power.
Guest:They're both still very powerful today.
Guest:There are no signs of going anywhere, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:If you watch any kind of documentary that features Vince McMahon or any kind of documentary that features Lorne Michaels or features people talking about them even without them participating in it,
Guest:One of the things you come away with is like, these guys are very cagey.
Guest:They're not going to show their cards.
Guest:They're going to play everything kind of close to the vest and be in charge of the narrative.
Guest:Lorne Michaels, I can say this as a guy who sat in a room with him as he was being interviewed by Mark, he does not...
Guest:give an inch.
Guest:Whatever he's giving to you is his choice.
Guest:It is not like you're going to get him in some area where he's going to be stuck in a gotcha and you're going to expose the history of SNL or whatever.
Guest:These are smart guys.
Guest:Whatever you want to talk about their ethics or their morals or whatever, they have been able to keep control of the image of this thing that they are selling.
Guest:This guy was so low rent.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And the documentary maker is making a fool of this guy multiple times because the guy doesn't know when to shut up.
Guest:He reminded me of the Tiger King, right?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Another fool who hoisted himself on his own petard, right?
Guest:Like a guy doomed to failure because of his big mouth, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so watching this, I'm like, oh, this is the answer to my overall question of why did this thing not last?
Guest:Because this guy was not just a scumbag, which they all are, like all these promoters and whatnot.
Guest:Right.
Guest:A con artist fool who was always running from his own shadow or trying to squeeze the last drop of money from his workers.
Guest:He was basically what Paul Heyman would have been if Paul Heyman was the guy in charge of all of wrestling.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like Paul Heyman, which we watched that Dark Side of the Ring.
Guest:Like you see how he was running ECW and like a total scumbag who basically probably cost lots of people their lives, definitely cost them money and only to this day does not have some terrible reputation because ECW was like a third rate fan.
Guest:wrestling federation he they went away and then he started working for wwe and now he's just like an on-screen guy he's thought of as a smart mind in the business but same deal like a guy who was doomed to failure because of who he was and because and and that led to a total uh
Guest:Awful working situation for most of these people who were exploited and chewed up and spat on the ground.
Guest:This and by the way, this was the same way it was in wrestling in the 80s and 90s.
Guest:Like those people were made to do 300 shows.
Guest:And they were all on drugs to help their bodies get through it.
Guest:And they were constantly under the threat of having their spot taken away from them.
Guest:So all this same stuff was happening in wrestling.
Guest:You just had a guy in Vince McMahon who was a better businessman and a more savvy operator who got away with it.
Guest:Then this guy who, you know, let it all go to pot.
Guest:And then meanwhile, the people whose lives it was decimating, they just they had no hope because there wasn't even there wasn't even any money left for them to get some kind of payoff at the end of this, which was usually in these stories is the saddest part.
Guest:It was definitely sad here.
Guest:And I guess in the end, I'm watching it.
Guest:I'm like, man.
Guest:Everything in this level is better today.
Guest:So whatever you're talking about with MILF Manor, like, boy, you're talking about like the lowest common denominator, race to the bottom type of entertainment, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And at least...
Guest:There's not going to be shit like this happening again, where you're just like, oh, yeah, they got everybody hooked on drugs and they, you know, just told like it's it's like the corporate culture that allows these things to survive has to make sure that like you're not killing people or you're not, you know, destroying lives in the process of doing it.
Guest:You know, however, they want to treat their sons when they go home after massaging them is their own business.
Yeah.
Guest:But yeah, it's the same feeling I have with AEW today versus WWE in the past, where it's like, man, the pull of nostalgia is not enough to make me feel like that was better.
Guest:Like, no, no, no, it is way better today.
Guest:And frankly, I am...
Guest:you know me and I'm more than willing to cut off any type of like entertainment option where I feel like stuff isn't being treated on the up and up.
Guest:Like I, I I've abandoned most anything where I'm like, Nope, can't support this.
Guest:Mostly with sports.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like I cut out the NFL.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It was like, nope, can't do it anymore.
Guest:Even we were talking about this week.
Guest:I'm like, I do not like how baseball fans are so racist to the players.
Guest:And that alone is enough for me, like a lifelong baseball fan to start being like, I might not want to watch this anymore.
Guest:Like, I do not like the fans booing black players or Latino players because they like are styling and bat flip or something or,
Marc:Or just performing poorly in that game.
Marc:God forbid.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's not a good look, fans.
Marc:I mean, can you imagine being a golf fan this week?
Marc:That's what I was just about to bring up.
Marc:Holy crap.
Marc:How do you circle that square, man?
Marc:You can't.
Guest:There's I mean, the only way you can is to literally admit that you treat it as fantasy and you do not take any of the moral implications into play when you're watching something like this.
Guest:You cannot watch in case anyone doesn't know what we're talking about.
Guest:The PGA was bought.
Guest:Essentially, they call it a merger.
Guest:It is not a merger.
Guest:They were bought by the Saudi government.
Guest:which owned a rival league called Liv, L-I-V, and the Saudi government basically now owns all of professional golf.
Guest:And this was after the PGA made some big stand about their players not being a part of Liv Golf, and they weren't going to take money from the Saudis.
Guest:I guess they weren't going to take money unless it was a gigantic amount of money.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah, they had to sweeten the all for just a bit.
Marc:I mean, I don't golf.
Marc:I don't give a shit.
Marc:But I have to think that if you're a golfer, you're like, oh, this is dirty now.
Marc:Like, I don't know.
Marc:Like, maybe there's something else that I can do with my Sundays or, you know, stop watching like golf now.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I feel like it's a weird thing.
Guest:Like it's a, it's a sign of the future too.
Guest:Like what's going to prevent this from happening a lot.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, I mean, it's all just kind of loops back around to the fact that like, you know, Mark said it on the bonus episode we did this week when we were talking about HBO turning into Max and he was like, man, it's just like this race to the garbage cultural bottom.
Guest:And yeah, I agree with that kind of stuff, but man, oh man.
Guest:It could always be worse and has been worse.
Guest:And say what you want about something that could be considered low-rent entertainment, like MILF Manor or whatever.
Guest:They're not killing the people the way that they were doing in American Gladiators.
Guest:And you watch this thing.
Guest:It's not just this scumbag guy who created the thing.
Guest:It's like the Samuel Goldwyn company or whatever.
Guest:It's like the production entity from Hollywood that was fun.
Guest:They were like, hey, yeah, you guys got to hit each other harder.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's like the movie Network, right?
Guest:Like, it's just like, oh, yeah, well, whatever works for the ratings, let's just make sure it keeps happening.
Marc:Also, the filmmaker keeps making an appearance in the documentary.
Marc:And I don't know if you noticed, but he's always like walking into a building, carrying a boom mic and headphones on.
Marc:And at one point, he's like even being interviewed by a news crew.
Marc:And he has the same outfit on.
Marc:And I was chuckling because it's like he's a character in the WWF in the 80s and 90s.
Marc:And his job is filmmaker.
Marc:And it's like, all right, I got my boom mic as my prop.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:He's like the repo man, but of documentary film.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:The realer.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:The projectionist.
Guest:Mr. Boom, baby.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Mr. Boom.
Guest:That would be his move at the end.
Guest:Boom.
Guest:Well, all right.
Marc:So do you have any other thoughts on American Gladiators you want to get to?
Marc:No, I don't think.
Marc:I mean, Ryan Seacrest makes a small cameo in this documentary.
Marc:Yeah, what was that?
Marc:It was like the reboot of it or something he was hosting or like the British version?
Marc:I think it was the reboot because he's a child in that doc.
Marc:Yes, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Here's one thing I will say, though.
Guest:It's like, they talk about their reboot very briefly, and it was the one that Hulk Hogan was involved in and that.
Guest:Ooh, that looked terrible.
Guest:Yeah, and it didn't last long or whatever.
Guest:But they make... At that point, this is like...
Guest:20 minutes from the end of the doc right and at that point they're like yeah it didn't work because they tried to turn it into wwe and it's like and throughout this entire doc they very studiously avoided ever mentioning that wrestling existed right other than this one moment where they show that the one gladiator like
Guest:Had a few matches after he was a gladiator.
Guest:He tried his hand in independent wrestling.
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:And it's like, wait, guys, this only existed on television because of wrestling.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, what are you talking about?
Guest:And not only wrestling.
Guest:The other thing that made me realize, because they showed it for like a brief clip.
Guest:was the Running Man came before this.
Guest:Oh, yes.
Guest:Yeah, totally.
Guest:The Running Man is what American Gladiators was.
Guest:Like, just without the killing of the guy, right?
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Yeah, that's exactly what it was.
Marc:And...
Marc:You know, this show and wrestling with, like, Ultimate Warrior and Hogan, they were actually responsible, I think, in my opinion, of changing how superheroes looked.
Marc:You know, like Superman was Christopher Reeve, right, in the 80s.
Marc:And then American Gladiators, you know, wrestling happened.
Marc:And then you see in the comics all of, you know, these superheroes are now shredded like these gladiators.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's a possible thing.
Guest:You know who would give another perspective on that is our buddy Box Brown, who we talked to, who has this book coming out about He-Man and how they sold He-Man to kids.
Guest:A lot of it was action figures, too.
Guest:I mean, I think it's all kind of crossover, but I've seen the scholarship on that.
Guest:It was like the same thing that was happening with Barbie dolls and how the figures were getting...
Guest:proportionally out of control, right?
Guest:And they literally had to like intervene and you had public health officials saying like, change the bust size of the Barbies because you're screwing with girls' brains.
Guest:Like this is a bad thing to do.
Guest:That didn't happen for boy toys.
Guest:And it just kept going the other way, where these toys just kept getting more and more ripped.
Guest:And, like, G.I.
Guest:Joe is the one I've seen that's the most ridiculous, where, like, a G.I.
Guest:Joe from, like, 1985 is just a dude, right?
Guest:And, like, a G.I.
Guest:Joe from, like, 2005, it's, like, a disgusting freak.
Guest:Like, a thing that shouldn't exist in... Like, if you looked at it, you're like, oh, that's the thing.
Guest:Kill it.
Guest:Like, it's like...
Guest:He's got many veins and muscles popping everywhere.
Marc:His back is like a bag of snakes.
Marc:That's a joke from fucking 30 Rock, by the way.
Marc:I say that because I'm amazed how comedians can say things on stage and it's their own thought.
Marc:Mark was talking about that in one of the episodes this week.
Marc:Talking about the suicide note and suicide note being, you know, why wait?
Marc:Oh, right, right.
Marc:That was actually something he brought up with Shatner of all people.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But he mentions it again, right?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And my thought was, as someone who's not a comic, I find it to be terrifying to come up with a joke, think that it's my joke, say it on stage, and the entire time I would be thinking that someone somewhere has absolutely said this joke, this exact joke, and perfected it even beyond my capability.
Marc:So, I mean, God bless Mark for having, I mean...
Guest:Well, it's in there, though.
Guest:That's a fear.
Guest:Like, he lives in fear of that.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:I mean, every comedian does.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Most, I would think.
Guest:He made a whole episode of his show about his IFC show, Marin.
Guest:There was an episode that was based on real life, that he was on Conan, and he said something, and as it came out of his mouth, he was like, that didn't sit right.
Guest:I know that that was somebody else's.
Guest:And he realized...
Guest:Like too late that it was Bill Hicks.
Guest:And so he was just he lived in this terror that it was going to resurface somehow that he stole a joke from Bill Hicks because, you know, Bill Hicks of all people was this guy who, you know, created a warring tribes in the world of comedy where people were like, you stole from Bill Hicks, you know, like.
Guest:Everybody accuses Dennis Leary of having stolen his whole persona from Hicks and full-on jokes.
Guest:Hicks is like the guy you've got to keep your hands off, right?
Guest:And so he was very nervous about that.
Guest:And the episode he did, he actually went on Conan in the episode.
Guest:They had Conan and Andy play themselves.
Guest:And he tells a joke.
Guest:And it turns out it was a joke done by a comic that he knew from back in the day who went to jail.
Guest:It was played by Joey Diaz, but he wasn't playing himself.
Guest:He was playing another comic.
Guest:And I think it's like Bill Burr tells Mark like, yeah, that was his joke.
Guest:You totally.
Guest:And he was like, but I was I was different enough.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he's like, no, you stole the straight up, stole the joke.
Marc:That's crazy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:I should check that out.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:And Mark wrote that episode as an exorcism.
Guest:He wanted to get this thing out that was a fear.
Guest:And there's just so many times where he'll think of something and then he'll go like...
Guest:contacting all other comics that he knows.
Guest:Like, have you ever heard about this?
Guest:Has anybody ever said that thing?
Guest:No shit.
Guest:That big piece of his last special about changing abortion clinics to angel factories.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Guest:Like he was so concerned that somebody else must have had that thought somewhere along the line.
Guest:And he like contacted every comic he possibly could be like, have you ever heard this before?
Guest:And they were all like, no, it's great.
Guest:It's yours.
Guest:You should use it.
Guest:I've never heard it.
Guest:Go ahead.
Guest:But like he he was he was scared that somebody would be like, hey, that's my joke.
Guest:You know, because he was like, how did nobody ever think of this before?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:I mean, aren't aren't his comedy friends when he calls and asks them that?
Marc:Are they like, don't give me that Juju Ricky Bobby like like.
Marc:Oh, I don't put it into my head?
Marc:Yeah, now you put that into their head.
Guest:I mean, I think, but I don't know.
Guest:I don't think they're that, I think he knows who he's calling when he's asking that, right?
Guest:Like he's calling the people who are kind of like encyclopedias, like Patton Oswalt is a good resource for that kind of thing.
Guest:Like, if he were alive, you wouldn't do that with Robin Williams, for sure.
Guest:Because, yes, he was the kind of guy who, and he talked about this on the episode he did with Mark, that he was always kind of accused as a joke thief, right?
Guest:Because there were people who matched up.
Guest:This was my joke, and then Robin Williams did it.
Guest:He...
Guest:was a sponge.
Guest:He absorbed everything.
Guest:You can hear it in that, that thing.
Guest:Like it was so quick.
Guest:His brain was working so fast and he absorbed everything.
Guest:And he would sometimes just take the like,
Guest:essence of what somebody else said and then do it his own way.
Guest:But he wasn't thinking, oh, I'm taking their joke.
Guest:He was just thinking the same way you'd see like a sign on the highway and think, oh, that's funny.
Guest:I can make a joke out of that.
Guest:He did it with what other people like said to him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then their words like went in his brain and he was like, oh, I made a funny joke about that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's different than somebody being like, I'm just going to tell the joke that that person did straight up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which there have been people who did that, too.
Guest:But Mark, I think he knows who he's going to call and ask that stuff, which is a tradition among comics.
Guest:Like Mark gets calls all the time from like Dave Attell, who apparently is the one who does it a lot.
Guest:Like, you know, I'm taking Mark's line here, but he said to Dave Attell, call him up and be like, have you ever done a joke about jerking off in the Bible?
Guest:Addy?
Guest:No, he's like, no, I'm flattered that you called and asked me, though.
Guest:Sounds like me, right?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, hey, Mark's the jerking off in the Bible guy.
Guest:Call and ask him.
Guest:But yeah, no, that never happened.
Guest:And yeah, it's interesting that even in that case, you know, I don't know.
Guest:So did you listen to the episode this week where Mark said he's not going to do that joke anymore about the suicide note?
Guest:And it was because of that kind of parallel thinking that it was in an actual suicide note.
Guest:It was in the note of George Eastman, I think, or one of the Eastmans related to Eastman Kodak.
Marc:So they're the Kodak company, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:He didn't let that note develop, huh?
Marc:It's a terrible joke.
Marc:I'm sure someone said it already a billion times.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I applaud it.
Guest:Even if somebody else has said it, you got it right there with just sitting on the T and you took it.
Marc:I really enjoyed both of this week's episodes.
Marc:Yeah, I did too.
Guest:Anthony Ramos and Jeff Stilson.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, they were good.
Marc:I love hearing Mark talk with fellow comedians.
Marc:I mean, they do like the comic version of the scene from Jaws where they're comparing scars on the boat.
Marc:And instead of like life-threatening situations, it's road shows.
Marc:And instead of a boat, it's the garage.
Marc:They just have such a shorthand with these episodes that it just feels more intimate.
Marc:And they just kind of get going right away.
Marc:Like they skip the foreplay and get right to it.
Guest:because of that, because of how kind of familiar they are with each other.
Guest:And, you know, sometimes that's not great for, you know, just a first time listener or, you know, you gotta be aware of people who like, you know, might not know the history of Mark, the history of the show or anything.
Guest:And so that's a kind of thing I will sometimes have to trim out.
Guest:And so I do have some outtakes from that episode that will make it into the producer cuts, which I believe are coming up next week.
Guest:I've got a whole new batch of stuff that I've had to take out of recent episodes and should make for some good extra content.
Marc:Awesome.
Marc:Are one of those producers cuts Anthony Ramos's Jerry Seinfeld story by any chance?
Marc:No, and I don't know what that was.
Marc:I don't know that he actually even told him.
Guest:I don't think so.
Guest:I would share it.
Guest:Mark would share it.
Guest:Mark would desperately want to share it.
Marc:I don't know what the story was.
Marc:Also, can we get Mark in Amadeus on Broadway?
Marc:That sounds so great.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Let's do it.
Come on.
Guest:But he's not allowed to play Salieri like an Italian.
Guest:Like he's just got to be Mark.
Guest:Like that's the only way it's going to work.
Guest:And he's like, what the fuck is this guy with this fucking violin?
Guest:Fuck him.
Guest:I would love it.
Guest:I like the idea of it playing out like any other animosity he has for some guy, you know, like a Jon Stewart or whatever, but it's Amadeus, right?
Guest:And so it's just like, he's like, yeah, I heard that song.
Guest:I heard it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Fuck that guy.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Please, let's make this happen.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:I'm also interested in Mark's vegan chili recipe that he did.
Marc:I don't know if you guys can link it in the show notes.
Guest:Yeah, we should have him post it.
Guest:We should have him post it.
Marc:I would love to know the vegan chili.
Marc:I also love how mad Mark gets at people giving him feedback on being vegan.
Marc:Most vegans I've met, I've dated a vegan.
Marc:Stereotypically, they're genteel.
Marc:Mark, not so much.
Marc:Which makes me wish that Mark went vegan much earlier because he could have killed that stereotype ages ago.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:The angry vegan?
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Marc:It's like, my God, can someone bring this man some bacon or something?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, hey, the thing has stuck, which is good.
Guest:I don't know how long it is it's going to last.
Guest:But so much of that Impossible Foods started advertising with us specifically because of it.
Guest:Like they were like, oh, he's vegan now.
Marc:OK, that's great.
Marc:I will say I sometimes miss the Mark's ad reads because they're they are actually very entertaining.
Guest:Well, you always have the option to go listen to the ad-funded feed.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:Just because you're sitting there riding high on the hog with your premium subscription doesn't mean you can't go down with the people and listen to the blue-tiled show, you with your purple tile.
Ha, ha, ha.
Guest:Well, you know, I know that we've maybe done a little bit of a departure here on the Friday show, but I will let us have our closing moment that we have every week where we talk about the best thing in wrestling that we've seen this past week.
Guest:Do you want to get started, Chris?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:AEW Dynamite starts off most weeks with a great match.
Marc:And this week was no different.
Marc:Orange Cassidy and Swerve Strickland.
Marc:And just let these guys fight forever, maybe, because I love watching the two of them fight.
Guest:I just think he'll let Orange Cassidy keep that title forever.
Guest:Like, he never has a bad match as to defending that title.
Marc:Not one.
Marc:Like, it's kind of, it's so impressive that it's, like, a little alarming.
Marc:Like, is anyone else seeing this?
Marc:This guy never misses.
Marc:Like, never, never misses.
Guest:And he's technically sound.
Guest:He's a great character.
Guest:And it's this character that people seem to think had some comedy ceiling on it, right?
Guest:Like, oh, he's never going to be more than just like a joke character.
Guest:No, that's a guy you could run at the top of a promotion.
Guest:He could be a world champion.
Marc:Yeah, the moves he does.
Marc:I mean, most AEW, it's just flips after flips when you're like, all right, well, that's just another crazy acrobatic move.
Guest:Yeah, superhuman.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, superhuman.
Marc:But I mean, his matches have like maybe 15 of those spots in them.
Guest:Well, also now that everything is grounded in him selling the injury that he has, right?
Guest:Like that his body is breaking down because of all these fights he's been having.
Guest:And so every match he winds up, like I loved in that match you're talking about from this past Wednesday, that he hit a major move and went for the pin.
Guest:which would have required him to pull both legs of the guy toward him.
Guest:And he couldn't do it because one leg, you know, he couldn't use the hand that's been injured.
Guest:So he goes to pull the guy's legs in and he starts shaking the hand and the guy kicked out.
Guest:I'm like, man, that's so clever and smart.
Guest:And it goes by so fast, but he's working all these things into his matches.
Guest:It's really impressive.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:What was your favorite thing that you're seeing this week?
Guest:Favorite thing I saw this week in the world of wrestling was, I think you should leave season three.
Guest:which I watched the whole thing and it didn't disappoint.
Guest:First of all, just in terms of being, I think you should leave, but you know, as is the case with previous seasons, which like Brody King showed up last time.
Guest:And, and then, you know, when Mark and I were at the LA forum, we saw Tim Robinson backstage and he is clearly a fan.
Guest:And so not only is there a specific wrestling sketch in this season, but,
Guest:which was very funny.
Guest:A guy who created a, was a proposal park, right?
Guest:It was supposed to be a lover's park where you could come and propose.
Guest:And he had made the turf very soft so that you could go down on your knee and propose and you would feel nice and comfortable.
Guest:And as he said, I inadvertently created the perfect wrestling ring.
Guest:And so...
Guest:All these wrestlers keep showing up to this bucolic park to destroy each other because the ring is so... The ground is so soft.
Marc:It's so great.
Guest:And, yeah, there were some real wrestlers in that.
Guest:Ryan Nemeth, who is... He's an AEW guy.
Guest:Eric Redbeard, who used to be in WWE, is one of the Wyatts.
Guest:He was in that clip.
Guest:But that was the wrestling sketch.
Guest:There was, however...
Guest:uh, a sketch with just a regular looking dude, uh, where he goes through the drive-thru and he says, I'll pay for the guy behind me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then he, he drives all the way around the drive-thru so that now he can be behind the same guy and he orders hundreds of things.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And it totals like $600 or whatever.
Guest:And the guy looks back at him and decides to come out of his car and be like, I'm not paying for that.
Guest:And they get in an argument.
Guest:So that guy is a wrestler.
Guest:You might remember this, Chris.
Guest:He used to be in the WWE as his name was Sandow.
Guest:And he eventually became the Mrs. Stunt Double.
Guest:Do you remember that act?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:where it would be like the Miz would come out and do something and this guy would mimic it.
Guest:He would do the exact same thing.
Guest:So like if the Miz got knocked down, he would fall down on the ground.
Marc:Yes, yes, yes.
Marc:That guy?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And he's just like a dude in like a polo shirt in this.
Marc:Oh my God, that's great.
Marc:Not paying for it.
Marc:Oh, I could just run.
Yeah.
Guest:What was your favorite sketch from this season?
Guest:Do you have one yet?
Marc:I mean, what is this?
Marc:Lardley Tonight or something?
Guest:The guy who won't get off his phone if you beat him in an argument?
Marc:Yeah, it's like, no, no, no, it's my mom.
Marc:Is everything okay?
Marc:It's fine.
Guest:I love that it's part of the show that's a selling point in the credits that he's like, I will take you on in any debate.
Guest:And if you get the upper hand, I will go on my phone.
Guest:I love my phone.
Guest:Then it just becomes a thing about how much he loves his phone.
Guest:He's like, there are so many hours of videos on my phone.
Marc:I'm going to rewatch that as soon as we're done.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, I hope you enjoyed this.
Guest:This was maybe something that you liked hearing us just talk about a random thing, which was American Gladiators.
Guest:If you did, leave us a message.
Guest:We have a comment thing in the episode description.
Guest:Just go to the episode description, click on that thing, and send us whatever you want to send us.
Guest:Your thoughts, your loves, your hates.
Guest:Please send it to us.
Marc:55 hamburgers, 55 cheeseburgers.
Marc:God damn it!
Marc:We're not going to pay for any of it.
Guest:Don't worry.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, this has been The Friday Show.
Guest:I'm Brendan.
Guest:That's Chris.
Guest:Peace.