Steve 0:00

We are never fun of the band! I've lived in this city all my life. I grew up in Queens, and when I was 10 years old, I was weird. I was a nerd, sitting in front of the TV, surrounded by VHS tapes. All I thought about was movies and the New York Mets. Now I'm 42, and all I think about is getting Matt Johnson and Jay McCarroll to come on this podcast. This is Nirvana the Band, The Show the Podcast.

Michelle 0:32

Beautiful. A beautiful homage. Um, I do think you are still thinking about the New York Mets quite a lot.

SPEAKER_04 0:38

Yeah.

Michelle 0:38

Not to immediately call you out, but listeners of this show will know. That I can't help myself.

Steve 0:45

I just figured I'd put it in the intro, and then we're done for the night. Cool? Okay. Anyway, uh, I'm Steve, and these are my co-hosts. I'm Michelle. And I'm Kit. Michelle, our listeners know I'm obsessed with the New York match. Jesus Christ. Anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:00

Wow, this really got you, huh?

Steve 1:02

Dead. We've been winning for once, anyway. Um It's terrible to be seen. It is.

Michelle 1:07

Unknown.

Steve 1:08

It's true. Anyway. Uh you know, I've been reflecting on friendship. I want to look back, you know, I've been going on these philosophical quests, and I thought maybe we could just reflect on our guestboard journey. Both who we wish we had and who we've had. And I thought that would be really like our friendship, you know?

Michelle 1:25

Yeah.

Steve 1:26

So have we heard from Matt, Jay, or Jay's very attractive father? Still no. On all three counts, unfortunately. Uh Jared or Luca?

Michelle 1:35

Not yet. No. I did see someone filming on the street the other day with a beautiful curly head of hair. Um, but unfortunately I got closer and it was not Jared Rabb.

Steve 1:45

Uh the Canadian arm of the International Space Station, Canada Arm.

SPEAKER_04 1:49

I watched the eclipse recently. Didn't wear glasses. Um, and I think that will help me commune with the Canada arm in some capacity. So I'll get back to you on that.

Steve 2:00

And you know, uh, we had really touching Carson, webmaster of the Nirvana of the Band, the show, the site. Beautiful. Noted uh journalist and Nirvana the Band fan Barry Hertz. We've had him, you know, but I was really reflecting, going all the way back in our friendship, and there's two names that I wish we could get that we've never gotten. Um, noted filmmaker Verna Herzog. And um, comedian, star of George Lucas talk show, Connor Ratliff presents the acting class, Widow's Bay appearance, host of Dead Eyes, Connor Ratliff.

Michelle 2:33

It would be so nice if we could somehow maybe get Connor Ratliff on this podcast. If we could just summon him right here, right now.

SPEAKER_06 2:43

Hey guys.

SPEAKER_04 2:44

Whoa! Oh my god. How'd that work?

SPEAKER_06 2:47

I'm not quite sure how I got here. Uh I'm not sure what happened. It feels like some sort of plan was executed.

Michelle 2:53

Set in motion months ago. Yes.

Steve 2:56

I gave a poor man a camera from the 1950s and, you know, began there.

SPEAKER_06 3:00

Very excited to be here. Very excited to be talking about what we're talking about.

Steve 3:04

Thanks so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Um, you you are on our list of original dream guests.

SPEAKER_06 3:10

So Well, that's very fl very flattering. Uh uh I'm very happy to be here.

Steve 3:15

So I wanted to start by asking you a couple questions, if that's all right.

SPEAKER_06 3:18

Sure, yeah.

Steve 3:18

Um, so what is your history with Nirvana the Band the show?

SPEAKER_06 3:22

Like a lot of people who are not who are North American but not Canadian, I think. I think I have the same starting point, which is Blackberry. Um I had never um heard of it. I think I if I'd ever heard of it, it wasn't something that had caught my attention. Uh and I have a feeling that there may have been times I heard of it but thought it was something else. Like I I have a weird sense that, you know that documentary Anvil, that uh music documentary? I have a feeling that if I ever saw the title, I probably thought it was something like that. Like uh like a like a fake band mockumentary type thing. So the first thing I ever saw was Blackberry, and I really like the genre that Blackberry is part of. Um the I feel like there's a healthy collection of all very watchable movies, like the the Air movie about the with with the sort of Goodwill hunting reunion where they invent Air Jordan. Kind of love that movie. There's a lot of very good versions of it that are all sort of um competency porn. That it's it's it's um that's a particular favorite thing of mine that's not part of the specific subgenre of like there's a thing and we discover the rise and fall of it or the creation story of it or whatever. Um but like all the Presidents' Men would be a great example of like a movie where you're just watching two people who are very good at their jobs, um, but because it's uh it's boring to watch people just be good at their jobs, most of that movie they're failing, they're struggling and failing. It it even though they succeed in real life, the movie ends on another like fuck up by them. Yeah. And and I feel like BlackBerry is one of the best of this genre of competency porn because it is a movie about a failure, but it is a movie about people who are really good at what they do. Every character in that movie is good at some aspect of what they do. Like, whether they're an idiot, whether they're the villain, like even someone like the Carrie Elwes character is like good at what he does. He's just not he's not the he's not a genius. Yeah. And and so BlackBerry immediately, I was watching that movie. I still remember when I saw that movie, I kind of couldn't believe, and I didn't know I didn't know Matt Johnson was the director of the movie when I was watching it. And so I was just thinking that guy's a really funny actor. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sort of it felt like in a certain, like, um a certain kind of character actor that I'm like, yeah, I know what that kind of guy is in a movie. That's the that's the part that like in another in another universe, Jack Black is playing that part or something. Young Jack, young Jack Black or something. Absolutely. And then it was only after it was over that I realized, like, oh, that guy also directed the movie. That's interesting. In a way, it was a real surprise because I'm like, that feels like the last, if you're gonna pick which character also directed the movie, you're like, not that guy. He just wants to have fun. And and then I didn't, um, I heard that they were making this other movie, and and and I heard the things that are like, oh, um it may only show once uh at a festival and then maybe never again for legal reasons. Like that that sort of hype also got my attention, but I still didn't really know anything about it when I watched the the movie for the first time. Like I genuinely the whole thing was I did I hadn't explored the the any of the previous iterations of it. So I did the reverse order thing of watch the movie, then watch the movie several more times in the theater, and then um, and then went back and watched the vice stuff, and then back and watched the web series stuff last. Oh wow. Which I think I feel like is an I like I wouldn't have wanted to discover it in any other order because I feel like the Vice series is on the same level as the movie is, and the web series is interesting stuff once you're already absorbed all of the best of it. Yeah, you know. But now with the passage of time, especially, it's the web series is like demo record, like early demo recordings. It's like getting like uh recordings of the Beatles in Hamburg or something, where you're like, this is interesting, but it's not my favorite Beatles stuff, you know? Yeah.

Steve 7:46

Yeah, we we were having this conversation a couple of weeks ago with uh the writer Barry Hertz, and we were talking about how the Vice Land series is so much in conversation with what the web series was, and then the movie even more is in conversation, obviously with certain moments we've talked, you know, the the hangover moment and all of that is like so much in conversation with where they've grown. So yeah, it's almost like a band looking back on those initial demos and kind of commenting on them in a way.

SPEAKER_06 8:12

And and one thing that uh this is almost kind of an embarrassing thing to talk about, although there's no real reason to be embarrassed about because it's purely parallel thinking. But for a couple of years, I had a podcast with a friend of mine called Tiny Dynos that premise-wise and the the bones of the comedic dynamic, which if you go back even to the early days of film comedy, there were always like groups that are like, oh, there's the Marx brothers and there's the Ritz brothers, or there's like, you know, Abbott and Costello and Laurel and Hardy, and there's like dynamics that overlap in certain ways, and that's just the way it is in every era of comedy, that there's always things where it's like, oh yeah, this is like a this or this is a that. But Tiny Dino's was this concept for uh it's an improvised podcast I did with my friend about two best friends who are scientists, and it very much I I when I saw the movie, I was like, I'm so glad that I were done with the podcast now because the I was like, if I discovered Nirvana the Band while we were making this, I would have been really in my head about like, we can't, we gotta be careful because it's all about my my character um invents, brings dinosaurs back, but he brings them back very small. And he does it specifically because his friend has gotten married and had kids, and he feels like his childhood best friend is drifting away. So he uses some of his best friend's research to do this thing without his permission, that then is this huge moral and ethical complication that they now have to take care of these tiny dinosaurs, and everything keeps getting more and more complicated, and the dynamic is very much a Matt and J in the sense of you have one character who's constantly trying to keep things normal, but that person will sometimes screw things up even worse than the one who's constantly trying to do something crazy. I just wanted to watch the movie again and again when I saw it. It really was like unlike any movie I'd ever seen, there's still things about the um about the series that I don't know how they made it in a way don't ever want to know how they made it, in some examples. Yeah. I I feel like there are there's a magic to it that I like learning some of the tricks, but there's some there's like when not to get too far ahead into talking about this episode, but I kind of don't want to know how they made this episode. I don't want to know what are the things they did because it's so magical. But I do like I still can't look at the movie and really think that they didn't just jump off the CN Tower.

Michelle 10:54

I like, yeah, I don't want to.

SPEAKER_06 10:56

I think we we I I know I know some of how they did it, but when I watch it, I'm like, this is the most convincing looking thing I've seen in a movie.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 11:06

Yeah. Yeah. Like if this isn't real, like the magic of it works on me, and I'm not someone when I see magic that I really want to um I I want to enjoy magic. And to me, filmmaking, like there are interesting aspects sometimes. Like if the magicians feel comfortable like describing what they did, then I'm interested. Yeah. But there is like a a real a real aspect of I'm not someone who watches a mystery and wants to I want to be surpr I want to learn stuff at the exact moment the filmmaker wants me to learn it. Yeah, totally. On the rare occasions when I outsmart a movie or a TV show, I'm furious about it. Because it means it didn't work on me. It means I don't get the pleasure of uh, oh my god, I can't believe this is the thing that is actually happening in this, you know? As a performer, I get lost in the work in a way. I'm like an ideal audience member, I think, because I just get lost in the magic of the world. Because I do feel like this this year. The Odyssey and Nirvana, Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. They sh they couldn't be more different in terms of scope and scale. But they they would be a a long double bill, but a pretty good double bill. Yeah, for sure. In the sense that you could very easily imagine a Matt and Jay version of the Odyssey. There's actually nothing that would be uh easier to imagine uh slotting them into those story beats and and Matt being like, hey, Jay, there's cheese. There's bags of cheese. You know? Yeah. Oh no, oh God, he's gonna eat it.

Michelle 12:55

It's a series of failed plans to get back home.

SPEAKER_06 12:59

Yeah, it's like we have to figure, yeah, the whole the whole thing is they spend 20 years trying to get to the Rivoli is an odyssey of uh of its own. Yeah. So yeah, that's my basic journey of it was like discovering it, also recognizing like uh um a comedic kinship in a way that genuinely made me uncomfortable. I was so glad that I can honestly say we did tiny dinos without uh being aware of the other things. So it is just like uh to use a phrase that I think Matt Johnson says a lot, uh uh we came by it honestly. You know?

Michelle 13:39

I think I'd be curious to hear, you know, as someone who does a lot of improv and does a lot of different forms of improv, sort of what your thoughts on them at like this whole property as an improvised like product is. Because I think it to me, as someone who has not done improv but has consumed and watched and enjoyed a lot of improv stuff, um, it feels different for me in a way that I have a hard time articulating. And I feel like part of what this show is, is like trying to articulate over many months what is so charming about it.

SPEAKER_06 14:12

I think the best thing that they do, my favorite thing that they do in terms of improv, because I get very frustrated. I have a couple of projects that I want to make happen that use improv um not as a not as a magic trick that you're doing for the audience, but as a special effect, as like part of the a feature of the production rather than a ta-da, we improvised it for you. Yeah. The important thing about these movies and these and these episodes is not that they are improvised. They use improv to build something and craft it. There it's not a thing where they like I feel like a lot of improv that's it's either um done as if it's like a live improv show, um, which is just like that's not the ideal filmed version use of improv because you're missing the live aspect of it, of being there in the room. So it's automatically like watching people mime stuff is not impressive in the uh uh in the same way unless you're able to set it up so it looks like a Lars Rentrier movie or something. Uh but a lot of times what people will do is they'll just use improv with an outline like curb your enthusiasm, or they'll use it as part of a scripted thing where they'll do alts. And that's my least favorite version of improv is we have a script, but like now we'll do a fun one because it's just a high-pressure thing that doesn't really get you to a deeper place. It just gets you some things that oftentimes are more funny in the moment than they are in a final cut. Or you have sometimes like you have this like script, Martin Scrut says he has a uh a thing with improv. Like Wolf of Wall Street is a great example of a movie where I think the best scenes in that movie are clearly like the improvised scenes, like Matthew McConaughey doing his like uh his warm-up and stuff. But those those you can't cut those because they're the most fun scenes, but the scripted scenes are the ones they need in order to give the movie its shape and its structure and to move the story along.

Michelle 16:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:06

And so you end up with a movie that's too long and you don't know what part to cut. Do you cut the best scenes or you cut the most important things? Yeah. And what Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie, and Nirvana Band the Show do with improv is they use improv and then they they craft it, and they're they're not concerned with whether you know it was improvised. They're concerned with making building a thing using the improv as building blocks, the same way that a documentary film uses footage that wasn't designed to be told in a certain order, and you find it in the edit. And I I think they their use of improv where something happens that they um that then gives them an idea, like there's a shooting at Drake's mansion. So then they're like, what if we do this and now we have a beat that we wouldn't have had otherwise? Right. But when you're watching it, you don't need to know that to enjoy it. They they're they're concerned with end result, and they use other post-production uh tricks of the trade to make it not matter that it was improvised. The improv is just what makes it feel like loose and fresh in the moment, but they're not they're not concerned with convincing you that this is an improvised movie. They don't care whether you know that it's improvised or not, they just are concerned with making a good final product. And the improv is just another tool that is part of what makes that it have a special feeling.

Michelle 17:32

That's so interesting.

Steve 17:33

Yeah. And it helps that they're not precious about it. There's so much stuff that they just go, fuck it. Like whatever works in the final product, right? Like there's hours and hours and hours. There's like a homosely scrapped movie because they weren't, they were like, the final product matters, not all the stuff we had fun making.

SPEAKER_06 17:50

Yeah. It's really, it's a really crucial distinction, and it's part of like the magic trick aspect. I know I I'm getting it mixed up because I talked about how films are magic tricks, but improv literally has that, has like provers. Yeah. The way that that um, you know, uh, is this your card? Sort of things that magicians do. Improv has that in terms of like whatever your whatever word you get from the audience or or a monologue that someone delivers or something, it's designed to prove to the audience that you didn't rehearse this. And to me, that seems like pointless in a in any film that any any work that has post-production, you might as well not be precious about the improv. Chop it up. I love the fact that they chop everything up so that like my one of my favorite things is the black and white flashback stuff where they use stuff that overtly contradicts what we saw before in a way that makes everything feel like subjective, you know, that that um the way they play with memory and flashback is what they're doing using improv rather than um just saying, like, well, that improvised take doesn't work because it contradicts the other take. So, like in the movie, the part where it's flashing back to famous Jay being mean to him, saying, like, oh, you know, uh, he's a little buff, he's a little fat, you know, like those things become they have their own meaning because you're like, is that what he really said, or is that what the way he remembers what it felt like to have that? Is that him having a realization, like, is that what I said? Was I mean to him? It's just such an ingenious way of using the improv as raw material for making cinema.

Steve 19:37

Totally. And the memory thing is something I'm obsessed with, the way that those flashbacks play with how we view memory, how they present memory, and the emotion of memory. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 19:47

And this is a great episode for the flashbacks. Yeah. Have they said officially I I feel like I've heard someone say that the black and white stuff is not what happened, but I don't know that that there's a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_04 19:59

Yeah. I've heard that the the black and white stuff is how they perceive it happening. So it's their memory and it's sort of textured by like whatever emotion they're feeling at the time.

SPEAKER_06 20:09

Yeah, but I I almost I almost don't view it that way in terms of like I sometimes view the black and white stuff as like this is what really happened. And you know, like it depending on uh um, and I think there's room for that level of interpretation because you're literally being provided with alternate texts, like alternate accounts of what happened. Like, I don't think in the buffet, I think that's 100% what happened. Yeah. You know? Um, cause and it doesn't contradict anything, really, you know, in this case.

Steve 20:41

Speaking of, what made you pick the buffet?

SPEAKER_06 20:44

It's really hard to choose an episode. Whenever you're like, pick an episode, and I was like, you know, the the banner is, I feel like, such a perfect episode. Um, it's so funny, and it's funny in exactly the right ways. Like it it's I think this episode is really, really special. I almost feel like this there's a there's a world in which this could have been a feature-length episode and it would have been able to sustain that length. Um it's such I it almost feels and I'm I'm someone who has always viewed television as an art form decades before that became the thing, the way people talked about TV. I used to talk about TV shows with my friends and be like, these are as good as movies. I would talk about, you know, like like certain TV shows as being like, these are cinema. But I do feel like this episode feels um like it goes to it goes to some of the same places that the movie goes to, and in ways that I I'm just kind of amazed when they'll do a variation of a theme and it doesn't feel like, oh, they're just doing that thing again. And usually it has to do with whenever they decide to get a little bit sentimental about cyber. I think they're really good at it. There's a reason why I think people care about this show and this um world beyond just that it's funny. And I think this episode is a great example of that. And I think from the very beginning, I'll ask you this like, have you all seen My Dinner with Andre, or had you seen it before seeing this episode? Yes. Yes.

Michelle 22:25

I watched this episode, watched My Dinner with Andre for the first time, and then rewatched the episode. And that was a really fascinating sandwich of an experience.

SPEAKER_06 22:36

Yeah. And I feel like there's probably people who like I don't always catch what they're making a reference to because sometimes they're making references to things that I don't have experience with. This was one where immediately before he'd even started talking, I was like, oh, they're gonna do my dinner with Andre. Like I just the way he was walking on the street, I immediately was like, they're doing my dinner with Andre. And the uh, you know, the shot of him waiting for the train and stuff like that, where immediately was like, oh, this is gonna be uh really exciting. And yet what they did with it was not a pastiche of my dinner with Andre. Like they actually did something that, like, I love my dinner with Andre. I I honestly like this episode more than I like my dinner with Andre. And I love my dinner with Andre. My dinner with Andre is a little cold. Yes, very much. It's a it's a it's a it's a little bit of a cerebral exercise in places. Um and this is like a raw nerve, this episode, um, by the time you get to the end of it. Yeah. I think this episode is the most emotional episode of the series. And I think if you watch this and and you watch the movie, I think they they both go to um similarly dark places in terms of if you really think about where these characters arrive at the end. And that they've each had for a for a thing that is about friendship and the connection of friendship, both the movie and this episode ends with two characters who have had individual experiences that the other does not know about. They've they have it's it's about being best friends, it's also they're both incredibly lonely stories at the end, in some ways. Yeah. That they're things that in one, you literally have a character who gives up his life for another version of these characters. And and only one character knows, like, you died for me. And he has a and he has a and he lives with a version of the friend that would do that, but isn't going to, yeah, or has or hasn't yet. And in this, you have someone at the end of it who thinks I mean it's just so heartbreaking. I mean, we can get into this episode. I don't know, I don't want to, I don't want to jump right to the end of this episode. The the ending of this episode is so quietly devastating to me. And the more you think about it, the it both gets more emotionally warm and cold as ice in some ways. Like the thing it reminds me of in some ways is like there's an aspect of it that's almost like the the Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson plot in Love Actually. Oh, interesting. The way that it's the same ending in a way.

Michelle 25:22

That's so true. So I I thought this was interesting. It was my experience of watching My Dinner with Andre was fascinating because I've seen it like referenced or parodied in so many other things, including Nirmada the Band, the show. Like there's a community episode, I think there's an Animaniacs episode. Um, it's definitely it it's actually, I just pulled up the um like list of other parodies of it, and there are so, so many of them. I know I've seen like five of these.

SPEAKER_06 25:53

There's an Andy Kaufman one, which I think might have been the first one anyone did, called My Breakfast with Blassie. Amazing. Where he literally just has breakfast with this uh wrestler.

Michelle 26:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 26:02

And and I think his idea was like, this is so boring and stupid to just film two people having a meal that he's like, anybody can do this. Yeah. And his ver his version of it was not, I don't think, a very affectionate parody. I think he genuinely was like, you guys are getting away with something pretentious. I'm gonna do I'm gonna do the a version of it too. Um but yeah.

Michelle 26:23

No, there's a there's a Muppets one with a character named Godzilla.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

Yep.

Michelle 26:28

Kit. Heads up back in. Uh I'm also seeing that there's there is a my dinner with Werner. Yep. I just like to watch the actual thing that all of these things were parodying or referencing is such a strange experience of like, I know all sort of the like general shape of it, but then to see the actual original thing is so weird. And like, I kind of thought I knew it was coming. I was pretty wrong about it, especially Matt and Jay's version of it. And and sort of how they combine it with other things and whether they're making a joke or doing something serious, is just so interesting that it's like this huge jumping off point for a million creative people.

SPEAKER_06 27:08

The last thing that I would have expected is My Dinner with Andre, that has kind of a a heist or a con built into it. So and a twist ending that leaves the two characters having had a completely different experience. They have disagreements, but you don't ever feel like their relationship is in peril. There are two friends who are having dinner and they talk about some interesting and dire things, but I don't think you ever feel like they're not gonna be friends.

Steve 27:34

Look, the interesting thing that they say off-handed is that while while Sean says that he was like basically strong armed into going to the dinner. So he's going in from a place of tension, but not necessarily do you think that they're gonna get in a fight. This one also is coming in from a place of tension.

SPEAKER_06 27:50

Yeah.

Steve 27:51

But that so, like, yeah, I agree. And this one, I'm just I said this to Kit and Michelle before. I'm gonna have a really hard time talking about this without crying because this episode makes me cry my eyes out every single time I watch it.

SPEAKER_06 28:03

Yeah, it's um it really it's so tense for the first two-thirds of it. And it's a gut punch when you realize what's happening because what you really think you I even re-watching it, I think they do a really good job of hiding the fact that um it really feels like to the extent that we think Matt knows what's up, we we don't think he's read the letter, we don't think any of this other stuff is part of it, or at least I don't. Like you get the sense that he is anticipating something, and so he's pointing out things to try to emphasize like we're having a good time. And it really it's both it's both the funniest part of the episode, like it's so funny that he's literally saying to the camera, I gotta I got a few more tricks up my sleeve. Yeah, like aware of how crazy what he's doing is. And it's also really interesting how it's such a great episode for contrasting their personalities that like um Jay writes this letter and it's thoughtful and it's sincere. And Matt spends the episode being creative, he spends the episode try just trying to think of anything to prevent this thing from going where he thinks it's going. Fundamentally, like one person's you know crafted this serious expression of how they're feeling and they want to read it aloud, and the other one just spends the whole time creative being creative and coming up with new things that might shift it in a different direction. And when one thing doesn't work, he immediately goes to the next thing. And and then even that push and pull at the end of where and I hadn't noticed this the first time I watched it, I hadn't really caught on to this as much. Once you know where it's going, he wins. And yet Matt still wants to kind of punish Jay a little by well, read the that's a great letter. I want to have a copy of it. Like there is that thing of like the only reason to do that is to make Jay have some small percentage of the bad feeling that he had by saying like he wants Jay to fear him reading the letter for real. And that's and that's a very like childish and cruel but completely relatable thing to do. Totally. Are you kidding me? I want to frame this letter. It's the nicest letter I've ever. It's it's so it's so manipulative. It's such a um like you won, man. Like you got you got this thing, but it's like he never is going to like Jay's never going to find out about this that he read the letter.

Steve 30:40

And something that, and this is like my own read. I watched, after I saw the movie, I watched the show again and then I watched the movie again, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:48

Uh-huh.

Steve 30:48

And in the scene when they go to the we've told people to watch the movie first, so I'm just gonna spoil the scene where they go to the past and they're you know, they're gonna pull it off, and then Matt finds out that Jay was gonna leave the band because Jay makes that off-handed comment, and then Matt snaps. Yeah, for me, having watched just because this episode is one of my favorites of the series, I read into that Matt being like, Do you know what I went through to keep you from breaking up the band the first fucking time? I did all of that for you, and you were gonna leave anyway, and it makes that anger so much more understandable and palpable when he's like, fuck it, don't play the Rivoli.

SPEAKER_06 31:25

Uh like on the whiteboard. Because Jay doesn't realize he's already been caught once. Yep. Right. Yeah. So it's like, imagine imagine Love Actually 2. She catches Alan Rickman and he knows about it, how much angrier Emma Thompson would be. Yeah. Having already, like, I already caught you in this once and I didn't tell you. Yep. I spared you that.

Michelle 31:49

He gets her another Joni Mitchell CD.

SPEAKER_06 31:52

I'm always impressed with the ways that they go to that well of um like that montage at the end where they're going to the beach with the fireworks and it's revealing all these things while also showing Jay is now having a wonderful time and Matt is secretly haunted. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 32:10

Um, it's really like they're gonna be okay, but like but Matt is hurt. Like Matt, who's already a character who's damaged, he's more damaged at the end of this episode than ever before.

Michelle 32:24

He's finally pulled off a plan, but at what cost?

SPEAKER_06 32:28

His his dream is to pull off a plan with his friend, not against his friend. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 32:34

This is the nightmare plan for a show about a friend who just wants to do plans with his friend. He shouldn't have to be doing a plan against his friend.

Steve 32:44

So, as Kit and Michelle know, I am very much a uh protect Matt at all gosh, my precious little boy, uh, when I watch the show. And this one really stretches it, but at the same time, I just want to hold him tight at the end of it because I feel so bad for him. I was Matt in my 20s, so I'm not gonna lie. Uh shall we just jump into it? Because go for it. Cool. So, as we were saying before, like it starts with a sh like uh a recreation of the opening for My Dinner with Andre. Jay's reading this letter about how he's gonna leave the band. Uh, Matt's too optimistic, you know, it's never gonna work. And I do love that they intersplice a couple of actual shots from my dinner with Andre into it.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

Yeah.

Steve 33:25

The like graffiti subway. It's really funny. I was really nostalgic for that graffiti subway, I'm not gonna lie. Kind of miss a pre-Giuliani graffiti subway. Uh it'll be back. God willing. Yeah, I love it. They even do the thing of Jay like taking a tie out of his pocket and putting it on as he walks up to the restaurant. And they're going to uh Mandarin Buffet, which I didn't realize had eight locations in Canada.

Michelle 33:53

It's a chain. And apparently this particular one has closed. Rest in peace to this specific Mandarin buffet.

SPEAKER_04 34:00

Yeah, it looked great. I would have loved to have gone.

Michelle 34:02

The little the commercial montages made me very, very hungry for some North American-style Chinese food.

Steve 34:09

I I know this is like a not important part. I mean, the last episode ends with Matt making the reservation.

SPEAKER_04 34:16

Yeah.

Steve 34:16

And then, or trying to, but putting it under Nirvana the Band. And then Jay shows up, it's like table for two, please. And it's like, did Matt even fuck that up? Did he fuck up making a reservation for Canada?

Michelle 34:27

Well, she asked for a short, simple name, and he said Nirvana the Band twice. So I think that's on him. It's true.

Steve 34:35

Uh and then this is where it's the most on with my dinner with Andre is where like Matt, you know, shows up at the table. He's talking about the Ingmar Bergman movie that they reference uh Andre having seen and was crying in the street about. And I just think it's really interesting that it's essentially Matt announcing, yes, I'm in the Andre role here, anyway.

Michelle 34:56

Well, I love that because he keeps doing it throughout, and like things that on my first watch, pre-actual seeing my dinner with Andre, I thought were just like funny things to say. Realizing that they're like, oh, like, what would it be like to be totally at peace? Or like, you know, the Tibetans when they eat, and just all of these things that are just pulling directly, if not direct quotes, very close paraphrasings of Andre Gregory.

Steve 35:22

Yeah, I was very curious about what that was like. Because like, first I had seen my dinner with Andre before I saw this. So, like, did it just seem like Matt was being weird? A little bit.

Michelle 35:31

I mean, like, again, I was culturally familiar with my dinner with Andre, so it wasn't like totally out of the blue, but um, I didn't realize how many of them were like very specific references to the movie, and I thought they were just sort of, you know, things that came into his head.

Steve 35:47

So it took some research, uh, but I didn't realize, and they, you know, they get Matt says to Jay, like, oh, let's go up to the buffet, we'll get some food first, and then we'll do that. That they were basically recreating a commercial for Mandarin buffet from the from the 80s and 90s.

SPEAKER_04 36:01

Mm-hmm. Oh, really?

Steve 36:02

For for the the scene where they're like panning over and it's like making the food look beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 36:07

Uh-huh.

Steve 36:08

That there is a commercial for Mandarin, like Chinese buffets that is very similar, and they were doing a like homage to these like local commercials. That's awesome. That's the best. And I was like, I wish someone would do that. I mean, it is a it's it is a thing that happens. There's uh a children's show called Ask the Story Bots that did an elaborate re like riff on Crazy Eddy's electronics, the New York uh electronics store commercials. So I'm familiar. Yeah, I have a soft spot for people who do local commercials for uh national TV.

Michelle 36:44

That is fun. It's a great genre. And like even if you don't know those specific commercials, like I feel like there's just like a sheen on it of like, I know that this is something that's just stuck in your brain from childhood, the way that like Sears air conditioning commercial is stuck in mine.

SPEAKER_06 36:58

Yeah, there's also an aspect of deflating that like we're doing a reference to a pretentious, critically acclaimed, like uh adored critical darling art house movie. And we're gonna also do references to a local TV commercial, and they're gonna have equal weight. Yeah.

Michelle 37:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 37:16

That um I think if you were trying to read the tea leaves and say, like, do they love my dinner with Andre? Do they hate it? They're kind of like it's all just fodder for we can do whatever we want to do. Um I would be equally uh convinced if if you asked me, do they love my dinner with Andre, or do they just think we can use its bones the same way we use the bones of a local commercial and we're gonna actually make our own version of this that will have a heist, it'll have these other elements that it doesn't have that you can point out like, see, it doesn't have to be just dry and dusty conversation. It can be heartfelt, it can be that you know, like I could see it being a critique of it as much as an homage. Um because I don't think they I don't think it's an example of something where you can definitively read them doing it as um as an endorsement or as a as a condemnation. It's sort of just it's just another, it's just more grist for the mill.

Steve 38:12

Everything with them is always just such a moving target, too. Like they they owe they always, for me at least, leave me on my he knocked back on my heels, not knowing where they're coming from or where they're going, either intellectually or emotionally. Yeah. I watched this one four times, despite Kit telling me not to.

SPEAKER_04 38:31

Please stop watching this episode.

Steve 38:33

I usually watch them three times before, but I will admit I my third watch, I was a little in my feels, so I want to go back one more time with an intellectual lens. Okay. How'd that go? I was riding high from end of Oak Street, so I was in a good mood, so I didn't cry this time. Just teared a little bit. Um but uh I noticed that on the fourth rewatch, when Jay is looking at the buffet, you can actually see Matt disappear for a minute. So, like all of the stuff that is revealed later, you can see them kind of peppered throughout, which is clearly done in the edit, in a way that's really interesting. Just the way that they edit the shot, like it makes it look like Matt runs away.

Michelle 39:18

They're so thoughtful about how they put this stuff in, and like you can see the like photo printed out on the fighting couple's table, and I don't know. The guy with the camera does seem like a natural. He he felt like he was really born to play the role of random restaurant photographer.

Steve 39:36

So that guy comes next, right? Um he they're sitting at the table, and this guy runs up with his old timey camera, and he says, Oh, you're so handsome. Can I take a picture of you? You look like great friends. My wife would love this.

Michelle 39:46

It's one of my favorite lines in this episode. Like, this is a great episode with a lot of good stuff. I love that that guy says, You guys are so handsome, my wife would love this. Yep. It's so funny. It's his wife is apparently just like every woman who watches the show and is chanting kiss at them at the end of every episode. It's true.

Steve 40:08

She's me. You know, they're showing subtitles on what the guy's saying. And then he like says to Matt basically, was that okay? And they don't put subtitles on it.

Michelle 40:17

Oh. Oh, interesting. Secret details that are only unlocked on a fourth watch.

Steve 40:22

I told you it was coming in from an intellectual place, not from an emotional place this time. And yeah, so like it's interesting to see where they've not cut stuff because they could have very easily cut it, you know, that part, but they just they leave in the audio of him saying, like, is that okay to Matt? Thus revealing on future watches that it was a plant, but don't make it part of like the the subtitles. I thought that was such a neat little seeing the heist in action.

SPEAKER_06 40:49

Yeah. And is the was that okay also the real guy asking the real Matt, was that okay me doing the thing you wanted me to do? I think it was.

Steve 40:58

I think it I think it was.

SPEAKER_06 41:00

So they're actually repurposing a real thing to make it seem like it's part of the the subplot, the like the the the hidden plot of the episode when it really is just you just ask someone to say something they don't know why you asked them, and they're like, is that what you wanted? Mm-hmm. For your whatever this is that you're doing. It it works both for the TV show and for the buffet plot. Yep.

Steve 41:23

Amazing. You know, we we um we make we make the not joke, some would claim joke, uh comments about trying to speak to Werner Herzog. And what are the I some have a curious thing? That's real. And I know that. I agree. I'm just saying there have been accusations made in my household. But uh Werner Herzog, you know, talks about a static truth, right? Like that you don't need to put full facts on the screen. You just need to put stuff that gets to the truth of what you're trying to show. And this guy was probably not acting, like being like, this guy's doing a heist, and I'm gonna ask him if I did it's okay. It is this man being like to Matt Johnson, real guy. Oh, is that okay? But it does get to the emotional truth of the scene by leaving that in. And I find that like this show plays in that realm of aesthetic truth, of its production. What was a real guy, what was an actor, what was edited out of context, but it does know it at the end of the day, the facts don't matter, the emotional truth of the scene does. And I think this small little bit is one of those. Totally. This was your Steve Over thinks about two seconds of Nirvana Band the show quarter.

Michelle 42:33

It wouldn't be the podcast without it.

Steve 42:35

It's true. That's what I do. They did look so handsome, let's be honest.

Michelle 42:39

And that guy's wife would love it. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve 42:41

That's the line I want to know where that came from.

Michelle 42:44

But well, that guy's improvising too, I think. I I think they asked him to do the camera thing. I don't think they gave him any lines to say. And like, that's it's one of those things that's so beautiful. And I'm sure that happened there, like, oh my god, incredible. Yes.

SPEAKER_06 42:57

Man's a born to be a snark. I mean, uh, I wonder, because there's sort of like the old, like the old trope, if you ever watched Columbo, where Columbo would all often use bringing up his wife as a disarming tactic with people who are like, oh, my wife, like, if they meet a big movie star who's like committed a murder, he'll be like, Oh, my wife's such a big fan of your movies or whatever. I wonder if you have a guy who's who doesn't know what's going on, and a guy says, Hey, will you take a picture of me and my friend and say a nice thing about us? I wonder if there is an aspect of that guy wanting to be clear that like I have a wife, like in case there's a sexual element to this. Yeah. Yeah. It's his way of saying I'm straight. But it I I I think it might be that because I'm straight, and whatever this menage a toi is, I'm like, it feels to me like he could be signaling things like in a very it's a very um advanced move for a beginning improviser. To know that sometimes you just need to say it doesn't have to be graceful. You just need to get communicate what's going on. And so that's his way of saying, I am straight, I am taken. Like my wife would love this photo of you two. It's not elegant. It's not elegant, but you have you have communicated to your scene partners what you want to communicate.

Steve 44:19

Or hear me out, counterpoint. He's letting them know the wife's into it.

SPEAKER_06 44:23

Oh just showing that the layers of potential misunderstanding are infinite. Even when clarifying, you could be opening a new opening an additional door.

Steve 44:34

Michelle, go on AO3.

Michelle 44:36

Let me know if somebody wrote man from if there's any fan fiction about the guy with the camera from this specific episode of the show. Yeah, I'll look. Well, if not. You know what I forgot? When you know what I should have checked for that I didn't, that I will at some point look in this episode, um, is how much my dinner with Andre fanfiction exists. There I'm not none.

SPEAKER_06 44:54

No, it's not none. I I would I would almost certainly say the answer, whatever the answer is, the real answer is not enough.

Michelle 45:00

Yeah, I think you're right. And and my personal question um is how much of it involves the waiter who is, I think, my actual favorite character from my dinner with Andre, the old man waiter. He's so mysterious.

Steve 45:13

Somewhere in an NYU class, there is a student prepping a one-person show about the waiter's perception of what was going on with these two guys who were there all night.

Michelle 45:23

If you are that person and you happen to be listening to this podcast, please, this is the only time you're ever gonna hear me say this, email me, Michelle. Wow. To let me know.

SPEAKER_04 45:34

This never happens.

Michelle 45:36

Um notorious email hater, please email me about your one-person show about the waiter from My Dinner with Andre, because I will take a train up and I will come see it and I will clap the whole time. Or when I'm supposed to.

SPEAKER_04 45:50

Also, update: I did just go check AO3 because I was very curious. Currently, the My Dinner with Andre tag, only two fan fictions. Only one is actually relevant. The other one is about Sonic the Hedgehog, and I think is a reference to My Dinner with Andre. The other one is an actual fanfiction about the film My Dinner with Andre.

Michelle 46:10

Only one. Only one. I was expecting not a lot, but I was expecting in the like teens or twenties, I think. Two is awfully low.

SPEAKER_06 46:19

Hmm.

Michelle 46:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 46:21

I um and an idea is occurring to me. Um I made a movie uh a few years ago, uh, and it was based on a uh it hasn't really been released. It it it funnily enough has only been screened once in like a midnight screening at a very small festival in Canada. Um I made a movie called Connor's Pizza.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 46:45

And it was based on a tweet, a dumb tweet that I did where I said I was going to be remaking Rosemary's baby. Um, but I was gonna be replacing Rosemary with me. I would be replacing the baby with a pizza. Incredible. And uh and and then uh uh my friend Tom Levin, who's a filmmaker, we had this notion of what if we just filmed for 24 hours just me with a pizza, and anything we thought of in the course of that 24 hours, we would edit that into the movie. Our goal was to make a feature film, shoot it in less than 24 hours for less than $100. And the budget of the movie, people lie about this when they say they only spent so much. We literally, the only money we spent was, I think it was like $90 just on the pizzas. That's literally all we bought was the pizzas. So not a dime went to anything else in the in the movie. And I really thought, oh, some festival is gonna want a movie that genuinely costs so little to me. And I not that many people have seen it. I do think it's watchable, but I also think it's what I was really hoping and still hope to do someday is because I present it as an art film, my my notion was I would like to present it to audiences where you have to like we haven't uploaded online because of like I want people to only see this in context where they either have to watch it or leave.

unknown 48:03

I don't want it to be a thing.

SPEAKER_06 48:04

Yeah, I don't want it to be a thing where people can just click on a watch a few minutes and go like, uh, I don't want to see this.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 48:11

And and I was, and part of the experience for me is I I do want to contentiously fight with audiences about like this is an art film. I don't care what you think of it. And but it's occurring to me now, because I wonder why more people haven't made uh movies like My Dinner with Andre. Like it's still somewhat there are people who parody it, but not many people have just made another version with this form. Yeah. And then it occurred to me that I should just make a movie called My Dinner and eliminate the second character. Yeah. So there's no dialogue. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 48:41

I love that.

SPEAKER_06 48:42

But it but it will take the length of the dinner. Yeah. Just them just myself eating alone, a couple of long lens cameras, and the cost of a nice meal. No plot, no plot, but some good in some good inserts of the food. Maybe a documentary, maybe it's an art house documentary, but I think I'm gonna make it. Please do this. Yeah. We'll be there. And so I'll have a second, I'll have a second, a second unreleased feature film in the can.

Michelle 49:08

I would love. I would love to see you do that.

SPEAKER_04 49:11

A great double feature.

SPEAKER_06 49:13

Absolutely. Well, let's say for the second one, maybe it'll be better.

Steve 49:18

Jay goes back up to the buffet alone. That's true. That's right. I'm sorry I skipped very important. And there's this really interesting bit where they recreate the commercial, you know, homage. And a little bit of the shines off of it. Jay's missing Matt because Matt's not next to him. And what I find so interesting about that moment is I don't know how much Matt needs an elaborate plot, because you can see, like, for Jay, the world has a little bit less wonder when Matt's not with him.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

So wholesome.

Steve 49:50

And it makes it even sadder to me. That like I feel like e if they had broken up the band or whatever, they would have been back together in a week because Jay would miss him so much.

Michelle 50:01

Mm-hmm. I mean, well, we've seen that episode. Is it's we've seen it in the web series. I think we've seen it in Vice, but like every time they spend a day apart, they're just both so sad and like yearning for each other from whatever distance is between them. And it would be the same thing here. Yeah. I have no doubt.

SPEAKER_06 50:22

But they Yeah, I mean, I I think the one of the funniest jokes, it's not it's not even necessarily immediately apparent as a joke, but I think one of the funniest jokes of the movie is the notion that, like, yes, Jay technically does better without Matt until he very much does not. Like, everything goes great, and but the worst thing that ever happens to Jay is is that he murders someone. Yep. Yeah. There's there's not even a close second place for either of them. The worst thing that either of them ever does is because he's alone. Yeah. And uh and it's just you can't even argue it. You can't even there there's nothing that comes even close to it. And it's so funny that you're like, which one of these two guys is gonna accidentally murder someone? You know? And it turns out it's Jay. Yeah. You know? For all the for all the danger that Matt seems to have about him, ultimately, like, that's the thing that we the thing that they learn is like, oh yeah, you'll be a big pop star and you'll kill someone by being careless.

Michelle 51:26

Whereas Matt could push you off the top of the CN Tower and you'll be just fine. Yep.

Steve 51:31

And then yeah, we get to the like humor saying, the one minute they ask the guy to time one minute of eating.

Michelle 51:36

And then immediately are not just sitting and eating. It's great. I I love that they get like eight seconds into that before they start talking about something else.

Steve 51:46

Could you imagine Matt shutting up for one full minute? Oh, no way. Not at all. Not allowed. But then the the the couple starts fighting. And I I do love that they blur the woman's face out, but not the guy's. It's such a good guess.

Michelle 51:59

Well, he's committed a crime, so put him on blast.

Steve 52:02

Matt makes my favorite Matt moment of the episode where he's like, What's going on? Is she ripping him? Is she going? Let me check. I have a mirror in my hat. And then he kicks it off and goes, Oh fuck, no, I don't.

SPEAKER_06 52:12

Yeah, it's such a wonderful childlike moment because he it seems as though he really believes he does have a mirror in his hat, like that he that that he's surprised that he doesn't.

Michelle 52:25

And you know what? I was a little surprised that he didn't. True. I was like, oh, you know, they've never shown him like keeping anything up there. What a fun thing to introduce. And then I fell for it right there with him.

Steve 52:37

Well, there's that interview we've talked about where they said that the characters of Matt and Jay are what two like 12-year-old boys think grown men are like in the city. And yeah, uh, they think that a cool adult has a sneaky mirror in his hat so he can see what's going on behind him at all times.

Michelle 52:53

It's a great, like, stupid spy trick, like a like a get smart, not a James Bond gizmo, but uh, but a get smart gizmo.

Steve 53:02

And they ask the woman next to them, can she translate? And she said, he's too optimistic. I it's interesting that Jay just buys that. Yeah, of course. That's why this woman's like about to slap this man. He's just too optimistic.

SPEAKER_06 53:14

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's it's also interesting um because Jay does seem, especially when you're watching it after you've seen it through the first time, it does seem like that's the moment when Jay's gonna be like, Did you read the letter? Do you know like what are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 53:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 53:30

And and it's a good example of how um that's why that these tricks aren't working. And uh, and we'll get to why the final trick I think does work, and it has to do with the presentation of it. Yeah. But I'll save that for when we get to it. Please.

Michelle 53:45

Yeah. Well, one of my other favorite distractions comes right after that when Matt points to the fish tank and says, which of those fish are we? And then the camera pans to I just somehow a fish that looks exactly like Matt Johnson in fish form. I don't know how they did that. Like, what a beautiful coincidence, or maybe they knew. I I don't know. And then he says, We're he says we're both the white ones, but right next to the big white fish is like a little skinny brown long nose fish that I was like, that I I think that is the two of them in like beautiful aquatic animal form. Um and it's it's perfect.

Steve 54:28

But then we then uh the woman brings over the fortune cookies, and can you believe it? The fortunes match.

SPEAKER_04 54:35

Before money and fame. Friend.

SPEAKER_06 54:38

And there's a smart thing here that um that Matt lets Jay be the one to piece it together. So he lets him be the one to to figure it out. And the thing that I think Matt does that's really smart is the thing he notices is the Hurley's letters from Lost.

SPEAKER_02 54:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 54:56

Which is his which is his way of communicating to Jay, like, I'm someone who understands Lost too, because that was one of his complaints in the letter. It's like if you watched Lost, you'd understand this. And he he does he sells it out a little in that he says he calls it like that crank ass show. Yeah. So he can't help himself but to s to belittle it. But I think that showing that like I took an I also take an interest in the thing that you like being um that's part of what he that's it it's a double message and it it undergirds the power of friendship uh fortune cookie message that it's like I have paid attention to a thing that you are interested in because I'm invested in the in what you like. It's not just it's an unselfish reference, even though he can't help but insult the show, the quality of the show while doing that. Yeah. But I think that's why it works on Jay so well, is because he allows Jay to feel smart by making the solving the puzzle, but he's also communicating to him like I'm making a reference to the show you like.

Steve 56:07

That, and then it has a little return to something that I was kind of obsessed with with the web series, which was the Matt when he's sincere for more than like a second can't handle it. Or it's like, yeah, look, I watch Lost 2, that crank ass show, because like he just is so reactive to being sincere that he just has to like set it on fire immediately, and it's just compulsive. So Jay then realizes, like, after the fortune, like, you know, I I I I want to stay in this band. I love my best friend. And he reads this very phony uh I'm excited on our journey together type note. It's like it's so it sounds so insincere, and you can see on Matt's face, he's like, I fucking won, and he's not even hearing what Jay's saying.

Michelle 56:54

Well, it's the nicest letter he's ever received.

Steve 56:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 56:57

I I also really like the fact, and I think this happens a lot on the show. I could probably come up with a lot of examples if given time, but I like that the letter is fine. Like the letter that he makes up could be a letter that he wrote. Yeah. Um, I think a lot of people would have the tendency to give away to have a lot more comedically obvious tells that they're like not reading a letter. And I like that they didn't do that because I think that's uh kind of an overplayed, like, oh, uh yes, my letter, and then like and then you're kind of reading it and it's clearly not a letter. And I think they just play it a little bit straighter than that because they know that it will be much it will work much better. And I think very often they make this choice correctly, which is you can sell out the reality of a situation for a quick joke that then doesn't you don't have anything at the end of it. And I think that they very often make the right choice in terms of like this part doesn't have to be funny because it's actually setting up that this next part will be more funny or more interesting or something. And I think that him reading the letter, there's no obvious like thing that, oh, he couldn't possibly have written that because it sounds too fumbly, or he's like he's like saying stuff and changing it or whatever, you know, as he's reading it.

Steve 58:15

And and at the end of the day, Jay does love Matt. He doesn't know how to like say it super directly, but the the feelings are true. I don't know if he's enjoyed the journey together, but he does love Matt.

SPEAKER_04 58:29

Yeah.

Steve 58:29

Of course. So then they get in the fight over like the letter because Matt wants to take it home and frame it. And like you were saying before, Connor, like he's like needs to just shove it in Jay's face like one last time and make him feel bad, basically, for it.

SPEAKER_06 58:43

Yeah. Because he can't do the thing that he probably wanna do, which is to roast him over the letter. Like, that's your letter, that's what you wrote. Which he, if that would be his normal insult, instantly, like, I'm gonna razz him over this letter, being like, that's what we were waiting the whole time for you to read this, like very straightforward. Like instead, he's like, No, that's beautiful. I want to hang that. That's the nicest thing that anyone ever wrote. I want to give it, give it to me. It's my letter.

Steve 59:07

It is true. Like, his natural impulse whenever Jay says anything like nice is to just like roast him. So yeah, he then has to be so much more evil and just make him feel terrible. Also, Jay put it on such nice pretty paper and in an envelope with little leaves on it. Kit, you're the stationary expert.

SPEAKER_04 59:24

Beautiful, beautiful paper. Really great choice from Jay there.

Steve 59:28

And then we get one of my favorite recurring map bits, which is him running out of a place and apologizing to every single person he runs past. He's like, sorry, sorry, sorry. And then they get outside and he rips up the letter and they laugh and they laugh. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 59:42

And everything is great, and nothing bad has occurred.

Steve 59:44

Yeah. But then we get the reveal of the heist. I figure we could do the reveal and then we could talk about the fireworks scene because I could talk about the fireworks scene for 45 minutes.

SPEAKER_06 59:54

Um so there was something Wait, well, we're gonna talk about the fireworks scene, and then we're gonna have some waterworks. Yeah, okay. Because I've been promised and promised that you're gonna cry.

Steve 1:00:04

Uh, I'm gonna try my best. Uh, but so I want to just kind of briefly walk through the plan because Connor, you had something you wanted to say about the last part you had said.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:12

Um no, I already said it, which is the thing about the Hurley's numbers. Okay, oh, yeah, yeah. That being that being the detail that it's like, that is more more skillfully executed than the earlier parts of the plan because he realizes I can't just have someone say uh obvious stuff. I have to layer this so that he can buy. I need to a like he realizes he needs to up his game, and the fortune cookie is a multi-layer thing in a way that the earlier tricks, like, oh, best friend rice, like that's not good enough. Yep. That's not gonna cut it.

Steve 1:00:44

Nope. Yeah, no, totally. And so basically what we find out is that Matt gave the guy the camera, asked him to do it, he added the sign that says best friend rice. Uh he goes to a place, photoshops a picture of the man from the couple poorly into a group with a group of sexy ladies, uh, so that the girlfriend breaks up with him, asks the woman at the table to re say the thing about optimism, and then he went and got custom fortune cookies made. And this was this really elaborate, magically pulled off in like 45-minute heist. And there's the shot where he looks at the camera. Matt looks at the camera and goes, This is my one last chance. I got one last trick up my sleeve. And my heart breaks. Because to Matt, this is everything.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:31

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Steve 1:01:32

Like, because if you notice, he doesn't mention a plan for the Rivoli this whole episode. He does he doesn't mention the band the whole episode, which is very unlike him, you know. But in this, it's just like all that matters is I cannot let Jay leave me. And it it I here, I'm gonna try not to be upset. I I always feel bad that Matt clearly doesn't know that Jay loves him back.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:56

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Steve 1:01:58

Because if he had like faith in that Jay cared about him, the band ending wouldn't break him to this amount. And that just makes me so sad. That after all those years, like Matt doesn't truly understand that Jay actually loves him, is my read.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:13

Right. And he has and he has evidence for it. He has, you know, he has multiple by now at this point in in reality, he has multiple instances in which given the choice, Matt uh uh Jay's choice is like I'm gonna give up on us. And so it's not like he it's not like he's being paranoid. No, it's true. Like this is this is I'm gonna break up with you, and he prevents the breakup, but he knows that the breakup was what Jay wanted, so it's there was one of them that is more invested in this relationship than the other.

Steve 1:02:46

It's so interesting their codependency because they're they both come at it from such different angles. Like Jay is not a functional human being without Matt to play off of, and Matt is not a functional human being without Jay to love on. And it's just it's a weird, like missed balanced uh codependency in these two characters.

Michelle 1:03:06

Mm-hmm. They need each other, but because they are essentially 14-year-old boys, don't know how to communicate that to each other. And so we have this many hijinks as ways of showing and sharing the love that they have.

Steve 1:03:22

So the fireworks scene. Uh you know, Jay said it was the best Canada Day ever, and they go to watch the fireworks, and Jay has this smile on his face, like a four-year-old seeing fireworks for the first time. It's really cute.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:33

Yeah.

Steve 1:03:34

With his big, beautiful, empty head. And Matt just can't bring himself to enjoy it. Like you were saying before, Connor, like he has this haunted look on his face. And he looks there's one shot where he looks away from the fireworks as if to be like, I don't deserve to be having fun right now. Mm-hmm. And that that is a level of just like self-destructiveness that I that's my real I want to hug you, Matt. Like, yes, you did something awful, but like you're not like this irredeemable ghoul.

Michelle 1:04:06

I think the end of this episode is heartbreaking. Um I did not cry, but I I could have in slightly different emotional circumstances. Um I think it's really beautiful and it's really sad, and it's um kind of an unusual one, like in the grand scheme of the show. But I really loved it.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:28

This is really sad. I mean, a part of it is just like, you know, Matt finally pulled off a plan, and of course, it is a plan he can never really admit to Jay. So now he has the secret, and that is devastating. That one, that this was a secret, and two, it was an elaborate ruse to get Jay to stay, and two, now he ha or three, now he has to think about the fact that like he did all of this for Jay, and the fact that now he has to like sort of wrestle with the fact that like he had to do all of this planning and like sneak it around to get Jay to stay. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:01

And if Jay knew that he did all this, like if he found it out, he might just leave anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:06

Yep. Exactly.

unknown 1:05:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:08

Because he'd be like, You tricked me, you did another, you know, you lied to me. This is all he might not he might not see it as a beautiful thing. So it's like there is an aspect of it that Matt, this is the truest version of Matt, which is like, I'm always scheming, I'm always like trying to trick my way into anything. I don't he doesn't do anything the natural way. He's always got to do it as part of a plan or a plot or a trick or a skiing. If they never play the Rivoli, you know, it doesn't really matter. Like, it will ultimately be a letdown if they ever do play the Rivoli. No one expects that um that like and that's been proven out in the, you know, in the in the both in the real world and in the world of the web series that like you never actually want them to play the Rivoli. It's it's never gonna be uh what they hope it is or what you might hope it is. It's not the payoff that you think it is, it is that journey. But this scheme is for something meaningful. Like if he if he had failed at this, it would be uh terrible. Whereas the thing they're actually striving for, it's so much more about trying to have fun with these crazy schemes than it is about actually getting a show. They don't actually want a show at the Rivoli. They love the idea of the show at the Rivoli. They love the potential, the possibility of what it would be like.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:25

I'll give two examples. Well, what one from my own experience and uh and one that is an observed experience, um, which is, you know, when I did my podcast, Deadeyes, there was the day when I had my 90-minute conversation with Tom Hanks that went just about as as well as could have I could have dreamed. There was a moment right after that where uh Tom Hanks went to his car and we said goodbye. And I was just standing outside in Los Angeles and I was just like, well, now what do I do? Like I genuinely was like, this wasn't like the central obsession of my life or anything, but it was a thing that had happened 20 years earlier and now it was over. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:09

And similarly, I don't know if you've there have been tons of clips all summer of the the Knicks finally, you know, winning the championship and Knicks and five, and it's been the same thing that sort of transformed New York City. And there was there was game four where um the unexpected comeback and everyone's couldn't believe it. That's the main thing you see the footage of is you see Spike Lee courtside and he's dancing and he's never been happier in his life. And then there's two games later when they win the championship for real, or two days later when they win the championship for real. Um look at Spike Lee right after they win. Because what you see on his face is not the same joy, it's not the same exuberance of the surprise comeback in game four. You actually see like a sense of loss on his face because you realize like his whole life has been waiting for this to happen and now it's happened. And even if they win again, that's just another that's that okay, they win again. What uh at some point they have to lose. Yeah. The winning part, the the chase is over. And it is genuinely a haunting image to see what it looks like when someone gets what they want after a long time.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:20

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:22

If if JMA were to ever get a show at the Rivoli, what then? Like uh it actually would be the in a way the worst thing that could happen to them because they have this thing that is genuinely possible. It could happen. And so they have hope. And if it ever happens, then all they've done is a show. And it won't lead to anything else. It's not doesn't fix any of their problems. But as long as they can stay in this as long as they can stay in this spot, they are frozen in the spot where they are forever hopeful, they forever have this possibility. And when you lose that, even in success, it is it is a form of death. It is a um it it it is a loss even when you get the thing that you've been chasing. You have lost the chase, you have lost the hope and the pursuit, and now you have to figure out something else. And I don't think anybody I mean, I speak too soon because I don't know where ultimately this will there's a million different ways that this can go, and I hate it when people say like we never want this to happen or something, because maybe there is a world where we see them do what they want, and then we see what happens beyond that, and maybe that opens some other thing. But I think baked into this premise, the other, the other funniest joke to me in the movie is when they fully realize the the the scope of what has happened, that they have traveled through time, that when he then says, Okay, so we're trapped in 2007, 2008, yeah, 2007, 2008. Um, and then he says, So, how do we use this to get a show with Rivoli? And I'm like, the fact that the biggest laugh, one of the biggest laughs in the movie, is just a restatement of the premise of this whole thing, like but it's so surprising that it's like, even in the face of this, this is still this thing they have to hold on to to chase after.

Michelle 1:10:15

It's a it's grounding.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:17

Yeah.

Michelle 1:10:17

I'm so glad you brought up Deadeyes because I was gonna ask, I was sort of waiting till the end of this episode. You know, I I think there is sort of a shared spirit between what we're doing on this podcast and what you did on Deadeyes, which is that like our goal is to eventually hopefully have Matt and Jay on this podcast and talk to them. And uh that was your goal throughout Deadeyes is to talk to Tom Hanks and Um You know, you actually did it. How did you prepare for it? I mean, you've talked a little bit about how it felt sort of when you were done with that conversation, but what was it like to go into it?

SPEAKER_06 1:10:55

Well, I mean, we did have to plan in a way that normally we would you would, you know, I prepare for interviews by, you know, making sure I knew I didn't forget something or that I I knew all the possible angles to have a conversation. With this one, we didn't we knew we'd have him for definitely a half an hour, but we didn't but that's also not a guarantee because if 10 minutes in to the interview something else happened that he had to go, then that would have been all we got. Yeah. And so the we had planned what are the things we definitely need to get, and what are the things that we are optional and would to just have an order to things. And one of the things that we had planned for, but it was sort of a worst-case scenario, is what if he needs me to retell him the story of what happened because he doesn't remember? And that's exactly what happened. And that I'm like, and that was sort of like, oh no, I'm gonna have to eat up five to ten minutes of my time with him, resating the often stated premise of this podcast. With him, I needed to tell him a version where he would fully would put fully put him back in that place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:01

Um, and so that was that was one of the things. But fortunately, I mean, that one of the best things about that experience was that we had him for I think a half an hour, 45 minutes or whatever, and he stayed for 90.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:12

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:13

And Tom Hanks doesn't say an extra 45 minutes to an hour unless he's enjoying it, unless he's engaged in an interested. Like he doesn't when you're at that stage, you don't have to do something like that. You I mean, you don't have to show up in the first place. But you really don't have to say extra unless, like, that was to me was like the ultimate endorsement that he found the conversation to be an interesting experience, which was the entire goal from my end. It's always my goal, whether I'm doing the George Lucas Talk Show. Anytime that I'm getting what is essentially a uh often a millionaire to do me the favor of being on this thing that I'm doing, that there's no there's no money reason, there's no career, there's no professional reason for them to do it necessarily. You want the experience to be good. Now, in the case of Dead Eyes, it was both because I genuinely believed, and I think this is true, someone had paid me a very nice compliment at one point of saying there was a director who was talking to me who had worked with me and also had worked with Tom Hanks and knew Tom Hanks. And he said, when he heard the episode, he said, I think this episode, if you're a fan of Tom Hanks's body of work, that this episode is to be regarded as part of his body of work. Whoa. Like Tom Hanks' reputation, who he's like the nicest guy in Hollywood. Um, I think what some people initially thought the podcast was like, oh, is this a takedown of Tom Hanks? You're gonna reveal that he's like a secret Hollywood bastard. Yeah. And that was never what it was, but it was fully intended to complicate and to enrich that it's like you can be a nice guy, and you can also be professionally nice, and you can also be a professional who, in certain circumstances, has to do things that are not quote unquote nice, but they are the professional thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. Uh and that what he did in that instance was actually adjacent to like a fuck up, which is that something got communicated to me that wasn't supposed to be, but that wasn't something he did. He was just the source of the information that got communicated to me in a way that, like, yeah, you're not supposed to tell the actor everything that was said about that actor that might put them in their head and make them think, like, oh no, this guy's got dead eyes, you know. Um, so like I really feel like at the end of it, it's something that was a benefit to not that Tom Hanks needs extra added benefits, but it was like it's in the plus column for him.

Steve 1:14:37

To be like really honest, like one of the reasons why you were on our list of guests that I I really wanted to have on the show is I feel like you tend to engage with the levels of things in really sincere ways. I think that interview with Tom Hanks, you know, is it's it's vulnerable, it's sincere. And I think there is another world with another person whose work doesn't go that way where it is a little more jokey than it was. I my thing with Nirvana the Band is there is this emotional sincerity at the core of it. There is you know, I don't it's not it's funny as fuck, and it's it's edgy, but it's it's sincere, and I find there's a through line of that in a lot of your work as well.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:18

Thank you. Yeah, I think there are times when glibness is fine, but I I don't think there's a lot of meat on the bone, you know, when you ult ultimately things that are really glib have to be consistently hilarious. Like if you're gonna I sort of think like there's a spectrum of comedy that like at one end you have things like Tootsie, and at another end you have things that are just joke machines. And the joke machines are great, but a joke machine has to consistently fire out either so many jokes that uh and they have to either be so many that most of them are at a high level that you don't notice that nothing matters. Yep. But at the at the other end of it, it's like, you know, not everything has to be a joke. If you care about something, um the jokes will mean more when they land and when they arrive, and that and and every joke, every moment is not the end of the world has to be funny. Um and I think that is really a great thing about all of these things that we're talking about, that like the no matter how goofy it is, no matter how silly it might seem, you buy yourself just a lot of real estate comedically when you uh actually care about what these characters want. And and they care. You know? Um I think sometimes uh the the there's a lot of things, there's a lot of words that you could put towards this, but like it really feels like there's never anything that feels nihilistic.

Steve 1:16:45

Yeah. Mm-hmm. I heard somebody complain once about the movie that Matt makes the joke earlier about somebody being electrocuted and you seeing the skeleton. That I saw some people online complaining, like, well, it sucks that when Matt gets electrocuted, you don't see a skeleton. And I was like, Yeah, that's a good joke, but I laugh and I move on. Like, Matt dying in the movie is tragic.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:10

He puts the image in our mind of that, so you don't actually need to see it. Guess what? You already saw it. Exactly. He already showed it to you just by telling you it. And if you were to show it, and I believe I've heard there was a cut of the movie where you saw a version of that. I don't know if you've heard that. I heard someone online had said if there was a version of it. I I definitely feel like um I mean, sometimes I've I as a as a sort of completionist, there's a part of me that when I every time I hear them like, oh, we made more changes, I'm like, oh God, what did you cut that might have been great? Because there's always stuff like that where you're like, uh, they might have cut your favorite moment and you don't even know it because you saw it on its eighth iteration or whatever. But when I imagine that moment, I don't know that there's a version of seeing it that would have not um that would have been more effective than the fact that the camera just barely misses seeing it. Like he's just like so many things when they describe their editing process, a lot of times they'll like when they talk about um uh um the Wednesday uh um the the Wii update thing, um that some of if you if you look at the raw footage of that, the the the takes that are in the final edit of that, one frame to the right or left of any of those and it and they're breaking. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:27

You know what I mean? Yeah. And I think that's the way it is for a lot of things, the the way they make their things, that like some of these edits are just barely like you couldn't let it go on another frame without it like breaking down. And that shot where you see the the uh the RV disappear, you can you can almost see what happens to him, but you don't. And it's such a it's so it's so very much the correct the correct choice. Yeah.

Steve 1:18:54

I I remember sitting in the theater and like you know, you see Back to the Future and you're like cheering when you know when Marty gets away. And I was sitting in the theater for this movie for the movie, and I just like gasped and was devastated. And it's the same like climactic feeling, but you're left with a different emotion. But I feel like if they would have shown any of it, whether it was like an intense lecturation, a skeleton or whatever, I don't think you would feel anything. You would get a chuckle and move on.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:22

Yeah, it's a really it, you know, I notice it a lot in improv, and there are people who um, you know, whenever I'm coaching or doing a workshop or something like that, that the tendency to go for the joke because you know it's there and you don't realize what you're giving up. And and I say this as someone who like, you know, I've I've uh I've heard Matt Johnson talking a lot about in Blackberry, um, that uh when he gave the the note to Glenn Howarton about like you if you don't try to be funny, you'll be the funniest person in this movie. Blackberry is a really funny movie, but it really isn't trying to be funny. No.

Steve 1:20:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:06

Ever. Ever. Like it it it's it's just a devastating drama that because of these like idiosyncratic moments in it, it's really funny. It it's sort of like um it's your it's a really interesting thing to see that approach because very few movies are as funny as Nirvana the Band, the m the show of the movie, and yet um the approach to it is to make just like from these characters' point of view, this is the most serious thing that ever happened to them. Even a moment that's not end of the world, it's not it doesn't even have to do with the fact that the stakes are so high and that they are, it's like time travel and life and death. I'll even say like a moment that's really funny, but also deadly serious, not deadly serious, but like completely serious, is when they crash the RV and knock over the newspaper things, and then Jay's trying to think of a way to get rid of him. He's like, Oh, I'll return the thing. Oh, uh let's get in here. He's like, Oh yeah, I'll go with you. And then he sees the movie theater and he says, Hey, um, what about we go to a movie? Matt's reaction to the idea that Jay would want to just spontaneously go see a movie is kind of as heartbreaking as the end of the buffet. Because it's because you it's like, you know, like there's those animal videos that the dodo does on Instagram that some of them like have like really harrowing passages because you'd be like, We found a dog that was in the worst shape you've ever seen a dog. And you're like, I know that this video is gonna end up in a happy place, but they make you watch like the footage of like this dog has been neglected to the point where it's like skin is cracking. Matt is Matt's reaction to maybe we'll go see a movie is too happy. It's it's so happy that it almost smacks of like abuse in the sense of like Jay, do you never like just want to like how when's the last time Jay just wanted to do something for fun with Matt? Like he's like, what? Oh yeah, like he's so happy that it almost is heartbreaking that you're like, it takes so little to it almost makes you wonder is Matt are all these schemes fundamentally a version of the buffet? Are all the Rivley schemes just to keep the wheels turning? Because if they don't have these schemes, he's he knows that Jay will lose interest in their friendship.

Steve 1:22:31

Yeah. You know? Yeah, it's it's it's in the mix for sure.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:36

Because it's not I the the fact that this is the episode that he never mentions the Rivley, it's like he shows up to the restaurant without a new scheme for the Rivley, that they're just out for like that and that and their relationship is about to end as a result of it. So are all those schemes ultimately part of like keeping those plates spinning because if they don't have that, he's worried that like maybe they don't have anything.

Michelle 1:22:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:00

Oh devastating. But that's the thing. That that's that thing of like I really I've never been a joke machine. I've never been the type of person who just can come up with a silly joke and a silly joke, and like I get tired very quickly. But I am very invested in like coming up with what a character wants and why, and like looking to what's the most fun version of pursuing that. And that's very much what all of these things are about, you know, that like um it's really, it's really it's also interesting thinking about the fact I haven't seen Tony yet. I'm gonna go see that soon. But both Tony and Blackberry, both being movies about subject matter, that Matt Johnson was like, I don't really care about Blackberries. Yeah. And I don't really care about Anthony Burder. They're both movies that he had to like get into the like, well, let me see. It's not like they were it's not like he was like, I'm dying to tell the story of like he finds like, okay, what can I get invested in in this? Like he looks for the thing that like, what is the thing that I can get invested in? He looks for like what's the thing that would make me care about this thing.

Michelle 1:24:04

Yeah. Yeah. I saw Tony on on Monday earlier this week. It was like a surprise mystery screening that turned out to be Tony. Um, and it was great. I really enjoyed it. I think it had a lot of those same moments that you're talking about with Blackberry and with Nirvana the band, where there are things that are funny that are like not explicitly written as jokes. And it just like, I think that's that is sort of where Matt excels as a director and as a writer, and just like, here's a thing that's funny just because life is sometimes weird and sad and funny, all swirled together at the same time. Um, and and he's so good at capturing that.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:46

Yeah, and some people are natural joke machines, and they're good at coming up with a million jokes. And I think that's great, and I have so much respect for it, even though it's not an area that I feel I excel in at all. My perception of it is that the comedy is not the number one priority in any of these things, and that they know they're funny and they don't have to worry about it. Yeah. It's that it it is just like that will take care of itself.

Steve 1:25:10

None of you saw Jackass 5, right? And it sounds weird. Mm-mm. Connor, you don't know this, but like I'm a I'm a huge Jackass fan, and I find Jackass and Nirvana the band share a lot of the same DNA of um like emotional sincerity. And they're it's talking about like, you know, it's kind of you kind of find the comedy and how you present it. Like that there's the scene in Jackass 4 where Johnny Knoxville gets his ass rocked by a bull, and that's the concussion that almost killed him. Uh and in Jackass 4, it's like played for laughs, and you see him go on the stretcher and you're like, oh fuck, he got hurt, right? In Jackass 5, they show the longer version, they show the reaction of everybody watching him get hurt, be unconscious, struggling, and like they're wondering if he's dead. And it's so much showing that like comedy's in how you move stuff around. It's in their perception, it's how things are received. Because this moment was harrowing, and they just managed to find the comedy within it. And I find that I thought that was just such an interesting reveal to show that, like, if you you there are these two funny bits that were within this thing, but actually everything around it is totally straight and unsettling.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:19

I probably have, and I'll I'll first of all I'll say many of my friends and uh people I respect love all of the Jackass stuff. Um I've never been able to get into it, and I have what is probably a bad take, but uh again, to use the phrase, I come by it honestly. Um is Jackass 2 the one that was sort of considered like the the godfather part two of Jackass movies.

Steve 1:26:46

Yes, and I don't I don't understand why people say that, but yes, it's the one that people consider, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:50

I think that's the one that I watched. Is that the one that starts with all the bulls running through the houses? Okay. I watched a a fair amount of that, enough to feel like I had really given it a fair shake. And I actually had I got so depressed watching it because I was like, I get why people think of this as funny, but it made me incredibly sad. Sadder than the buffet. Uh I just thought as I was watching it, I don't think these guys know what a friend is. And I tried to imagine, because some of the things that were happening, they were laughing, and their friend was genuinely getting hurt by various things or was in danger of being hurt. And I had the reaction of being like, if any of my friends reacted this way to now, admittedly, some of these things are entered into by choice. They'll like cut a hole in a wall and have a live tarantula or a snake or something, and they'll like put their genitals through the hole. These are they're they're they're entering into these situations willingly. So there's a lot of just like I don't relate to the impulse. Um where but then they'll get bitten by a snake and they'll be like, oh, they'll be like screaming, and the other friends will be laughing. And I would just I I Just couldn't imagine. I couldn't imagine a context where any of my friends, even if they were doing something like that, it's funny, there was a show, uh, an improv class, one of the last improv actually it might have been the last improv class I took. So this was back in like 2010, I think. Um, maybe 2011. And it was a class taught by Chris Gethard. And there was a crazy, crazy, it was a crazy class. It had like almost 30 people were in the class, which normally an improv class is 16 people, and they were all advanced level improvisers, and there was no structure to the class, and things were just insane. I I can't even get into the details of how insane this class was. But in one of the class shows, one of the people, they were, they were, they were like every show you'd like find the shape of it. And one of the people got up, and I guess it was like people started saying things that they were afraid to do, and they were building stuff out of that. And then someone got up and said, I've always wanted to be able to do a flip from a standing position um to just do a flip. And I and I've never been able to do it. And they started working to see about, yeah, maybe this guy will try and do a flip from a standing position. And the guy was like, get ready to do the flip. And I just said, I don't think we should do this. I think this is a bad idea. I think he's gonna potentially break his neck trying to do this flip. It was a low ceiling, and and I was like, guys, I just don't think this is worth it for an improv fast show. I think if he breaks his neck, I think we're all gonna feel like this is an unacceptable risk. And I think we're gonna feel um like if he really gets hurt, we're gonna feel like we shouldn't have done this. And I thought it was gonna be an I am Spartacus moment where everyone else in the room uh joined with me and said, Yeah, let's not do this. But instead, uh no one agreed. And he did the flip and he caught his foot on the he caught his foot on the like a pipe on the ceiling. And he came very close to badly hurting himself. He didn't, but it but I wasn't wrong. Yeah. And so I know that in a real life context, I I'm not down with that kind of thing. I think when I watched the little bit that I watched a jackass, I saw enough of it to be like, I just this isn't for me. I don't relate to it, I think they're taking unacceptable risks, and I think they they are in like a crazy one-upsmanship thing that I'm like, someone's really gonna get hurt and they're gonna feel bad about it, but it's like it's not worth it to me. No, and uh, and I fully understand the people who love and worship at the altar of how funny Jackass is, but I couldn't get past how genuinely sad it made me that that was what they thought friendship was. And I felt like a square. I felt like I'm the guy who doesn't get it. I'm like the suburban parent who's like, guys, come on.

Steve 1:30:58

So, Connor, just to defend you, Jackass 2, the one everybody loves the most, is my least favorite. Uh, and the reason is I love three, four, three and four, and five the most because they start showing them worried about each other. They start showing their vulnerabilities, and like they're like, is this really a good idea? It part of it. And that's my brain is just wired that way of being like, I like seeing people say that they love each other and be concerned for each other's well-being, even when they're being idiots. So I'm with you. Um, despite being a huge fan of the franchise. I I wouldn't like it if Kid or Michelle tried to jump in front of a ball. That would make me sad.

Michelle 1:31:40

Did a flip. I could do a flip.

Steve 1:31:42

I'm sure you could do a flip. Give me a year. Uh August 13th, 2026. Let's 2027. Let's all get back here. We'll see if Michelle can do a flip. All right. And subsidy.

Michelle 1:31:53

Now I'm in favor of it. I'm older, I'm wiser. Let's do it. And with my firm belief that podcasts should be an audio-only medium, you will only hear the sound of me doing a flip. And you'll just have to trust that it happened. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:07

I do feel I feel a little bit scared now that I I put something in motion.

Steve 1:32:11

Well, um, does anybody have any other final thoughts on the buffet? It's great, I love it, it makes me cry.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:18

I think it's an astonishing achievement. I think if if it had been the last it's so good that if it had been the last episode of the thing, I would have felt like um they had made something complete. Even if there's even if it's just been if it had ended there, I would have th I would have thought, oh, they've accomplished something so it almost would have been like the ending of like Twin Peaks season three, you know, where you're just like left in this, left in this place where uh it's just uh they're just they're gonna be together forever, but it's never gonna be fully honest. Um and and I'm really excited that they that there's so much beyond this that and so much playfulness beyond this, because the other thing is it would be kind of a nightmare to now that we know everything that happens beyond it, imagine if this had been the stopping point. We think of this as this kind of dark, grim thing. Yeah. Whereas like they're they're gonna go on a time travel adventure, you know, like there's like so much fun that these guys are gonna have. But I think it's really important that um it's such a it's such an important part of it to see both of them have this experience of um questioning whether this friendship is um going to go on or whether it's going to end, you know?

Steve 1:33:41

It'll be inter if season three does come out, it'll be really interesting to see where that part of the emotional story goes.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:47

Yeah, I have no I there's been no point of this um process where I have I don't tend to think ahead in terms of like, oh, what else could happen with them? Um I have no sense of what season three could be.

Steve 1:34:04

Whatever it's gonna be, it'll at the very least be interesting. So before we wrap today, um we did get a listener voicemail. This is from listener Jocelyn.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:14

Hi Nervon of the band the pod. My name is Jocelyn, and I'm a born and raised Chinese Canadian Torontonian. I say Chinese Canadian because I love the buffet and the Mandarin. The Mandarin holds a special place in my heart. This place is my culture. It was where I had many family dinners and my eighth grade graduation dinner. But I'm sending you this voice note because I actually think the buffet should have taken place at another iconic Toronto Landmark buffet, which now now no longer exists, but did when they were filming the show. Frankie Tomatoes. My words truly cannot do this place justice. You must look up pictures of it and go on YouTube and look up the Frankie Tomatoes' birthday song and videos of the space. This was a place that had a fifty-five-foot-tall facade of the Tower of Pisa outside, where on your birthday they would put a tomato-shaped balloon on your finger, and the servers would dress in togas. You could also learn Italian from a language track that they would play on the speakers in the bathroom. It was truly a wondrous place. Please, please look into it. I understand the rabbit hole I may be leading you down on, but I don't care. Was this just an excuse to talk about Frankie Tomatoes? Maybe. You don't have to answer this question, but how would you rewrite the buffet to take place in Frankie Tomatoes? And also, if you get Matt and Jay or any other Torontonians on the podcast, please ask them if they know about this place and ask Matt and Jay why they chose the Mandarin. Much love from Toronto and thank you.

Steve 1:35:53

Thank you, Jocelyn. Thanks, Jocelyn.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:55

Thank you, Jocelyn.

Steve 1:35:56

I'm looking at pictures of Frankie Tomatoes. Is Frankie Tomatoes a hate crime? Against Italians. I feel slightly offended. Um have have any of you looked at the pictures of this place?

SPEAKER_04 1:36:10

Yeah, I'm I'm looking at it right now and it's pretty wild.

Steve 1:36:14

It looks like a casino. Um does it? Like, it looks like a theme restaurant. There's like fake storefronts. I'm very glad Jocelyn brought this to our attention. I I don't know how this could be rewritten. I I guess like a man from a pizza box could run by and yell, Mamma Mia, it's a Matsuna J.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:35

Uh, I don't know. You know how sometimes people will say, like, oh, New York City is a character in the movie. Um I feel like Frankie Tomatoes, um, rather than rewriting the buffet, I feel like it's such a character that it might overwhelm what I think the buffet requires the simp the relative simplicity in order to hold the um the heist um plot, the complexities of what they're doing by contrast. I feel like a place like this would almost need a completely different story all its own. Like if they were gonna this feels almost like the type of thing that you would see on like Defunct Land. Yeah. You know, that you where it's like, can you believe this place existed? Where it it it almost feels closer to like when when um when Matt pretends to be British, that you could imagine us a different scheme involving Frankie Tomatoes being like weirder and wilder, you know?

Steve 1:37:35

I I found a video of them taking down Frankie Tomatoes after it closed, and it has the epicness of those videos of them tearing down statues of Saddam Hussein.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:46

They have a full leading tower pizza outside.

Steve 1:37:48

Frankie Tomatoes was too is is too too beautiful and too overwhelming. Also, all you can need Italian sounds really heavy on the stomach.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:56

Yeah, I think I think Frankie Tomatoes would overwhelm the buffet if you tried to cram the buffet into that world. I think it would be overstimulating. But I do think if they had done an episode that was somehow incorporated, I think you have to start from a place of where we're gonna do something at Frankie Tomatoes. What is the thing that's going to exist there? And that feels closer to something like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or something than to my dinner with Andre. That feels like sensory overlook overload in a way that um there's nothing small about Frankie Tomatoes. There's nothing that makes you think, what would Wallace Sean and Andre Gregory talk about here at Frankie Tomatoes?

Michelle 1:38:38

Because you would only be talking about Frankie Tomatoes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:41

Matt's dressed as a gondolier. Yeah. That's a good episode. Yeah. Yeah. Matt playing the real Frankie Tomatoes feels like um it feels like a ki uh a persona he would adopt because it also sounds like a child's name for uh an Italian man. It sounds like somebody my dad grew up with. Uh Stevie, you remember Frankie Tomatoes? You remember when they took down Frankie Tomatoes?

Steve 1:39:03

It looked like a statue of Saddam Hussein.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:06

It's interesting that your first reaction was, is this a hate crime? And my reaction was, this sounds like something a child would think of. And it is amazing how there's such a thin line between what a child would say or do and what as an adult is a hate crime. Um because very often it, you know, children don't know any better, and hate crimes uh stem from ignorance.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:26

Mm-hmm.

Steve 1:39:27

We we've talked about the Italian-American convention, kit and I went to many times in this podcast. It has the vibes of PizonCon, New Jersey. 100%. Thank you, Jocelyn, for calling in and introducing us to this wonderful channel. I'm gonna get the book. There's a book about the history of Frankie Tomatoes. Yeah. Everyone behave, or Frankie Tomatoes will get you. Um, Connor, uh, Michelle, you want to ask your favorite question?

Michelle 1:39:54

My favorite podcast question to ask. Um, Connor, do you have anything you'd like to plug?

SPEAKER_06 1:39:59

Uh yeah. I do a show. You mentioned before, uh, Connor Rattler presents the acting class, um, which has a YouTube channel you can subscribe to that has a lot of past shows. We'll continue to have future shows on it. Uh, but I also tour around with it. I usually do it every month at the Operate Citizens Brigade Theater in New York. So keep an eye out for it. It might be coming your way any moment now. It's just around the corner. Great. Cool. It is a it is a um fully improvised one-person show. Occasionally I have a guest, but it pretends to be a real acting class. And uh I think it's a lot of fun.

Steve 1:40:36

Awesome.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:36

And if you like Deadeyes, it really is sort of the spiritual follow-up because I'm not playing a character uh I'm using my own experiences in the show, and I'm goofing around, but I'm also like, you know, uh I did a whole show recently that was all about the fact that I put myself on tape for disclosure day, and I made it through to the first like the past the first round of consideration, and I and then when the movie came out, I thought I should do a uh an a class where it's just me talking about how I didn't get in that movie and what can I do to get in Steven Spielberg's next movie. Uh and so the whole hour was just me, because Spielberg supposedly is going to do a Western with no tropes. And so I was like, maybe I'm right for that, you know, maybe, and so the whole hour was me using the audience to try to devise the whole show, it's just uh uh an impromptu audition for Steven Spielberg to try to get into that Western.

Michelle 1:41:32

I can't wait to watch it. Um, Kit or Steve, do you have anything to plug? I don't know if I need to ask you. I think that's maybe just a question for guests.

Steve 1:41:42

We're gonna be talking about the bank next week. You can show up here next week for that. That's my plug. Right. Nirvana the pod at gmail.com is where you can email us. You can tell us about your favorite local restaurant chains. Only in Canada. Oh, fine. I bet you America's got some good ones we don't know about. Fine. Or other countries. Jeez. Anywho, what a great way to end a podcast. Anyway, um, Connor, thank you so much for coming on. We really appreciate you hanging out with us tonight. Thank you so much. Been lovely chatting with you all. As we end every episode, uh, nothing like a good feeling. Nothing like a good feeling. Nothing like a good feeling.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:16

Nothing like a good feeling.

Steve 1:42:17

Thanks. See you next time. Thank you for listening to Nirvana the band The Show the Podcast. We'd love to hear from you. You can email us or send a voice memo to Nirvanathepod at gmail.com. And we're also on Blue Sky and Instagram at NirvanaThePod. Our website is Nirvanathepod.com. Our show is edited by Kit with additional help by John. Special thanks to Anne Meadows for our logo. Oh, and Matt and Jay, if you're listening, we'd love to have you on the show.