Transcript

#33 Bobby · Heavyweight

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. I'm looking out out my window. I'm looking at
0:23
Speaker 1: the clouds, and I could tell you about the things
0:27
Speaker 1: that I see, and you could tell me about the
0:28
Speaker 1: things that you see I see.
0:32
Speaker 2: Whispered to me.
0:33
Speaker 3: She doesn't know where this is going. This is going?
0:37
Speaker 4: Wait? What?
0:37
Speaker 2: What?
0:39
Speaker 5: No?
0:39
Speaker 1: This is two friends sharing their you know, what they
0:41
Speaker 1: see in the clouds. Nothing wrong with that. Why does
0:43
Speaker 1: it have to go somewhere? Okay? Now what I see
0:46
Speaker 1: is a wheelbarrow full of what looks like Teddy Bears.
0:51
Speaker 1: What do you see?
0:53
Speaker 4: Cloud?
0:54
Speaker 1: Oh that's that's not good at all, very bad. Sign.
0:58
Speaker 1: I come. I come from Lithuanian stock and we're cloud readers.
1:03
Speaker 1: We see prophetic visions in the clouds. Did you know that?
1:05
Speaker 1: That's why I wanted to trick you into looking at
1:08
Speaker 1: the cloud so that I could tell you your future. Yeah,
1:12
Speaker 1: I should have seen that. Coming from Gimblet Media, I'm
1:22
Speaker 1: Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode. Bobby, right
1:34
Speaker 1: after the break, I have it, Thanks Bobby. Bobby Lord
1:46
Speaker 1: is my music composer and sound engineer. Each word I
1:50
Speaker 1: lay down goes through Bobby's complex network of accelerometers and
1:54
Speaker 1: acorn tubes.
1:56
Speaker 4: Jovin.
1:57
Speaker 1: I don't think a cord tubes have been use of.
1:59
Speaker 4: Four War two?
2:02
Speaker 1: Can I get a schmear of music here? Bob As
2:13
Speaker 1: a sound engineer, Bobby normally has to keep his yap shut.
2:17
Speaker 1: Should he feel compelled to sneeze or say, have a
2:20
Speaker 1: heart attack, he cannot do so until the on air
2:23
Speaker 1: light is safely extinguished. But today we turn the microphone
2:28
Speaker 1: around and aim it back towards one two often shrouded
2:31
Speaker 1: in darkness and obscurity, today we tell Bobby's story, the
2:37
Speaker 1: story of the greatest public embarrassment of Bobby's entire musical career.
2:43
Speaker 4: I think that's a little traumatic.
2:46
Speaker 1: I would say not dramatic enough. Don't be stingy with
2:49
Speaker 1: the music, Bob more acorns a little bit of trouble,
2:52
Speaker 1: give me a full bank. Bobby joins me in the
3:04
Speaker 1: studio and tells me how his love of music first
3:07
Speaker 1: blossomed back in middle school, around the time he met
3:10
Speaker 1: a boy named Jake.
3:12
Speaker 2: He sat in the back of the bus where the
3:14
Speaker 2: cool kids sat, and I think he was wearing like
3:16
Speaker 2: the leather jacket, a punk band T shirt, and he
3:19
Speaker 2: had blue hair.
3:20
Speaker 1: Bobby's hair was a nerdy brown he played nerdy sacks
3:24
Speaker 1: in the nerdy school band, and here was Jake, who
3:27
Speaker 1: played punk rock electric guitar. Bobby was starstruck. He started
3:32
Speaker 1: dressing like Jake in band t shirts and tight punky
3:35
Speaker 1: jeans he found in the girls section at Coole's. He
3:38
Speaker 1: even begged his parents for a drum kit so he
3:41
Speaker 1: and Jake could form a band.
3:43
Speaker 2: That credit Jake with teaching me everything about like being
3:47
Speaker 2: in a band and punk music, and then he taught
3:51
Speaker 2: me everything.
3:52
Speaker 6: You know.
3:53
Speaker 2: There were a lot of times would be sitting together
3:55
Speaker 2: and both with our own CD players and headphones on,
3:59
Speaker 2: like in different worlds and listening to different records, but
4:02
Speaker 2: just together, you.
4:02
Speaker 1: Know, Bobby listening to Jimmy Eat World, Jake to No Effects,
4:07
Speaker 1: both of them eating gummy sharks and dreaming about the
4:10
Speaker 1: music they wanted to make. With a couple more friends,
4:14
Speaker 1: they formed a band, and even though they were so young,
4:17
Speaker 1: it wasn't long before they were booking shows. Their first
4:20
Speaker 1: gig was at a local record store.
4:22
Speaker 2: I was super, super nervous and I was kind of
4:25
Speaker 2: just trying to hide behind my drums. But Jake just
4:28
Speaker 2: kind of has this like British punk rock sneered singing
4:32
Speaker 2: in this snotty little kind of punk singing voice and
4:35
Speaker 2: like looking very cool with a bass.
4:39
Speaker 1: This is a song of theirs called None Divided. Bobby,
4:42
Speaker 1: age thirteen, is on drums and Jake, age twelve, is singing.
4:48
Speaker 7: As well.
4:54
Speaker 1: Now I don't know how old the guys in Green
4:56
Speaker 1: Day are, and I don't particularly like Green Day, but
4:59
Speaker 1: if you told me this was Green Day, I'd say, hey,
5:02
Speaker 1: Green Day is not as bad as I thought they were.
5:05
Speaker 1: That's how good Bobby and Jake were even as children
5:09
Speaker 1: and through their teens, Bobby and Jake continued booking gigs.
5:13
Speaker 1: The dream was to live off their music, but after
5:16
Speaker 1: college it became clear they need day jobs, so Bobby
5:20
Speaker 1: found one as an audio engineer at a Chicago advertising agency.
5:25
Speaker 1: Bobby was company man by day, punk by night until
5:29
Speaker 1: one morning in the spring of twenty fourteen, when his
5:33
Speaker 1: worlds collided.
5:34
Speaker 2: I came into work and my boss said, we have
5:37
Speaker 2: an ad that I need you to sing.
5:39
Speaker 1: And I said, sing, sing, but not like Sid Vicious
5:44
Speaker 1: or Joey Ramone or that guy who screams in that
5:47
Speaker 1: song at the beginning of CSI Miami, because those guys
5:51
Speaker 1: never sang advertising jingles for McDonald's, which was exactly what
5:56
Speaker 1: Bobby was being asked to do. The creative in charge,
6:00
Speaker 1: a guy named Tim knew that Bobby was a musician,
6:03
Speaker 1: so he asked Bobby to record the demo track for
6:06
Speaker 1: an ad he was working on.
6:07
Speaker 2: He wrote a song called random Red Couch, and they
6:12
Speaker 2: had shot all this footage of hipstery looking models holding
6:15
Speaker 2: like McDonald's bags of food and kind of like dancing
6:19
Speaker 2: on this couch, this red couch. Tim was in his
6:27
Speaker 2: like fifties and is trying to write like a comedy
6:30
Speaker 2: thing for younger people, and he I think he thought
6:34
Speaker 2: that at the time, like a comedic sensibility amongst young
6:37
Speaker 2: people was like randomness, like absurd randomness.
6:42
Speaker 1: By twenty fourteen, the word random had served the youth
6:46
Speaker 1: of America well and was ready for the retirement home
6:49
Speaker 1: where it could play shuffle board with chill pill and
6:52
Speaker 1: boo yeah. But this didn't stop Tim.
6:56
Speaker 2: I remember, I remember it by heart. How it goes.
6:58
Speaker 2: It starts like we got a random red couch. Don't
7:01
Speaker 2: ask me why people eating burgers with a girl or
7:03
Speaker 2: a guy.
7:04
Speaker 1: On the weekends. Bobby was a mother freaking antichrist, hanging
7:08
Speaker 1: with punk rockers who'd sooner sell the nose rings infecting
7:12
Speaker 1: their noses than sell out. And here he was crooning
7:16
Speaker 1: about ninety nine cent chicken cutlets sold by a clown.
7:21
Speaker 1: But lucky for Bobby, no one would ever hear it.
7:23
Speaker 1: Random Red Couch was just a demo, one of many
7:27
Speaker 1: ideas circulated internally that never got green lit.
7:30
Speaker 2: Things got killed all the time, so I never thought
7:34
Speaker 2: that the thing would get made. But every step of
7:38
Speaker 2: the way, we just kept hearing that it's not getting killed,
7:40
Speaker 2: it's not getting killed, it's still going.
7:42
Speaker 1: And going and going. Random Red Couch was like this unstoppable,
7:47
Speaker 1: unkillable monster. For whatever reason, Bobby's bosses were butt up
7:52
Speaker 1: ba ba ba loving it, and so Random Red Couch
7:58
Speaker 1: was suddenly green lit. Bobby Lord was now the voice
8:05
Speaker 1: of a national advertising campaign for McDonald's.
8:11
Speaker 2: And this is where it became not fun because it
8:15
Speaker 2: starts to air and like it played a lot.
8:21
Speaker 1: McDonald's bought so much airtime that during the twenty fourteen
8:25
Speaker 1: NHL Playoffs, Bobby says he couldn't walk into a bar
8:28
Speaker 1: without seeing the ad. It was everywhere, and from the
8:31
Speaker 1: moment it started airing, Random Red Couch was immediately and
8:35
Speaker 1: universally and passionately reviled.
8:40
Speaker 2: A good illustration of how hated this ad was is
8:43
Speaker 2: that it was on McDonald's official YouTube channel and it
8:46
Speaker 2: got so extremely ratioed with thumbs downs and negative comments
8:50
Speaker 2: that they took it off their own page. Like the
8:54
Speaker 2: hatred and the vitriol on Twitter about this ad was,
8:57
Speaker 2: I've never seen anything quite like it, Like.
8:59
Speaker 1: Can can you read some of those tweets?
9:03
Speaker 2: Yeah? One second? Okay, that McDonald's random red couch commercial
9:09
Speaker 2: is annoying as hell. There better not be a random
9:11
Speaker 2: red couch in jail after I stab the writers of
9:13
Speaker 2: that horrendous commercial. Hey, McDonald's, if I see the random
9:17
Speaker 2: red couch commercial one more time, I'm going to kill
9:18
Speaker 2: someone and the blood will be on your hands. I
9:21
Speaker 2: want to kill the random red couch. Fuck your random
9:23
Speaker 2: red couch. Everyone involved with the writing, performing, and recording
9:27
Speaker 2: of this random red couch McDonald's jingle should be rounded
9:29
Speaker 2: up and executed.
9:31
Speaker 1: Wow, that's really harsh. People on the internet are mean.
9:36
Speaker 8: I know.
9:36
Speaker 2: I know.
9:38
Speaker 1: At this point, I'm so amped up on all the
9:40
Speaker 1: reviews slash death threats. I can't wait to experience the
9:44
Speaker 1: ad for myself. I don't think I've ever wanted to
9:47
Speaker 1: click on a link more in my entire life.
9:51
Speaker 2: Oh man, I'm so excited.
9:57
Speaker 1: Okay, here we go.
9:58
Speaker 2: Shit, Okay, we got a random red couch.
10:03
Speaker 9: Don't ask me why keep your favorites with your good art.
10:07
Speaker 8: Guy, gotta random med couch. Pull up a seed. You
10:12
Speaker 8: don't want to be the one with nothing to eat.
10:14
Speaker 8: We got a band of cows, ast you friends with them.
10:18
Speaker 8: McDonald's bag, never hands ic.
10:22
Speaker 9: Chu gate, McDonald beef and cheese, helone that's the flavor.
10:26
Speaker 8: Of dyla menu and more on a random read couch.
10:40
Speaker 1: The ad features a group of young actors, each of
10:43
Speaker 1: them looking like one of those kids who would have
10:45
Speaker 1: smoked a pipe in college. They dance about with the
10:48
Speaker 1: desperate energy of hostages in a hostage video, who, instead
10:53
Speaker 1: of being forced to recite from que cards, are being
10:56
Speaker 1: forced to eat, laugh, and gaze flirtatiously at cheeseburgers. It
11:01
Speaker 1: looks like something a spambot would generate if you typed
11:04
Speaker 1: in keywords like mustache, bacon, and KAMBOUCHA pandering, yet clueless,
11:13
Speaker 1: chummy yet dead eyed random red couch is a paradox
11:17
Speaker 1: wrapped in a sofa point of fact, I hate it,
11:22
Speaker 1: and yet can I listen to it again?
11:24
Speaker 4: Yeah?
11:25
Speaker 8: Sure, we gotta random red couch.
11:29
Speaker 10: You don't ask me why.
11:33
Speaker 8: Guy gotta random red couch pulled up.
11:36
Speaker 2: A seat, which, by the way, a couch is a seat.
11:39
Speaker 2: You don't need to pull up a seatuch.
11:43
Speaker 1: And this guy's wearing a pork pie.
11:44
Speaker 9: Hat never ends, chicken mcdouble, beef and cheese.
11:50
Speaker 2: Oh, this is like my personal health, A random red couch. Like,
11:56
Speaker 2: what is it?
11:57
Speaker 4: What is it?
11:59
Speaker 1: There's nothing random about this couch, Like it's I know.
12:03
Speaker 2: There's nothing random. It's the only set piece. There's nothing.
12:06
Speaker 1: It's very pointed. Despite years of practice, years of playing
12:12
Speaker 1: gigs and paying his dues, Bobby's most widely played song
12:16
Speaker 1: was his worst. Bobby was mortified.
12:19
Speaker 2: This horrible, annoying commercial will come on a lot all
12:22
Speaker 2: the time, and you didn't want to be like that's me.
12:24
Speaker 2: It was like really embarrassing.
12:25
Speaker 1: You just wouldn't say anything. You'd be with people.
12:28
Speaker 2: I tell anyone, I.
12:30
Speaker 5: Knew it was his voice instantaneously.
12:38
Speaker 1: This is Bobby's oldest, coolest, bluest haired friend Jake. As
12:43
Speaker 1: embarrassed as Bobby was about the ad, he was especially
12:46
Speaker 1: embarrassed that Jake might hear it. Then he not only
12:49
Speaker 1: loses punk Red, but also the respect of the person
12:52
Speaker 1: who taught him everything about music in the first place.
12:55
Speaker 1: So even though Jake and Bobby spoke every day, had
12:58
Speaker 1: practice each week, Bobby never said a thing about the ad.
13:02
Speaker 1: But then one day, Jake was hanging out with Billy,
13:05
Speaker 1: a third member of Jake and Bobby's band.
13:07
Speaker 5: We're watching The Black Hot and then all of a sudden,
13:10
Speaker 5: we hear this song come on and we started like
13:14
Speaker 5: kind of like giggling at the song and then and
13:17
Speaker 5: then I was like, holy shit. I was like, that's Bobby.
13:21
Speaker 5: And he goes, no, no, no, it's not and I go, dude,
13:23
Speaker 5: that is Bobby. I know Bobby's voice. There's no one
13:26
Speaker 5: else that sounds like that's Bobby.
13:28
Speaker 6: We had a TV that we had the access to
13:30
Speaker 6: rewind it, so we rewinded and rewatch, this is Billy
13:33
Speaker 6: and then the tagline at the very end he speaks
13:37
Speaker 6: it on a random redcouch, so it's clearly him, Billy, and.
13:41
Speaker 5: He's like, oh my god, it is Bobby, and we
13:43
Speaker 5: started laughing and freaking out.
13:46
Speaker 1: Later that day they saw Bobby Jake asked him about
13:49
Speaker 1: the ad.
13:50
Speaker 5: And his face just drops, just drops, and he's like,
13:53
Speaker 5: oh my god. He's like, don't tell anyone about this.
13:57
Speaker 1: And until this moment, have you kept the promise that
14:01
Speaker 1: you made to Bobby? Have you never told anybody?
14:04
Speaker 5: Oh? No, I told people.
14:10
Speaker 1: Of course, Bobby's best friend and bandmate was going to
14:13
Speaker 1: dine out on Bobby's humiliation, and so group text were sent,
14:18
Speaker 1: links were forwarded, and everyone laughed for Bobby. It was
14:22
Speaker 1: a huge embarrassment. But the thing that's outlived that embarrassment
14:26
Speaker 1: is a lingering question what the hell happened?
14:33
Speaker 2: If you were to see this on TV, you would
14:34
Speaker 2: just be like, how did this happen? How did this
14:36
Speaker 2: get into my TV? How did this get through?
14:40
Speaker 1: At the time, Bobby was a kid in his early twenties,
14:43
Speaker 1: the lowest on the ladder, with no visibility into how
14:46
Speaker 1: the ad got greenlit. But now, as an adult, he
14:49
Speaker 1: wonders who ultimately greenlit the ad and at what cost?
14:55
Speaker 2: Like I heard a rumor that like Tim, the maker
14:58
Speaker 2: of the ad, had been seen like in the office
15:01
Speaker 2: of the Big Guy. Then he was like all red
15:03
Speaker 2: faced and like screaming, and like maybe like I started
15:06
Speaker 2: to feel like if you had worked on this commercial,
15:08
Speaker 2: like you were like a rayah that started to become
15:11
Speaker 2: like a thing, like you would hear people like you
15:13
Speaker 2: guys worked on random red couch.
15:15
Speaker 1: How's Tim's career doing.
15:17
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know. I would like to
15:19
Speaker 2: know who's a super super nice guy. He would always
15:23
Speaker 2: wear like a low baseball hat in classes, and he
15:26
Speaker 2: talked like this, like real quiet, kind of like a stoner.
15:31
Speaker 11: Random red couch.
15:32
Speaker 1: Right, this is Tim.
15:34
Speaker 11: It's all coming back to me now.
15:38
Speaker 1: Unfortunately Tim's now retired, but he was in advertising for
15:43
Speaker 1: over two decades, from Office Max to Budweiser. Tim's worked
15:47
Speaker 1: on tons of successful campaigns, but I'm calling to talk
15:51
Speaker 1: about his least successful one. I asked if he would
15:54
Speaker 1: rewatch the ad with me while offering a running director's commentary,
15:58
Speaker 1: and Tim says, yes, he is a super super nice guy.
16:04
Speaker 8: We got a random red cows.
16:06
Speaker 9: Don't ask me why people favorites with dark got a
16:12
Speaker 9: random red couch.
16:13
Speaker 8: Pull up a seat. You don't want to be the
16:16
Speaker 8: one with nothing to eat. We got a random red couch.
16:20
Speaker 8: Cat friend.
16:24
Speaker 9: Never had mc chicken, McDougall beef and cheese.
16:28
Speaker 12: Hello now, that's the flavor of Dalla menu and more
16:32
Speaker 12: on a random red couch.
16:35
Speaker 11: It is the worst commercial ever made. Like Joe Cocker
16:38
Speaker 11: wouldn't have made that good.
16:41
Speaker 1: Random red Couch is pretty bad? But is it The
16:44
Speaker 1: worst McDonald's commercial ever made? Is that McDonald's burger Delicia?
16:49
Speaker 1: Is it worse than this McDonald's add from the nineteen
16:52
Speaker 1: sixties in which Ronald McDonald leaps out from behind a
16:55
Speaker 1: bush to accost a child on the street.
16:58
Speaker 9: Mom told me never to talk.
16:59
Speaker 4: To strangers, But I'm Ronald, you're all proven.
17:04
Speaker 1: I'll give you three more hamburgers. I'm not even sure
17:08
Speaker 1: Random red couch, which is the worst McDonald's jingle ever?
17:11
Speaker 1: Can it be worse than this one for chicken McNuggets?
17:14
Speaker 5: I'm into nuggets, y'all. I'm into nuggets, y'all.
17:17
Speaker 1: I'm into nuggets, y'all. Can it be worse than a
17:21
Speaker 1: pre George Costanza Jason Alexander prancing down the street in
17:25
Speaker 1: pastel colors singing about the virtues of the McDLT.
17:31
Speaker 8: What about the.
17:31
Speaker 1: People on the hot side ho DLT the McDLT. No
17:39
Speaker 1: more would beef and lettuce have to commingle through the
17:42
Speaker 1: miracle of a double styrofoam clamshelltris put it together?
17:48
Speaker 8: You can't.
17:52
Speaker 1: Is Random Red Couch really worse than all that we got?
17:56
Speaker 9: A random red Chiles, don't ask me why.
18:00
Speaker 1: Yes, yes it is. All those other ads might be
18:04
Speaker 1: forgiven due to their moment in cultural history, the pre
18:08
Speaker 1: stranger danger atmsphere of the sixties, the delight in styrofoam
18:12
Speaker 1: and sherbet colored blazers of the eighties. But Random Red
18:16
Speaker 1: Couch is free from cultural excuses, a monolith of bad
18:20
Speaker 1: taste that rejects any context.
18:23
Speaker 11: I didn't actually think what I had written was ever
18:26
Speaker 11: going to see the light of day, but I was
18:28
Speaker 11: trying to get an assignment off my plate.
18:32
Speaker 1: It turns out that just like Bobby Tim also thought
18:35
Speaker 1: Random Red Couch would be killed, He never written a
18:38
Speaker 1: jingle before and was confused about why he was asked
18:41
Speaker 1: to write one.
18:41
Speaker 11: Now.
18:42
Speaker 1: Nonetheless, I think I might have been let go because
18:46
Speaker 1: of that commercion. Are you kidding?
18:49
Speaker 7: It wasn't explicit like that, but it was a thing
18:53
Speaker 7: where I had just heard through a couple of friends
18:57
Speaker 7: there that it had to have some influence of the decision.
19:02
Speaker 1: How long after the Random Red Couch did where you
19:05
Speaker 1: let go?
19:06
Speaker 11: I would say, within lunths. Huh, yeah, that was the
19:11
Speaker 11: end of a chapter for sure.
19:15
Speaker 1: After twenty five years at the agency, Tim was fired,
19:19
Speaker 1: perhaps for something that wasn't even his idea in the
19:22
Speaker 1: first place. But if random Red Couch wasn't Tim's idea,
19:27
Speaker 1: whose was it who ultimately gave random red Couch the
19:31
Speaker 1: green light? Super super nice. To the end, Tim hesitates
19:35
Speaker 1: to name names, but it's not long before he's singing
19:39
Speaker 1: like a young Jason Alexander. Kathy Kathy.
19:44
Speaker 11: I had become good friends with Kathy, who I was
19:47
Speaker 11: working with on it, and she was the creative director,
19:51
Speaker 11: and there wasn't a lot of oversight, and she kind
19:54
Speaker 11: of pushed it through.
19:57
Speaker 1: While Tim was above Bobby, Kathy apparently was above Tim
20:02
Speaker 1: rung By Rung, I was climbing a ladder, a ladder
20:06
Speaker 1: of blame to find out who bore responsible ability for
20:09
Speaker 1: the abominable and random Red Couch boy. All this talk
20:20
Speaker 1: about ads sure is making me thirsty for ads, and
20:26
Speaker 1: lucky for me, here comes a big, fat, thirst quenching
20:29
Speaker 1: tub of them.
20:37
Speaker 3: I would say it was probably the biggest plunker that
20:40
Speaker 3: I had ever done in my career.
20:42
Speaker 1: This is Kathy, the creative director for Random Red Couch
20:46
Speaker 1: and the person Tim worked under.
20:48
Speaker 3: Tim's an excellent writer. Oh my god, he's an extremely
20:51
Speaker 3: talented guy.
20:52
Speaker 1: Like Tim. Kathy retired from advertising some years ago, but
20:56
Speaker 1: says Random Red Couch is stuck with her. I ask
20:59
Speaker 1: if she recalls any of the lyrics? Yeah, which ones
21:02
Speaker 1: do you remember?
21:04
Speaker 13: Well?
21:04
Speaker 4: What is it?
21:05
Speaker 3: I got a Random Red Couch.
21:11
Speaker 13: Maybe I have a bigger mental block against this spot
21:13
Speaker 13: than I thought.
21:19
Speaker 1: According to Tim, Kathy had approved the Random Red Couch.
21:23
Speaker 1: But according to Kathy, it wasn't as simple as that.
21:26
Speaker 13: As a creative director, you have a handful of bosses
21:30
Speaker 13: and people reviewing the work.
21:32
Speaker 1: Just when I think I've reached the top step of
21:34
Speaker 1: the blame ladder, Kathy tells me that she never had
21:37
Speaker 1: the authority to greenlight. That level of decision making came
21:41
Speaker 1: from her bosses, and.
21:42
Speaker 5: These guys like absolutely loved it.
21:46
Speaker 1: One boss in particular, So at that.
21:52
Speaker 13: Time, our group creative director, Tony Malcolm was a brit
21:56
Speaker 13: and he really wanted to use a song. You know,
21:59
Speaker 13: he had a lot of success with that in the
22:01
Speaker 13: London market and he wanted to do it.
22:04
Speaker 3: Like the ants come merching home, and I'm like, Tony,
22:06
Speaker 3: we can't do a song with ant for a McDonald's commercial.
22:10
Speaker 3: That's you know, they definitely have their list of nogos
22:12
Speaker 3: and insects of any kind as a nogo with McDonald's, right,
22:16
Speaker 3: he definitely wanted to shake things up. You know what,
22:19
Speaker 3: you should try reaching out to Tony and he's.
22:21
Speaker 13: A super nice guy, really super nice.
22:24
Speaker 4: I did a commercial that was called just passing By
22:27
Speaker 4: in the UK.
22:29
Speaker 1: This is Tony Kathy's boss and just passing by was
22:33
Speaker 1: a poem Tony wrote for McDonald's in England. After it aired,
22:37
Speaker 1: actual sales went up five hundred percent and so Tony
22:41
Speaker 1: was offered the job in Chicago.
22:43
Speaker 4: The whole poem started saying the laborers and cablers and
22:48
Speaker 4: council motion tablers were just passing by. Then the coffee
22:52
Speaker 4: type and coffee types and like their coffee swaffy types
22:55
Speaker 4: were just passing by. Those on their own whilst on
22:58
Speaker 4: the phone, douncan McNuggets and having a moan were just
23:01
Speaker 4: passing by it.
23:02
Speaker 14: They're driving through with hungry crew.
23:03
Speaker 1: Who just pulled off the A three to two were
23:05
Speaker 1: just passing by it.
23:07
Speaker 6: On the it Boary.
23:08
Speaker 1: So how did happen? How did Tony go from crafting
23:11
Speaker 1: odes to rival Wordsworth to.
23:15
Speaker 4: Wig Random Red Couch.
23:19
Speaker 1: Tony explains the genesis of Random Red Couch. He'd wanted
23:23
Speaker 1: a song that was funny, but funny in a uniquely
23:25
Speaker 1: American way.
23:27
Speaker 4: I think there's a brashness to American humor. There's there's
23:31
Speaker 4: no subtlety in it, and there's no intellectualism in it.
23:35
Speaker 4: It's just very body and very funny. I think it
23:38
Speaker 4: is probably, you know, a British psyche thing. We're very
23:42
Speaker 4: reserved and less likely to shout. And when I first
23:48
Speaker 4: came to Chicago, what I realized is culturally we're very different,
23:53
Speaker 4: especially in humor terms. You know, the improv scene, Second
23:57
Speaker 4: City and and I remember Kathy was a big fan
24:00
Speaker 4: of a program called Between Two Ferns.
24:04
Speaker 1: So instead of two ferns, Tony thought, one couch. What
24:08
Speaker 1: could be more American than sitting on a couch? Tony
24:12
Speaker 1: hoped to achieve the so bad it's good aesthetic of
24:15
Speaker 1: Between two Ferns, but Random Red Couch stalled ats so
24:18
Speaker 1: bad It's bad in general, though Tony is right about
24:23
Speaker 1: British and American comedy they're nothing alike. Whereas British humor
24:28
Speaker 1: has a you in it, American humor has no U.
24:32
Speaker 1: And whereas the American office is funny, the British office,
24:36
Speaker 1: I don't know what they're saying. Having not been raised
24:40
Speaker 1: with American comedy the way Americans and Canadians are, Tony
24:44
Speaker 1: made a leap of faith. Random red couch seemed to
24:48
Speaker 1: have all the hallmarks of American comedy. It was shouty,
24:51
Speaker 1: stupid and in your face. Tony might just have missed
24:55
Speaker 1: some of the subtleties. And to be honest, as Tony
24:58
Speaker 1: performs a post mortem, it still feels like something might
25:01
Speaker 1: be getting lost in translation.
25:03
Speaker 4: If you take the music out, I just put a
25:06
Speaker 4: great voice in there. Morgan Freeman French would have been ideal.
25:11
Speaker 4: And he'd have just invited you to join him in
25:14
Speaker 4: a a beast burger or some very very tasty offerings.
25:20
Speaker 4: He's got that sort of gravitas. They would have been
25:23
Speaker 4: a random made couch, pull up a chair.
25:32
Speaker 1: You know when you're climbing a ladder, not just the
25:35
Speaker 1: blame kind, but any kind. Really, there's that step at
25:38
Speaker 1: the tippy top, the one that reads this is not
25:42
Speaker 1: a step Tony. As it turns out, is that not
25:45
Speaker 1: a step step, which is to say, there's no one
25:49
Speaker 1: higher than Tony.
25:51
Speaker 4: I did have to rub a stamp. Everything that went
25:54
Speaker 4: out as an AD.
25:55
Speaker 1: Like it all kind of came down to you.
25:59
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm to blame it for it. There in that respect,
26:01
Speaker 4: I didn't want to say that. You know, I'm the
26:04
Speaker 4: one who passed it. I'm the one who said, yep,
26:07
Speaker 4: let's go with that.
26:09
Speaker 1: Within a year of the AD's release, Tony was sent
26:12
Speaker 1: back to the UK.
26:15
Speaker 4: I moved my family to Chicago to try and be successful,
26:20
Speaker 4: and I would be living there now still had things
26:24
Speaker 4: gone the right way, but they don't. Sometimes.
26:28
Speaker 1: Although Tim and Cathy are no longer in the ad business,
26:31
Speaker 1: Tony is and in general it's been pretty good to him.
26:36
Speaker 1: For one thing, it's allowed him to buy a thirteenth
26:39
Speaker 1: century chateau, which is French.
26:42
Speaker 4: For castle, but this is a quite modest chateau.
26:49
Speaker 1: Tony's been learning all about the history of his humble
26:51
Speaker 1: fortress and is even writing a book about it, filled
26:54
Speaker 1: with fun facts like this one about the stairway in
26:58
Speaker 1: his turret.
26:59
Speaker 4: If you're going up up it, it goes anti clockwise,
27:02
Speaker 4: so if the people attack your castle, your chateau, and
27:06
Speaker 4: they start to come up the turret, then will struggle
27:10
Speaker 4: to swing their sword in their right hand. You're coming
27:12
Speaker 4: down clockwise and you can have a full swing, and
27:16
Speaker 4: these people of the swing is being restricted by the
27:19
Speaker 4: fact the stairs go up anti.
27:20
Speaker 1: Clockwise, anti clockwise. That's what we hear in the US
27:25
Speaker 1: of a call counterclockwise. And what goes up counterclockwise must
27:31
Speaker 1: come down anti counterclockwise. And it was time to go
27:35
Speaker 1: back down to where this whole thing got started. Bobby.
27:39
Speaker 4: Helloo.
27:40
Speaker 1: I asked Bobby if he's available to talk, and Bobby
27:43
Speaker 1: says why, And I say, don't ask me why.
27:47
Speaker 5: So I.
27:50
Speaker 1: Went back to Chicago, as it were, Okay, spoke to
27:54
Speaker 1: all kinds of people, Okay. I filled Bobby in on
27:59
Speaker 1: how the random red couch came to be greenlit, as
28:02
Speaker 1: well as the arcane distinctions between British and American stair climbing.
28:06
Speaker 1: To Bobby's greater concern, I break the news about the
28:09
Speaker 1: fate of his coworkers. It does seem like they probably
28:12
Speaker 1: lost their jobs because of this thing. Really that's true,
28:16
Speaker 1: but wow, all of them seem to be like happy
28:20
Speaker 1: and happier in some ways. Tim told me that since
28:23
Speaker 1: leaving advertising, he finally has the time to write poems
28:26
Speaker 1: and short stories, the thing he's always wanted to do.
28:30
Speaker 1: And Kathy has returned to her first passion, fine art.
28:34
Speaker 1: She spends her days happily painting. As for Tony, he's
28:38
Speaker 1: got a castle, a quiet, modest shadow, sorry, a modest castle.
28:43
Speaker 2: That is that is genuinely nice to hear. That is
28:46
Speaker 2: really cool that they have moved on from that world.
28:52
Speaker 1: For Tim, Kathy and Tony, all the campaigns are now
28:55
Speaker 1: a blur. There's one thing though, that they do hold onto.
28:59
Speaker 4: Tim used to come in and we'd sit there and
29:01
Speaker 4: chew the fat and laugh.
29:03
Speaker 2: You know.
29:03
Speaker 11: We became good friends, all these guys, and we'd had
29:07
Speaker 11: some fun, you know.
29:09
Speaker 13: I mean, the people that we worked with were all great,
29:11
Speaker 13: and Tim's just hilarious.
29:12
Speaker 4: I remember very formerly Cassi and Tim, he had a
29:15
Speaker 4: little fun.
29:18
Speaker 1: Their happiest memories, it turns out, are not so much
29:20
Speaker 1: of the work, but of the people they made the
29:23
Speaker 1: work with. It's the same for Bobby. He remembers hanging
29:29
Speaker 1: out in practice bases with his friends a lot more
29:32
Speaker 1: than he does the actual gigs they were practicing for
29:36
Speaker 1: In fact, Bobby says he never really got past feeling
29:39
Speaker 1: like that kid in the record store hiding behind his
29:42
Speaker 1: drum kit at the back of the stage.
29:44
Speaker 2: I didn't like playing live, even though I did it
29:47
Speaker 2: a lot for many years, because I kind of felt
29:50
Speaker 2: like I was supposed to and that I would eventually
29:52
Speaker 2: grow into it. And it took many years to realize.
29:55
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't like this.
29:57
Speaker 1: What Bobby really liked, what he still misses is hanging
30:00
Speaker 1: out with his best friends.
30:02
Speaker 2: Jake still lives in Chicago, and I miss him, you know,
30:04
Speaker 2: every day. Billy moved to New York, but pandemic started
30:09
Speaker 2: and now he's gonna leave, so like, oh, I didn't
30:13
Speaker 2: even really get to see him that much in New York.
30:16
Speaker 2: I missed that built in friendship of being in a band.
30:20
Speaker 2: I liked just spending time with them and just having
30:22
Speaker 2: like this like built in reason almost like well, we
30:25
Speaker 2: have to hang out Tuesday night because that's what we do.
30:28
Speaker 2: You were just in each other's lives in a real way.
30:31
Speaker 2: I missed out a lot playing together.
30:33
Speaker 6: We had an amazing tam.
30:35
Speaker 1: Jake and Billy miss playing with Bobby. Also, yeah, he
30:39
Speaker 1: stole them from me. Yeah, sorry for that.
30:43
Speaker 5: I mean he was always a prodigy growing up, like
30:46
Speaker 5: on any instrument that he touched. Yeah, he's He's probably
30:50
Speaker 5: the best songwriter I know.
30:52
Speaker 1: And for all of Bobby's worry. When I ask Jake
30:55
Speaker 1: and Billy if they judge Bobby for random Red Couch,
30:58
Speaker 1: they say, of course they don't. They never did.
31:01
Speaker 5: I think if anyone else had done that song, they
31:04
Speaker 5: wouldn't be as embarrassed as Bobby, because Bobby can make
31:07
Speaker 5: really good music. I think with what he was given,
31:11
Speaker 5: he did the best he could.
31:15
Speaker 2: Ah, that's that is so sweet, but.
31:19
Speaker 5: It's still turned into pile of crap.
31:24
Speaker 1: A pile of crap then infuriated a nation. What can
31:27
Speaker 1: be more punk than that? If we weren't in the
31:32
Speaker 1: middle of a pandemic, I would spare no expense in
31:35
Speaker 1: assembling the old Gang to play together. I'd fly them
31:38
Speaker 1: all back to Chicago to Jake's parents unfinished basement, and
31:42
Speaker 1: I'd play the role of the sound engineer, keeping quiet,
31:45
Speaker 1: handing out complimentary coconut water and contractually obligated gummy sharks.
31:51
Speaker 4: How do you guys doing so good?
31:54
Speaker 1: But we are in a pandemic, So instead I spend
31:57
Speaker 1: thirty seconds creating a zoom link.
32:00
Speaker 5: You get glasses, Yeah, they're pretty new. That is.
32:03
Speaker 1: I offer to spend thirty seconds creating a zoom link,
32:07
Speaker 1: but Bobby says it'd be easier if he just does
32:09
Speaker 1: it himself.
32:10
Speaker 5: What are we doing?
32:16
Speaker 1: The thing I want to give Bobby, after all the
32:18
Speaker 1: acorns he's given me, is a chance to play with
32:21
Speaker 1: his friends the way he used to as a kid,
32:24
Speaker 1: when it didn't matter what they were playing, only that
32:26
Speaker 1: they were all playing it together.
32:31
Speaker 12: We got me, Gosh, don't ask me why people believe
32:37
Speaker 12: and favorites with the guy gotta ran a red couch
32:41
Speaker 12: flab gust friends.
32:43
Speaker 14: With Themmie Donald beadle and she double but she's alow.
32:51
Speaker 10: Now that's the flavor of dollar menue and home.
32:56
Speaker 2: Yeah that was that was I could tell that horns
33:03
Speaker 2: really got Jesus.
33:05
Speaker 5: All right.
33:09
Speaker 4: A moon.
33:10
Speaker 5: See.
33:11
Speaker 15: So, now that the Fernitus return into it's good will
33:32
Speaker 15: home dishes the last we explained both numbers and elections
33:41
Speaker 15: across as an ending war.
33:45
Speaker 10: The black end of Fame gives me the prints on
33:50
Speaker 10: every dog blood show. Now that the last.
33:57
Speaker 14: Months round, just skin with the damage deposit. Take this
34:02
Speaker 14: moment to decide if fermented if we.
34:08
Speaker 10: Try feltzer up, prefer to thanks accidently.
34:23
Speaker 1: This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Stevie Lane, along
34:26
Speaker 1: with me Jonathan Goldstein. Our senior producer is Khalila Holt.
34:30
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg, Chris Neary, nazin
34:34
Speaker 1: In Rosson, Johnny Phoebe, Flanagan, Nebielle, Cholienpot, Jake Anderson, Billy Klein,
34:38
Speaker 1: and Jackie Cohen. The titular Bobby Lord mixed the episode
34:42
Speaker 1: with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Michael Hurst,
34:45
Speaker 1: and he himself, the eponymous Bobby Lord. Additional music credits
34:50
Speaker 1: can be found on our website, Gimletmedia dot com slash Heavyweight.
34:54
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by The Weaker Thans courtesy of
34:56
Speaker 1: Epitaph Records. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight or email
35:00
Speaker 1: us at Heavyweight at gimletmedia dot com. We'll see you
35:03
Speaker 1: next week already.
35:09
Speaker 10: The Girl and the Grandson, sod and an empty Also
35:14
Speaker 10: we repainted by Sun and an empty room, Son and
35:27
Speaker 10: an empty room, Son and an empty room, Son and
35:36
Speaker 10: an empty take eight minute sting us.
35:43
Speaker 8: Ninety million millions.
35:45
Speaker 10: Spies and watched a shot across so and empty.
35:52
Speaker 8: We don't need you any song.
36:12
Speaker 4: All the Company
36:18
Speaker 14: Compo