Latest / Podlandia: A-O Rewatch with Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein / 101: Farm

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101: Farm · Podlandia: A-O Rewatch with Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, hey, hey, watch, watch Hey, hey, hey, watch, watch Hey, hey, hey, watch,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: watch Hey, hey, hey, watch, watch Hey, hey, hey, watch,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: watch You're watching Podlandia. Hi, I'm Fred Armisen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: And I'm Carrie Brownstein. And this is AO Rewatch.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: A Portlandia Rewatch podcast.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: All right, so now we are going to talk about
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: season one, episode one. Yes. Which we should note was
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: not the original first episode. So this is not, when
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: we talk about us shooting a pilot for IFC to
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: determine whether to pick up or not, this first episode,
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: The Farm, is not the original pilot. Um, so yeah,
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: that's a fact we'll get when we get to the
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: episode one or two, which is the real pilot. We will,
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: we will talk about that. And to me, that one
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: looks and feels like the pilot.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: This has a polish for a first episode that is
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: kind of a cheat because it really was the second
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: thing we ever shot.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Um, and the reason it became the first episode is Lauren. And, uh,
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: there's the cold open is dream of the nineties.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: And it's a thesis statement, essentially. We didn't think of
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: it at the time like that. But Lauren saw it
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: and was like, of course, this is the first episode.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: And it took some finagling with IFC. They really did
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: not want this as the first episode. They wanted the pilot,
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: the real pilot, as the first episode.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, I could, you know, I'm glad it turned
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: out this way. Yes. I could see the, well, I
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: guess we can't really get into that Second episode of
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: the pilot episode. Yeah, because that has put a bird
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: on it.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: So I could see how that does also seem like
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: it's a statement of some kind.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: But still.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: This is such a huge... I mean, it's just such
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: a big song.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: And I feel like it also sets up an identity
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: for Portland and for the show and just.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: It's a real, like, proper intro.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: It's a proper intro.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: And the other thing is, like, I know there's a
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: lot of Lauren stuff, but I also feel like if.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Something that Lorne is great at, I'm like, you've got
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: to trust him. You know, like, I'm like, Lorne Michaels
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: is saying that this should be the first episode. That,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: that's enough, you know? So, okay. Dream of the 90s. John's,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: John's basic idea. And I remember, like, I think the
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: song was written little by little. Like, he had a
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: concept of it and I think you wrote it with him.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: And then maybe Asa Duconi?
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: But what I remember though, so, okay, so we're now
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: writing in Portland, right? So we're up in Portland. We're
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: writing the bulk of the season after writing originally the
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: real pilot, the original.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Pilot we wrote in LA. So now we're in Portland.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: I just remember Jonathan coming in one morning and he's
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: been in Portland now like a couple of weeks. This
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: is like late in the season that we write this song.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: And he's like, I've just been having this thought about
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: Portland like it's so 90s like it just seems stuck
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: like he it took him being there yes to to
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: write this song or to come up with this idea
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: which I think is important like we would not have
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: come up with this when we were still just writing
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: you know in Los Angeles like it was boots on
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: the ground experiential observational and so yeah he started like
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: this idea started percolating I'm.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Remembering that I hadn't thought about this before. A writer's
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: room in Portland was under a sort of convention center hotel.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Sort of. And it was kind of run down. Not
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: a nightmare, but sort of like, you know, it wasn't glamorous.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: It has been torn down since.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: Okay. In fact, most of the writer's rooms we've ever
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: worked in in Portland have since been torn down. So
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: I think it's fair enough to say that it was
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: near derelict.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah. and did we even have a writer's assistant, which
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: is like a common thing in a writer's room. It's like,
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: I don't, I don't think we did. I was out
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: or was Alice.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Alice was, uh, Alice Mathias was a version of a,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: of a writer's assistant. I don't know if she had
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: that title, but.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she was there. It was a small room.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: For, for a show. This was a small, a small
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: writer's room. So yeah. So John comes in with this,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: with this idea.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: We start talking about it and we start, you know,
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: the verses are essentially your character.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Jason, right?
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Jason from LA is your character.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: And you're sort of telling my character, you're regaling me
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: with the story of like what the city is like. Yeah.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: And each verse, each.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: Spoken verse, you're sort of outlining all the ways that
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: it's unlike other cities.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Yes. And there's like a buildup to it. There's like
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: a sort of Every line is like builds up a
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: little bit more and how excited I am about this place.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Called Portland.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: And what you're, you know, watching the show, we shot
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Portland for LA. That first scene is LA. And I
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: remember when we were shooting it, it didn't seem convincing
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: to me. I was like, shouldn't we shoot this in LA?
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: That's where I was sort of ignorant of like how
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: all you need is that opening.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Shot of you know the you know la from a
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: distance that's all you need yeah but for some reason
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: i was like but of course it looks it's fine
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: it's just two people on.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: The street yeah i remember the costume designer like amanda
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: needham putting me in like a juicy couture that was
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: her shorthand for someone in la i was wearing like
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: juicy couture and uggs.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah and and i had this sort of i
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: had like a beanie like a hat yeah which is
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: very la sort of you know it's like nighttime la.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Where yeah Like pulled pretty far back on your head.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: And so, yeah, you're telling me about it. And some
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: of the beats in the song are, you know, that's
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: when we get to the line, Portland is where young
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: people go to retire. Yes. Which is a line that
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: you think was from Nick Kroll, but now that's maybe apocryphal.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: I remember we've talked about it, but you're like, but
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: then maybe he said it wasn't. Right.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: He claimed he didn't say that originally.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Right. I thought we got it from him and then
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: he wasn't so sure.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: We also talk about clowning and the Jim Rose yeah
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: sideshow yeah all these sort of 90s things yeah yeah.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Which it really resonated with me anyway when I watch
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: it I'm like oh I mean I'm so nostalgic about
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: that time that I get such a good feeling when
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I'm watching it like oh yeah that's right.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah I just remember so for the actual the stuff
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: that isn't when we're walking along the streets with the
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: part where we get to the chorus yeah and you're
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: down there on the waterfront with a cast of thousands.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: It was like this very big music video. I only
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: come in at the end of that video. So I
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: was not there like all day. You know, I had
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: like a late call time and I show up and
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: it's just like this incredible production. It was the biggest
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: thing we had done so far. Most everything else had been,
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: you know, in someone's house or in a, you know,
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: like a little shop. And it's us just like, you know,
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: a couple of people, this is like, A hundred background,
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: you know, actors, gay men's chorus, clowns and circus performers.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: So many people.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: In costume.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: In costume.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Matching uniforms.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Someone for every verse.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: You know, like if we mentioned like Hot Girl in Glasses,
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: we had the Hot Girls in Glasses. We had people
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: riding double-decker bikes. We had people juggling. Like it was
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: such an amazing set to walk onto. And it was
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: really the first time that I just became aware of
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: how Jonathan was just thinking of this show, not just
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: as like, okay, it's, you know, let's put up a
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: couple cameras and catch people like improvising. It was like, no,
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: this was a huge like production with, you know, done
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: very cheaply, but like he dreamt very big and he
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: was always able to implement that. And we had such
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: great production designer.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: And Tyler Robinson, um, Who were in the video.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Amanda Needham, incredible costume designer.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Also in the video.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, again, in fact, a lot of our crew.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in the foreground.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Which is a very common recurring thing of our show.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: But it was really the first time that I thought, oh,
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: I guess we're making something a lot bigger than I realized.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: And that the vision of it was going to be, like,
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: much grander than I had imagined. I just couldn't believe,
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: you know, there's, like, a crane– you know, all these things.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: And yeah. And plus the song itself, right?
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: Like that it wasn't, you know, you and I had
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: like written some incidental music for the show. We were
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: just like in a studio with like a guitar and
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: like all of a sudden this sounded like a big
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: pop song, you know, like very produced.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: It was, I think it really like set the tone
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: for what like the ceiling could be that it was
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: in the ceiling was so much higher.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Than I imagined.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: And even though we were making it in a city
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: that wasn't, you know, New York or London or LA and,
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: you know, we didn't have New York or LA crew.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: We just had people who were nimble and inventive and scrappy.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: And like you and I come from punk, like it's
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: a scrappy medium. And I was like, oh my God,
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: we get to make a scrappy show. And this is
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: the best kind of show that I can ever, like
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: it was so in line with who we were. That
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: was the moment that really clicked for me.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Same, by the way, especially with the, the backing tracks,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: those songs being done. That was also beyond me that,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: that all of a sudden it was finished. Who, when did,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: you know, when was this recorded? It was ready to go.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: And like you said, right, you know, right there, by
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: the river, this location that was perfect, things that are
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: really easy to take for granted. And then the sort of,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: I don't even remember who choreographed it, but the choreography
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: and the setups of how people would walk towards the camera, gigantic.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Something was just, the scale of it was so big.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: But I also remember it, for me, it evoked this,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: there's a Stranglers video for the song called Strange Little Girl.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: And at the end of it, there's this punk, you know,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: who's like walking with this whole crowd of people. So
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: I just was like, oh, maybe this is a little
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: bit like that Stranglers video. Oh, that's cool. But yeah,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: same thing, that everything was so complete. And that San
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Francisco joke at the end of it was great. That's
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: a very specific thing.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: And that is the thing. I think we.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: you know, we never know how much of a joke
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: or a sketch an audience is getting, but we never,
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: like we always assumed that they were intelligent and in
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: the know or that they would like it either way.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: Like there's, you know, it operates like we liked it
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: operating on a very, on multiple levels and being very specific.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: You know, like if you knew the.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: Subtle difference between like an SF punk And.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Those kind of piercings.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very true.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: And I think that's something I always loved about The Simpsons.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: We end up later with The Simpsons writer, but how
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: things just are operating on these multiple levels, like the references.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: You don't need to get the references.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: We're not trying to be too cool for anyone. But
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: if you get the reference, it's like an extra Easter egg.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And yes, there's, I feel like even down to like,
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: people in the crew, like they all also brought in
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: those ideas. Like that's another thing about the show worth
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: mentioning early on. Like it was like best idea wins.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Like our production design team, they always pitched jokes, visual jokes. Like,
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: you know, our AD would pitch lines. Like it was
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: all hands on deck.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: It had to be.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: I remember him pitching jokes.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: It kind of had to be because we were shooting
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: so quickly. Like, We shot that.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: Video in a day. Easily, that would have been a
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: two-day shoot.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: So, yeah. So, that's the opening.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: And I enjoyed, like, also, who came up with some
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: of the, did you improvise some of those lines as
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: we're walking along?
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: A lot of it, I mean, early on, we should
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: just say, we had outlines for this. We even had scripts,
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: but the scripts were so threadbare. We did so much improvisation. Yeah,
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: some of it was improvised. Like I gave up clowning
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: years ago.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: That one, yeah, that's right.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: But, you know, and a lot of.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: It was because of that, there's such a, like a
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: lot of heavy lifting from the editors. But this, I think,
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: also was one of the first ones we did that
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: felt very, we had to be locked in because there
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: was a cadence, you know, the verses were a certain length.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: There had to be sort of a button at the
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: end of each verse that led into the chorus. And
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: also that, that verse had to tie in with the
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: lyrics of that part of the chorus. So this one, unlike, say,
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Feminist Bookstore, which we'll get into in a second, which
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: is much more meandering. Yes.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Like this felt like a little more, I don't know, structured.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: And a great way to start.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: And, you know, I'm glad that that decision was made.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: Same. Also introduced the idea that we would be doing
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: things with music, you know, like music was so important
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: to us.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's right.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: And it just, it always was so intrinsic to the
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: fabric of the show. So I think to start with
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: something that said like, yeah, this will be part of
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: the vernacular, I think was important too. Right.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: It's even presented as a music video.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Yes. It says like Jason from LA has the artist. Yeah.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess going from there, It would be
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: crazy to do this every time, but I guess we
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: should talk about the opening credits, too, because that's like
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the first time anyone's seen that.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: And basically, we had, as a placeholder for the theme song,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Feel It All Around by Washed Out.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Just because it was not a comedy song. It was
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: like sort of melancholy. And, you know, I just like
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: the mood of it. And we all did. We all
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: like this mood. Yeah. you know, it costs a lot
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: to get a, you know, a proper, you know, a song.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: So we just kept it until we couldn't live without it. Yeah.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: And you and I, meanwhile, we're working on a theme song.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: We went into a studio and we recorded a bunch
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: of songs that ended up being more incidental music and
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: transitional music. But everything we were doing did kind of
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: feel like more like expected comedy. Like there was sort
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: of a thing at the time where comedy, like if
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: you listen to like the Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: or Colbert, even going back to like Kids in the Hall,
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: it's like guitar, a guitar riff. Yeah.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: You know, almost like comedy. It's edgy.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Or it's ours.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: And which is cool. It's totally fine.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: Like all those theme songs, but I feel like we
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: were not able to sort of even, even skills wise,
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: that is just what we do. Like I'm a guitarist,
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: you play drums. Like we could have done something else,
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: but that was kind of in our wheelhouse. But yeah,
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: as often happens, you get really attached to the placeholder
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: music and it just had a vibe that I think
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: we really loved. Yeah.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: And it worked with the, edited, you know, the actual
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: sequence itself. Yeah.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: And now I kind of can't, obviously can't imagine any
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: other version.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: No.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: I remember, or I was going to say like watching,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: cause I watched the opening credits again. You know, I
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: still go to Portland and the credits are like still
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: accurate as to like the coloring. It's a sort of,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: there's like a hue to it all.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: And, I still get that same, you know, feeling. Cause it,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: there's like some emotion in those opening credits. Yeah.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: And I credit again to the, to the song, you know,
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: I think washed out, there's something, there's heart in there,
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: you know, there's something bittersweet too, like to me, even
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: at the time, like it just, there's a warmth to it.
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: And also there's so many, you know, shots of local
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: Portlanders and yeah, it just feels like it's, it's such a, like,
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: time capsule in some ways, but also just could be anywhere,
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: any city at the same time. Like, it's so wonderfully Portland,
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: but also just looks like someone you know. And that's
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: what I think we try to do a lot with, like,
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: the background. You know, it's just have it feel, like,
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: really textured. Like, these could be people you know. These
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: are your friends. These are, you know, really build out
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: that world. I think the credits do a good job
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: of that.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: I'm guessing... It would have been Doug Lussenhop and Daniel
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Gray Longino and John maybe who.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Edited that first season.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: And also maybe obviously the opening credits. Yeah. But anyway,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: so that, yes, that's the opening credits.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: But worth, yeah.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Worth mentioning because it was, I mean, I guess, you know,
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: to maybe stating the obvious, but the first season of
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: a show, especially we, you know, we were producers on
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: the show too.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: So all of these decisions.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: Are sort of there for us. And it's, it's a
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: lot like you, a lot goes into it. And that
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: might sound obvious, but it was just, we didn't know,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: you know, it was like every little thing. Yeah.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: And a lot of it are, you know, those things
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: are happy accidents.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: And fall into place. And, but yeah, it's, you're building
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: a world.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: And we stuck to it. We stuck to that. Those.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Those credits. Yeah. So we'll do, uh, we'll go on
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: to the, you know, Colin farm.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Um, I guess like you, it's just not just a sketch.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: It's like a three-parter. I think we used to think
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: of them as. Yeah.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: So the structure of the show is essentially a cold open,
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: then it'd be the credits. And then when we would
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: have what's called like a wraparound sketch, like what's the,
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: you know, and.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Every episode had a wraparound.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: It was a three-part sketch beginning, middle and end. And
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: that kind of was the container for the show. Yes.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Based on our, we might have, I think, tried to
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: write different sketches about ordering at a restaurant. Because our experience,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: I remember, or my experience there was always that whenever
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: you order something, there was a lot of, there was
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: like a sort of like specialness to it. You know
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: what I mean? Like, is that the right word?
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: You know, like.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: Preciousness.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Preciousness. Yeah.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: Or.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Not tradition, but like there was like it wasn't just
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: like you just order something from a waiter. There was
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: like a lot of explanation.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: A lot of storytelling.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: A lot of storytelling. A lot of this is, you know,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: they would tell you what your experience was going to be.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: For a meal yeah and the other thing and again
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: so i you know just to remind people what it's
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: 2011 yeah so this has become pretty normal almost everywhere
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: you go but there was definitely kind of a shift
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: into this kind of experiential immersive restaurant going where, you know,
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: it was people trying to differentiate themselves. Like, well, this restaurant,
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: there was a lot of, this was the first time
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: you heard, have you dined with us before?
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: And you're like, No, but I've eaten at a restaurant.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: So, you know, unless you're going to do something absolutely
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: shocking here, like, I'm pretty sure I know what's going
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: to happen. But they always told you that as if, like,
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: this was going to be.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: This very bespoke experience.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Part of that was to give you a background of
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: the food, the food story.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: Which, again, most of us don't need. And this is
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: also when menus got very, like, narrative-y. It was like,
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: can I get the CliffsNotes of this menu, please? Like,
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: what's the short version of this menu? And then these,
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: you know, servers memorizing so much, like, to tell you
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: the story. Yes.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: And also trying to be casual. So it was proper
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: and then just casual at the same time. Like, yeah,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: just so you know, this is what we do. And
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: you're right. You do see it a lot more now,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: even in not fast food, but there's like, you know …
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: there are sort of fast food-ish places.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Like give you a little story.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: In fast casual. Cause everything's about like, well, what's your story?
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: And it's like that it's so endemic now, but this
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: felt like a way of differentiating between, you know, a
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: certain kind of restaurant and like the old, like the
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: old and new, this was like the dividing line here.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: Lots of like, what's the origin, what's the provenance of
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: the food. And, you know, obviously people genuinely starting to care, like,
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: where is this coming from? Like, you know, Is this, like,
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: what's the environmental and ecological impact? Like, is this humanely sourced?
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: And, you know, all that.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: And is it local?
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Is it local? Exactly. How local is it?
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: So with all of that in mind, I think, and
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: having that be really prevalent and newly prevalent, we started,
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: you know, talking about this.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: And I think you're right.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: I think there were certain ideas that we had disparate sketches,
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: and then we started to sort of coalesce that into, like, well,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: what if we just did one sketch that was about
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: All of these things ordering, ordering.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: And another thing in terms of.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: Like these wraparounds, these three parters is that we often
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: started as this one does with a grounded premise or
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: as you know, grounded, mostly grounded premise. And then of
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: course we deviate from there, but usually the part one
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: is like, okay, we're starting somewhat in reality, which we
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: do here.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: We go to a restaurant. We're introduced to two characters.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: And I would say new characters. Even though it's the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: first episode, we hadn't done them before in Thunder Ant.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: So Peter and Nance.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: A couple.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: And I guess because it's you and I, like most
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: of our characters, many of our recurring characters are couples.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: You know, married or friends. But this was kind of
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: a classic married couple.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: No friction.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: No friction.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: This is like the least, the couple with the least
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: amount of friction ever.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Yes. And did you see them around? Like, wow, they
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: really seem to get along.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: Just the other day, I was walking my dog and
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: a couple was holding hands. They were in their 70s.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: And I was like, wow, that's so much dedication.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: It's pouring rain. Hand out, exposed.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: And I just thought, like, wow, this is, it's very sweet.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: It also makes me, for some reason, angry, which is
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: like every other character on the show. Sure, sure, sure.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: The reaction to that.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: For no reason. I'm so happy for them.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: My God. I hear you. Yes.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: You know, may they die holding hands.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Like, I want that for them.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: But at the same time, like, I'm just so perplexed. But,
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: and I think that's often where we build characters from
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: is things that we don't, like, how and why?
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Like, let's embody that for a while. Yeah.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: And Peter and Nance- Yeah, I mean, they are so cloying.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: They just melt into each other.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: They're soft. And they're also not even particularly, you know,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: like it's not like this erotic trip of like how
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: hot they are for each other. It's just comfortable. It's comfortable.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: They just love each other. And it really, I felt
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: like that was something that was, I just, that existed
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: in Portland was like, it's all fine.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, especially embodied by them. Yeah, frictionless is definitely the
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: right word. And you kind of didn't know where one
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: ended and the other began.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Even their clothes are kind of … Flowing. Yeah, loose.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: They're not hippies.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: No hard edges.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: No hard edges.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: And they're at this restaurant and they really … let
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: ordering linger.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Oh boy.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: As opposed to let's just get our food. It's let's
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: make this an appointment. Yeah.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: They have a lot of questions.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: The wait person is played by Dana Milliken. This was
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: her first role on the show and she became a recurring.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: A recurring actor on the show. She played many.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: In fact, she never played this character again, but she
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: is a local Portland actor.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: She was on every season.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: We adore Dana.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: Great. And to her credit and to the credit of
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: almost everyone on the.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Show, no script.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: You know, she had a few lines, but everything that
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: you see, at least 99% of it is her absolutely improvising.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Playing it straight.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Playing it straight the whole time, which is exactly the
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: assignment for that. This is also, I would say for Peter,
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: you have a Peter Stammers.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: He has a stutter.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: And you do that for the first time here.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And I don't think it was something that, certainly
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: wasn't in the character description. You just, you picked a
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: word and you sort of let it roll and you
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: had a hard time getting it out. And then that
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: became part of who he was. Yeah. Yeah.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: I remember like, as I was watching it too, I
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: was like, what was I going for? Like who, oh,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: that's so pretentious to say, but like, wow. But like, uh,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: I remember thinking that maybe he looked a little bit
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: like either like, or it was a little bit like
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: either Chevy chase or Martin short. Hmm. like a mix
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: of them doing something. So that's kind of what, that
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: was a little bit.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: And I remember thinking as I was rewatching this, that
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: you still had more of your Fred voice here.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Than you do later.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: That happens in a lot of sketches.
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: Yes. And I'm, you know, I do the same thing
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: where we sort of, we didn't know which characters would
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: be reoccurring. And so some characters we never had time
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: to develop further, but these characters we recurred over and
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: over again.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: But yes, I think, my version of Nance also becomes
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: more pronounced. It's like the more we sort of grew
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: into each other, even as a couple, as a couple
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: of Peter and Nance, the more we started playing off
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: the other person's, you know, sort of.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know, little syrupy nature.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: But yeah, so we ask Dana where we want to
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: order a chicken and she brings out the paperwork.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: For this chicken.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Who is this chicken specifically?
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: And the chicken's name is Colin.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: And we decide that we need to go and.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Really investigate.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Really investigate. And he's from a local farm nearby.
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: So we leave the table and say we're going to.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Be right back.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: And we even say like, just hold these seats.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Hold these seats.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: While we go on this little trip. Yeah.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: And we head off.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Talking about Peter and Nance. I don't know if this
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: ever happens with you, but You know, sometimes with memory,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: or I do sometimes, like, we'll sort of fill in
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: the blanks. And later in the existence of Portlandia, we
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: ran into a couple who was out, and I think
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: they were walking their dog or something, and were very
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: much like Peter and Nance. So somehow I always think, like, oh,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: maybe they were kind of based on them, which is impossible.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Because you met them afterward.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Met them after.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: But maybe it's to say that I think somewhere I
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: did notice– couples like that in Portland. Yeah.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: I will say that I think a lot of our characters,
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: and obviously when we get to each character, we can
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: talk more about this, but are based on people we
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: know or are iterations of ourselves. Like we talk about
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: that all the time, how like there's just some facet
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: of our personality and where I'm like, if I only
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: like highlighted this part of myself, like the part of
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: myself that's really frustrated and short-tempered, then I would be
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: this character. If I only highlighted this part of myself,
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: I would be like this. And I think that's a
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: place that we came from was not making fun of people,
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: not looking at someone and saying, ha ha, aren't they
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: weird or strange or eccentric?
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: But, oh, I can see myself in that.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: I know who this person is because when I'm in
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: a certain situation, I'm like that. And, like, let's build
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: a character around if I only did that or you
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: only did that.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: And then especially putting them together.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: And how would we play off each other if we
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: were like that? And I think a lot of it,
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: you know, like, they remind me of my parents' friends.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: You know, growing up.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: But, yeah.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: But I agree that Peter and Nan's, like, I feel
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: like we know them. That's often where it came from. Like,
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: I know this person. Yes. Like, I've been around this
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: person or I've felt myself doing something like this. And....
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: I am a sucker for, like, even though it seems
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: like we're making fun of those restaurants, I'm a sucker
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: for those places. That's where I, any city I go to,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: I go to whatever seems the most, you know, farm
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: to table or whatever it's called now. That same, all
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: those graphics and all that stuff, that is where I'm headed.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: So I don't look at it like from like, hey, well,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: get over yourself. It's not like that. It's more like
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: every city. Yeah. That's where I end up in a
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: place like that.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: No, it's true.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: I think the ethos of the show even early on
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: was like, let's explore something. It comes from a place
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: of curiosity, not a place of derision. It's just like,
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: I want to know more about this. I want to
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: understand it, whether it's something that we already participate in
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: or not. What makes this place tick? What makes this
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: person tick? So yeah, so Peter and Nance, off we go.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: And in part two... Of this wraparound. We go to
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: the farm.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: In my real car. Oh, that's right. In my Volvo
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: that I had at the time.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: And that was up in the hills of around Portland.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe West Hills. And remember, there was a guy.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: He's not.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: There was a guy who has a cameo in this
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: who that year was voted like Portland's hottest farmer.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Remember that?
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: I didn't even know we had that competition. Anyway, just
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: a little Easter egg for the people. Also.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: Our makeup person Jessica Needham is in the scene, our
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: costume designer Amanda Needham, and a handful of other, again,
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: just so many, so much crew in the background.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Ashby's in it.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: Ashby's in it.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Who's in many episodes and many sketches.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: All these women play the wives of Aliki, who is
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: the head farmer, cult leader, played by Jason Sudeikis.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: I want to say also about, you know, shooting things
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: and not knowing how things work, I was still under
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: the impression that you needed, at the time, footage of
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: us driving. When are we going to do us looking for...
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: And I really learned on Portlandia about, like, you don't
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: need any of that stuff. Once we arrive, of course,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: you know. Yeah. I can't believe I ever was questioned. Oh,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't question. I was just sort of like, oh,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I guess we're just here. But works perfectly fine. Yeah.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: Listen, I.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: in the same boat.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: Like there's so much you learn about editing and filmmaking
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: by just being around it all the time.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: Like, you know, things that you take for granted and,
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: you know, and it's just like, yeah, you, the process
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: is revealing itself to you. And I felt really surprised
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: a lot too, just.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: In the early days. Cause it's so new.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And you know, for our listeners that might sound ignorant,
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: but there's actually something really wondrous about kind of being surprised,
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: you know, as you're going along and just, yeah, like not,
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: it's also a good thing to demystify for people. Like,
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: you know, yes, there are definitely people who know exactly
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: what they're doing, but a lot, a lot of people,
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: especially in TV and film and working on set, you
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: learn as you go, you know, there's, there's people that
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: have the knowledge beforehand, but even those people are learning
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: and every day is very different. You know, things are
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: thrown at you, but it's, it's like a big machine
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: that requires everyone like working and yeah. And we're just
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: one small part of that. So often we would just
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: show up on set too. Like, cause we were done
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: with the writing, you know, now we're just in acting
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: mode and we would show up to set.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: And I was always amazed.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: I should say too, as like what, how it went
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: from page to screen, you know, like something we would
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: write a little thing you put in the script. Yeah.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden you're like, Oh my God,
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: here are, yeah. Like here's this farm and everyone's in
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: these like the same outfits because they're, you know.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: In this cult.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in this cult.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was, you know, Jason, I don't even know
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: if we had seen him beforehand that day.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: No, I feel like that's the first time we saw
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: him was on set. Although, I mean, I worked with
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: him a bunch. Yeah. And I got to say, he
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: is so funny.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: In this. And watching it again, there's little things he does.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: This just so, just this smooth character. There's this one
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: thing he does where you say your name and he
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: sort of leans into you to say like, what was that?
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, one more time. And it's so funny and
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: so good. It's just like this sort of, all he's doing,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: all that character is doing is just finding an excuse
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: to sort of lean into you a little bit.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Oh man, it's so good.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: And another thing that occurs here that becomes, you know,
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: a theme that we repeat and a tool we use
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: is incidental like background music. Yes. You know, and every time,
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: you know, Peter Nance, we're getting shown around the farm
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: by this young woman and she keeps pointing out Aliki.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: We haven't met him yet. And he's far off.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: And every time we look at him, there's just this little,
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: this cue, this music cue. Yes.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: It's like 60s, psychedelic.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: And it's sort of intoxicating.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: You can see us like we're sort of entranced by
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: this guy wanting to get closer. And, you know, we
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: ended up using editors and, you know, the directors would
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: make this choice to just use that music all the time.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: And same with cutaways. of like reaction shots from background.
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: You see that a lot here. But yeah, to speak
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: to what you're saying about Jason, the other thing I
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: noticed he did that's really brilliant is he decided, he
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: made a choice that he would treat Peter and Nance differently.
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: So Peter, he sees as he's like the weaker character, right?
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: He's like really playing to your like vanity, right? Peter
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: says in the first part one, you know, his eyes and,
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: you know, he immediately says something about your eyes. And
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: then Nancy sort of is like negging the whole time.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: Like he's sort of putting her down. He like kind
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: of has her number. Yeah.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: And like, he just made this choice to, to treat
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: each of us differently.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: And it was so much smarter than just seeing us
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: as like this monolith. He really sort of comes at
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: us and like, just, it really created a much richer dynamic.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: I thought for something that's so short.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And, I also understood how he would be a
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: cult leader or whatever that is. Because it wasn't the
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: stereotype or the cliche of a long-haired, you know, that
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: kind of wisdom. It was this other thing that even
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: today I'm like, hey, I want to follow that guy.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: And then jumping into that third part of the wraparound,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: That jump that he's dying, I thought, I assumed that
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: somewhere there was going to be a scene of him going,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: I don't feel so well or, you know, I'm dying.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Right away, deathbed. That's all you need. Yeah.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: And I think, you know, again, part of that learning curve, like,
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: you know, they say with like fiction or short stories, like,
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: you know, enter the scene late and leave early. And
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: that is so true with sketch as well. Like you just,
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: you don't need heads or tails. Like let's just get
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: right to the meat of it. And yeah, we kind
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: of had to, we sort of learned how to do that.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: And certainly our editors, I think early on really helped us.
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: We started to write more like they edited because they
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: were like, oh my God, This is so, like, let's
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: just cut this and that.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: So, yeah. So, you know, it's this big deathbed scene,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: which was so great. That's all that was. We just started,
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: you know, all of his wives.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: Now, including me and you, Peter and Nance are sitting
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: around this deathbed. And then he finally dies and this
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: bell is broken. We realize we've been in a cult.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: We look down. We see that we're wearing these long skirts.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: Back we go to the restaurant.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: We go back to the restaurant and we decide to
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: order something else.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Think we order salmon or something yeah fish salmon.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah yeah and it you know again that kind
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: of sort of the going back to like what how
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: we structured things it was sort of like grounded absurd
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: surreal that's how i always think of it like if
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: you were to in a in general terms you know
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: so it ends kind of it very heightened you know
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: dana suspends her disbelief that we would you know ostensibly
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: it's been years later but we return to the same
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: table as if she's Just been waiting for us the
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: whole time.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: And continue our order.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: I was just going back to that first part. The
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: fact that she had that folder with all that information. Well,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: it's kind of a really good move that she's not
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: just a straight person of like, you guys are crazy. Yeah.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: It's a little bit like we're all engaging in whatever
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: this is.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And again, that, you know, credit to the art department.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: prop wise, I mean, they like for us too, you know,
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: the props really, I think helped because with, with sketch,
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: you know, you don't have a lot of time. We
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: would sometimes shoot like three or four sketches a day,
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: completely different characters, different setups, different wigs, hair, makeup. I mean,
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: a prop can be the thing that just brings you
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: right into, you know, the characters, you know, same with clothing,
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: same with a, you know, like a hat or a
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: piece of, you know, whatever, glasses. But it really, you
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: need that shorthand. And I think that our department was
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: really good at visual storytelling. You know, they were the
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: ones that gave her that, you know, the folder with,
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: you know, she went, let me get Colin's paperwork. She
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: comes back, there's a little photo of a chicken. You know,
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: we didn't write that into the script.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: So there was a lot of additional stuff. So yeah.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: And that one, I will say, you know, there's certain Portlandia,
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: sketches that people still bring up and that, you know, in,
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: in a way that I feel so lucky to have
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: been part of, like became part of like cultural parlance
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: and definitely like sometimes when I go to restaurants, and
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: especially during the years Portlandia was airing, people would always,
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: some people would be self-conscious as they took my order
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: because they were like, oh God, I know it's like,
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: I'm telling you this thing, but the whole call in
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: the chicken and, you know, asking about the origin of
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: your food definitely became a thing that You know, partly
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: Andy was part of that conversation, but specifically this sketch.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: It might be at number one for like a reference
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: that someone will say to me.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: Definitely top five, I think. But yeah, so that was.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I liked that episode a lot. And definitely Peter
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: and Ant's love. And I'm not even sure why we
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: went back to them, but we did. And, you know,
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: it's like, again, a lot of things... we weren't saying, oh, here,
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: we didn't start out writing the show and said, here
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: are the 10 characters at all.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: No.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: You know, like here's the ones we'll write for. They,
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: that was very organic.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Peter and Nancy just are really a good template for
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of sketches where we don't need them to
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: be too opinionated about anything.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Um, I want to say also, I just want
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: to add that the element of wigs for every season
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: was an issue in a good way since the pilot. Yes.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Just like the music that we chose, we didn't want
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: that to be too comedy-ish. We also didn't want the
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: wigs to be too comedic.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: So it took a while and it this is like
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: a budget conversation where we had to really, you know,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: ratchet up a little bit of like, we really need
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: good wigs.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: And so you brought the people from SNL. You brought
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: the best of the best.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: That's right. Jodi Mancuso, who I think it was just
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: her at first and then she brought in Jen, but
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: it's a kind of, it's a secret. It's just a good,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's many great ingredients, but that ingredient was
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: an immediate visual one. Yeah.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I think in general, everyone was punching
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: above their weight. I mean, obviously Jody was high, like
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: best of the best, but coming to Portland and working
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: on much different, like with different resources and fewer resources,
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: everyone was really like doing a lot of fantastic work with,
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: you know. Also just pointing out, we had, we didn't
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: have dressing rooms, you and I. So, you know, a
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: traditional show, you know, the stars of the show, Would
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: have their own dressing rooms. We just were in the
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: back of the hair and makeup trailer.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: In a camper.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: In a camper.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: We never, in fact, for all eight seasons, we never
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: had our own dressing rooms. But definitely first season, we
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: were all together. And along with the driver.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Yep. Yep.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: And his wife.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: Of the RV.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: They were there. And hair, makeup, costumes, we were all together.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: All together.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: And we never.
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: never had her own bathroom or yep. It was very threadbare.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, as it was happening, I think we also
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: didn't know what the show was in a way. So I,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: I didn't have yet the argument in me at the
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: time to be like, don't you know what this is?
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: It was more like, I have no idea. This might be,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: you know, too good for what, you know, we're trying
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: to accomplish.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: I think it helped the spirit of the show.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: You know, it, it felt very communal and we also
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: didn't want it to look or feel like it was
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: taking place in sort of the usual, you know, media centers.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yes.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, not that I didn't want my own bathroom.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: We, I gotta say, we really navigated it well. I
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: don't think we ever got into, I mean, the whole run,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: nothing was ever weird about the, The dressing room.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: You and I literally shared the whole time. I never,
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Never was an issue. It was you order food.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: You know, we had a break in between, whatever.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: There was never a point where it was like, oh,
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: season three. We had to start.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: You know, they weren't even talking to each other.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: No, no.
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Or like, hey, you know, I kind of like this
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: door closed just so you know. It was all. Yeah.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Totally fine.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: And by the way, the guest stars didn't have their own.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: Nope. Like we've already mentioned Jason Sudeikis. We'll get to
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: other guest stars, including like. Tony and Oscar winners, they
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: also did not have their own dressing room and everyone,
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: you know, say it, we'll say it again and again,
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: probably as we talk about them individually, people were a game.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: They, they came and.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: Like, we're able to adapt to the strange, you know,
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: culture of the show, but yeah, people, that was Jason's
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: dressing room too, was.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: Just, yeah.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, sorry.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: I'm in the back. You know, that was it. That
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: was it.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: And that when there was no hierarchy, there was no
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: one person that, oh, they need their own dressing room.
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: That just was what they were told before they got there.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: And everyone seemed okay with it.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: I think later what we would do is, because we
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: had an Airstream, one of those little Airstream trailers, we
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: would leave. If a star was big enough, we'd be like, well,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: let's let them have it.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: That was our big move.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but there was a back room in the Airstream.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: And so they would let... There was a door at least.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: And they could change. But yeah, all right.
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: Well, so let's just quickly, I guess, we talked about
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: the two main sketches, like the other sketches in the show.
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: So we had the cold open, part one of the farm,
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: and then we do into the technology loop.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Yes, technology loop. And I like watching this one because
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: I identify with it still happening today.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, I mean.
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: I don't want to say we were early adopters, but
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: we definitely were already sensitive to the ways that tech
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: was overtaking our lives and kind of hijacking our brains.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: And it didn't seem like it's really well edited. And
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: it was also that one had the first bit of
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: like digital fixing that I didn't even know was possible.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: At the end of the tech loop, I realized, sort
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: of freeze over.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: Oh, right.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: And your eyes.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: And my eyes go up and my mouth goes down.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: And that was all done. The editors did it.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: Post, yeah.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: And then we, here is the introduction of Feminist Bookstore,
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: which as Fred and I discussed was, predates the show.
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: So here we are bringing Tony and Candice into Portlandia.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: We changed the location. So this, we were working out
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: of a real feminist bookstore on North Killingsworth called In
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: Other Words.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: They were generous enough to let us use their store.
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: We renamed it Women and Women First. And our first customer,
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: Steve Buscemi, who another person we'll talk about, hopefully we'll
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: have him on the show because he comes back year
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: after year.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: We love Steve.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: He ended up directing multiple episodes. But yeah, a classic
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: feminist bookstore setup. Someone comes into the store, which is
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: already an affront to Tony and Candace. And yeah, he
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: wants to use our bathroom and we make him buy something.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Yes. We make it difficult.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Whenever I watch the feminist bookstore sketches, it's almost like
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: they just want someone to stay. Even if it's confrontational,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: it's more like don't leave.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: No.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You're still holding them hostage even though you want
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: them to leave.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: It's very confusing.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: All improvised.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: All improvised.
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And then adult hide and seek. Which is a
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: sketch that I really love. It also introduces Ellen, right?
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: Ellen Bloodworth. Yeah.
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: Who plays the woman who Fred's character, Stuart, right, is
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: interacting with. Who's kind of a little bit disdainful, a
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: little bit skeptical of adults acting like kids in a library.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: Really good. She was great.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: She was great.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: Really good tone. She really made us laugh.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Local actress who, based on this performance, we brought
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: back year after year. And that happened a lot of times.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: You know, we had great background and local casting directors,
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: and they would bring in talent from all over Portland,
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: and many of them, we just loved what they did,
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: and they became part of the part of the cast essentially.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: But Ellen was definitely one of those people.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: So great.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: And you guys just had such an instant chemistry, which
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: I really like.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we definitely did. And she was just perfectly funny.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: She was really funny.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: And then I think another thing I, yeah, anyway, I'll
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: stop there.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: And then what else do we have?
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: And that's it.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: That's all our sketches. So that's episode one.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much for listening. to our very
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: first AO Rewatch episode.
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: This was very fun.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: I really enjoyed getting to watch that again.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: Me too.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: And to talk about it. I feel like we haven't
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: talked about it that much. A little, but not to
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: this extent.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: We talk about it broadly. And we'll talk about it
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: sort of anecdotally. But to get granular is really enjoyable.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Agreed. Thank you.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: This 15 years later, or whatever it is, the feeling
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: of watching it now is I feel mostly good about
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: the decisions we made. I like things like the tech loop.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: I think it's because at the time when we were
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: shooting it, we knew it wasn't going to come out
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: until six months later or something. So it wasn't that topical.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: So because of that, I like that it's a little evergreen.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's, I think that's, sorry.
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: I think that's one of the things that I keep
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: sort of monitoring as I'm watching it, thinking, okay.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: What is evergreen?
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: What feels a little dated because of course times change
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: and often that is technology and I remember that was
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: a conversation we had at the time um you know
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: certain things of course you're never gonna like be able
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: to be ahead of things but I feel like that
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: was a conscious decision we made and whether it was
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: politics or you know certain references like we wanted it
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: to feel like timeless in a way, you know, we
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: wanted to be speaking to larger things in terms of
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: just like, let's, let's focus on who these people are,
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: you know, and how they relate to their environment versus
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: like the time period. Yeah. You know, but I, I, it's,
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: that is something that I'm looking for when I'm watching just,
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: I'm excited when something does feel like, oh yeah, that's
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: still relevant or even better.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: Like we were ahead of the curve there on something.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: That's a good feeling. Um, yeah. Also, you know, everyone
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: looks really young.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: That part is, yes. That's, yeah, notable.
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Also, I remember our takes were really long and
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: I can see, I remember our camera people, like Feminist
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: Bookstore especially. So like Tony and Candice can improvise forever. Yeah.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: And I mean, I just remember like the camera.
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: People were, who I think was TG and Aubrey that
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: first year, would have to adjust.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: Of course, the camera is heavy. They weren't on sticks.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: They were like on their shoulders.
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: And you can see sometimes the camera just tilts because
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: the camera operator is like, no, I'm sorry, but no, please.
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: So I definitely see that. And I just, yeah.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: But for the most part, I think to me, like, Sorry.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: To me, the wraparound sketches so far hold up. Sometimes
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: the individual ones, it's just such a sheer amount. I'm like, oh, okay.
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: Some of those I can take or leave. But I
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: felt like this episode felt strong to me.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel the same. And technology-wise, for however much
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: things have changed, there are some things that I'm actually
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: kind of surprised have stayed the same. The idea of textings.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: So then in the tech loop, we're texting a lot.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: But I'm kind of surprised that that's still the way
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: we communicate, that it's thumbs. I thought by now there'd
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: be some other thing, but I'm glad. I'm glad it's
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: that way. And I think there's even an iPad on
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: the table there. So I'm like, all right, those iPad, iPhone,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: that stuff is like, we're still, it's not, which wouldn't
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: be the worst thing in the world, but it's not
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: so antiquated that I'm like, oh, I can't believe we've got.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: Right, what's interesting is, is we switch in that sketch
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: to Mindfy, which is us sort of speaking just telepathically,
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: but then your brain still gets hijacked by ads. And
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: to me, even though it's not literally like that, it
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: does feel like we're in a version of that where
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: we're just never safe from being inundated with slog or
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: brain rot or clutter.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: So in that sense, it's true. That has just been
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: a continuum. We've been on a slow.
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: Decline since then. But yeah, I feel as I can,
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: I can feel us getting our feet wet. There's to me,
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, you and I talk a lot about this, like,
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: and we make analogies to music, but you know, there it's,
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: this is kind of our first album this season.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: And like, I, I like it. I think it holds
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: up as a first album.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: Like to me, it has like some highs and then
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: it has things that looking back, I'm like, okay, that
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: probably didn't work. But I feel like as a statement,
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: it feels good coming out of the gates. Like there's
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: little things I would, do differently, but it, it feels
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: like a debut album in a good way, the good
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: kind of debut album where it's like, okay, it's coming
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: onto the scene.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: It has like, it looks different to me.
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: Like when I was watching it, I was like, this
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: looks different than other sketch shows, you know, that like
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: started to come out after us. Um, once all the
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: networks that had turned us down decided that they were
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: going to, um, put out sketches. Um, you know, I,
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: I think the closest thing that it looks like is
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: probably kids in the hall.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Definitely.
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: Because that was, you know, shot in Toronto. So again,
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: wasn't LA or New York had a slightly cinematic quality
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: to it and had that kind of shambolic quality to it. Yeah.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: I would say that's the closest like aesthetic analog to it.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: Speaking of analog, I think that because I, I like the,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: you know, it's enough to say that it's, it's a
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: good debut album or first album. And, but to get
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: more specific, well, For some reason, what comes to mind
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: is Talking Head 77. That's very much them. Even though
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: they evolved beyond that. Anyway, so that's usually what I
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: think of, where it feels like that kind of.
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: I.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: Think of that album specifically. Oh, that's interesting. Maybe The
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Police's first album?
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: Which is The Police's first album?
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: It's just, it's just the police in it has Roxanne
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: is on it.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So it has a big.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: It has like, yeah, it's like, it's a definite beginning.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: And same with Talking Heads where that has Psycho Killer
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: on it. Yeah.
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: It has like, it creates a vernacular. It's like, it changes,
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: but it also, it's like, you know what a Talking
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: Heads song is based on that album, or you know
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: what a police song is based on their first album.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: Like it wasn't, they didn't keep, like they, they push forward.
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: But it wasn't like an act of full re like
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: reinvention every time, which I feel like, you know, we
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: do return to like, you, you see the DNA in
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: these sketches, I think.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: You build upon.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: So that was episode one. I love getting to do
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: this and I'm looking forward to the rest of it
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: to having guests, you know, that we've had on the
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: show that have worked on the show. It's, it's, really
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: fun for me and I'm excited to do it.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: Me too. I, yeah, I'm also very excited. I'm excited
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: to hang out with you.
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: I'm excited to keep rewatching these episodes and unpacking all
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: of it and going off on tangents, which we definitely will.
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: And I'm excited to bring in some of the great
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: guests that we had on the show and talk to
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: them about their experience. And we're so grateful for our
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: listeners and viewers.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: So very excited for this podcast series.
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: Rewind.