Latest / Four Finger Discount (Simpsons Podcast) / Why I Wrote "Jurassic Bark" (with Eric Kaplan)

Transcript

Why I Wrote "Jurassic Bark" (with Eric Kaplan) · Four Finger Discount (Simpsons Podcast)

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey everybody, Dando here. Welcome to a very special episode
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: of Four Finger Discount, where this week we're shaking things
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: up a bit and reviewing an episode of Futurama, but
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: not just any episode of Futurama. Yes, it's the one
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: that continues to make grown men cry. It's Jurassic Park,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: and we're incredibly fortunate to be joined by the writer
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: of the episode. It's Mr. Eric Kaplan. It's a really
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: fun conversation where we cover topics like why on earth
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: he actually wrote that ending. In fact, we actually delve
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: into what the original ending for the episode was. And
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: let me just say, it may have been even more
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: heartbreaking than the ending we got. We also get a
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: crash course in writing TV comedy, including some exclusive behind-the-scenes
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: insights into the Futurama writing process. Now, I must mention
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: that we've also recorded a separate episode of Tales of
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Futurama reviewing Jurassic Park, which includes the usual scene-by-scene analysis, trivia,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: favourite moments, you know, all the good stuff, which is
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: available right now exclusively on our Patreon. All of our
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: shows here at the Four Finger Discount Network are funded
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: by the support of each and every single one of you,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: our incredible listeners. So if you have a few spare
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: dollar-y dues and want to support your pals Guy and Dando,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: you can join the Patreon family for as little as
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: just $ 1 per month, where you can get access to
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: over 150 hours of exclusive podcasts and videos. Links for
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: all of that is in the description of this podcast.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: But thank you again for checking out the show, and
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: we hope you enjoy our chat with Futurama writer Eric
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Kaplan as we review Jurassic Park.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Good news, everyone.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: I'm back, baby.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome to a very special episode of Tales
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: of Futurama, where today we are joined by a man
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: who wrote the episode that we're here to discuss today.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: It's one of the most gut-wrenching episodes of Futurama, probably
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: the most gut-wrenching. It is Jurassic Park, and we're joined
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: right now by Eric Kaplan. Eric, how are you doing, sir?
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: I'm doing well, I'm doing well. I mean, good to
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: talk about guts and their wrenching.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Why is this episode gut-wrenching? This is the episode where
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Amy and Leela wrestle in very skimpy costumes, and that's
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: the only reason people remember this episode.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Nothing else happens, I don't think.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: No, that's pretty much it.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: Right. It's not as if on your phone you cannot,
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: within a split second, come up with an image much
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: more erotic than a cartoon of two women in underpants.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: But Jurassic Park, I was just telling you off air, Eric,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: that we threw out to all of our followers on
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and all the like and saying,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: any questions for Eric? And the general consensus was, why
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: would you make this episode? Why did you do this
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: to me? You know, 15, 20 years later, and it
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: still hits me just as much now as it did
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: back then. So how about you tell the listeners and
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: the viewers out there, why? Why Jurassic Park?
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: Well, I'll start by telling them in song. a song
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: that I learned when I was performing Free to Be
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: You and Me in fifth grade in PS139, and it
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: goes like this. It's all right to cry. Crying gets
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: the sad out. It's all right to feel things, though
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: the feelings may be strange. Feelings are such real things,
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: and they change and change and change. So that's my
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: answer in the form of a song. I can answer
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: it in the form of words, you know, prose as well.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, I assume both of you guys are macho
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: and I am as well, but there's a sense in
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: which like the decision not to feel is a bad decision.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: It's not ultimately worth it. And then sometimes I like
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: to think that the devil comes to us and says,
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna give you the opportunity to never feel anything
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: bad or sad. ever again. And you're like, that sounds great.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: I love that. And there's not any fine print is there?
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: And he says, well, yes, the fine print is you'll
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: never feel anything joyful or wonderful either. And some people
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: sign that, but it's a mistake. Um, so the why is,
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: is it's better to be able to feel, you know,
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: the pain of, of love that, that fails than never
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: to love at all. That's my position. And I'll fight
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: you about it. I'll fight you.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Sorrow is the price of joy, I believe, is the saying.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: I believe sorrow is the price of joy, right?
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: So in this episode, it's funny. I have had internet
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: arguments with people who told me that I don't understand
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: the point of my own episode. And I guess, fine.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: But I feel the point of the episode is Fry
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: made the wrong decision. He believed it was right that
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: that dog didn't wait for him. But he wasn't right.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: And we can sometimes do that. We can sometimes make
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: mistakes in this life. It can actually happen. There is
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: a price to be paid for every decision we make.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: And sometimes that price is painful. And sometimes the story
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: that we tell ourselves about why it's correct is wrong.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: So these are all things that are true. And I
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: don't know why people... Feel bad that they feel bad.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, I guess I do know why, because it
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: feels bad, but I also feel like, you know, it's
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: okay to feel things. Though the feelings may be strange
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: as I began by pointing out.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Eric, Dan and I were talking about the episode before
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: we started recording. And I was thinking, Eric's a philosophy guy.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: I get the feeling he would want to spark discussion
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: more than provide a definitive answer or definitive statement about anything.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: And I think that's what happens with the end of
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: the episode. I mean, was that something that was in
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: your mind?
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: But then I just provided a definitive statement. I'm sorry,
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: what I interrupted. I've come from New York City and
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: we interrupt a lot as a sign of love. So
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: We just do it as plain rudeness here in Australia.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: Please restate your question.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: But yeah, were you of a mind you wanted like, Yeah,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: I want people to talk about why Fry did what
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: he did, and maybe did he do the right thing,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: as opposed to, no, this is the way it is.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, right? I mean, a work of entertainment or
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: a cartoon show, it's not really supposed to remove the
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: job of thinking from you. Like, you still have to
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: think about what you care about and what you feel
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: about life. It's supposed to maybe prompt thinking. Yeah, I
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: agree with that. Ralph Waldo Emerson, strictly speaking, it is
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: only provocation, not instruction we can get from another person.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: It's interesting you brought up that feeling things is good
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: because I remember it's like watching this episode for the
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: first time is like a core memory for me. So
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I would have been in my early teens. I remember
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: like in my room, I just bought the season, I
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: think it was season four DVD set here in Australia.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: I must've missed this one when it was on TV
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: and I'm watching it. And I just expected the happy
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: ending because that's what you get in animated comics. You
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: get the happy ending. You don't get the sad ending.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Why would you ever get a sad ending?
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: And I remember when it got to those closing credits and,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: you know, Seymour, he passes away. That's it. He spent
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: his whole life waiting. He never got what he wanted.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: I was angry. I was sad. I was confused, bewildered,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: proud that this show was willing to take that risk
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: and actually do this. I didn't really know how to feel.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: So it's amazing that Is that what you intended with
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: this episode? Did you just want people to just feel,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: regardless of what you felt, just feel something?
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: Well, I did want people to feel something, for sure.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: I think it's good to feel things. I mean, feelings
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: help connect us to other human beings. They help connect
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: us to our own lives. They help us make decisions
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: about what's important to us. I'm pro-heart. I think the
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: heart's a good organ. Yeah, I'm glad that you felt something.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: And there's a claim that some writers make, like that
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: a work of art is like an axe that breaks
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: open the icy lake of the soul. That if you
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: use a work of art in the right way, it
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: can help you get in touch with your feelings and
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: it can change how you roll as a person. Do
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: you think that's right? I'm a little worried to just
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: say it straight because it seems to me it's a
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: very self-fluttering argument. and it might not be true, but
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: I think it's interesting to consider. What do you guys think?
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: No, no, I love that phrase. I mean, is it
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Chekhov or Tolstoy? It's one of those Russian guys, I think.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: I think it might be Kafka, but I don't know.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: I dropped out of grad school.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: We'll talk about that because you strike me as a
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: very learned fellow. I think you've got a bit going
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: on upstairs. I'm bookish.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: I'm bookish. I'm a little bit of a bookish, bookish person.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: I've got my nose in a book, but I don't
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: remember that. But then again, that is the sort of
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: thing that– Our phones could tell us who said a
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: story should break open the icy lake of the soul.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: I think it's Kafka. I don't know for sure.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: I'm going to cite someone a little less esoteric, the
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: great horror director Wes Craven, who called his movies and
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: other horror movies emotional boot camp. Oh, interesting. Watching a
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: scary story, it gave you the feeling of fear without
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: the actual risk that was involved and allowed you to
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: sort of maybe gain a little emotional scar tissue from
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: allow you to function in the world maybe a little stronger. And,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: you know, I think Jurassic Park does that in its
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: own way. Yeah.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: But in a weird way, I feel that it might
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: serve to tear off a little emotional scar tissue, you know?
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: I guess those are two different models, right? Those are
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: two different models of what it takes to be an
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: effective person. Do you need to add stuff or do
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: you need to take stuff away? Probably a little bit
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: of both. Sure. A little bit of both. How many
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: people are listening to this?
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Well, we're not live streaming right now, of course.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: So none? No one's listening?
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Not right now.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: No, this is not live.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: So we're all good. We're listening.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: Oh, okay. Good, good, good. But ultimately, you believe well
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: over 100 people will listen to this?
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: I would say- There'll be dozens of them. Dozens.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: We get roughly about 1 to 1.5 million a year listens.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: You get a million people are going to listen to
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: me not remembering who said an ax, who knows that
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: it's an ax that breaks open the icy lake of
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: the soul? I feel like I'm letting them down. I'm
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: going to Google it now. Yeah, it's Kafka. It's Kafka. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Your tombstone is now going to say, student of philosophy.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: author of many great works and dude who didn't remember
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Kafka's name.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: No, I did remember. I just didn't have the confidence. Yeah. Yeah.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: He didn't back himself.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: I didn't remember. I didn't have the confidence of my
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: own beliefs.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Didn't back himself.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay. Well, if I've learned something from talking to
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: you two guys, it's to never doubt myself ever again.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Ever.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: To just, just on any topic, I'm just going to
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: just assume that I'm right from here on in until
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: the final, um, bar fight that takes me down in
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: about a week, right?
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Well, you thought you were going to be on a
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: pop culture podcast. Instead, you're in one of those optimization ones.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: You've got a couple of Tony Robbins here telling you
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: to be more self-confident and stupid.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: Oh, we're going to optimize? I'd like to optimize.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: I heard a funny thing about Shonen that in every
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: episode of Shonen, at some point, the hero says, I'm
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: overcoming my limitations. Which I think all three of us,
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: we should commit to doing that before the end of
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: this podcast today. We should overcome our limitations.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: What's your biggest limitation?
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: What's my biggest limitation? I don't know what my biggest
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: limitation is. I don't think I'm necessarily the person to
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: ask on that question because it's a little bit invisible
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: to me. I'll tell you one thing I've done for
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: the last 30 years is.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: Kind of depend upon other people to do the business
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: side of show business for me. So I've done the
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: writing side and other people have done the business side.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: And I think that has been a limitation, but it's
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: one I'm hoping to, to overcome. And like, like, that's
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: why I reached out to you guys. And I'm like, how,
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: how can I get people to know that I'm doing something?
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: I can't just hope that somebody in the, in the
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: Warner brothers or the Fox PR department is going to
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: do it. I'll do it. And then it was very
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: nice of you guys. You wrote back and you said, okay.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: So I'm like, okay, I'm transcending my limitations.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: At first, I thought it might have been a scammer
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: because you were the first.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: Oh, really? What was the first hint that it wasn't?
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Well, we nearly got scammed last year. You know Chelsea Handler,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: the comedian?
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: Yes. And she asked you for your credit card number?
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: Did Chelsea?
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: So she has a podcast. And see, the scammers are
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: getting good now. So they make email accounts that seem
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: like management at Chelsea Handler Podcast or whatever. And they'll
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: email people saying, Chelsea loves your podcast, loves The Simpsons,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: would love to come on the show to talk about it.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Here's some dates, right? And that's what happened to us.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: I thought, this seems weird, but- I'm still sort of
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: buying it. And then they said, let's arrange a Zoom
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: meeting and we can organize the time and the conversation,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: the topics and blah, blah, blah. And all the signs
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: were there, but I just didn't... A little bit of
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: me was still believing it. And looking back now, I think,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: you idiot. And it got to the point where they
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: were talking to me on Zoom, but I didn't realize
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: when they were talking to me on Zoom, they were
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: actually hacking my laptop and trying to hack our social
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: media accounts. Oh.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: Oh, my goodness. So why did you believe that I
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: wasn't the Chelsea Handler scammers?
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: I trusted you.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: You trusted me. You trusted whoever it was who claimed
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: to be me, which in this case was me.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Holy moly. Quick, let's Google Eric and see if this
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: is actually him.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: He's actually hacking our laptop right now.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: That's right. That's right. I'm getting your grandma's– I'm draining
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: your grandma's accounts.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I've already drained it. Don't worry. It's all good.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: Good, good, good smart. You're one step ahead of me.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, mine took a bunch of cruises.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: She drained it.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: But the thing is, with Jurassic Park, right, Jurassic Park
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: impacted so many of us, especially younger viewers, like so
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: many of us watching it, animal lovers. Anyway, I don't
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: think anyone can watch this without feeling something, right? What
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: is something that's impacted you in the same way when
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: you've watched it?
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: Something that's impacted me in the same way? All right,
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: that's a good question. I think the novel Disgrace by Cotzi.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: really impacted me hard. That was a killer. That was
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: a killer.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: What was the synopsis of that story? And what was
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: it about it that made you feel?
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: It's about a guy, I mean, I don't know if
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: I should spoil it, but it's certainly about a guy
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: who seems like a reasonably likable, intelligent guy. And you
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: kind of realize he's done some very horrible things and
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: you kind of go along with him, and then you
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: realize when it's too late, oh my God, I was
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: giving my sympathy to somebody who was really pretty heinous
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: and has done some heinous things. I think that's what
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: got me, because I was like, wait a second. When
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: I'm indicting that guy, I'm indicting myself as well. Yeah,
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: I think that's one that I certainly remember as an
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: adult hitting me really hard.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: That's also just credit to the writing as well, though,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: that it was able to make you.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: Oh, he's a... He's a dead eye. He's an assassin
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: in terms of writing. He's one of the best writers living.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: Jay Kitsi.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: South African author, right?
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he is.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Do you prefer to write villains or hero stories?
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: I don't write either. I write stories about people, and
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: I believe everybody has the potential to be both. I
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: think it's almost like it's a comforting illusion that people
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: come pre-sorted. into good people and bad people. It's actually
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: not true. It's sort of something we tell children because
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: their minds are very undeveloped. So we need to tell
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: them something overly simplified, but it's not actually true in
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: my view.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Perhaps also a way to shape them at that young
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: and pliable age.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it is. But what does it shape them
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: to be? Because there's that story about when you're playing
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: poker and you look around the table and and you
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: don't know who the fish is, it's you, you know?
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: So it's sort of similar. If you go into this situation,
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: you look around it, and you don't know who the
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: villain is, it might be you, you know? You have
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: to take all these categories and turn them back on
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: yourself if they're going to be worth anything.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure that Bender doesn't view himself as the
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: villain in this episode, even though he pulled some really
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: heinous shit.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: No, he didn't view himself as a villain ever. No,
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: he views himself as, you know, he wants his friend
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: to pay attention to him. You know what I mean?
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, he's behaving in a selfish way without sort
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: of realising it.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: But also, Fry's decision at the end sort of comes
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: down to selfishness as well, and he thought he was
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: going to be being selfish by bringing Seymour back. He thought, no, no,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: he started a new life. Why would he want to
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: spend this life with me? Little did he know that
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: that's all Seymour wanted in the end.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: He didn't know.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but Fry going forward, though, obviously, we'll discuss it
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: in a few moments, the retconning of this story, but
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: going forward in this universe, in this timeframe... Fry didn't
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: know he made the right, the wrong decision. He thinks
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: he made the right decision and he now going forward
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: will be happy with himself, believing, thinking he did the
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: right thing.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: You're right. That's what people do. People, people frequently come
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: up with a story that tells them that they did
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: the right thing, even if they didn't, you know? So like, I, I,
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: I'm always sort of like, I always kind of like to,
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: to give myself a hard time and like come up
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: with like a strong argument against something that I believe. Um,
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: And I tend to be pro-empathy, like I'm a pro-empathy
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: kind of guy. Like I think it's better if people
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: have empathy. But then I realized sometimes when people have
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: empathy for the members of their own group and they
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: villainize anyone who's done anything bad to them, then that
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: can be a bad form of empathy. You know, that
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: if you decide what I'm doing is protecting the poor
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: virgins of my own ethnic group from the rapacious rapists
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: of your ethnic group, then I can do quite horrible things,
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: imagining that what I'm doing is protecting the weak and vulnerable.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: You're reminding me of a line from The Big Chill.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: I think Jeff Goldblum says, I can't get through the
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: day without two or three juicy rationalizations.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And then he turned into a fly.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Very few people know about the connective tissue of those
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: two movies.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: He rationalized his way into being a giant fly, which
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: is something to be careful, listeners. Be careful.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: With Jurassic Park, was this a story that you came
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: to the pitch with, or was this something that was
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: pitched to you and sort of assigned to you?
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: I came to it with the story being that Fry
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: went to a museum and And saw his mother in
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: amber and had the capacity to bring his mother back
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: to life. And David Cohen said that seemed like that
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: would be too upsetting. So I was like, and I
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: think as I remember it, I think I said, well,
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: what about a dog? If David remembers that he was
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: the one who said, what about a dog? Then we'll
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: have to have a physical fight. But I think I said,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: what about a dog?
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Well, it's dramatic.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: So would the story have still been the same? She
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: would have been waiting for him forever and then he
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: decides not to bring her back?
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: Oh, would she have been waiting for him forever? Well,
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: I think the story would have been that, uh again
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: when like like i'll put it this way when we
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: move on in life it might be good for us
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: and bad for the people we leave behind that is
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: a coherent possibility that sometimes happens and people tell themselves
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: stories frequently about oh you know Let's get divorced because
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: it's better for the children. Well, maybe, you know. But
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: usually that story is not tested by the data. It's
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: more a story that people tell in order to give
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: themselves the emotional courage or juice to move on.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Themselves, yeah.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: Themselves, yeah. So I think, I mean, I thought it
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: was sort of interesting that Fry has left behind everybody.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: Everybody in his life and now is having fun in
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: the future with robots and cyclopses and what have you.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: And what is the cost of that? What's the cost
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: of who you leave behind?
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Do you consider an alternate sort of history of the
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: reaction to Jurassic Park where it is one of Fry's
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: parents as opposed to Seymour the dog? I mean, I
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: get the feeling people get attached to this and feel
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: such a strong emotional reaction because of the unconditional... And
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: quite simple love that a pet will give you as
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: opposed to the complicated relationship you may be in with
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: another human being. Yes. Yes.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: I think that's true. I love dogs, but I think
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: there's a problem with loving a dog because a dog
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: never criticizes you or demands anything very complicated from you
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: other than feeding it and not hurting it. and then
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: the dog will love you. So I'm skeptical. Whenever people
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: say the only beings that they like are beings that
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: are constitutionally incapable of talking back to them, I'm a
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: little interested in what's going on with that. But I
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: do think, and I also think it's possible you can
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: project your full-on need and your full-on fantasy of unconditional
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: love onto an animal And if you try to do
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: that to a person, they may they may push back.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: You know, if you say to a lover, what I'd
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: like you to do is just lie around my house
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: naked and eat food out of a can. They'll say,
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: I don't want to do that. I have other things
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: I'd like to do. Probably depends on the person. It
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: takes all kinds to make a world as I don't
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: need to tell you guys.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: This show is brought to you by the Four Finger
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Discount Patreon, where for as little as just $ 1 per month,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: you can support the channel as well as get access
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: to over 150 hours of exclusive podcasts and videos. Plus,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: you get early and ad-free access to every show we
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: do on the network. So go ahead and support your
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: pals Guy and Dando today at patreon.com slash fourfingerdiscount. Well,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Fry's mother has never really been sort of passed off
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: as very loving to Fry. And particularly even in this episode,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: she's not even really aware that he hasn't arrived for
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the New Year's Day brunch or whatever. She's too busy
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: watching the football or whatever.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: No, yeah, seems like a bad mother.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: She's very oblivious to Fry's existence, it feels, at certain
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: times throughout the series. 20 years on, though, from this episode,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: do you, regret's not the word, but do you wish
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: you had have gone with the mum? Or do you
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: think the backlash from this episode, as Guy was saying,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: was because it's an animal, because it's a dog. Do
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: you think this episode deserves... Did you expect the backlash
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: that was getting off? Do you wish you had gone
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: with his mum?
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: Actually, I don't believe in the backlash. I think when
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: people say they're upset, they're kind of kidding around. Like,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: I don't believe it's an actual backlash. I don't think
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: it's the same thing as if I had, you know... Like,
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: I don't want to say what I could have done,
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: but it's not the same as an actual backlash. You know,
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: if I had actually written, you know, a bigoted episode
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: of Futurama or something like that, I don't think it's
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: a true backlash. I think people are being funny on
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: the Internet by saying it made me feel so much.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: I want to kill that guy. I don't think they
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: really do want to kill me. And then, right. I
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: say that Futurama writer killed halfway through saying that fans
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: don't actually want to kill him. That'd be an ironic story.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: But no, all kidding aside, as a comic in all seriousness,
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's– I think people are happy that
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: they felt stuff.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: I think so as well. I mean it's that whole
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: George Lucas molested my childhood thing, right? I mean, yeah.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: I mean I don't think your life is that adversely
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: affected by the prequels weren't as good as the movies
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: you watched back in the 70s and 80s. Honestly, I
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: mean I think one of the reasons– yeah. this episode
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: is so well remembered because it's a strong episode putting
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: aside the ending. But, you know, you think of movies
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: that have climaxes like this. I mean, look, the one
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: that immediately springs to mind for me is something like Seven.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of talk. It's a good movie.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: I liked it.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: It's a fantastic movie. But, you know, the studio and
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: the producers were like, are we really going to end
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: it this way? And, you know, Fincher and Pitt and
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: everyone involved were like, no, no, this is how it
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: has to end.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: We have to do this.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: And I think a lot of people... Again, Seven's a
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: really strong movie, but the ending is what is so memorable. Yeah.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Oh, you know what? You know what's a movie like that?
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: That did upset me. The original, not the remake of
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: Don't Say a Word.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: I don't know the original.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: Have you guys seen that?
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: You're talking about the Michael Douglas I'll Never Tell movie?
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking about the one about the kid with no tongue.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, Speak No Evil.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: Speak no evil, speak no evil.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that movie's insane.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: That's an ending that kind of messes you up. It's
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: just like, hoo-hoo, boy. Zooey Mama, right?
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: I know, man. I had to sit down for a
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: little while, and I was already sitting down. Yeah, right?
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: That's upsetting. And I don't know why people like stuff
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: that ends like that. I mean, I think it is
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: a sense in which, like, maybe we all know that
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: our life is not going to end with us getting away. Yeah.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean? So like if you have
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: something that deals with that, it kind of helps you
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: kind of like get a little sober in a good way.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: I think there's a level of respect with Jurassic Park
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: because the reason it was such an emotional gut punch
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: is because you just were not expecting it. These kind
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: of shows don't end stories like this. I don't think
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: we've reviewed the first now 22 seasons, 21 seasons of
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: The Simpsons. And I can't recall one episode yet that
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: That leaves you feeling the way Jurassic Park leaves you.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: They always want to leave you with, it's either a
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: happy ending or it's just like, it's an ending. It's
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: an ending that makes you go, oh.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Or it's bittersweet.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, you've got the ending. I'm sorry, I
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: forgot the name of the episode, but it ends with
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Homer sitting on the bottom of his car. It's with
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: his mother.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, Mother Simpson.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But Jurassic Park is on another level, I think.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Because- Like you're saying, Fry thinks he made the right
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: decision and then us, the viewer, know that he didn't.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: And that's what's frustrating because as a viewer, you can't
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: tell this character. He's not real.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: No, I mean, if you try, you're crazy.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: But I was saying to Guy before we started recording
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: that I feel like the more traumatic scene from this
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: episode isn't the ending. It's when Seymour finally finds Fry
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: and his parents that are so oblivious to everything... And
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: they're dragging him away from his best friend and he's
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: right there. And he can't communicate to these humans. Look,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: he's right there. And then he got so close. I
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: think that's what's more upsetting for me is he got
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: so close. He knows where he is.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is upsetting. It is upsetting. You're right.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: Maybe this is just me coping, but I always had
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: this assumption that, I mean, it is, of course, very sad,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: the final sequence of the episode, but I was always
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: of a mind like, People are giving this dog a
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: pat and, you know, Mr. Panucci's coming out and giving
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: him a slice occasionally. I mean, I don't think it's,
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: you know, a terribly hard knock life to see him
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: on the dog.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: By the global standards of dogs, that's true. That's true.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: But again, maybe that's just me searching for some kind
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: of solace in this.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: In this emotional wasteland you created, Eric.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: Well, I think people project their own feelings onto a dog.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: And then they're sort of like, if I was in
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: love with a human... and I was waiting for him
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: for my whole life and then died, that'd be pretty sad.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: Even if I was not starving to death, even if
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: I was given pizza, it would still be sad. I
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: think that's the way people would respond to that.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Well, it's like the story of that, I'm not sure which,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: I think they might have been Japanese maybe, but they
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: were separated when the war, and the woman, she waited
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: forever for him. And he started a new family with grandkids.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: Oh, interesting.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: And they met up at the age of, you know,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: like 75, 80 years old. And she realized, oh, I
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: waited for you and you didn't.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: Ooh. Right.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: And that's just, that's sort of like, you know, some people,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: you move on. And we'll discuss it before we come
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: on the air today. The point of this episode could
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: also be that this is Fry, his decision is his
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: decision to say, I've got to stop trying to get
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: back to the past. I've got to stop trying to
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: live in the 90s. This isn't 1999 anymore. This is
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: now the year 3000. This is my life now. Like
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: you're saying, if you cloned Seymour, that's just another way
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: of coping and trying to get back to where you were.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: That's not healthy to be doing that.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that's true. I think that's true. But
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: it's also true that when people say that, it's a
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: self-flattering description.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: I can say it's healthy for me to move on, Roberta.
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: And Roberta could be like, well, it's healthy for me
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: for you to stick around. You know, like it's not
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: it doesn't always work out perfectly for everybody. Exactly.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: So what would have been the ending then? if you
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: had have gone with the mother? Because I know David
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: said that it was too upsetting. What was going to
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: be the upsetting part? How was the original ending going
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: to go?
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: Well, if it were to make the same point, it
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: would be that Fry... realizes that it doesn't make sense
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: to bring his mother into the year 3000. She's happy
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: where she was. And then when you see her really old,
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: like reading a science fiction book and kind of wishing
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: she could live in the future and then dying.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Oh man, that's worse.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: She's looking at a rocket taking off and a tear
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: rolls down her cheek and then she dies.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: I was thinking more, you know, because Fry could have
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: sort of maybe come to the decision of, you know what?
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: I never really had a good relationship with my mother.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Why would I have a good relationship with her now?
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: It's a different story.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: And then you go back and it's like she spent
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: her entire life looking for him. And you're like, oh, God,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: that would have been the worst.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: The way to do yours is she never really cared
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: about me. Why would I bring her into the future?
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: And then we see she spent her whole life looking
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: for him and holding a picture of Fry in front
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: of the Ministry of Truth or whatever she thinks happened
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: to him.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: I think that would have been even worse.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: That would have been sad, right?
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Pretty emotional cage match.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: And I think you would have come away from that
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: kind of hating Fry a bit more if it were
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: a human being. At least I would.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: I personally would have come up with the ending where
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: Fry's mother is resurrected and then see, look, it's the
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: year 3000, you've still done nothing with your life.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Sure, sure.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: She comes back and she starts nagging him.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Oh, did you guys see Beef?
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: The Netflix series. I haven't watched it.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: Have you?
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: I haven't watched it yet, no.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Worth watching?
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: Oh, yes. It's written at a very high level. It's
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: a very high level of writing. And it's interesting because the,
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: I don't like, I don't, I, I don't want to
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: spoil it because I think it's so great and that
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: really kind of means that it's not even worth saying
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: what I'm saying. But for those who are listening who
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: have seen Beef, I would say the first season gave
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: me an expectation which the second season did not fulfill.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: And that's just going to be a little bit of
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: obscurantism for those who have not seen Beef. But for
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: those who have seen Beef, I think they'll know what
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: That's many streaming series. They have a season in mind
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: and they tell a great story and Netflix is like, well,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: this has been very successful.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: Make some more.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: And they go, well, we don't really have more. We'll
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: just make it anyway.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: Right. Well, that was sort of the sense I got
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: from Severance because the first season of Severance I thought
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: was terrific. And the second season of Severance I couldn't
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: get into because I was a little bit like, I'm
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: interested in this idea. I'm not really that interested in
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: the lives and loves of the characters. And do you
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: guys like Black Mirror? I do.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, certain episodes, certainly. I mean, I think
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: some are stronger than others.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, sure. They're not all equally strong. But I
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: guess I kind of think that Black Mirror is sometimes
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: the correct length for exploring a genre idea. Like, you
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: get in, you put the idea on the table, you
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: come up with whatever ironic payoff you have, and then
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: it ends. Like, I did quite like Pluribus. I think
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: Pluribus is good. But it could also have been a
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: Black Mirror episode and maybe have been just as good,
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: and I would have had seven hours to, like, do exercise.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: LAUGHTER I think Black Mirror is designed as those half-hour
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: to 40-minute vignettes. And this is pure speculation on my part,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: but I get the feeling that something like Severance or
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: maybe even something like Beef, and there are certainly many
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: examples of this on the streamers, they started as a movie.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: Or the idea started as a movie, started as a
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: self-contained idea that could be one and done in two hours.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: And so the higher-ups at Netflix would say, Yeah, but
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: we want to keep people's eyes on the screen for
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: eight hours. Can we stretch this out?
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: Stretch this out a bit more. I think that might
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: be the case, although I could be wrong.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I think you're right. And my
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: feeling is always like I've got other stuff to do.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: I don't want to just sit and watch 10 hours
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: of television. You know, I could learn a language. I
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: could like cook something. I don't know necessarily. Like if
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: you can convey the same emotional punch and intellectual depth
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: in a half hour– Rather than 80 hours, I think
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: that's better.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: I would use those other nine and a half hours
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: to watch more TV.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: You could watch different TV, right?
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: You could watch, oh, there's my friend Bob is into
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: this Japanese show about a, it's kind of like Groundhog
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: Day and this guy keeps dying and keeps being reborn.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: And it's like, it's hundreds of hours long. It's many
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: hundreds of hours. And I'm like, wow, that is a,
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: that's a serious commitment of, of my limited life on
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: earth to watch this show. Could I read just a
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: summary of it?
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: You're talking to a couple of guys who speak about
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: every episode of The Simpsons every week, man. Eric, you're
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: a philosophy guy. You studied at Harvard. You wrote a
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: USC dissertation on comedy and philosophy. Can you give a
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: shallow guy like me an understanding of maybe how comedy
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: and philosophy inform one another, at least in your worldview
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: or in your creative process?
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I guess I have this feeling that
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: life has a variety of things it throws at us,
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: which are just really hard to deal with. Like, they're
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: very hard. It's very hard to deal with the fact
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: that we will die and the people we love will die.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: And I don't know, you might love someone and they
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: don't love you back. There's a lot of things in
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: life that are quite difficult. And I think comedy and
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: philosophy are sort of two ways of responding to that.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: And a lot of them have to do, from my mind, with...
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: with contradiction. Like some people are like, I love animals,
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: but I also like to eat animals. And you're like, well,
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: that's pretty, it's pretty inconsistent, Joe. Like, how good do
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: you love animals and also like to eat them? And
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: that can be, so when I said that, you laughed.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: So that means I'm sort of using comedy as a
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: way of facing up to this contradiction. But then there's
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: also people who try and use philosophy as a way
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: of facing up to it. And they'll say like, well,
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: you know, they'll come up with some explanation. They'll come
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: up with some theory that tries to put it all together.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: Although the philosophers that I tend to like are the
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: ones who sort of come up with a theory about
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: why you never can come up with a theory. Like
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: they're existentialists. Like the philosophy that I like is existentialism.
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: And it more has to do with like realizing the
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: limitations of our attempt to like put it all together
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: in a way that makes sense. So, and that's pretty
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: close to comedy. It's an emotional or it's a human
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: response to the ultimate paradoxical nature of human life. How
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: about that, guys?
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: That's pretty deep.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Was philosophy big in the Futurama Rata's room?
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: No, no. It was more STEM. There was more computer science, math. Yeah,
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: I think it was largely computer science and math because
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: Because David Cohen's background is computer science. Ken Keillor's background
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: is math and computer science. Stu Burns was a math guy. Yeah,
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: so not so much philosophy. I don't think they had
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: much interest or patience for Kierkegaard or Nietzsche or Kant
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: or any of these guys. They were hard math guys.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: How were you brought into that room? How did you
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: land that role?
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: I was working for David Letterman in New York. And
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: I was frustrated with it. And it was a very
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: frustrating and somewhat frightening experience. They were constantly firing people
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: like crazy. And I was like, OK, I want to
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: I want to move to L.A. and write for something
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: with like like a half an hour long, not just
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: late night. And I knew David Cohen from college and
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: I knew that he was. Well, actually, I didn't know
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: what he was doing, but but I was working on
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: a King of the Hill spec script and I sent
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: it to him. And he gave me some pointers, but
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: he was basically encouraging. He said, yeah, this is a
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: good spec script. I like it. So then I think
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: he reached out to me or I found out from
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: my agent that he was doing a show with Matt
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: Groening that took place in the year 3000. And I
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: was like, hot diggity dog. I would love to write
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: for that. That sounds great. So I had a meeting
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: with him and as luck would have it, they made
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: an offer. So that's how I got in that room.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: You just brought up Groening. I heard that Groening, well,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: he's even said it at various panels, that he wasn't
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: big on this story, Jurassic Park. He wasn't big on
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: the overall story.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: Oh, did he say that? He didn't say it to me.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: He said he goes, I didn't.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: Why didn't he like it?
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Well, he said the ending in particular, I pushed for
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: this not to be the ending. I did not think
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: this was a good idea.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: Ew. I didn't hear that.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: He didn't confirm whether he's changed his mind on that,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: but he has publicly said.
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: I was not big on the ending of this episode.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: I didn't know that.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: The one thing I remember was he thought the hustle
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: was a hack choice.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: That it shouldn't have been that far I was doing
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: the hustle. I don't remember him saying he didn't like
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: the ending. Maybe he said it and I forgot. I
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: think maybe he didn't say it to me.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: That's bullshit on his part. The hustle is timeless.
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: So why the hustle? Why the hustle?
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: I don't know very much about popular music. And I
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: was like, I had heard of it. I remembered that,
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: but I don't have it anywhere near the understanding of
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: the semiotics of American pop music as Matt does.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: Well, speaking of music, so the closing song of this
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: episode is I Will Wait For You. Now you've got
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: a bit of a connection with this song. Apparently you're
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: your grandparents used to play it on the piano?
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: My grandparents used to sing that song. My grandma played
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: the piano. So a little background about my grandma Doe.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: She grew up in a small apartment in the Bronx.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: She was born in 1894 and And whenever there was
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: housework to be done, she would practice the piano. And
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: she became quite good at playing the piano, and she
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: played for the silent movies. And when she was in
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: her 80s, she was walking down the street in Brooklyn,
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: and there was a sign that a piano player was
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: wanted for a bar. So she came in that night
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: and auditioned, and she got the job. But she didn't
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: take the job because, you know, she didn't want it.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: She just wanted to prove that she could have gotten it.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: And indeed, she could. So she played the piano, and
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: my grandpa Eddie sang it. And one of the songs
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: that they sang was, if it takes forever, I will
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: wait for you. And it was pretty cool that it
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: says for a thousand summers, I will wait for you.
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: So I was really like, wow, that lines up pretty well.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: So I was like, I know the song. This is
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: going to end on a montage. I know the song.
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: It's going to be this song. And it was.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because according to the internet, which is always accurate,
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: it was initially going to be a piece of classical music.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: Is that right?
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: I don't think that's true. I think I said it
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: should be If It Takes Forever, I'll Wait for You
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: by Connie Francis in the first draft. And I don't
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: think I got any pushback because it had the line
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: A Thousand Summers, which is so good. Like it's so
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: appropriate for a song about someone waiting a thousand summers,
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: you know, like for a show about that.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: It's in the title. Yeah.
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: So I don't think it's true that it was supposed
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: to be a piece of classical music. And I don't
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: know what's going on in someone's life that they would
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: say something false about the music for a science fiction
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: cartoon show from the early aughts. That's a strange turn
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: of fate that would lead someone to such a mild crime.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Luckily, we can edit Wikipedia. By the way, I love
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: that your grandma does the inverse of creative people because,
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, I found when I have writing to do,
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: the house will always be clean from top to bottom.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: It's like I'll do any onerous household task to avoid
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: sitting down to write. Instead of doing the housework, she
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: would sit down and be creative.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: Good for her. She would play the piano, yeah. She
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: did not want to do housework. She lived to 101.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh.
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: Wowee. My grandma do.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: I'd like to skip back a little in your career,
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: if you don't mind, Eric, because, again, hopefully this is accurate,
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: but you were an intern at Spy magazine. Is that right?
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: That's true. It is accurate.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: I recall reading that here in the cultural epicenter of Australia, Geelong, Victoria,
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: back in the late 80s and early 90s and feeling oh-so-metropolitan, cosmopolitan,
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: reading about all this... East Coast based satire. It was
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: such a great mag. Can you tell me a bit
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: about your time working there and what you gleaned from it?
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: It was my first time writing comedy for grownups and
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: with grownups. You know, I had written comedy in my
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: high school and in my elementary school, but this was
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: actually people who actually, you know, it was their business.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: And that was thrilling and fascinating. And I was, you know,
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: quite naive. you know, by the standards of, um, the
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: spy magazine editors, uh, you know, it was, it was
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: one of the first experiences I had with, um, writing
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: where the, the overall point of it is in the
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: hands of the bosses, you know, because for example, um, well,
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: this was an interesting argument that we had once that, um,
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: Graydon and Kurt were doing an episode, an episode, they
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: were doing an issue. That's what it's called. If it's
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: a paper, product not an episode we're doing an issue
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: about um called wasp mania about how people are dressing
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: like wasps and i was like you guys dress like
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: wasps and they said well that's okay because we are
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: wasps and i was like well wait a second what
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: are you saying like you weren't dressed that way 500
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: years ago so like i was sort of pushing the
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: idea that that it's all fake but they had i
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: think the perspective that If an Italian person dresses like
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: a wasp, that's ridiculous. But if a wasp dresses like
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: a wasp, it's not ridiculous. So I was like, I
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: think that's wrong. But I didn't get to decide because
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: it wasn't my magazine. So that was something that I learned,
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: that if you're working for somebody, you don't get to decide.
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: You get to make a pitch, but they get to decide.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: And that was, you know, at the age of, I mean,
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: it's fairly obvious now. But at the age of 18,
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: that was a surprise to me. I thought, well, wait
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: a second. I just showed you that you're wrong. Aren't
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: you now going to change what the issue is about?
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: And the answer was no.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: No, no.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: The buck stops with Graydon Clark and Kurt Anderson. By
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: the way, just a bit of clarification for our Australian listeners.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: WASP means white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Basically, it's sort of a
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: preppy look.
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: I wonder if people are listening going, flying insects?
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah. That's right. Yeah.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: They're wearing those bumblebee efforts and said it's not live.
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a brief but fascinating costume moment in
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: New York City in the 80s when everyone was dressed
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: like hymenopterans of various kinds.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: This show is brought to you by the Four Finger
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Discount Patreon, where for as little as just $ 1 per month,
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• 45:24
  Speaker 1: pals Guy and Dando today at patreon.com slash fourfingerdiscount. You
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: brought up Letterman before, and it wasn't a fun experience.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: Many writers who have had on this show as guests
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: have said they've worked in late night in some way
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: as a writer. Some of them liked it, some of
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: them didn't. You mentioned that it was frustrating for you
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: because people were getting fired. Describe the energy of a
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: writing room for a late night show compared to the
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: writer's room for, say, Futurama.
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: Well, it was exhilarating. It was fun. I felt like
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: I was suddenly in a motorcycle gang, kind of, like,
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: Because there was no tenderness. It was like, you're either
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: going to make the jokes that help us do this show,
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: or you're out. And that was exciting. And it was
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: also exciting that there was a new one every day.
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: Steve O'Donnell used to say it's like running down a
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: tunnel with a train going down the tunnel. You never
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: get ahead of the game in late-night variety. Because whatever
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: you do, you come in the next day and you're
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: at zero. You're at square zero. So it's quite exhilarating.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: And David Letterman, I don't think I'm telling tales out
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: of school, is a pretty tough guy. He's hard to please. So, yeah,
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: it was exhilarating. It was frightening because people were fired
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: right and left. It's completely different from Futurama because you
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: kind of live in your own little office. And you're
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: just writing stuff and dropping it in the inbox of
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: the head writer. So you're more on your own coming
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: up with ideas and coming up with jokes than you
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: are sitting around a table doing a collaborative enterprise.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Is it like a quota to stay on the team
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: for a late night show? Every week you're going to
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: have three of your jokes have to make it through. Otherwise,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: what's the point in having you around? Or what's the
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: mentality there?
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: All right. We received two different lectures from Rob Burnett,
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: who is the executive producer. And one of them was,
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: last week wasn't good. Dave's not happy. You're going to
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: have to do better next week. And the other one was,
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: last week was a good work, good week of shows.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: We're going to have to improve it next week. So
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: can you tell what those have in common? It's like,
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: whatever you do, you have to work harder next week. Now,
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: of course there was, There must have been a way
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: that they kept track of who they're going to keep
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: and who they're going to fire. But they strategically kept
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: that a secret in order to have more power.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: I'm just curious how they quantify it. They say last
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: week was not good. I mean, admittedly, if people aren't
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: laughing at the jokes, then sure. But it's like, yeah,
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: how do you do better under those circumstances?
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: Well, I don't think they're interested in transparency. I think
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: they're interested in having a bunch of people who are
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: nervous that they could get fired at any moment. And
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: how they quantify it. I mean, like there's a great
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: George Meyer joke from the Simpsons where like two guys
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: in bootcamp are saying, when Sarge says that we're the
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: worst bunch of recruits he's ever seen, do you think
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: he means it? Or is he just saying that to
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: motivate us? You know? So, so it's like what they
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: really thought. I don't know. You'd have to ask them.
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think probably they were like, we're getting
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: the best writers we can for the money. And if
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: we can get them to work harder by frightening them,
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: we'll do that. Something like that.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: How many chains of command were there between you and David?
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: How many people do your jokes go through before it
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: gets to Dave?
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: In almost all circumstances, two. It would have to go
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: through the head writer and then the executive producer and
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: then Dave. In certain cases, he would just pick himself
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: and it just went directly to him. so like in
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: the days before google and um before uh ai obviously
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: i was in my office i'd gotten there early and
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: i got a call from laurie diamond who is his
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: assistant and said dave wants to know what's the word
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: for what the sky looks like at dusk It's bugging him.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: So I'm like, huh. So I'm like, I don't know.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: So I hung up and then I'm working on my
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: top 10 ideas. And then like five minutes later, I'm like, crepuscular.
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: So I call up and I'm like, Laurie, tell Dave crepuscular.
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: So there was some degree of communication was possible between
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: Dave and the regular writers. But it was unusual and
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: it was getting more distant. when he first started, he
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: was sort of a primus inter pares. He was a
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: writer amongst writers. But he got more and more Nixonian,
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: more and more like the Sun King, more and more
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: separated by walls of people.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you were there because I would have raised
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: my hand and said, Twilight? And then I would have
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: got fired.
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: You would not have gotten fired for not knowing Crepuscular.
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: I don't want to malign Dave and say that he
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: was He was asking people for crazy things and then
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: firing them. That's not true.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: Who was the David Letterman of Futurama? Was it David X. Cohen?
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Was he the one that made the decisions?
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: So the funny thing about Dave was he had a
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: degree of power that is rare in sitcoms because he
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: was the star, he was the chief creative officer, and
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: he was the owner of the company. So... Almost all
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: creative decisions were made by David X. Cohen. Matt was
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: the ultimate... He was the ultimate power broker because the
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: studio didn't know from Dave X. Cohen. They knew they
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: were buying a show by Matt Groening. So Matt had
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: the ultimate power, but he rarely exercised it because he
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: trusted David. He and David had a good creative partnership.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: He just liked to put his little name on everything
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: just to make sure.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I... What, what, what you're, what, what,
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: you're not wrong. You're not wrong. I mean, so, so
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: he's a very successful entertainment businessman as well as being
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: a writer. Like he's a little bit like Walt Disney,
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: that he actually has a going concern that's quite successful.
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: He's not just a writer. He's also an entrepreneur and a,
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: and a, a mogul.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: How would you, how would you describe Matt Groening in
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: say three words?
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: How would I describe Matt Groening in three words? I
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: don't know, likable entertainment tycoon.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: Eric, I'm not sure if this part is going to
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: be going out on video, but you have a sign
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: behind you in your bookshelf saying, I believe it says
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: stay present.
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: It does say stay present. Yeah.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: Can you tell us a bit about that?
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: I noticed that I wasn't staying present enough, that I
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: was like going off into my mind and and not
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: like emotionally present and like present to my body. So
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: I called up a sign company on the internet. I
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: didn't call them actually. I sent them an email and
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: I ordered a sign that says, say, stay present to
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: help remind me to stay present.
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: Does that apply across the board? I mean, does it
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: apply creatively? Does it apply just in everyday life? I mean,
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: it's an overriding philosophy.
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I think it's more about
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: everyday life because sometimes when you're creative at You're trying
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: to go someplace else. You know, you're trying to sketch
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: out an alternative reality. So I don't know what if
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to think of a story, I don't know
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: that I'm consulting my sign and trying to stay present.
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, I could be trying to stay present to
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: how it feels in my body to tell that story
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: or how it feels in my emotions to tell that story.
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: So that could be an application of stay present. Let's
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: get to stay present. Sure. I'm happy to remind myself
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: of that.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to draw together some threads here so that
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: maybe Fry could stay present as well in the story
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: of Jurassic Park. But I'm having trouble landing the plane
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: on that one. Sorry.
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: Well, you can just point the camera at yourselves later
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: when I'm gone and you can make it seem like
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: you figured it out and splice it in.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: The beauty of editing.
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: Right? Wait a minute.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: Guy's wearing a different T-shirt.
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: That's right. He's got a long white beard. What's going on?
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: The thing is, with Jurassic Park, so we've got that
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: emotional ending, which I respect. I mean, the older I got,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: the more mature I got, the more I realized, no,
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: it's not sad. It should be something that's respected because
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: it takes a lot of guts to do that on
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: a show like this. And then Futurama, you know, it
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: got canceled and it got brought back for movies. And
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: you weren't a part of the original first film when
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: it first came back, where they retconned this story. It's
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: almost like they responded to what we referred to earlier
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: as the backlash or just the people saying, hey, that
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: made me too upset. Can you please make me feel
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: happy again? I don't want to feel sad when I
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: watch Futurama. I'm still impacted emotionally from this cartoon. And
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: they changed the story. Now, I've read interviews where you've
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: said you've never bothered seeing it. You don't really know
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: what happened there. That's true. Have you since seen that?
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: Or do you just don't want to know what happened?
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: You just prefer to just not know?
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: Look, I wasn't working on those shows. So I don't
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: want to slag the work of the people who were
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: working on those shows. So I think it's better for
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: me not to watch it and not to express an opinion.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: But you worked on the lighter ones, though, I believe.
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: I worked on some of it. I worked on The
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: Beast with a Billion Backs. I worked on that. And
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: then my son and I wrote an episode... There was
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: a bunch of toy commercials, and that's the degree to
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: which I have worked in the post-Fox eras of Futurama. Now, periodically,
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: I'll think of a joke, and I'll text it to
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: David Cohen, hoping to get it in. I don't think
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: that's ever worked, but I do try.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: How was working with your son?
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: Oh, it was great. It was great. He's very funny,
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: and he has a different take on things, having... you know,
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: being from a different generation than do I. So it's terrific.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Do you find, does he find it easy to challenge you?
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Because obviously he would respect you of what you've achieved.
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. No, it's a constant struggle for preeminence. Often physical,
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: often he'll come at me when I'm like typing and
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: I'll be like, boom. So it's challenging. But if as
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: an older male, you can't stand up to the challenges
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: of the younger males, then your time is done. Get
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: out of the way. I'm saying it's part of the
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: job of a father to deal with the attack, the
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: perpetual attack from his son.
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: Otherwise, you have to go off to a lonely corner
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: of the jungle and just pass away.
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: It's time to step down and just be in the
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: lonely corner of the jungle.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: What's that Malcolm in the Middle quote? The future is now,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: old man.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, the future is now, old man.
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: That's funny. Yeah.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: Seymour the dog fits into a long lineage of loyal
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: dogs waiting for their masters. The Odyssey is very big
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: at the cinema right now, and Argos.
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: The dog- Oh, yeah, yeah. There's a loyal dog in that.
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: He drops dead with grief or joy when he sees
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: his old man- I.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: Like to think joy. He's finally been reunited with Odysseus.
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the joy is too great for his heart to handle.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: But you've got the famous Hachiko. Yeah, when you were
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: talking about the woman who waited a long time for
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: a runner, I thought you were actually going to allude
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: to Hachiko the dog who went to the train station
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: every day. Were you thinking about any other sort of
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: incredibly loyal pets when you were formulating Seymour? And maybe
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: even some of your own personal pet experiences.
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: I knew that that's something that some dogs did. Like
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: I knew that this was not a thing that I
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: had just pulled out of my ass, so to speak,
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: that it was an actual fact about dog folklore. I do.
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: I have been a dog owner. I do love dogs.
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: And so, yes, but but none of them. I mean,
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: I didn't test any of them. I didn't disappear completely.
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: for decades. And so I don't know what they would
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: have done, but I haven't had a personal experience of
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: a dog waiting for me for decades.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: I think also too, for me with Seymour, the way
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: you established their relationship was that he was a street
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: dog who had nobody. That's true. He wasn't a family pet.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: He was Fry's friend. Fry was all that he had
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Having said that, Eric, I mean, Seymour is very
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: much front and center. I think when a lot of
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: people talk about Jurassic Park, but has you know, his
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: story and his fate, has that overwhelmed any other aspects
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: of the episode that you wanted the audience to think
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: about or to take away? Because there's more to it
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: than that.
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: To me, it's really entirely about this question of Fry
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: coming up with a story that will help him go
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: on and us realizing that that story was not true.
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: To me, that's the load-bearing wall of that episode. So
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: I like it if people think about that. And, you know,
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: loyalty of a dog, that's nice. But for me, it's
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: designed to get you into to think about the Fry
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: issue rather than the Seymour issue.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: What was the response like from the cast, from the
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: table read when they first heard about this ending? Were
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: they fans of it? Was there any pushback at all?
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: or any questions saying, should we do this? Is this
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: really where we want to go?
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: No, there was no pushback. And the interesting thing was,
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: it wasn't until the music went on the animatic that
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: Michelle Long, who was a producer on the show, was
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: sitting at her desk weeping. I was like, what's going on?
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: And it turned out that that's when it really hit. And,
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: and it's an interesting thing. You know, these, uh, these
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: animated comedies tend to be very heady. They're very intellectual
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: and there's a very high density of rather heady jokes.
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: And the emotion is often carried by the music. And
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: once the music came, went on this thing, boy, howdy,
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: did people start feeling stuff? But nobody ever said, like,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: make it different because it makes me feel something. I
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: think that's a silly way to approach things. You know, art.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: I'll call it art. I keep pausing whenever I use
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: the word art because I'm trying to come up with
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: a less hoity-toity synonym. But I can't. I mean, I
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: think it is art. It's not science. You know, it's
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: not engineering. It's art. I don't mean it's like... It
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: has to be treated with reverence. But I think just
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: in the classificatory scheme, it's not farming, right? It's not
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: bridge building. It's art. So I'm going to use the
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: word art and stop feeling bad about it.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: How did you feel when you first saw this finished product,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: this finished piece of art here, in particular the ending,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: when you heard the song that your grandparents sang to
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: you as a kid? How did you feel in that moment?
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: Were you sad? Were you proud? How were you when
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: you first watched the end of Jurassic Park?
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: I felt, I was proud. I felt sweet. I felt like,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: you know, there's a certain sweetness to creating something that
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: has a completion to it because life often does not
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: give us completed experiences. You know, you usually like, like
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: you've got an important friendship. And you're not friends anymore.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: And why aren't you? Well, you don't know. You just
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: kind of drifted apart, you know. So very often we
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: don't have that sense of like emotional closure. And I
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: felt like, wow, this is good. This is giving me
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: this sense of emotional closure. So I felt a tremendous sweetness.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: Did anybody from your family see the connection there?
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: No. No, no one in my family saw the connection.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: But my dad liked the fact that I was on Futurama.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: He had a big poster with a picture of Fry
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: in his office. So he did like that. I had
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: a lot of warm memories with my father of watching
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: television comedy together. We would watch The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: We would watch Taxi. We would watch WKRP in Cincinnati.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: We watched The Rockford Files, which is not a comedy,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: but it has comedic moments. So he was proud. He
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: was happy that I was writing television. He liked it.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: When was the first time you were proud of what
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: you'd achieved with your writing. Can you remember the first
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: time you were proud of your work?
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: Oh, probably getting something in, um, a circular in elementary school.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: It was a circular in elementary school that the parents got.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: And I got some kind of little one paragraph thing
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: in it about international food day or something like that.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: And I was very proud, like to me to have a,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: to have something in a magazine with my name, like, uh,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: I liked it a lot. We've, I liked that feeling.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: It was validating.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: I think that happens with a lot of creative people.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: They get that first taste of, oh, you chose this.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: You chose something that I created as opposed to.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: It feels good, doesn't it?
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you end up chasing that high for the
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: rest of your life, essentially.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it does feel good. It does feel good. And
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: then sometimes you have to grow up a little, right?
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: Because at a certain point, I think I would aspire
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: to write something because I think it's worth writing. not
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: just because somebody tells me it's worth writing. And it
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: requires a little emotional maturity to separate those because they
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: can get quite mixed up. If somebody you respect says
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: they respect your writing, then you can be like, well,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: that's what I'm looking for. But sometimes it's not the
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: only thing you can be looking for. You can also
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: be looking for expressing something that you really want to express,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: whether or not people like it. You know, you could
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: look for being clear about something that up till now
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: you've been muddy-headed about, whether or not people like it,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: whether or not people are interested. So there are sort
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: of like, there's rewards you can get from writing above
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: and beyond people saying, good job, Eric, you know, nice. Yeah. No, yeah.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: Unearthing something that's been inside you for a very, very
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: long time and finding exactly the right way to articulate
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: it and express it to other people. Yeah, now that's
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: its own reward. Absolutely.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: It is its own reward. I agree with that.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: This show is brought to you by the Four Finger
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: Discount Patreon, where for as little as just $ 1 per month,
• 1:04:20
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• 1:04:22
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• 1:04:27
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• 1:04:29
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• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: pals Guy and Dano today at patreon.com slash fourfingerdiscount. You
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: were touching on the power of music before, and I agree.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: What made you, what was the connection with Walking on Sunshine?
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: Was it just because it seems like a fun song
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: that Fry would like to sing along? What was the point,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: what was the meaning behind Walking on Sunshine?
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't pick that one. I don't know why
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: we picked that one. I think, you know, Fry's not
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: the most intellectually sophisticated character in television history. And I
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: think he had a an uncritical love of this pop song.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: I don't remember why. I don't know if there were
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: other pitches. I mean, sometimes the the Futurama jokes about
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: music were like went right over my head. Like I
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: did not know. I don't know what it means. Like
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: like there's something funny about Led Zeppelin to these guys and.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: And I don't know what it is. I still don't
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: know what it is. I don't know if they like
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: Led Zeppelin or they're making fun of people who like
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: Led Zeppelin or they're going around a second time and
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: liking it post-ironically. I really don't know. So I'm not
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: good with that pop culture and music appreciation.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: The thing is, you hear a song in a film
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: or on a TV show, and then going forward, whenever
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: you hear that song, it reminds you of that moment.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: And for me, whenever I hear Walking on Sunshine, I
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: hear Fry singing it. That's my connection to it. Do
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: you have any songs that remind you of anything like
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: a film or a TV show in particular that you've
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: heard or it's impacted you in such a way where
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: you've gone, well, that song is now a core memory
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: for that particular piece of art?
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, Angela, which is the instrumental theme song for Taxi,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: is very nostalgic for me. And I like to listen
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: to it. And it just, it reminds me of Taxi.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: It reminds me of, Taxi was also an interesting, interesting,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: because it's, It's a remarkably sad sitcom. It's about the
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: main character, Alex Riga, has accepted the limitations of his life.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: And it's a sad song. It's a wistful song. And
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: it's also performed on the EWI, the electronic wind instrument.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: So that's one for sure. I think, I mean, it's
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: hard to listen to Singin' in the Rain without thinking
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: of Clockwork Orange, right? To come up with a. A
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: more grim example.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: I like to think of singing in the rain when
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: I sing in the rain.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: It's hard to think of the ride of the Valkyries
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: without thinking of Apocalypse Now.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: It's generally more often that it's music attached to something
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: quite emotionally impactful as opposed to cheerful and uplifting.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: Oh, let's think about that.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: Let's unpack this.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder if it's true. Like I think about
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: the end of Manhattan. When I think it's Rhapsody in
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: Blue kicks in, and it's like, that's pretty good. Now,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 3: not to say his lecherous attentions to a high school girl,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: those aren't good, but his appreciation of New York with
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: Rhapsody in Blue playing, I thought it was pretty good.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: Well, before we let you go today, before you go today, though,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: you're working on some new projects. You mentioned you're trying
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: to push yourself and stay present. So what are you
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: currently working on?
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: I have launched a show called My Friend Coffee. And
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: it's about what work is like in our contemporary capitalist hellscape.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: And it's particularly about three people who are working for
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: a kind of a dystopian, slightly science fictional coffee chain
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: called My Friend Coffee. It's an animated workplace science fiction
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: show about baristas. And I'm very happy with it. I'm
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: very happy with it. And it's indie. It's indie. So
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: it's not... financed by a major studio it is financed
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: by Patreon so what that means is the two things
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: you can do if you like if you like my
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: writing is one you can watch it and it's on
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: YouTube under CapNap Animation and that is K-A-P-K-N-A-P CapNap Animation
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: so you can watch it and this is new animated
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: adult comedy so if you're if you're listening to a
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: Futurama podcast I dare say you're likely to like it
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: and then also you could actually support it for the
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: cost of like a cup of coffee a month you
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: can support it, and then you're part of it happening.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: And so I know you're thinking like, well, we got
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: to watch Futurama for free. Why should we pay even
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: $ 5 for you to do a cartoon? But the answer
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: to that is there's some cost to the creative process
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: if you need to have a giant corporation fund it.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: And if you yourself fund it, you will be reaching
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: out directly to me and the other people creating it
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: and creating a scene that creates the kind of art
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: that you like. So I invite you to do that,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: but you don't have to. If you can't afford it,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: don't feel bad. With no guilt at all, watch the show.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: It's for free on YouTube and I hope you like it.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: You should feel horrible if you don't support the show.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, you shouldn't feel horrible. You should feel
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: great because if you like it and you watch it,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: that's great. So at least check it out. I mean,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: here you are listening to a podcast about something I
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: wrote Well over 40 years ago, I think. Is that
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: how long ago? When was Jurassic Park? Was it 40
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: years ago? 30?
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: It was 2002. So it would have been 23 years ago?
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah. 25 years ago. 25 years ago. Coming on 25
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: years ago. So a quarter of a century. But I'm
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: still making animated comedy. And you can watch it. New.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: Fresh off the presses. So check it out, man.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: And like you said, you got to watch Futurama for free.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: And you can't put a price on the hours of
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: entertainment that you've given us as a result.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: I like where this is going.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: So our way of giving back is to just chuck
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: us $ 5 your way.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 3: That's beautiful. Well said, Brendan.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: Seizing the means of production the way that you're doing it,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: does that feel exhilarating? Does it feel liberating? I mean,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: I imagine there's some sense of security of having, I
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: don't know, Big Daddy Rupert signing a few checks, but
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: throwing your material out in the world and saying, hey guys,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: cup of coffee a month, come on. I mean, how
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: does that feel to you? Is it like, Yes, this
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: is what I should have been doing all along. I
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: wish I could.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: Well, it feels very honest. It feels very honest because
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: I have to honestly say, like, I have to bring
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: up money. How embarrassing. How embarrassing. But it's honest that
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: I can say, look, we need to pay an animator
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: and the animator's got to eat. And if you like
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: animated cartoons, you can participate in that. And I'm very
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: hopeful because right now there's like four corporations, right? And
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: the number of corporations that greenlight adult animated comedy, it's
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: kind of two. It's kind of Netflix and Adult Swim.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: And that means it's really a high-risk enterprise to try
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: and do something if your success is to sell it
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: to one of those two people. But if I can
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: find a few hundred people, you know, maybe honestly like
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: a thousand is the number, who like this enough to
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: pay for it, it can keep going. forever like at
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: that point there's there's no worry that like there somebody
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: is going to look at the ratings and cancel it
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: no it it will be supported by the people who
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: like to watch it themselves so to me it's it's
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: like a it's it's like a new way of doing
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: things but it feels to me it's one that's based
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: upon a mutual respect between the writer and the audience
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: in a way that I think you guys do like
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: like you're you're There you are. People who care about
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: Futurama commentary can find you and look at you and
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: write in comments. And it's almost to me a little
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: bit like the early days of punk rock, where the
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: difference between the people on the stage and the people
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: dancing in the pit is not that much. They're kind
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: of the same people. So that's what I view it.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: I view it as taking the artistic approach of an
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: indie music scene and applying it to animated comedy.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: Do you find with the current landscape that there's probably
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: many creatives out there who would have great ideas, but
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: just think, what's the point? That's not going to get
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: greenlit anyway.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. Many, many, many such cases. There's so many limited,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 3: it's so limited. It's limited. And I think people like
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: to have their lives expressed to them in stories and
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: there has to be a way to do it. But
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: right now, the kind of the, It's like it's sort
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: of like the last days of the Soviet Union. You know,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: there's there's a lot of institutions in place and they're
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 3: kind of not working. And a lot of people kind
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: of know they're not working, but no one knows what
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: the next thing is going to be or when it's
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: going to happen. And there's people freaking out about AI
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: and we don't use any AI in our writing or
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: animation or drawing at all. That's our pledge. But that's
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: another totally crazy thing that people think that people are
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: going to want robots to write their comedy for them.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: I think that's insane. But a lot of people who
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: write the checks are looking, don't view it that way.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: They think it's not insane. They think it's a great idea.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 3: What was it?
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: The Simpsons, they're bringing the robot to replace the radio guys?
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: How does it know all this? Well, you're a student
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: of the philosophy of AI. Is that right, Eric?
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 3: That's true. That is true. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: My 101 question, is it good for society or are
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: we all boned?
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: Well, there's going to be big changes. We're only boned
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: if we allow ourselves to be boned. Like we need
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: to kind of like have a labor movement again, which
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: was destroyed by Ronald Reagan and his fellow travelers. But
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: one dog cannot take down a lion, but 20 dogs can.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: So we need, we need to, to kind of organize,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: I would say, and then we're not boned. And that's
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: also part of the message of My Friend Coffee, that
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 3: ultimately the workers are going to unionize. It's a pro-worker show.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: Because as I, like, I'm a member of the Writers
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: Guild Union. My mom was a member of the Teachers Union.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: I'm very pro-union. I think it's important. Because otherwise the
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: power differential between like a giant corporation and a person
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: is too great. like you need to you need to
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: band together otherwise you get in your phrase bones all.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: Right well it's been an absolute pleasure eric to have
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: you on the show thank you so much now you
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: actually wrote a simpsons episode as well the saga of
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: carl so when we get to that one on our
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: simpsons podcast we'll have to have you back on the
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: show i would.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: Love to be back on the show you guys are
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: are noble and honorable people and it was fun having
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: a conversation with you.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: I've never been called noble before he bought it.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: Well, hopefully you'll be present for that episode. See what
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: I did there? You like what I did?
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: But thank you so much, Eric. It's been an absolute pleasure,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: and all the best with your new series.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, and party hardy.