Everything on the USA Network

You never planned to watch USA Network, did you? You just ended up there... Like the mall food court, Blockbuster on a Friday night, or your friend's house with the mysteriously free cable.

This episode starts with one question:

How did the USA Network get started?

Which sends Mickey, Christian, and Jacki into a rabbit hole involving:

• satellite technology
• cable pirates
• Kay Koplovitz changing TV forever
• Psych
• Monk
• The Dead Zone
• Suits
• Paddington Bear
• Bronies
• Bluey

And not to mention, the things USA Network was always showing:

• A fake psychic.
• A detective with OCD.
• A lawyer with perfect hair.
• Wrestling.
• Golf.
• A movie you've seen six times but never on purpose.

Things we forgot existed:

• Stealing cable from the neighbor.
• USA Up All Night.
• Reality TV before anyone knew what reality TV was.

Meanwhile, Kay Koplovitz is over here helping invent the modern cable business while the rest of us are memorizing every episode of Monk without realizing it.

Somewhere along the way, we also ponder:

• Is Paddington Bear the last universally good character?
• Why does Bluey make adults cry?
• Is Suits an actual show or just the natural state of hotel televisions?
  • We still haven't seen it. 

If you were anything like us, USA Network lived in the background of snow days, sick days, lazy Sundays, and every afternoon when nobody could agree on what to watch.

Join Mickey, Christian, and Jacki as one simple question turns into a nostalgia-fueled expedition through cable television, pop culture, and the strange realization that an entire generation was emotionally supported by sarcastic detectives in sport coats... and still are somehow. 

If you suddenly want to watch Psych, y'all, don't blame us.

Blame USA Network.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

He could have whooped any fighter in the world except me. He is great, greater than I thought. He is one hell of a fighter, and it was one hell of a fight. Uh, that was Muhammad Ali talking about his fight with Joe Fraser. All right, welcome back. Uh last time we dove deep, deep into uh the Roman, uh what I'm now calling the Roman virus. Uh I have started chatting with an AI therapist, or AI essentially, and uh I went down a deep, deep rabbit hole and basically uh asked what would happen if the Roman virus had never taken over the planet. And they said, Well, the Carthaginian uh pathogen would have taken over. And I said, Well, the Roman virus infected the Carthaginian pathogens and became just one giant virus that infected the world. And the AI said, Yes, you are correct. And uh this is what happens. It was a whole thing. Uh Jackie read it, and it's it's like, okay, yeah, uh, we're we're fucked three ways from Sunday. But anyway, uh on a much lighter note, um we're gonna talk. Uh Jackie, what uh Jackie and I were uh sitting down and we watched uh Psych. It was one of the movies that or one of the shows that she and I bonded over uh early in our relationship early in our friendship, and then uh we branched off from there and we decided to continue on and watch Monk. And during that, uh everything kept popping up. Like we when we were watching shows that we've watched many times before, we ended up going through IMDb and just kind of deep diving and checking out all the information because we're autistic nerds, and uh a lot of things kept pointing back to USA Network, which is where Psych and Monk were aired.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

And Jackie asked, uh, is USA basically. I I think my question that started this whole thing was what year did USA networks get started? Because I didn't know how old it was. It was just a thing that kind of are always existed in my life, and then when I heard what year it started, I was like, Oh, yeah, it is a thing that always existed in my life.

SPEAKER_03 2:27

Yes. Uh the answer to that simple, simple answer to that question is USA Network started in 1978 as M as Madison Square Garden Network or something like that, uh, where Madison Square Garden was holding sports events, and uh they were like, hey, we can make money selling this to people in Wisconsin or Iowa or California, whatever. And uh so they started broadcasting sports uh via satellite across the world. Um, an interesting note that we'll get into later is that uh the person responsible for USA Network started at HBO, and she took a class on satellites and was involved in the Muhammad Ali Joe Fraser fight called the Thrilla in Manila, and it was her jumping off point to show Congress and network execs what could be done with a satellite, and now uh satellites are you know controlling wars across the world and a bunch of other stuff that's probably not that good, but basically it started as a way to there's a guy who is like, hold on, hold on, hold on.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

We're not getting any money from like this whole donut hole in the center of the country because well, I mean, from everyone, everyone who's not where this event was, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Yes, you are 100. Well, you're 97 correct. It was a lady.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Oh, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

Her name is uh Kay Um Koplovitz, and uh she is not only uh the mother of paid, well, advertising and cable, like cable at that time was nothing but you know, you paid your subscription and you got your subscription, and she was like, Hey, what if we had a what if we put ads on here and did that as well? And um, yeah, she was the first uh female woman lady to run a major network, and she was the mother of pretty much every every idea that you see in um non-movie uh related uh type outlets. Uh, if you see it on your TV, he had a hand in doing something with it, or someone stole an idea from her, or was inspired by her, or um uh you know, was taught by her.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

She's like the roots of a lot of things, like even other networks, she's the roots of.

SPEAKER_03 5:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

It's it's kind of nice that you can have, you know, I have mixed feelings uh about this girl boss, because you know, like a lot like on the one hand, it sounds like there's there's some really good stuff in there, and then there's like, oh, they're paying, but we can still that doesn't mean we can't put commercials in there, and you know, and you can see that little bit of it's just nice to see a woman also be kind of competently evil, I think. You know, that's that's heartwarming.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

We can do it too, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:12

It's not the gender, it's the spirit of the person inside, but just kind of spoiler alert early on. I think on a uh uh when you balance the scales, I think she's done more good than bad.

unknown 6:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:29

I would agree, it doesn't absolve her of all the bad ideas.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Well, like the thing, the thing that I get about the bad things from her is that she went into it with good intentions, and other people kind of poison those intentions with their own greed. Oh, yeah, that I'm getting. But I I might be taking it a little bit personally as a woman, though.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

As like, because we're talking like 1970s, it's almost like like that might as well be the 50s, where it's like, hey there, I gotta get a shiny nickel, you know. Like they, you know, it's just here's this probably one of I mean, back then it sounds like a woman pretty high up on the food chain at that era in that era in that industry. So like, yeah, like like Jackie said, it sounds like probably more good, you know, than it is, even though, even though there are little things that had ripples, I think.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

I I I think the the people that are on the leading cutting razor sharp bleeding edge of technology are generally in the realm of people that do want good to come of it, and unfortunately, because they're so hyper focused on what good could become of it, they never realize the bad that comes out of it. Like um, the folks that started IMDB were just a bunch of nerds that were talking about movie in a in literally a chat room um before web, you know, before the internet, before the web, it was just some guy that had a spreadsheet um at his home and they would have chats about movies, and now it is a business. Uh it's a business that rakes in millions of dollars just to have your name listed on it so that you can get booked to do another movie if that's you know, if you want to be in that.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Um just so just so I can go, no, no, no, Michael Clark Duncan was in, you know, heat or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

I I still love I still love that aspect of IMDB. It's all of the ads that you can't get rid of now. Yeah, and then the way that people in the industry do have to pay for an IMDB Pro membership to participate. It's fucked up.

SPEAKER_03 8:52

Yeah, if you want to if you're an actor and you want to edit your own page, you have to pay a fee in order to have access to that, which is really messed up.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

From what I understand too, a lot of backend stuff requires IMDB Pro, like the for jobs and shit like LinkedIn, you have to do LinkedIn to do some things. Uh and IMDB Pro is the same way. Like for audition calls, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Hmm. Man, they're like a pound of flesh, don't they?

SPEAKER_03 9:26

It's it's like any the the problem is not to to put fear into any any thinker out there, but at the end of the day, someone in the Roman system or the blend of Roman Carthaginian system that we are trapped in today, everyone is going to manipulate your beautiful, beautiful idea and turn it into uh pop-up ads and you know, fees and subscription fees and and all this other stuff. So, you know, put your ideas out there, but know going in that they are going to get bastardized and they are going to get destroyed, and it's gonna make you vomit at the end of the day. So, like I even I am not patting myself on the back in any kind of way, but I was involved in podcasting in the year 2000, and it I found a bunch of different ideas, and and I have helped a lot of people you know start or uh advance their podcasting um platforms, and some of them have become evil and awful and terrible, and it you know, you can't go there just like in the early days, it was this group of people that were that had you know access to mics and and stuff, and it was entertaining and fun. Some of them sucked, some of them were really, really good, but then the monetization started, you know, the the hawk of monetization started hovering over and started and became vultures and started picking at everything. And now Amy Polar is paying twenty thousand dollars just to get considered for a nomination from iHeartMedia to get a uh potty or or whatever the fuck they're called now.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

So it's so weird, such a weird inversion of power, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:30

Because it like it was it was great because it was a it was a third outlet, you know, there was TV and the TV people used and manipulated radio, and some people from radio worked their way to get to move to to television, and podcasting was for the nerds that didn't want to do it in the system, and now podcasting has become part of the system, and yeah, it was punk, and now it's not, yeah. Yeah, like there's little kids that uh started really good questions, you know, question shows and interviewing, and then they got invited into the little press tent, and now the press tent is four acres big, and they're filled with people that are paid by the movie studios where all the movie stars have to sit in a chair for five minutes, talk to this kid, move over, talk to this kid, because you know, those 500 kids combined have millions and millions of followers, and you know, it's just kind of every system, everything that you can think of is eventually going to get wrecked. But in this case, we'll talk about the good stuff first. Umitz uh started uh USA network or started Madison Square Garden hoping to broadcast uh sports event sports events across the world, and you know, across I think she was in New York and probably two hours away in Connecticut. Some other guy was having a similar idea trying to figure out how to run cable across the state of Connecticut so people could watch the Hartford Whalers play anytime without problems. And uh the I think one of the same guys that sold K on satellites told this guy, hey, for five you know, for for one-fifth the price, you can have a satellite, and we will be able to reach many, many more people. So anyone that has ever been a Hartford Whalers fan in their life can watch it anywhere in the world. All you gotta do is buy this satellite, and that's where ESPN started. So Kay was able to prove that it exists or prove that it worked, and it sold uh the guy that started ESPN. So good or bad, I don't know. Like at one point, ESPN was great, you could watch sports whenever you wanted to, and you know, drunk dads at bars could watch any sport that they wanted to.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

How many ESPNs even are there now? Like, I know there's at least Ocho.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

Yeah, I stopped. I pulled up an Ocho and stopped following altogether because it's just they started inventing sports again, part of the evil, you know, pickle pickleball.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Yeah, I I think for me it was there was a moment where I don't, I think somehow I came across axe throwing, right? And it's like, okay, well, that can be a sport. Yeah, sure, sure. Show me the axe throwing. I'm not saying no yet. And then uh and you look at it and it's it's set up like it's at the bar. It's like a professional sport, but it's it's sort of hitched out a little bit so that it looks like it's the axe throwing thing at the bar. And then it's all just like normal dudes. And I'm like, I don't know. I was expecting like uniforms, like the the gamer, the esports gamers have uniforms. They do, these guys, yeah. It's yeah, don't that's one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life because just some of those guys are small.

SPEAKER_03 15:25

Like when when I was assigned to a job in uh Dallas Fort Worth, Texas. I'm not sure it was somewhere somewhere in the middle, and it was near six flags over Texas uh theme park. But driving down the road, there's an actual esports stadium.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

That's that's my mecca. That's my ironic mecca.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

So I'm starting to think that maybe there will be an episode where Christian teaches us about esports.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

I actually it I find the idea so sort of d detestable weirdly. Uh I I really like I've come around to the idea of like people being competitive at a thing, right? Like I'm just not a competitive person. Uh that colors a lot of my journey through life. But like but especially with like a leisure activity like games, so I when I see and esports was uh marketed very aggressively to the point where it was like you need to you I'm a big gamer and you don't but then you like look at the poster and it's like when someone is wearing like a sporty sort of tight-fitting shirt, but they're not like muscularly intimidating, they look like they're they just want to help you at staples or something that like like the the the advertising said like like get alpha brain and be a real gamer hardcore like me, but like the guy was like, Oh, what kind of ink are you looking for? Like that's the vibe that this guy was carrying, and it's just like I don't that's not where I'm at. Uh but yeah, no, I don't know. I mean, I know some some of it, but it's a mystifying that could be that's worth a deep dive. I think there's some corruption in the esports because uh it's going around.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

Hey, I believe that anything that is popular, uh there's some sort of manipulation behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Well, what what was the number that we learned? Uh 150 people, and then things start going south.

SPEAKER_03 17:48

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

The a sucker is born every day.

SPEAKER_03 17:54

A Dugan number or something like that. Something like that. Duncan number the Duncan principle. Yeah. So Ed uh if you have a political system uh and you have a community, once you reach, I think it's 175, once you reach more than 175 people, then you allow the open community, the equal community, the the um full democracy of a group starts to basically peel away. It's it's like when you add one too many molecule or one too many protons to the the nucleus and it starts crumbling. Um so at like uh what at uh what's it 192 for uranium or whatever the fuck uranium is, you add one more uh neutron to that, it starts falling apart, splits, and creates a chain reaction that you can't control or handle.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Yeah, it doesn't like it. It gets very nervous when you add the extra neutron.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

But like at 175, you have enough uh visibility and enough uh interpersonal communication that you can kind of keep things in control. In my estimation, once you add a second person to the equation, it fall it all falls apart.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

So this is like the Steve Jobs thing where he only had five people in his in his circle, and that was like his like most trusted. I don't know if he trusted them with everything, but they were like that was his the core. And when he found a new person who was a candidate, he would have to kick one of them out, which I always I thought was fascinating. That you would find another that you would keep going to the point where you would find you'd be like, This guy's awesome, yeah. Tim, you gotta go.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

Like, you know, like keep a keep keep a ranking on your hand. It's like sorry, Jim.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Just like knowing that you're like, all right, well, he's definitely out. This guy is the is the fifth now. It's just such a strange, but hey, I don't know, whatever. He did Apple, so something worked.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

He did Apple.

SPEAKER_03 20:11

So uh using using the old adage of of sports being the opiate of the masses, uh, sports has driven uh television technology in so many different ways. For example, uh there was uh betamax versus VHS in in uh late 70s and VHS, even though Betamax had higher quality video, uh had better long-lasting tapes, uh, the machinery was better, everything about Betamax was better, except for if you set a certain setting on your VHS, you could record an entire football game on one tape. So VHS won out. Yeah, uh that and porn.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

So it's like every openness thing of the of the medium, you could just record, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:10

Like uh yeah, VHS tape or VHS had uh in order to maintain the integrity, in order to maintain the integrity of the recording, Betamax only had uh one setting, and you could reach like an hour and or it was two hours or something like that. Whereas if you didn't care about quality, you could go into your VHS and set three different settings in one the extended play allowed you to record from the uh the beginning, you know, the the game opening, the pre uh the pre game, all the way through the kickoff, all the way to even if it went into overtime, it was enough time to catch all of that. So uh most Utility wins out. Yeah, utility always wins out. And uh because it was cheaper, porn uh went all in on VHS. So, you know, another one that wins. So technology is driven by two things, sports and porn. Uh uh, so it led into the the um evolution of satellite television, and before it was HBO, and only you know, higher middle class people were uh subscribing to HBO. But once you started packaging it with, hey, you can get this channel of all your sports, you can get this, you can get this. Then more people started, you know, signing up to cable. And since they already had cable, it's like, oh, it's only a few extra bucks, I'll go ahead and get the HBO. So, you know, it it it was a rising tide that lifted all boats. Uh, it just happened to be, you know, some of it good, some of it bad.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

When when you were growing up, Mickey, did people like come watch events at the person in your neighborhood that had cable?

SPEAKER_03 23:09

Oh no, no. Our our neighborhood was filled with uh very blue-collar dads that were very charismatic. Uh, we had it the statute of limitations is passed. I grew up on stolen cable my entire life.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

And oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

Uh so the cable company came around and said, Hey, we need a yard uh to put this in. And uh my dad just happened to be home at the time. Uh and he was like, Yeah, you can put it in my yard. And uh right about that time, uh Jesse Mancini, uh, the mechanic who lived across the street, came over and started asking questions. He knew every single car there was, and if you know how to adapt your knowledge of how things work, instead of just oh, on a Ford, I need to replace this part. He understood how everything went together, so he could put Chrysler parts in a Ford car and make it work. He was a mechanical genius. Uh, and then Mr. Freshcorn, Joe, uh also uh worked.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

His last name wasn't really freshcorn, was it? That's just a guy like brought you fresh corn, right?

SPEAKER_03 24:26

No, no, no. His his his family name, his surname was freshcorn.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

Mickey grew up in the King of the Hill universe.

SPEAKER_03 24:36

Uh so Joe, uh Mr. Freshcorn worked for uh the gas company, and so they used the same little like basically it was a little wire that went through the hook or it went through the the lock, and then the the lead sealed tamper resistant to know if anyone messed with the cable box. They used the same thing on his gas tanks that you know he worked for Amerigas, so he had all the little little lead seals. So all the fathers kind of gathered around talking to the you know, just talking to the cable guy, and the cable guy is like just joy because all these guys are just looking at him like he's a hero, and so he's just throwing out free information, and he's like, Oh, yeah, so uh this is your house, this is his house, this is this house, this is this house, and these filters basically just block the signal, and that's why you have you can have the audio, but you don't have the video. And he was like, and the way we keep people out is we put this little thing on and never we check it. And if it's if it's broken, we know that someone messed with the cable box, and then we check and go through our inventory. But if the thing is never broken, we don't even bother looking. We're like, Oh, or all the dads were like, Oh, this is great information, thank you so much. And uh, cable guy drove away, and the dads broke it open, took out all the filters, and Mr. Freshcorn put the lock on there, so you know we had uh all the channels, all what 18 channels at the time. Uh from day one, we that is like uh what what year is this that we're talking? Um I would say maybe 82, 83.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Yeah, uh that's like the 82, 83 version of like that meme where it's like if we never, you know, this is us if we if we all just got together and stole cable that one time from the cable company, and it's just like flying cars and like everything's futuristic. Like that is you, I mean, you were miles ahead.

SPEAKER_03 26:49

Oh, absolutely. And uh, so no one ever had to go over to a certain like there were people that came over to watch certain things, uh, but generally speaking, we didn't need to because everyone in the everyone had access to it in the neighborhood, so they could just stay home on their own couch and do whatever they wanted to. Uh, and then from there, uh my dad figured out how to basically branch the cable, found out how to get uh knockoff cable boxes so that he could put it in multiple rooms without multiple subscriptions, and then you know, at the fatherly meetup in the middle of the road, he'd be like, Oh, yeah, I got this and this and this, and it's easy, and all you gotta do is this. So then everyone in the neighborhood had multiple outlets around the house. So, yeah, shared information ripping off uh corporations is is a good thing, you know.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Um that's how you saw USA first was on your uh oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:55

I was at that time, I was uh a peak cartoon junkie. Like um, I don't read very much because of ADHD, but I read the TV guide like it was a Bible, and I would set up my like I I am a terrible time management person because of my dysfunctions, but I knew how to plan out a Saturday morning. I knew that you know I didn't have to watch the Smurfs on first run because I knew that they would be repeated in a month while my normal cartoons were on a break. I didn't, you know, so it's like I would plan. Uh I was up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday. Like all the other kids are like, Saturday, we get to sleep in. I'm like, no, no, no, no. Saturday, I get to watch cartoons from seven o'clock in the morning until noon. And then at noon, WWF came on. So uh you had your day full, you had your day pretty much planned out, and then they uh uh USA by this time USA or MSG network had changed to USA network and relaunched and kind of gutted out. They were like, uh let ESPN have the sports, we'll go ahead and focus on this. And uh she made uh a lot of decisions to buy syndicated uh shows and whatever, and then she bought uh the Hanna Barbera collection or license, it was a very niche uh contract where she signed up to be the sole cable provider outlet for Hanna Barbera cartoons, so it didn't infringe at the time because of this was a new technology and they didn't have the legal means to say, oh no, no, um, CBS is already locked down Hanna Barbera or whoever owned it at the time. Um, so they were whatever major channel that already had the rights to Hanna Barbera didn't lose out on that.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

She just kind of addended it or amended it to say cable only, uh we got this, and so she was able to just blast out like when someone, oh, we've got the streaming rights to the X-Men, yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_03 30:28

So and that led to and her doing that led to companies going all the rights in any form from now until in perpoot perpetual, otherwise known as the as the hey clause.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Wait, you are what hey, wait a minute, no, all of it, all of it.

SPEAKER_03 30:51

Those were my pictures, Facebook. Give them back.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Yeah, I'm gonna write this letter that says that they're mine.

SPEAKER_03 30:59

So I got to see Laugh Olympics and the wacky races from like they would put it on as um marathons, and I was addicted, and then I got to see the cartoon or saw saw the commercials for anything else that they were doing. Um, and because I was watching cartoons and I just left it on, my mom started getting really addicted to game shows because uh after a while game shows were cheap, and the license to put them on cable TV was even cheaper. So you know, buy low, sell high, and they got eyes on the TV and they were able to sell a lot of advertising to a lot of different people.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Sorry, am I misream misremembering this, or was USA like the jumping off point for the game show network as well?

SPEAKER_03 31:54

Yes, oh that feels yeah, it was an inspiration. If it wasn't a direct uh branch off, it was definitely an inspiration.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Uh or really feeling like a like a compartment of USA, just like jettisoned off, going like we've got the like easy part of this.

SPEAKER_03 32:13

Um, but all these different moves, it the the very punk rock feel. I I think you nailed it right earlier when you said it was very punk rock. Uh started a lot of things. Like um, Gilbert Godfrey was a host of a late-night show called USA Up All Night.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

That's when I started watching USA. The Gilbert Gottfried Up All Night. I was up all night because of USA.

SPEAKER_03 32:41

And uh sometimes it was hosted by Rhonda. Oh anyway, Rhonda. Uh yeah, Rhonda.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

Big Rhonda.

SPEAKER_03 32:53

Uh she was a attractive woman with large breasts in the same vein as uh the early 1950s um scary monster uh Elvira-esque. Oh Elvira-esque, yes.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Her name was Rhonda Shear.

SPEAKER_03 33:10

Rhonda Shear. I see, I wanted to say that, but I didn't have the confidence in it.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Was she like Elvira but not as gothy? Is that the the yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:19

She was kind of um uh cheetah-clad uh mall. So and you might not understand the reference, but in the 80s there was the mall chicks who had big teased hair, tight dresses, that just went and walked around the mall to be seen. And she encapsulated that very well as an aesthetic. However, she had a ginormous brain, like facts and and figures, and just the conversations in between, you know, it her and Gilbert were kind of an inspiration for Mystery Science 3, Mystery Science Theater 3000, you know. Oh wow, that's an interesting yeah, just sitting there watching a movie and talking shit about it and making you still making you love the movie, even though they're shitting on it the whole time. And it's like, hey, I'll watch this stupid ass movie. So they could buy really bad cheap movies because the entertainment factor was making fun of it the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

They were always like really bad horror movies or really bad uh thriller movies with lots of boobs in them.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

So it's so what we're looking at, it's like just this network that had like starts off with like a real bang idea and then is kind of runs away from the initial thing. They've got their like, I guess, startup going. And now they're scrappy and they're just like, all right, old cartoons, get Gilbert Gottfried in here, he doesn't cost us anything. Uh, you know, build like the cheapest set that you pop that kind of stuff, right? So just reuse the same sets, that kind of like punk uh air, I guess. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 35:11

Yeah, and and because of their success, like they kept pricing themselves out of the market. So with sports, they proved the the the volatility the viability of that program. Um hey, we could get this college to sign for ten dollars, and we have the rights to broadcast their stuff, and we'll sell it for thousands of dollars, and then they turn around the next year to renegotiate, and they're like, Well, ESPN offered us 10 times as much, so USA Network was like, All right, we're out of here. They USA Network, it was it is where I want to be. Like, I am an idea factory, and USA Network was an idea factory. I don't want to compete trying to make it better, I just want to come up with something new, and that's what they were doing.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

Yeah, they were just trying stuff, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Um, the Gilbert Gottfried thing really sounds. I mean, I know that he had his heyday for sure, like his popularity, uh, and like that, but like it seems like that time is the time.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

Like they struck that iron right when it was hot, like and that that spun off like a bunch of other stuff, like that late night drive-in with Joe Bob Briggs, and then I there was one that I watched on TBS that was like dinner in a movie where like these two people were like bantering in between the commercials and the movie and giving you a recipe to cook that went with the movie, like that was very uh formative for me because obviously I like to theme things for Oscar parties and nonsense, but uh that's also such like um I mean, like it when I think of USA, I now, and I'm sure we'll get there, I'm not and and TV in general.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

I don't think of like interesting formats or interesting ideas in terms of shows, and it's like that's like at the time, especially dinner and movie, that's like an a really weird idea for a show. It'd be like if someone was like, Oh, I want to do robot chicken, but it was like the 90s, you're like, we can't. What are you fucking talking about?

SPEAKER_00 37:24

But this this was definitely before 1997 because I remember printing out recipes to cook with my dad, so this was like late 90s when this was going on, right?

SPEAKER_03 37:34

Okay, so um, I watched an interview with uh Frank Zappa, and uh it was sometime in the 70s or whatever that he was on a talk show, but he was discussing, or no, it was in the 80s, and he was discussing with in his early days in the 1950s, working at the record companies. He was like, the guys at the top didn't know, they just knew that kids liked records, and they didn't know which records they were gonna like, so they just paid everyone a little bit and figured out and then put them all out there, and if they sold out, they made more. Uh, you know, they had second and third printings, and uh, by the time all the science nerds from Harvard got involved in the 80s, it became the machine that is now brutal.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

Um, that proves the theory that I've had in my head many years now, which is that nerds are the cause of this.

SPEAKER_03 38:34

Oh, yeah, because uh it's it's the nerds see the different value of it, like um I always thought that you would to start a business, it was something that you were really into. Like, I grew up watching Happy Days, and uh Mr. Cunningham owned a hardware store because he really liked tools and Sanford and son is I thought that Mr. Sanford really liked junk and he enjoyed selling junk to other people, or um, you know, on different strokes, the guy at the bike shop really liked little boys, so he sold bikes, and so I thought you went into business for those really um meaningful ways. I didn't realize, and then in the 90s and and 2000s, where it was like, Oh, here you can buy this franchise for a restaurant that you would never eat at, but you'll make a shitload of money. And it was like, wait a minute, why would I want to do that? And it's like, oh, to make money, lots and lots of money. That's that's what it is, and and now, like all these other people who are like, Oh, just sit at home and click on this, and and you make a lot of money. I'm like, I can't do that. I like not that it's any moral position, it's just I would literally go insane doing something I hated. Uh, in fact, right now I am going insane doing something I hate just for the paycheck, uh, and I'm looking for a way out. So, um, so yeah, once the nerds get in and they're like, oh, here's the the redefinition of success is is where nerds from you know business school really really ruin the whole thing, uh, because it's no longer about providing cool punk rock television or cool punk rock music or anything like that. It's simply what can we sell and what can we, you know, what could we make the maximum profit on? Like we can make more profit off of VHS than we can Betamax, even though Betamax is the better product.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Did you ever watch anything on Betamax?

SPEAKER_03 41:00

Uh yes, there was a kid down the street that had uh parents that were kind of um techno nerds, I guess, at the time, and they you know they had a little bit of extra money, so they went ahead and got the Betamax. Nice. Uh and you know, it was to me, it was like, okay, we're still watching it on a shitty TV, so it doesn't really matter.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Oh, this was like after the change had been made, and it was like, oh, look at this other this other tape.

SPEAKER_03 41:31

Yeah, it's like to me, it wasn't to me. I never looked at the quality of the picture. Like, I'm not like people uh that like records because it sounds better, it's a deeper, it's a more fuller sound. I'm like, I grew up listening to a Walkman with one, you know, like we had the over the head with the headphones and snapping off so you and your friend can listen through one ear, or you know, uh my grandfather had uh some property and it's like, oh, we're gonna cut the grass. Here's this little earpiece that you can listen to the game on, or you know, just listening to really shitty radios in every car that I've ever been in. Like, I'm not about the for me, it's not about the quality, it's about the message that's coming through the speakers. But yeah, if it's a better product, then it eventually everything else kind of has to catch up. But if you kind of well, it's that's why I don't make decisions, is like I would be like, it doesn't matter, but I understand that there are people that notice the difference, and those people should be the ones leading the way, but they're the ones that prevent other people from making money.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

So there's also some guy out there who's like, Oh, this is like 1.2 cents cheaper to produce per unit. That one, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

That's well, you know, at the at one time there was the the story, I think it was United Airways or something like that, where the lady noticed that most of the people only you know ended up throwing away an olive or two, and they're like, Oh, instead of having three olives in a salad, we're just gonna put two, and that saves millions of dollars over the course of a year. So let's make less olives. And the guy that really enjoyed three olives is fucked because now he only has you know yeah, it's like and they you can't bring your own olives on the plane anymore.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

It's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

It's like rich people are trying to just see how much poor people will accept or how little poor people will accept.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

But it's it is also just like you you hear that, you hear that, and you're like, Yeah, they they took an olive out of each uh meal and and it saved them a million dollars. And that's like I remember hearing that and being like, oh, I understand nothing about business. I understand. Understand so little about the machinery that turns the world, the modern world, you know? Because as I like, yeah, no, math the math adds up, but it's like just a guy was like, Yeah, do this. It's taking all about solved it, solved the million dollar problem. I'll take my bonus, please. Thanks.

SPEAKER_03 44:25

And that led to the shrinkflation. Uh and it took a while for other people to catch up with shrinkflation because uh essentially, here's a bag, we're gonna keep it the same size, but we're gonna put fewer chips on it. We'll label it properly, we're not ripping you off. You're getting what the label says, but you think you're getting the same thing. And you're not paying attention to the label, yeah. And over time you get less and less for the same price. And a couple nerds on the internet are like, Hey, uh, there's fewer cookie crisps in my cookie crisp box. What the fuck's going on? And everyone's like, Oh, shut up, you're crazy. It's only just it's a it's a little bit less, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

And then who cares? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:09

And then they started noticing, hey, this, you know, I used to get a steak for, you know, you know, I used to get a 15-pound steak for or a Bronnosaurus steak at the restaurant for five bucks. Now uh, you know, they're giving me this, it's still five bucks, but I'm only getting a couple spare ribs.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Logan went into a rant about something very similar when we were talking about Phantasmus the other day. Uh, he said, uh, I guess when he was younger, he was a regular eater of lunchables with the crackers and the cheese and the ham. And he remembers when he was little, he used to be able to make cracker sandwiches out of it now. And now there's only one cracker for like you can do a cracker, a meat, and a cheese, no top.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

It's the same guy, it's the olive guy. He's working at the lunch of his mouth. He's like, I know exactly what to do.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

He never has any ideas, it's always just take one of something away.

SPEAKER_01 46:05

One of something out, yeah. They call him the fixer.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

So I would watch a movie about this guy on USA Network.

SPEAKER_03 46:15

Yeah, I was gonna say on USA. So, yeah, after after making uh a lot of money repackaging and reselling game shows, they started making their own game shows, they started making their own cartoons, uh, and then they started making their own shows. Um, one of my favorite animated adult, one of my favorite adult animation uh shows was Duckman, starring uh George Costanza as the voice of Duckman.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

I have seen clips of that, and it looks so fascinating and like the exact thing that I need to watch, like, but it just it feels like a show that's not real, it feels like it's made up.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

On YouTube, you can go on YouTube and look for Duckman the Complete series, and there's a collection of one video, or it's one YouTube video that has the entire run of the show, and it yeah, I it is it is surreal and punk rock and honest, and um every good compliment that I could give a TV show, I would put on this show. It is the same not intellect, but the same uh it hits the same nerves as Animaniacs or Pinky in the Brain or Tiny Tunes or any anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

If if you enjoy those kind of shows, quality to it, it's got like this early Nickelodeon, but like somebody from Nickelodeon got you know, like Valiant. You know, everybody got mad at Marvel and they're like, Fuck you, we're doing superheroes with balls and boobs or whatever. You know, Valiant was we're tired of your rules, dad. Uh, that's what like that's what some of the USA cartoons feel like, but especially Death Man, where it's like just very like adult swim before there was adult swim a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

Yes, and I would say USA is 100% the root of that.

SPEAKER_03 48:26

Yeah, there's gotta be some inspirations in there of hey, uh yeah, well, up all night, uh, with going back to that, is it was a proof of concept of hey, we don't have to stop broadcasting at midnight, or because at the time, like uh there were stations that literally flipped the switch and went off air at that time, and they were like, no, no, no, no, no. There are college kids smoking pot at three o'clock in the morning, or you know, there's kids on whatever drug that they were giving before Adderall to, you know, and the kids were overdosing and staying wide awake, or kids that just discovered coffee, and you know, they'd leave you know uh the theater, uh, you know, all the theater kids going to Waffle House at at midnight and drinking way too much coffee, and then they get home and they can't sleep, they gotta watch something. And well, let's flip around. Oh, USA Today or USA networks the only thing broadcasting right now. Let me watch this. And yeah, you know, the weirdos found okay, weirdos found a home. And um, you know, so proving the concept that there are viewers at that time gave Adult Swim the the uh avenue to prove you know to get the money to not not that Adult Swim got a lot of money, but they got money to do that because it was worth the gamble. Like if you have a cheap uh if you have a cheap uh bet, then you can get a rich guy to bet on it because especially when this when the odds are really big. Like, hey, give me a dollar. Worst case you lose a dollar, best case you make a million dollars off of that one dollar bet.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

And it's like Viacom execs basically going, like, listen, we don't I go to sleep at 8 p.m. Yeah, I don't know what it is these kids are wanting. You know that I'm gonna trust you, and I mean you look at Adult Swim, a lot of trust. That's a that's a great deal of trust in content from someone handing you money. Uh, and I think that that bet mostly paid off.

SPEAKER_03 50:48

Um, and so they made a lot of money off of those, and then they started looking for properties that they can make into um real television shows. And like one of the early ones that I watched was um uh Stephen King had written The Dead Zone, and they made a movie with Christopher Walken, and it did all right, I guess. I mean it it got attention, but it wasn't like a big blockbuster or anything like that, and then it disappeared, and whoever owned the rights, uh the rights kind of lapsed or whatever. Stephen King needed money for cocaine and wine, so USA said, Hey, uh how about taking this and we'll do a show? And then they brought in uh uh Anthony Michael Hall to play the lead role of the psychic, and it was an amazing, amazing shows. It was even it was ten times better than the movie. The movie is uh a niche classic, and and and you know, Christopher Walken and all of his weirdness, but Anthony Michael Hall made it into a real character and a real person that had real stories, and it was a success. And they made they got viewers and they got advertising, and so then they started trying more and more things, and um, and then Tony Shaloub signed up for Monk and invented what they called the blue sky. It was like everything's sunny, it's always sunny, uh, which then inspired it's always sunny in Philadelphia because it's you know, always it's always sunny on television.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

Oh so literally, there was like almost a what was that thing for dungeons and dragons materials things where it was like, listen, here's the things because people are on our asses. Here's the like eight things that every dungeon's you can't go against this, you know. And it's like, but one of them was like, Oh, the sky has to it always has to be sunny. We don't do they can there can be night scenes. Generally, this is a sunny, 90% sunny show.

SPEAKER_03 53:01

Yep, okay, and from there, like they just they they they focused in on uh kind of cop shows, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 53:12

Not really cop shows, but more detective shows, yeah, buddy with a lot more room for character than straight procedural type stuff, right?

SPEAKER_03 53:22

And um yeah, that would that was one of their taglines was characters one and or some right, right? Yeah, characters welcome. Um, so the and then like uh another great one was the 4400. Uh it was it predated heroes. It was if Marvel has Superman or sorry, Mar uh DC has Superman and Marvel. Well, there's not an equivalent. Um, so Batman and Wolverine, Spider-Man and Robin, you know, there's there's a a one for uh kind of a one-for-one exchange across the two different universes. Uh the 4400 had uh a bunch of people that were abducted and they came back and they had amazing powers, and then Heroes launched a few years later, and all these different people had powers.

SPEAKER_01 54:16

Um I always thought the 4400 was a rapture show because of that number. It always felt like uh rapture to me.

SPEAKER_03 54:25

I uh I had a root canal and um and I couldn't, I was on too many drugs, I was on opiates and I couldn't find the remote, so I just turned the TV on and it happened to be a marathon, and I got hooked. And it it is an absolutely amazing show. It is it does kind of veer into that, but not from a preachy standpoint, from a this character is a preachy person, this person is a cop person, this person is that person, and they so they have like a copy power or a religiousy power, yeah, yeah. So it like all it all kind of it showed the breadth and depth of the types of people in in the human human collection. So uh in that aspect with 4400 characters to to go through, uh, there was a lot to explore where heroes was limited as to oh, there's how many people can have been infected by this thing. So um uh yeah, and then a little while a little while later, they they came out with Psyche, which was one of my favorite shows because it should when you break it down, uh most of USA networks uh more uh successful shows were undiagnosed neurodivergent. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:54

Well, I when I think of the the shows, it's uh monk, psych, and berm notice are the three shows that I keep hearing.

SPEAKER_00 56:01

What is Burn Notice even about? I have no idea what Burn Notice is.

SPEAKER_01 56:05

It's it's Bruce Campbell is a spy, a former spy, and he had they've they've disavowed him basically, and so he's it's him trying to, and I've only ever seen I think the for the pilot. Um, but it's it's just basically him trying to he's a spy, and now he has to be like a dude, I think.

SPEAKER_03 56:26

But I think he's trying to still be a spy. It's basically John Wick.

SPEAKER_00 56:31

I think I think the name Burn Notice throws me off because I think it's about like firemen or something, yeah, or like something really boring, like like a paralegal. Yeah, like some kind of legal brief that I am not interested in.

SPEAKER_03 56:45

Yeah, one of the things that is very special, like USA Network is one of those things that the more you're involved, the more you know. If you just casually dip in and bounce out, you don't get the full experience. But their commercials are very good, like watching. I think I was watching Psych at the time, and there were plenty of Burn Notice uh advertisements. So by the time uh I was done with one season of Psych, I kind of got the idea of what Burn Notice was all about. Um, but the main character uh Bruce Campbell's like the the the buddy, uh the second top uh star of the show. The main star actually was from another show that was on USA Today or USA Network, uh called Touching Evil. Okay, it's impossible to find any. Yeah, we've been looking for that one. It doesn't, it was based. There was a British show, and uh USA was like, hey, let's try this, which you know then inspired the office to do the same much later. Uh, but stealing from the British was uh an easy go-to. Uh there's a guy that's on a um special task force for uh serial killers or whatever, and the opening scene of the first episode, he gets shot right in the head and it causes brain damage, and he has a psychological break. And then like you go to commercial, you come back from commercial, and it's like five years later, and he's coming back to the department because he's got like the the bullet wound caused a rip in the part of his brain that that makes him um uh not be rude. So he's just this completely rude and says whatever's on his mind. And I'm like, he's not the bullet didn't do that. That's autism. So um, yeah, he he's a very it's a very charismatic like most of the characters are extremely charismatic despite being arrogant assholes.

SPEAKER_00 58:57

There, yeah, the USA is really good at making you feel like you're friends with people.

SPEAKER_01 59:05

Yeah, okay. Yeah, I mean, like it just seems like really they sold their whole thing, the characters welcome thing is like they actually they do what it says on the label, they make these kind of not intense, uh like monk. Monk, do you need any primer to start watching monk? I don't really think so. No, no, you know immediately everything pretty much sells the concept. Uh it's almost like an Anamorphs book where you can pick it up and you're like, Oh, okay, kids, it turned into animals, they're slugs. Okay, yeah, got it. Okay, cool. Well, I'll see, I'll put that down and I'll decide if I want to read from the beginning or more, or from there, or not at all later.

SPEAKER_00 59:51

I think USA is good at uh like repeated lines and repeated themes, too. Like in Psych, you had the pineapple in every episode, and then like in Monkey always says it's not it's a blessing and a curse, and like the they're good at rhythm, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:08

And despite being like if you look at it as a whole, monk and psych and burn notice and even dead zone, like all of these shows have kind of a goofy softness to them, like it's it's televis, you know, it's television, yeah, yeah. But they're they do provide moments of just absolute peak performance that just they just give the space to whoever they invited to come on as a guest star to just uh really hit it out of the park. Like there was a scene with John Taturo, not John Taturo, um uh Steven uh Tucci.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:52

Stanley Tucci.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:53

Stanley Tucci. Uh Stanley Tucci was a guest star on Monk. And it his scene the most of it is goofy, most of the episode is goofy, but there's a five-minute scene where it is absolutely the most incredible acting, the most heartfelt performance ever, and it didn't get, I don't think it got enough attention because even Stanley Tucci's or um Tony Chalou Taturo also had a couple scenes that were just fucking fantastic, like just absolutely great. A you know, this is a master class in acting, this is a master class in performance, this is a master class in knowing the content, knowing the character and delivering just spot on, no notes whatsoever. And it was just amazing. And it was like guest star after guest star. Ali Sheedy uh in psych. There were a couple scenes that were just incredible, and it's like this is her, this is her victory lap of all the acting that she's done. This is this is it. This is the moment where she became the actor's actor.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:11

And even when they're doing something serious, it seems like they're having so much fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:16

That that's like another thing, too, is like, like I said, it's it's it's there's this lightness to it where it's like yeah, everybody was drinking water, everybody was fed. No one was you look at this and it's like, hey, this isn't like maybe the most biting, uh incisive uh thing that I've ever seen, but I need one of those, you know, and then the rest of my time can be filled with like, here's a guy solving a mystery with his intense mental illness, you know? Like, like that's I don't know, sounds like he found a way to make it work for him. Sounds good. I'm gonna watch that. That's yeah, a hundred episodes of that, no problem. And then to have the room for uh people like Tucci and Toturo to like bust out acting chop because that's just like we're doing it, we're on the set, we're doing this thing. Let's just do it. We don't have to um there's something interesting about like this isn't you know this isn't gonna make you or break you as an actor. You're already kind of uh established, but hey, I'm not gonna phone it in because I'm hanging out with my friends Tony and Tony and Johnny over here on the USA network. We've all got water, there's no reason for me to be an asshole and phone this in. Yeah, I'll just do a good job, I think. And there's there's something to be said uh about that. It's kind of an anti-uh Kubrick methodology to treating actors to get a performance out of them, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:54

Yeah, I mean, they feeling safe and having the the net allows them to fly higher and and not worry about it. Like, um I I guess you know, there is something exciting for the audience where it there is no net, but seeing uh you know someone that has cranked out the same story over and over, still making it interesting, and then sliding ever so like you don't even know that you're shifting gears, and uh um Tucci delivered uh basically there in the scene uh Stanley Tucci is playing an actor that is playing monk in a monk movie or a monk.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:48

Okay, that's awesome. I think I'd heard about this actually, that the monk thing became about a monk uh movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:55

And he was uh trying to understand who monk was because he was he was very method, and a lot you know, the whole storyline of how method this act this character playing the act the character playing Stanley Tucci's character is a very method actor, and so the moment that he realizes what drives Monk and he delivers that scene, and then Tony Shaloub mirrors that back, and it all comes crashing into this giant, beautiful crescendo, and it's like I did not see this coming, but oh my fucking god, this is fucking gold. This is how this is acting, this is all of it, this is everything anyone that ever wants to be on stage, television, or movies needs to see because it is just that good, and again, just The smooth transition into there because before they were just being really goofy sliding around a car dealership, and it's like, okay, cool, where are they gonna go from this? And it's like, oh my god, I'm crying my eyes out because of the scene. Holy shit! So yeah, uh and provide you know, making enough money and providing all of that. Um it did there were a couple of times where they did cut budget, and you can kind of tell. Um, like there was one actress that asked for fair pay, and they said no, so they just replaced her. Like so abruptly, and the writers were like, Fuck you, USA Today. We're gonna write scripts about how cheap you are, and so from that point forward, Monk becomes this really tight-fisted cheap guy, and it's like okay, and then you dive deeper and you're like, Well, psychologically, he has OCD and he has all these other neurodivergent issues, and controlling money is a manifestation of those combinations of mental diseases, so it's like it works, but it also works as a shaking your finger at uh uh network daddy, like John Oliver does. So, you know, on all it like the layers of of all these shows was just absolutely amazing because they were having fun, they were trying to create funness. They're like, who's the who the hell's gonna watch this when friends is on at the same time slot? I don't know. Fuck it. Well, let's go for the let's swing for the fences. Who gives a shit? And like they did it. Um like they had the big easy, they remade Kojak, they uh they re they tried to do uh a remake of Weird Science. And then uh whenever the blue sky era ended, uh they shifted and then came out with Mr. Robot. Mr.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:08

Robot. Oh wow, okay. So a hard shift of like what do you what is that called uh prestige television? Yes, yeah, yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:19

Oh, and and just all the while in the background, uh they carved out time slots for uh broadcasting C SPAN, or they were broadcasting the like all the congressional stuff, and then the people that were providing that service were like, Hey, wait a second, we could just make our own channel, right? And then C-SPAN became a thing where people which good thing, bad thing, like I you know, an informed uh people in a democracy is is a good thing, but having people watch Congress all the time became a bad thing over time.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:00

Yeah, uh well, it's also like you kind of put it in a drawer so that I couldn't look at it, you know. Okay, now I know where that is. Yeah, I'm never gonna watch that. Now I don't have to ever accidentally stumble across what's going on in the country anymore, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:16

Uh they also carved out time for uh what would eventually become BET Network.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:22

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:23

Wow, a lot of like ships launching as a result, and um and they are before since the WWF was performing at Madison Square Garden, he had uh an inside route, so she signed up early and got WWE or WWF, which became WWE. She signed a long-term contract, so every Sunday morning I got to watch Hulk Hogan uh battle the Russian or battle the Iranian, or uh I got to see the British people come in and do their thing. I got to see, you know, it introduced me to Junkyard Dog, which you know, from a kid in a suburb with nothing but white people, it was like, oh my god, this is cool as shit. Who is that guy? I want to know more about that guy, and then um, you know, a lot of tragic stories because of the abuse of of the wrestlers uh came out later, but from an entertainment standpoint, I was introduced to a lot of different cultures. Uh probably not the right way to be introduced to the cultures.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:32

Who is this mysterious iron chic? And you find out it's like a guy from New Jersey. I don't know where Iron Sheik's actually from, but yeah, well, I don't think he probably doesn't either.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:44

Uh going back, Eric Freshcorn uh was the son of Joe Freshcorn, and he subscribed to a wrestling magazine, and it was a bombshell where he showed me pictures of the Iron Sheik and uh Hacksaw Jim Duggan getting into the back of a limo together, and I was like mind-blown. Like, it's not real.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:10

Um so yeah, it was really much easier to suspend bel suspend suspend disbelief back then. Yeah, like it was easier to believe things.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:24

Yeah, yeah, like I mean, there was that whole thing for a while where it was like it was a joke about oh, and I bet you think wrestling's real. Because like there was like a a weird point of contention that people fans of wrestling were like were very into it, and a lot of them did think it was, you know, mostly kids. Uh, but but they did believe in it, you know. They believed in the stories, these obviously fake stories with these actors. But but it was real to them, damn it. It's such a strange wrestling is like a meta, it's like a meta uh programming. It's a show about making this show as much as it is about the thing itself. Yeah, it's yeah, it's it's like a fictional sports show, it's really weird. Oh my mom's wrestling is so strange.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:20

Yeah, my mom uh blew my dad's mind one time, and she's like, You make fun of me for watching the soap operas, you're watching a soap opera with this is just soap opera half naked men. It literally was, it was always like over over dramatic acting and uh picking fights, and then Hulk and you looked at my lady the wrong way, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:47

Yeah, like no, no, no, this is different. He's angry because uh he feels his relationship is threatened by the other man, and this is different than soap operas in some way.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:03

Um so yeah, USA Today or USA Networks, uh USA network again, punk very punk rock in all the things it does, and then once it gets too expensive, then it just kind of cuts it loose and lets it go and turns around and tries to think of something new, and and um it it did turn sad whenever Temptation Island became a thing because then they started dipping into and finding out how cheap reality TV is.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:38

Okay, and Temptation Island was was that a response to Survivor?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:44

I think so.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:45

Yeah, yeah, I would say it was like horny survivor was Temptation Island, right? Yeah, okay. Yeah, I I definitely remember, I distinctly remember seeing a commercial for that and going like, oh Jesus, was I allowed to see that? Just you know, I was like, I mean, I was like probably 14, 15, maybe, but I just remember being like, that's that seems very like not that I'm some proved, but I was like, that's risk, that seems risque to be showing this early on prime time television without even really being aware of anything like the watershed, or it was just it was so in your face, it felt like uh like, oh okay, titties are here, I guess. Like, I guess this is a new era of television.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:33

Yeah, and I think it that was the era where everyone kind of basically moved the the bra a little to the left every single time, like because um I think around the same time uh Tila Tequila had her show on, I think it was like the sh the the things kept getting you know, the outfits kept getting smaller and smaller each episode just to see what they could get away with. And it's like okay, how where is where's the line? And no one everyone was afraid of being called a prude at the time and drawing the line, so it just kept going and going and going, and it's like and and it was under the auspice of the city.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:19

The FCC made you like blur it, you know, you were just like, Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:24

Well, the FCC wasn't involved because it was cable, and I think that because they pushed the line too far, I think that invited the FCC in to start dealing with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:35

So funny how it always happens the government has to go, like, okay, you've partied too hard, we gotta say something.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:44

All right, yeah. Too many keggers now, nobody gets a drink.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:50

And that's how prohibition happened. Um, so with that, uh, I like everything that they've done has been amazing, um in its own way, and it is a lot of it is niche, uh, a lot of it is uh you have to take it with a uh, you know, it is live action cartoons basically in a lot of in a lot of ways, but it does and it is rewarding in those moments where it does it, because there are moments that are the top tier of of television. Um and it doesn't really end that there because uh at one point uh NBC Universal whatever conglomeration bought USA. Um like there was a dispute over WWE licensing because WWE wanted to move their stuff to to NBC on a certain night or whatever. And uh it was like, no, no, no, no, we've got the license. So NBC Universal was like, well, screw that, we'll just buy it and take over. So that that gave uh Kay uh a shitload of money and sent her on her way. Like I think she still ran it, but didn't she didn't own it anymore. Um so that gave her the opportunity to create a company called Springboard. She had a lot of money and she spent a lot of time being the only uh woman in the boardroom for a lot of the meetings, and a lot of times she was not treated as an equal, even though she was like she was a bigger giant, instrumental in like yeah, yeah. Um, she was more influential to a lot more people than anyone else in the room, but she was still treated as uh a Peggy or uh you know, uh, from Madmen. Um so she started a company called Springboard, which focus is a um private equity or uh private investment firm that invests a lot of money in women-run businesses, and um one of the businesses that she helped launch was Roomba. So oh wow, uh, and then uh another big one was Canva, which is I use every day. Yeah, I I I can't remember the number, but it's her return on investment is in the billions. Oh, I can imagine.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:33

She seems like one of the smartest like people who's ever lived, yes, in terms of just like business acumen.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:39

Well, she seems to see and recognize good ideas.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:44

Yeah. Imagine that. Imagine a she's a C what was her position again?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:51

CEO or CEO founder of USA Network, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:55

Like, so I mean CEOs, I feel like there's they're definitely like mostly evil, right? But like that is a job, you know, and it is, I guess, directing uh a giant corporation as one person, which is not nothing. Uh especially at the outset. When you're this it's not probably not as much fun when you're the CEO at the outset of a company, at the launch of a company, you know. That's more like going, like, all right, well, I've got okay, here's my little paper hat that I made, and it says CEO on it. It's not it's nothing at that point. Well, like go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:33

Well, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:34

No, go ahead. Well, I was just gonna say, like, to I mean, I've heard what seem to be foundational ideas about five or six times over in this short conversation we've had, um, about this like scrappy CEO that like kept on just like seeing good idea after good idea and going like, okay, let's use that. Okay, now we're throw that, like, not even throw that in the garbage. That's just a thing that other people do now. We're not even sports, okay. Cool. Now sports is done. That's not gonna make any money. We're gonna make cheap, we're gonna buy cartoons. Nope, screw that. We're gonna make the cheapest uh procedurals like anyone's ever seen. We're gonna give them water, we're gonna feed everybody. Like it's just uh everything's gonna be nice with a blue sky. Uh yeah, and then they launched into the Mr. Robot, like kind of uh let's get some real cameras in here. Uh let's really like let's let's every uh one of these is gonna be kind of like a movie uh type of shows, which is what I see Mr. Robot as. I've never seen it.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:44

Oh, it's amazing, especially the first season. Okay, the first season is one of the best first seasons of television ever, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:52

Yeah, um, one of the um on a previous podcast, uh, we used to have guests come in, and uh at one point we invited a gentleman in and he was colorblind, and he discussed how the CIA had tried to recruit him because colorblind people can look at uh satellite photographs and see basically uh bombs or uh heat signatures and stuff that normal people can't see because it all blends in. But with his specific colorblindness, he was able to see oh, here's the spot, here's the spot, here's the spot. So I think she had uh a very different vision and she was able to see without it's like, oh, this is going to this is going to work. And I see what they're trying to like, she could see through all the bullshit and see through all the financials or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:54

Whatever maybe feel what people were tired of, and she could see, oh, here's like this new here as this is lowering, here's this next thing coming up that we can jump onto and switch over to.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:06

And and the important thing that she had was trusting herself, trusting her gut, and trusting her vision.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:16

Yes, yeah, and so but that vision and that that confidence, not confidence, but trust in yourself, uh, because confidence leads to overconfidence and leads to arrogance, but being able to trust yourself to say, hey, this will work out, and if it doesn't, I didn't invest that much. So yeah, she was able to pick out embryonic uh ideas where most people like you go into a pitch meeting to to do a show, they want to know that it's gonna succeed. Where she was like, just give me something to latch on to. And it's like, Oh, how about this? And she was like, I can I can see I can see it happening. I I can see it. Okay, go ahead. Green light, go.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:05

And then it's almost like she could see the elevator pitch even when you couldn't if you were trying to pitch it, like it's yes, like she's she cut through like the all the flim flam and whatever, and was just like, Oh, okay, so just cartoons, just show cartoons. It's a cheap turnaround, whatever the idea was, whatever the whatever the move was at the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:26

One of one of one of my goals for the next two years is to pitch at least one of the companies that I work with to her and maybe get her to invest. Because I I work with oh enerotics, you know, endearotics. I feel like they're well positioned to work with them. Work with yeah, like I think it was. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:48

This is like a surprise, uh, maybe not a surprise, but a kind of stealth. It's a USA network, but it's it's also like, oh, I didn't know that this was a few uh woman-owned or woman-led, you know, business.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:02

Yeah, I didn't know anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:03

But it actually is one of the more wholesome. I was expecting at any moment this was going to turn into some evil thing, other than normal business Hollywood evil type stuff that was just a function of the larger machine. But like this almost seems like uh like a little Goldilocks story in the middle of all that.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:24

To to illustrate that point further, uh Springboard, her investment company, has uh also they they helped launch zip car. Uh if that I don't know. I I think uh Waymo kind of won the battle on that one.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:41

But no, I believe zip car is where people can put their cars up to be used as rental cars, their personal cars to be used as rental cars. Like if you're like in New York and you only want a car for an hour, you can use somebody's zip car.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:54

Uh but yeah, the to to further illustrate her niceness, I guess, uh, and her good faith in humanity and most of her ideas coming from a really good part of her heart that end up getting corrupted by someone else. Um are you familiar with Shark Tank?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:15

Okay, so Springboard has a um a version of Shark Tank called Dolphin Tank. Uh because dolphins help people, where sharks eat people. So uh her version of Shark Tank is helping people succeed instead of investing and manipulating and getting an ROI. Uh, I mean, I'm she's concerned with that, but in a much nicer, more pleasant way to do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:48

That's what I was that's I was trying to remember that when I was talking about Enderotics. Thank you. I'm sorry, all my notes are gone.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:53

Yeah, I don't mean that's such a great serious business company that is like another good faith, uh woman-led woman-owned company. So, like, yeah, that seems like a perfect fit.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:06

Yeah, I think it would be really great.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:08

Uh, I guess one last thing to discuss is um in early early days, we even before the cartoon Network Express, uh, she invested in a small little company uh to create videos, and it was a show called Calliope. And Calliope was a goofy little kid show. Like if you've ever watched Blues Clues and smashed that together with a couple clips of Arthur and a couple clips of Rolly Oly Polly or whatever the fuck that show was, um, and just did it in some clips, kind of a kind of like a Sesame Street knockoff without Muppets. Uh, and one of the clips uh that they bought to show on this show was Paddington Bear. And it made Paddington extremely popular, and then it led to a resurgence and gave us Paddington, and more importantly, uh what has been deemed as the greatest movie in the world ever created, Paddington 2.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:19

Paddington 2 is so asked, no business being as good as it is. It's such a good movie, and now Paddington's on Broad, uh not Broadway, he's on the West End, which is London's version of Broadway, and it looks god. I want to see the Paddington.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:31

Way cooler, it's the punk Broadway. Yeah. Is the Paddington the everybody loves the Paddington 2? I thought I was like, I wonder if he's gonna mention Paddington 2, which the meme. Uh I've only again like I I kind of like I I get onto the internet and I see that things are happening. I don't I don't know when they happen. And this was another Rome thing where I log on and all of a sudden Paddington 2 is the greatest movie that anyone has ever made. Uh so I guess I have to commit to that. I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:03

We honestly put off watching it for a long time because of people saying that. And then somebody that we really respect, I don't remember who it was. It was somebody off the wall, like Kyle or somebody, was like, no man, this is a really good movie. And then we watched it and we were like, no man, it really is that good.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:19

I I uh I lost my train of thought. Oh, it I think what it is for me is I am still burnt a little bit by the brony movement. Where, like, I mean, like my little pony comes out, and I'm like, okay. I mean, probably no reaction because I wasn't aware that it actually came out until I hear like grown men going, like, oh, it's like the best thing ever. It's like the best show. You have to watch this show. And so I'm like, enough like guys that look like me were telling me to watch it. Like, that's there's gotta be something, there's got there's gotta be some depth in here. And I go and I watch it and it's like it's fine, but it's like fine for like a kid's show. And I'm like, did these guys all just decide to latch on to this ironically?

SPEAKER_03 1:29:17

And so from then on, I've just been like, whenever I hear like something cutesy and wholesome is like the best thing ever, I'm like, okay, I remember what you said about the pony show, pal, like you know, yeah, it is uh one of the one of the conversations I've had with my AI therapist is is why I don't fit in, and and that's one of the the big reasons is because everyone the human genome is designed to get along, and I'm like, but we could get along so much better if we fix the shit now instead of letting it fester and having grown out. Like I in the early 90s, uh, me and a bunch of navy guys would sit in a room and watch The Little Mermaid because it was a good movie, not because we all decided to like we all independently said, Oh, this is a fucking good movie, let's rent it tonight. And then it's like all these people that had never looked watched My Little Pony decided that they were gonna like my little pony because it was funny and goofy to say that you like my little pony, and I was like, dude, no, like stop or to give them even a little credit.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:36

Maybe they were trying to recapture that feeling of watching The Little Mermaid and being surprised at the quality of it, you know. Yeah, even though it's like a girl's thing, you know. Um like like that's like the most credit I can give it. It's fine, it's okay if you like it. It's fine if you like it. It's just that like it was sold to me as like this subversive art, you know, like it's like, oh, it's not what you think, and it's like what do you mean? It's like, oh, it's like a Pixar thing almost. It's like, no, I Pixar still wins at that. That they're still you know, Pixar and Shrek, you know, those are like the kings of like here's like eight jokes for kids and two for adults, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, right at you, sometimes at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:22

I I will say another wholesome thing that gets hyped up a lot that pretty much does live up to the hype is Bluey. Me and my friend Stevie used to watch it on streaming together like once a week for a while, and it's you know real sweet.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:37

I don't blame anybody for needing a little for just wanting to sit down in a moment uh experience just a moment of gentle sort of it feels really nice to see people being nice to each other. I've seen that dad just be incredibly patient with his two also Australian polite children, and I'm just like, yeah, okay, this is like this is the closest thing, maybe to ASMR. You know, it's just like like, oh yeah, an Australian man, uh just not even like he's not chiding them because they're not misbehaving, he's just reinforcing their good behavior, yeah, yeah. The the idea that there's a parent out there that good puts me to sleep. You know, I've been trying to resonate.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:22

That's just a rehash of Steve Irwin. Yeah, Australian dad that's very patient with his children.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:29

And animals. Well, I mean, there's uh it's the uh not not to not to overly not to be a guy with aviator, uh thick aviator glasses and a beard who uh puts somebody up on a pedestal. But if we're talking about like something wholesome, a real pillar that was knocked down, I think I think we can all safely say the internet, everybody we kind of crowd around Steve Irwin is like that was maybe the last peer soul on earth, and they did extinguish it.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:02

Yeah, goddamn stingrays, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:07

What a random, yeah, just in the chest. Yeah, that's a what's gotta be a one in a fucking million shot. You've never even more than nobody's ever been like cross the chest. That's the first and last time I've ever heard of that. Yeah, exactly. It's a conspiracy by the Australian government.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:27

Yeah, as Monk would say, the odds are too high. It's impossible. That can't be it.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:36

I have I have two other USA network things before we get out of here. All right, uh, one thing that we didn't touch on is also the sci-fi network came out of USA, like the sci-fi network branched off of USA. And I don't I don't have anything else to say about it except for that.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:51

It's also these modules are like, yeah, kind of flinging off. They're like it's like spinning, it's doing so well or something. Is that it? Yeah, that's what happened in the case of sci-fi.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:01

You're like, we these sci-fi shows are doing good. I want we want to make more of them. Let's just put them over here in their old bucket.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:07

And I I will say this about that. Uh, if you like zombie style uh shows, Z Nation is so for me, it was it was the cartoon with those very good uh in the same style as Psych and Monk and all that. It was just this goofball human cartoon, you know, live action cartoon going crazy, but so many good nuggets of thought, and and if you if you're a thinker, uh it introduces a lot of concepts that you're like, hey, wait a minute. Uh playing with like the the zombie mythos and stuff, yeah, yeah, yeah. And a bunch of really good performances, yes, and a lot of good, solid performances throughout, but then every now and then you just get that soul-crushing scene.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:02

USA is so good at that.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:04

It's just so people in the middle of a cartoon, like in the middle of a human cartoon, it's like and Z Nation.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:11

I was thinking you were gonna say, because there's a couple of those zombie shows uh that they had out, and the one that people always talk about is Santa Clarita Diet. Um it's but that's a fun show, yeah. Which which I uh but like yeah, uh Z Nation. You know, I would have never if you had placed that and its title card neatly in a line on whichever streaming service, I'm blazing right right over that one. You know, that is that's very that seems like maybe that's a uh I bet you that was called something different in the studio was like called Z Nation.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:46

That's probably probably has a really perfect name that we sold it. And I hate I get mad at my brain for doing things like this because there is this show on HBO called Animals that we were going through like an animated thing, and Ross told us to watch it. I'm like, man, I have been avoiding that show because I hate the cover that's on HBO, and then we watched it and it's fucking brilliant, like a lot more pleasant than you thought, like kind of brutal in a lot of places, but like uh it it really alleviates that with that Wallace and Gromit.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:20

Isn't that an Ard Ard films or whatever that that that outfits called? I'm not Ardman Ardman, the the rubber uh chicken run and Wallace and Gromit.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:30

No, no, no, no, no. This was uh it was a very um low detail animation style, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:38

Um almost like sketches sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:41

I we did a deep dive on the creators. Um, they've done other stuff, but yeah, it was like just two guys dicking around that came up with it, and they like all right, we'll pitch it. And yeah, it was one of it shouldn't have been picked up, it shouldn't have been made, it shouldn't have been invested.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:58

Yeah, animals is the one that's like man on the street interviews. Is that the one?

SPEAKER_00 1:37:02

No, it's an animated show about about actual animals.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:05

Oh, okay. Then we are thinking of different things. Uh, I do like the thing I'm talking about, but it is weird. I think that might be an HBO thing. Uh yeah, it's like an interview man on the street thing, and it's just like Wallace and Gromit. Like it'll be like just the people are animated as animals.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:21

I'm gonna have to look it up we're gonna have to figure figure out what the I'll have to look it up, but yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:25

So it's called animals, though, the thing you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:27

Okay, yeah, and it it is on HBO and it has a terrible cover with a terrible font, and I hate it.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:33

Oh yeah, you gotta watch that. It and there's so many things that are made and they're thrown away, even though they're good. It there's a there's a real uh art versus capital battle that's always been going on, and and the more I've learned about movies getting made, my favorite movies getting made, why they were made, why their sequels got made, the money decisions and what the art that comes out of that. Sometimes it's fascinating, but sometimes it's just like tragic, where it's just like, oh, animals, I've never even heard of it. And now that we've re-released it, well, fuck it. Who cares? It's animals, just throw some papyrus font on there and call it a freaking day or whatever, you know, whatever bad design because nobody cares. You don't know, and then you're scroll again, you're scrolling through it and you're like, ah, absolutely not. That was my reaction to it almost every time. I have to see this just to see. Yeah, okay. I would not have, I think I would have really passed right over this. This is the building with the two pugs, or it's the New York Skyline with the two pugs. Yeah, it's a little too you gotta give me more than this, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:46

Yeah, it's not enough, and the font is wrong.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:49

The font is hard to read with the skyline, yes. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:56

So my other uh USA call out is much shorter than the sci-fi one will be, and that will just be the existence of the show suits. I've never seen it, but it only gets mentioned in the same breath as Monk and Psych. And it went on for very many seasons. And I just know I don't I I don't know what it's about. I don't know who's in it. I just know it's on USA, and there was a lot of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:20

Suits, I think, is the thing that I think of. Yes, it is. These two white men, these two, one in a blue suit and one in a bluer suit. Um one of them is like brunette blonde and the other is blonde brunette. Uh just I'm not, and I'm not saying this could be a great show. This looks like the most if you could AI print a show, that is what suits looks like to me. I think suits began my TV blindness where I was just like, like people are like, ah, succession. I'm like, uh, this is people in a boardroom. Like, okay, I'll I'll catch up with you later. It's the greatest show of all time, apparently. Like, everybody loves succession. Uh I like Brian Cox.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:09

Oh, and suits has uh the same power as uh the Jeffrey Epstein files, is it was responsible for moving uh removing a prince from the royal family.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:20

Yeah, it's true. That's true.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:22

Because it starts it had Megan Merkel on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:25

Yep, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:26

Oh, oh, okay. She's right there. Yeah, she's just right there. Weird. It's weird, yeah, how she's just American. Like, okay. Uh but then you're then you're also you start kind of thinking along that route, and then you're like, well, why the fuck do I give a shit about the these are just random assholes, really, at the end of the day. You know, they're not, but they're it's just this kind of lucky line of people. Yeah, yeah, you know, that's all it is. It's just this, it's why we know them.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:58

And when you crack the egg of it's all lottery, then it starts, uh, then you start peeling back, and you're like, why is this and why is that? And it's a very, very, very dangerous line of thought, yeah, to be honest. Because once I started down it, it it just started uh we know where it goes back to as well. Yeah, Rome.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:20

It does, it I think it does, right? That's like one of the major big families that came out of all that, I th I think, is what we call the royal family.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:30

So, Jackie, uh, I hope that answers your question. That is where uh USA Network started. Um, if you do enjoy lollipops, uh go to valleyofo.com and get some lollipops. Uh if you enjoy horror movies, uh check out uh uh Reasonably Afraid uh with our friend Zach Bennett as the host. Uh if you are in the Portland area, uh is it Deer Sandy?

SPEAKER_00 1:41:57

Dear Sandy, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:59

Uh visit Deer Sandy. It's a it's a great uh little bar out there and absolutely fantastic cocktails. I know the person that creates them, and she is a master chef uh with booze. Genius. Um and uh the and and the other co-owner is responsible for our theme song. Uh appreciate him. And if we get copyrighted, he uh he created some songs and licensed and put them on CD Baby long ago, and then he uploaded it to YouTube and got flagged for copyright infringement of his own music.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:39

So that's how that's clearly working as intended.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:43

Yeah, the capitalist machine is in full effect. Um, if you have a question, uh feel free to reach out to Jackie and say, Hey, I have a question I would like to have answered, or reach out to Christian. Uh, you could probably reach out to me, but I am very terrible at communications.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:01

Uh it's probably just best to reach out to me. I'm the communicator and the organizer.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:08

And uh next time we will be uh answering the question where I know Steve Bushimi from.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:15

Yeah, yes, I forgot about this one. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:20

Uh so that the we might be having a guest in for that one, the originator of the reason that question exists. So that'll be fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:28

Beautiful. And uh I should have probably said this earlier, but do realize that uh we all do deep research, but we all have mental divergencies that uh make it impossible for us to follow our notes. Uh, it is a conversation and a jumping off point. We do not want to tell you what to think or how to think, we want to give you things to think about. So if there are errors or uh problems in what we said, contact Jackie and we'll answer that question uh as a show and uh make fun of the fact that we do not like I have so many roam notes, like I could talk for another 12 hours on stuff that I had notes on, but I just completely forgot about it because uh once I crack open the mic, uh my eyes shut off to all of my notes. One of the reasons I have failed at uh stand like I did stand-up comedy a couple of times, but all my jokes and stuff go blank as soon as I get to the mic. So I was like, this is not for me. I'd rather help stand-up comedians uh better their craft. Uh also check out Lokiho.com. I think that's uh check him out on social media. He is my son and he is doing stand-up comedy. Uh and uh we're trying to help you. I have one more shout-out. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:55

Uh Medium Literate, it is a movie podcast hosted by Monica Luchin's wife and her friend. They just started, and I'm very excited for them. They have very good taste in movies and talk about it really well. It is called Medium Literate.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:12

Anything from you, Christian? You know, listen, I'm just along for the ride right now with y'all. I'm between uh things. I was just gonna say I I did comedy a couple of times too, but I did I did the couple of times for 10 years. That's the trick.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:29

Uh, but if you do need a website, please contact Jackie and she will get you in touch with Christian to uh upgrade your web presence. Make it look greedy. If you want to advertise with us, please uh understand that this is the shit that you're gonna get. Uh but give us money and we'll USA Today network the shit out of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:48

Yeah, USA Today four guys in suits waving at you at the bottom of the screen the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:54

Very blue suits, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:58

Oh, also uh a little uh internet theory. Uh since breaking bad, breaking bad was a new genre of television at the time. It was uh the prestige television, and the hope was to destroy the blue sky, uh, because blue sky television was kind of like a drug, which is why they named the method that uh Walter White created Blue Sky. Ah just a theory.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:30

That's fun. I like it.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:32

All right, until next time. Um this was everything on nothing.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:38

Bye. No, it was nothing.