Eric: Alright, before we hit the music, it's the year 2004. You've been hired to direct the 30 Second Super Bowl commercial for a real world product, but you have to use a Star Wars character as the spokesperson. Who's that character, what's the product, and what is their cringy early 2000s catchphrase? So I cheated. I know Eric Loves it when I say that. I used a Star Wars actor. ⁓ OK. Instead of a Star Wars character. Fair enough. So picture it. It opens right. The commercial opens. There are various actors applying sunscreen on set for outside shoots. Large parts of episode two and three, by the way, were filmed in Australia. Well, the camera moves to you and McGregor applying sunscreen to his face and holding a bottle of Australian gold sunscreen. He smirks at the camera and says the gold standard on the silver screen. ⁓ very nice. I like that. OK, Kyle. Yeah, I didn't cheat. My mind just went straight to whatever. But ⁓ If you were from this time period, you remember how sexualized, herbalist shampoo commercials were. Absolutely. They were very hardcore. And so that's what we're shooting here today. And we're staying in star Wars. ⁓ you're going to hear a bunch of sounds coming from the shower. ⁓ and then it opens the curtain and there's job of the hut. And he says, that's He steals Paris Hilton's, ⁓ little tagline saying that's hot. That this job of the hut in the shower with the herbalist and shampoo. commercial. So, um Ashby, you definitely missed a a very like good moment to have Hayden Christians and come back and talk and complain about sand again. True. I don't like sand. That's true. I know about that but I do like my son not getting burned. Exactly. Uh for me, um this is a state farm commercial. Uh we see a suburban family in 2004 standing in the driveway looking at a minivan that's been completely crushed by a falling course on firefighter or freighter and the dad sighs and says, wish I had a Jedi on my side and suddenly you and McGregor Obi-Wan Kenobi appears in a shimmer of blue force ghost light even though he's still alive. He looks at the wreckage, strokes his beard thoughtfully, performs a Jedi mind trick on the claims adjuster who's trying to deny the coverage and then Obi-Wan turns to the camera gives that classic smarmy smile and says, State Farm is there and these are the rates you're looking for. Very nice. I love how we both use you and McGregor and we both made him smirk. Yes. Because we know we know what the people want. That's exactly what the people want. went to the fact of it being 2000. So like George our banks hadn't completely been like outruled yet. But you're just like he's Jake. He's Jar Jar from stay farm wearing wearing khakis. He's just like on the phone like in the booth somewhere. It's like wearing khakis. Yeah. So I mean it. Yeah. Wow. All right. Let's go to the end. Oh, I'm not best. If you're watching this, please give us a shout. Let's get to the intro. And we are live. Welcome back to the what the what variety show, the only podcast that still checks its pockets for blockbuster membership cards and treats the year 1999 like it was yesterday. I am your host, Eric, and as always, I am joined by the two people who would definitely be the first to go in a horror movie prologue. Sorry, Ashby and Kyle. I think my anxiety would just take me out anyway. I can't do this. Friends, are we feeling today? But now that now I know I'm to die and move it. But yes, doing good. The irony is that, like, honestly, I'm not even offended because I tell Daniel all the time, if we ever make it to like some weird post apocalyptic future, let me die. Let me die in the first five minutes of the opening of the movie. Like, let the wave or the earthquake or the aliens just push me into their path. Let it take me out because I cannot live in a world without modern conveniences. OK, that's fair. And I have no marketable post-apocalyptic skill. Okay. And of course, because Daniel loves me, he's like, no, absolutely. I like, I refuse. Like I will, I will drag you. You have to live. will teach you the skills. was a boy scout. don't want to know. don't worry. I can do this. I can help us survive. It's like, you can survive without me. It's fine. I literally saw the clip from scary movie two yesterday where they're in the house and they're like, okay, we need to go before it starts to rain. And then the rain starts and they're like, that's fine. That's fine. you know, we'll just call a cab and then the TV's on. It's like, so update on the taxi strike. There's no end in sight and it's like, that's fine. My car's still out there. We can go real quick and it's like a new update from Japanese auto automakers. Their cars explode when when the rain touches a car in the background explode and then one guy's like, I got it. We'll just build a plane and fly out of here and then the woman on the newscast like, well, that's just bleeping stupid. mean, so I figured that's kind of how it would go. for us. Yes. Yes. I was cutting grass yesterday thinking about how hot I was. Just not physically, but just well, maybe physically just hot sweating that hot. We know. And yeah. And I was thinking about like, I remember being a child and you just ran outside and play in this all day because our parents would encourage us to do that. Ain't no thing. And then now I'm a parent and I'm like, I don't push this because I'd rather be in their condition. That's right. And it's like that's a plus and a minus there. Thankfully, my child is the one that's like, let's go outside. And so we still go anyway, but Generations are changing. So, ⁓ anyway, let's move on. We have a massive show today. We're drafting Survivor Tribes. ⁓ We're playing a high stakes game of rental shelf roulette. Yeah. And we're venting some serious spleen and useless aggression. What? What? ⁓ Yeah. ⁓ don't know. But first, we have to talk about the state of the galaxy. We have Star Wars Day coming up. It's time ⁓ the first ⁓ question on our what's happening in block one. ⁓ May the fourth is coming up. This should be released on May 1st, I believe and with the hype for the upcoming the Mandalorian and Grogu movie finally hitting a fever pitch. They were at WrestleMania. I didn't see them. They were literally at WrestleMania and the Mandalorian, which is kind of crazy. galaxy far far away is pretty much all we can think about right now. So before we get into the rumors, I want to pin down our absolute favorite Star Wars moment. the stuff that made us fans in the first place. So ⁓ just your defining Star Wars memory or moment. Whoever wants to go first. go. like at work. I two monitors as I'm working and doing my thing I always just have something playing in the background whether it be music or just a video or just something and I told these guys a couple weeks ago like two weeks like literally last week I think I didn't have a reason. think I was watching something to start my Star Wars. I was like, you know what? I'm just going to watch all nine of the main Star Wars movies or just let them be rolling anyway. And so I've done that. And going back through that, I was thinking about this question you had and I think there's the obvious like, you know, I am your father moments. There's the big spoil. Spoiler, by the way, if you haven't seen Star Wars too late, I'm sorry. That's been talked about in my Muppet babies and everything else. Yeah. But I was thinking about it I watching. through these movies and being a child in the like 90s and early 2000s and watching some of these movies for the first time even though they kind of get a bad rap now I still remember the first time I saw Darth Maul fight ⁓ Why am I blanking? Quieton Jen. Yeah. And Obi-Wan. Liam Neeson. Yes. Yes. ⁓ and so that just changed my life forever. think the main reason I even like Star Wars anyway, was originally my dad liked it that was something I could relate with him, but like a freaking lightsaber just seemed amazing to me. Yeah. Still does. Yeah. And so just being, you know, Ninja Turtle fan, power wrench, everything was big at the time with swords, but seeing a lightsaber just seemed absolutely like astonishing to me. So to see Darth Maul for the first time as they're fighting all of a sudden, the stance and now there's you know a lightsaber that comes out of both ends of his it just blew my mind and it always brings me back to a memory of my childhood too where it's probably a couple summers after that but I remember me, Hunter Batten and Alex Wenders behind Hunter's house each of us had like a toy lightsaber and I don't know if it was Hunter or Alex but they actually had the Darth Maul one and I just remember having an amazing afternoon and we were like teenagers at this point so it's not like I was a little child but just for that moment of just Time just going away and you're fighting each other you're in Star Wars in that moment in the back of hunters, you know backyard and So even as I was rewatching all of these movies again There's a lot of moments that stand out and yes There's a lot of moments that are better from some of this, you know took all better movies But for me my choice is that just because I remember as that scene was coming up again like this past week Just how excited I had to stop what I was doing just to watch it to come up because it brought back that memory of my childhood ⁓ And so that's my choice for this one. Okay Yeah, I would say mine's more of like a. like an origin story. I remember at some point, I think the second my dad thought we were old enough to watch them and enjoy them, he was putting on the old like VHS tapes of the original trilogy because he was so sick of watching Disney movies, probably. So he was like, all right, you're old enough. We're to watch adult things now. You know, and so honestly fair. Yeah. Right. Same. get it. ⁓ So, yeah, I think that I just at some point remembered that was what we would do if my dad was in charge. He was like, great, we're gonna watch some Star Wars. And so just watching that from a young age and then them announcing that they were gonna do episode one, two and three. And my parents being super excited about it. And so then we got to go watch them in theaters as a family and like how exciting that was. And so I just don't think there was really ever a time that I remember not being a Star Wars fan. And it was a really interesting house up into because my parents also watched Star Trek. So there was never like a one or the other. Like we were not it was not like, which one are you? Are you like a fan of this or that? It was just like equally equally, you know, with you and live long and prosper. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. We had Christmas ornaments for both. ⁓ And yeah, we just it was so funny. At some point, I remember in college thinking like, ⁓ I'm the nerd of my family. Like I'm the geek. I'm the like weirdo or whatever and then telling someone about like oh well you know I watched Exiles because of my mom and I watched Star Wars because of my dad and I watched Star Trek because of my mom and I watched and then I was like wait a minute are my parents nerds? And then I was like I think this revelation. Yeah like I don't I don't think this is nature I think this is nurture. So yeah. We also had that time probably about that age where. culture itself had changed. It was all of a sudden the same way like when I got into collecting comic books after we got married like Erica and I that that was a cooler thing then. I didn't do it because it was cool. It just something that like as a child I'd wanted to do but didn't do a ton. And so as I you know had more time on my hands you know I was like well let me do this like I'm gonna start picking these up and this will be fun. And that was just something that was different. It was cooler to do that now. There was TV shows about it. These comic cons are no longer like nerdy little hideaway things. These are gigantic huge things. So I think culture changed to finally be like, you know what? It's okay to be nerds. we don't have to be. to like things. Yeah. Exactly. It's okay to enjoy things. You can be really out loud about it. It's okay. That's our tagline. What variety show? It's okay to like things. ⁓ For me, ⁓ this would have been my freshman year in college. So this would have been 2005 whenever episode three came out, Revenge of the Sith. And I think it came out in May. I think all the Star Wars movies came out in May. know they switched to December releases towards like the sequel trilogy or whatever. Right. But I literally just like finished exams like my first year at Barton, which was super hard because college is hard and high school did not prepare me for it. Yeah. And I wanted to celebrate. so for the first time, I went to a midnight showing of a movie. I my brother, Michael, with me. And it was the. I had we had guys like we're in line to get like at the this and the Smith cinema said just open like like within like the last year or whatever. And there were we're waiting in line. We have guys in the lobby having an epic lightsaber duel. Of course. And like like every everyone's dressed up and I'd never been to a midnight show before. And my brother had school the next day. And I'm like, that's That's fine. Whatever. I mean, you'll be fine. And don't tell mom and dad, which they knew. anyway, drink some caffeine. Exactly. And I don't know. I don't know if he went to next. It might have been on a Friday night. I really don't know. But anyway, I just imagine he's like, I don't go to school anymore. I'm a Sith Lord. ⁓ not to to school. No, I've learned a lesson. Look, Eric brought me a lightsaber but just the just to have that memory. ⁓ what was really good to me? ⁓ And then just when we when the Mandalorian came out, like that was the first show that or the first like Star Wars movie or not even movies, TV show, but first of all, media or whatever that I'd really like gotten into that didn't centered around Jedi. was just the universe itself. And I really enjoyed that as well. So I know those aren't like super deep Star Wars moments. Like my favorite moment was when this droid did this or whatever. But, know, like I tried to go a little bit more mainstream at first thinking about And then I knew also there's the spinoff movies There's the TV shows like Rogue One was really good like the Darth Vader moment in Rogue One still haven't seen solo then there's planned to watch all the other things great so but then Mandalorian that's where you had the Luke Skywalker scene, right? Yeah, and then the end of the second Yeah, and so even that was another huge moment and that's just all these little things outside of the main section and then you have. Obi-Wan was a great show. I enjoyed watching that show. And I do think like with Marvel and a lot of other universe, whoever there was like a big like we're just going to throw everything out there and it was hard to keep up. So you kind of have to pick and choose what you're going to watch if you want to stay involved with it. But it's still I mean, that's why I chose when I did it I pulled up originally when I was going to like do this. It's like, what's the proper like the proper order to watch? things. Yeah. But then I was, I was looking and even that has discussions because there's a Shetty order. There's a release order. There's timeline order in my brain. wanted to do at least somewhat of a like chronologically how it's supposed and how it appears in world. So my brain could wrap around it because I've been, I think the memories I did was so far removed from star wars. Like I hadn't watched anything in a while, especially movie wise, especially I realized as I was watching them, I don't know for sure that I saw the last two in theaters or even saw the last two. I know it didn't say the last one at all. Whenever I was watching it this week, I was just like, I've never seen this. I've seen clips from it. I've seen moments. I was going to say, God bless you for rewatching episode nine because it's something. I mean, I'll be honest. I enjoyed it just for the fact. Yeah, there's moments. Somehow Palpatine returned. Yeah, I wasn't like so in depth in it, even though I just watched all the other eight that it was one of those major things. But for me, it was one those things. It was new where I hadn't seen anything in so long. Right. Right. and to also just be, especially since I wasn't hardcore focused on it. It was something that's playing in the background as I'm doing something else, like major focus on work, any breaks, I'll maybe like focus a little bit more. So I just saw highlights of it as I'm watching it. And so certain moments like hit me, the rest of it I've just kind of zoned out on. So it's not like I was super invested, but it did make me want to go back and watch all of the other things now. But I did have to take that moment and be like. I can't do this order. I'm not going to go watch whole TV series. Right. I was like, I'm not going to work. I just wanted to see the most like major nine movies. Like it kind of reminds me with like the Arrowverse. Mm Like I didn't watch all the shows in the Arrowverse. I watched Arrow and I would only go back and watch like the flash episodes that were crossover. Yeah. But even then there are some that are like. Like someone shows up in air and is like, ⁓ yeah, this villain was in the flash. And I'm not going go back and watch that, but just to that villain or whatever. I know the flash was good, I just you know, I did. Yeah, they really were. I just did not have the time or whatever. Yeah. All of them. A lot of it spun off to that super girl. You got it got so big that I didn't. But at least those first two arrow in the flash. I watched it again. It hit us at a great spot where we were married. We weren't doing we didn't have any kids. So we get home. We watch a show together, which, you know, we weren't TV people until we got married. And then you said at home, you know what? We have. we can watch all the Ivy wasn't a TV person either until we got married and it's like yep, we were watching all the So maybe it's all stints to you like I was hanging out with you and other friends and everybody's watching things. way, note, casting rumors, Grant Gustin has been spotted with blonde hair and some people think that James Gunn has cast him as Barry. I hope so. I hope so too. He was one of them. I really hope so. as like OG blonde Flash Barry. I would love that. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. Alright, well speaking of you know we had Star Wars Day coming up. Speaking of big days, we can't talk about the calendar without acknowledging that are the day we're recording. It's April 25th, which is the perfect date. You only need a light jacket. So I had this fun little like how do we commemorate April 25th? I'm like do we talk about Sandra Bullock? Do we talk about our? What are the perfect dates? We talk about the days on the calendar and I said no, no, no. We're going to all three and so I literally put our names in a randomizer. It did surprise me when I saw like my category was and I'm like, okay, we're just going to randomize these topics and each one of us has a topic and here's how it came out. Ashby, you're going to be doing your top three Sandra Bullock movies. We'll jump in and like, you know, ⁓ give our thoughts. Kyle, the romantic. Yeah, this actually works. I'm glad you're going to give us. Maybe the shine's right on me or people that's booed me on the internet. So you're going to give your top three perfect date ideas and And then Eric the scheduler. This works out great. This works out perfectly. The top three best dates on the calendar, excluding April 20 truth. I thought you really felt this out. I didn't think it was a random. I was like, makes perfect sense. Randomized and this is how it came out. And I'm like, you know what? We could not have planned this any better. So, ⁓ actually we'll start with you. Give us your top three Sandra Beluk movies in honor of April 25th. The perfect date. Okay. Really easy. Number one speed. Okay. Yes. Practical Magic. Okay. Which is getting a sequel. really? Yes. It will be out this fall. So and everyone came back. Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman. It's going to be amazing. I'm super excited. I would put this up there with like win Hocus Pocus. ⁓ okay. Okay. Cool. It is. think it is a typical like witchy woman, hot girl fall. must watch these movies and Practical Magic is right at the top. I'd never seen it until Erica. and that we watch it every year. So good. Number three, this might be sort of controversial. Do you guys remember Murder by Numbers? I do not. I remember the name. Sandra Bullock plays an FBI agent cop looking for a serial killer that she comes to realize is actually two high school boys planning murders. And one of those boys is played by Ryan Gosling at a very young age. And it is pre remember the Titans or post remember the Titans? might be right after. This has to be like, I didn't look up when this came out. I should have, but it has to be like, oh. five or six because I remember watching it high school, maybe early college was Ryan Gosling better committing murders than he was at playing cornerback because he was an absolute liability at cornerback. He's he's creepy. He's creepy. He's good. He's really good. And they're sort of like a pseudo sexual thing going on between him and Sandra Bullock on his end, not on hers, obviously. ⁓ And there's also sort of a pseudo weird thing going on between him and the other boy. that he's doing the murders with. There's some kind of power dynamic there. like, ⁓ very, ⁓ my gosh, Eric, help, help, the dude's at the end of Scream. ⁓ the ghost face. Yeah, yeah, Matthew Lillard. Yes. And ⁓ I'm horrible with names. ⁓ got Lusky. rich. Yes. ⁓ rich. So it's very like Yahtzee. Yeah. Yeah. You know that that scene that they did at the end of the first scream in the kitchen where you're picking up some vibes between Matthew Lillard and scale. Yeah. You hit me with the phone. ⁓ it's that it's that vibe where you're like, are they going to kill each other? Are they going to make out who who can say so? order by numbers just really hit me at the time. That was when I, because of course Ryan Gosling, very attractive. ⁓ And that was sort of my first iteration of like, if evil, why hot? Oh, fair enough. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I'm not questioning your list. I think it's a great list that fits you perfectly. I did want to your thoughts on some of these notable admissions here. I Ivy would kill me if I did not mention the proposal. Like you have any hilarious comedy in the woods. That's favorite movie ever. I think I also do have a for the romance girlies. did an honorary fourth one for while you were Sleeping. Beautiful kind of like rom-com. Either Miss Congeniality. Yeah, you know. I mean, I enjoyed Miss Congeniality when I watched it. It was funny. I saw Miss Congeniality too in theaters. I won Miss Congeniality in our senior year. every once in a while. The the one in a million will get stuck in my head. And I've seen it multiple times. It was really good. I just I like Sandra Bullock. She does comedy so well, but I like her more when she's doing action, to be honest. So the blind side never saw it, never saw the blind side. Yeah, I'm not a sport. But it's a great I mean, you constantly forget who you're talking to. That's fair. It's a fun. It's a great movie. Now established she was a nerd to be fair with to the blind side. The person that it's actually about Michael Orr actually like sued because I mean, was a lot of controversy around that about the accuracy of the film. Sandra Bullock killed it in that movie. Gravity. Did you ever see that with George Clooney? All right. Well, cool. Hope floats. Hope floats. I'll give hope floats an honorary because I remember crying when I watched that. ⁓ and the best fun fact about Sandra Bullock, know, East Carolina grad. ⁓ yeah. I know why. I don't know if I knew that it's between her and Vince McMahon as the most famous ECU grad. Interesting. I'd rather have Sandra Bullock. She's not been sued for stuff. So fair. All right, Kyle. Yes. Your top three perfect date ideas. Okay, so Erica and I have been technically started dating 19 years ago. So we started a long time ago Yeah, so my date nights now may be very different than your date nights depending on you know How old you are or how long you've been relationship? This isn't a they don't say that within negativity. It's just things are different So our date nights are nights that we are able to go off and someone else watches our daughter. So We're just not nice just times. So I went with a few different things. I went with three little categories some more more simple is this first one. ⁓ We will go get coffee drinks from wherever we happen to be at the time and then we'll maybe go get pampered and get like pedicures and so that way we're just together relaxing, no distractions, we're not on our phones, we just get to spend some quality time with people like at our feet but like just talking to each other, just honestly just catching up and especially since it's not a nighttime usually, usually maybe it's a Saturday morning or like a morning time thing we're able to go do this. It's just a different type of vibe. So I would just say that at that extent If you still wanted to add a little bit more onto that Maybe we go to like the record store and go like browsing there for just some new cool fun records to throw back to our times More new stuff. That's something we've gotten into more recently I did do a more fun one, which is more fun for us per se just of who we are But I would say we would go find sushi like whatever favorite sushi restaurant we have and then we would both head to one of our favorite bands that happen to be playing in concert locally just on that so same night and we just get to relive and pretend to be rocking out like we were when we first met each other 19 years ago. What's your go-to sushi roll? I don't usually go with rolls. I go to Nagiri a lot of times. I just like fish on rice. It's just kind of thing. Fair enough. I do like rolls. I'm not against some usually we'll find some place like we go to I was trying to remember. heard somebody pronounce it differently the other day. please. Yes. I'm trying to think. They said sushi. I will. We will feature. I think it's okay. I've always gone with the but somebody said I like in the last month and it's that's why it's a stutter because I was like, wait a second. Either way. Yeah, we do the boat for two there, which is always fun because everybody stare at you really weird and judge you for being people. Shrimp tempura. Yeah. If I can get shrimp tempura, avocado, some kind of like crunchy bits. I'm all about that. They have a boat for two. where it's two rolls of any of your choice and then however many pieces of nigiri, but so we'll do that and we'll split it. She'll usually get the rolls and I'll get the other, but she likes like a deep fried roll. ⁓ And she'll do that and she'll do, she's the person that doesn't like the raw fish just on the rice. But if it's mixed with other things, she likes it. ⁓ so I usually just go off of whatever she's having. And then the more romantic, I try to do this every day. doesn't have every year. doesn't happen every year, but I try every day. ⁓ Setting the bar here. mean, ⁓ usually it's around Christmas time. We get a break where, sky goes and stays with Erica's parents for a little while for Christmas times and stay a little further away. So I'll try to take a day and just make it Erica day. ⁓ so it surprising, you know, wake up with like fresh flowers, ⁓ maybe a new dress. This is waiting for her when she wakes up, ⁓ leave a little special notes all around. So she does like a scavenger hunt throughout the day. ⁓ which takes her through getting her nails done, getting some new makeup, ⁓ maybe getting hair. her done, whatever. So it's a whole pamper day for her. ⁓ and she's doing things and then surprise her by taking her to like favorite steak house or something like that for dinner. ⁓ and then during dinner, surprise her with like, your favorite musical or ballet is in town. We're heading there next. So we can't stay for dessert now cause we got to get going. Cause we're running a little late because we're always running late. ⁓ and then maybe grab dessert or something later if we're still hungry, but just something fun to just make it all about her for that day. ⁓ it's not something you get to do often and especially You know with kids with a child and I'll say that negatively I love being a dad's the best thing ever but yeah, but apparently they're just like they're all the time. They are. Yeah. Yeah, crazy You don't get to be as romantic. You can't just put them in like they're little like it was the last episode of community where I don't think I can create a child Jeff has this like dream sequence where him and Annie get together and then a kid comes out of out of the hallway He's like, okay go to your kid space. It's like and that's where you that's where you live Wow, that's amazing. Men take notes. Take notes, gentlemen. I will say I'll give credit to my dad. I learned from watching and every time where he was constantly like, wow, this is what you do is just watching him be who he is as a child, especially that led me down this road in my life. So it's awesome. That's that's impressive. My husband will tell you that my perfect date is when you give me a book and you leave me alone. And so like, yes, again, it varies for everybody. So I'm not saying these are perfect. Perfect dates from imperfect person. So I love it. It's just stuff that we would enjoy doing together. That's awesome. ⁓ What are your favorite three dates on the calendar? So I tend I tend to think about just times of the year, right? So I'm to give you actual dates because it's but it's hard. This is great, but it's hard to like and they're not holidays. No, no, these are truly random, truly random. I just like it's my birthday, my anniversary, but I'm going to give you like the time of year. So this these dates can change from year to year. I'm like April 25th is great because it's like, you know, you know, just a light jacket. But sometimes April 25th here in North Carolina is really hot. Right. I mean, rainy or rainy. or whatever. it's supposed to rain today. So you have to like we're in a burn band by the way, public service announcement. Oh yes, we are. Yes. So you have to kind of like match the date with the time of year and you might have to shift it every now and then. But I go back to childhood and even now as an adult who's a teacher the first day of summer. OK, so for that, I'm going to give you May 29th. OK, OK. Because you have your entire summer to look forward to. It's like literally the greatest feeling of like, OK, what I'm going to do today, I'm going to sleep till one. and then I'm gonna go do this. I'm gonna do this or whatever. ⁓ I was gonna comment on that date. I've worked since I was 16. Don't make it sound like I'm not a worker. Like I have worked, but when I worked my first full-time job after college, everything, I was working in a warehouse and I'd worked there for months at this point, but as it came around and I still had friends that were still in school at this point, Summer happened and they were excited and in that same day that was perfect for you. I realized I will never have a summer break ever again. That's one of the tragic realizations. Yes, it is. It's I was like, unless you become a teacher. Then I thought about it. It's like, we don't get paid during the summer, but it's okay. I mean, we need that time to recover. I was about to say, yeah, I don't, I don't be trying to sell it, Eric. I know the crap you put up with. still not worth it. Having summers off to me. No, but I do get envious during the summer when you're like, oh well. I played the day and then I went to the movies and there was no one in there at noon. Yeah. So, first day of summer, we're just going to give it May 29th as a generic date. like it. like it. Alright. And then I go to the fall. Yes. And that first cool fall day. I'm going to give it October 23rd because our summer. Yeah, they're starting later. I'm going to it. a great pick as any. So, I'm going to give it October 23rd. Depends on how wet it's been, how dry it's been. football on in the background. It's cool outside. You might. open the windows. That's right. It's sunny but it's You can have a fire at night if we're not in a burn band. If we're not in a burn band. That's right. Put this on. You keep up with my calendar still for me sometimes. So put that on my calendar. Yeah. Uh, maybe I can build a fire pit by then. Yes. We'll do a fire pit. I've been wanting to build one, but then I'm like, you're, you're going to build this, but you're not going want to have a fire in the of summer. So random aside, um, a couple of weeks that we had our house pressure washed and, we actually had our back porch pressure watch or whatever. So I had to take everything off the back porch and, um, we had like, these little like little couch outside or whatever and it's just sitting in the backyard and so Ivy goes out there and she sits and she's like this would be a fun place to like if we had like a screen like on the back porch here or whatever to watch a movie and I'm like you know what maybe we can hang something up here and really nice projectors aren't that expensive anymore ⁓ so first day of fall something like that we'll hang a sheet on the of the shop and we'll have a night really quick aside because this also reminds me I used to work at the Biltmore estate yes big I know that. Oh really? Somehow I missed that Oh yeah, I worked at the Biltmore estate for years in college, grad school, I did an internship. mean, Asheville is basically her second personality. I knew that, but. Yes, so I worked in like ticketing and reservations. If you call the 1-800 number, you would get someone like me to like help you over the phone. I worked in e-commerce, so like completing online ticket sales and like mailing people tickets back when you would like print them out and mail them. Physical I'm hearing is you should be running our merch site once it gets up and going. I mean, there's a long time ago. I a internship with Group Sales where I did like groups and event planning on the estate, which was phenomenal. It was a lot of fun. Love working there, great company. The point is, is that every fall, inevitably, we would have people call in and they would say, you know, we've heard that Asheville and the Biltmore estate are beautiful in the fall. We want to come visit, but we want to make sure we come at the right time. What day did the leaves change? Every, every year, every year I would get multiple. And you didn't have that scheduled. mean, like, Like we actually change it. We change our leaves on September 23rd. Yes. Yes. It's like, well, actually let me like ring ring mother nature. Hello. You know, it's like, back with God and it's so many factors contribute to when the leaves change every year. And it was just so funny to me that people not from the area would just think like I could, I could just throw out a October 19th. That's when you should come. They start turning orange. were green on the 18th and you'll wake up on the 19th and they'll be like beautiful riot of orange, red and yellow. Beautiful. Be careful on the 20th. They're brown. So yeah, be fast. All right. So, so far we have may 29th. have October the 23rd. Okay. We have first day of summer. have the first like really cool fall day in North Carolina. Okay. And then I like the winter, but it's not my favorite. I mean the cold. has Christmas. You know, I'm not. Yeah, it does have Christmas. It does have like the Super Bowl and the Royal Rumbles in those months. I mean, just a lot of, you know, fun things to look forward to. But I'm not like Elsa. The cold does bother me. OK. And it's it bothers me more the older I get. mean, like I just like I just complained about my feet being cold. So I'm going to give this to March 10th, the first like nice spring day. And I'm giving this to that day specifically because that was the day me and my dad got invited to play at Pinehurst two years ago. And it was like one of the really nice like first days of where you can go out and play golf in the morning. It's still kind of cool. It warms up a little bit by lunchtime, but it's not like scalding hot. Like we have, we have like three weeks of spring and in three weeks of fall in North Carolina, and then it's either just winter or summer. ⁓ and there's really no in between. ⁓ but that first like crisp spring day where you've been like it's winter, you're getting over your seasonal effect of disorder. ⁓ and the sun comes out and you can feel it on your skin. Um, you know, not like, uh, that song, you know, feel the rain on, know, you feel the sun on your skin. And, uh, and you just feel your happiness returned to your body. So we're giving that the March 10th. know that's also Mario day, you know, apologies to, uh, all you Nintendo fanboys out there. think you're just, or Eric, I think you're just describing the end of seasonal pretty much. every aspect, think you're just describing what happens when. When you come out of seasonal depression. Pretty much, yes. Seasonal affective disorder. Sad. Sad, yes. So my dates are basically the beginning of each season. I like it. Except for winter because that's Christmas. Winter doesn't start until Christmas. So yeah. ⁓ First day of summer, first nice fall day, first crisp spring day. Again, May 29th, October 23rd, March 10th. Adjust them as necessary. any thoughts from y'all? ⁓ I think they're great. Cool. Love it. Well, we've been keeping things pretty light and nostalgic so far, but I think it's time to turn the temperature up a little bit. Ashby. You wanted to open up the archives on a story that's got a lot of heart, a lot of hockey and a lot of friction. That's a beautiful way to describe it, Eric. And you haven't even seen it. I know. Would you like to give us your breakdown on heated rivalry? Oh, gosh. If you haven't seen this was a last minute addition to our script. As we were talking about it, as we were setting up, like, let's add it to the script. I really thought I told you guys about this. I can't believe I haven't talked about this, to be honest. It's become my entire personality to be. quite clear ⁓ and literally I was scrolling through my phone at dinner the other night and Daniel was looking over my shoulder and he was like wow like so your entire algorithm is just hockey now and I was like yeah yeah hockey and like hot dudes can you sing ⁓ Canada by heart now I mean it's a great not yet but I have learned what a power play is there you go yes Thank you. So now I'm like super into hockey. Can you describe offside skills? I still can't. I mean, you No. OK. Although I will say that I think one of the things that I'm getting into about hockey and to be clear, I used to go watch hockey games before I got into fictional hockey, ⁓ but it just wasn't super on my radar like it is now. I think one of the reasons I can enjoy it, even though I'm not a sports person, as we've proven time and time again on this podcast, is that hockey is actually very similar to soccer, which I played and also one of the only other sports I can watch and understand. And so I think that that helps, you know, like the idea of offsides, you know, the the idea of like where you are on the field and like the positions, offense, defense is very similar to soccer. The whole thing about like being in the crease and like puck drops and stuff like it just makes sense to me. I'm still having to learn. It took. ever to get used to the idea that hockey is not split into even periods because in soccer you have halves and then in every other sport you have quarters and so it's wild to me that hockey has three periods and you can't call them thirds. Correct. It's just kind of weird. It is really weird and you have two two two halftimes but you can't call them They're intermissions. Right. Two two intermissions. Anyway, so I've gotten I've gotten really into hockey in general but it's thanks to heated rival. So if you've been living under a rock or like maybe it's just not your thing, which is cool because it is romance. That's a nice boulder. Yeah, that's a nice boulder around Thanksgiving, Christmas. ⁓ Crave TV, which is a Canadian streaming service, launched a six episode show called Heated Ravelry. And it is based on a book ⁓ that is actually part of a series written by Canadian author Rachel Reed. And the TV show is written, directed, produced by Jacob Tierney, who up until this point has really probably been most known for his work with Letter Kenny and Shorzy, which are two sort of Canadian comedy sitcoms that ⁓ sometimes center around hockey, are very like bro-ish, a lot of bro comedy, ⁓ but also very like forward thinking, a lot of really ⁓ smart humor, very very Canadian and so he had optioned the books and decided that he was gonna make this TV show and it was sort of one of those things where everyone everyone passed everyone passed on it you know it's ⁓ a gay love story it's hockey rivalry ⁓ you know it is it had almost no well-known stars like almost zero people that you would recognize. So no one was gonna bring some huge social media following to it. So a lot of reasons now that I streamers, know, and producers and you pass on these things is because they want a ready-made marketing machine out of movies and TV shows. And unfortunately that means that a lot of like... smaller, you know, artistic, really good quality, quality stuff. No one takes a chance on it. But Crave did. They also got a grant from Canadian Public Television ⁓ and they made this beautiful show on a shoestring budget with two actors who were waiting tables to still continue to act as like working actors who were no names. Hudson Williams and Connor story. And when I tell you the beauty of this show, you just can't, it's just not something that you like move on from, right? Like I haven't felt this way about many fandoms in my life. ⁓ And this is just one of those ones where you're like, sure, I'm gonna sit down and watch this. Everyone's obsessed with it. And I did not watch it in real time. I waited until all the episodes were out because I was so busy over Christmas. And I sat down and I binge watched it. And it's like episode one, two, three. You're like, ⁓ hockey, hot dudes. I get it, cool. Episode 456, you're just like crying, sobbing, throwing up. Why? Why is this so beautiful? All the things. Why do I feel this way? Why is my heart trying to leave my chest? ⁓ It just tells this really beautiful love story. Really, honestly, it tells two beautiful love stories. ⁓ And so it's already been. sort of greenlit for season two, I think also a season three between all three of those seasons, they'll tackle most of the books ⁓ weaving in the stories in, you know, in the episodes because the game changers book series, Heated Rivalry is a book in the series. Two of the six books are about Shane and Ilya, which are ⁓ Hudson and Connors characters. And then the other books are about other couples in hockey. ⁓ And so they're weaving in sort of those multiple storylines, I think is the plan throughout the TV show. But it's just so well done. I'm gonna be really honest. I know we tried to be a family show, so I'm gonna give a content warning. It is rated R. It's rated R. It is not family friendly. Do not watch it with your children. Don't be like, ⁓ my eight year old likes hockey. We should watch Heated Ravelry together. It's at like Bridgerton levels of Rated TVMAX. There's nudity. Nudity. come after Ashby on TikTok about this. Yeah, don't, don't, and look, hey, you know, again, if you give it a try and you don't like it, that's cool. I know that like sometimes romance isn't people's jam. ⁓ However, I will say that it is romance taken really seriously, which I think as romance as a genre becomes much more popular because these franchises have been. really successful and so like Bridgerton and the samurai turned pretty and like Heartstoppers has proven that like people, not just women, people want to see really well done love stories taken seriously. I think that this is more proof of that. You know the next season of Bridgerton is gonna be based on a sapphic love story so they've done like a gender swap for one of the couples and so Francesca's storyline is gonna involve her and another woman. ⁓ And so I think finally, like we're getting to the point where Hollywood is like taking these things seriously. And there's clearly a huge market for it. ⁓ Poor Connor and Hudson went from being like servers at restaurants and just like hoping they could get jobs and little bit parts here and there to being internationally renowned overnight. ⁓ and everyone really wanting a piece of them, which has gotta be wild. And I think that ⁓ Cinderella stories like that don't really happen very often anymore. For whatever reason, I don't know if it's social media, if it's sort of AI, if it's the sort of idea of entertainment siphoning into these giant conglomerates. ⁓ The model has change for how, when and why people get famous. ⁓ but those two guys are handling it really well. ⁓ and I'm really excited to see what they do next because I know they will continue to work in between seasons of heated rivalry. I mean, Connor learned Russian in a few weeks for this role, is insane. He does full Russian Spanish for 20 something years. He already kind of has a way with language. mean, he's from Texas, but he speaks French. And so he was like, yeah, no problem. I'll learn Russian. He did the entire filming in a Russian accent. He never dropped it so he could like keep it. ⁓ And then you look at sort of what Hudson Williams does as Shane and you think, ⁓ well, you know. Right. Shane's a very internal person. You know, if you have no idea who Hudson Williams is as a person, it maybe doesn't seem like as good of an acting job. But then you get to see interviews with Hudson Williams and you realize how much of an external person he is with his personality. And then you're like, Oh, he was he was acting his face off, you know, because Shane is on the spectrum. So you everything has to be really internalized. But anyway, I just like so so recommend it's it's really, really, really good. I love that. And I love that we sprung this on you like literally 20 minutes before we started filming. Like, hey, we're going to add in. You're so passionate about the show. We're going to add this in. And you nailed it. Yeah. Oh, thanks. What is it airing on that where people HBO HBO Max or HBO Max? Max HBO, HBO Max, don't think it's Max. think it was HBO, HBO Go, then it was HBO Max, then it was Max, now it's HBO Max. Yeah. Also, ⁓ it's something that, just to find like a touch point for you guys, Connor's story, the only thing that you probably have ever seen him in before he did Heated Ravelry, and I really wish his career had taken off after this, but for whatever reason, it kind of didn't. The very end of the Joker movie with Joaquin Phoenix. Yes. Spoiler alert. OK, I counted to three. One, two, three. ⁓ when the guy in prison kills him at the end and you realize that that was actually the real Joker. That inmate is Connor Story. yeah. He had a four minute cameo in that movie. Wow. Yeah. And he he's so he's so good anyway. So, yeah. So you kind of know who Connor is. Yeah. OK, cool. All right. I did not. But now I do. Thank you. Thank you. And thanks for. ⁓ Yeah, of course. I enjoyed that. And I enjoyed listening to talk about it. And it's just fun when people are just passionate about things. And I love that story. Like you said, the idea of just two completely unknowns becoming sensations overnight. And it doesn't happen in this day and age. Because like you said, studios are just trying to get known IPs, known, you know, they want to have just guaranteed success and they don't take chances on things. So I'm glad this worked out. And I know we talk a lot about nepotism in Hollywood. I personally don't have a problem with it, but I think it creates less space for the average person who put themselves through acting school or film school to really have a fair shake to be honest. cool deal. Well, I don't think we would go an episode without discussing the MCU. ⁓ Kyle, I know you've been watching Daredevil. It's tough to follow the Daredevil. I'm passionate about Daredevil. Super before we get to ⁓ Daredevil Super Mario movie. ⁓ I that with Ivy. A few weeks ago. You've seen it. Yeah. ⁓ quick thoughts real quick before we get to the MCU talk. We enjoyed it. ⁓ Eric and I took Sky ⁓ on ⁓ we don't have Good Friday at work. We have Better Monday. Better Monday. on Monday. So we took her on Monday. I'm not so hard. I can enjoy more and I played games growing up, but I'm not hardcore. I'm like, this part's not right or none of that. Like we just had fun. I mean, if you grew up playing Nintendo games, it's a great movie for that. I mean, there's a lot of nostalgia. Fox McLeod showing up from Star Fox was a favorite because that's one of my favorite games from the Nintendo 64. I love the little shout outs to like Super Mario Brothers. to where you have Birdo and war and all the enemies from that game, which wasn't originally a Mario game in Japan. It was actually Doki Doki Panic. And then they reskinned it for America because the Mario to they released in Japan was deemed too hard for Americans. it is, by the way. Yeah, it was way too hard anyway. But I love that that call out or that shout out. I love the by the way, spoiler alert for all the stuff. If you're listening to this podcast, we're going to spoil anything. So just be aware. ⁓ I love the how they just give a lot of shout outs to little details from all the games. You saw shout outs from Super Mario Odyssey, which was on the switch. ⁓ Super Mario Galaxy, which the movie is named after. And then Bowser Jr. is from Super Mario Sunshine. Just really funny. It's funny that Bowser's tiny. Yes. ⁓ Really just super fun movie. And then I'm excited. They're setting up for a third movie with the again spoiler at the end of the post credit. you see Daisy show up and hey, maybe Luigi gets a love interest. Yeah. Or maybe we get Wario and Waluigi, you know, and Donald Glover as Yoshi is fantastic, hilarious, and he deserves all the Oscars. so anyway, ⁓ the MCU, you've been watching Daredevil season two. ⁓ I have not caught up on any of the stuff. So just give us your thoughts on Daredevil and ⁓ what we should expect from it. I'm not doing like a ton of spoilers or anything, but I would just say If you're not watching it, should, especially if you like Marvel stuff. But on, I know if it was the last episode or the one before we did, but we were talking about how we're kind of ready for Marvel to go back to like a street level version instead of all the gigantic thing. say this with the giant movies coming soon, but, we're excited. We'll see them. We'll actually discuss them in just a moment. Yeah, we're excited, but definitely we're hoping for some time in the future to bring it back to a street level a little bit some. And right now it's happening. Can we just get a villain that's just trying to take over the city and not Grounded. Can we go back to being grounded in something? Yes. And that's very much what Daredevil is. I didn't know a ton about Daredevil growing up. I knew who he was and that was the extent of it. I didn't know Deep Lore or anything. When Netflix put out the series, I did watch those. I really enjoyed those. To come to know him and then even when Disney has picked it up now for the past two seasons, I did like how they kept it and spun enough of it from the original. But at the same time, you didn't absolutely have to know all of the backstory. But I've you if you have the time, recommend going back and watching it. Kingpin is a villain that I really like, at least in the way they've done it in these, in this series, uh, Netflix and Disney, where I knew he was just a big dude. I remembered him from Spider-Man, the animated series growing up. Big, super just strong dude. He's really fat dude, but he's overly powerful, strong, smart guy. But you've seen a lot. I liked how in the first season they really didn't show a whole lot. They showed some, but it wasn't until like the finale you saw like, Oh God, he is. that horrible of a person strength wise craziness wise. And then into this you're seeing similar but he's the mayor. And so he's using that to do a lot of things in the background that he shouldn't be able to do. But the main storyline of this honestly some of it, without getting super political, but it's following how ICE is right now in America is the same way where he has a task force that's going after vigilantes or anybody pretty much against them and just. free reign to do with whatever you want to however you've got to capture them whatever you've got to do there's no rules regulates you can't stop them pretty much you see in some outside characters step in like the governor or other people and still not quite shutting anything down Matthew Lillard is in this season as a different character ⁓ which has been fun to see him evolve a little bit because you're only getting glimpses of him you're seeing a little bit more now but it's the same way this whole season Daredevil Matt Murdock is in hiding pretty much because they're after him Matthew Lillard? Yeah, he's in daredevil. Yes. I was like, do you mean Matthew Reese? I don't know. Oh, he is in it this season. think okay from like, you know, Scooby-Doo. Yeah, okay from scream. I think scream. He's like somewhat. I think CSI type related. I have I gotta I gotta watch all the daredevils. I've never seen a single episode. So what I know about daredevil I learned from she Hulk and his like cameos in some of the other like I watched to all the agents of shield. watched, know, obviously all the the Marvel movies in the MCU. So I don't I really honestly I don't I never even saw the Ben Affleck cursed production of Daredevil. Don't watch that. Yeah, I really want to come to that and understand how his power works. I'm going to be honest. I don't know. So watch the the first season of the Netflix Daredevil, which that's also on Disney Plus now. They have the rights. OK, I'm to go back. If nothing else than to prepare for Spider-Man, I'm to watch all how many episodes am I committing to at this point? It's like 13 episodes per season. Okay, and there's three seasons. Three seasons of Daredevil, but then you have Jessica Jones, Yeah, I'm not that. You should do Jessica Jones. You would like Jessica Jones. And then there's a crossover series called The Defenders, which is like six episodes or eight episodes. I'm not putting all of that onto you. Yeah, don't put it. But just the first season of Daredevil. Daredevil explains his powers enough to you realize who he is. then I really think you would like Jessica Jones just from who you are. but I don't have to watch like Luke Cage or the Iron Man or anything like that. But I do think if you watch the first season of Daredevil, and then you watch the first season of Jessica Jones, like Luke Cage gets introduced in the first season of Jessica Jones, you'll want to watch Luke Cage. There's only two seasons of Luke Cage and there's only two seasons of Iron Fist. I mean, that's a lot of stuff. know, I know. But don't commit to that. Just first season of Daredevil, first season of Jessica Jones, and then just see where you are. And then also like the Punisher is mixed in and all of that too. He's been in this season as well. And truthfully he's vanished. Like he got, he was one of the ones that got arrested and we haven't seen much of anything hardly since. So there's that question of where he is. We know from the Spider-Man trailer that he is in New York still at least. ⁓ we do see Jessica Jones showed up in this last episode. So she's in now involved in what's going on. ⁓ I was a little hesitant to recommend him to Ashby because. slight Batman vibes of just things like slightly darker but the fact the dude's blind so it's kind of got to be a little dark sometimes yeah also it shows literally yeah ⁓ but I will say to you, was time out. You're in time out for the next 60 seconds. It was talked about a lot in Daredevil in Netflix. There's a scene that goes down in history as being a giant, huge fight scene where it's one long shot, like it's huge, major like hallway, things. Right. ⁓ so was like just masterfully done, but there's a lot of stuff now that's done in the same way. Right. And you're starting to see a lot of stuff with Fisk where he's just, right. Some things have happened now that he's going off the deep end like he has no reason to stay whatever but there's a lot of stuff of that there's a lot of stuff of journalism and the new Disney ones where there's the major news outlet you're also seeing these lower level journalists that are putting stuff out online and it's making a big impact to now to the point of them trying to figure out who's putting out some of these things because they may get killed who is froggy he was foggy froggy froggy nelson foggy nelson falton from mighty ducks talking about hockey okay but he was matt murdoch's best friend and partner in law. Okay. So my only frame of reference for any of this is all of the Matt Foggy fan fiction online. Fair enough. Well, to start, does that make sense? To start. get what you're saying. You see it. You see what I'm. Okay. And that may would push you in because season one of the Disney one, literally first seen foggy dies. Spoiler, spoiler. I already know that. It's okay. But there's a lot of that. And even right now there's a lot of tie ins going back and forth talking about foggy. where we haven't for a while. OK, there's a lot of stuff. So either way, I know just went on and talking about little clips here and there, but it's it's great. one day between this and all of the catching up I have to do in the Star Wars universe. I still haven't seen the latest episode of Mandalorian, so I can't watch the movie until I do that. I'm just so behind. I'm going to get there. I'm going to get caught. There's no rush. It's all in your just need all the people to stop making content for like two years so we can catch up. And then we'll just complain about someone to pay me full time to do this. You that folks? We need subscribers. Please subscribe. I love my job, but it does get in the way of my nerdiness. like, share, subscribe so we can have so many subscribers that we get paid to do this so as we can watch all the stuff. And all that said too, you know, we know the Spider-Man movie is coming. It's in New York. It's where all this is happening in this movie or the TV show. Supposedly in this movie we see. Frank's in it, so I wouldn't be surprised if Matt doesn't have a cameo. You see that. You also see where Spider gets the key to the city. I think right and there's a different person and the mayor is not yeah, it's consistent or something Yeah, so it could be a variety of things like he could still be mayor. Yeah But either way, I definitely recommend checking out the series. It's really great. It's gotten Especially the last two episodes ratings on have been sky-high just just quality stuff. So Soon as I finish the Lincoln Lawyer, I will jump back into Daredevil. Yeah, and my one little fun fact about daredevil apparently ⁓ The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic was influenced by Daredevil. They were you know, you have the hand and then you have the foot and by other like there's a whole lot of a lot of different cross where tripped fell the same stuff that calls him to be blind is the same thing I think spilt in the thing turned him into Ninja Turtles. There's a lot of that so. deal. Alright, well tying in with the MCU, the Russo Brothers took the stage at CinemaCon. Absolute Pandemonium. We got the trailer description. Robert Downing Jr. coming out to sympathy for the devil as Dr. Doom. confirmation is December 18th as the 2026 release. know there was some talk about them moving that date. So it wouldn't coincide with Dune. ⁓ But they have confirmed that December 18th is the day that it's coming out. ⁓ So what was what was the the biggest? I'm upset with you over that. Have you all watched any of that? ⁓ You know, well, OK, so I watched the Robert Downey Jr. Russo Brothers, Chris Evans, like stage video. ⁓ I have refused for the most part, unless it sneaks up on me to read any of the trailer descriptions because I want to react to the actual trailer hitting my eyeballs in real time. ⁓ And we they haven't released it yet. So I've tried really hard to stay away from like the play by play. OK, it was also announced the end game is going to be re releasing it with new footage. that's going to tie the movie directly with Doomsday. You know, and while we don't normally get to theories and conspiracies, I know you brought something up in our chat earlier this week. Is there any theories you want to give of your own about what these new scenes will be in in game that will tie directly? is my third long side of this episode. This is why we only do these once a month and not every week. I feel like the new title of my autobiography is just going to be called. I'm so tired. So, yeah, I have some thoughts even without even without knowing exactly what's in the trailer, just knowing, you know, at this point, really, who is from an actor standpoint, right? So we pretty much have an idea from a character standpoint of who's going to be on screen. I mean, we have like 100 actors listed, so we don't know how time they're getting but we have an idea The bajillion chairs video as it will now go down in history. I think we have an idea of who's going to appear. What we don't know, which I think is very interesting and why I've tried to stay away from the trailer so I can react in real time when I see it is I think it's very important to remember what version of those characters we're going to see. And so that has always been what is up until this point excited me the most. ⁓ I'm so back in it. We've talked about how like, you know, I'm back, maybe like they sucked me back in. Here I am. I'm excited. I thought I was out. They pulled me back. ⁓ Just when I thought I was done with Marvel. ⁓ I think that's what's going to be the most interesting about all of this is, know, because the MCU being what it is and because of comic books being what they are, you get to really have there's I mean, let's just think about like Captain America, right? We know Chris Evans is coming back. He said the only reason that he agreed to come back is because the storyline was too good to turn down. are we getting, you know, like from the past clean cut World War Two cap? Are we getting spend an entire full life with Peggy Carter and apparently had a child cap? Are we getting Nomad cap? Are we getting return the stones cap? Are we like, what are are we getting? mean, guys, listen, get too excited, but like, what if we got a version of like Hydra cap? Yes. You know what I'm saying? Like, so that's that's what I'm so excited about. Honestly, is like there are so many possibilities, possibilities. And but here's the thing. And this is what Eric was alluding to and why I had a really long sigh is we have been led to believe that. these movies will pick up right after endgame, which is why they are re-releasing endgame in theaters. If I watched 18,000 TV shows in the interim for phase four and five, just for none of that to matter. I will be furious. I will be furious. So I do think a lot of this will matter because I mean, you've got guys like you got Shang-Chi in it and that movie came out right after in game. Right. You're going to have other fantastic four Thunderbolts, like all those characters. Right. I mean, we're going to see all that. It's going to be interesting to see how they interlay it, because if this is a direct single to end game, but it's also in this picking up right after in game, but it's also going to include the five years right like how is that you know going to so I I have two thoughts about this ⁓ and again you guys know how I feel about looking at fan theories online I try to avoid them ⁓ however and so these are my own thoughts I'm sure they've been talked about already ad nauseum but one you know caps going back and returning the stones what does that look like That's been my main thought in the fight of them bringing it back. I could be completely off, but that was just the main thing that came back where it's like, if you're going back to end game to show us more things, that's the one things we didn't see that people want to be aware of the questions about, but it's same way as like, what butterfly effects does that make with him going and taking things back? I've always, and there's explanations out there, but the fact of like Black Widow, she had to give her life for that stone to be given. So I was like, how does that return itself back? turn back and there's explanations. know I'm just vaguely saying, but there's a lot of this. If you go back and show all these things, what all happens that could cause glitches all amongst everything else. So when you also have to make it, I mean, this is like the general movie going audience that's going to go see this as well. So you can't, it cannot be so complicated that a ⁓ nine year old can't follow it. you know, like in the, sense that like, yeah, like Like you're going to have to find a way to make sure it's not a tangled knot. It's got to be a straight line. But some tangled knots. The other the other thing I immediately thought of was, you know, at the end of Loki season two, Loki is sitting on the throne as like the tree of, you know, sort of the god of stories, right? Holding all the timelines together in his hand to keep the multiverse from unraveling. Yes. So between that and the whole we're going to travel through time and put the stones back. How is this all so like in my mind what I'm sort of thinking is that post end game. So everything we saw after end game right Loki the marvels you know Thunderbolts all of these all of these TV shows sort of exist in different. Like we're actually watching, like they never told us point blank that all of that was happening in the one true timeline. So are what we're seeing different iterations, like different timelines, different universes, which to me would explain why in Thunderbolts Bucky's a senator for the United States of America, like in what world in an alternate timeline, maybe, you know, and so it kind of makes sense where we're sort of seeing maybe these little like glitches almost. Yes. Where things don't like they look right, but maybe one thing feels off. So like I'm wondering how that is gonna tie in maybe I don't know. My big question about the release the re-release of Endgame ⁓ how that's already a long movie that's already a three-hour movie. how long are these scenes that they are adding? you know, like, I mean, they're obviously going to be critical because they want us to see them. Yeah. But they can't be super, super long. I would think they're not going to add 20 more minutes to the movie. Are they? mean, well, I mean, as long as you tell people up front, you know, are they going to have an intermission to expect? I mean, I remember when they did the maybe not the I don't know if it was the director's cut or the theatrical release or whatever they did of Lord of the Rings where they said this is gonna be four hour movie. Just prepare yourselves. Gotcha. You're the choice to go see it. Right. knowing at a time. I don't know. In the same way though, there can't just be something that's whole same movie again and then here's just a different after credit scene. Cause the whole world will just too I will riot. I will burn it I mean that brings me to my next question and my last question. Are we going to go see the re-release of Endgame? ⁓ absolutely. I would go see it. Just because. Yeah. Knowing how much I enjoyed it in person anyway. Right. It would be a fun thing. It's same way. If it just coming back in general, it'd be fun to go see it again with friends. We can convince Ricky to come back with us. Yeah. He knows the idea this time. You may maybe don't tell him how long it is. I still remember. I still remember when we watched infinity war and that theater was packed and then it, know, you know, Thanos is watching over the sunset on, you know, on a great full universe and, and then just credits. And then first thing we hear from Ricky is, Well, that sucked. Not realizing a whole nother. I I've got like this little kid beside me like and he's like, like Spider-Man's dead. And then I'm like, don't worry, Hey, that's okay. Next movie comes out next year. It's okay. Yeah. You'll come back. So I think it would be fun. But again, maybe don't tell Ricky how long it's going to be. Stark. don't feel so good. Mr. Liles. You're not going to feel so good. We were already talking about, well, maybe about Titanic having to take a break between VHS. He's definitely not going to enjoy that. Ricky's like, I gotta pee. All right, well. to wrap up block one, which took forever. But honestly, like good discussion. I think it was great. I feel like this, we knew this was going to be a long episode. But to wrap up block one, since May is right around the corner and when this airs, it will be May 1st, I believe we're doing a quick May watch list like we did last month. What is the one thing movie show event, et cetera, that you're absolutely seeing or watching in the month of May? Yeah, I think I already talked about this the last episode, even So it drops May 2nd. knew that that episode would come out in April so it would prepare people. So I think I've already talked about the Devil Wears Prada 2. So by the time this episode drops it will already be out in theaters. Super excited about that. So I do want to talk about this is going to come out of left field. But this month being May and I don't remember the exact date that it comes out but there's a movie dropping in theaters called The Sheep Detectives. Yes. Have you seen the trailer? sent me this and she's like I'd like to see this. delightful delightful and look we had we literally just talked about how hard it is to get me in a movie theater these days I will be set for this it is the cutest little murder mystery do we have a date for that a whole host let me look it up a whole host of celebrities playing the voices of the sheep Hugh Jackman plays the shepherd which is hysterical and he this is not a spoiler alert because it's in the trailer Hugh Jackman who is the shepherd dies at the beginning of the movie. He's murdered. And he used to read detective novels to his sheep at night to like lull them to sleep. And the sheep decide that they're going to solve his murder. OK, that's awesome. Yes. I'm in. Yes. Delightful. I've seen this to me like a week ago. Hey, we should go see May 8th. So it's probably out right now. Well, yeah, beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah, I can't wait. I want to see it so bad. It looks so cute. The trailer I was giggling. It was so so adorable. So, the sheep detectives. All right. May's stupid busy for me between all the birthdays, the dance recitals, the graduation. ⁓ Erica's birthday, sky's birthday, your birthday, Memorial day, graduations, dance recitals. There's even more a tee ball. She started this past T ball. We got the schedule for that two days ago and it's literally all of T ball happens next month. on the same team. is. So if I go watch one, can go support both knocking out two at once. Turns out it's so impactful that I was on the way to a practice the other night and I get a text message from the one and Mandalorian and Grogu I want to see at some point I know I won't make it to the theaters. You know, luckily it comes out at the end of May so you can probably watch it in June. I'm just saying the likelihood of me making it to a theater in general. course in June you've got Toy Story 5 as well. So I mean we make time for all the movies. Yeah. So I can at least take Sky to that one. talking about the next two to three business months. Yeah. He will not be in a theater. No, mean I'll make it a Toy Story but just on our own like Erica and I go into something I don't know and truthfully she hasn't followed Mandalorian as much as I have so. It would make as much sense for her to build again. I'll be driving driving Ivy to the Mandalorian. I believe I think she'll just like love her and that'll be fine. ⁓ for me and this, you'll see, ⁓ while we were doing our second block, ⁓ the way we're doing it, but it's survivor 50 in the hands of the fans finale, ⁓ is coming out in May. We're, ⁓ watching episodes weekly. ⁓ I've got mixed feelings about the season. ⁓ you know, just, ⁓ we, the 24 cast members, which is the most they've ever had. ⁓ there's been a lot of twists, which apparently the fans voted on. I Want to see the results of this fan voting because some of these twists we did not ask for like we did not need a 45 minute segment dedicated to Zac Brown ⁓ In an episode of Survivor ⁓ and then the Jimmy Fallon twist on this past week's episode Literally sent one home one of my favorite contestants ⁓ And so not happy with Jimmy Fallon either ⁓ And I also find it weird that they have an idol named after Billie Eilish, but she is not commented on Survivor at all So like what what is the point of that? interesting. know, so, ⁓ and then apparently Mr. B shows up in the next episode, which I am kind of looking forward to, but, ⁓ so to be fair, like Mr. B's on beast games on Amazon this, this season, like the earlier Carolina, he filmed in on survivor. did an entire episode. Beast games is filmed in North Carolina, but they did an entire episode on the Island of survivor with the survivor host. Like it was a big ordeal. So the whole episode is dedicated to that. So, so I am, ⁓ like, said, but I'm loving watching a lot of my favorites. These were all 24 returning players. So people we've watched, had 12 from the before COVID era and then 12 from this past five years. ⁓ And it's a really good group of players. I'm really enjoying it. And I really, as much as I am nitpicking over some of the things I wish they hadn't done, I wish they would just let the game speak for itself and not try to keep bringing in so many twists and turns. It's still Survivor. And for the most part, there are some notable exceptions, but for the most part, even not so great a season of Survivor is still pretty good television. I think she won her season from one of the very first season's of Survivor, Tina. Tina Wesson from season two. The Australian Outback. my high school youth pastor's wife's aunt. Okay, nice. Yeah, fun story. That is a fun story. She actually returned on season eight and season 27. Okay. And she finished fourth in season 27. She was voted out first in season. That was all-star season and they were like all the people who were on there who weren't former winners. Like we got to get out the winners. We're not going to look at this again. she was targeted early. So anyway, Survivor 50 finale airs in like the third week in May. So that will be my pick to watch. Cool. Alright, so let's move on to a retro ad read. This episode is brought to you by the 2003 Nokia 3310. Tired of your phone screen actually surviving a drop? Neither are we. With a battery life that lasts until the heat depth of the universe and a version of Snake that will consume your entire social life, it's the only brick you'll ever need in your pocket. Nokia, connecting people mostly through incredibly loud polyphonic ringtones. Block two, the survivor tribe draft. We're heading to the island. We are going to be drafting the ultimate six person survival survivor tribes where each drafting six people using fictional characters. We do have one rule of the franchise rule once a character is taken from that world for your team like Star Wars or the Avengers then that entire franchise is locked. So you cannot draft. mean, hate it. I made it really hard. Well, but here's the thing. Any fictional like fiction has like millions of characters. Yeah, I know. So no double dipping. remind myself that like the world was my oyster. I like, I can literally pick any audience. Yes. You do have slots that you have to slot your draft pick in the slots are strength Puzzle master social player tribe leader survivalist and wild card. Yeah, so I feel so strongly about my choices I didn't pick a lot of alternatives nice. Yeah, and this is not a rule necessarily I should have added this is real but it's not but typically survivor tribes are ⁓ Split into equal number of men and women. Okay, so I'm gonna try to be following that rule, but that's not necessarily a hard rule for you anyway in the name of feminism. Okay perfect. ⁓ So the draft order I know Ashby went first last draft we did. Yeah. Kyle you're going first this time. Alrighty. And then I'll be going second and Ashby you'll going third. middle. Eric's in the middle actually. Yeah, but like, physically, Kyle's always in the middle, so he doesn't get to go first a lot. So I like that. You're going first, So when you met just in the interest of time, by the way, I'm going to try to speed run this. I'm not going to do a lot of like, I don't have big reasons behind my people. Yeah, I think it speaks for itself. Absolutely. Just make your pick. Let us know what spot they go in there. Just, you know, short little whatever. And then we'll move on. I will say before like a little short. knowing adverse pick made this really hard because there's two people I want to choose for two things. One, I don't think you're going to choose, but you may choose somebody in the universe that takes them away from me. But the other you may choose this person, right? And you may not, but I'm going to go with them anyway. Okay. Who's first? my social player. All right. Ted Lassow. Yes. I knew you were going to choose. Literally. have two people listed on there. My social player tier and Ted Lassow was my first option. knew my other, my second choice was a belief sign behind your head. mean, if you move a little bit, there are another reason that I really thought a second ago is like, I think he is going to Lassow's because you said, it can be anybody in the universe as you glance past me to knowing that's behind me. That wasn't the reason I glance back there, I'm having to look at all the books on my shelf. yeah, I just think social player. Oh, I can ask for going great team player. This why we this is why I like doing drafts because you know, especially you can take each other like with our music draft. It was great because we all pick different things and we never. Yes. But this is where we're going to threaten each other. So this has some some potential for way more. overlapped in the music. Yeah. So, well, Ted Lasso, number one, very social player. He's everyone's going to love him. And what I'm going to do after we're done with this and this will be something I don't know if we'll do an update or maybe we will next episode, but I'm going to put in everyone's picks and I'm just going to have chat GPT or Gemini simulate a season of Survivor to see who ends up winning. OK, nice. So just a heads up on that. So, Ted Lasso, number one, I have the second pick. I don't know that Ted would have been my first pick overall, but he was definitely on my list and he was going to be alone in my like, I got you type. ⁓ I'm not, I'm going to shy away from puzzle master cause I have like four people there. ⁓ I'm going to jump into my survivalist category and I'm going to pick Katniss Everdine as my pick for the survivalist. So was she on your list or was that she was my number one? Okay. I have a second. Hopefully you guys don't take, have a second to, so, but she, know, Katniss Everdine literally survived the hunger games. like twice. mean so like knows how to take care of herself. Yeah. Ashley you're up for two picks. I think I'm just gonna go in order. ⁓ cool. Yeah. She's so strong. I feel pretty good. I feel pretty good about it. Okay. Strength we're gonna go with he man from Masters of the Universe. I'm great choice Yeah, kind of kind of didn't see that coming However, he's been top of mind because there is a Masters of the Universe movie dropping soon with Nick Galatazin who I've talked about with red white and royal blue as he man or Prince Adam ⁓ So I've been thinking about it lately and I was like, you know, kind of like, you know, it came out of a toy franchise I feel like maybe not a lot of people We're even like looking for Masters of the Universe movie, it So they dropped the trailer recently the full trailer and it actually looks really good. So there's a huge following. Yes Yes, yeah, so I'm excited about it ⁓ puzzle master I'm Holmes. He was on my list. yes. That was very good and he I almost went with Sherlock Holmes but there's I have three other people and so if I lose one of them, I'm fine because I can only pick one for that slot anyway. That's right. But Sherlock Holmes is going to be the master like puzzle master but socially like how is he going to fit in with the group? I love that dynamics. Yes. Very good picks for Puzzle Master. So, I still have it's back to you. since you went strength, I still have two people like that I'm considering for strength on my boards. I'm going to just. You know, maybe Kyle will leave one of them for me. I'm to go to tribe leader. Okay. Uh, and I'm to go with someone who led a revolution for the entire galaxy. I'm gonna go with Princess Leia Organa. She was on my list. it. Love it. That's a good one. That was a good choice. Yes. And I've got, I've got two girls on my, on my team so far who are going to kick major butt. right. Uh, Kyle, you're up for two now. Yes. Uh, I'm up for two. Yeah, you have back to back picks. I'm sorry. Sitting in the middle of the to really screws me up on this whole back and forth. So let me mansplain drafts you. I understand. It's it's just how it's how it's like. I'm here like looking at you two like, wait, so whose turn? Right. That's a good choice. Oh, yeah. I like her to. Yeah. Here I am. Let me just break this. know how it works. Let me just sit down for you. When I say it's your turn, it's your turn. Thanks. I can live by those rules. Speaking of tribe leaders. Yeah. This I would be voted off like second. by the way, just, yeah. This one I'm gonna go ahead and get. don't think, I don't know if y'all choose anybody from this world, but Puzzle Master, I'm going Batman. Greatest Detective, I didn't know, I knew none of you would choose Batman, but I didn't know if you would end up choosing like Superman or something. Kyle? You know I'm a huge Batman fan. No, I'm not that dumb. But I may not understand lines, but I know you don't like Batman. So we'll go with him, Greatest Detective. I think he'll fit great in that role. It's weird because I have a tribe leader and I can go with the obvious and that would mess you guys up if you want anybody else in that universe. But I think I'm going to go completely off the grid and go Optimus prime. Oh, okay. Find somebody different than the more obvious choice. So if he can leave the transformers, he can lead Ted Lasso and Batman. I like it. So Batman universe is cut off is what I'm hearing. know, DC, DC. Okay. Well, then I'm to go ahead and cut off Marvel. Wait, has Marvel been picked? No, it's back to you again. Sorry. Again, my turn. Yep. As we was over here, but it's not her turn. I'm going to draft my strength person now and I'm going to grab Thor. Oh, good choice. You know, he's literally like the god of thunder. I mean, he can help start fire that way. mean, I'm assuming he comes with the, you know, Moneer, his hammer or his axe or whatever. And so like just chopping down trees, you know, providing for the tribe. mean, whatever. I mean, I think, and I think him and I think you'll have a good respect for for Katniss and Leia and I think it's gonna mesh this tribe well together. Absolutely. Thor. Ashby is up for two, Kyle. Up for two. I know it's just not my turn right now. So social player. Yes. I'm going to go with Alexis Rose from Schitt's Creek. Nice. think Alexis would be an excellent social player. I love it. That is her forte. Yeah. Ew, David. And then tribe leader. So I thought about this and I also was thinking about a very specific person in the Marvel universe, but I thought it might get taken from me. So I'm gonna go with Hermione Granger. Hermione was actually on my list for Puzzle Master. thought she would be a great tribe leader. She ends up being Minister of Magic. Yes, whole thing is that she's super smart. She's the reason the trio makes it as far as they do. get that. dying, yes. But really when you start to look at Hermione's character arc over the books, yes she does become Minister of Magic, but also, you know, she really is the leader of Order of the Phoenix, the kids version, like when they when they form sort of the the Dumbledore's army, the Dumbledore's army. She sets all of it up. She sets all of that shadow puppet setting up everything. Yes. So I really think of her, I think, from this point of view, as like the person who would bring the whole group together. Nice. It's a good choice. It's a really good choice. And that makes my choice for my next pick very easy as well. I'm gonna go to a wild card. Someone who's just gonna maybe sow some chaos. I'm grabbing Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. I mean, he's the worst pirate you may have ever heard of. But you have heard of him. Just, you know, he's gonna be someone who kind of plays by his own rules. ⁓ You know, but he's gonna be useful out there. you don't sure if you can trust him like in an alliance. mean, I think he's he would be a make a great, great TV as a survivor player. So my wild card is Jack Sparrow. And I had another person here, but I think this might be where Kyle might be going because me and Kyle are on the same wavelength here on a lot of our picks. So it's possible. Yeah. So you're up for your next two picks. Well, I'll go ahead and take my wild card. And I thought you were about to take him even with starting with the letter J. I'm going to take John Wick is my wild card. Not where I thought you would go. So I'm going let him be. If you're on his team, you're on his team. So hopefully that would be a good thing. Yes. Uh, it's when you try to his dog alone. Yes. If he wants his dog there, it is more than welcome. Um, we are not touching that dog. That dog gets first eats off everything. Uh, trying to serve. got survivalist or strength lift. I'm going to survivalist survivalist. This one's a little off. the common thing for us, but I'm going to go with Steve from Minecraft. ⁓ okay. has the ability as if you've ever played Minecraft or watched Minecraft or just watch people play Minecraft. He breaks down blocks and is able to rebuild his source resources out of those same blocks. So he's, he goes and like mines things to turn them into other things that he needs to make things happen. So he's an alchemist. I guess so. Sure. He's resourceful. He does all the things. That's a word. Yeah. Add that to my list of chef's gifts. Yeah. I learned things. That's a word that I'm gonna hear a whole lot now that you said it chef's kiss I hear more frequently than I ever did but as we said it first for me and then there's another one that I can't remember what it is but either way if again if you don't know he is a little bit harder to understand but yeah if you watch anything the whole point of Minecraft some going around breaking down things getting resources and rebuilding new things out of this so that's literally his entire purpose of being so he's my choice so you have strength left for your last ⁓ You've got two picks left, what categories do you have left? I have survivalist and wild card left. OK, so I've picked both of those. So I have social player and puzzle master left. I'm going grab my social player ⁓ and this is going to be a little weird in terms of. I don't know how like youth people may think that they're going to mesh with everyone. But when you think of social circles and who can like run a hierarchy of social circles. Well, my mind goes to Regina George. She had that entire school on lock. That's true. And she had people. Phoning over her, like literally like confessionals, Regina George, it's flawless. Like those are those, those could be repasted into survivor, you know, Regina's horse just punched me in the face. It was awesome. It was awesome. Like who is going to vote her out? I mean like so like so the social player aspect, it's kind of the opposite of Ted Lasso. I mean, I'll give you that. But I figured I needed to have one of the two extremes. I'm to go with Regina George as my social player here. OK. And I'm going to save my puzzle master for the last slot, who also might be kind of a villain. So OK. OK. You've got an interesting pot of people like stirring over there. Yes, I do too. I'm here for good television. Yeah, they're going to really turn on them. So I'm hoping the team like works together here. But no. Okay, so survivalist. I'm gonna go with, and you guys are not gonna know who this is, I'm gonna have to explain it. ⁓ no. I'm gonna go with Coulter Shaw. Okay, please explain who Coulter Shaw is. Coulter Shaw is a character in a TV show on CBS called Tracker. It's in season two, they're already confirmed for season three. Played by, oh no Ashby, don't let your IMDB brain let you down now. Played by. by Justin Hartley. ⁓ yeah. OK. Yeah. Yes. Of Smallville. He was aro before Arrow was arrow. Yep. He was also on a lot of other things. But ⁓ it is based on a book series by Jeffrey Deaver. And it's basically Coulter Shaw was raised by a survivalist father and was taught how to hunt, track, survive in the wilderness. And his father died under mysterious circumstances. And now he's an adult who lives out an Airstream and travels around the country and his entire job how he makes money ⁓ is he finds people. he's a he calls it ⁓ he's a rewardist. So when the cops won't help you or you know you've hit all these loose ends you see all these missing posters for people like my brother went missing in the wilderness or my sister never came home and I'm offering a five ten fifty you know eighty thousand dollar reward whatever. He will go and find those people and accept the reward and that's how he makes his money. He uses his skills to find and help people. And it's a really great TV show. Okay, so I he would fit well in the survivalist mode. Yes, culture shock. Nice. Okay. And then your last is your wildcard, right? Wildcard with tough. And I really, I thought of the wildcard slot as like Not like a wild card in skills, just like a wild card in like literally doesn't fit into anything else and like makes my selections seem truly random. And to be fair, she does have a lot of marketable skills. ⁓ But my wild card slot is Dana Scully. Okay. Yes. Yeah. feel, I feel that nobody said you're in the jungle here. Even though survivor technically usually is you could be aliens or anywhere. Right. I love it. mean, she's a medical doctor. She is an FBI agent. So she knows how to handle a gun. You know, she's used to dealing with like molders, insane wild theories and the adventures he gets on. So she can really handle, you know, aspect of it really well. So yeah, that's my, that's my wild card slot. Okay. ⁓ My last pick is for Puzzle Master and I have two picks here. I have three females on my team, so I'm going to go with the male choice here to even it out. ⁓ This person is a genius, like literally a genius, ⁓ but does not would not. mesh well in the social aspects, like if he does not get his way. I could see him being the very first person voted out. But I can also see them keeping him around a lot because he's good at puzzles and he's also good at science stuff. Like he would be able to start a fire, like if the world wasn't able to. So, okay. I'm going to be able to Walter White from he thought about him. Okay. He literally is. ⁓ I mean, he's a he's a biology teacher. Yes, but he's so much smarter. He was able to make like sell it. He's going to win because he's going to everyone else addicted to meth. But the thing is, if he doesn't get his way, he will explode. He has that dark side to him. I'm trying to picture him interacting with Thor, Regina George, Princess Leia, who's like gonna shut that stuff down immediately. Cat is like, let me just grab this bow I made and just shoot this guy. And then Jack Sparrow is gonna be like, no, think he has good ideas. Let's listen to him. Like, I'm just, you know, just trying to see that interaction. Like it's probably not the best tribe, but in terms of fun television watching. 100%. So Walter White, I'll share my altar, my honorable mention after Kyle makes his last pick. But yeah, this was fun. So Kyle. You were doing your wild card and you said skills and immediately made me like think I should have picked Napoleon Dynamite for my wild card. He's got great skills. So I gotta have some good skills. but I didn't. I had strength and I literally had one person. I thought about Marvel Universe as soon as I started. was like Marvel's probably out the door. I'm not going to rely on that. Same way with like DC. Same way with lot of these things. And I was like, wait a second. Why am I even questioning? It could only be one person. One person only is John I'm not even gonna throw a flag on this. I love it. Are we gonna accept that like John Cena as a personality? He's a fictional person, he's also in a comic book as John Cena. I will allow it. As someone who cheats all the time. He plays a character on television. We made it to the end of the draft before I was gonna throw it back. So you get a free one. Yeah, can't. Him as a person versus his character on TV or two different people. So they dress different. Yes, even though he's retired now you just imagine that John Cena could probably be strong in general dude is like stupid strong, but yeah, he could probably handle tons of things plus He actually fits very much very well in a lot of these roles. I mean Ted lasso would be best friends Yeah, I think like yeah full stop I mean again my people are hoping they actually work together so I can kind of see him being level-headed enough, but also You know strong enough to do physical things but mentally also to be able to handle whatever needs to be handled. got you. So yeah, I'm looking forward to what you guys say about it. my honorable mention. George gets hit by a transfer truck cop from his prime. Straight arrow. My honorable mentions, I had Bane and strength, then Batman got taken, so I had to take him off. That's why I took Thor as early as I did. Beth Harmon from The Queen's Gambit was my Puzzle Master alternate. OK, makes sense. Let's see. Moana and Rick Grimes were tribe leader possibilities. Daryl Dixon, also from The Walking Dead, was survivalist. Michael Scott from The Office was a wild card possibility for me. OK, I can see it. And then I thought of some as we were sitting here. Sean Spencer would have been fun at Puzzle Master student. He was my alternative. Yeah, he would have been great. Like if he was my alternative. And I honestly thought you might take him for me. So I really thought about it towards the end. Like, do I really want Walter White? Like, I mean, I do kind of. But story wise, you're really good. Yeah. What a what a honorable mentions that you have. one that was randomly out there but the other social players so other than Ted last I only have one it was John Keating it was Robin Williams character from Dead Poets Society oh yeah I was trying to just think of something that Robin Williams did as a character that could bring people together there was a couple different movies I thought about using Robin Williams from but then I was like overall he was able to bring those kids together level-headed anyway people a lot of the other people didn't necessarily want to but I would love to have him in a lead role if not so okay makes sense So Sean Spencer was my alternative puzzle master. And then the only other one I had an alternative for. And I knew it was probably going to get taken. So that's why I ended up doing Hermione Granger. But for tribe leader, I had Nick Fury. Nick Fury. I'd Captain America. Yeah, it's like very nice. Yeah. Same way I Princess Leia. My only wild cards I had Yoda or Luke Skywalker. I was like, there's some else from there and there. But very cool. All right. Well, I'll let you know the results of our draft once we do it. We will probably reveal them on air next month as well. people are curious. of things that happened ⁓ from our last episode, Ashby went five for eight in her WrestleMania picks. did a great job. that in there. mean, hey, that's pretty good. She both main events wrong, but then she did really well after that. So yeah, it's a good stuff. let's wrestling bracket. did really good based on nothing but vibes. Hey, yes. is time for block three, the rental shelf roulette. So here's how we're going to play. I've got 10 movies from the golden age of the local video store. We'll just say nineties and two thousands. Okay. And for each one, I have four clues. ⁓ the first clue is going to be a bad plot summary. I'm pretty much the more confusing, the better. I'm going to give you a bad plot and see if you can figure it out. If not, we'll go to clue two. ⁓ the era vibe is going to be the tech or the trends associated with it. Okay. Clue three is going to be the staff pick. So the cryptic advice from the guy behind the blockbuster counter, he's gonna, and then clue four is going to be the dead giveaway. the quote that everybody knows from that movie. Okay. So, um, there's really no stakes. I mean, if you get it on clue one, you get five points in blockbuster legend status. If you don't get it until we get the clue for you're getting zero points and paying a late fee, but this is like who's line is it anyway? The points don't matter. I just imagine it's the little like golf tee game. That's a cracker, bro. It's like you're in ignoramus. If you don't win. Yeah. If you, you, if we get the clue for you can have to apologize to the listeners for your lack of culture. These are all movies that I think you will definitely know. Okay. did try these on some people who earlier this week and most of them got it by at the end of clue one or clue two. don't think I ever made it. There was one movie I had to make it all the way clue four and they none of them had seen the movie. I think at least one of you will have. OK, so and for those of listening home play along, see if you can beat these two before they start guessing random random titles from the 99 cent bin. So are you already are we competing or working together? Yeah. What do you want to do? OK, we'll compete first. Shout out your answer when you know it. Well, you got what noise are you making? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. doesn't doesn't doesn't doesn't doesn't It doesn't It doesn't It doesn't matter. It doesn't I'll give it to I can't just be like, it was the matrix. Other clues were high demand for green monitors and floor length trench coats. You'll start looking for a landline phone everywhere and then I know kung fu. Alright. Movie number two. A man with a talent for running accidentally influences the twentieth century. ⁓ Yes, that's correct. Also, I to back my mic up because I'm not like killing everybody in their cars. Also features a high stakes ping pong match and a shrimp business. We need buzzers. You know, I do have buzzers, but they're at work. So next time, next time I'll bring buzzers. the equipment. ⁓ Number three, an ex couple spend a weekend in the Midwest trying and failing to finalize their divorce because the man proves he's better at science than his rival. Twister. Yes. was gonna shout it out, but I was like, let me give it just one more minute. Let me finish the clue before you go. Okay. Notable for making everyone in 1996 terrified of flying farm animals. Rent this if you want to see a red dodge Ram get demolished and we got cows. Jesus Joe, is that what you think it did? Yeah. And that's a clue that I'm very proud of ⁓ because it has nothing to do with the movie other than the fact that they are trying to spend a weekend in the middle of trying and failing to finalize their divorce. Also like mad shout out to Jamie. I literally just rewatched this like last week because it's finally I think on HBO now it's streaming and she really her performance is so underrated. She's like when you you know when you told me you used to chase tornadoes deep down I just always thought it was a metaphor. So y'all got them on clue one first or the first clue every time Kyle's got two you're at one. All right let me finish the clue. All right number four. A struggling small business owner enters a high stakes gambling tournament in Nevada where the primary currency is causing blunt force trauma to strangers. Fight Club. That is incredible. don't think so, but it's like a try. We can move on to the next clue if you'd like. feel like I know it, but I can't remember the title of the movie. ⁓ you would remember the title of this movie. Clue number two. This is the the tech and trend associated with it. OK, it features a pirate purple spandex and training with wrenches. I've already lost there, right, because I've already guessed. ⁓ Unless you want to give a shot. No, you're good. Dodgeball. is dodgeball. OK, I was like, yes, no idea. Actually, I thought it was ⁓ counters. yeah. With Kevin Spacey? Yes. Okay. The Vegas thing threw me off. so cows up three, one clue number one for the next movie. NASA decides it's easier to teach oil drillers how to be astronauts. Armageddon. That is correct. And, ⁓ the next clues feature Aerosmith pretty much number six. An engaged woman uses a catastrophic maritime disaster as an excuse to ghost her fiance. Poseidon Avenger? No. An engaged woman uses... I was thinking of like a modern. No, that's hilarious. And that's where the title of this episode comes from. This movie is so long. It famous requires two VHS tapes in one box. That's funny. Number seven. I kind of forgot she was engaged, to be honest. Mary time gave it to me. I wasn't thinking boat first. I was like, Mary, good time. ⁓ Number seven, a man with a very specific family tree decides the most patriotic thing he can do is commit high stakes federal larceny. If Ashford doesn't get it. National treasure. is national treasure. These are really good clues. Thank you. They're throwing hard on these. That's why we're doing all 10. I'm just surprised. I usually horrible at names. I think these are just movies that's seen a ton. So that's why. just remember these are all from like mid to late 90s slash early 2000s. Like nothing past 2005. don't next movie, a helicopter parent travels across the ocean to rescue his kid from a dentist. Kyle, you want to give it a shot? Taken? Finding Nemo. Finding Nemo is correct. Again, I wasn't even thinking about cartoons. Features a group of sharks trying to start a vegetarian support group. number number nine, I don't know. I've lost count of what Kyle's at now. I think you're at like, I don't know. I've got two. I'm just surprised I know things. So. A homeschooled teenager moves to a new town and learns that the easiest way to make friends is to join a popular girl's entourage and slowly destroy her life. Mean girls. Yes, it is mean girls. Thank you for waiting for me to finish the collision. You get double the least did a faint. Thanks for giving it to me. I appreciate it. I'm trying coach. last one. An elderly man convinces his gardener and a few local drunks to go on a multi-month hiking trip just to return something to the top of a mountain. I'm not stealing this one from you. You should not. I haven't seen it so I can't say that's right but you know what it is. Oh my gosh. Why am I so terrible? going to throw something like you're at her cup out of the way. I'm going to put my arms on the table so she can't flip it. I'll go to the next clue. This is notable for making every teenager in 2001 wish they had a cloak. Okay. Third clue. I think my brain is just like, it's a three hour. This is from scrambled. is from the blockbuster staff member who's Lord of the rings. Yes. Fellowship of the When he said cloak and I was like, it's not a Harry Potter. I was thinking of an invisibility cloak. Oh, mean, is that an accurate description of the movie? Sure. Kind of. We seen it. So we don't know. really don't know. Okay, I don't know if you should use the word return. I would have used the word destroy. Okay. Fair enough. Kyle understood what it was. Which is insane. That's because all that I know. think we found her new useless aggression for this one. All that I know of Lord of the Rings I learned from clerks too. So that's the extent of it. So Kyle, I think you took that one. I'm not angry. I'm just disappointed in myself. I wish I had a medal. I'd wear it around all week. This will definitely be making a return in a few months just because I like seeing the frustration. So I hope y'all I the... it was called, rental shelf roulette. Yeah, you wrote it. You should know that's right. That's right. Alright, so it's time to open the pressure valve. We're at the end of the episode. ⁓ we have all those tiny insignificant things that drive us absolutely up the wall. The heels that we are prepared to die on for no reason other than pure unadulterated spite. It is time for useless aggression. The floor is open. The mic is hot and I personally am not liable for the things that are said in the next few minutes. Ashley, you are in the hot seat first. What is ruining your day. Look, here's the thing. Some call them haters. I just call them fans. Apparently we got our first ugly comments. We're popular enough now on YouTube. Our YouTube shorts are doing really well. And people don't like our useless aggression clips because apparently they don't understand context. So if you don't listen to the whole episode and you just listen to me rant about how feminism killed Buffy the vampire slayer, which was meant to be funny, by the way, ⁓ it's literally called useless aggression. It's it's being mad without like having to actually be mad. OK, it's useless. Maybe it's for fun. Don't watch the one clip and use that clip to go find context. But also, like, I don't know. Just keep watching our clips. Give us the views. Stay mad. You know, I don't know. Whatever. But no, that's cool. I like I came up with this ⁓ catchphrase a few years ago ⁓ and ⁓ the context doesn't matter anymore. But I'm still thinking about making stickers and ⁓ and also poor man's copyright before I say it right now. And it goes like this, be mad, stay mad, die mad. Kyle, you're to go second. I've never gone less on this. So, I'm going less today. Okay. Um and I think mine's very valid. So, anyway, I'll let you go is go here. Yeah, I'm going have to read it straight from here because I it's a I don't know if I'm going to have to read mine too and I don't know. Mine might not fit into a minute. So, I'm going to try my best. Yeah, we'll just go. Alright. Okay. Go. Back in 1985, McDonald's began testing and intima do dual drive through lanes. You hear that? Nineteen eighty-five. So they've been around longer than I have been alive and yet some of you still can't figure out how to drive through them. A few weeks ago I was running early so I thought I'd grab a tasty breakfast burrito before work, gotten my order in, I moved ahead waiting behind the car in front of me and as I'm waiting I see the person in the other drive-through lane finishing up their order and come on up and I can tell just by the way they're driving up and avoiding eye contact that they are about to jump me in line. The line moves, yep, here they come barging in in their F150. They must be running late or something because they had to skip me in the line. I make it up to the first window to pay and guess what? Yep, you guessed it. The person in front of me paid the wrong bill because they went out of order. Now I sit there watching them at the second window staring at the McDonald's worker refusing the bag of food talking about how that's not what I ordered. You gave it to me wrong. That's not what I ordered. Multiple minutes later, they finally pull away making us all late for work now. And that's not all. I know that type a person, give them 20 minutes and they'll be at home complaining in the local community group on Facebook about how the local McDonald's is horrible and they can't even get their meal right and they had to wait and it made them late and why can't these incapable people just do their jobs right? It's just food, it's just a drive-thru. I'll never go back here. No! It was you, lady in the F-150! It was you! Your fault! You jumped the line, you acted like you didn't know what you did, but you did know what you did. Forget about the dag 2 game lame drive-thru and quit blaming everyone else on your failure for comp- common Can I get a how to lose? I gave you 33 extra seconds there. I'm I'm not cutting that off and you won't cut me off. I assume but I appreciate it. That was fantastic. Yeah. That maybe that should have gone last. I don't know. It was true and for all of you that are are going to miss this part of the clip. I'm sure I actually was not mad. I saw it happen and I was like this will be my useless aggression this month. Pull my phone out and just start making notes of yeah, this lady. just has no clue. Yep. Yep. I I see you, Yeah, that's what you're doing. Use the anger. Don't let the anger use you. that's right. I'm a Jedi, not a Sith. That's right. You ever notice how pharmaceutical commercials have decided that they're just allowed to kidnap good songs and turn them into CVS receipt length jingles? Like I'm just minding my own business. Maybe I finally got a song out of my head, something iconic, something timeless. And then boom, here comes a commercial like nothing is everything. And now that's living rent free in my brain for the next 72 hours. And it's never an upgrade. Not once. Nobody has ever said, you know what made that song better? A list of side effects and a guy gardening in slow motion. No, it's always worse. It's always off brand karaoke energy. They take songs you actually love and they Frankenstein them into something that feels illegal like that ozempic one. know, ⁓ ozempic. Yeah, that one. Okay. I said it where it's catchy enough that your brain latches onto it but then you realize you're basically humming a prescription and the worst part they commit. They don't just use the chorus They rewrite the whole thing. Suddenly it's like I got a condition and I got a new plan. No, you don't. That's not the original lyric. Stop it. Now, I can't even hear the real song. without thinking about cholesterol levels. You've ruined music. Congratulations. Stevie Nicks didn't fight for her artistic legacy just for it to be remixed into a commercial about lowering your A1C. At this point, I don't even trust songs anymore. I hear a familiar melody and I'm like, what drug is this about to sell me? Leave the songs alone. Make up your own music or better yet, just give me silence. I would rather sit in complete awkward silence than have another beloved song turn into a jingle about seasonal allergies. because now. Now every time I hum something, I don't even know if it's a classic or if it's commercial. Stop it. Perfect. I think you mean that Fleetwood Mac didn't do a bunch of coke and break up with each other to make the greatest album ever recorded. Yes. Just for then you to confuse that with a commercial about pharmaceuticals. Correct. And I think Johnny Cash is probably rolling his grave that you would talk about Ring of Fire to push your hemorrhoid cream out there. And I didn't watch the greatest showman for ⁓ for me to hear Lookout. here I come just for it to be a commercial for Wegovi. So we go the American drug. But no, leave my songs along. I'm sorry. Yeah. Make up your own jingles. Yeah. People back in my day were smart about these things. At least be smart enough as a marketing person to pick a song that has a tie in so you can use the original song like Kraft Mac and cheese. I'll stop the world and melt with you. They didn't have to change anything. That's perfect. It's a good tie in. You can still enjoy that song. You don't have to change it. to think about Mac and cheese, that's fine. But you may not. And the worst thing is if you're streaming, you're going to get this commercial at least once every ad break. ⁓ sure. yeah. Twice. Sometimes twice back to back. So that's my useless question. That's their useless question. ⁓ I cannot wait for someone to explain to me why pharmaceuticals, suitable companies do this in our comments. So we love you fans. ⁓ That is going to it. Yeah. Haters. Thank you for fueling our ads, our views and all that stuff. ⁓ Please subscribe to us. We are made of ads. Yeah, ⁓ that is going to do it for episode three of the What the Variety Show. think overall, we're like 130 episodes of the previous era. If you survived the blockbuster late fees and our questionable survivor strategy, we appreciate you sticking around. We'll be back in your ear soon enough to dive back into the archives until then keep your salt or your snack salty. Your nostalgia high definition. yourself salty too. I your cholesterol high. And your vibes immaculate for Ashby and Kyle. I'm Eric and as always stay cool as the other side of the pillow. you