Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Vanessa Bayer and this is my brother Jonah.
Speaker 1: We're two siblings who love to talk about our childhood
Speaker 1: in nostalgia and how it shaped us into the people
Speaker 1: we are today.
Speaker 3: Who are so excited for today's guests that we might
Speaker 3: blow a fuse.
Speaker 1: Welcome to how did we get weird? So Vanessa, Yes,
Speaker 1: I know usually start these out, but I figured I
Speaker 1: would kind of jump in because today's guest is a
Speaker 1: longtime friend of ours, and I think is sort of
Speaker 1: the reason why I was able to live in New
Speaker 1: York for eleven years.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: I moved to New York in two thousand and seven
Speaker 1: from Cleveland. My band had just broken up. I had
Speaker 1: been quit my job to tour with this band, and
Speaker 1: I moved to New York. Didn't really have a job,
Speaker 1: went on all these weird kind of interviews. I interviewed
Speaker 1: with an auction house that was selling the Jackson Families
Speaker 1: some of their material, but they it was the Jackson
Speaker 1: family is fighting them, so they were like, go through
Speaker 1: these books and look for clothes that match up with
Speaker 1: this so we can sell them. Didn't take that job.
Speaker 1: Had an interview at Astra Wines. I remember this and
Speaker 1: I had to take a test where I had to
Speaker 1: do the accents on the wind. Didn't get that job.
Speaker 1: I think I failed the test. And then our guest today,
Speaker 1: I had known he hired me to write for TV
Speaker 1: show that he hosted on FUSE. I had never written
Speaker 1: for television before, and that kind of got my foot
Speaker 1: in the door there. And so then I was able
Speaker 1: to make money so I could pay rent and live
Speaker 1: and so that was awesome. And so yeah, internally thankful
Speaker 1: to today's guests for kind of getting me on that train.
Speaker 3: Yeah, did you start just writing sort of freelance and
Speaker 3: then start.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I had been the music edit at AP
Speaker 1: and then I started freelancing. So I was still writing
Speaker 1: for a bunch of music magazines, but I had never
Speaker 1: written for television. Television is different, right, Like we would
Speaker 1: write on this program that was saying how long it
Speaker 1: would take, then would go on the teleprompter and you
Speaker 1: know howadays we didn't use Q cards. This was teleprompters.
Speaker 1: You may not be yeah, you probably have used both
Speaker 1: done other shows.
Speaker 4: Kay, But.
Speaker 2: Well you're very you're very grateful for our guest today.
Speaker 1: Yes, very grateful. He's a he's a great guy, has
Speaker 1: so much knowledge about music, and I think we should
Speaker 1: just introduce him former hosts of Steven's on Titaled rock
Speaker 1: show on Fuse, where I was a head writer. But
Speaker 1: you also might know him from his nuanced work on
Speaker 1: such shows as California Dreams, the Original Queer Eye, a
Speaker 1: little show mayb you've heard of called Sliders. Please welcome
Speaker 1: my good friend Stephen Smith. Hey, Stephen, Hi, Jonah, Hi Vanessa.
Speaker 4: You guys are just such a delight.
Speaker 5: I still remember like the day Jonah introduced me to you, Vanessa,
Speaker 5: and we were in the East Village and I think
Speaker 5: you were doing Second City on a cruise ship.
Speaker 2: Yes, I bet, I bet.
Speaker 5: And then the best part was I learned on the Internet,
Speaker 5: like I don't know, I think I can't remember what
Speaker 5: nerd side I was looking at, but it talked about
Speaker 5: who is going to be on on SNL and it
Speaker 5: hadn't been announced yet, and I texted Joanah. I was like,
Speaker 5: I just learned that Vanessa was going to be on
Speaker 5: SNL and Jonah wan, dude, don't say anything.
Speaker 4: And my wife.
Speaker 5: Immediately went, well, did you tell Jonah that he should
Speaker 5: tell the internet, because.
Speaker 1: This is a period of time that was We were
Speaker 1: so paranoid, and I think our parents were like this too.
Speaker 1: Vanessa was like, They're like, you can't tell anyone, but
Speaker 1: then it was like leaking, and I was just like
Speaker 1: playing dumb. I was like, I don't know, that's weird.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 3: I was actually surprised that Jonah's reaction to you was
Speaker 3: you can't tell anyone, instead of being like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: that's not true, because that was the reaction I told
Speaker 3: everyone to have because I had been so scared that
Speaker 3: we were told not to tell anyone until it was
Speaker 3: like officially announced by NBC. And I was so scared
Speaker 3: that I made everyone in our family so paranoid about it,
Speaker 3: to the point where it was very clear I was
Speaker 3: going to be on the show show and because NBC
Speaker 3: hadn't announced it yet, you know I I think we
Speaker 3: talked about this on the podcast recently. It was like
Speaker 3: our uncle was calling my dad being like, it really
Speaker 3: seems like Vanessa's going to get hired. And I was
Speaker 3: already living in New York and my dad had to
Speaker 3: be like, well, you know, the trades, what do they know?
Speaker 2: You know, people people say stuff. It was wild.
Speaker 3: So the fact that you got a confirmation in any way,
Speaker 3: shape or form, is really you're a good friend.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: Olean's up there, Yeah he's Yeah. I didn't have to
Speaker 1: lie to his face, so that was nice.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 3: Well, Steven, You've been one of Jonah's close friends for
Speaker 3: such a long time, and I know he's so grateful
Speaker 3: to you for giving him his first sort of big TV,
Speaker 3: his first big New York job, And I'm grateful.
Speaker 4: Huge, huge.
Speaker 3: I remember walking by those every every time i'd be
Speaker 3: late running to the train station, I'd walk by those
Speaker 3: offices with those big lights.
Speaker 2: Now, fuse does.
Speaker 4: It feeling this? I think maybe I'm not really sure.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean some of us took the time to look
Speaker 2: it up, and by none of us.
Speaker 1: We didn't look it up. Well. I wrote on a
Speaker 1: few shows, and but Stephen got me in. But it
Speaker 1: was so fun because I felt like it was really
Speaker 1: us just talking about music, listening to music, and then
Speaker 1: going down the studio to watch Stephen port. And then
Speaker 1: it was a lot of bands that didn't like me
Speaker 1: because I'd written something negative about them at some point
Speaker 1: in my life, and I got to see them face
Speaker 1: to face, which is always a fun, fun fun thing
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 3: And wouldn't you sort of do a thing where you
Speaker 3: would write stuff on the cards for Steven and not
Speaker 3: tell him and then he would say it on camera.
Speaker 1: Am I making that that's something that I did? No,
Speaker 1: I would write I would have a lot of friends
Speaker 1: in bands on the show, like Okay and the show.
Speaker 3: Just to explain to people who haven't seen Steven's Untitled
Speaker 3: Rock Show, it's more it's sort of like, what would
Speaker 3: you compare it to on MTV for people who were
Speaker 3: more into MTV than interfews, I.
Speaker 4: Would I would love to compare it to one hundred
Speaker 4: and twenty minutes, but it wasn't that good. Views.
Speaker 5: Was very interesting way back then because since it was
Speaker 5: such a new network, I couldn't get a lot of
Speaker 5: like huge, huge bands.
Speaker 4: So that a.
Speaker 5: Programmer who was very smart and decided to focus on
Speaker 5: the burgeoning emo scene, and so we started getting a
Speaker 5: lot of these bands like you know, Mike Him and
Speaker 5: taking Back Sunday and we When we started the Rock Show,
Speaker 5: they just couldn't come up with a name, So it
Speaker 5: was a placeholder called Steven's Entitle Rock Show, and we
Speaker 5: had a contest and that's how it got the ridiculous game.
Speaker 4: It's just kind of funny.
Speaker 5: Green Day I think actually announced the name, which I
Speaker 5: thought was yeah, but our first guest was me first,
Speaker 5: and the Gimme gimmeys, so it's basically fat Mike and
Speaker 5: we would just do video raps and we would do
Speaker 5: interviews in between. And our producer went on to do
Speaker 5: another show and he had written a lot of it.
Speaker 5: Ris McDonald are a very good friend, and he went
Speaker 5: to work on a live show and so our show
Speaker 5: was pre taped, and you know, write stuff. So we
Speaker 5: needed a writer and I overheard someone mentioning Jonah had
Speaker 5: submitted something for something, and I went, can I have
Speaker 5: him him?
Speaker 2: Oh that's so nice?
Speaker 5: And that was that was literally the conversation. I remember
Speaker 5: was leaning on a cubicle and they someone said, well,
Speaker 5: he's never written for TV, and I went, good, I
Speaker 5: don't want that.
Speaker 2: Oh I love what a nice story. Jonah. Did you
Speaker 2: know that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I did know that, but it never gets
Speaker 1: old of me. But yeah, we mean and Stephen had
Speaker 1: met like on the Warp tour something I think when
Speaker 1: I was yeah, and I had been on Fuse like
Speaker 1: as an expert or something when I worked with Alternative Press.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so we had known each other, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I had not written for TV, that's true.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it was it was fun. So it was
Speaker 4: just like a video rap show.
Speaker 5: But then when Jonah came on, we tweaked it to
Speaker 5: have a really long interview format so that we would
Speaker 5: have a good ten to fifteen minutes straight of just
Speaker 5: talking to bands and Jonah would sneak and stuff that
Speaker 5: I wasn't aware of, and the bands would react and
Speaker 5: it would always be funny and it's fun.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's funny to have like your friends on
Speaker 1: national television. And then like you're sneaking in these weird
Speaker 1: inside jokes into Steven's questions and they're like, do Jonah
Speaker 1: ask that? And it's like so so unprofessional.
Speaker 2: Do you remember any examples of the inside joke?
Speaker 3: By the way, our producer Olivia just told us that
Speaker 3: Fuse does still exist.
Speaker 1: So that's great news.
Speaker 4: Wow, that is cool. Good for them. I hope they're okay.
Speaker 5: Yeah, let's see what was one you did one with
Speaker 5: Motion City Tony.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Tony at one point hit something evolving like he
Speaker 1: drank a beer really fast and then threw up or something.
Speaker 1: It was something very benign and then Stephen was like,
Speaker 1: so I heard you guys aren't really you know, if
Speaker 1: you drink too fast, you guys have some problems. Like
Speaker 1: anyone drink a beer in a bathroom recently and have
Speaker 1: any It was like something very.
Speaker 2: Specific, got it, got it?
Speaker 1: Got it, or like it would be like Chris from
Speaker 1: the American Rejess like, are you guys into like those
Speaker 1: like double tall bikes or something? And they like I
Speaker 1: would just be these kind of yeah, maybe that's the.
Speaker 5: One that was a really good one, the double tall
Speaker 5: And he was like, what you had one that was
Speaker 5: very funny.
Speaker 1: And then Steve and I did a podcast for like
Speaker 1: six years, going Off Track after Right Right, Going Strong, and.
Speaker 4: You came on You guest hosted a bunch But it
Speaker 4: was great. I still think I still think about you
Speaker 4: talking with Janine Yes and talking about what Hot American Summer?
Speaker 4: And I just went and saw Ken Marino and David
Speaker 4: Wayne's band, the Middle Aged Right Yeah Jam Band, and
Speaker 4: it was great because Craig Wedren is just on stage
Speaker 4: from a shutter to think and he wrote all the
Speaker 4: music for other stuff.
Speaker 5: They did the song Live Higher and Hire from What
Speaker 5: Hot American Songs? And it was we just all lost
Speaker 5: our silly minds. It was really really cool to see
Speaker 5: and Ken was winning. Ken was very It was a
Speaker 5: lot of fun.
Speaker 1: That's great. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Jeannie Gruffalo and I really bonded when I guest hosted
Speaker 3: with you guys, and we realized we both like General Hospital.
Speaker 3: And then she and I went and saw the General
Speaker 3: Hospital karaoke band. It was really funny because then we
Speaker 3: got to meet these guys that were in this small
Speaker 3: General Hospital band that are actors on the show, and
Speaker 3: we were really different than their regular demo.
Speaker 1: I guess. So there were actors on the show who
Speaker 1: happened to play in a general hospital.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I didn't do a good job of explaining this.
Speaker 3: There were four actors on the band. Okay, in the
Speaker 3: band and basically, you know, it's called General Hospital takes
Speaker 3: place in this fictional town called Port.
Speaker 4: Charles Charles, thank you familiar.
Speaker 3: So the name of the band that these four guys,
Speaker 3: these four actors on General Hospital were in was called
Speaker 3: Port Chuck, which is a takeoff of Fort Charles.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the Port.
Speaker 3: Chuck band, Jine Garofflo and I went we saw them, Lie,
Speaker 3: we got to meet them after I still lightly stay
Speaker 3: in touch with two of them and it was just incredible.
Speaker 3: But anyways, let's move on, because I will swallow the
Speaker 3: whole podcast with General Hospital if given the opportunity.
Speaker 4: Just a quick moment, I played in a ban in
Speaker 4: California with the guy who was on Poor Charles, the
Speaker 4: spinoff of General Hospital. Just want to throw that out there.
Speaker 1: Is that true?
Speaker 4: That's incredibly true?
Speaker 2: And I absolutely remember that spinoff?
Speaker 6: What was a band called I was for a theater
Speaker 6: troop out in la I think is still there, called
Speaker 6: Sacred Fools and we were the Sacred Fools band and
Speaker 6: he played guitar and I played drums. And there you go, Steven,
Speaker 6: what was the name of your band in college? Because
Speaker 6: this is one of my favorite band names came?
Speaker 4: Oh, yes, that was the ice Cream Socialists.
Speaker 2: That's really funny.
Speaker 3: Now, this is a great segue into what I was
Speaker 3: going to ask, which is, Stephen, you've done a lot
Speaker 3: of work and been on a lot of really incredible
Speaker 3: shows throughout the years. But I'm curious before I absolutely
Speaker 3: get into that, how did you get your start?
Speaker 2: Like did you go to theater school?
Speaker 3: Did you do a lot of this kind of stuff
Speaker 3: in college or did you start doing it later on
Speaker 3: in your Like how did you sort of get your
Speaker 3: start in the entertainment world.
Speaker 4: That's a great question. It goes back to having severe eight.
Speaker 5: My mom shoved me into ballet class when I was four,
Speaker 5: and I danced for years and then started just acting
Speaker 5: in school and taking classes and stuff.
Speaker 4: And then I did the high school. I don't know
Speaker 4: if all the states have this.
Speaker 5: I don't know how it does it too, but like
Speaker 5: they would have this thing called Governor School where if
Speaker 5: you apply, they have it for everything math and science
Speaker 5: and stuff. And I got into the one for the
Speaker 5: arts and then did a lot of plays in high
Speaker 5: school and stuff.
Speaker 4: Which was fun.
Speaker 3: Was that in addition was Governor School in addition to
Speaker 3: regular school or was it instead of was it like
Speaker 3: the new school that you went to?
Speaker 5: It was in addition, so a summer summer program paid.
Speaker 4: For by the state, okay, which was which was cool.
Speaker 1: Governor probably personally.
Speaker 4: By the governor wrote the check governor Governor Sarah. So
Speaker 4: that was cool.
Speaker 5: And then I went to college in Virginia where I
Speaker 5: was living, and I wanted to be a director. I
Speaker 5: wanted to direct plays, and so I had a cool
Speaker 5: black box theater program there and I got in by
Speaker 5: not applying like other people. They remembered me from Governor School,
Speaker 5: which was kind of cool and very helpful for my
Speaker 5: father because it was in state, much cheaper, nice. And
Speaker 5: then didn't know what I wanted to do after school,
Speaker 5: and a friend of mine was moving to LA and
Speaker 5: I literally rode in the back of a rider truck
Speaker 5: and moved out there with him. And in the greatest
Speaker 5: six degrees of separation, my aunt was a vet tech.
Speaker 5: And here it comes, Vanessa's what you've been waiting for.
Speaker 5: She was rehabilitating a dog whose pelvis had been destroyed
Speaker 5: and the person who owned the dog was the casting
Speaker 5: director for Peter Engel Productions that did California Dreams. Okay,
Speaker 5: so as a favor to my aunt, this woman auditioned
Speaker 5: me with my super long nineties hair and that's how
Speaker 5: I got started. And from there got you know, had
Speaker 5: a couple of agents and things and did some stuff.
Speaker 1: And California Dreams was that. Your first TV appearance was
Speaker 1: California Dreams.
Speaker 4: California Dreams was the very first thing.
Speaker 1: And Vanessa, can you explain, because I know you're Vanessa,
Speaker 1: you are legitimately a fan of this show. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: kind of Saved by the Bell, but it's like they're
Speaker 1: in a band basically.
Speaker 3: And it would play at This was sort of part
Speaker 3: of the same tween Saturday morning television block as Saved
Speaker 3: by the Bell, and Peter Engel also produced Saved by
Speaker 3: the Bell. Like part of those shows, the plot of
Speaker 3: California Dreams was basically these five or six teens that
Speaker 3: were in a band called the California Dreams. They also
Speaker 3: lived in California, but they were kind of living their dreams.
Speaker 3: So it's an excellent title and basically Saved by the Bell,
Speaker 3: except instead of being in their high school all the time,
Speaker 3: they're like in someone's garage practicing for the band. Right,
Speaker 3: And was it as good as Saved by the Bell
Speaker 3: although they.
Speaker 2: Were in high school sometimes?
Speaker 3: In fact, I remember, actually, Steven will get to your scenes,
Speaker 3: you were you your character took place in the high school,
Speaker 3: So I take that back.
Speaker 2: They were in high school quite a bit, but.
Speaker 1: They were practicing a lot. They were practicing.
Speaker 2: In the garage a lot. But yeah, yeah, so that
Speaker 2: was their thing.
Speaker 3: Is they had this They were basically like imagine the
Speaker 3: Save by the Bell characters if they had like a
Speaker 3: side band in their high school, not talking about the
Speaker 3: Zac Attack, which was just a few episodes of their
Speaker 3: band where everybody all of a sudden knew how to
Speaker 3: dances or knew how to sing and play instruments when
Speaker 3: you're like, oh what, but anyways, so they had a
Speaker 3: band and Stephen just to get into your character. So
Speaker 3: you were on more than one episode, if I recall correctly.
Speaker 4: I got to do four episodes that kept bringing me back,
Speaker 4: so they they bring they bring me back. I had
Speaker 4: a name and everything that was pretty cool. And what
Speaker 4: was your name again, Oh it's very important. Boogie boy,
Speaker 4: Boogie boy.
Speaker 3: And you were sort of a prankster. If I recall you,
Speaker 3: you and this other guy, I remember one scene where
Speaker 3: you have those like water guns, those super soakers or something,
Speaker 3: and you spray water during in a classroom.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, we trashed the classroom up and smashed things
Speaker 5: and it was very silly, and you did.
Speaker 2: That just because you were kind of pranksters.
Speaker 4: It was I believe the storyline was a slie character
Speaker 4: had a had a side hustle called uh Ba boom
Speaker 4: kaboom or something, and it was and it was he
Speaker 4: was trying to he was doing this game where people
Speaker 4: would get shot with these foam pistols, and we got
Speaker 4: we got shot, and we decided to really act out
Speaker 4: like Platoon style our death scenes and smash up a classroom.
Speaker 3: And and just to be clear, these are water pistols.
Speaker 2: These are water.
Speaker 5: These are water pistols. Yes, straight straight up like NERF style,
Speaker 5: like goofiness. And then I believe, I believe this. I
Speaker 5: believe the plot line, the important a story was. It
Speaker 5: was Jay's dad was being the janitor of the school and.
Speaker 4: Having right having deal.
Speaker 1: So that was yeah. And Stephen, speaking of character named,
Speaker 1: there's a period of your career. You went by Stephen
Speaker 1: with an interesting spelling. Is that correct? Oh?
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, this is This is my wife's favorite story.
Speaker 1: And I know so much about here, about this, I
Speaker 1: couldn't be more excited.
Speaker 4: So after doing California Dreams and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Wait, don't we just name a couple other shows that
Speaker 2: you would.
Speaker 5: Say, Oh, I did so, I did, I did Sliders,
Speaker 5: I was on the second episode of Buffy the Vampire.
Speaker 4: Slayer, WHOA and had I'm in there a little wiki
Speaker 4: and everything. I have like a little character I supposed
Speaker 4: to be one of Xanders Xander's buddies, okay, and Sliders
Speaker 4: was fun, and then there was the show The Pretender
Speaker 4: that was on for a bit. Oh yeah, I did.
Speaker 5: Everything I did involved me going yeah, dude, like everything.
Speaker 3: That's so interesting because I don't think of you as
Speaker 3: like a surf dude at all, and yet you you
Speaker 3: had the hair, you had the hair, you looked like
Speaker 3: I could see you as a surf dude.
Speaker 1: I guess now that we talked it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was ninety six, like the hair was long,
Speaker 4: and then it just kind of I don't know.
Speaker 5: I started taking some acting classes, and because I wasn't
Speaker 5: booking as many things, AD a couple of fun commercials,
Speaker 5: some Carls Junior and some video game things, and then I.
Speaker 4: Ended up auditioning for a hosting gig. I had a
Speaker 4: girlfriend at the time.
Speaker 5: It was a host and a presenter, and I remember
Speaker 5: thinking I can do that, and I literally went to
Speaker 5: my commercial agent and said, do you have the talkie
Speaker 5: mikey thing? And I wish I was in Belichick, but
Speaker 5: that's what I said, and they said yeah, and they
Speaker 5: sent me over to VH one and I auditioned, but
Speaker 5: I was twenty five, okay, and they had twenty five
Speaker 5: albums they wanted you to review five, and I happened
Speaker 5: to own all the records, so I just went through
Speaker 5: all them in five minutes and they went that was good,
Speaker 5: You're too young, and I'm like okay.
Speaker 4: And then four years later they hired me after auditioning
Speaker 4: doing some commercials and stuff, and I ended up hosting
Speaker 4: Rock Across America and a couple episodes of VH one
Speaker 4: Top twenty Countdown when that was a thing.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, oh wow.
Speaker 4: It was fun. I was like one of the LA hosts.
Speaker 4: It was like a weird period at VH one where
Speaker 4: they weren't they were kind of trying to figure some
Speaker 4: things out. It was me. I think Allison Stewart was
Speaker 4: one of the other hosts. She's on NPR now.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, what about like moon Zappa. Wasn't she over there?
Speaker 4: She was at MTV like a long time before, okay,
Speaker 4: okay with Steven.
Speaker 1: The name the name, yeah, I get it, the name.
Speaker 5: Oh the name, sorry, sorry the name, sorry, God bless it.
Speaker 5: My ADHD pills were wearing. So I auditioned so much
Speaker 5: that I would just write in different names at the
Speaker 5: call sheets back then, and so I thought it'd be
Speaker 5: really funny to write Steven ste v I N And
Speaker 5: that's the job I booked and they went they said,
Speaker 5: is that how you want your name to be?
Speaker 4: And I went, yeah, so I get the job and
Speaker 4: my parents were like what and I went, yeah, I
Speaker 4: don't know what I was doing. And the irony is
Speaker 4: when I was in New York and I was doing
Speaker 4: VH one Top twenty. I was out there and I
Speaker 4: had on, like my prize possession is this vintage Ramones
Speaker 4: T shirt. I'm a diehard Ramones fan.
Speaker 5: And I was doing the countdown and my future wife,
Speaker 5: who I had met yet, was working at VH one
Speaker 5: and remembers when she saw the footage of me, and
Speaker 5: her response was, who's this tool?
Speaker 3: Because it was for the what was it for the
Speaker 3: VH one job that you had written Steven yep yep,
Speaker 3: And so that comes up on the screen, right mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So that was my back when AFTRA was its own thing.
Speaker 4: That was my name in AFTRA for years. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm not known for the best decisions.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and we'll be
Speaker 1: back with STEVENN. Smith after this.
Speaker 2: And we're back now.
Speaker 3: Jonah just shared another fun fact about your name, Stephen,
Speaker 3: that I would not have expected.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Stephen is my middle name.
Speaker 2: Are you comfortable sharing your first name?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, it's possibly the whitest name ever. It
Speaker 4: is a Jeffrey Stephen Smith whoa and my mother wanted
Speaker 4: to name me Steven and liked the name Steven and
Speaker 4: wanted my millennaim to be Jeffrey and just didn't think
Speaker 4: that flowed well. So she made it cool for me
Speaker 4: to have to explain that for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: I just want to point out that that same sort
Speaker 1: of level of anxiety Vanessa and our family had about
Speaker 1: her not saying she's on SNL, that's kind of like
Speaker 1: a kind of a constant thing. I feel like, even
Speaker 1: with your name, I'm like, can we say this is wrong?
Speaker 1: And you're sort of like, yeah, I don't care, No
Speaker 1: one cares.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, But I have a nephew and
Speaker 4: I remember when they were going to call him by
Speaker 4: his middle name, and they do, I'm like, don't do
Speaker 4: it. It gets weird because you forget. I've been kicked off
Speaker 4: planes because my ID didn't match up.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: And my last name is Smith anyway, so I get
Speaker 4: identity theft at least once a year.
Speaker 1: So when you book, when you book a flight or
Speaker 1: something like that, you do as Jeffrey I do.
Speaker 5: I now do the full name Jeffery Stevens, so whenever
Speaker 5: I treat it like because I am originally from North Carolina,
Speaker 5: so I literally write it down to the south as
Speaker 5: far as everyone knows, my first name is Jeffer steven
Speaker 5: And that's how.
Speaker 4: I put everything.
Speaker 1: Okay, I got you.
Speaker 4: It works out.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it works out great.
Speaker 3: Before we move on to today's topic, I just want
Speaker 3: to show this mug that you gave me Steven once.
Speaker 3: It's my most prized mug and it's a mug from
Speaker 3: the I believe you said the Rap Party for California Dreams.
Speaker 1: What does it say on it?
Speaker 3: It says California Dreams with the font which the O
Speaker 3: is a son right, and it says in quotes the
Speaker 3: dream will never end. And then it says Senior Prom
Speaker 3: January twenty seven, nineteen ninety six. So I think they
Speaker 3: called the Rap Party Senior Prom, which it's like delusional much.
Speaker 1: It sounds like this summer ended after about five seasons. Unfortunately.
Speaker 3: Well, I was gonna say it seems like you were
Speaker 3: it was a short lived show because the Rap Party
Speaker 3: being in the beginning of ninety six feels like it
Speaker 3: started I think in like ninety three ninety five. Like,
Speaker 3: I don't think it was on very long, but you
Speaker 3: got in while it was hot.
Speaker 1: What was that party, like, Stephen where you got that much?
Speaker 2: Do you remember the party?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: It was great.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I barely remember it. And I wasn't even like
Speaker 5: drinking or anything. It was just so nondescript and like weird.
Speaker 5: I remember Peter Engel saying I'm King of the Prom
Speaker 5: and I'm thinking, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it was
Speaker 5: very very weird. I didn't know much about those Saturday mornings.
Speaker 5: The man you said, by the bells a cultural phenomenon.
Speaker 5: And then there was like California Dreams and hang Time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Hangtime.
Speaker 4: That was the basketball Yeah, that was the basketball one.
Speaker 4: And then like there's a couple others I don't think related,
Speaker 4: but in that same vein.
Speaker 5: Of like like Breaker High and stuff and those kind
Speaker 5: of teeny things.
Speaker 1: But arthar Lewis that was a good one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well that was I think that was that was
Speaker 4: evening that was like prime time. This was non prime time, right,
Speaker 4: this this was its raining. We're going to watch this
Speaker 4: like that's those were those programs, right, But it was
Speaker 4: fun being part of it, and they kept bringing.
Speaker 5: Me back and uh, I remember there was one episode
Speaker 5: where they had a guy who just couldn't like remember
Speaker 5: his lines and he was like the goofy surf judge
Speaker 5: and he could not remember his lines. He had to
Speaker 5: have the script like like in front of him, and
Speaker 5: they said, you know what, why do you do it?
Speaker 5: And I'm like, okay, So I went and memorized it,
Speaker 5: and they came back and they went, no, you can't
Speaker 5: do it, like why would you be the surf judge?
Speaker 5: And I went, so you're going to play like continuity
Speaker 5: with this ship.
Speaker 4: Okay, that's fun.
Speaker 3: I mean literally, the characters on say by the Bell
Speaker 3: the last season switched like they took out Jesse and
Speaker 3: Kelly and put in Tory and nobody said a word.
Speaker 4: So I was saved by the Bell. Just to bring
Speaker 4: again everything full circle.
Speaker 5: That my band in college that Jonah loves to name
Speaker 5: The ice Cream Socialists, the lead songwriter with the greatest
Speaker 5: rock and roll name ever.
Speaker 4: He Hanes his real name. He had a song song
Speaker 4: called Kelly Capole about Kelly Kapowski that we would play
Speaker 4: Wow Wow. But I believe it's on his new album
Speaker 4: You put It back on, which was kind of fun.
Speaker 3: So why didn't he use her full name? That feels
Speaker 3: like such a weird place to because of the word pal.
Speaker 5: It rhymes yes, I think like the line is I
Speaker 5: know a girl named Kelly Caple, and then the rest
Speaker 5: of the guys we go Kelly.
Speaker 2: But it feels so easy to add on ski.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Like that rhymes with a lot of stuff too.
Speaker 4: You know, I guess I don't really write this.
Speaker 2: Isn't your battle to fight.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 4: It's okay, I'll send you the SoundCloud.
Speaker 3: Okay, over, Okay, maybe i'll send this person a couple
Speaker 3: of two three notes if you think that'd be cool.
Speaker 4: I think they would love it. They would be stoked.
Speaker 1: So Steven, you came in with so many incredible topics.
Speaker 1: Obviously you were in a riverboat gambler shirt. I mean,
Speaker 1: we could talk about music for good catch hours, but
Speaker 1: we're not gonna this time. Maybe we will some other time.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about mister Rogers neighborhood, although I did
Speaker 1: find on YouTube there is a death Metal cover of
Speaker 1: the theme song that someone made that is pretty good.
Speaker 5: I ever heard someone playing the music recently and I
Speaker 5: walked by and I just went, is that Johnny Costa?
Speaker 4: And I went, how do you know that? And I went,
Speaker 4: what's mister Rogers? That was his music director, and they
Speaker 4: went how did what?
Speaker 1: And I went, yeah, this is this is like very
Speaker 1: kind of quintessential Stephen if you like, because me and
Speaker 1: Stephen Wi went to Steven's on a pund comic con
Speaker 1: once and Stephen would be like that guy, like he's
Speaker 1: the inchor for this guy. I was like, how do
Speaker 1: you know who these people are? Like, Stephen know, like
Speaker 1: the most obscure stuff about music and comics, And so
Speaker 1: why did you sort of choose mister Rogers neighborhood and
Speaker 1: move this to show you watched growing up? Or what's
Speaker 1: your connection to it?
Speaker 4: Yeah? So so I was an army brat and we
Speaker 4: moved all the time, and like the constants that I
Speaker 4: remember as a kid are is PBS because everywhere you
Speaker 4: go in the state's PBS, and I remember it was
Speaker 4: like in a row. It would be Sesame Street Electric Company,
Speaker 4: mister Rogers, and then the show called Zoom, which just
Speaker 4: had kids like in different colors doing stuff. I don't
Speaker 4: know why.
Speaker 1: It wasn't kids just having like tell of meetings with
Speaker 1: each other about like marketing or something.
Speaker 5: No Zoom, Yeah, it would be like, yeah, it was bizarre.
Speaker 5: So like that was in my head. It was like, well,
Speaker 5: these are my shows. Like my parents watched their shows,
Speaker 5: these are my shows. And Sasame Street is a big deal.
Speaker 5: But mister Rogers I loved because love imagination and creativity,
Speaker 5: and that was thing which was going to the land
Speaker 5: of make believe, and like I bought it, like of
Speaker 5: course this man who you know, everyone talks about the
Speaker 5: sweaters and the shoes and that kind of thing, and
Speaker 5: I never really connected it. But when you look back
Speaker 5: on it, it's just someone being kind and cool and
Speaker 5: tell them stories. And I never thought anything bizarre about it.
Speaker 5: But as I got older and I thought more about
Speaker 5: mister Rogers, and I.
Speaker 4: Was like, wow, he's he's like like the patron saint
Speaker 4: of just don't be a jerk. And a few years
Speaker 4: ago Twitch, I don't know how they had this, but
Speaker 4: Twitch that streaming network thing. They got it, so I
Speaker 4: don't understand it.
Speaker 5: They got the rights for just like a week every
Speaker 5: mister Rogers episode WHOA from the sixties to two thousand
Speaker 5: and one, like the old black and white ones that
Speaker 5: I had never seen, and the ones that dealt with
Speaker 5: like really really heavy subjects like back in the sixties
Speaker 5: and how you talk to kids about it all the
Speaker 5: way in I just put it on and my kids
Speaker 5: were very little, and they were like just stare, just
Speaker 5: yeah as a gape and just loved every second of it,
Speaker 5: and they like just drowned in it. I don't know,
Speaker 5: he just he just he's I've read his biography and
Speaker 5: I was just a huge fan as a kid.
Speaker 4: And he was a musician, and he would always surround
Speaker 4: himself with musicians, like the guy who did the music
Speaker 4: for the show. The music was live, like if he's
Speaker 4: walking from one side of the house to the other,
Speaker 4: like they would they would change the music up. And
Speaker 4: the guy Johnny Costa who did it was this jazz guy,
Speaker 4: and he insisted on making it jazzy and not dumbing
Speaker 4: it down. And his thing was like kids love music,
Speaker 4: like they they'll get it. He never cared that it
Speaker 4: was a TV show and to break the fourth wall constantly.
Speaker 4: That was the stick. But like would walk outside the
Speaker 4: house and come back in and then use a door.
Speaker 5: He would have like all the characters that would connected,
Speaker 5: they would talk to the trill. I don't know, It's
Speaker 5: just one of those things where I just waited every morning.
Speaker 4: To watch it.
Speaker 5: And I have a memory of watching it in color,
Speaker 5: but we didn't get a color TV till I was
Speaker 5: like ten, So I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't know how your brain does that, but yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I remember watching it so much, and I
Speaker 3: was doing some research on it and I read this
Speaker 3: thing on the website where they were talking about how
Speaker 3: the people on the show were neighbors, and he said, like,
Speaker 3: neighbors are people who live close to each other. Neighbors
Speaker 3: look at each other, they talk to each other, they
Speaker 3: listen to each other. That's how they get to know
Speaker 3: each other. And how that was a big lesson. And
Speaker 3: then in terms of the puppets, the authority of the King,
Speaker 3: the shyness of Daniel Tiger, the adolescence of ex the Owl,
Speaker 3: the mischievousness of Lady Elaine Fairchild, we all have lots
Speaker 3: of facets to who we are and it's fun to
Speaker 3: be able to express them. And then with his special guests,
Speaker 3: he say, I'd like you to know my television friend
Speaker 3: and how like everything was sort of made in a
Speaker 3: way to sort of teach kids about like appreciating people
Speaker 3: and the different sort of of the different sort of
Speaker 3: personalities and facets of the different people.
Speaker 2: I think it's so nice.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's the whole thing is. He was just
Speaker 4: a giant bucket of empathy. And he ended the song
Speaker 4: He ended the show with the song It's You. I
Speaker 4: like always, yes, that's right. He would talk like directly
Speaker 4: to you, and I'll never forget.
Speaker 5: There was one episode that really struck me because I
Speaker 5: was I mean, I still have it. You don't grow
Speaker 5: out of ADHD. When my daughter got diagnosed with it,
Speaker 5: I really dove into it and I started remembering like,
Speaker 5: why would my mom do this to me as a kid? Lick,
Speaker 5: why she throw me in ballet?
Speaker 4: Because you know, back then in the seventies, ADHD figure
Speaker 4: it was the wild West. It was like have met
Speaker 4: you know, and kids are so my mom put me
Speaker 4: in ballet? And he did an episode with a football player.
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure it was someone of the Steelers.
Speaker 5: Who took and then went to football, and I remember
Speaker 5: being like, let's me, I'm I would go from ballet
Speaker 5: practice to soccer practice and never think, never think anything
Speaker 5: of it.
Speaker 4: And that's one thing I like that. It was just
Speaker 4: the nicest kind of assumption, like, yeah, that's just what
Speaker 4: you do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember mostly I remember us watching growing up. I
Speaker 1: just remember the him like taking his jacket off and
Speaker 1: his shoes on, like all that stuff. That's remember that.
Speaker 1: Yeah that was a big one. Yeah, yeah, changing his shoes.
Speaker 5: I was a big fan of the fish. And then
Speaker 5: he had this shelf and on the shelf was models
Speaker 5: of everything in the Land of Make Believe and he
Speaker 5: would bring them down and then the camera would zoom.
Speaker 4: In close and like you know, it's like the slowest
Speaker 4: zoom ever, you know, to get in there, and then
Speaker 4: it would just do the craziest of like you know,
Speaker 4: star wipe into the Land would Make Believe and TROLLI
Speaker 4: would be there and remembers the kid going, well, of
Speaker 4: course he travels between worlds, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's obviously a portal, right, you know,
Speaker 1: of course, right, and then he.
Speaker 5: Would do stuff like he wrote and they performed six
Speaker 5: operas on the show. Wow really because he liked opera,
Speaker 5: a fan of opera. Yeah, but you throw a purple
Speaker 5: panda into an opera and I'm gonna watch it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and it was super great. He also like,
Speaker 4: I mean again, I'm a giant nerd for him. His biography,
Speaker 4: he talks about how he worked with this child psychologist
Speaker 4: and everything that he did would have to get approved
Speaker 4: by her, and.
Speaker 5: She was like she was like old then, yeah, and
Speaker 5: she would push these crazy ideas like empathy. Like he
Speaker 5: wouldn't say things like he would approve every script and
Speaker 5: there was a way to write it in a certain way,
Speaker 5: which was it wasn't you know, as PBS so Europe
Speaker 5: throwing the commercial, but it wasn't like you wouldn't say
Speaker 5: I'll be back when.
Speaker 4: You're going away. Why are you going away? Yeah, I'm
Speaker 4: a kid, don't don't go anywhere. Like he was very
Speaker 4: specific about how you would talk to a kid and
Speaker 4: what words you would say. And he would, you know,
Speaker 4: not mean by any chance, but he would just you know,
Speaker 4: change the script and alter things to make it more
Speaker 4: accessible to you know, a mind that hasn't been on
Speaker 4: the planet that long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so more recently there's a documentary about him,
Speaker 1: and then there was this Tom Hanks movie. Did you
Speaker 1: watch this stuff?
Speaker 5: I watched the documentary. I haven't watched the Tom Hanks
Speaker 5: one yet. I'm nervous about it because I don't want it.
Speaker 5: I don't want it to set my memories of the man.
Speaker 1: But you know, life is like a box of chocolates, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: The documentary was incredible though, I saw it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, did you see.
Speaker 5: The special on PBS that was a retrospective and it
Speaker 5: was this is one of my favorite facts about mister Rogers.
Speaker 4: It was presented by Michael Keaton.
Speaker 5: No, because Michael Keaton was from Pittsburgh and that was
Speaker 5: his first job.
Speaker 4: He was an intern.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 5: And if you ever ask him, there's interviews but like,
Speaker 5: how is mister Rogers in person? You know, was he different?
Speaker 5: And he's said he's nicer?
Speaker 4: Wow, oh my god.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 4: So so mister Rogers found out that Michael Keaton was
Speaker 4: this aspiring comedian and had him to get together with
Speaker 4: other young actors and do like like silly like Karen
Speaker 4: Mootzov Brothers type stunts, but they're very safe and they
Speaker 4: were all pantomimes, so it'd be like him like stepping
Speaker 4: off the chair being like, yes, you know, and it's
Speaker 4: Michael Keaton and he's.
Speaker 1: Like and he would do it on the show, on
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can see.
Speaker 2: That's incredible.
Speaker 1: Even you're a big comic book guy. What's your What
Speaker 1: are your thoughts on Michael Keaton as Batman? Are you
Speaker 1: buying it?
Speaker 5: When it first came out, I was like, Nope, no,
Speaker 5: And then the movie came out and I went, oh, shoot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's pretty good.
Speaker 5: Okay, he's a pretty he's a pretty solid Bruce Wayne, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: and by the bye, like I loved Christian Bale, Robert Pattinson,
Speaker 5: I thought was amazing. And I'm very picky about Batman
Speaker 5: because in my mind, Batman is Adam West.
Speaker 4: That's it. That's right, right, right, Yeah, that's the ending.
Speaker 4: Who Going back to the beginning.
Speaker 5: One of the auditions I had Vanessa years and years ago,
Speaker 5: with the casting director of California Dreams. I tested for
Speaker 5: a pilot Lost out the Road, a Bobcat Golfway not
Speaker 5: to brag wow, then used a line on they used
Speaker 5: to and I have lived in the audition.
Speaker 4: In the final pilot. But whatever, But Adam West was there.
Speaker 2: But did the pilot not get picked up?
Speaker 4: It didn't get picked up?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so whatever, they probably they probably burned themselves. Okay,
Speaker 3: go ahead.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So but Adam West was one of was also
Speaker 4: testing for it, and I was just sitting there like
Speaker 4: at Fox, and I just went, uh, I had to
Speaker 4: go say something. But anyway, back to back to mister
Speaker 4: Rogers started, I mean to diagnosic.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, not at all. I was going to
Speaker 3: say back to mister Rogers that I feel like a
Speaker 3: lot of times when something really horrible happens, people post
Speaker 3: that quote that he has about like in a bad situation,
Speaker 3: like a horrible whatever, look for the helpers, like the
Speaker 3: people that are like focused on those people, the people
Speaker 3: that help, and that like are making the situation better
Speaker 3: and helping everybody else. And I think that's such a
Speaker 3: nice and I always think about that when something, you know,
Speaker 3: horrible happens, is the helpers.
Speaker 5: I think that was either his grandmother or his mom
Speaker 5: who would say to that, she'd look at there's always
Speaker 5: people helping look for it.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 5: The thing I love about is after the show was
Speaker 5: taken out the air and he ended it, you know,
Speaker 5: after he passed his wife, who just passed like in
Speaker 5: the past year. She for years, people said we're going
Speaker 5: to do another mister Rogers, do another mister Rogers, and
Speaker 5: she said no. And finally it was the woman who
Speaker 5: created Blues Clues, and she said, here's my idea. Change
Speaker 5: nothing but make it animated so it can run forever.
Speaker 4: And they took Daniel Tiger, which was his first puppet,
Speaker 4: who I remember that you lived in the clock. Well,
Speaker 4: Daniel Tiger has grown up and had his own kid
Speaker 4: named Daniel, and they created Daniel Tiger's neighborhood.
Speaker 5: And my kids started watching Daniel Tiger. Most of the
Speaker 5: kids I talked to watch Daniel Tiger.
Speaker 4: So literally, this next generation is just dripping with empathy
Speaker 4: and kindness and like understanding, and I see it all
Speaker 4: the time.
Speaker 3: I never put together that that was the same Daniel
Speaker 3: Tiger from because my my best friend Gwen's daughter or
Speaker 3: a loves Daniel Tiger.
Speaker 1: Is it like Daniel Tiger's going to like a Billie
Speaker 1: Eilish concert like in this episode case from.
Speaker 5: One hundred percent, but he's not allowed, well because Daniel
Speaker 5: is a Phineas fan.
Speaker 4: So it's been different for him.
Speaker 2: And Jonah loves to absolutely burn but.
Speaker 1: But that's like my one kind of.
Speaker 3: Sorry Jo makes jokes about gen Z. He's got a
Speaker 3: ton of gen Z material.
Speaker 4: I've got too much Millennial and gen Z stuff. It's
Speaker 4: it's a lot.
Speaker 3: So I was going to ask you about like the
Speaker 3: kid generation now knowing about it, because you were talking
Speaker 3: about your daughter watching, so she's seen episodes that you've
Speaker 3: shown her. But Daniel Tiger has sort of become the
Speaker 3: new mister Rogers.
Speaker 5: Yes, And then what I didn't know was and I
Speaker 5: was just looking up stuff because you know your head,
Speaker 5: you go, wait a minute, is it is? It was
Speaker 5: Lady Elaine what was her last name? Oh, it was
Speaker 5: Lady Lane failed Fairchild. So I was looking that up online.
Speaker 5: There's another show, because Daniel Tiger is all animated using
Speaker 5: all the songs. But there's a new show and it
Speaker 5: was it's called Donkey Hody and it's been running for
Speaker 5: two years now. And this one's all puppets. It's another
Speaker 5: spin off of the same and it's and it's literally
Speaker 5: inspired by the works of Fred Rogers, it says, really,
Speaker 5: So I haven't seen that, but I kind of like
Speaker 5: the fact that there's now this generation of queen's because
Speaker 5: my twins are twelve, going to be thirteen, Lord help us.
Speaker 4: Wow. And that was their thing is little kids. Now
Speaker 4: there's another one for little kids.
Speaker 1: It's still connected to mister Yeah.
Speaker 5: It's just I don't know, it's hard to be just well,
Speaker 5: we used to say this all the time, Jona.
Speaker 4: And I back and when we would write stuff. It's
Speaker 4: like most people, and I'm sure you have the same
Speaker 4: experience in Essa. Most people you meet that are you know,
Speaker 4: big names are usually really cool. Most people are cool.
Speaker 5: Like we have a few like jerk references usually yeah,
Speaker 5: you know some it's sometimes.
Speaker 4: It's like, well we started that, sorry, but you know, yeah,
Speaker 4: most people are really cool.
Speaker 5: And I think that's just very indicative of mister Rodgers
Speaker 5: that it's hard. You can get caught up really quick
Speaker 5: with people who aren't, and it's they're they're very few.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, most celebrities are cool. I would say
Speaker 1: most are also shorter and bigger heads than you might think.
Speaker 1: That's a real common sah.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm like looking for a compliment from my brother
Speaker 3: and that.
Speaker 2: Seems that's not what I was expecting.
Speaker 5: Well, I I legitimately, like Vanessa, hurl your name out
Speaker 5: like on a daily basis to my kids, Like something
Speaker 5: will pop up me like there's Vanessa.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 5: It'll be like when the super Pets came out.
Speaker 4: I was like, you.
Speaker 2: See, oh, that's so nice.
Speaker 4: She's a superhero. It's all coming together, understand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Steven, you're forgetting that your your daughters are
Speaker 1: also United Nations fans.
Speaker 4: Oh, huge Unitations fans.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's Jonah's band for anyone who does who
Speaker 3: doesn't know, but it is an awesome band. Yeah, that's
Speaker 3: pretty cool. That's pretty heavy stuff for tween I would
Speaker 3: call them tweens now would you call them?
Speaker 4: They're twins? There will be teens in a few months,
Speaker 4: but lines have been drawn because we have twins. They
Speaker 4: you know, like having your own identity is very important.
Speaker 4: So so my daughter Kate is like it it's Taylor
Speaker 4: Swift or nothing. Okay, But she is now a big
Speaker 4: fan of buying only Taylor's versions of her albums on final.
Speaker 1: WHOA, This is very cool.
Speaker 4: So she's a big fan. Meanwhile, her twin sister Emily
Speaker 4: gave up her Taylor Swift airstre ticket because she didn't
Speaker 4: want to go because she wanted me to take her
Speaker 4: to Metallica, which I didn't do because that was more
Speaker 4: money than Taylor Swift. Sure, but I did, But I
Speaker 4: did take her to see Marky Ramon's band Wow, And
Speaker 4: and she's a big, big Ramones fan, and lines have
Speaker 4: been drawn.
Speaker 1: That's very interesting because I remember, Stephen, when you had
Speaker 1: your kids, you had this policy where you were like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to show them any cool music because
Speaker 1: then they will not like cool music because they'll think
Speaker 1: they're rebelling as me because it's stuff their dad likes.
Speaker 1: So if I don't show them anything cool, maybe they'll
Speaker 1: discover it on their own and I won't tainte it.
Speaker 1: And I remember that was like, actually, like you're kind
Speaker 1: of approach to parenting. But it sounds like it kind
Speaker 1: of worked.
Speaker 5: Hopefully we'll see it's every once in a while, like
Speaker 5: I'll just sit there and like just not, I don't know.
Speaker 5: I don't want to make fun of a band just
Speaker 5: because I don't like them. There's just certain things like
Speaker 5: here's here's an example. I've met one of them and
Speaker 5: they're fine, but I'm just not a fan of their band.
Speaker 5: But the band, the Black Keys.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 5: My daughter Emily's a drummer and she's doing this school
Speaker 5: of rock band thing and she gets to play drums and.
Speaker 4: A clash song. Oh wow, shes psyched about. And then
Speaker 4: they gave her this other song and she was like,
Speaker 4: I don't even know who these guys are and it
Speaker 4: was the Black Keys, and I didn't want to go
Speaker 4: because I didn't want to like influence how she felt
Speaker 4: about it. Yeah, sure, but I'm not. This is not
Speaker 4: my thing, you know. Yeah, so, but I.
Speaker 5: Just didn't want to like broadcast it, you know. Meanwhile,
Speaker 5: her twin sister is in October running around singing at
Speaker 5: the top of her lungs. All I want for Christmas
Speaker 5: is you, I think, just to annoy us, which I
Speaker 5: kind of respect.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's kind of how I was. I would do
Speaker 3: stuff like that, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it's just it's very funny.
Speaker 5: She was blaring it while taking a shower and had
Speaker 5: it on her phone, and her twin sister ran in
Speaker 5: and all we heard was enough and like, slam boss.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you guys ever did kind of
Speaker 4: stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Does anyone have anything else to say about mister Rogers?
Speaker 3: I just wanted to say, my friend Kate mccoochee has
Speaker 3: a new children's album coming out, and she has a
Speaker 3: song about mister Rogers that's very very sweet.
Speaker 5: See, I've never met her, but I used to work
Speaker 5: for Leslie Kahn years and years ago, and I was
Speaker 5: one of her first teaching assistants. And there was her
Speaker 5: first book that she made, Kate drew yes, and I
Speaker 5: remember being like, what is I have it?
Speaker 4: I was like, what is this? She's amazing and then
Speaker 4: she shut up on Scrubs.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and then and then I learned about Garfunkelnoodes and
Speaker 5: I was, yeah, yeah, phenomenal, why I think, and and
Speaker 5: you know, voiceover much like you, and she's on Nature Cat.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, totally.
Speaker 4: We used to watch as well. Man, it's smart to
Speaker 4: come up with a good, cool kids show that just like,
Speaker 4: I don't know, just teaches, but like finds a way
Speaker 4: to teach and not telegraph that that's what you're doing.
Speaker 3: Not talk down. Yeah, yeah, not talk down to kids. Well,
Speaker 3: mister Rogers was certainly that I want to go watch
Speaker 3: it now.
Speaker 1: I'm all right, but we can't watch it because we
Speaker 1: got to finish this podcast and we'll be right back
Speaker 1: after this break.
Speaker 2: And we're back.
Speaker 3: Okay, So now it's even We're going to play a
Speaker 3: little a cool little game called change dot.
Speaker 4: Door change dot door.
Speaker 3: Otherwise known as let's make fun of people who don't
Speaker 3: know how to use change dot org. In this game,
Speaker 3: we're going to bring up three different somewhat nostalgic things
Speaker 3: that people are trying to bring back unchanged dot org,
Speaker 3: and we'll each vote for our favorite.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 2: And you're gonna absolutely enjoy it.
Speaker 1: So I can get into this first one. Sure, it's
Speaker 1: called music use during study hall. This one has a
Speaker 1: three hundred and sixty four signatures so far, versus creating's
Speaker 1: petition because they want to tell you about all the
Speaker 1: negativity that's been called by students that attend his high
Speaker 1: school because they banned air pods and music. The use
Speaker 1: of not listening to music has caused many restless students
Speaker 1: during the school day in study hall. According to the
Speaker 1: Mayo Clinic quote, music suits energize and inspires. Yes, some
Speaker 1: teachers may play music out loud, but not all do,
Speaker 1: especially in study hall when we are tired, trying to
Speaker 1: find the energy to stay awake and the motivation to study.
Speaker 1: Music helps us achieve those things. So Stephen, do you
Speaker 1: think that kids at this high school should be allowed
Speaker 1: to listen to their air pods in study hall?
Speaker 4: Okay, that has been scientifically proven that low fidelity music
Speaker 4: in the background helps studying and cognition. I listen to constantly.
Speaker 4: I'm a big fan of them. I don't know if
Speaker 4: it's a person or if it's a thing.
Speaker 5: With low fi girl on YouTube and Spotify, it's just lie.
Speaker 5: It's almost like, I don't elevator music sounds mean. I'm
Speaker 5: not trying to be mean, but it sounds like it's
Speaker 5: like cool stuff in the background that you can tell
Speaker 5: someone's put thought into, but like they're they're creating a but.
Speaker 4: It's like, you know, like back in the rave days,
Speaker 4: the chill out room.
Speaker 3: You know, sure, there's that surfer voice that the Bazuka
Speaker 3: guy had on California Dreams.
Speaker 5: I gotta tell you, man, that Bazuka episode was hard,
Speaker 5: and I don't think they could do it today physically challenging.
Speaker 2: I remember, you guys are squatting all over the place.
Speaker 1: You run, Oh yeah, could hurt your hip or something? Yeah,
Speaker 1: come on or something.
Speaker 4: Okay, I know, fine, late at night, I'll be like,
Speaker 4: what is my back hurt? And I realized, oh, I've
Speaker 4: been standing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't like that.
Speaker 3: I'd like to see the guy who plays Sly come
Speaker 3: up with a scheme like that today, you.
Speaker 1: Know, right.
Speaker 5: I ran into Michael a couple of times when I
Speaker 5: moved to New York in like two thousand and two,
Speaker 5: and I don't know what that dude does. But all
Speaker 5: I know is this is that he still has the apps.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Vanessa, what do you think about the music
Speaker 1: and study how what do you think?
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm on for it, especially for people to use
Speaker 2: their air pods.
Speaker 3: Like it's like, it's sort of like I would understand
Speaker 3: if like certain kids want music, certain kids don't.
Speaker 2: You sort of have to respect. You want to try
Speaker 2: to respect everybody.
Speaker 3: But if kids are allowed to just listen on their
Speaker 3: air pods and and they're not bothering anyone, then yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't think it should be I think it should
Speaker 3: totally be allowed.
Speaker 1: What about you, Jonah, I'm with you. Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: got to have that. You gotta have some kind of headphones,
Speaker 1: ear pods. You know, no one wants to to hear
Speaker 1: your music, you know. So I also think podcasts can
Speaker 1: be good too. You know, listen to what you want,
Speaker 1: but make sure you're you're studying. Maybe maybe the podcast
Speaker 1: is too distracting if you're studying, listen to listen to music,
Speaker 1: maybe something instrumental even But hey, I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: tell you what to listen to, but whatever helps you
Speaker 1: do your listen to lifetime, you know, or some lifetimes.
Speaker 5: I think teachers get I think teachers get annoyed by
Speaker 5: it because air pods and like the pros and all
Speaker 5: those kind of cool little earbuds. If you know, you
Speaker 5: got the long hair, you can wear it all day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought about that. Yeah, really an issue for me,
Speaker 1: but it would be cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think they should listen to. You know,
Speaker 4: if I was going to pick a podcast, probably how
Speaker 4: Do We Get Weird would be the one that I
Speaker 4: would encourage most students to listen to.
Speaker 5: In fact, in fact, Jonah, I got a tweet an
Speaker 5: exeat what I call it a little while ago, and
Speaker 5: it was about how when before our show got canceled
Speaker 5: a few years ago, Vanessa, an executive, decided to take
Speaker 5: it from after school and put it during school. So
Speaker 5: because we are Provocateurs. Our producer Mike ken Jemmy encouraged
Speaker 5: us to have kids text from school because we had
Speaker 5: to do this promotion for like, I don't know, was
Speaker 5: it a palm pilot or something.
Speaker 1: It was something something like that. It's some kind of
Speaker 1: So we.
Speaker 5: Had kids text us and some kid was like, I
Speaker 5: remember when I got in trouble for texting during school
Speaker 5: and then and then Steven answered it on air, so yeah,
Speaker 5: take that.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh god, it would be like, if
Speaker 1: you're in school, it doesn't matter. Just text us at
Speaker 1: this number.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, because.
Speaker 1: We were so mad about the time getting changed, we
Speaker 1: were really trying to yeah, trying to rebel, all right,
Speaker 1: So we're in agreement on this one, yes, So what
Speaker 1: we'll want to get into the next The next one is.
Speaker 3: Called bring back Zours Candy. Now, this one surprisingly has
Speaker 3: two three hundred and thirty three signatures. Oh and it's
Speaker 3: written out to twenty people, including President Joseph R.
Speaker 2: Piden. And this person wrote, I won't read the whole thing,
Speaker 2: but really I very long. It's very long.
Speaker 3: But this person starts with imagine a warm memory from
Speaker 3: childhood enjoying the respite of a cool movie theater during
Speaker 3: the hot summer, munching on salty popcorn and your favorite
Speaker 3: fruity candy, maybe playfully arguing with your siblings or friends
Speaker 3: over who gets the last piece of candy. Fast forward
Speaker 3: ten to twenty years later, and every time you open
Speaker 3: your bag or box of that candy, you're instantly transported
Speaker 3: back to your younger years and that blissful moment. You're
Speaker 3: momentarily reminded of how it felt to be young and carefree.
Speaker 3: And then she keeps talking, and she says, it may
Speaker 3: seem trivial to some, but imagine the discip of and
Speaker 3: longing you would feel if something's so nostalgic and irreplaceable
Speaker 3: to simply disappeared one day. That is how possibly thousands
Speaker 3: of people, if not more, feel having lost their favorite
Speaker 3: candy in the whole world.
Speaker 1: So ours, okay, so basically ours are Mike and Ike's,
Speaker 1: but there were Sour versus.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Mike and Ike brands Sour Delicious Sours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, twenty twenty, they're discontinued. So pretty there.
Speaker 2: Discontinued in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: And this person has written to just Born asked about them.
Speaker 3: The company said, if you're looking for something sour try
Speaker 3: or Mike and Ike megamix sour. She's like, no, that's
Speaker 3: not good enough, and she ends the petition by saying,
Speaker 3: please consider emailing, calling or mailing just Born the parent
Speaker 3: company of Mike and Ike to let them know how
Speaker 3: much it would mean to you to have them back.
Speaker 3: Then she gives the email link, she gives the phone number,
Speaker 3: the corporate office number. They're hours where you can mail letters.
Speaker 3: I mean this, I got to say, I want to
Speaker 3: ask you both what you think of this position. But
Speaker 3: this is one of the most thorough petitions I've ever
Speaker 3: read on here, you know.
Speaker 2: For something that like that important.
Speaker 3: And I feel that the fact that this person not
Speaker 3: sometimes these people talk in a way that they really
Speaker 3: try to sound sophisticated and they're really whatever, and then
Speaker 3: they're sort of you can't take it seriously because it's
Speaker 3: so sort of like who is this to? What is
Speaker 3: this for the way that this person laid out their petition,
Speaker 3: I really respect them, and I can see how much
Speaker 3: they want this candy to come back, and they actually
Speaker 3: have gotten a lot of signatures for it. So I
Speaker 3: started with myself was just kind of untraditional, but I'm
Speaker 3: for it. Anyways, what do you think, Steven.
Speaker 5: I'm a big candy fan and I support anything involving candy.
Speaker 4: I eat quite a bit of it. But having said that,
Speaker 4: candy has gone through many iterations, and maybe there's a
Speaker 4: reason they don't know. I don't know z ours. I
Speaker 4: don't Mike and Ike. But you know, if you like.
Speaker 5: The sour stuff, Sour Patch kids are pretty good. I
Speaker 5: know it's say, but I remember when when red eminem's
Speaker 5: were taken out because red dye number five caused I
Speaker 5: don't know something in the seventies. So there were no
Speaker 5: red eminems up until like the late eighties, and I
Speaker 5: remember being outraged, but there were options.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'm I support the candy, but yeah, I can't.
Speaker 4: I can't get on board with this one. I wish I.
Speaker 1: Could, Okay, Yeah, I was always more of a hot
Speaker 1: Tamales fan when it came to the scene, the cinnamon one.
Speaker 1: But you know, I suffered from this thing, and I would.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it would be the same with this candy.
Speaker 1: Where you're at the movies, you get big bag hot
Speaker 1: tomoraw's your psych The first couple are so good, then
Speaker 1: it just turns you have too many of them and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden they taste completely disgusting. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think that would happen with these hours too. I
Speaker 1: think I like, I like sower Patch kids, I like sour.
Speaker 1: I never eat it, but I like it. But I
Speaker 1: think it would turn pretty fast. And honestly, I don't
Speaker 1: know firsthand, but I think the difference between a sour
Speaker 1: and a sour mic and ike like the combination of
Speaker 1: corn syrup and sugar is probably close enough. Yeah where
Speaker 1: I get you of the nostalgic memory of SO hours,
Speaker 1: but you put on a blindfold, it probably is just
Speaker 1: a sour flavored Mike. It's probably close enough. I would
Speaker 1: have missed Warhead.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: This person's strongly. I mean, she says that it really
Speaker 3: does not stuck up. It's the replacements too, waxy does
Speaker 3: not have the same consistency or mouth feel fair enough.
Speaker 1: I mean, she would know better than me. I mean,
Speaker 1: because I've never had you know, so so maybe she's right.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, for this company just born,
Speaker 1: I guarantee you it's about the bottom line. If these
Speaker 1: SO hours were selling, they'd be making them.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, it's also interesting economics.
Speaker 3: None of us of the three of us remember this candy,
Speaker 3: so that says something time.
Speaker 4: But I did play in another band in California called
Speaker 4: mouth Feel, so.
Speaker 1: Wow, I get that love that interesting. Let's get to
Speaker 1: this last one. This final petition is called Reboot The Sauce.
Speaker 1: It's got eight signatures eight and it says, Hi, I'm
Speaker 1: organizing this petition to ask to bring back the nightly
Speaker 1: talk show The Sauce. It was a variety talk show
Speaker 1: hosted by Jared Cotter and Stephen Smith, which was based
Speaker 1: out of New York City. The show was known to
Speaker 1: interview different singers, movie and TV stars, and other public
Speaker 1: figures where they would have music performances. The show lasted
Speaker 1: from April second, two thousand and seven to May twenty second,
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight. It was an awesome show to
Speaker 1: watch every night, and I needed it to be on
Speaker 1: more years, so I asked to please have the show
Speaker 1: come back. Steven, what do you think about rebooting The Sauce?
Speaker 5: You know, I'm all for anything that I was involved in,
Speaker 5: and Jared, Jared was. I worked with a lot of people.
Speaker 5: Jared to this day is my most favorite person to
Speaker 5: host a TV show with. And Jared Cotter he's a
Speaker 5: manager out in La Now I'm a singer, but he
Speaker 5: was on. He was famous for being on American Idol
Speaker 5: and when he was removed, he sang let's get it
Speaker 5: on by mar and Gay and dedicated to his parents,
Speaker 5: which I know he hates that I bring up all
Speaker 5: the time. But Jared, that was We had a lot
Speaker 5: of fun on that show. We It was a very
Speaker 5: weird show that would have like Andrew Dice Clay one
Speaker 5: day and then like Paramore the next wow, or Kelly
Speaker 5: Clarkson performing live and then like uh oh, just to
Speaker 5: data like the cast of Heroes remember Heroes on in
Speaker 5: the eighties with it was like it was like the
Speaker 5: first big like superhero esque show before like iron Man
Speaker 5: and everything kicked off the okay, that kind of thing.
Speaker 5: We have those casts our Dato Radcliffe came by a
Speaker 5: bunch to the point where she would like recommend bands
Speaker 5: to me.
Speaker 4: That's how often he came by.
Speaker 1: That's the show where Madonna came on it.
Speaker 4: No, that was a special segmentent that we did where
Speaker 4: we got to talk to Madonna where she was nonplussed
Speaker 4: with any of the other interviewers. But Jonah and I
Speaker 4: were smart and talked about Eugene who to go go bordello?
Speaker 4: And she happened to love this guy, so she was
Speaker 4: so nice to us and let me ask all these
Speaker 4: kind of crazy questions.
Speaker 2: And Joan, I don't think I knew that you met her.
Speaker 1: I wasn't there. But then we worked on the questions.
Speaker 4: I don't know you were doing well. Then we snuck
Speaker 4: it onto the rock show.
Speaker 5: We're like, hey, guys, here's Madonna and we'd like to
Speaker 5: throw it on the show because we actually got to
Speaker 5: a point where we just do what But the sauce
Speaker 5: was a lot of fun. And I'll tell you what
Speaker 5: I loved about it was my wife worked on that show.
Speaker 4: Well she's my girlfriend, so now she's my ex girlfriend.
Speaker 4: But that show was done. I mean, Jenny could say
Speaker 4: he was there. It was like a skeleton crew. It
Speaker 4: was like seven or eight people.
Speaker 5: And with the crew, it was a live show every day,
Speaker 5: five days a week, and I don't know how we
Speaker 5: pulled it off. And my wife, she was the talent
Speaker 5: booker and the programmer for the channel, so.
Speaker 4: She would get all these all these.
Speaker 5: Crazy bands to come on, like like big names, and
Speaker 5: it was just it was bonkers, super bombers, but it
Speaker 5: was fun. One day we had like Henry Rollins sitting
Speaker 5: there just talking about something, and then I think it
Speaker 5: was we had like the Harlem glow.
Speaker 1: Dryers, like wow, incredible.
Speaker 4: It was like, I don't know, just fun.
Speaker 2: So if they brought it back, you'd do it again.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, wholeheartedly, be fun.
Speaker 5: Bring I'd make my kids hosted, but only if Jonah
Speaker 5: writes it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, I'm available. Yeah, I would like to
Speaker 1: bring the show back. I love I love watching Stephen host.
Speaker 1: Like I said, not to heap too much praise on Stephen,
Speaker 1: but Steven has such a good sense of timing. And
Speaker 1: I noticed this when we did the podcast, and it's like,
Speaker 1: if you say, Stephen, talk for twelve seconds, like Steven
Speaker 1: knows how to talk for the very specific set of
Speaker 1: skills that might not carry over into a lot of
Speaker 1: places but always impresses me. So I would love to
Speaker 1: see Steven on TV. Love to see him out there
Speaker 1: cutting it up with you know, Billie Eilish or.
Speaker 5: You know Billy Eilish came by fuse okay, and it
Speaker 5: was because they had this was long after we had
Speaker 5: been gone, but they had Phineas on Okay.
Speaker 4: Wow, and that's why my wife brought Phineas because he
Speaker 4: was the name and he was just bringing around his sister.
Speaker 1: Wow. Incredible.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I can't make any other references, but that's yeah, that's
Speaker 1: who I think would be on the show now.
Speaker 4: Maybe yeah, like Olivia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: I mean this is eight signatures. It looks like it's
Speaker 3: about to have eleven.
Speaker 1: Yep, you're signing this one too.
Speaker 3: I'm signing this one hundred. Yeah, Stephen, you are such
Speaker 3: a good host. You're such a great We didn't even
Speaker 3: get into when you were on Queer I We'll get
Speaker 3: into that next time.
Speaker 2: Didn't you get a make up? Weren't you made over
Speaker 2: on Queer Eye?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 5: Yes, that was the second highest rated episode.
Speaker 6: Really.
Speaker 5: Yes, it was a lot of fun. It was very goofy.
Speaker 5: It was like a cross promotional thing with Fuse. And
Speaker 5: they didn't tell me they were showing up and we
Speaker 5: had a table reading and all of a sudden they
Speaker 5: crashed in and I said something ridiculous like ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 5: the homosexuals have arrived, and it just turned into this
Speaker 5: whole goofy thing. Now, what cracked me up was the
Speaker 5: culture part. Like, they came over and throw my stuff.
Speaker 5: And the culture guy. Oh it was Jay Rodriguez. So
Speaker 5: I had seen him. I've seen him in Rendom. Yeah,
Speaker 5: he played Angel and he came in and he was
Speaker 5: like this. He went, I like your stuff, your stuff,
Speaker 5: Your stuff seems fine, and I went, yeah, okay, okay,
Speaker 5: we'll play it up. And then Carson Kresley and I
Speaker 5: thought it'd be really funny to just like mess with
Speaker 5: each other and slam doors and be ridiculous. And there's
Speaker 5: like a video of like slamming a door in Carson
Speaker 5: and all these kind of things, but literally, goofy stuff.
Speaker 1: You didn't want to cut your hair? That's right, isn't
Speaker 1: that true?
Speaker 4: Yeah? It was stupid. Should have cut I should just
Speaker 4: gone for it. You know what they call it, hindsight
Speaker 4: is twenty thousand no.
Speaker 2: Right, something like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we're all voting for the same petition here, Yeah,
Speaker 1: bring back the sauce, right, sauce it up?
Speaker 3: So I think, okay, between these three, if we had
Speaker 3: to pick just one between music use during study hall,
Speaker 3: bring back sours Candy, and bring back the sauce, what's
Speaker 3: everyone voting for?
Speaker 4: I think we're all in Agreement music and Study Hall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the sauce Oh and shoot, yes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right, you're right. That's the one I should
Speaker 4: have gone with. See, I never I never think.
Speaker 3: What no, no, no, no, you're we it's good. We've
Speaker 3: got we feel strongly about two of these. That's not
Speaker 3: very common. No, Now, before we wrap up, do you
Speaker 3: guys want to hear me sing like just a snippet
Speaker 3: of the theme song to California Dreams.
Speaker 4: Yes, one hundred percent.
Speaker 7: Absolutely, don't wake me up, don't wake me yup cause
Speaker 7: I'm dream and California your dreams. Just let me away
Speaker 7: here and the sun until my dreams up and still
Speaker 7: my dream instill.
Speaker 1: That was amazing, Thank you, Vanessa Steven. Is there anything
Speaker 1: you'd like to promote or any kind of anything you're
Speaker 1: working on?
Speaker 5: Or I would like to promote this amazing podcast called
Speaker 5: how did this geel Weird?
Speaker 4: Which is good?
Speaker 5: And I like to throw out jonah our old podcast
Speaker 5: which is still running, which is great. Benny Horowitz and
Speaker 5: Brad Goop doing going off track Benny from Gaslights still
Speaker 5: on tour, and oh yeah oh in the groups just
Speaker 5: released a single, the first single in like twenty five
Speaker 5: thirty years or something.
Speaker 1: Yes, I saw that, so check that out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, all kinds of fun stuff and whatever Vanessa's working on,
Speaker 5: which I can't wait because whenever I whenever I turn
Speaker 5: on the TV and I see you in something that
Speaker 5: I didn't realize you were in, which is so many things.
Speaker 4: I'm just.
Speaker 5: And I just pointed out to the girls. They go yeah,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, no, she's amazing.
Speaker 2: And whatever Jonah's working on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you write some articles and helping some people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got some and you can check me out
Speaker 1: and do some bios. Check my stuff out Spin and
Speaker 1: some most of the podcast Big Magazine. It's like, my
Speaker 1: that's my big kind of public facing thing.
Speaker 4: Is this? This podcast is so great.
Speaker 5: It was so hard to go through because I'm a listener,
Speaker 5: and I was the one episode that it didn't bumm
Speaker 5: me out because it was just like, oh man, I
Speaker 5: would love to have talked about that because Lord, Jan
Speaker 5: Grays g I Joe was my jam when I.
Speaker 4: Was a kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah, And I was.
Speaker 4: Like, oh my gosh, she nailed it. Oh it's so great.
Speaker 1: Well you have to come back, Stephen. That was so fun.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us and everyone for listening.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed that, please subscribe to the podcast and
Speaker 1: keep it out for next week's episode of How Did
Speaker 1: We Get Weird? But we will discuss more stories from
Speaker 1: our childhood and cultural touchstones like mister Rogers.
Speaker 8: Neighborhood, Yes, thank you, Steven, and don't wake me up
Speaker 8: with them dream.
Speaker 4: I know that a very reason