Last Looks: Champagne & Bullets [Jason Edition] w/ Suzi Barrett

Change is always happening, but no matter what changes in five years, there's one thing that will stay the same: the price of your internet.

With the Xfiniti five-year price guarantee, you get five years of the most reliable Wi-Fi with our best equipment included, for a price that stays exactly the same.

Restrictions apply, new residential customers only, taxes and fees extra, and subject to change.

Most reliable Wi-Fi based on Open Signal Awards USA, Fixed Broadband Experience Report, August 2024.

At the University of Arizona, we believe that everyone is born with wonder.

That thing that says, I will not accept this world that is.

While it drives us to create what could be,

that world can't wait to see what you'll do.

Where will your wonder take you?

And what will it make you?

The University of Arizona.

Wonder makes you.

Start your journey at wonder.arrizona.edu.

for a limited time at McDonald's get a Big Mac extra value meal for $8.

That means two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun, and medium fries and a drink.

We may need to change that jingle.

Prices and participation may vary.

All right.

What's up, jerks?

It's Jason.

Paul is out of town.

I got a panicked.

a panicked phone call from producer Scott and he said, you got to get on the on the on the wi-fi.

You got to get on the computer right now.

We need to record a Last Looks.

ASAP.

So here we go.

We're doing it.

It's a Jason episode of Last Looks.

We're disconnecting the Discord.

These fucking idiots convinced me to do one of these again.

Hit the theme song.

What's up, Jerks?

How we doing tonight?

Did you watch some flips?

The time is right.

Jason, Junior, oh, get into it.

Are you deep sanity?

Are you deep bred?

Did you take some notes?

Would you scratch your head?

Did you take all your work?

How did you get through it?

Did you ask yourself

all the people yelling to you?

How did this get paid?

How did this get made?

State them at the farmers markets, say

how did this get paid?

How did this get made?

You call John, Jason, and Junior girl.

Coming in and rocking rooms, so singing, clap your pants

and say, How did this get made?

Welcome to How Did This Get Made Last Looks, where you, the listener, get to voice your issues on, oh boy, the movie we covered at the end of tour called Champagne and Bullets Yikes, a full-on yikes movie, a movie that Discord user, again, we're disconnecting the Discord, Dov, D-O-V, thinks should have had the tagline, and then this is all in quotes and italics, which leads me to believe that these are Dov's words.

Here's a quarter.

Buy yourself a writer, director, actor, singer, producer, unquote.

That's Dove's tagline for this movie.

We do taglines now.

You guys write taglines for the movies now.

That's part of what we do.

Thank you, Dove, for the movie tagline.

And huge shout out to Casey Alexander for that opening theme song, which was a banger.

You know what?

Every once in a while, I get to come on here and do one of these, and I'm never not blown away by people's musical abilities and that they put those abilities in the service of this absolutely absurd podcast.

Remember, if you have a movie tagline that you want to submit to us, you can do it on our Discord.

That's how they do it.

I feel like there's got to be a better way to do it.

Don't we have a landline they can leave a message on?

Um, okay, you can go to our Discord at hold on now.

I'm having to lean forward to look at the type

at discord.gg

slash hdtgm.

So it's discord.gilmoregirls slash how did this get me?

And if you have a Last Looks episode theme song, just like Casey Alexander did just moments ago, go to hdtgm.com and click submit a song button at the end of the homepage, or not the end of the homepage.

There is no end of the homepage, is there?

Just keeps scrolling is my guess.

But there is a submit a song button on the homepage.

Just try and keep them short, guys.

15, 20 seconds for those songs.

That's That's what works best.

Much like any second opinion theme song or any other theme song,

they go on too long.

They always go on too long.

So chop them up, guys.

We know you love your art, as do we ours, but chop it up.

Okay, coming up on today's episode, we're going to be hearing all of your corrections and omissions on champagne and bullets.

And I will be playing an exclusive, exclusive

an exclusive deleted scene from the episode.

Well, it's not a deleted scene from the episode.

It's probably a delete.

I mean, we didn't record any scenes, but

I'm guessing what this means is there will be exclusive content, stuff that was cut out of the app, and we're putting it back in.

Why?

Probably because it's fucking hilarious.

Plus, for all of you improv nerds, and honestly, everybody else, Paul and I have a great guest.

We have Susie Barrett, the podcaster behind the fantastic improv podcast.

Yes, also.

Paul and I have been a guest

on the show before.

We both love it.

We had a great talk with Susie Barrett, who is just a terrific improviser,

a teacher,

a great podcast host, great conversationalist.

We had a great chat.

And as always, at the end of the show, I will reveal, like a magician, the movie for next week's episode.

But for now, I'll just tease that it's a movie we've been getting a lot of requests to cover.

So we did.

Okay, before we get to the action, a little bit of housekeeping.

We have live, how did this get made dates on the calendar?

Los Angeles, Largo, October 22nd and 23rd.

There are still a few tickets left.

Get on there, get them up, snatch them up, get on a plane, fly over here, wait in line, get a ticket, go get a coffee, come back.

get back in line, walk into the venue, sit in your seat, and shit your pants from laughing.

October 22nd and 23rd at Largo.

Also at Largo Dinosaur Improv, the improv group that Paul and I are a part of.

September 19th.

September 19th at Largo Dinosaur Improv tickets.

If you want to check it out, go on the website, get tickets.

Lastly, a lot of people know that our amazing movie picking producer, Averil, is still fighting cancer and can always use some more love from you guys.

You can email her a message at andrew at moviebitches.xyz, or you can mail her something directly at Avril Halley, that's H-A-L-L-E-Y, P-O-Box 641, Agora Hills, A-G-O-U-R-A,

California, 91376.

I know a lot of you have already reached out and it's been wonderful.

So please keep it going.

Okay,

let's get into it.

Last week, we talked at length about champagne and bullets.

Wow, this movie was nuts.

Sure, we might have missed a few things.

There was quite a bit to cover, as I remember in this movie.

Now, not to pull the curtain back too much, but we are some months from when we recorded this, so I have almost completely wiped this movie clean from my mind, shaken the Etcha sketch of my head.

But here is your chance to set us straight.

It's time for corrections and omissions.

Corrections and omissions.

We ain't rocket scientists.

A swing in the miss.

Now somebody's pissed.

We took a crack, but it weren't a fact.

Now the fans are gonna yell at us.

Corrections and omissions.

Wow, absolutely stunning.

Great.

That song came to us from

Damon Gentry.

Great work, Damon Gentry.

That was terrific.

I love it.

I love it.

You know what?

The variety.

Earlier, we heard a song

like a rock and roller.

This has got

a Nashville twang to it.

Boy, Nashville, still, how have we never played Nashville?

I don't understand it.

Why haven't I set foot on the Rhyman stage?

That's what I want to know.

Okay, boy, I see it written in the script.

I don't want to say these words out loud, but here we go.

Let's go to the Discord.

joe tangelo writes the best scene that wasn't mentioned was when they leave cindy's parents house rick is driving that geo tracker looking car and has a lot of trouble getting it into first gear before finally peeling out i love how all the clumsy driving was left in okay so so i've we've just watched the scene uh that joe tangelo is referencing and joe it's even crazier uh because yes you're correct he is having quite a bit of trouble getting the, I believe Suzuki Samurai is maybe what it is.

It's one of the little Suzuki

little

Jeep type things that the top came off of, much like a Jeep Wrangler or something like that.

Oh, it's a Suzuki sidekick, says Rupert Grimpert.

I see.

It's been pointed out to me that later in the script, Rupert Grimpert chimes in to add, I think the car is a Suzuki sidekick, which made made me laugh because that car was a running joke in the Babes in Toyland episode.

Okay, yes.

So you're probably right.

It's either a Suzuki sidekick or a Samurai.

I can't remember which.

Both incredibly perfect 80s era cars.

What's incredible, Joe Tangelo, is that while he is struggling to get it into gear, the car is just rolling backwards.

The car rolls, I'm going to say, almost eight to 10 feet backwards, which is pretty hilarious.

And it appears to also have a legitimate California license plate on the on it with like real real numbers, which also made me laugh.

Okay.

And thank you, Rupert Grimpert,

for chiming in on that.

Okay, Dave writes.

In John's director's commentary, oh, Dave, please tell me you didn't listen to John's director's commentary.

Guys, guys, please claw back some part of your life.

Please, you don't have to give it all away.

In John's director's commentary, he says the strip tees in his bar slash arcade was shot as a wet t-shirt contest with 10 women.

But he didn't end up using any of that footage because, quote, that was too much.

I didn't want to do anything gratuitous with the sensuality, unquote.

Okay, okay,

okay.

Okay, I take it back.

Dave, thank you for listening to the director's commentary.

Thank you for tossing hours of your life away in service of this podcast.

Wild stuff.

That's crazy.

And I mean, like, part of me wishes I'd seen that footage instead of some of the footage I was forced to watch in this movie.

It seems like,

frankly, maybe I'm wrong.

I don't know.

But

a wet t-shirt contest at a bar would seem to me to be a lot less upsetting than some of the stuff that was included in this movie, vis-à-vis gratuitous sensuality.

Okay, Pam writes, I am surprised that no one brought up how often these people are drinking champagne.

Who drinks it that often?

We all do, Pam.

You're the only one.

You're the only one out there not drinking champagne.

Everybody's drinking.

I'm drinking champagne right now.

I got up this morning and I made a French press of champagne, and boy, is it tasty, delicious.

Producer Scott drinking his champagne right now.

Look at him, putting it up to his lips.

All right, Pam,

I've got an answer for you in the form of another listener who called in with their own theory on what's up with all the champagne in the movie.

And we're going to find out what that theory is and answer some phone calls after a quick break.

So if you don't mind, stick the fuck around.

Today's podcast is brought to you by Squarespace.

Whether you're starting out or scaling up your business, Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online.

I am a giant fan of Squarespace.

I use it for many different websites, Unspooled, how did this get made?

Dark web and my own, each one completely different.

And why do I love it so much?

Well, because Squarespace gives you everything you need for your specific product.

Every one of these websites is completely different.

And right now, they offer services that help you get paid.

That's right.

Get paid on time with professional, on-brand invoices and online payments.

Plus, streamline your workflow with built-in appointment scheduling and email marketing tools.

Every dream needs a domain.

Squarespace Domains makes it easy to find the best name for your business at one fair, all-inclusive price.

No hidden fees or add-ons required.

Head to squarespace.com slash bonkers for a free trial.

And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code bonkers to save 10% on your first purchase of a website or domain.

While you're out buying new school supplies and trying to plan a new schedule this season, the last thing that you want to do is factor in a giant wireless bill.

And with Mint Mobile, you can get coverage and speed that you're used to for way less money.

That's why, for a limited time, Mint Mobile is offering three months of unlimited premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month.

Now, I've told you in the past, our producer, Scott, he switched to Mint Mobile and he wanted me to tell all of you that his cell service is just as good as his old provider.

But here's the thing, it costs $40 less per month.

And since his baby is too young for school supplies, he's going to use that extra cold cash to buy lots and lots of stupid Halloween decorations because there's nothing better than a baby in a ghost costume.

Now look, you can get this new customer offer and your three-month unlimited wireless plan for $15 a month at mintmobile.com slash HDTGM.

That's mintmobile.com slash HDTGM.

Upfront payment of $40 required, equivalent to $15 a month.

Limited time, new customer offer for the first three months only.

Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan.

Taxes and fees extra.

See Mint Mobile for details.

Start speaking a new language with confidence thanks to Babel's conversation-based learning technique that quickly teaches you useful words and phrases about the things you actually talk about in the real world.

There are over a dozen languages available to learn at your own pace, and you can achieve your goals with material tailored to your individual proficiency level, interest, and time availability.

I have been learning Spanish with Babel, and I absolutely love it.

I love it because of the games, right?

It makes it more exciting for me to just jump right in, whether it's sentence building or maybe this little learning about the culture that just brings the language home.

It's like learning from a living, breathing organism, you know, you're engaging, you're interactive.

It is so much fun.

You will love it.

Learn another language.

Babel is gifting our listeners 55% off subscriptions at babble.com slash bonkers.

Get up to 55% off at babble.com slash bonkers.

Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash bonkers.

Babble.com slash bonkers.

Rules and restrictions apply.

And we're back.

Let's go to the phones and hear another theory about all the champagne in the movie, Champagne and Bullets.

John from Portland.

Let's hear it.

Hey, Paul.

This is John from Portland, Oregon.

I saw the show Champagne and Bullets with my friends for my birthday.

It was a great show.

I didn't get to ask my question there, so I wanted to ask it now.

Do you think the reason that he has so much champagne throughout the film is due to the fact that he is a limo driver and he's just pilfering the extra champagne throughout the

throughout his course of work?

And is that how he's able to keep all those his friends of his

drinking champagne throughout it.

Just came to my mind and was thinking about that during the show.

But yeah, great show.

Love you all.

And yeah,

very excited.

Cheers.

Okay, so I guess what John is suggesting is because the character is a limo driver, he is pilfering the champagne from the limo company or something like that.

Perhaps.

I don't know.

I think the movie just wants to suggest that these people are just casually drinking drinking champagne all the time.

I don't think it's interested in interrogating how they got it.

They're just living that champagne and bullets lifestyle.

And for us to kind of poke around as to how, I don't think that's what the movie's asking.

I think the movie's asking us to just sit back and enjoy the absolute insanity that is champagne and bullets.

Okay.

Up next is Liz from Wisconsin.

Hey, Paul, it's Liz from Wisconsin.

I was just listening to the most recent recent episode about champagne and bullets, etc.,

and thought I'd remark on the question of people testing to become police officers in their 50s.

As Jason said, it absolutely is possible.

My dad tested for Denver PD when he was 53 and not only passed but did well,

which is unusual and noteworthy, perhaps, but he did it.

So there you go.

He did end up having a heart attack later that year and not getting to go and do it, which is less good for my point.

My dad is fine now.

He's not a cop,

but I just thought I'd offer that anecdote as proof that, you know, hey, yeah, it's absolutely possible.

Sure.

Okay, so at least it's been done once.

Okay.

Thanks, guys.

Bye.

Wow.

What a roller coaster from Liz from Wisconsin.

I mean,

I loved hearing

I loved hearing about your dad

not only taking taking the police test,

but acing it, but thriving inside of the test, but devastated to hear that he had a heart attack at 53 or 54, so young that kept him out of the job.

Terrifying.

So

a real victory in one sense for me in terms of, yes, I was right.

Someone my age could take and pass the

police exam.

But then also, Liz from Wisconsin, you have now infected me with the idea that I am maybe but a very short period of time away from a heart attack, as I am somehow your dad's age, which is also upsetting to me.

Or maybe I was your dad's age at that time, which makes more sense.

But now I'm knocking on wood here because now I've made myself nervous.

But a great call from Liz from Wisconsin.

Thank you for sharing that.

Next up, Brad from Nashville.

Hey, Paul.

You all talked a little bit about the music, but

I don't think you really

discussed the fact that John DeHart

is the one singing the songs that back his own love scenes.

And he is a terrible singer.

He is entirely off-key.

And it is very obviously his voice that comes in as he is

in the bathtub with the playmate.

And it really brought up like Job Bluth vibes from when

Job had a mixtape of his own singing to play during

love sessions.

Anyway, I just wanted to touch on the absolute arrogance of John to Hart in

singing the backing for his own lovemaking.

Thanks.

Bye.

Well, you know what, Brad from Nashville, you know, it's not Paul, it's Jason.

Everybody has addressed their thing to Paul, and it's been me the whole time.

You didn't know.

I can understand that.

But first and foremost, to everybody who I've answered, how dare you?

How dare you not respect me as the host of this episode?

Even though you couldn't have known.

That being said,

yeah, no, I mean, like, I think this movie is top to bottom hubris.

And it is all that his singing soundtracks, his own sex scenes, I think is

absolutely par for the course.

I remember, I think Nick Cannon once said on the Howard Stern show that Mariah Carey also liked to listen to her own music during their lovemaking sessions.

I believe that is true.

And I think he also mentioned that I believe she would have restaurants play

a playlist of her songs when she ate there.

Something like that.

That might be apocryphal or maybe misattributed, but I'm pretty sure that's what I heard.

That's that.

Oh, and we have one last call, and it is from Scott from Massachusetts.

Oh, Massachusetts.

It doesn't say where in Massachusetts.

So this, Scott's either fucking cool as hell or an absolute piece of shit.

So this better be good, Scott.

Let's see what you got.

Hey, Paul, Scott from Massachusetts calling.

One thing about the joke sequence from Champagne and Bullets.

Jason refers to it as a...

having the main character say it was a position joke.

I think he introduced it as a position joke.

That's all.

Have a great day.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

You know what?

So

we have a little bit of clarity.

Scott is an asshole from Massachusetts.

I don't know what town he's from.

Probably the South Shore.

My guess is Scott is from the South Shore.

Here, Scott, why don't you, Scott, producer Scott, why don't you play, why don't you stop drinking champagne and why don't you play the clip that this fucking asshole is talking about?

Do you have a new joke, Sunday?

You know, I always got a new joke for you, Ben.

So I got a physician joke for you.

It's a very attractive young lady goes to the doctor for a checkup.

The doctor says, hey, you got a disrobe.

She says, I'm very shy.

Can we turn the lights off?

He says, okay, turns the lights off.

She takes her clothes off and she says, doctor, where should I put them?

He says, right over here on top of my...

That one of those good.

It's quite a profession.

I got another one for you, Ben.

Another doctor joke.

Pick on Dr.

Day.

This guy with a duck on his head, he goes to the doctor.

The doctor says,

can I help you?

The duck says, yeah, get this guy off my ass.

That one was good too.

You always have a good job.

I don't want to hear the jokes.

Jesus Christ, Scott.

I don't want to hear the jokes again.

Okay, so producer Scott just played me the thing.

I don't know if you've heard it or not.

I don't know how this works.

But yes, Scott from Massachusetts, you absolute piece of shit.

He says physician, but it does sound quite a bit like position.

And so I guess I just don't appreciate the corrections that aren't really giving me information.

They're just a bit of a, aha, you misheard the movie.

Okay, guilty Scott from Massachusetts.

But this is, again,

I don't understand.

This is why we should disconnect the Discord.

This is pointless.

If someone's giving me more information, I like it.

I like the director's commentary information from before.

But yes, Scott, I don't need it.

I didn't need to be corrected on physician position.

Pointless.

Okay, now

so many great.

See, in the script, it has okay, so many great corrections and omissions this week.

And I don't think there were.

I'll be honest.

There weren't so many great ones.

There was, in fact, only, there were so, there was only a couple we could pull, and many of those were terrible.

So

now it says, pick a winner.

It says in red, in all caps, caps, pick a winner.

I mean, no.

What do I got here?

Oh, Liz from Wisconsin.

Yes, Liz from Wisconsin.

You win.

You win for you and your dad,

a man in his 50s, succeeding, thriving and succeeding wildly at the police exam.

I'm wishing you and your dad well.

I'm wishing your dad well in his health and his heart health.

Boy, oh boy, tough stuff.

But I love it.

I love hearing about his success taking the police exam.

And maybe as a last looks here episode sometime, Paul, June, and I will all take the police exam.

Just to see how well we do.

Wouldn't that be fun?

Okay,

the winner's name.

I say winner's name, which was Liz from Wisconsin.

Winner's name, Liz from Wisconsin, as your reward, you get this amazing song from our friend, Rob from Long Island.

You win,

congratulations to you.

Paul picks the winner, and the winner is you.

You said something smart and funny, so I'm telling you, you win

nothing.

All right.

Thank you, Rob from Long Island, for that song.

Great song.

And just because it said Long Island, and I can't help but jump to things that are jumping into my head when I read things.

If you're not listening to the Gino Lombardo, the John Gabris Gino Lombardo podcast that is on CBB World,

you got to listen.

You got to check it out.

It's two seasons of absolute batshit Long Island Insanity.

It is Gabris playing his Gino Lombardo character as if he is a drivetime shock jock in Long Island radio.

It is very funny.

So remember, if you want to chime in with your own thoughts about the latest episode, hit up our Discord or don't.

just leave us a voicemail instead by calling 619-paul ask

p-a-u-l-a-s-k

um

boy i love the analog nature of leave a voicemail leave a voicemail why not uh it was great it's great to hear the texture of everybody's voices and accents i love the voicemails Okay, coming up after one last break, Paul and I are going to have a great chat with Susie Barrett about her fantastic podcast, Yes Also.

And I'm going to reveal next week's new movie.

But first, as promised earlier, take a little listen to this bonus deleted scene from our Champagne and Bullets live show that hints at why we selected this week's matinee episode.

Take a listen.

I love it.

All right.

What are your names?

Wow.

Oh, Steve.

Shira.

How would you guys think about remaking this as the origin story for Nundercover, where Huck is her handler?

Wow.

All right.

This is a callback.

Could this be the

prequel to Nundercover?

No, where Huck is her handler?

Absolutely not.

He's a lunatic.

I don't want Huck anywhere near my movie.

How dare, actually, how dare you?

As a small business owner, your business is always on your mind.

So when you're hiring, you need a partner who is just as dedicated as you.

And that hiring partner is LinkedIn Jobs.

That's right.

When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in.

They make it easy for you to post your job for free, share it with your network, and get qualified candidates.

that you can manage all in one place.

And LinkedIn's new feature can help you write job descriptions, then quickly get your job in front of the right people with deep candidate insights.

You can post your job for free or choose to promote it.

Promoted jobs attract three times more qualified applicants.

So post your job for free at linkedin.com slash valuable.

That's linkedin.com slash valuable to post your job for free.

Terms and conditions apply.

Tron Aries has arrived.

I would like you to meet Aries, the ultimate AI soldier.

He is biblically strong and supremely intelligent.

You think you're in control of this?

You're not.

On October 10th.

What are you?

My world is coming to destroy yours, but I can help you.

The war for our world begins in IMAX.

Tron Aries, suited PG-13.

Maybe inappropriate for children under 13.

Only in theaters, October 10th.

Get tickets now.

Thrive Market isn't just convenient.

It is a lifesaver, okay?

Now that school is back, you can stock up on all your family's must-haves, from healthy snack packs to high-protein meals to non-toxic cleaning supplies.

I love Thrive.

It's healthy groceries delivered, trusted brands that I love.

And if you're looking to cut out the artificial dyes or processed sugar or seed oils, you got it.

Thrive Market has a ton of on-site filters so you can easily filter what your family's preferences are.

Now, the stuff I love from Thrive, let me tell you, Van Lewin ice cream.

Have you had it?

It's so good.

My family, we live on the kind bars.

Skinny Pop, yeah, they got it.

And I will admit, I love myself an Ollipop soda.

These are just a handful of brands that Thrive have, and they will deliver them to your door.

So go to thrivemarket.com slash bonkers to get 30% off your first order and a free $60 gift.

All right, welcome back.

By now, I'm sure you've noticed that every Tuesday, we re-release classic How Did This Get Made episodes back into the feed.

This week's matinee covered the 1991 Bruce Willis classic Hudson Hawk, which, not to brag, I saw in theaters.

Now, that was the episode you will remember where we came up with the whole idea for an undercover.

And would you like to know what has happened in the intervening period of time?

Nothing.

We haven't written a word.

We haven't talked about it.

I'd say the only time the word nundercover has been brought up again has been on podcast episodes like this one where someone from the audience brought it up.

Again, a lot of times after episodes, we are effectively hit with the men in black machine.

We revert to zero, okay?

I always feel bad.

There's lovely fans always come up and ask such wonderful, specific questions based on their profound fandom of the show.

And I always feel so terrible saying, I do not remember that episode.

That episode that meant so much to you, that line, that joke, that thing.

I've forgotten it somehow um but yet i i remember so many of those moments from doughboys episodes i'm the one saying to doughboys hey remember when this happened and they are like we don't so i get it we're all fans so for next week's matinee we will be revisiting an oldie episode 25 holy

that is an oldie

episode 25 that's got to be i mean that's what is that 2011 Wow.

Okay.

Episode 25, which is, I just got confirmation, 2011,

where we cover Hallie Berry's Catwoman.

Boy, what an absolute banger of a movie.

I just re-watched all the Nolan Batman movies.

Phenomenal.

Absolute blast.

So keep checking out all the replays of classic episodes every Tuesday.

Okay, enough matinee talk.

Time for Paul and I to chat with Susie Barrett, who's an amazing improviser, writer, actor teacher and host of the absolutely fantastic yes also podcast which is essential listening for any improv or comedy fan if you like this podcast if you like bang bang if you like any of the comedy podcasts if you just like comedians if you just like hearing people talk about process and comedy and comedy of the last 25 to 50 years Yes Also is an essential listen.

I cannot recommend it enough.

Susie is a fantastic improviser and a terrific host.

She is a great conversationalist.

Paul and I have both been on the show, as have a ton of people who you might know from this podcast as guests.

So stay tuned for our conversation with Susie.

And to play us into this Just Chat segment, here's a new theme song inspired by the Shimmy slide from Champagne and Bullets.

This is the Just Chat Scoot by our pal, The Action Jackson 5.

susie an interesting thing happened i don't know maybe about a year ago jason and i were both talking about your fantastic podcast uh and

we are I mean, I think we're both some of the biggest fans of what you're doing, which is basically creating this giant history of improv through the performers and how people improvise.

It's one of the most fascinating looks at some of my favorite performers, people that I perform with a lot.

And I never knew any of this stuff about them.

It is one of my favorite things to listen to.

That is such a high compliment.

You two have always been two of my favorite improvisers.

I feel like you're a senior classman to my freshman.

And I've always looked up to you both.

It's just such a cool thing that people like you are getting into the pod and sharing your wealth of wisdom.

And yeah, hopefully it just continues to keep growing.

It really is.

It is.

I talk about it all the time.

I've talked about it on this podcast a lot.

I've talked about it on every other podcast that has had me as a guest, or I've talked about it to anybody who's asked me to recommend a a new podcast.

It is an incredible resource.

It is undeniably an archive of this art form that does, that simply does not exist.

Like there are books about improv, of course, but there is nothing that approaches this scale and scope to what Paul was saying, like that we can be listening to you interviewing the generation of, you know, you're saying that we are the seniors to your freshman.

The Chicago generation are the seniors to our freshmen.

So to hear you talking to that generation of people, the people that are going to talk about Jazz Freddy or are going to talk about those shows or those teams or those or the advent or the beginnings of certain stylistic moves, you know, like the idea that you're talking to the generation that started the movie form or tagouts or stuff like that.

These are the bedrock elements of improvising that we knew.

And for my generation, I feel like we spent a lot of our time stripping out the stuff they put in.

So to see the thing grow and ebb and flow as to how everybody does it is all inside of your show.

And it's incredible.

Yeah, it's, it's cool that it's also, I feel like this is just the tip of a very big iceberg, too.

Like even, you know, when you guys both have been on the pod, but I plan on having you back in the future, it's like this amorphous organic thing that can keep building as people hear each other's stories and thoughts, then they can come back and re-reflect.

I've had people like reaching out, being like, oh, this has unlocked so many memories from my time.

Oh, cool.

And it's like one of the few art forms that we see the beginning of right in our rear view.

Like you can't just go back and interview the first blues musician anymore, but you can interview some of the first long-form improvisers.

And that's like a magical thing that I feel compelled to like capture.

Well, what I also really love about it is I think that it's very hard to capture the history of improv in a book because it's very much a person's perspective.

I mean, Jason and I came up at UCB at the same time.

We have many similar friends.

We've done many similar shows, but the way that we got in, the teachers that we had, the way that we experience it are, is completely different.

What we took, what we learned.

And I feel like that's the thing that, you know,

sometimes a book is kind of hard pressed to do.

And I love that you can sit back and listen to people.

I think I told you, like one of my favorite episodes was Carl Tart, who we performed with a bunch, and his lack of like, oh yeah, I don't know.

I just go out there and I just do what I do.

And I love that.

And then you hear other people who are very specific about moves.

And, you know, and there are these things like Jason said that get warped and I wonder in that seat that you're in how do you I think do the hardest job which is like to sit there and kind of craft it for a person but also kind of help keep it all on track or tell a larger story right I think I uh I see it as almost like its own improv scene each person who is in that chair is my scene partner I'm basing everything organically off of what they're saying I'm gonna follow where it's leading but if something pops up that feels like a shiny object to me, I'm going to jump on that unless I see that it's making them uncomfortable and then I'll adjust accordingly.

But it is,

we cut very little out of it.

You know, once in a while, there will be like a rambly tangent that doesn't matter and the person will be like, can you cut that?

But it is, it feels like its own organism.

It feels like we are alive and it's a different kind of improv than I've ever done.

I've never been an interviewer before.

I know you guys have done this podcast for years.

You're used to this kind of format.

It's new to me and it feels like it scratches a journalistic documentary itch that I have, like my own curiosity about wanting to open every door.

And it's like this.

incredible opportunity for me to sit down with like every tree in this forest that I love and ask each tree what it's like to be that tree, You know?

Well, it's so interesting because I do feel like to what both of you are saying, you know, it's an art form that we all learn how to do it in classes or Paul is saying, we've read the books or, you know, there's ways to receive how to improvise.

And I'm putting that in quotes.

But there is, everybody does it different.

And I think what the books and what everything can't quite capture, but I think what your show does capture very well is how everybody does it different, but how imperative it is for those people to then be able to be inside of an ensemble of other people who are doing it differently.

And people's ability to succeed and thrive in this art form is their ability to collaborate and learn how

this person does it and how this and how I fit in.

What we talk about so little, I think, we talk so often about like people's moves or this was great or blah, blah, blah, but like teams, ensembles, this is a teamwork-based art form.

This is not, you know, solo lone wolf style comedy.

This is, this thrives in ensembles and people working together.

You know, I make you look good, you make me look good is the ethos that I feel like.

is so imperative in this art form.

And I think what you get at on the show, which I love, is how do people do this thing?

How do they think they do this thing?

And how do they fit in with other people?

You know, that, and what I, the stuff I care about in the show the most is when you're talking about process.

How do you think about this?

How, how do you do it?

That was the thing that was kind of eye-opening to me was

really trying to think about it, right?

Like even when I, I think when I came on too, I was like, I wanted to talk about some things that I feel like also get labeled the wrong way, right?

Because I think a lot of people have like, it's certain like words may be like, oh, I don't like that word, but I do, but every, but people are still using that basis.

And that's the other thing, too, to kind of pick out.

It's like, oh, we actually are working on the same thing.

We're just calling it different.

We're looking at it differently.

Are you talking about things like using terms like the game of the scene?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Where people have categorized that or assumed that that means one style of play when really it's also the quote-unquote IO style.

It's just you're calling it different things.

Yeah.

I think that's the most that and I think you've, you've illustrated the exact word that people have the most feel the most away about, you know?

Like, I feel like to some people, when you talk about the game of the scene, they are, they act as though that is like an indictment of a style of play, you know,

that I don't, I also don't agree with, you know, like I think that is, it's just a, it's just a term, but I understand like generationally, the younger generation, I think, grew up in a prison of the the game.

And I think it depends on who your teachers have been.

I've heard from people like certain teachers have a style of teaching game that is very binary.

Like that's, that's the correct answer.

And that's not, you got it.

You missed it, which to me is a miss.

And it's unfortunate because it turns a lot of people sour on something that really boils down to just what is the most fun thing to you about this scene and what do you want to keep playing for you and your partner and the audience?

What's the fun you want to follow?

But yeah, for people to feel shut down or like it's so heady that it's this suddenly left brain pursuit where they have to get the answer right to me is a miss.

Well, this idea that like the, it's out there and you just need to excavate.

Every scene has a game.

You just need to dig around in the right place and you'll uncover it like it's a like it's a video game or something.

And the reality is the answer is that it's a pattern that you play between you and your scene partner the game is just something between you and your scene partner it's right there it's not a third thing out in the world that we need to like root around and find as if it's treasure you know right i also think it's like like any class whether it's a writing class an acting class you know like there are professors that can

take the fun there's a joy right in what we're and what we do and i feel like you can watch people get burnt out because it does feel like this elusive thing, but it's not mathematics.

And it's like you watch acting, like I think a lot of, I listened to this director talk privately, so I will not say who it was, but it was a big director,

talk about how he has to do a bunch of takes to get actors out of their acting style, right?

Like, because it's sort of like you've made all these choices and you're not making any of these choices as you are acting.

You are going off of the notes and the things and your idea.

And it's like, how do you break the actor down?

I think you can go back to like somebody like Kubrick did this a lot too, which is like, and not that, and, and look, Kubrick destroyed people.

And, uh, you know, so I mean, but it's like that idea

and himself.

And like, and I think that that's the tricky thing.

It's like, how do you walk that line where you get people to feel free enough to take a chance without feeling like I'm making a mistake?

And some people are good at teaching.

And that's the other thing, too.

You're, you, you teach, you, you have that ability, I think, to also hear from people who have been taught.

And I think a lot of teachers actually don't do that.

Yeah.

Well, and there's, there's different angles.

It's like a gem with many facets.

Like there's different ways into it.

And, you know, the UCB approach of game and premise is kind of one angle, but it leads to the same center of the gem, which is just, you know, activated listening and energized playfulness.

And I think it's interesting.

We do what we do in pursuit of making comedy.

There is improv that doesn't do that, but we all do that.

We want to be, do funny scenes ultimately or make funny shows.

And I've noticed in my years of teaching, there is such a thing as a good improviser who is not a funny person.

I've seen it.

And I've seen them do funny scenes that they, you know.

So I think there's like different methods that feel more like water to certain fish and certain methods that feel like air to the birds.

You know, a person who isn't a funny person might not succeed in the kind of premise method because they're not good at finding funny from the outside in and then initiating from that place, but they can do a great improv scene and be very successful in a funny way.

It's just not the same inroad.

And that's something I like about this podcast too, is I'm like, you know, diving deeper into groundlings training and

early, early I.O.

And like you said, people who were like the very first ones to try a tag or do a sweep at it.

It's like to dissect the history of how people figured out what made something funnier or more successful or more fun to play is a wild privilege to have.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that like just in our

generational lifetime.

So the this 25 years, I feel like when we started, Paul and I both started at UCB in New York.

So never, Paul, right?

You never went to Chicago, even for like classes or something right.

So never Chicago.

But so we are receiving the UCB, Armando Diaz, Ali Faranakian generation of, you know, the family, essentially.

We're receiving the movie form, you know, that that the family's, you know, signature style was the movie form that they had created.

And they'd created this form that had like like

in that way that sometimes improv does,

the elements of the movie form had fully invaded everything else.

So like filmic description pervaded all of ASCAT.

All and then as we started to learn, all of our Heralds had filmic kind of language, this kind of we

see this person is this.

We see that we take you to that blah blah blah.

When Adam McKay did that the first time at an ASCAT, it blew my mind because it was like, whoa, wait, what is happening?

Yeah, so he, so they would edit, like, let's say they lead a tag and they're bringing you to the doctor's office and they say, like, we take you to a doctor's office, and we see that the doctor is immaculately dressed and has a Rolex on.

Wow.

Yeah.

Not all the time, not every edit, not every time, but all of those tools that the family had built up with Dell as the movie form tools had

like pervaded everything, right?

And so much so that when we came up, it was just part of how we worked.

We worked with all of that stuff.

And then slowly, but what that stuff did was provide a bridge for the audience to get into faster moving scene work.

You know, like you didn't have to take the time to illustrate that now we're in a dentist's office and I'm the evil dentist who's the villain of the scene, blah, blah, blah, because the scenic description at the very beginning set it up, you know, and it moved the audience, it jumped the audience forward forward in time without them having to get there within five lines, you know, and it also was a

way to kind of lay in jokes, right?

Because it was this thing that you have a blank stage, a bunch of people up there just, you know, in their jeans and t-shirts.

And now all of a sudden, visually, it pulled you in.

I think that like that was a thing that was kind of interesting for me.

I was coming from slightly more of a costume based or like a look-based improv.

So seeing that like for the first time before I started taking classes, I was like, oh, wow, you can use your words to paint it all out.

And, you know, and the audience is, you know, it's the difference with the audience finding out that you're in a tuxedo or being painted with a tuxedo.

Either way, you know, it's going to be fulfilling, but it was fun to see.

And then I think in, you know, only maybe 10 or so years later, all of that stuff was stripped out in a way that felt to me important because I also, I felt like the audience had already caught up.

Like the audience didn't need that bridge language anymore.

We could still move just as fast without having to give all of the, without having to step out of the scene to be this other omniscient kind of character who gets to describe and gets to, that went away completely.

Nobody does that anymore.

Everything is internal again.

Isn't it cool that like on the micro level, this form improv is something that is about the relationship between the people on stage and the audience in the room that night, like on the micro level.

But what you're describing shows that it's also that on a macro level, that over a period of 10 years, an audience's needs and reactions determined the course of the very art form and that something was stripped down because the audience didn't need it anymore.

Like it's like a fractal structure.

Like the whole is the part.

Yeah.

I don't know if I talked about this on your show, but it's something I talk about a lot.

When we first came to LA or UCB first came to LA, I felt like we needed to back up a handful of steps for the audience to catch up with where we were in New York.

And that was something like one of the reasons that we built,

I guess at that point, it was MySpace, was to show, no, no, this is improv.

We're basing this on you.

We're interviewing you.

This is not a plant.

We're bringing you up.

Like it was almost like proving to the audience like this is

improv.

And then it all of a sudden it caught up.

But it was like those first maybe year, I feel like it was like just teaching the audience audience who hadn't seen this style how to what it was and you could feel that palpably like in in the room in a show like myspace or facebook you could feel like the audience was on board more than a show where you were just getting a suggestion and doing scenes uh i also i also felt the audience was and this is I now I'm full LA.

I don't think the audience was as hip as they were in New York because we were making jokes in New York that I think were maybe harder or and the audience was the audience.

I would I agree a hundred percent we're talking 2004 2005 yeah the or 2005 2006 I guess the audience I believe didn't get a lot of it it was moving too fast now IO existed groundlings existed but they were much they weren't as fast they weren't and we were we were used to an a younger hipper audience in New York that was just showing up a lot to shows yeah so they were with they had grown with us in a lot of ways or they were part of it and it felt like in LA it took a minute to find that audience that was like, oh, whoa, this is it.

You know?

What's amazing to me is like in talking to people like Craig Kukowski, who were, you know, like ground floor kind of.

The absolute, the absolute fucking king.

Yeah, the best.

But these like old school Chicago people, Brian Stacks, another one, who they observed that like when Besser and the UCB for kind of emerged as this force in

Chicago and then moved to, or I guess it was the family that emerged like this.

They said they pushed the style of improv to be a much faster, taggier style.

And what's interesting to me is like, then they brought that to New York and kind of led the charge there.

Now you're talking about bringing that to LA, but it all kind of originated from like Besser and Adam McKay and Ian, these like fast brains.

And that's wild to me that people in an art form can be so

pivotal in their own like style and the way their brain works that they can move the entire paradigm.

Simply by being the way they are, Besser especially, I would say, because McKay, I think McKay's impact is felt so large at Saturday Night Live where he goes and then becomes head writer and dominates that

environment.

But Bessu's importance cannot be underestimated and Ian as well, because they are driven to New York to start a school to teach us their version of it, their fast, you know, what they would call punk rock imprompt.

You know, like we want to play fast songs, fast short songs.

Boom, boom, boom, move it.

Quick, quick, quick.

Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.

You know, it was all punk rock.

It felt like that.

And, and it wasn't, you know, notably, Walsh in the same group is an annoyance guy.

Like when you took a, when, before the curriculum as it is, got codified, when you took a Walsh class, you were taking an annoyance class.

You were taking a freewheeling, you know, open-ended, anything is possible style annoyance class, which was the coolest thing because the four of them came from very different, like it was like you were, you weren't even just taking curriculum, you're taking four different perspectives on the same.

like the core idea of what everyone was doing, but it was wildly different.

And very, and I will say, as a result, very confusing.

Yes, right.

I mean, I mean,

but I do think that like there was an attitude of, all right, I've taught you what I need to teach you.

Now you go over here.

So, like, I took Walsh later in my run.

So, like, all right, I was probably with some people who had never really improvised, but then what he was doing was like freeing me up in the strictness that I'd already come to.

Like, it was interesting.

Like, you could kind of do any of them in any order.

Although I think, you know, it would, it, it probably was,

I mean, coming from Besser going down,

yeah.

I mean, I think actually coming from Besser going down,

that's the way I did it.

It was almost like the hardest structure into the loosest structure.

That's tough, but it was, I felt very lucky that I got um, I got Armando first,

which, Paul, you didn't because Armando hadn't arrived yet when you started.

I felt very lucky because Armando was awesome.

The Armando Diaz, I feel like, doesn't get enough credit, doesn't get enough

love as truly the,

for generationally for us, the GOAT teacher, like the person who

really helped

take all of what the, what, you know, because I took Armando a couple of times.

He

was a mother, a long time mother coach, mother being the team that I was on.

He really did a great job synthesizing everybody's stuff from Ian to Besser and giving it to you in a package that was understandable.

Yeah.

So that it didn't seem like, well, wait a minute, Besser said this thing, and that directly contradicts this thing that Walsh said or this thing that Amy said.

How do I justify those two things?

You know, and Armando is very good at doing that, of

kind of what we're talking about, saying, giving you the information in a way that is,

they are all just trying to say this.

And this we can, this, this move forward we can all agree is necessary They're just telling you how to do it differently.

Yeah, which to me is the difference between a great teacher and a great improviser It's like

a great teacher is a basically a translator.

They're like taking the

The wealth of information and then making it kind of palatable understandable, you know Armando is also one of those people who came in

knowing a lot of different forms and wanting to like he taught us the herald in the dark, which was one of the coolest things.

And it also taught us to play slower and play in different avenues, right?

Because

I just think it's, I think it's good to have different teachers.

But I guess the question that I have for you is, you know, you're listening to Jason and I, we could keep you here forever, but like, what are, what are the episodes that

you felt like, all right, I'm.

I'm in, you know, if you're a person, you're in Texas, there's no improv theater, but you're trying to do something or you're interested in it.

Like, what's like a good entry point for people?

Because I think if you're an improviser, jump in at any point, you're going to find great stuff.

But if there are people out there, like, oh, I want to understand more, I want to like, what are good introductory episodes for people?

If that's something at the top of your head, that's such a good question.

It depends.

There's maybe two avenues for this.

One is like, if you want more

context and overview of long form itself,

or if you want like practical tools for doing better scenes.

In the first lane, are like Craig Kukowski, Brian Stack,

both of you guys.

You know, Kukowski and Stack are good for the Chicago context.

You guys are good for the New York context.

Julie Brister's another New York early adopter.

It's a great name.

Will Hines also.

Oh, yeah.

Incredible.

And I'll throw in Gethard

in that New York contingent as well.

100%.

But

in the lane of practical improv advice, I think Mike McClendon's episode is great with a lot of like really actionable, simple tools and methods.

Tao Yang had some fun hot takes on Heralds and openings that I really liked.

Man, I'm forgetting so many people.

This is a great, this is a great way to start.

And, you know, and also

our audience as well, because our audience are not necessarily improv diehards.

So it's good to be able to give people different ways in.

Because, and, and, and I would say, too, the way that like we talk about, like, if for people, whenever somebody says, like, how can I get somebody into your podcast, to our podcast, rather?

I'm always like, oh, have them pick a movie that they like, you know, or so, and that's the same for your podcast.

Look on the list of people that are there and pick out the people that you like or recognize.

And for listeners of this podcast, it could be Paul and myself, but it could also be, like I said, Gethard or Paul F.

Tompkins or

there's a lot of people in your list that are going to be recognizable to folks.

And then once you're in, then just start, because there are, one of the things that I love about the podcast, even though I'm...

couldn't be more inside improv is you're interviewing generationally younger people that i just do not know right and to hear that generation talk boy is that exciting and that'll be relatable to a lot of your listeners.

Like, I try to get all the dropout kids on.

Jacob Waisaki is another great singer of an episode.

Yeah.

Jamie Moyer, another great one.

She came up through Second City Detroit and has kind of a different angle on everything.

More emotional play, more like freeing up your right brain, your inner child, you know.

But yeah, you're right.

Find whatever strand you want to pull first, and then you won't be able to stop unraveling it, I think.

But

I will say, just for me,

like you've mentioned a couple of my favorites.

Kukowski, I think, is just one of my favorite conversations.

He's always the person at a party that I'm excited to talk to.

Yeah.

You know, so I'm all anytime I can hear him.

I thought that episode was great.

And then just two of my absolute favorite improvisers you've interviewed,

which is Dassey and Steph Weir.

Oh, yes.

I forgot about them.

Yes.

To have both of those like true geniuses.

So funny.

You know, who oftentimes, they're a married couple, so they work together on every level.

I thought both of those episodes were invaluable.

And the other part of this that I think is kind of amazing is right now we are living in a time, no matter where you live, no matter what your access is, for a couple of bucks, you can watch some of these people, Jason and myself included, improvising on stage in New York, in Los Angeles.

And it's that's something that I really think is awesome, right?

I don't know how much I love videotaping improv, but I also

love the idea that.

Oh, you mean live streams?

Live streams.

Yes, yes.

Sorry.

Yeah, sorry.

Sorry.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Like that to me is something that I think is really cool.

Like, you know, whereas we probably, we heard a lot of stories, we never got to see any of these people.

And you could watch people do fine shows.

Like, you know what I'm saying?

Then that's, then that's good to watch a fine show.

Like, it could be like, maybe it's a great show, but it's also like sometimes like, oh, you get to see the whole thing.

It's not mythologized mythologized as much, which I think is a good thing sometimes too.

You can see the balance of it.

And that's one of the goals of our podcast, too, is to not only be this repository of improv history, but also basically very, very, very dirt cheap masterclasses.

Right.

And, you know, Susan Messing was in town a few months ago and I took her masterclass and it was basically all the same content as her part two of our Yes Also episode.

So I was like, man, for eight bucks a month, people, it's like a cup of coffee and they're getting six extra episodes a month.

That it's just, when I was coming up, the only option was to spend hundreds of dollars on an eight-week class.

And now it's like you can spend a little bit of money and get all of this knowledge and all these like exercises and listen to people.

And I love the part of it's what you're talking about right there.

I love the, how did you come up?

It's great.

It's great to hear how people found improv, who their teachers were, et cetera.

Great, fine.

What I digest with such glee is process, is how do you?

Because, you know, as much as if I talk to stack or something like that, I'm happy to hear tales of the old days.

I want to hear about Jazz Freddy, blah, blah, blah.

But I really want to hear, how do you do this?

How, what are you, you know, like that to me is what your podcast is giving,

especially in that second half, that, and I would come back to the podcast and just do three hours of process questions from the audience.

You know what I mean?

Like that's the stuff that we can all mythologize and romanticize

nostalgically for like, I was there when, you know, this happened and that happened.

I was in the room when pop, blah, blah, blah.

What I'm really interested in, what I'm really curious about is kind of what we're talking about is how do we, even now, 25 years in, the fact that I'm still watching people, like I watched Brian Stack in Washington, D.C.

during Gravid Water a couple of years ago, play

incredibly economically with seeing partners with such few lines, making the most with such few lines.

Whereas then I would go on stage in the same exact show and just drown in improvised lines that I was, that I was the one doing, that I was, I couldn't immediately do what he was doing.

And that was making me so frustrated.

And I've spent the last three years trying to do what he was doing.

It's incredible, you know?

That's all I want to talk about is, is even 25 years in, I think for those of us who are still obsessed with or still invested in doing regular shows, there is still so much further to go.

Well, that's, I mean, that's the thing that you brought to me, which is like thinking about it in a way, looking at it differently, like it's even setting little goals for myself for fun.

Like I love performing and I love doing this, but like I think about it in a way that I haven't thought about it in a long time because it is like analyzing the moves and trying to work against certain instincts.

And I love that ability, especially as we get into it.

And you, you teach.

So you, you're, you, you, this is a whole entry point for anyone in the world of comedy.

Go to your website, listen to the podcast, subscribe to the supercast.

You get all this bonus content.

You get a bonus Instagram as well.

Some fun stuff on there.

You can become our close friends on Instagram and then allows you to submit questions to our future guests directly.

It's really like when both of you came on, you had people who had like reached out specifically to you with questions.

It's a cool access.

Let me ask you one question before we let you go.

I think when I first started doing improv,

it felt like,

wow, this style, this long form style is not,

like, I can't take this on the road.

And now all I'm seeing are people doing improv, long form improv on the road.

And I wanted to get your take on like, what, what do you think changed?

What do you, because we're talking about, oh, well, LA had to catch up or this place had to catch up.

Like, what, what do you think is different?

Like that makes it something that people now, it's like an art form like stand-up or something like that.

I feel like

from where I sit, it worked on the road before in colleges.

Like, you know, when I was in college even, like, you know, there was word of an improv group coming through town.

We knew what Second City was.

We knew to like it because whose line existed.

So there was like, that was something that college kids would see.

I think the difference now with people like you guys and Ben Schwartz and the dropout kids like selling out these huge venues is that now you guys have the benefits of like a

fame level, a clout with the general public.

So people know to trust, like they see Ben Schwartz on a marquee and they go, I love that guy.

He's so funny.

I don't know what this is.

And often I've done a couple of his tour shows and he'll pull the audience before the show and be like, how many of you have seen improv before?

And like a third, like a thousand out of three thousand will clap.

And then it's like, how many people have no idea what this is?

And you thought you were going to see a stand-up show?

And it's like a raucous cheer.

Wow.

You know, something I just started doing on the last tour that we did was I started asking, asking, do you, do people know what improv is?

And the, and it was resoundingly no.

And what I think I was able to do for the first time, and I'm like, I can't believe I haven't done this.

It's what I kind of do with, when we do with How this Game kind of set the tone.

I'm like, this is what you're going to see.

This is what's going to happen.

Like ultimately, like in the very, in the very baseline, like we're making this stuff up.

We're talking to you.

We're going to use it to improvise.

Like we kind of let them in on it.

And I felt like the shows that we did on this last tour, they always are really fun, but I felt like they were really fun right from,

right from go.

And I think the difference was the, like for a majority of that audience, they're like, I think they're like, oh, is it going to be a stand-up show now?

Is somebody else going to come out?

Like, what am I seeing?

And I feel like letting them in and you forget, oh my God, right.

They don't exactly know what they're seeing.

And it's so fun to do shows for people who are about to have their minds blown.

Yeah.

They have never seen improv and they're about to see like the top level of improv from people who have done it for 25 years and it's an art form they didn't even know existed.

That's fun.

That's a whole new layer that's beyond doing great shows for an ASCAT crowd or a crowd that's mostly improvisers.

Yeah.

I also think like I can't, I don't think we can underestimate how much podcasts, comedy podcasts,

have educated a generation to receive, if not improv comedy, which in some cases Comedy Bang Bang or Besser's show,

improv for humans, you know, that is straight improv, scenic-based improv.

We get that.

But even our show or other comedy shows are at least priming people

for a style of comedy that then, when they go to Ben Schwartz or when they go to Dinosaur or when they go to, you know, any of these touring shows, they are, they understand improv a little bit more than just a cold audience who just is like, what is it?

You know,

100%.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Comedy podcasts have done a little bit, seeded the terrain a little bit,

educated people enough to get them to the show.

Right.

And even if they don't know why they're there, they're excited to be there, which is the difference between,

and I think I may have talked about this on your show, us

Respecto going to

Minneapolis Mall of America and doing a show on a Friday night at 8 o'clock and people being angry.

You know,

and there's no, there was no kill yourself was said in the first five minutes.

It's like, all right, well, I'm not going to win over this crowd.

Susie, this has been awesome.

Like we said, we love your show.

It's the best.

If you're in LA, look up Susie because if you're interested in any of this stuff,

she's teaching.

She's out there.

She's doing it all.

Come find me.

Yeah.

Thanks so much for having me on.

And yeah, hope to have you guys back on the show.

This was awesome.

I want to have you guys back on Yes Also together.

Oh my gosh.

Do more of this.

It's great.

So

for everybody listening on our side, you know, go seek this podcast out.

It will be incredibly informative and also very funny.

Like not for nothing.

Scenes often break out in your interviews, and it's a very funny way to oftentimes illustrate.

something that the people are the interviewee and you are talking about.

And that is also a very fun, unique unique element to the show, which I always enjoy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cool.

Well, thanks for having me.

And thanks again for all the love and support of the pod.

It's very awesome.

All right.

We will talk to you later.

Thanks, Suzy.

Thank you.

Okay, we did it.

Thanks again to Susie Barrett.

Now, it's finally time to announce our next movie.

Next week, we'll be going from boobs and shooters to ice cubes and computers.

Okay, no.

What was that?

So that rhymes.

I don't like that.

I don't like, I don't like being forced.

I don't like rhymes being sprung on me.

Wow.

That was shocking.

My whole system reacted to that.

So I'm going to, I'm not,

you can keep all this in.

But next week,

I'm not going to do this whole rhyming.

We do, I guess we do rhymes?

Boy, I don't know.

We're becoming,

what do we do?

We just do rhyming stuff now?

The show is becoming too cute, Scott.

We can't be this cute.

Next week, we're going to be covering Ice Cube's movie, War of the Worlds.

And if you haven't watched this,

I got to tell you, you have to check it out.

It's absolutely bananas.

I guess you guys have all been demanding it.

And I'll be honest, whether you asked for it or not, we absolutely were going to have to cover this because having now seen it and talked about it, this was nuts.

The movie star is Ice Cube, Eva Longoria, Clark Gregg, a bunch of other people.

Here's a breakdown of the plot.

You don't need it.

Do you need a breakdown of the plot?

Do you need it?

It's War of the Worlds, guys.

Except what if War of the Worlds took place on a computer screen?

Because Cube is on a computer the whole movie.

Rotten Tomatoes rates this movie at 2%.

And for our review snippet, I'll pull a quote from the only positive review of the movie on Rotten Tomatoes.

Jordan Hoffman from Entertainment Weekly writes, is this movie really that bad?

The answer is, dot, dot, dot, absolutely not.

It's certainly stupid, but it's also a great deal of fun.

War of the Worlds is never boring.

It is filled with entertaining lines, and it has a cheese factor that is perfectly self-aware.

I agree with Jordan Hoffman right here.

And I think, you know, without

giving away too much, I think we all felt similarly.

We had a blast, just as Jordan Hoffman did here.

It's it is the cheese factor is perfectly self-aware.

I think they're having a blast in this movie.

You know what?

Let's listen to the trailer.

Dad, when's the last time you left the office?

That's classified.

Our most precious resource on Earth is data.

And data is food for the superior intelligence.

I win this video.

It's coming in from all over the world.

Terrifying machines lighting out of these meteors.

Get away from that.

Get out of there.

Day!

Okay, that's the trailer.

I think you get it now.

So, tune in.

It's going to be a great one.

One last thing that we don't mention in the episode, but I think is worth mentioning here for War of the Worlds is that the very real tagline for this movie is: quote, it's worse than you think, unquote.

You can only watch War of the Worlds on Amazon Prime, but even if you have ad-free Prime video, guess what?

You're going to be receiving quite a few Amazon ads during this movie.

There is, I don't want to say anything, but one of the characters is driving an Amazon delivery truck.

So that's part of the movie.

But you know what?

Here's the thing.

I don't love that next week's movie is only available on a subscription service, and we always try and look out for you guys and keep it such that our movies are available on free streaming services, many of which are available through your library.

I'm talking about your canopies, your libbys, your hooplas.

These are free digital media services that are offered by your local library.

You can watch a lot of the movies that we cover.

They have a surprisingly robust library of stuff that you can get.

And they have e-books and they have audiobooks.

So it's not just

your library isn't just helping you with how did this get made movies.

It's also helping you listen to all the Bosch books

as audiobooks.

You know, what are you up to?

I mean, if I'm, if I, I,

I'm spending the summer re-listening to the Star Wars Thrawn audio books, guess what?

They're available through the library.

So hoopla, canopy, and libby, these are free digital streaming services that are available through your library.

We love the libraries.

We love the librarians that show up to our shows.

There's always quite a few of them in the audience.

And as they say in Boise,

I think Boise had the right idea.

Put an exclamation point at the end of all our libraries.

Stop asking about the library.

Stop giving libraries a question mark or a period at the end.

The library, it's too soft.

We got to get, we have to reiterate it that we are library.

That's it for last looks.

If you listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, rate and review us.

I know we always say it at the end of the episode.

People forget to do it, but it does mean something.

So do it up.

Please also make sure you are following us on your podcast app and have automatic downloads turned on.

It helps the show and we appreciate it.

Visit us on all social media at HDTGM.

And a big thanks to our producers, Scott Saney and Molly Reynolds, our movie picking producer Averill Halley, and our audio engineer Casey Halford.

An incredible team of people who make this absolutely dumb show run so well.

We will see you next week for War of the Worlds.

Do yourselves a favor and watch it beforehand.

It's a good one.

Disconnect the Discord.

As

I can't, I mean,

boy, I feel like I've got hives from talking about the Discord so much in the the last hour.

I've got to have to go and do an EpiPen.

Eat shit, everybody.

Go on a culinary adventure at one of Europe's biggest food events coming to the Americas.

Terra Madre.

Discover more.

More flavors to savor, more ideas to chew on, more voices shaping the future of food.

Join chefs Alice Water, Sean Sherman, and Jeremiah Tower for tastings, pop-ups, food demos, and panels, all celebrating good, clean, and fair food for all.

Terra Madre Americas, September 26th through 28th in Sacramento.

Save for the journey.

Visit TerraMadreusa.com for more details.

Terra Madre Americas is supported by Sacramento International Airport and brought to you by Slow Food and Visit Sacramento.

New vitamin water, zero sugar, pineapple passion fruit is packed with vitamins.

Just like the amount of peas we packed in that sentence.

It's packed like your tote bag, the one you stole from your ex, or your overpriced SAFA studio apartment, or extra rushed rush hour traffic.

Packed like your calendar, triple booked at five, of course.

Grab a vitamin wetter.

Did we mention it's packed with vitamins?