Last Looks: The Christmas Tree

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If you are a fighter, Gladello is your reward. So listen close.
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You are a fighter. And every last drop of this rich golden Madello is yours.

So raise it up high because you've earned it. Gladello, the mark of a fighter.
Take responsibility here in Port of McCarlin Port, Chicago, Illinois. Gas, gifts, tolls?

This holiday trip is draining my wallet. Yeah, but we'll get to see all our family.
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miss movilda's first name Devin Bryant returns. And Jason has got a recommendation that's going to knock your socks off.
All this and more on today's Last Looks. Hit the theme.

Your eyes need to see it. Your eyes need to see it.
Your eyes need to see it.

And your ears need to hear it.

Your eyes need to see it.

Your eyes need to see it.

Your eyes need to see it.

How did this get made?

Your eyes need to see it. Your eyes need to see it.

Your eyes need to see it. And your ears need to be.

Your eyes need to see it.

Your eyes need to see it. Your eyes need to see it.

How did this get made?

Hello, all you gamblers with chainsaws and kids named Pappy. It's me, Paul Scheer, aka Mr.
Mavilda. And welcome to How Did This Get Made?

Last Looks, where you, the listener, get to voice your issues on the Christmas tree, a movie that PNW Paloma thinks should have had the tagline, A Christmas Tree.

joyless recollections of childhood trauma. Ha ha! I love it.
Oh man, I'm wondering if you could morph my book cover and the Christmas tree poster together. I don't know.

Matt, we'll save that for late night when I'm playing with Canva because I love to get all freaky late at night with my Canva.

Big shout out to our pal Rob from Long Island.

Great opening theme song. Rob killed it live in New York.
You're going to hear that in a couple episodes.

I just got to say, we had such a great time on tour. Thank you for coming out.
We had some special guests because, you know, the government shutdown prevented June from actually being there.

But guess what? You got some good special guests coming up. And I want to just take a moment to say that at the end of the last episode, I said everyone should see this film.

And that was met with a lot of disdain from Jason and June. But here's what I want to tell you.

In the past week week or so, I've been talking to people out in the streets because I'm out there talking to the listeners. And

I feel like this movie unlocked a core memory that people had. They didn't know where it was from, but they had seen it.
This movie is important to be seen. Not since Peanut Butter Solution have we

untapped something that has disturbed us all so deeply. So for that reason and that reason alone, I still demand that you see the Christmas tree.

By the way, people, if you want to be a part of the show, you can be. You can submit an alt movie tagline by going to our Discord.
You can also upload a song for this very episode.

Just go to hdtgm.com. There's a button right on the front page.
It says submit a song. That's what you do.
You hit that button, you upload your song. If it's 15 to 20 seconds, we're going to love it.

And we'll play it here on the show. Now, we have a big show, okay? We're going to be hearing all your corrections and omissions on the Christmas tree.
And there are good ones in this week's episode.

Not that there aren't always good ones, but this week, in particular, there are some really good ones. Then, Jason and I, we're going to chat.

We haven't chatted for a very long time just about movies, TV, what we're into.

And we're going to be joined by our former audio engineer, Devin Torrey Bryant.

We love Devin. He is going to talk about his new album called Blame It on My Zodiac, which is great.

So a little walk down memory lane, plus things that you can be watching throughout the entire holiday season. And let me tell you, people,

I want to talk to somebody about Landman. I watched the entire run of Landman, season one,

and most of season two. I mean, I'm caught up in the course of 72 hours and I need to discuss it.
Should I just do a Landman podcast? I might have to. Anyway,

what else do I want to tell you? Oh, guess what?

Very big news. We are doing a live stream show.
It's going to be around the world. You have seven days to watch it.
So you can watch it live or watch it later. It's me, Jess, June, and Jason.

We're all going to be in studio, so it's not over Zoom. So high-quality stuff there.
And if you love the live streaming Christmas events, you've got to check out the Deep Dive.

The Deep Dive, by the time you're hearing this, will have already recorded their episode on December 5th, but it is also available after the fact.

So check out Veeps.com and you can watch both shows whenever you damn well, please.

Also,

I want to

tell you all the movie that we'll be watching for the How Did This Get Made Christmas special. It is the 2015 rom-com Merry Kissmiss.

And wow, it's available around the world. And by around the world, I mean Canada and the UK, because that's where a majority of our international audience comes from.

So you can definitely make sure that you can watch this before the show. Merry Christmas.
And people, that's all I got.

Those are all the plugs that we have because now we are getting into the Christmas tree. We had questions.
You have answers. And you know what? We might have even missed a few things.

And you're going to make us all smarter by proving that you saw something that we didn't so now it's time for corrections and omissions

you said everything you think that needs to be said but all the things that you forgot have got me seeing red so open up the discord and the telephone line it's corrections and omissions time

Rob from Long Island, two for two. That's like an earworm.
I love it. I want to go back to that.

Okay, old man Pappy writes, the crew wondered a couple times why the orphans never look towards each other for community or support. And the clear answer is they share one consciousness.

Look at how they're constantly standing in a grouping or acting in unison. The orphans are a part of a single hive mind and see themselves as one entity.
Are they aliens? Possessed?

Under some sort of hypnosis? All possible. But I think the key to their strange connection is, Miss Hopewell.

I believe the the tree is the matriarch of this hive and through parasitic spores or some ancient magic has turned the orphans into thralls. Well, I love that you've casually just dropped thralls.

Ironically, Miss Mavilda cutting down the tree would have been the only thing that freed the kids from its hold on them. Whoa, old man Pappy ain't fucking around.

You came in hot, and this is possibly the best theory I've ever heard on any movie that we have ever done.

The kids are Borg.

And I love it. I'm just going to say they're Borg because I would love that's how the Borg came to Earth originally.
Maybe they're here. Picard, get them Borgs.

Joe Tangello writes, it was really weird that Mrs. Mavilda specifically said, go get your electric chainsaw, but then the guy had a gas-powered chainsaw.
Why was she so specific and so wrong?

Here's what I think about that. Miss Mavilda is not into specifics, you know, or that guy's kind of a drunk, you know, she's like, go get your electric one.
And he's like, I'll get my gas-powered one.

It's worse for the environment, right? I kind of feel like that's what he was doing. Some people may say, oh, the animators weren't communicated to.
They didn't do ADR. No, no, no, no.

That's a choice of a drunken person and Miss Mavilda not really paying attention to stuff that doesn't involve her. I mean, how would she even know that he has a specific chainsaw?

I mean, I have neighbors. I see that they have tools.
I don't know if it's gas-powered. I don't know if it's like, I don't know.
I'm not asking those questions.

Anyway, Sean McBee puts an image, an image up of the home that Judy was being sent to so she could be framed for theft.

Now, the man is sitting amongst empty beer cans with his stained area rug and his cracked plaster wall.

So, if he was to slip something valuable into Judy's purse, I think I might just see a few small flaws in Miss Mavilda's plan. Yeah, I mean, look, I guess you could say the cops are on Mavilda's side.

She's gonna frame her. This guy's got friends on the force.
We know it doesn't always have to make, you know, sense. But you know what?

Sean McBee goes on to say, another example of even more egregious animation choices is in the shot of Judy when the camera rig appears to have been knocked off kilter.

So you can see the top of the animation cell and some of the stand is revealed it seems to be like no one involved in this movie gave half a shit about it you know i did notice that and i thought that was just something like an artifact on youtube i didn't realize

that the animation was truly off and this still is cracking me up you can see the stand it's like that new 4k thing that they did for madmen where you see the guy pumping uh

the oyster rig or like like when roger sterling vomits oysters there's a guy off camera like with the rig. Oh man,

but this this is not about 4K upgrade. No, no, no, this is just about that.
You know what? I actually believe that the guy whose house that Judy was supposed to go to

probably ran the animation rig. Anyway, Frosted Nebula writes, regarding June asking if Mrs.

Mavilda is having to report what's happening with the money, as far as reporting requirements go for publicly funded service organizations, dear God, I am a nerd, if the orphanage is in the U.S., they would presumably be receiving some sort of community development block grant funding, which is a CDBG, which has very specific reporting metrics.

So, theoretically, if the bags of money from the mayor are CDBG grant funds, Miss Mavilda would be required to follow specific reporting metrics about how the money is being used.

And those reports will be reviewed by the city or county and the federal government. Many people not doing their jobs here.
Well, here's the thing, Frosted Nebula.

I appreciate your specificity, but I don't think this is an American

tale. This is no Fival.
No, no, no.

This is

somewhere where you can walk to Alaska, which I guess,

I mean, it might be, whoa,

well, Alaska, North Pole, not Alaska. Huh.
Maybe it is Alaska. Doesn't feel like Alaska.
Not sure. All right, Frosted Nebula, you're right.
All right, let's go to the phones.

Ben from Virginia, what do you got? Hi, everybody. This is Ben, and my buddy Paul and I love to watch these movies in advance.

We caught something that I think made us laugh so hard that we had to stop the movie, go back, and even record a clip of it

from the movie. A line you didn't point out, there's so many things from the Christmas tree that

are worth discussing. But our favorite line is after

the little girl prays to, I guess, Santa to change her wish a second time. And the little boy behind her says, and let me see if I can get this right,

Santa's not going to hear you. Nobody's going to hear you.
Miracles don't happen.

Thank you for bringing this ridiculous movie to our attention. It was a challenge to watch, like an actual physical pain, all of the little cells and eyes and things jotting and bumping around.

But what a joy to know that this exists. Thank you all for all you do.
Saw the Dinosaur show in DC. Fantastic.
Cheers. First of all, Ben, thank you so much for coming out to DC.
That was a blast.

I love going out with Dinosaur. We have such a killer group of people out there.
It's the best. It's the absolute best.

If you're ever in LA, come see Dinosaur. We'll be live at Largo on the 24th of January.
I know that's far away.

But yes, that line, Santa's not going to hear you. Nobody's going to hear you.
Miracles don't happen.

Sounds to me like the sentiments of a very depressed animator who forgot to center the animation cells while transferring it to Betamax.

Wow, Ben, thank you for that.

This is a movie where you should have your phone out so you can tape moments and show them to people like I have been doing with Landman.

Oh, man, there's some lines in Landman. Some lines in Landman that will just knock your fucking

teeth out. Is that a phrase? No, it's not.
All right, let's go to the phone now and hear from Steve. Hi, Paul.

This is Steve with an omission for the Christmas tree, or maybe an explanation for the cryptic ending, the way that it ends with that line that Mrs. Mavalda learned that you only win if you're good.

What does this mean? Well, I think that it means it is a reference back to her gambling addiction. June pointed out that the movie doesn't end actually saying that she has stopped gambling.

Perhaps she has, but of course, we also know that she was terrible at gambling. She was always losing.
So maybe through, I don't know, Santa's Christmas magic or whatever, Mr.

Mavalda found a loophole and learned that if you are good or fame being good, that you can start winning. So maybe the movie actually ends kind of ambiguously

with her laying in wait and growing in power and so on until she can finally unmask herself and her evil upon the world. I don't know.
Okay. I like it.
I like it that you are a Christmas tree truther.

Like you believe it all makes sense and you have a beautiful perspective on this. You know what? I actually believe that that is the spirit of the film to find the truth.

Whatever truth is true to you.

So thank you. Thank you, Steve, for showing us that this is a metaphor about gambling.
All right, back to the Discord.

Dove.

write something that we knew when recording. This episode is nearly twice the length of of the movie they're discussing, with the movie lasting 42 minutes, the episode being about 80.

How many episodes have they done that were longer than the source movie itself?

Let alone twice as long. I'm betting it's none.
Now, our producer Scott, always

on target, always up for a challenge, says we've never had another episode be almost twice as long as the movie.

That this isn't the first episode that is longer than the movie in general. To name a couple, our episodes on Superman 4, The Quest for Peace, and 222 were both longer than the films.

Now, here's the thing. Our discussions frequently go much longer than the movie, but we edit them down.
For example, the Morbius live show was three hours long unedited, but we know...

that that's a special thing for the audience. So whenever you come see how did this get made live, you're going to get a longer, more special show.

And also, we understand no one wants to hear three hours of Morbius. And I know you're like, yes, we do.
No, you don't. SS Lizard writes, I don't think the mayor's a good guy.

He sees one kid dressed in the same clothes every time he drops off money, and that's it. He doesn't look around or talk to the kids or ask for any receipts.

He just drops off money like, yep, I've done my job. I'm such a good mayor.
Here's the thing, SS Lizard. Hire.
good people and then let them do their job. And I think the mayor was doing that.

And yes, he got a little complacent, but there seems to be a lot of things this mayor is responsible for, primarily employing every individual person in this town.

He has to size them up, find them not only a job, but then take care of their lodging as well. This mayor is doing the Lord's work.
And yes, he may get confused.

He may have thought there's different kids coming in and out. And sure, you can attack him all you want, but this guy is doing more than most mayors, okay?

John Steele writes, Hey, Paul, my wife and I watched this movie with our kids, and we all had a good laugh at this bizarre movie. We had a thought on Mrs.
Mavilda.

We noticed that during the first card game, some of the other degenerates were calling her Bovilda. So we thought maybe her full name is Bavilda Movilda.

Jon Steele, this is the logic. This is the logic that we need.
And you know what? I'm doing it two last looks in a row. You are our winner.
That's right, John Steele, for naming Mrs.

Mavilda Bovilda Mavilda. Yeah, you're going to win.
And you get this amazing song from Hominym.

You You win

nothing.

Yes,

great job to everyone who came correct. And you did, you came very correct.
By the way, how did this get made, merch? We have re-released our original shirts.

The first two designs we ever made are now up in our merch store. You could just go to hdtgm.com and get a link to go right there.
You can also get our shirts for our Philadelphia and New York shows.

They're great holiday gifts. You can make them into coffee mugs.
You can make them into stickers. You can make them into hoodies.
You can make them into onesies. People give.

How did this get made for the holidays? And if you want those amazing hats, that's available too. You just have to go to our pod swag store.
Okay, now,

if you want to chime in with your thoughts about what we're always talking about here on the show, you can. It's very easy.

You listen to the show, you go to our Discord, or you call me at 619-P-A-U-L-A-S-K. Then I'll read your thing.
I'll determine if you have what it takes to be like Jon Steele. And you know what?

Most of you do. I believe in you.
Like Tony Robbins. You can do anything you set your mind to.
Take it from me, Paul Robbins.

All right, coming up next, you don't want to miss my chat with Jason, where we recap our recent New York and Philadelphia live shows and talk movies, TV, music, and more.

So stick around after the break.

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People, I hope you're checking out our amazing matinee episodes. That's right.
Every Tuesday, we re-release an old episode into the feed, and we are talking Christmas movies this year.

We are talking about Ben Affleck in the holiday crime flick reindeer games with Howard Kramer. We had some very big revelations on this one.

And next week, we're we're going to go not just fully down a Christmas path, we're going to go a little adjacent by talking about the 1991 Robin Williams surreal comedy toys.

Because Christmas and Toys, you see how we made that connection? Anyway, keep on checking out all of our replays of classic episodes every Tuesday.

And now, without any further ado, it is time to welcome Jason to Last Looks for a little just chat. Ad Noiseum, play us in.

Five days away, Jason, from our live event streaming around the world. I'm in training now.

I'm working out two times a day. I'm doing cardio just to get ready for the live stream.

We are going to do it in a different and fun way this year, which is we're all in the same location, which will be fun because that will mean Jess won't have to do any uh tech but she will have to arrive there which will be a whole other uh very different maybe tell her maybe tell her it's going a little bit early you should give her a different time

and i fully expect simply her presence will somehow cause tech problems

this story that i heard and i won't reveal all the the facts but i think it's a good one which was uh there was a uh table read that was going on uh for a project and they wanted to make sure that every actor got there uh on time so they told all the actors like two hours ahead of time to get there because a giant movie star was going to be at this table read and the giant movie star got there two hours early as well just because the giant movie star was like i just want to be there i want to make sure that i am there

so then they had this

this wait because not everyone

was there oh so just not every just not quite everybody not quite everyone because the one person that they were also trying to like gauge against didn't show up until two hours and 30 minutes so we it came 30 minutes late but they had to entertain like the biggest star and i was like oh this is really like

no one knew what to do when i love that i can't wait to hear who it is yeah it's a good one um all right so jason we have been on tour we've been moving around we've been grooving around we had some great shows in philly we had some great fill-in guests you and i morgan was in in Philly.

Shouts to Morgan, who moved away from Philly, but came back just for the show. And I feel like we didn't give him enough do out there, but you know what? It was.
I'm giving it to him now.

Great work, Morgan. Great work, Morgan.
Now, I will say,

I mean, how many people, Saunders? Yeah, no. How many people, genuinely, in the 15 years of this podcast from the audience, can you name single name? You know, can you name

it on one hand? Count you by name. You know what I mean? Counted on him.
Tim at Largo. There's Morgan.
Like, Morgan was like an absolute superstar. Yeah.
You know? Yeah. I mean,

there's only the Pete the S-Man. You know, there's a couple of people that come to mind.
I think Ben Cannon. I think of Ben Cannon.

What a great name. Jafar.
Leah from Chicago. Oh, Leah from Chicago.

We had some fun times in New York because we actually got to lay down a very long episode of blank check, which I've been loving watching people's reactions to. We did.
Oh, yeah.

the ballot of Buster Scruggs. People were like,

By the way, Geek Squad came up in it. Yes, they did.
And as you know, we are waging this war with Vanity Fair and Hollywood at Warsaw. Now we're waging war.
I'm just going to say it.

We are waging war.

Wait a minute. But

we're bringing back wars. We're bringing back when Howard Stern would go to war with a radio DVD.
Yeah, like the Philadelphia dudes. Yeah, exactly.

Here's what I will say:

some people lamented that three hours and 41 minutes not enough time for us to break down.

I mean, I could have kept going, me, too. We had a show to keep going, you know.
And I'm not surprised that people wanted more. You know, who didn't want more? David Sims.
Oh my gosh.

There is nothing more fun, I will say, especially, especially this time when the four of us got to be in the room.

I love being in the room than watching David get more and more agitated and frustrated in a such delightfully fun and funny way. He is what a great,

what a great presence inside of the absolute chaos that is you, me, and Griffin. Oh, and here's what I love about it: it seems like that anger is misplaced because

the show has started, but he does treat it as if the show has not begun, right? Like not hit record yet.

As if everything, the whole conversation we've been having about the movie, but simply because nobody has said this is the blank checkpoint, nobody's done the intro line, he's getting more and more, oh, it was so funny, more and more frustrated, you know, because, you know, that's David is,

you know, has three kids, I think under four.

Yeah, he's in it, he's in it, he's drowning in children.

And it is, he boy. And so I think for him, the three of us were just like three unruly kids.
I mean, it was so funny because we should have started at 10 a.m. to finish at six.
Like, you know,

it was really like, to me, I love being in there. I love their space.
I love talking to them. And so if you have not listened to that episode, do yourself a favor.
If you got about four hours,

you know, and it's the kind of thing that you can listen to in chunks.

And I will say, if you are a Coen Brothers fan, if you're a Blank Check fan, if you're a movie podcast fan, if you like our show, you should be listening to Blank Check. Absolutely.

A lot of our guests are guests on that show. Listen to Gabris or us.
Paul and I have been on it a bunch. Listen to the Doughboys on there if you're looking for an entry point.

But then also listen to Ari Astor on there. Listen to Seth Rogan on there.
Listen to the, you know, all the great, um, all the great past and future guests. It's a fantastic show.

Um, and I can't recommend it enough. And this series about the Cohen brothers is maybe pound for pound one of the greatest

series they've ever had. The best run that they've had.
I mean, in that, in a series, in a a show that has tremendous runs all the time.

I will also say this: I want to shout out our friend who's never actually been on the podcast, but Rob Riggle.

Rob Riggle has a book and an audio book as well. It's the same book.

It's not like he has two, but it's called Grit, Spit, and Never Quit.

It's his story about being a Marine and doing comedy. And there are some great, great stories in there.
Wriggles, Marine stories are always hilarious.

and uh and this book is really really fun a really uh if you like rob wriggle and you know him obviously from you know everything from like 21 jumpstreet brothers daily show jump street yeah daily show snl

great dude incredible great great dude uh so anyway just wanted to shout out our friend and his uh brand new book but jason i've been watching stuff and i wanted to get your read i you're gonna have more interesting stuff so i'm gonna just throw one

what do you what do you watch what do you got i went back and watched 21 Jump Street. And I was like, this is...
The TV, the entire TV series. No, I wish I watched the TV series.
Oh, my God.

Yeah, yeah. By the way, I do own it.
The entire TV series. Do you really? Oh, I do.
I loved it. I watched that 21 Jump Street movie.
And it was like, you know, it's funny.

I don't often revisit comedy because I'm like, oh, yeah, it was really funny. I really liked it.
And I don't ever go back. I re-watched that movie and I was like, this movie is kind of perfect.

It just is. It is so funny.
So funny. A great cast across the board.
I just was like blown away by, I think it's fun to sit back and watch comedies after a long time of not seeing them because it's

because then you're surprised by the jokes again. Yeah.
I mean, really. Because that's why it works because it's like, it's so surprising and funny.
And again,

we just don't do these anymore. Wouldn't it be great to make movies with funny people that are funny? You know, that are just non-stop funny with funny people.
I would love that.

But we don't seem to be interested in that or the business doesn't seem to be interested in that.

And it's such a shame because that's a movie that really you could show is like, oh, well, it's done it all.

I mean, you and I think also have a soft spot for action comedy, especially cop stuff and funny stuff.

I mean, but I just want to give a shout out to Dave Franco, who I think is so good in that movie. He's

so fucking funny. Everybody, I just really like it.

And that's a run, too, where you've got 21 Jump Street, you've got like the Seth and Evans stuff, like this is the end happening around that same time.

You've got neighbors happening right around that. Like you've got a run of movies that is kind of the end of the day, and many of these are not even action comedies.
These are just comedies.

Yes, and that run is kind of the end of studio comedies, really. I mean, we don't.
And they're all successful.

Like, I mean, it's so crazy to look at, like, you know, like it's an 85 on Rotten Tomatoes, 21 Jumpstreet. These are not failures.
These are not even like niche movies.

These were ones that really, really worked.

These are movies that connected. I still wish, I think we talked about this recently.
I wish they would do the 21 Jump Street 3 Men in Black 4. Channing Tatum was talking about it recently again.

Oh, okay, good. And I think that there's some rights issues where they're now able to maneuver it.
But that's the kind of fun that I wish we were doing.

I wish we were making movies that had that fun to that level of fun and surprise because I think we'd have hits on our hands, you know, comedically.

You know, we'd have people being interested to be like, I gotta go see that. Instead of like, it's Baywatch or, you know, whatever nonsense.
We make these things that like,

I don't know, it's a bummer. It's just a bummer.
Sometimes it's a bummer. But I will tell you, the trailer for Project Hail Mary looks amazing.
That's Lord Miller's new movie.

Based on the Andy Weir book. I did see it.
I will tell you that much. I saw it months ago.
And

before the effects were done, I think maybe they cut out about 10, 15 minutes. And I will tell you, you are in store for, I saw it almost not effects list, but with with minimal effects.

And I was blown away by it. Like, and

I just, I'm so excited for that movie. I'm so excited for people to see that movie.

But what have you been up to?

I'm watching a bunch of stuff. I've got a bunch of stuff to shut out TV.
I've got some music stuff. Let's just blast it through.
Taskmaster Season 20 just wrapped up on YouTube.

I can't recommend it enough. Better than your season.
It's a fantastic season. It is in no way, shape, or form better than my season.
I've been boycotting it because

I'm actively telling people, don't watch it. It's not as good.
They didn't bring back Jason. And they don't ever really bring back people.

You know, it's that magic trick that Taskmaster always does, especially for, I think, if you are not fully dialed into British comedy, where I don't know these people, or maybe I've seen them in the passing here or there, and then I immediately become obsessed with them and become so invested in the show.

This season was fantastic. I really became a fan of Stevie Martin because of

your season.

Stevie Martin sent me a picture recently of,

I'll find it and send it and maybe we can post it.

Somebody sent her a picture of people on Halloween dressed as her and I

in our outfits. Oh, I love that.
I love that. Oh, I wish I would love it.
It was very cute. Like, it was like a couple's costume.
Oh, I think that that's amazing. By the way, somebody did something

that I want to send you. It is a clip of someone hitting the pause button on Teen Wolf and finding the nudity in it.
So now there is, we have a great now. There's proof.
There's proof.

Now that somebody was able to give me the proof that I so desperately needed from the Teen Wolf episode. Oh, that's so funny.

Hear that? That's my alarm clock. How did I get here? Invested early, retired early.
Now, my morning meeting is with the Shore. Get where you're going with DIA, the only ETF that tracks the DAO.

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DIA is subject to risks similar to those of stocks.

All ETFs are subject to risk, including possible loss of principal. Alps Distributors, Inc.
Distributor. Adam Pally here, and I'm John Gabritz.

We're a couple actors and best friends who you may know as the hosts of the TV show 1001 Places to Party Before You Die.

Now, we're bringing you a comedic look at health and wellness with our new show, Staying Alive. We'll have guests like our friend, actor Jerry O'Connell, ketamine therapist Dr.

Stephen Radowitz, Paul Scheer, Ego Woda, Jillian Bell, Dr. Doolittle,

Staying Alive with John Gapers and Adam Pally is out right now. Get them a week early and ad-free with SiriusX and Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Gas gifts, tolls, this holiday trip is draining my wallet. Yeah, but we'll get to see all our family.
You're festive. What's your deal? What's my deal? Holiday savings at Metro.

I got one line of 5G for just $25 per month and I kept the phone I love. And no activation fees and a five-year price guarantee on my talk text and data.
Detour to Metro it is.

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It's $30 your first month or without autopay price guarantee exclusion supply. See Cypher details.

There's a show on, I think, HBO. It's an adult swim show called Ha Ha You Clowns.
Oh, I have a animated show.

15 minute episodes. I have not laughed this hard in I don't know how long.
This is

very funny, like absurd, nonsense, funny shit.

There's only a handful of episodes are up so far that I've seen. Joe Kappa is the creator.
Okay. Yeah.

I just happened on this show, and it is killing me how funny it is. It's absolutely bananas level funny.

Landman is back. Love.
Given Landman. Oh, yes.
Love Landman.

The Last Frontier on Apple is basically what if Conair Conair was a TV series. I and I started watching it, and I'm loving it.
It's a blast. It's it's a blast.

Um, if you are looking for, it's it's getting to be that holiday season period where I feel like everybody watches um Gilmore Girls.

Yes, if you are looking for a Gilmore Girls-esque thing to watch, maybe you've already watched Gilmore Girls enough or whatever.

I can't recommend enough the um follow-up show that Amy Sherman Palladino did one season of called Bunheads,

all of which is now on Prime. And I've just re-watched all of Bunheads, and it's incredible.
It is so fantastic. Sutton Foster is the star of the show.

She and Kelly Bishop have a dance studio.

Every episode has a

long single-take dance performance,

which the Palladinos then later did on Etoile as well, the now canceled Prime show. But I cannot recommend Bunheads enough.
It's on Prime. It's been hard to watch for a while, so that's a good one.

Jason, have you watched, or I don't, we haven't talked about it yet, but the chair company? Chair Company. I am, I've only watched the first couple.
I think it's amazing.

Now that I'm back at home, I'm going to watch the rest of it. I'm very excited.
I really, this is a show and like Pluribus as well. I like to

start it either because I like to build up a handful because I know I, I want to watch more than one. And I also don't want to watch stuff on hotel TVs.
No, exactly.

I don't want to watch it the right way. I don't want to watch it on my fold-up iPad.
But I will tell you this:

I'm calling for the Lou Diamond Phillips Renaissance. I feel like he is great in chairs.

So good. And I just saw him be great in a season, an older season of

the Billy. I was so desiring Landman to come back that I've watched almost all of Goliath, Billy Bob Thornton's Amazon Prime Lawyer show, and one season Lou Diamond Phillips is in.
It's fantastic.

Goliath, I remember watching that. My gosh, it's fun.
He's been really, really good. And by the way, Jim Downey in Chair Company is fantastic.

And if you can watch one battle after another, he's also fantastic in that. Like, he's having this renaissance.
And there's a Jim Downey documentary out as well, which is called Downey Wrote That.

It's on Peacock. And there's a great interview with Letterman and Downey

together on YouTube. It's one of his YouTube interview shows, which he's doing.
And it's great because Downey was the headwriter of Letterman for a little bit after he left SNL in the early days.

So they are,

they talk about bits that it was making me laugh so hard because it was just like the craziest Letterman bits, but it's the headwriter and Letterman talking about like bits that no one talks about.

Really, really fun. One last show that I want to give some real love to because I think it's maybe

my favorite show of the year so far, and that's Sterling Hard Joe's The Lowdown, the Ethan Hawks show that is set in Oklahoma, that is absolutely phenomenal.

They're calling it like a Tulsa Noir, I think, or something like that. And it's very much that.
It is a very noir story that's being told with Ethan Hawk as the protagonist.

And it is a funny, shaggy, detective-ish hangout show. The cast is incredible.
The music is incredible. I specifically want to shout out, they are using the musician Ken Pomeroy.

She's an incredible singer-songwriter, and she's an actor on on the show. Her album from last year called Cruel Joke, I think is one of my favorite albums of the year.

Flannel Cowboy may be one of my most listened-to songs of the year.

The show is incredible, and I think deserves everybody's attention. Like top of the list for me for 2025, the lowdown.
Oh,

I love this. And you know, you shouted out one thing that I want to just call out.
I've talked about them before on the show. The Wolves of Glendale, they are a really funny band.

And I know sometimes if you say, oh, a funny band, people like, you could feel their buttholes tighten. But here's what I'm going to tell you.

They are legitimately very funny, but they're doing a brand new series, which I love. It's like Iron Chef for songwriting.

So what they do is they get these ingredients that they have to do and then make a song. So every episode

is them making a song on a very unique topic. The first episode was they have to make a song about Shrek.

I just love the format.

It's Iron Chef with music. Check it out.
It's on YouTube. It's free.
It's Wolves of Glendale. You will love it.
And the Shrek, the Shrek song is very funny.

And let me just, I want to shout out a couple of things. I just saw, I was in New York.
This is really for people. If you are in New York or going to New York, I saw Natalie Palmedes' show, Weirdo.

At the Cherry Lane.

And it was astonishing. I thought it was an absolutely incredible show that everybody needs to see.

Natalie Palmedes did did the show Nate that is available on Netflix, but this show, Weir, is an incredible, incredible show.

I couldn't believe the, I don't want to say what the kind of trick of it is or the, yeah, what the, what the, what the hook of it is, but it's, it's so incredible and so fucking funny.

Um, I haven't laughed that hard in a while. Some of my favorite comedians are on tour.
If you can see Nish Kumar's show, uh, uh, Nish Don't Kill My Vibe, incredible. James A.

Caster is touring and is touring the U.S. with new material that I've seen, and it is fantastic.
James A. Caster, of course, from the James Projector episode.

Phenomenal. Stevie Martin is on tour.
We mentioned her earlier. My taskmaster,

JV Mart Zukas, teammate, please see her new stuff

is fantastic. But

a bunch of people have put out specials recently that I want to shut out. Ian Edwards put out a special on YouTube that is absolutely hilarious.
Earthquake's special joke telling business is so funny.

Allie Wong directed Frankie Kinonez's special, Damn That's Scary, and that's very funny.

All of these are worth tracking down and worth checking out.

Great specials all around, like trying to get into more, like finding more people that are putting out specials and not just like big, slick nonsense, but like really funny shows. You know,

Patton was on something recently. Patton just put out an audio-only special.
Oh, wow. I love this.
Great. More of this.
Okay.

And also, the Jeff Buckley documentary is absolutely heartbreaking and fantastic. Well, Jason, here's something you're going to want to put on your list.

A brand new musical

performer, a talent here from our show of years past, our former engineer, Devin Bryant, has something to share with us. Devin, welcome back to How Did This Get Made? Gentlemen.
Hello.

Well, well, well.

Left us for Smartless. Left us to do more and be more creative, though.
How dare you? I know. I'm so sorry.
Left us for, as my cousins in Massachusetts would say, smartless.

That's absolutely right. And I've seen both of you guys as you come through on a couple of shows we've had over there.

Both of you were on Staying Alive, the show I work on with Gabris and Pally, which is a fantastic show. Great episodes.
You're both on too. If people haven't heard them, please check them out.

Do you think those are the two highest-rated episodes of that show? Yes.

Now, here's what I'll say:

you know, for people who don't know, Devin is the best. We love Devin.
Devin produced here on How Did This Get Made, created songs for us, was instrumental on Unspooled as well.

But, Devin, in your own right, you are a great musician. We talked about your last big release under the moniker of Ping Killer the Pigeon, right? That's right.

Painkiller the Pigeon is what I call this kind of music because I do some experimental stuff, but this is where I put kind of like, you know, pop songs. I mean, for lack of a better term,

these are guitars. These are drums.
These are bass. These are lyrics.
You know, it's Beatles-type pop songs, I mean, rather than, say, a Sabrina Carpenter or something like that. Yeah.
Yeah.

Well, now, the new album is called Blame It on the Zodiac, right? And blame it on my Zodiac. Oh, my Zodiac.
There you go. Okay.
Now is that? Is the album?

So it's all songs that are about the failure of your Zodiac boat.

The inflatable, the inflatable boat that you're taking. Look, don't, Jason, we cannot shit on them there, sponsor.
Please shit.

Sponsored by Zodiac. Yeah, we'll get a lot of money from the Zodiac.
Oh,

a big discount code. No one uses it because it's still very expensive.

But yeah, so tell us about this album. Well, it's a very vintagey thing.
I mean,

the inspiration, the things I was listening to as I was writing these songs are sort of all things that ended up being released sort of 1968 to 1972. And I don't really know why.

It's just, it was all the, you know, kind of the second, third, fourth CCR record, the like second, third, fourth Joey Mitchell record, you know, the like the Peter Gabriel Genesis era, the, you know, King Crimson kind of before the first breakup.

You know, it's, it's all this stuff that I was listening to.

Like Adrian Balloo era, King Crimson? Or I certainly was listening to a ton of that. Yes, absolutely.
But I mean, are we talking three of a perfect pair here? What are we talking about? Lark's tongue.

Lark's tongue. Lark's tongue and Jack and me.
Like, what what is he talking? That's a good record, by the way. That's an underrated one, the second one, beat.

People, people are like, discipline is the one, but beat is fantastic. Beat is, I loved beat.
Absolutely. And that whole run, you said Lark's tongue, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lark's tongue is fantastic. And red, the one that comes after it, which is just brutal.
Love record. Brutal record.

So none of that exactly leaks through to the record King Crimson-wise, but Robert Fripps' kind of attitude is in the back of my head the whole time, which is keep going, keep pushing.

You're not doing it well well enough, which is mostly him talking to himself, you know, being furious that he would have missed like whatever, like a 30-second note in an arpeggio.

It was off by a quaver last night. He's like, the show sucked.
You know, and you're like,

it's, I wasn't going for quite that kind of thing, but there was just this voice in my head of like, keep pushing on it, right? And so it became that most vintage of things, a double album. Wow.

Crazy thing to make.

Eightfold?

If I'm ever able to make it on vinyl, right?

Which is, which is the goal, but at the moment, it's just going to be on CD, which is a nice glossy limited edition package that I made with a big poster and with a lyric booklet and all this kind of stuff.

It's meant to be kind of a vintagey thing. You know, that's that's the idea of it.
A physical object that you're physical media, baby. That's the whole point of it.
Yeah. So now, where can we get it?

What can we do? How can we support it? We're going to play a little clip

because I think we can do that.

You know, we could talk to your company. You better not, you better not

force us to take it down.

I'm issuing a takedown.

That's always issuing a takedown.

Like, yeah, like, where can we find it? Because I know that you have an account on Spotify. You could type in Pinkiller the Pigeon, but

that's not every, you know, that's not everything.

It'll be streaming absolutely everywhere that people prefer to listen to it, even in naughty places like Spotify that I wish you wouldn't use, but you know, a title, an Apple music, anywhere. Use it.

Music.

Would you prefer it if we, for example, bought it digitally on Bandcamp? I certainly would. Bandcamp, my bandcamp, pankillerthepigeon.bandcamp.com is the place to go, I would say.

And when, if you are lucky enough to

be a Bandcamp regular,

if you buy the album on Bandcamp Friday, that means

Bandcamp does not take its percentage. All of the money goes to the artist.
Exactly. So there should be a Bandcamp Friday coming up soon? I believe soon.
December, the first December Friday, maybe?

I believe it's the first Friday in December, which I believe is the day this comes out, the fifth. All right,

there we go. Okay, there we go.
Today, as people are hearing this, is Bandcamp Friday. So, if you're hearing this and it's Bandcamp Friday, Friday, go and buy Devin's album.
Exactly.

Blame it on my zodiac. Absolutely.
Will you tour the record?

I don't know how I could. This is a record I made entirely on my own.
I play every single day. You play every instrument? Oh, yeah.
Every single instrument

to bottom

on a double album with four EPs that come out after it. So there's 42 tracks that I did from T to B.

So it's kind of an insane project, but I had to make that much to get to the, to boil it down to what the record was supposed to be.

I had to make way too much and then lots of it was good so it'll all be out on kind of supplementary eps for people that are interested but the main record is the thing for sure i love this the album is available in full for 15 right yeah for digital and if you want to get the cd yeah with the special limited edition poster and booklet that's 20 bucks that's it this is nothing this is nothing in the grand scheme of things that you get there i can't bring myself to charge like i honestly what it should be you know if i were trying to make money on this thing it'd be like it would be 35 but i just i reject that i'm a kid from the 90s the record should be 15 bucks or less

i agree i agree i agree i remember when cds went up to 17 and i was like this is insane by the way i've been dealing this with my book you know my book came out in and uh in paperback and it's only three dollars cheaper than the hardcover i'm like what what what is going on here like the hardcover is like 21 and the book is like 15.99 it's like it's like crazy it's too

close um but anyway we love you devin thank you for coming back buy this album support devin Go to Bandcamp today. Support all the artists.
Seriously. You don't have to buy from me.

Buy from people on Bandcamp every Bandcamp Friday. Just buy something from somebody.

How about this, Devin? Are there any artists that you want to shout out that you feel like, I mean, you already have a little bit, informed this album that people could also be looking at on Bandcamp?

Well, it's tough because, right, so much of the stuff I was listening to was older music. So

they don't necessarily have things

to promote right now.

But I will say, the Joni Mitchell archive and reissue series don't get me started i mean i can talk about this for well i got i got a joni mitchell cover on the record my friend it's what's i don't know where i stand from clouds it's one oh one of my all-time favorites that i just had this dream i was i was listening to it on a plane actually and i was like this needs to be done as if the birds had covered this in 1968 with big uh electric 12 strings big like harmonies big drifty dreamy version of that song and it's one of my favorite on the record oh that's great love this all right tell us the song that you're going to play for us we'll listen to it Yes.

And then, yeah.

The song I wanted to play is actually going to be the second single from the record, which on the day you're listening will be out next week. It's called Mistaken.

And it's kind of an orchestral chamber poppy thing with a little bit of a groove. So, yeah.
All right. Well, thank you, Devin, and enjoy this song.

I haven't seen her in quite some time.

She'll disappear on you overnight.

She's gonna

make herself,

but she just can't take herself all the time.

I pretend to be Christian life.

While never keeping her count,

laying down a pagan debt, she's not prepared to get the things

to be

She loves,

so please make your best.

I've been

crying,

but what's the artist?

It has nothing

less.

She'll lay it up

and tear. And what you're doing

are insincere, don't we be mistaken?

All right, thank you so much to Jason and Devin for stopping by.

If you want to check out Devin's album, Blame It on My Zodiac, go to the link in this episode's show notes, which will point you towards the album on Bandcamp and all streaming services.

Now, it is finally time to announce our next movie. Next week, we'll be going from dry mushing to some wet smooching.

Yeah, well, I've already kind of teased this in the beginning, but we're watching 2015's Merry Kissmas starring Carissa Staples, Brent Doherty, and the late, great Doris Roberts.

Like I mentioned, this is the movie that we are covering on our holiday live stream on December 10th.

So if you want to watch the episode live and completely unedited before the podcast comes out, make sure to get yourself a ticket by going to hdtgm.com or my website.

Now, If you want to know what this movie is about, well, first of all, I'm going to tell you, Scott says you should watch it.

And if you're still not sold on that, here's a summary: A magical kiss and an elevator leaves a woman torn between two men at Christmas time.

Ooh, okay, this movie doesn't have enough Rotten Tomatoes reviews, so we can't give you that tomato score.

Instead, we turn to Letterbox, where user Marissa Carpio writes, You got a problem when the characters with the most chemistry play cousins.

You know, I gotta tell you, this happens a lot on these lifetime Hallmark films. There seems to be a sexual tension for the characters who can't get together.
together.

Like that post office movie, remember that the brother and sister, that they we wanted them to fuck. Anyway, if you're still not sold, listen to the trailer from Merry Christmas.

All Kayla wants for Christmas. True love is always a worthy wish.
I thought that wish came true two years ago, but

now I'm not so sure. Is the happily ever after she's always dreamed about.
We decided to hold off on the wedding until after the new year. Now, she'll have to choose between the perfect life

or the perfect

Carissa Staples, Brad Dardy, and Doris Roberts. Like magic and romance ignite a relationship, but it's the friendship that makes it endure.

In a Yuletide story about how it's never too late to find the perfect one for you. It's the friendship that turns that happily ever after into the beginning of a love story and not the ending.

Merry Christmas.

You excited? I am. You can stream Merry Christmas on Hoopla, Tubi, Amazon Prime Video, Pluto TV, Fossum, and Fandango at home.
Or you can rent it on YouTube, Apple TV, or Google Play.

In addition to Hoopla, where you can find this movie, Canopy and Libby are two more digital media services offered by your local public library that allow you to consume.

movies, TV, music, audiobooks, e-books, and comics for free. That is it for Last Looks.
If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please rate and review us.

And please also make sure that you are following us and have automatic downloads turned on. It helps us, it helps the show, and we appreciate it.

Visit us on social media at HDTGM and a big thank you to our producer Scott Saney, Molly Reynolds, our engineer Casey Holford, our social media manager, Zoe Applebaum, and our intern, Quinn Jennings.

And as always, we have the one and only Averill Halley in our hearts. We'll see you next week for Merry Christmas.

Gas gifts, tolls? This holiday trip is draining my wallet. Yeah, but we'll get to see all our family.
You're festive. What's your deal? What's my deal? Holiday savings at Metro.

I got one line of 5G for just $25 per month, and I kept the phone I love. And no activation fees and a five-year price guarantee on my talk, text, and data.
Detour to Metro it is.

Get that more for your money peeling. Only at Metro by T-Mobile.
It's $30 your first month or without autopay, price guarantee, exclusion supply. See cypher details.

Hear that? That's me in Tokyo learning to make sushi from a master. How did I get here? I invested wisely.
Now the only thing I worry about is using too much wasabi.

Get where you're going with SPY, the world's most traded ETF. Getting there starts here with State Street Investment Management.

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