Trialceratops

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Trial Ceratops.

Keele files suit against his brother Aaron over a bet they made in childhood.

The tagline of the film Jurassic Park is an adventure 65 million years in the making.

Keele contends the film took 65 million years to make.

Aaron disagrees.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Only one can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

Okay, so what movie was I doing in 1978?

Anyone?

Anyone?

No, not The Fly.

That's 1986.

Okay, the answer is, thank God it's Friday.

Yeah, it was a disco movie.

I met Donna Summer on that movie.

Oh, and what Donna Summer's song?

Did she debut in that movie?

Bailiff Jesse Thornton, please swear the lidigan's in.

Keel, Aaron, please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

So help you, God or whatever.

Whatever.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he's well short of 65 million years in the making?

Absolutely.

Totally.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

A mere half century in the making, Jesse.

Keel and and Aaron, you may be seated.

For an immediate summary, judgment, and one of yours favors, can either of you name the piece of popular cultural referencing that I did when I entered this courtroom.

Aaron, why don't you guess first?

Which one of you is your brothers, correct?

Correct.

Which one of you is the elder brother?

Kiel is the elder by about two and a half years.

All right.

All right.

Aaron,

you get baby brother privilege.

What is your guess?

Whom was I quoting?

I would have to guess Charlton Heston.

So, Aaron, in what context are you guessing Charlton Heston?

Do you think he was in the movie,

Thank God It's Friday, the disco movie?

Or what?

I guess it's just wishful thinking, mostly.

Just would love to see Charlton Heston in his prime in a disco movie from the seven.

Maybe.

I don't know.

I've not seen this movie.

I was not in this movie.

I was quoting someone else.

Keel, what's your guess?

I also don't know, so I'm just going to say.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute, Kiel.

Wait a minute, Kiel.

You're the older brother here.

Yeah.

Just listen to me.

Listen to me.

You like movies.

You like movies.

You have an opportunity, Kiel, to make your younger brother Aaron look bad.

You can't just throw it away like that.

You got to give it a try.

Now, let's think about this.

What are we talking about?

Jurassic Park?

Yeah, I think it's thematically related, of course.

Sematically related.

If this were a Planet of the Apes discussion, I would understand why Aaron would go to Charlton Heston, like Charlton Heston might say something, because he was in that movie.

So obviously, I'm quoting someone who has a connection to the movie, but it's not a quote from the movie, correct?

Right.

It's someone talking about a movie that they were in.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, okay.

So at the bare minimum, you have to guess Newman.

Well,

I was going to say, I don't think you did the cadence, but I think I would guess for that era, 1978, probably like Jeff Goldblum.

Jeff Goldblum is your guess.

Yes.

I see.

And in what context was Jeff Goldblum saying these words?

Because you're absolutely right.

By the way, Kiel, you got it.

You made Aaron look bad.

Congratulations.

I'm not finding in your favor because I led you down that path.

It was a hint, yeah.

Yeah, it was a hint.

It was a hint.

But I would have guessed that anyway, because I recently rewatched The Fly and

The Body Snatchers that Jeff Goldblum is in, and they're kind of from that same era.

Well, no, the fly is from 1986.

That was in the quote, Kiel.

Kiel was about to guess a different cast member planned.

The starter was about to say Rod Dowell.

I would have guessed if I had been in the audience on June 13, 2019, watching Jeff Goldblum in concert ask that question, I would have guessed Invasion of the Body Snatchers as well, because I believe that came out in 1978.

But the answer he was looking for, Jeff Goldblum, was Thank God It's Friday, a disco movie with Donna Summer in which she debuted a song called Let's Dance.

Why was Jeff Goldblum doing this?

Because Jeff Goldblum is one of the greatest show people I've ever seen in my life.

I've talked about it on the podcast before.

Jeff Goldblum in 2019 was going around the country with his jazz band playing jazz because he's a jazz pianist.

And Jeff Goldblum knows no one is showing up to hear Jeff Goldblum play jazz piano, but he wants to do it anyway.

So what does he do?

He stops the performance every couple of jazz songs and just does

Jeff Goldblum trivia with the audience.

One of the greatest things.

I just want to say it's so nice to speak to Kiel and Aaron, your brothers.

You're in Pennsylvania.

You're in rural Pennsylvania.

We're talking you through a very thin tube of internet.

Lovely of you to join us.

I know that I appreciate that you're pandering to me as a judge, but I know you're mostly fans of Jesse Thorne because when we look, I took a screen cap earlier.

When we put your photo up, you're going to see these two guys.

They're like doing Jesse Thorne cosplay.

These two guys are two Jesse Thorne lookalikes here.

And in the background, we also have Keel's spouse, George.

And she

is someone who used to come to my little gray book lectures in Brooklyn back in the early 2000s.

She came to the audience a few times.

You very rarely forget a woman named George.

And now you're married to Keel.

George can't speak because she doesn't have a microphone, but she's doing court illustrations, Jesse.

She's an illustration.

She's going to do court illustrations.

We'll put those on the Instagram as well so far as I approve of my likeness.

Is that okay with George Keel?

He loves it, yeah.

That's the whole reason she got into the profession.

Was for this very day.

Of course it was.

For the Graham.

Yeah.

For the Graham.

Now, all guesses are wrong.

Who comes to seek justice before me today?

I do.

And that is Kiel, correct?

Yes.

All right.

Kiel, I'm very curious about this bet.

Tell me about, it's not one bet, but it's two bets, right?

What were the two bets that you made when you were younger?

The first bet led to the Jurassic Park bet.

And the first bet was about

Aaron came limping into the room when I was about 10 and he was about seven,

which for me was right about, it was just about when Jurassic Park was coming out.

Sure.

But he was injured in a comic way because he was like hopping on one foot.

And then I asked him what happened.

And he said he wouldn't tell me because if he did, I would laugh.

And I said, I definitely won't laugh.

There's no way I'll laugh.

I bet you a million dollars.

I won't laugh if you tell me what happened.

But I

he eagerly accepted it and then he told me and I did laugh and I'm not disputing that, but I think that led to a series of escalating bets that got out of control.

You bet him one million dollars?

Well, this is actually the foundation of my argument for kind of dismissing these debts because I think it's patently absurd that a child could bet such a sum.

I don't know.

I mean, you guys could be sitting on a fortune that I don't know about.

You could be little richy riches over there.

It's kind of the reverse, and that's actually

the bedrock of my case, which is at that age, we grew up fairly poor in rural Pennsylvania.

We had not only no money, but no idea of how much money someone makes in their lifetime.

This was pre-understanding the problems of the world we live in.

Sure.

And so I just imagined, of course, I think we all did, that parents have kind of as much money as you need ever.

No reasonable person would imagine that you, Keel, as a 10-year-old boy, would be sitting on a million dollars, even though you wore a little tuxedo with short pants all the time and you had a dog named Dollar.

Yeah, no, no, it would be totally absurd.

And

no one would actually, not even a Pennsylvania judge would uphold that kind of wager.

It's totally ridiculous.

And I would also say that it it was genuinely funny.

Aaron was just genuinely funny.

Well, I'll be the judge of that.

Hang on a second.

Aaron,

you limped into the room at age seven.

Limped into the room at age seven.

Now, look,

I'm going to bet you $25, and I guarantee you I have it.

$25 is that I will not laugh.

Text me your Venmo

in case I owe you, because I'm a person of my word.

You know, Your Honor, Kiel presents this as an injury, as if any reasonable human would laugh at the circumstances.

But I actually contend that the sort of speech he gave a moment ago simply displays to the court his sadism.

What he fails to remember is that in addition to hopping hilariously into the room, there were tears.

This is a seven-year-old child

crying.

Yeah, look, I'm an only child, but I can only imagine it is but pure joy for an older brother to see a younger brother suffer.

Exactly.

So you understand the nature of this bet and why $1 million were put on the line and why I feel that it actually gets to our integrity and our ability to continue forward in our relationship, that this actually comes to a reasonable conclusion.

Wait, are you suggesting that he...

I mean, betting a million dollars as a 10-year-old is a classic example of hyperbole.

Not in this case, Your Honor.

You thought he had a million dollars?

I remember it escalating.

Yeah, the starting point is a little grandiose, but it actually, I believe it actually ended up being $10 million because I wouldn't take a bet.

I refused to tell him why I was injured unless the stakes were worth it enough for me.

As I remember it, it got escalated to $10 million that Kiel would not laugh.

This was a matter of dignity for you.

Exactly.

It's an assurance from you.

He was teasing and bullying you into telling him what it was, what it happened

so that he could laugh in your face and then say,

Dude, I do not have $10 million.

Goodbye.

Goodbye forever, or until podcasts are invented.

Exactly, exactly.

Until you have the right kind of system of justice that can settle this sort of thing, which I think we've finally gotten in front of.

But if you're saying that this bet, look, if you're saying that this bet was in bad faith to begin with, how can you?

All right.

Then you're tacitly admitting that there was no

intention to pay from the beginning.

Aaron, look, let me ask you this question.

Do you think that this injury was funny?

Would I laugh if you told it to me?

Were you willing to bet $25 that I won't laugh?

The story of the injury

is not what's on trial here.

The conditions of the bet were met, which was simply that Kiel would not laugh.

Did Kiel laugh?

Yes.

The question is.

Let me put it a different way.

I appreciate your desire to protect your dignity.

I don't want to be an older brother bully to you by trying to get this story out of you.

And I certainly don't want to emulate Kiel by putting forward an obviously phony bet to trick you into it by suggesting I'm going to give you $10 million.

I will bet $10 million that I will not laugh to get you to tell me.

However,

I will pay you $50

if you will tell me.

I'll pay you.

It doesn't matter whether I laugh or not.

It is worth a shot, brother.

I mean,

I don't think it's actually that funny.

What I would argue is that the reason Kiel laughed was because we'd made this a bet.

By the point when I actually told him what had happened, we'd been having this argument about whether he would laugh or not.

And that just.

$100.

Let's stop dancing around this.

It doesn't even make sense.

$100

in your bank account if you will tell me the story.

And if it's not worth it to you, because you value your privacy and your dignity, I completely understand.

I'll walk away from you.

I mostly respect you too much to take $100 from you, but we can.

$125.

I got five on it.

130.

That's 130 now.

Okay.

We had come back from a camping trip.

Oh, no.

Now he's going to tell it.

I'm out, 130.

Good call.

You called my bluff.

Let's hear it.

When the stakes are high enough, as you'll see,

I'm willing to make the bet.

Yeah.

So we come back from a camping trip the previous weekend and so you know i had um the the water in the canteen a metal canteen and you know when you have a water in a metal canteen it sort of gets that metallic flavor we didn't like so i was i i was pouring water out of a metal canteen into another plastic container to drink it

As I was doing that, the container I was pouring it into was sort of precariously balanced on the countertop.

And instead of slowing the pour and the weight that was going into the container, I just sort of continued.

And assuredly,

the container fell off the countertop onto my toe, splashing water everywhere.

And that caused you to limp?

Directly on my toe from the countertop.

What was the container?

Like a heavy pewter mug?

A beerstein?

This is a seven-year-old friends, remember?

Einstein.

You know,

a it was a a plastic jug it was a it was a drinking it was a drinking a large drinking bottle so the water though you poured too much water and it fell the the the cup fell off the counter it fell it fell onto your toes and you were hurt and you were crying and keel took advantage of you by promising you ten million dollars to get the story out of you and he laughed and laughed in your face it's not even a funny story keel i think that's funny not funny right i think that's kind of what makes it so funny is that it's so banal oh you're a big fan of anti-comedy well well because

I think

Andy Kaufman over here, it was such a specific activity.

It wasn't like I stubbed my toe in the door.

That wouldn't have been funny because it's so prosaic, but this was like a highly specific thing he was doing that made no sense to be doing.

I bet you found it as an older brother very funny to hear your seven-year-old brother tell that story through tears.

It made it.

I was going

to walk

a cup fell off onto my little toe.

Right?

That's what you found funny.

But what's important to understand is that against the background of this, which also establishes the background for our Jurassic Park bet, which was

he already had, we already had a dynamic where he played the jester for me.

Like he was, you know, when I got a little brother, it's like getting like.

Hold on a second.

Hold on one second, Kiel.

Aaron, were you the jester for Kiel or is that something?

Did he put that, did you put that hat on with the bells or did he put that hat on with the bells?

You know,

initially, it's a chicken or egg thing, really.

I mean, he's known me as long as I've been alive.

And so, you know, I hesitate to.

You were a gift to him.

You were a toy.

That's what he was just saying.

I also embraced it, though.

I will admit that.

You know,

we definitely did a lot of, you know, we started making movies when we were little.

Oh, yeah, I know.

And I would say he very enthusiastically played the role of slapstick kind of victim because I was so entertained by it.

Absolutely.

Let's take a quick recess and hear about this week's Judge John Hodgman sponsor.

We'll be back in just a moment on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast, always brought to you by you, the members of maximumfun.org.

Thanks to everybody who's gone to maximumfun.org slash join.

And you can join them by going to maximumfun.org slash join.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by Made In.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

You made movies as kids in rural Pennsylvania, and you sent in your sizzle reel from your production company, circa 1997.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Pandemonium productions.

Yeah, Pandemonium Pictures.

Now, we

apologize.

Is it an LLC or that's corporate?

Just don't want to confuse it with the Pandemonium Productions out there.

Oh, okay.

I got you.

So you sent in the sizzle reel.

Jennifer Marma, will you share your screen and share with Jesse and I and the listeners a little bit from the sizzle reel?

Yep.

Now, this is our library.

You see, there are books uncountable.

This is where you go for research.

Dear Mr.

Jameson, I hereby relieve the Central Intelligence Agency's responsibility for the Russian clone agenda

in Siberia.

I like to prison for a crime that I did not do.

Alright, that's just a very short sample of the sizzle reel for Pandemonium Films, Inc.

What is it again, Kiel?

Pandemonium Pictures.

Pandemonium Pictures,

the whole thing is available on the internet.

We'll make sure that everyone in the world is able to see.

This is our shot, Aaron.

You guys.

So

I ask you, the children that I'm seeing in this are you two, right?

Correct.

Kiel, you're the one who's sort of like

stroking the pterodactyl head.

in the library sequence.

Yeah, that's.

All right.

And Aaron, you're the younger one who's saying I went to prison for a thing I didn't do.

Exposition.

Yeah, exactly.

Jester.

Yeah.

But there weren't just kids in this, there were adults as well.

I noticed that there were some non-10-year-olds.

We convinced a lot of our family and eventually local actors to act as act alongside us as we also played adults.

What was the story going on when the, when the one, when I think it was you, Aaron,

you were holding what looked like your mom and dad at fake gunpoint and accusing them of what were you accusing them of being involved in the the CIA's Siberian clone agenda I right of course yeah I believe that was it yeah a very intense scene were those your parents or were those local actors those are our aunt and uncle

pretty pretty large extended family and uh

and creative and rope them into this and also uh you know into the debate we're having over Jurassic Park.

Yeah, we'll get to that in a second.

Let me just say, this is one of the most adorable clips I've ever seen.

Thank you for sending it.

I really admire the grown-ups in your life for playing along.

I'm not sure that I would have been able to do that myself,

mostly because I'm SAG.

You know, I wouldn't be allowed to.

Screen Actors Guild.

You know, that's what I would say to my son or daughter.

I'm sorry.

I'm a union guy.

But that, but that it was, it was really, really funny.

And Aaron, you were you were a bit of a you were a bit of a jester a bit of a jester totally yeah I accept that mantle as it was placed upon me so it does go both ways and and Kiel you still you still work as a freelance film person is that right well I I I produce uh like

comedic activism performances that are that are then filmed but the the kind of main meat of it is like live uh you know uh partnering with

you didn't organize some

large-scale improv comedy at the Capitol on January 6th, did you?

That wasn't one of your projects, was it?

No, can't claim that one.

All right.

Maybe the maybe the other side of the spectrum.

Yeah, exactly.

I refuse to work with that side of the spectrum.

I'm glad to hear it.

And Aaron, are you still an actor?

No, no,

I work with the healthcare union in Pennsylvania.

So I do political

organizing.

Who are you supporting in the upcoming senatorial race?

Oh, God.

We haven't made an endorsement yet.

So I can't say it.

All right.

Stay tuned, though.

When you're ready to make an endorsement, will you let me know so I can announce it on a future Judge John Hodgman?

Absolutely.

All right.

Because

I've got some skin in this game.

All right.

So what is the Jurassic Park bet?

You obviously were movie fans.

You are in prime Jurassic Park territory age-wise when you saw it when this movie came out in 1993.

we took

really, we took our grandmother to Sea Jurassic Park in the theaters,

and I think it's a terrible idea.

It's the first time she's been to a movie theater since like sound of music and gripping my arm the entire time.

I don't think she ever went back to the movie theater.

But we loved it.

I loved it.

I saw it like five times in the theater.

Why did you take your grandma to the Sea Jurassic Park?

Because Kiel was so obsessed with it.

It was, it was trans, it was transformative.

I'd say it was life-changing.

I mean, it was like, this is like absolutely what you want to do in life.

And Jurassic Park just brought together all these things that you were interested in.

And the other thing is, it actually, like, without knowing, you might think, like, oh, this is like a fun adventure kind of thing.

Like, like, I thought it might be like an E.T.,

but it's actually like kind of just a horror movie that's actually very, very scary.

And so, yeah, we didn't understand that, but we loved it for sure.

Right.

And so, what is the nature of the bet that you

so it took a year to get the vhs but finally when we got the vhs after it was released on the cover of the tape it says an adventure 65 million years in the making and i forget how it came up but it was because of the other bets we'd been we've been building up into right

i said

i guess you might know a better way to say it but i would say like i said something to the effect of yeah this movie was 65 million years in the making in a way is that not is that not what happened not how i remember it Well, how do you remember it, Aaron?

This is how I remember it.

And I'm also,

judging who you were back then, judging who you are now,

it just feels like.

Aaron, how do you remember it?

I remember Keel talking about why Jurassic Park was the greatest film ever made.

Yeah, I just heard that part.

That's where the debate began.

And at that point, I don't know what I thought was the greatest film ever made.

Planet of the Apes.

Following Planet of the Apes.

Yeah, probably big Charlton Heston had over there.

Until the NRA days.

Yeah.

And he was going on about how incredible Jurassic Park was.

And then he said, and it took 65 million years to make.

To which I said,

it did not take 65 million years to make the film Jurassic Park.

I get...

the poster on the VHS, 65 million years in the making.

But I can allow for some creative leeway there.

When you're telling me it took, with these words, 65 million years to make the film Jurassic Park, no,

not going to stand for it.

And so, but how did it come to be a bet, Kiel?

How did you come to put your obviously fake money where your real mouth is?

What was your bet?

I think our way of trying to one-up each other into absurdity at that time was to kind of go so extreme.

It was hyperbolic.

And so it was like,

we believe this so you're wrong so much that I'm going to stake like all the money I'm going to make on, you know, ever on, on this.

And so what did you, what was you, what was the

so I think I basically just said, I'll bet you 30, I'll bet you 30 billion dollars.

And it's just a, you know, hyperbolic fool's like child, like, doesn't even have a conception of real money.

Well, it doesn't have any conception of real time.

You were wrong.

I mean,

what were you thinking when you were putting forward your $30 billion fortune?

Like, what did you mean when you said it took 65 million years to make?

I think as a pre-teen,

I was starting to get poetic.

in my mind and the idea of like

philosophically poetic.

And so I thought, well, you know, in a way, that's kind of true.

Like, nothing could be exactly what it is at this moment without everything that's come before it, including it kind of ties into like the chaos theory that's in Jurassic Park.

I was probably influenced by Jeff Goldblum talking about chaos theory and how like one little thing being a little different could, you know, especially a million years ago, would make everything that comes after it very different.

I'm not making the connection.

Your honor, who says your honor, right there?

Aaron?

That's Aaron.

Aaron, if I were you, I would just lay back for a second

because I don't think it took them.

Look, here's a little fact check on Jurassic Park.

Not everything in Jurassic Park Keel was right.

Some Jurassic facts.

Velociraptors in that movie, too big, should have had feathers.

We know that now.

T-Rex can see, really more of a Cretaceous period dinosaur.

Triceratops didn't poop that big.

You know, the largest fossil poop is only 40 inches long.

That's a truth thing.

Also, the Epatosaurus, what's called a brontosaurus in

a layperson's terms.

We used to think that it was a vegetarian, peaceful dinosaur with a long, long neck.

Turns out, Brontosaurus has no neck and a unibrow and loves steak fruit, lives on the upper west side.

Weird.

Also, I read Jurassic Park when it was first published in 1990.

The book, that's 1990, that was three years before the movie was made, and 1990 is not 65 million years ago.

There was nothing before then.

So how are you going to make this argument keel?

Well, there was the Andromeda strain.

There was the Andromeda strain.

There was Westworld.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He was working his way towards these

ideas.

I think the whole time he was working his way towards his late career, climate change denying that.

Climate change denying Michael Cright.

So, Kiel, just try to go back to that childlike state and convince me that somehow Jurassic Park was literally or metaphorically 65 years in the making, 65 million years in the making, such that I would would want to pay you 300 gazillion dollars or whatever.

I think I was trying to make a genuine statement about the fact that not only did it require dinosaurs to exist and to be fossilized and to be discovered and then written about by Michael Crichton, and then they decided to make a movie, which I understand is the shortest phase of that period.

Okay.

But it's, I think it's a bigger picture argument rather than literally understand the production was three months or whatever, but that's different from what I'm saying.

You're saying like, if time on Earth were represented as a year,

human life on Earth would be a fraction of a microsecond at the end of that year.

But we needed all of that to get where we are today, to cast Jurassic Park, to cast Sam Neal and Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park.

Right.

Honestly, all of those decisions might have been different and it'd be still a pretty comparable outcome, but nothing once you go deeper.

So you're basically your argument was all of human and non-human history was pointed towards 1993.

That's certainly how it felt to me.

Okay.

Look, I had a great summer in 1993.

I saw Jurassic Park.

I spent the summer working at Film Fest Video in New Haven, just watching movies.

It was a great summer.

It felt to me, Francis Fukuyama and I both agreed it's the end of history.

You know what, Kill, I got to say, you made an argument that made a certain amount of sense to me.

that this was the pinnacle of human history.

1993's Jurassic Park is the pinnacle

of earth's history and aaron can you can you reasonably argue that it has not been

it has only been downhill since then

how old are you in 1993 in 93 i was seven yeah well okay so that wasn't the greatest for you i was it was a good year it was a good year well all right summer yeah what would you what would you guys make a movie that summer probably probably several i mean movie is a is a strong word um

you know incoherent jumble of,

you know, random sort of bits of narrative and me stumbling around and Kiel pushing me and putting me in situations is probably more accurate.

And just like this, for example, you see?

He's still dragging me into it.

Maybe 1993 wasn't the end, Kiel, because obviously...

American culture has offered you a third, fourth, and fifth act

as a double-hander team here.

I certainly don't think it ended at that point, but it was a great like thumbnail of a moment.

And I think I was also, Judge, just to make one more aspect of this argument, I was also trying to be a good big brother by conveying ideas that were broke, breaking him out of his literal thinking, which kept it kind of at this limitation, this like childish limitation of like literality, of like thinking, oh, well, no, it took three months to make this movie.

But I just wanted to kind of help him evolve his own concepts of of history of like deep of like materialist history even like this is a it's a much bigger thing that I was trying to in I was trying to like

imbue his mind with like a bit a deeper way to think about things and if you happen to make a couple billion dollars on the side then so be it

the more important lesson from a bigger brother would have been if you have obligations you should pay them all right So

what does this reflect about your relationship now?

Does this sort of thing still come up?

Does Kiel still come up with it?

This comes up all the time.

Tell me, Aaron.

So we,

I would say our sort of betting, one-upsmanship,

sort of...

healthy argumentation has always been a big part of our relationship.

And I love this man.

I love my brother.

We've always been very good friends.

And our family as well.

Like in our family, I think argumentation in some families is is very toxic and can be.

And in our family, I think it was always approached as,

even though it can get heated, always very fun, very loving, very open.

And generally, debates around things that really matter, like who would win in a fight, a werewolf or a vampire, right?

You know, who has the, what would be the best superhero power?

You know, did it take 65 million years to make the film Jurassic Park?

Things that really matter.

No, no, no.

The first two have answers.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you, Judge.

And so what I would say is the betting piece of that relationship, ever since this moment,

frankly,

since it's so abundantly clear that I'm correct and that he has never followed through to pay or to attempt to remediate in any way any of that kind of commitment.

You know, it questions, in my mind, it just questions his integrity.

It's really sort of taken that out of our relationship.

At this point, what's the point in betting anymore about anything?

because he already owes me so much and it's sort of come to a head now because during covid keel and george were part of the exodus from new york and they moved back home to be closer here so now that we're spending more time together regularly we want to start betting more and yet this case just keeps coming back to that that we can't we can't bet on new things because he's 30 billion he's 30.01 billion dollars in debt obviously you know that if i were to rule in your favor and that you are right that it did not take 65 million years to make Jurassic Park, you're not going to collect $300 billion or whatever.

So what do you feel?

What do you feel you are owed?

If I were to rule in your favor, what do you feel you are owed in damages?

And what would you have me order going forward?

Yeah.

So I think, first of all, I would like a written statement.

acknowledging that it did not take 65 million years to make the film Jurassic Park.

Ideally, certainly signed, but I could be notarized.

I could go with you.

That'd be fine.

I could witness that.

Or

if the court has any kind of official seal or anything, it'd be lovely to get that on the paperwork

framed.

Just as a sort of final.

Just John, drop a blood.

Just a little drop of blood.

Yeah, that could be good.

And

then I would.

You're asking me to frame this for you?

No, no, no.

I would have you order Keel to frame it for me.

Okay, I got you.

So it's just

frame the blood, the notarization, the counter signature, the firstborn,

the billion.

Right.

Well, I'd be willing to forego the $30 billion.

However, I think

there does need to be some kind of a constant reminder.

of this settlement in his mind.

And so I would ask for a recurring payment from him to me of any amount in perpetuity.

Okay.

All right.

That's interesting.

You're talking about cash.

Oh, yeah.

Or Bitcoin.

Of any amount.

Will you take crypto?

Crypto is good.

I'll take crypto.

I'll take Venmo.

Take NFTs.

Aaron,

if I can.

Can you just draw a picture of a monkey smoking a cigar?

Yeah.

Guess what?

It's your NFT.

Microsoft Paint.

Keel, what would you have me rule if I were to rule in your favor?

I think what I want is for it to be erased and have a blank slate because I believe that it doesn't matter whether Jurassic Park took that long to make.

It has nothing to do with the contents of the argument.

I think it only comes down to the fact that I don't think people at that age can make such a giant bet on that amounts to basically everything they're ever going to make unless I'm incredibly fortunate in this whole activism game.

Then I would wipe the slate clean so that we can start fresh because I was before the age of consent before even comprehending money.

So I think there's no way that I don't even think that it's comprehending money.

And I don't mean to argue your case for you, but you maybe didn't understand what a bet was.

I would totally throw myself under the bus that way.

That is to say,

it is a promise.

It is an expression.

of your word and your integrity that something is provable and true.

And if you are proven wrong, you will pay money.

And I would say in the conditions of this so-called bet,

when we made that so-called bet, we both understood it in a subconscious way to just be hyperbole and arguing, sibling arguing.

It wasn't like a legally.

I don't know what you knew in your subconscious, but you can't claim to know what was going on in your brother's subconscious.

Thank you, Judge.

Let's just remember that a seven-year-old.

the seven-year-old party in this bet understood that it was a commitment that would be followed through on.

Right.

In his naivete.

So, you want me to declare all bets forgiven, all debts forgiven?

Bets and debts out the window.

Okay, I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

I'm going to go into my automated electric Jeep and tool around this park for a while while I think about what I'm going to rule.

I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Kiel, how do you feel about your chances in the case?

I feel great, mainly because I think he understands the main thrust of what I was trying to help my younger brother understand about life.

I think

that's the thing that I actually want to get across that I think he has an appreciation for.

And I also think he agrees that it's absurd to

just kind of allow children to gamble away.

their future earnings before they even have an understanding of how much they're going to earn.

There was a brief period where my children started making bets with each other.

Man, it was rough.

Really had to get in there and break that one up.

It's an incredibly slippery slope.

We are a cautionary tale.

Aaron, how are you feeling about your chances?

I've always felt good about my chances here, Jesse.

I think any reasonable human and certainly Judge Hodgman can see through

the ludicrous arguments that my brother is putting forth.

And especially this defense of I didn't know better.

That is just silly.

It's an attempt to infantilize ourselves and our ability and our relationship to actually come to each other as human beings with integrity and with honesty.

And I think

he's going to rule in the right direction.

And I think I can't wait to

get my blood signature on a piece of paper.

Kiel, Aaron, is it time for millennials to admit that Jurassic Park is a B-plus movie?

Like, it's pretty good, but it's not, like, extraordinarily good.

As much as I loved it as a kid,

I still very much love it, but I certainly wouldn't say it's in my

top few favorite movies.

It's true.

I was never really that into it.

I still watch it, like, annually and love it.

But, you know, it does, it's totally telling that it has fallen, for sure.

and I think we understand like it was really special at a specific moment We'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about all of this when we come back in just a second on the Judge John Hodgman podcast

You know, we've been doing my brother my brother me for 15 years and

maybe you stopped listening for a while Maybe you never listen and you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah.

You don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So, how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no.

It's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

First of all, I saw Jurassic Park when it came out.

I bought tickets on Movie Phone.

I was in New York.

I waited online.

It was very exciting.

I had read the book.

I was really into it.

Loved all the cast members.

Big Sam Neal had over here.

And I'm going to tell you, Jesse Thorne,

you're right.

It's a B-plus movie.

I knew it then.

It's not bad.

It was pretty good, but it's not like really good.

I mean,

it was a lot of fun.

Yeah.

And I will say this, if you put it on, I'm watching it.

I'll watch it all the way through.

And

it has a generational appeal.

Our children love it.

Their children will love it.

It is magical, even though the big moment in the third act is a dinosaur turns a door handle.

Just

a little bit of a soft third act.

And they jettisoned their protagonist, Newman, pretty early.

That was great.

You know what?

I'm going to say is as a jaded 22-year-old,

I was like, this is a B-plus movie I expected better.

Having seen it again, I'm going to say A-.

A minus.

That's great.

Now, here's something else about Jurassic Park.

Began filming on August 24th, 1992, wrapped

November 30th, 1992.

12 days ahead of schedule.

It was not, not only did it

not take 65 million years

to tell this story, they got it done early.

Yeah, Wayne Knight's a one-take wonder.

That's me crying.

I wish I had the career of Wayne Knight.

I could do it.

I could be a Newman.

Yeah.

I could be a Newman and then go into Jurassic Park and then just go.

Anyway.

Wayne Knight's great.

The argument that he made, Kiel, is very interesting insofar as you're a 10-year-old talking about it like you were a college sophomore, taking your brother aside, saying, dude, yeah,

it wrapped 12 days early, but think about it.

If there were no Earth,

there wouldn't be movies.

Like, I get,

I enjoy the mind expansion of that argument.

But as smart and sophisticated as you were, you were a little bit of a dumb because then you went and bet $30 billion on your point of view

on a completely unprovable metaphor.

You know, there was no way, there's no way,

the only way that that bet could be settled would be some impartial person hearing both sides of the case and saying, you're right and you're wrong.

And in this case, I'm saying nice metaphor.

But no judge in the land would support a contention that this movie took 65 million years to make, literally, and no judge in the land would believe that you are owed $30 billion.

It's not something you can bet on.

You can't bet on a college dorm room, 2 a.m.

drinking session discussion.

Now, so I'm dismissing that.

out of hand.

That's not suitable for this courtroom.

It shall never be discussed again between the two of you.

Now, there is a matter of an actual bet

that happened years before,

or sometime before, when little gentle-toed Aaron dropped a water cup on his pinky toe or whatever, and it hurt him.

And he went to his younger, his older brother, and his older brother did not offer him comfort, but instead said, tell me what happened.

I bet it's funny.

And little gentletoes said, no, no, big brother.

I don't want to tell you.

You'll laugh.

And that's when Big Brother was like, I got him now.

I got him by that little pinky toe.

I'll bet you a million dollars I won't laugh.

No, I'll bet you $10 million I won't laugh.

That's a bet.

Either you can laugh or you don't laugh.

It's a binary outcome.

That's something you can bet on.

Gentle Toes took the bet, told the story.

You could have controlled yourself.

You could have made yourself a clean 10 million, but you couldn't help it.

You had to laugh.

You had to laugh.

Wee, we, we, we, we, all the way home, didn't you, Kiel?

It's a judgment of this court that you owe your brother $10 million.

I'm afraid that's going to bankrupt you, Kiel.

No, I got it.

Meaning he has $10 million.

Thank you, Judge.

In lieu of $10 million,

I am going to honor the more reasonable request of your younger brother, Aaron.

You are going to create a document.

The document is going to be, first of all,

an acknowledgment that you bet $10 million,

that you would not laugh at your brother when he told the story of how he hurt his foot, but you laughed anyway.

That you owe the $10 million, but the court of Judge John Hodgman has forgiven that debt in lieu of this apology that you are going to make in this document.

Furthermore, you are going to say your entire argument as to why

Jurassic Park, the the movie, took 65 million years to make, but that that is a metaphor for bigger ideas for your younger brother to grok

and is not a binary outcome that you can bet on, and therefore that bet is null and void, and that your brother owes you nothing other than his forbearance and tolerance of you.

Furthermore, In addition to this

document of apology and settlement,

You are going to pay in damages $65 a year

for a million years

as damages to your brother for the money that you did not pay him.

That is obviously $10 million plus interest.

$65 a year for one million years.

That is how you're going to settle your debt to your brother for laughing in his face when he was hurting.

You will sign this in blood.

We will provide you with a seal from the court of Judge John Hodgman.

You will pay for it to be framed.

Aaron, you will give me your Venmo because we are a court of our word, your Venmo or your Cash Pal or whatever it is you use to receive funds.

And we will pay you $130 for your IP.

I thank you for your time.

Does this sound of a gavel?

Clever girl.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Keel, how are you feeling?

To be honest, I feel like a huge weight is lifted.

I think it was actually a really

good ruling, even though I didn't come out as the victor.

I think it was the most fair decision in balance of all the evidence and my lack of real evidence.

I think I was bluffing for a big,

even without myself even being aware of it.

I think I was really reaching for straws to make this case.

And I think this is a great compromise for both of us to start fresh and to be able to go forward as adults now.

Aaron, how do you feel?

Excuse me, not a compromise.

It is a win for Aaron and a loss for you.

Just to make sure,

thank you, Judge.

I disagree,

but I respect the judge's decision.

Go ahead, Jesse.

Go ahead, Bailiff Thorne.

Aaron, how do you feel?

Great, great.

I think Judge Hodgman has given us exactly the right kind of ruling we needed here to settle this so that we can move forward.

And if we ever get back with Kiel owing me, you know, multiple billions of dollars, you know, we may

entreat the court once again to come to such a reasonable conclusion as this, but really, really appreciate the reasoning and the settlement here.

You're really going to have to focus on getting into what they call a a preferred debt position.

Because otherwise, I think the debt to the greengrocer is going to take precedence over the billions.

Aaron Keel, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Thank you so much for having us.

Thank you.

Another Judge John Hodgman case in the books.

In a moment, we'll have Swift Justice.

First, our thanks to Twitter user at KSWISL13 for naming this week's episode Trial Ceratops.

Jesse, may I just jump in for a a second?

Yeah.

K-Swizzle 13 also suggested an alternative name for this case, which was welcome to Juriasik Park.

Juriasik Park.

Close runner.

So

it's like when in the movie they say welcome to

Juriasik Park.

I like it because it has ASIC in it.

Right.

Yeah.

If you want to name a future episode, follow us on Twitter for the opportunity at Jesse Thornton at Hodgman.

While you're there, you can also hashtag your judgejohnhodgman tweets, hashtag jjho.

Join the conversation about this episode over at the maximum fund subreddit at maximumfun.reddit.com.

Evidence and photos from the show are posted on our Instagram account at instagram.com slash judgejohnhodgman.

Follow us there.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Our editor is Valerie Moffat.

Now Swift Justice, where we answer your small disputes with a quick judgment.

Should potato salad, Brandon asks, be served hot or cold?

I believe cold is the only right answer.

My friend disagrees.

This dispute has tested our friendship.

It can go either way, right, Jesse Thorne?

Yeah, I mean...

Yeah, they're hot potato salads and they're cold potato salads.

Right.

That's it for this week's episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org slash JJHO or email Hodgman at maximumfund.org.

No case is too small.

We'll see you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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