But His Mom's Emails feat. Louis Virtel

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Speaker 1 Oh my god, that curtain coming up. I'm 14 years old.
I'm in arsenic and old lace, and I'm terrified.

Speaker 1 Hello, welcome to Love It or Leave It. I'm Louis Vertel.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Host of Crooked's Pop Culture Podcast, Keep It. John Lovitt could not be here tonight.
He is sick at home ranting about nothing all by himself.

Speaker 1 If you were hoping to see a snarky gay guy who's around 40, too bad, you're getting a snarky gay guy who's so young it's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 Tonight on the show, Bruce Valange and I have an Oscars off. This is the king of the Oscars.
Raven Simone is here and she gets the last word and even some in the middle.

Speaker 1 Then we all spin the wheel and share the perfect gifts for our gayest friends. And you might be some of them.

Speaker 1 But first, let's get into it. What a week.

Speaker 1 Outgoing West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who's having fun yet?

Speaker 1 This week weighed in on President Biden's pardon for his son Hunter, offering a unique suggestion. As a father, I don't know of a father that wouldn't have done the same thing.

Speaker 1 What I would have done differently, and my recommendation as a council would have been, why don't you go ahead and pardon Donald Trump for all his charges and make it, you know, it had gone down a lot a lot more balanced, if you will.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying, wipe them out. Well, I hope Joe Manchin lands a margarine endorsement because that sounds like a smart balance to me.

Speaker 1 This is what's so special about Joe Manchin. His Senate career is wrapping up.
He doesn't owe us any more bad ideas, but bad ideas are his passion.

Speaker 1 He can't resist one more bad idea for the road. One we can grow on.

Speaker 1 A lot of people are saying if they had a son in trouble like Joe Biden, they would have pardoned him too. I want to add that if I ever have a son, something has gone terribly wrong.

Speaker 1 I will accidentally leave him in the locker room at Barry's boot camp San Francisco or something. And they are not friendly there.

Speaker 1 On Tuesday, California Governor Gavin Newsom became the highest-ranking Democrat to publicly disagree with Biden's decision. Joe Biden is so completely beyond caring what Gavin Newsom thinks.

Speaker 1 Biden's on the golf course with Hunter calling Gavin Newsom a mean name that nobody has used since 1945.

Speaker 1 Something John Wayne has probably said a few times.

Speaker 1 Newsome told reporters, with everything the president and his family have been through, I completely understand the instinct to protect Hunter, but I took the president at his word.

Speaker 1 So by definition, I'm disappointed and can't support the decision. He did say all of that with his mouth full of French laundry's Wagyu steak, though, so it was hard to understand.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, the new Trump administration continues to not quite take shape. On Tuesday, Florida Sheriff Chad Cronister, Trump's pick to lead the DEA, withdrew his name from consideration.

Speaker 1 Three days after he was nominated, Cronister wrote on social media that he had changed his mind about accepting it as the gravity of this very important responsibility set in.

Speaker 1 It's so uncomfortable when someone named Chad does the right thing.

Speaker 1 Up is down.

Speaker 1 I love this. He looked within, realized he wasn't up for the job, and said so honestly.
Could never be me.

Speaker 1 I had fake prostate cancer before I admitted not having what it takes, but I love that for Chad.

Speaker 1 That makes Cronister the second of Trump's appointments to back out after Matt Gates gave up on securing the votes to become Attorney General.

Speaker 1 Damn, and we had dozens of Chad Cronister jokes locked and loaded, just absolute grenades. You'll never hear them, each and every one.

Speaker 1 Well, better to purge them out of the joke vault to make room for new ones.

Speaker 1 You like sound effects? It's like an old radio drama in here.

Speaker 1 And other cool guys nominated to top post news. Trump's FBI director pick Cash Patel earlier this year promoted a line of supplements from a company called Okay Warrior Essentials

Speaker 1 that claims to help people quote unquote detox from the COVID vaccine. This feels like the kind of person who needs to be reminded repeatedly that FBI doesn't stand for female body inspector.

Speaker 1 I am not over the name Warrior Essentials, which sounds like an aromatherapy MLM scam my aunt won't stop tweeting about. Helen, please stop.

Speaker 1 But we saved the sweatiest for last. Pete Hegset's nomination for Secretary of Defense appears to be in trouble.

Speaker 1 On Sunday, the New York Times reported that his mother had sent him an email in 2018 that read, in part, on behalf of all the women, and I know it's many, you have abused in some way, I say get some help and take an honest look at yourself.

Speaker 1 But you know how moms are. Always saying kooky mom stuff like, I have no respect for any man that belittles lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego.

Speaker 1 You are that man and have been for years. And as your mother, it pains and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.
Moms!

Speaker 1 Also, I'm jealous. My mom will only send me like photos of my report cards from third grade with the caption, do you still want this?

Speaker 1 Also, this week, 10 current and former Fox employees told NBC News that Hegstat's drinking concerned his colleagues during his time as a co-host of Fox and Friends Weekend.

Speaker 1 This suggests that everyone else on Fox and Friends Weekend is sober, which not my first guess.

Speaker 1 Judge Janine Pirro said, total lies. There's not an ounce of truth to any of these anonymous allegations.
I would never drink three Mai Tais before going, oh, we're not talking about me. Never mind.

Speaker 1 Two of Hegstat's former colleagues said they had smelled alcohol on his breath before he went on air on more than a dozen dozen occasions.

Speaker 1 And in hindsight, when you look back at his on-air appearances, it's pretty obvious. Mother,

Speaker 1 Mother, this is your son, Roger Thornhill.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wait a minute, I'll find out.

Speaker 1 Where am I?

Speaker 1 Name the movie, Who Can Can Do It? Anyone? North by Northwest. You got it, 1959, North by Northwest.
We got a fan in the house. Here we go.

Speaker 1 Said one former Fox employee, everyone would be talking about it behind the scenes before he went on the air.

Speaker 1 This reminds me of how hurt I was when I overheard my team in the green room talking about how I look like every pale bad guy in Sophie's choice.

Speaker 1 I'm German. When I look angry, it means I'm happy.

Speaker 1 So, Pete, I'm with you during this emotionally trying time. And no worries.

Speaker 1 Hegseth told incoming Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker that he would stop drinking if confirmed as Defense Secretary.

Speaker 1 I can't say how I know this, but the secret 13th step in AA is securing a cabinet appointment. They reach out to you and tell you to do this.

Speaker 1 As of Tuesday, at least six GOP senators were reportedly uncomfortable supporting Hagseth's appointment. They weren't thrilled about him driving the party bus either.
It didn't stop him.

Speaker 1 In an effort to stem the damage, Hegseth's mom went on Fox and friends on Wednesday to recant her email. When you wrote that,

Speaker 1 what's the backstory? What was going on? that made you so angry you wanted to write that.

Speaker 2 Well, I will tell that story in a moment, but let me make two statements first, and one is to President Trump. And I want to say thank you for your belief in my son.

Speaker 2 We all believe in him. We really believe that he is not that man he was seven years ago.
I'm not that mother.

Speaker 1 Imagine apologizing about your parenting skills to Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 To look at Eric and think, what an icon and mensch. I will not let him down.

Speaker 1 After quickly glossing over the damning contents of her email, Penelope Hegseth, and I keep wanting to call her Penelope Pitstop. Any wacky races fans in the house?

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Attacked the media for reporting on it, describing the New York Times as, quote, almost criminal for doing so.

Speaker 2 I want to say something about the media. And part of today is to discredit.
the media and how they operate.

Speaker 2 When they contact you,

Speaker 2 I let a few phone calls go, but then they call you and say they threaten you. That's the first thing they do.

Speaker 2 They say, unless you make a statement, we will publish it as is.

Speaker 2 And I think that's a despicable way

Speaker 2 to treat anyone. Threats are dangerous, and

Speaker 2 they're hard on families.

Speaker 1 So what Penelope is saying here is that threatening a woman and making her feel unsafe is despicable. Got it.
At least she's consistent. Love Penelope.

Speaker 1 Also, describing an unpleasant thing that will soon happen is not a threat.

Speaker 1 In this case, it's a professional invitation to make that thing less unpleasant.

Speaker 1 My doctor told me if I don't treat this excruciating infection, I'll die. Absolutely disgusting.
These threats must stop.

Speaker 1 But while Penelope Hegseth, aka PitStop, was thanking Trump for his belief in her son, that belief appeared to be waning.

Speaker 1 Trump has reportedly been considering Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to replace Hegseth as his pick to head up the Pentagon. Okay, never mind.
Let Pete Hegseth drink.

Speaker 1 We loved you on Fox and Friends weekend edition Havana Nights or whatever it's called.

Speaker 1 Behind every terrible man appointed to Trump's cabinet, there is an equally terrible man just waiting for details of the first terrible man's drinking problem to surface. Oh, there's more.

Speaker 1 In a Wednesday interview on The Megan Kelly Show, ugh, love her and her vibrancy.

Speaker 1 Hegseth agreed that he was being, are you ready, Kavanaugh?

Speaker 3 Do you think you're being Kavanaugh right now?

Speaker 1 I had a member not 45 minutes ago look me in the eye in private, just he and I, and say, that's what they're trying to do to you. That's what they're trying to do to you.
That's their playbook.

Speaker 1 Get ready for more. And they're going to make it up, just like they have so far.

Speaker 1 Penelope Hagseth, an Antifa operative with the commitment and foresight to sabotage her own son with made-up accusations six years before his nomination.

Speaker 1 That's the deepest the deep state has ever gotten. Good for them.

Speaker 1 I feel for the guy. Being Kavanaugh, let me explain this, is when people remind you of the bad stuff you did, but then there aren't any real consequences.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Why would that be our playbook? Brett Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court. Why would Democrats keep running the same play when we know we'll lose? Okay, that does sound like us.
I can hear it.

Speaker 1 I hear it now. I hear it now.

Speaker 1 Also, this week, Senator Tommy Tuberville lobbied Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to scrap daylight savings time and replace it with a year-long standard time instead.

Speaker 1 Knowing Elon Musk's skill set, hopefully he will take over daylight savings time, rename it something embarrassing, and make it eight times more racist than it was before. Fingers crossed.

Speaker 1 Tweeted Tuberville, the outdated practice of changing our clocks twice a year is ridiculous and needs to end. Pardon me as I dryheave while imagining Elon and Vivek working together to solve problems.

Speaker 1 These strike me as the sort of intellectual masterminds who will resolve their arguments with a quick thumb war.

Speaker 1 The CEO of United Healthcare, are you ready ready for that?

Speaker 1 One of the largest healthcare companies in the U.S., was shot and killed outside the company's annual investor meeting in Manhattan this week.

Speaker 1 He lay in wait for the CEO, Brian Thompson, shot him multiple times before fleeing the scene on an e-bike, which is both tragic and an amazing advertisement for that e-bike.

Speaker 1 A getaway when you need to get away? Let's invest early.

Speaker 1 Shell casings from the bullets had words written on them, deny, defend, and depose, which may be a reference to the tactics insurance companies use to avoid paying patients' claims.

Speaker 1 Or else it's an amazing rap trio he wanted to get the word out about. It's one or the other.
I can't figure out which.

Speaker 1 Under CNN's video of the shooting, one commenter wrote, thoughts and deductibles to the family.

Speaker 1 Unfortunately, my condolences are out of network.

Speaker 1 Laughter truly is the best medicine. At least that's what United Healthcare told me when I got an ear infection.

Speaker 1 Speaking of people who are eventually going to jail, Hawk 2 a girl, Haley Welch,

Speaker 1 launched her crypto coin this week. It crashed three hours later, losing 90% of its value and causing customers to accuse her of a pump and dump scheme.

Speaker 1 What has the world come to that you can't even trust a blowjob influencer to sell you unregistered securities?

Speaker 1 I don't know my country anymore. If you lost all your money on the Hawk2A meme coin, don't worry.
You can get it back the way our forefathers intended. Online sports gambling.
Good luck and Godspeed.

Speaker 1 Coca-Cola used AI to create its holiday commercials this year, to the dismay of people who look forward to the company's cozy, nostalgic ads.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's enough.

Speaker 1 What's Christmas without a jaw-dropping new low in corporate greed? Mmm, cozy.

Speaker 1 Look, Coca-Cola basically invented Santa Claus. It's up to them to decide how many tentacles he has.

Speaker 1 Coca-Cola made no apologies for its ugly digital slop, saying in a statement, Coca-Cola will always remain dedicated to creating the highest level of work at the intersection of human creativity and technology.

Speaker 1 Plus, the polar bear is dead. We had to go back to the drawing board.
The intersection of human creativity and technology is where most people get run over by Teslas, FYI.

Speaker 1 Don't groan at me. I'm one of the nicest people you know.

Speaker 1 Speaking of the highest level of work at the intersection of human creativity and technology, SNL SNL star Sarah Sherman has begun hosting a new show on Max called Human versus Hamster.

Speaker 1 Here's the log line. In this innovative inner species competition series, humans and hamsters square off in epic battles of skill, strength, and agility for cash prizes.

Speaker 1 Sadly, the hamsters voted out Lovett on the very first episode.

Speaker 1 The show has one little caveat. The hamsters are allowed to use guns.

Speaker 1 Huh. Let's take a look.

Speaker 1 Timmy, you got this. Get that hamster.
Okay. Okay.
Timmy's ready. Can Timmy find his key faster than Nasher? $1,000 is on the line.

Speaker 3 On your marks, get set and lock it up.

Speaker 1 Lock it up!

Speaker 1 Hit the level.

Speaker 1 Even worse, under the Trump administration, this is how the government is deciding who qualifies for Medicare.

Speaker 1 And before you ask, whoever loses does get killed.

Speaker 1 Moving on to my favorite couple, or should I say former couple, Sabrina Carpenter and Barry Keogan, have reportedly broken up after a year-long relationship, with one source telling people they are both young and career-focused, so they've decided to take a break.

Speaker 1 But online rumors are swirling that Keyogen had been cheating on Carpenter with a 21-year-old TikTok influencer named Brecky Hill.

Speaker 1 Even worse, Paparazzi also caught Barry in an intimate moment with Dame Maggie Smith.

Speaker 1 Yes, the audience is looking at a still of Barry in Saltburn fucking a corpse.

Speaker 1 That is the comedy we bring to the live show. Please get your tickets now.

Speaker 1 That's right, Brecky Hill is a sexy influencer, and not when you construct a ramp with the waffles on your plate so the maple syrup runs down and pools perfectly by the sausage links.

Speaker 1 I was confused too.

Speaker 1 Spotify rap dropped this week, and listeners of Chapel Rhone, Sabrina Carpenter, and Charlie XEX discovered they were all pink Pilates princesses, according to their mixed descriptions.

Speaker 1 It's time we normalize the F slur.

Speaker 1 Pink Pilates princess sounds like something a mean gym teacher would call me in middle school, and I would cry.

Speaker 1 Not to be outdone, Pornhub has released their annual raft, and the average American has 8.5 tabs open at once.

Speaker 1 Pantone announced that their color of the year for 2025 is a soft brown named Mocha Moose. Related, Oxford University Press announced announced its official word of 2024 is brain rot.

Speaker 1 The word of the year is brain rot. The color of the year is dog shit.
Cannot wait for 2025.

Speaker 1 They define brain rot as the supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material, now particularly online content, considered to be trivial or unchallenging.

Speaker 1 Or as I'd put it, the Rizzler was very mindful, very demure when mog skibbity toilet all over Ohio.

Speaker 1 Gen Z, did I get that right? Haha, I'm just kidding. I'm one of you.

Speaker 1 I'm just kidding. This is Love It or Leave It.
Please get your first mammogram.

Speaker 1 On Monday, Planned Parenthood posted a wicked-themed PSA that asked, is your discharge green?

Speaker 1 First of all, what I'm holding space for down there is none of your fucking business.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to imagine the wizard answering questions about STDs. Pay no attention to the burning urine behind behind the dockers.

Speaker 1 And finally, Dolly Parton announced an open casting call to play her in the upcoming Broadway show Dolly and Original Musical. And now we know where John Lovett is.

Speaker 1 Up next, my nemesis and hero in that order, it's Bruce Valange.

Speaker 1 Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up.

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Speaker 1 And we're back.

Speaker 1 Please welcome to the stage the man behind all the best moments in Oscar's history and a lot of the worst ones, which he will cop to, the one and only the legendary, Bruce Valange.

Speaker 1 Where is he?

Speaker 1 I'm a larger person. I'd like to clear something up right now for you football fans out there.
I am not Travis Kelsey's mother.

Speaker 1 I know the resemblance is alarming. I'm going to put down my first three cards.
God damn it.

Speaker 1 The wizard peed on my shoes. Oh, that's too bad.

Speaker 1 You really are the top t-shirt wearer in history. He's wearing Christmas, festive Christmas gear, which is a red shirt and green crocs.
It's a regular Christmas tree. Ann is this.
Are we hearing this?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Oh, good, because I'm not getting any reverb, which is what it's usual.
I love reverb. So, especially late at night, it's very good.

Speaker 1 It's a plain old Christmas tree, talking to a decorated Christmas tree and calling her a whore.

Speaker 1 When did you begin on your t-shirt journey, which is long and storied? When I grew these tits. Oh, I see.

Speaker 1 They were man boobs for years, but face it, now they're tits.

Speaker 1 I cannot hide them. You've earned them.

Speaker 1 When I moved to L.A., actually, when I moved to L.A., which is before anybody here was born,

Speaker 1 literally, it was like I was in the La Brea tar pits.

Speaker 1 I emerged.

Speaker 1 It was, and there was a subway stop already, which was strange.

Speaker 1 When I moved to LA and I discovered you can go anywhere in LA in a t-shirt,

Speaker 1 I said, hallelujah. I found, because I was a fat kid, and you know, when you're a fat kid and your mother has OCD, she dresses you up, and you never are correct.

Speaker 1 You know, everything is just a little bit wrong, a little bit, and nothing ever fits you. You know, I was, for years, I was a husky, which is neither man nor boy.

Speaker 1 And nothing fits in it. If it does, it's in Sir Sucker.
It's horrifying. So that I discovered my comfort zone was wearing these.

Speaker 1 Now, you have a new podcast, and I can't believe this is a new podcast because you should have been hosting this fucking thing for 100 years. Oh, I didn't have the idea.

Speaker 1 It is called The Oscars, What Were They Thinking? Yeah. And you started writing on The Oscars in 1989, which, if people here don't know, is a legendary Oscars.

Speaker 1 It's when, I believe, Driving Miss Daisy won best picture. Oh, that was next year.
Oh, no, sorry.

Speaker 1 Rainman went best picture. Oh, 89 ceremony.
Yes. That's right.

Speaker 1 Always a year later. Correct.
And at that ceremony in the opening number, Rob Lowe was paired with Snow White for this weird number that I can only call surreal because it was so baffling.

Speaker 1 And they kept showing people in the audience who looked horrified. Well, she came down the aisle greeting people, Snow White.
Yeah. This is why you're at the Oscars.

Speaker 1 You may have a career-defining moment, and here's a girl dressed up as Snow White looking at you and going, oh, hello, Uma Thurman.

Speaker 1 And she would have been there. It would have been the dangerous liaison.

Speaker 1 Yes,

Speaker 1 it was crazy.

Speaker 1 But it was borrowed. The number was borrowed from a show in San Francisco that you may have seen called Beach Blanket Babylon.
Oh, yes. There you go.
And it was Snow White,

Speaker 1 in that show, Snow White goes to San Francisco and discovers a world outside of Disney.

Speaker 1 And so Alan Carr, who was producing it, brought the whole number down and redid it for the Academy Awards. And of course, because

Speaker 1 it was the Oscars, she couldn't do that number by herself. She had to have some young Hollywood stud doing it with her.
And Rob Lowe actually said yes.

Speaker 1 No, so it's like a subversive, interesting number, but we actually got it to the Oscar stage where people would just be baffled by it.

Speaker 1 One of the reasons it's legendary, I mean, it was like all the terrible. The year before, they'd had Terry Agar on an airplane wing flying down to Rio with the Rockettes.
As they should have.

Speaker 1 I don't mean to disagree with that at all. Yeah, I love Terry.
She was great. She was a good friend.
But we joked about the fact that Rio never sued.

Speaker 1 The Academy sued after that number for a number of reasons that are in my book. But

Speaker 1 what was astonishing about it was people remember it because two weeks after the Oscar ceremony, the Rob Lowe sex tape was revealed.

Speaker 1 Now, if you are too young to recall this, Rob had gone to the convention, the Democratic convention in Atlanta, the Dukakis, you should pardon the expression, convention.

Speaker 1 Unintentional, in 88. And he had, he and his friend, a guy, had a three-way with a girl who turned out to be 17.
And they taped it. And it was this bootleg tape that got leaked.

Speaker 1 And this is before the internet. And so people would have parties to look at the tape.
which was eerie because I don't know if you ever watched porno with a group

Speaker 1 because back in the day that was really the only way you could do it. You either go to a theater where there would be an audience or somebody would have a bootleg tape.

Speaker 1 And so they're watching and of course the tape, it's not like it's a real movie or a TV show. It's shot from the foot of the bed.
So it's like the dog's point of view.

Speaker 1 It stops being interesting. I mean you know you could look at his ass for just so long.
And in any event, it became a gigantic story.

Speaker 1 And of course, whenever they mentioned Rob Lowe, they would say, most recently seen on the snow on the Oscars dancing with Snow White which prompted a lawsuit from Walt Disney's company so it became legendary as a result of that I mean it's gotten much more attention than it should have gotten and Rob

Speaker 1 much to his credit, has owned all of this. He says he was the poster child for bad behavior and

Speaker 1 he was in a book and he did SNL and he did a million things to tell people that he knows that he screwed up. And now, you know, he's the grandfather and he still is haunted by this thing.

Speaker 1 And he's host of The Floor, a game show that I actually watched nine episodes of over this break. And I apologize for that.
It is an occasion. You watch them from the floor.
That's right. Yes.

Speaker 1 Much like that dog. Yeah, exactly.
That's correct. Because you have some of these and you're just kind of...

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 the podcast is called The Oscars. What were they thinking? Now, in hosting this, do you hope to unearth stories from your time mainly on the Oscars? Well, partially.

Speaker 1 I mean, I co-hosted with a guy named Adam Davis, who is a real academician. He understands, I mean,

Speaker 1 he's a film scholar. And so

Speaker 1 he has

Speaker 1 a brief with the Oscars that the pictures that have lasted over the years were the ones that the Oscars pretty much ignored in their day.

Speaker 1 And since I know and have made a study of how people vote, because for 25 years of writing the show formally,

Speaker 1 you could basically see how things were unfolding. So what we do is we talk about a particular year on each show, and we say, why this one won, why that one didn't win, and all that.

Speaker 1 All this kind of minutiae that,

Speaker 1 you know, people, now that people have Google, you know, I mean, there are no more bar fights. You know, people don't throw down because they don't know if Maris or Mantle holds the baseball record.

Speaker 1 They'll go, wow, you bitch,

Speaker 1 wait, let's Google it.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's Maris. Okay, thank you.
We'll have a beer.

Speaker 1 So there's a culture now of all of this kind of fabulous interest in trivia.

Speaker 1 And the Oscar trivia is great because it involves names that you know and movies that you've seen and heard about or maybe movies that you have no idea existed.

Speaker 1 That, you know, there was a movie called How Green Was My Valley.

Speaker 1 That beat Citizen Kane for Best Picture. Correct.
Citizen Kane was a scandal at the time and

Speaker 1 much regarded by people who make movies, which is always, you should remember when you are talking about the Oscar show, that the Academy is made up of people who actually make movies, as opposed to the People's Choice Awards, or people in malls, or the Golden Globes, who are all valet parkers and

Speaker 1 wine stewards studying for their real estate license, pretending that they work for a newspaper in Cambodia.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 the Critics' Choice.

Speaker 1 These are people who actually make movies. And so when they vote for something, it is significant.

Speaker 1 So I guess this leads to my next question. You've worked on the Oscars so many times.
Who's the biggest bitch in Hollywood?

Speaker 1 How do you mean that?

Speaker 1 I'm going to let you define it. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 It's difficult to say. I mean, I wouldn't, I don't know who I would, Camp Roseanne.

Speaker 1 You know, I joke about it because I worked with her and I'm very fond of her, and she went trumpy, and that kind of, you know,

Speaker 1 but when I was working with her, she actually said that she said

Speaker 1 she had 43 different personalities working. And so I asked her if she would please talk to number 16 and ask him to start speaking to number 28 because we weren't getting any work done.

Speaker 1 So I'm very fond of her, but I will have to say that she has, you know, I mean, she's legendary, right?

Speaker 1 But, you know,

Speaker 1 I think that the lesson of wicked, part one, is that who's really wicked? Is this witch really wicked? What is wicked, really?

Speaker 1 Who is a bitch really? And why are they a bitch? Where did that come from? They weren't born bitch.

Speaker 1 And so I think that if anything, that movie is having a kind of salubrious effect on things like who's the biggest bitch in town. Right.
No. It's just on the card.
You think I wrote these?

Speaker 1 Come on, yes. Oh, I love it.
I didn't write this shit. This is the thing every writer goes to.

Speaker 1 Right. Who you you deal with all the time is somebody, when something bombs.
I didn't write this shit.

Speaker 1 Now, you started in 1989. Your last Oscars telecast was the one hosted by James Franco and Ann Hathaway.
Yes, which I remember very. Neither of them, they did it.
Okay.

Speaker 1 What was your experience? I mean, like, I'm always interested when actors actually agree to host the Oscars, because why? I mean, like, Ann Hathaway, beloved. James Franco, beloved.

Speaker 1 Why do this thing that involves literal stand-up comedy?

Speaker 1 Franco, I mean, I don't know exactly why Ann said yes. I think that she thought it would be be an interesting thing to add to her resume because she's a precision instrument and she can do it all.
And

Speaker 1 I know that James did it because he knew he was going to be nominated for 127 hours. Was that? Yes, correct.
Where he gnaws off his arm or whatever.

Speaker 1 And he said, I'm going to be, I am not. In fact, he was nominated.
And he said, I'm going to sit there.

Speaker 1 I can sit there for three hours and lose to Colin Firth, who in fact won for playing the stuttering king of England. And

Speaker 1 or I can host a show and have a good time. And of course he did host a show.
I don't think he had a good time.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 I think he thought this is something to do instead of if by some wild chance I win, I'll be in the wings and I can come out and, you know, and say thank you. But he knew that wasn't going to happen.

Speaker 1 So I thought it was the kind of thing that probably came to him, you know, in some sort of a dream.

Speaker 1 Here's the idea. Here's it.
I don't have to sit through this thing. I'll host it.

Speaker 1 I assume you have tons of material from your time in the trenches there, but I have been told specifically that you may have some Madonna material.

Speaker 1 Well, Madonna was on the show once, twice, actually, because two songs that she did in the movies were nominated. And actually, they both won.

Speaker 1 You Must Love Me from Avita and Sooner or Later from Detroit Later.

Speaker 1 And Angela Weber, it was the English patient year. The English patient won nine Oscars, and we were all amazed because I viewed it as the trial of the century in the English patient.

Speaker 1 And when he won for writing the song for Madonna, for Evida, he came up and said, Well, thank God there was no song in the English patient.

Speaker 1 But the first time he won, it wasn't Sondheim, who wasn't there. Sondheim had broken his leg and couldn't fly, so he was not there, and Madonna did sooner or later.
But she was very nervous.

Speaker 1 Her date was Michael Jackson, which I think would make anybody nervous.

Speaker 1 I worked with him, and it just made me nervous.

Speaker 1 How are you? I'm fine. How are you?

Speaker 1 So you can see on the tape, she's kind of quivering. And part of the reason she was quivering was, as she went on, she said to me,

Speaker 1 look at the front row. And in the front row was Kevin Costner.
This was the Dances with Wolves year.

Speaker 1 And he was winning everything.

Speaker 1 And Kevin Costner was in the Madonna Truth or Dare documentary

Speaker 1 And said something to her like, I thought your show was nice. And she said, nice.
Neat, yes. Yeah, I thought your show was neat.
Neat. Oh, neat.
She's not neat. I don't do neat.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 she had heard he was pissed off that she had included that clip in the documentary. So now she's got to go out and do this hot sex number in her Monroe ensemble in front of him.
He's right in her.

Speaker 1 right under her as it were and so she's she was actually scared She was very scared. And she got through the number and all that.
And

Speaker 1 she had,

Speaker 1 there were bodyguards, and there were two gigantic guys, like slabs of humanity, who were next to her.

Speaker 1 And we're standing in the wings. I'm standing between the two slabs of humanity.
And she comes off, and she sees me, and she throws herself at me.

Speaker 1 And she's still quivering. And the two slabs are going,

Speaker 1 like, what do we do about this? What do we do about that? And she's quivering and she's quivering and she's quivering. And finally, she stops and she looks up and she says, oh, thank God that's over.

Speaker 1 I think she meant the song.

Speaker 1 I couldn't be sure. Right.
But she was out of there immediately. Shoom.
She was back to the loving arms of Michael Jackson.

Speaker 1 Now, you also have a new book coming out.

Speaker 1 It seemed like a good idea at the time. It seemed like a bad idea at the time.

Speaker 1 And the reason it's called, it seemed like a bad idea at the time is because not only have you written for the the Oscars, you've written for some of the legendarily campiest specials in television history.

Speaker 1 I will allow you to name some of them, but I will start by saying that when my friends heard that I was interviewing you, simultaneously, multiple of them messaged me about the Star Wars Christmas special.

Speaker 1 The Star Wars holiday special. Sorry, I don't mean to be secular about it.
Because George invented a holiday, Life Day. And so it was not a Christmas show.

Speaker 1 But we couldn't say Life Day because people thought it was going to be a telethon for you know for some insurance company or some hitherto unknown disease.

Speaker 1 And you wrote for the Osmonds and the Brady Bunch Variety Hour. The Brady Bunch Variety Hour.

Speaker 1 Television used to be good, okay?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 The Paul Lind Halloween special. These are shows that have achieved a life on YouTube.
And every year, whenever they're on, I get... inundated with emails from people.

Speaker 1 And when I'm on podcasts hosted by younger people, they say, how did these

Speaker 1 Who said yes to this?

Speaker 1 And have they paid their debt to society?

Speaker 1 So I thought there's a book in this. So I wrote a book about how I wrote for the worst TV shows in history and lived.

Speaker 1 And it's called, It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time, on pre-order at Amazon, dropping March 4th right after the Oscars.

Speaker 1 So hustle on down to your computer.

Speaker 1 Going back to the Star Wars holiday special, I don't know why you passed that up. Oh,

Speaker 1 ask me anything. Well, first, can we throw to a clip of it starring the fabulous? Does anybody know the name I'm about to say? B.
Arthur. B.
Arthur. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Just one

Speaker 1 more

Speaker 1 dance, friend. Just one more chance,

Speaker 1 friend.

Speaker 1 Yes. Was this your idea, bitch?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 it was CBS's idea to have Bea on the show because she was Maude at the time, of course. Pre-Golden Girls.
And they wanted to pepper the show with CBS names.

Speaker 1 And she was interested in doing it because before she came to television, she was a Broadway musical comedy star.

Speaker 1 She was in the original MAME with Angela Lansberry, Wanna Tony, and she was in the original Fiddler on the Roof, the original Yenta the matchmaker.

Speaker 1 So she wanted to sing, and nobody would let her sing, you know, because as I used to tell her, it's because you sing in Harvey Feierstein's key.

Speaker 1 It's you and Harvey the only ones. It's the key to the basement.
It's It's very low. It's down here.
Below the wine. It's painful.
You have to cross your legs when she sings.

Speaker 1 You begin to feel the vibration coming up. So I knew

Speaker 1 we have to find something for her to sing. And she wanted to sing.

Speaker 1 We had her. It's a complicated story, but Han Solo and

Speaker 1 Chewbacca are on their way home to the Kashyyyk, the Wookiee planet, for Life Day. And they're being chased by...
Yes, go ahead.

Speaker 1 They're being chased by Imperial Stormtroopers, who all look like late edition Ford Fusions.

Speaker 1 They're white.

Speaker 1 Very odd. And so they make a detour to a Tatooine to the cantina.

Speaker 1 And all the aliens are there. And B runs the cantina.
This was in her Statue of Liberty period. She's running it.
And

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 we thought, well, this is great. And she can have a song because she's running the bar.
And she brought in a song by

Speaker 1 Kurt Weil and Birchwald Brecht

Speaker 1 called the Alabama song.

Speaker 1 Frank Zappa fans will know it. Oh, show me the way to the next.

Speaker 1 I tell you I will die. I tell you, I really up holiday kind of song.

Speaker 1 And she wanted to do that. And the Bertwald Brecht estate said, no,

Speaker 1 nine, never.

Speaker 1 So Kenneth Missy Welch, who were writing on the show, wrote her a song like that, which is somewhere between that and those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never.
Anyway, fairly jolly.

Speaker 1 And she's dancing with aliens. So now we're shooting the show, and the aliens we have on the show are not top-drawer aliens.

Speaker 1 Because George is about to start shooting The Empire Strikes Back, and he has a whole bunch of new aliens, but he's not going to let us use them. And so we have to go to find old aliens.

Speaker 1 And so we had to go to like the alien outlet mall in Cabazon and find these aliens. And they're all ill repair.
Scotch tape and Elmer's glue all. And that kind of, they've been worn, they stink.

Speaker 1 And it's also we're shooting at Warner Brothers and it's uh like August September and it's very hot and there it's like those characters at Disney you know you put on a head and you dance around and then there's you can't breathe and so they all face plant you know sooner or later so

Speaker 1 we lined up these aliens and it was so hot on the set that they were what they were one after another they were going down. And there was one particular alien who we lovingly called Cuntface

Speaker 1 because it was, the head was a vagina

Speaker 1 on a nondescript body. I think wearing kind of a uniform.
But you know, George has a thing about the JJs, it's elite motif.

Speaker 1 You know, in the in The Empire, I think there's a big red, angry one in the desert that swallows up Job of the Hutt. I'll have to say that.

Speaker 1 And Carrie is hanging on, you know, with handcuffs and all that. You must check it out.
But there is some kind of vaginal thing happening in almost all of those movies.

Speaker 1 It's always artistic, but you know, it is what it is. And so this,

Speaker 1 we called him Cuntface, and the network sensor didn't seem to mind. She said, he looks familiar.
I thought, oh, she's been standing over a mirror again. No, no, no, Mr.

Speaker 1 Mm-hmm. So

Speaker 1 every time somebody passed out, I would move Cuntface closer to B.

Speaker 1 Because here's a trick, if you're an extra in a thing, try and get in the same frame as the star. Then you won't get cut out.
So I said, move.

Speaker 1 And so finally, we were shooting the thing, and it was B and Cunt Face, almost a two-shot.

Speaker 1 And she finishes the number, and she's going, I tell you,

Speaker 1 I will die. Wham! And she whacks Cunt Face.
And Cuntface just goes over backwards. Boom.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 B just kind of looks down at her

Speaker 1 and kind of looks back and says, Well, I've never hit a man in the cunt before.

Speaker 1 Pause. Cut.

Speaker 1 We'll go again, bring in a new alien.

Speaker 1 And there's a tape of it somewhere. Every so often, somebody

Speaker 1 puts it online, but

Speaker 1 they wait for just the right, because there are bots now that are searching it out. Right.

Speaker 1 And every time it shows up, somebody, somebody, I don't know who, somebody at Lucasfilm, I think, their entire job may be finding that clip.

Speaker 1 They'll be replaced by AI. There's no question about it.
I cannot stop picturing Cunt Face going down. Wow.
That's very vivid.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 1 Or going down on Cunt Face, which is

Speaker 1 a whole other thing for the, probably not in the Star Wars attraction at

Speaker 1 Star Wars Canyon, you should pardon the expression. We're not that progressive.
We will get there, I'm sure. Well, thank you, Bruce.
Listen to the Oscars. What were they thinking?

Speaker 1 Wherever you get get your podcast. Next up, Raven Simone would like to have a word.

Speaker 1 Oh, and we're back.

Speaker 1 Now, you've seen my next guest in literally every television show that's been made in the past 30 years, and I'm barely exaggerating. Please welcome to the stage, Raven Simone.

Speaker 1 Oh, comfy. Do you feel uncomfortable that you're the second guest to wear Crocs today? Did you think that was going to be your thing?

Speaker 3 Listen, anybody who can show up in these Crocs, kudos.

Speaker 1 I'm down for it.

Speaker 3 I'm not mad, but his was green.

Speaker 1 That's true. It's okay.
And black Crocs, they go together to me.

Speaker 3 Black Crocs go together.

Speaker 3 I don't have a song for that.

Speaker 1 Also, you smell amazing. Congrats on that.
Thank you. Thank you very much.

Speaker 3 I work hard on that. Actually, I just bought, I told my wife today, I was like, I think we're at the point of our marriage where you just have to buy me my smells every Christmas.

Speaker 1 She's like, okay, dad.

Speaker 3 Like, I can't help it. I needed my smells.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 I'm glad you like it. Now, in honor of your new gig hosting the CW's new Scrabble game show, which, by the way, there used to be an old Scrabble game show with Chuck Woolery.
May he rest.

Speaker 1 He wasn't that good a person, but maybe, may he rest.

Speaker 1 I've been waiting for a new Scrabble to come back. So thank you so much for achieving my dream.
Thank you. You're welcome.

Speaker 1 We wanted to challenge you with questions about your career and also about the official Scrabble dictionary. Okay, obviously.
In a segment, we're calling A Word with Raven Simonet. Are you ready?

Speaker 1 I'm ready, sir. Okay, well, thank God.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's a cute picture.

Speaker 1 Oh, look at us. Jesus.

Speaker 1 That's cute.

Speaker 1 That's a cute picture. I have never been Svelter.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 I wanted to ask up top, have you ever taken a day off work since the day you were born?

Speaker 1 You have been on television literally since before you had the choice to be on television.

Speaker 3 Very true.

Speaker 3 I have to be honest, I've never taken a day off

Speaker 3 of work. I remember there was one moment though, and it wasn't work.
I was trying to do like a Martha Stewart on YouTube a million years ago. It was called Raven Simone Presents,

Speaker 3 and I was on like really bad depression medication at the time.

Speaker 1 And I like crawled underneath the table.

Speaker 3 I was like, I don't think I can do it today.

Speaker 3 And then I was like, I'm never taking that again. And now I just, you know, walk around with a fidget all day because I can't take off of work.
It's impossible.

Speaker 1 I also want to say that you were actually in Demi Lovato's recent documentary called Child Star. Correct.
And before we get into the game, I want to play a clip of that conversation.

Speaker 3 Triggers. But I do remember how difficult I was to work with because I was in so much pain and I was hurting.

Speaker 2 Maybe you weren't the nicest person.

Speaker 3 You weren't like, welcome. You know, you weren't doing that.
But

Speaker 3 being the type of person I am, and that I've been in the industry for as long as you, and I understand the glaze over the eyes.

Speaker 3 I didn't hold it against you.

Speaker 1 I just was like, something's going on there.

Speaker 1 What that's fascinating to me. Is that like a common occurrence like being around other child stars and just sensing a struggle?

Speaker 3 Celebrities in general. Yeah.
Yeah. There's a struggle that I think a lot of people overlook because you are

Speaker 3 overwhelmed with the accolades and all of the characters they do. But I witness a lot of people in the industry, and I'm like, oh, hi, Glaze.
I know that look. Oh, hey, you need to go home.

Speaker 1 But we don't talk about it that much.

Speaker 3 That's like the secrets.

Speaker 1 I was going to say, I mean, you were a veteran at a very young age.

Speaker 1 Do you feel like you basically had to grow up too fast?

Speaker 3 I don't know. I had to grow up at the speed that I needed to grow up in in order to get these taxes paid.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? Like, I had jobs.

Speaker 3 I had directors. I knew things at a young age when it came to business

Speaker 3 before a lot of people my age. And sure, looking from the outside in, you grow up fast.
But I mean, I just created a really thick skin so that I didn't fall too hard. You know?

Speaker 1 And you're with me now and you smell great, as I said. So

Speaker 1 in my opinion, you won.

Speaker 1 Shall we jump to some Scrabble? Let's jump to Scrabble. All right.
Raven, here's the deal.

Speaker 1 I'm going to give you some words and you tell me if they're real or not. I'm done.
And I don't want to be disappointed. So let's get it together.
Winning.

Speaker 1 Raven, is this a real word in the Scrabble dictionary? Za, a noun meaning pizza, Z-A.

Speaker 3 Zaw is a real word, but I don't know if it's a noun meaning pizza, but I think za is a real word.

Speaker 1 It is. Yes, very good.

Speaker 1 I think still the last letter on the two-letter words list, which my mom made me memorize at a young age. Talk about being a child star.
How about that?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Look at you.
Successful, I see. Yeah, no.

Speaker 1 Scrabble in my house was no joke. It was scary.
I played with my grandparents.

Speaker 3 And how how old were you then?

Speaker 1 Nine-ish.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's a hardcore language.

Speaker 1 And they were Irish. And you know that there is a darkness to them.

Speaker 3 That is a darkness.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 3 Sorry. You know what?

Speaker 3 I see you.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Fucking finally.

Speaker 1 Is this a real word in the Scrabble dictionary? Cyclopsy, noun, the medical term for the state of being a cyclops.

Speaker 3 I'm going to say no, that is not a word.

Speaker 1 You are correct again. Yeah, that is not a word, bro.

Speaker 1 I would love to access it. Cyclopsitosis.
Yes, that's right.

Speaker 1 It's much more Greek. Yeah.
Yes. Come on now.
I would love to accuse somebody of having cyclopsy. There are a few in my life, I think.
Is this a real word in the Scrabble dictionary?

Speaker 1 Batman, a proper noun? The name of DC Comics, Dark Knight.

Speaker 3 Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 3 I'm going to say that that is a real word.

Speaker 1 You're three for three. It is.

Speaker 3 I'm the host of Scrabble on the CW every Thursday night.

Speaker 1 You're missing it.

Speaker 1 It's on right now!

Speaker 1 You're missing it!

Speaker 1 It's also. It's rating!

Speaker 1 Oh, we're gonna help. We're gonna help.

Speaker 1 Also, that is not because of the Cape Crusader. I guess a Batman was also a historical term for an orderly or attendant or a British military officer.
You knew that, though.

Speaker 3 You knew that. Wait, a British military officer named Batman?

Speaker 1 Why not?

Speaker 1 You know what?

Speaker 1 Next question. They're cute over there.
They're real cute. They use the word maths over there.
Like, they study maths. I think that's so adorable.

Speaker 1 British people, they've all agreed to use this word.

Speaker 3 That's fair. So

Speaker 3 that's multiplication and division.

Speaker 1 Right. Any math you can think of, add an S, maths.
Done. Okay.

Speaker 3 I do English

Speaker 1 very well. See?

Speaker 1 Is this a real word? Lavalia, noun, the layer of superheated air on top of freely flowing lava.

Speaker 1 No, that's not a word. You are right again.

Speaker 3 You guys, you guys, guess what?

Speaker 1 I went to set school. Do you know what that is?

Speaker 1 That's when you go to school on set.

Speaker 3 But I also went to public school.

Speaker 1 You guys, I'm killing it right now. No, we thought we were nailing these fake words and you're embarrassing us.

Speaker 3 I'm killing it. Go set school.

Speaker 1 Is this a real word in the Scrabble dictionary? EO, E-O. Yes.
Noun. A type of deep sea wavelength.
Yes.

Speaker 1 No, Raven, it's not. Yes, it is.
You went to set school and everyone can tell.

Speaker 1 It is a real word. Captain EO from that one Michael Jackson movie.
That's what you're thinking about.

Speaker 3 That's what I'm thinking about.

Speaker 1 Co-starring. Can anybody name who I'm thinking of? Angelica.
You are correct, Angelica Houston. Well done.

Speaker 1 No, we made that up. It sounded so real.
We all think ourselves. Yeah, you did a good job.
Is this a real word in the Scrabble dictionary?

Speaker 1 O-E noun. A whirlwind off the Faroe Islands.

Speaker 1 Yes. Yes, it is.

Speaker 3 Oh, see. It's just a little, okay.

Speaker 1 You got it a little mixed up. Yeah.
I knew something was up. There are a couple of important Scrabble two-letter words that are just two vowels, like A-E-O-I-O-E.

Speaker 3 Anyway. Good job, Mom.

Speaker 1 That's right. Know that for season two of Scrabble.
Good job. You did a good job with him.
And finally, Raven, is this a real word in the Scrabble dictionary?

Speaker 1 Ba, B-A, noun, the immortal soul in Egyptian mythology.

Speaker 3 Ba is a real word. However, it's the sound of sheep makes.

Speaker 1 Ba!

Speaker 1 You're right again, and a bit rude. And a bit rude.
Ma!

Speaker 1 How is, okay, first of all, you hosted The View. You've had every kind of acting experience ever.
Game show hosting.

Speaker 1 Is it an amalgam of your previously used talents or does it feel like a completely new juncture for you?

Speaker 3 It feels like a new juncture for me.

Speaker 3 I'm doing it in conjunction with the podcast with my wife called Tea Time. And so going back and forth between what I learned on The View and then having to learn an entirely new skill.

Speaker 3 But when the camera's off, I have to input some of that

Speaker 3 hosting to keep the energy up because let's not get it twisted. We're playing Scrabble, right? So we have to keep the energy up.
And going back and forth between those two talents is interesting.

Speaker 3 It took me a while to understand. I watched a lot of Dick Clark.
I watched the original Scrabble.

Speaker 3 I watched just a lot of Dick Clark and just how he just riffs off really quick and understands how to get in and out of the

Speaker 3 what do we call them?

Speaker 1 Like the rules of the game.

Speaker 1 The rules of the game.

Speaker 3 They call them something like buntons or something like that. But yeah, the rules of the game and making sure that everybody's playing well.
So it's a little different, but I like it.

Speaker 1 Also, you picked the correct. He's my favorite game show host of all time.
There's something about Dick Clark where it's like the decibel level is always exactly right.

Speaker 1 Like brings the audience in, brings the audience out. Right here, right here.

Speaker 3 He eats the mic, just like this. Hello, everybody.
We're right here on the pyramid.

Speaker 3 Yeah, this man is real. What are you talking about?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 This man is, yes.

Speaker 1 Because once upon a time, game show hosts came from radio. So they all had this like supersonic like understanding of what people listen to and what tunes people out.
Yeah, you know, he was amazing.

Speaker 3 So well done

Speaker 1 Have you fallen in love with any contestants in particular? Is there any wordplay you've admired on Scrabble? Calm down, bro.

Speaker 1 This is my zone. I could watch this shit all day.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 I am in love with the person that has memorized all the two-letter words and all the three-letter words. I find it so interesting because there is a part of the brain that I don't have.

Speaker 3 I just don't have that part of the brain, so it mesmerizes me every time I see it.

Speaker 3 I love Scrabble because it's for every type of person, from the popular person to the nerd to the grandma to the kid to the teenager to everyone.

Speaker 3 And when you see people play, the ones that are really into it, just the fact that they know the difference between OE and E-O and actually knows what it means and knows how to stack it with another word.

Speaker 3 I love puzzles. I love games.
So it's mesmerizing.

Speaker 1 It's interesting you say you don't have that skill set because you obviously are an actor, so you're memorizing things all the time.

Speaker 1 And I feel like all Scrabble really requires is like memorization skills if you want to look up the two and three letter words.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, I don't really memorize very well. I'll remember something and forget it the next day.
That's why I don't know how to spell either because that's all I do for spelling tests.

Speaker 3 You just learn it and then write it down. I don't remember how to do it.
Thank you, Siri.

Speaker 3 But honestly, I really have a bad memory.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah? Yeah, I do. That's so amazing.
No, by the way, nothing is more random in life than who can't spell.

Speaker 1 At Kimmel, we read like all the jokes will be compiled into one document. There's this one writer in particular.
I will not call him out. Just what? Like, what did you come up with?

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's crazy. Spelling is

Speaker 1 a long-lost art. No, it's either, it's like you just have that visual component of your brain that's like, I remember it exactly as is, or you know, you don't.
It's bizarre. Exactly.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 Okay, well, Raven, thank you. You can watch Scrabble on the CW Networks Thursday at 8.
When we're back, I've been told there's... Hawiel?

Speaker 1 Don't go anywhere. This is love it or or Leave It.
There's more on the way.

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Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California and for delivery.

Speaker 1 If you just can't get enough of me, you'll be happy to know that I host Crooked's pop culture podcast, Keep It, every Wednesday with my co-host, Ira Madison III.

Speaker 1 This week, we're holding space to talk about the much-anticipated Glickt Premiere weekend.

Speaker 1 Listen to this gravity-defying episode to find out if the Wicked and Gladiator mashup will measure up to its not-so-distant predecessor, Barbenheimer.

Speaker 1 Spoiler alerts: new episodes drop every Wednesday, only on the Keep It feed. Subscribe so you never miss an episode.
Welcome back to the stage, Bruce Valange.

Speaker 1 We've decided you should be my adversary, so we're

Speaker 1 be a real Frost Nixon sort of situation. Yes.
And I'm alphabetically. Of course you are.
Yes. Alphabetically speaking.

Speaker 1 Tis the season to spend hours searching for the perfect present for people who really just want cash in silence. But since this isn't

Speaker 1 the year where anyone is getting what they want, we're going to share a gift recommendation for that special someone in your life or that someone that you've been seeing for a few weeks and you don't want to get them something too nice, but you can't give them nothing.

Speaker 1 Sorry, projecting. Anyway, we're all gay, and these are all gifts.

Speaker 1 We are. Oh my gosh.
Cue up the gay gift guide.

Speaker 1 I just want to say we have all categories of homosexual represented here: someone who's written for a couple of Oscar ceremonies, someone who's written for a whole bunch of Oscar ceremonies, and Raven Simone.

Speaker 1 That's the three.

Speaker 1 I think that works. That's everybody.
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Let's spin the wheel.

Speaker 1 It's me! It's Raven Simone, television zone. It's me.
Do you have a gay gift guide recommendation for us?

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 I'm going to say get a portable tea kettle.

Speaker 1 And why would you say that? Are you just a dotty old British woman secretly? True.

Speaker 3 No, I do think that hot water anywhere is very important.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You guys, just stick with with me here.
Certainly.

Speaker 3 I love hot water. It's better for hydration.
We know we get dry and you just need to make sure you're safe. And then sometimes when you go to like Airbnb's, the teapot is like really rusty.

Speaker 3 So bring your own. And I have no other reason.

Speaker 1 Does this mean you're a tea drinker, period? I'm a hot water drinker. Just hot water.
Yeah. I've never heard this done before.
It's so good.

Speaker 3 And then when you go and you go to somebody's house and they have a lemon, you put a little lemon in there. But I have my own teapot because I don't trust people in the way they clean all the time.

Speaker 1 So you're just like sipping it really, really slowly. Like you like it fucking hot.
Yeah, like fucking hot. That's right.
Thank you for putting it in a language I can understand. Gay.

Speaker 1 Yes, right. Us three.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Well done. Thank you.
Shall we spin again? Yeah. There's only two of us left.
This is thrilling.

Speaker 1 Oh, come on, a special guest star. Nope, it's Bruce Valange.

Speaker 1 Yes. All the chins are here.

Speaker 1 Bruce, do you have a gay gift recommendation either to get or receive?

Speaker 1 Other than my book, available on Amazon now on pre-order.

Speaker 1 That goes without saying.

Speaker 1 That goes without saying.

Speaker 1 Probably a bedside microwave would be handy. To sit next to you.

Speaker 1 Well, continuing our warming up theme,

Speaker 1 all the things you could warm up while you're in bed, other than each other, or alone, especially if you're alone. I mean, it's kind of like it could have

Speaker 1 the effect of Jiffy Pop on you.

Speaker 1 Just anything, decorate it nicely, you know, so it's like for those snacks that you just don't need to go to the kitchen to get, this is, you know, how you get to weigh 246 pounds.

Speaker 1 Very important. What's the ideal, first of all, snack to go into a bed microwave? And also, where is it, like on an end table?

Speaker 1 Probably. Okay.
I mean, it's not on the beginning table.

Speaker 1 Probably, yes.

Speaker 1 I would say it's within reach, you know, just past all the pills. Yes.

Speaker 1 You live in the movie Valley of the Dolls. Yes, right.
Exactly. And the bong that you don't want to knock over because

Speaker 1 it's glass and irreplaceable and all that.

Speaker 1 So, yes, it's probably very close to the bed so that you can get mostly, I guess, I'm thinking about like edibles that we all crave at night, but we won't get out of bed to get them.

Speaker 1 It's too much work. And I want to eliminate that problem.

Speaker 3 I'm staying over his house.

Speaker 1 Yeah, wow.

Speaker 1 It's either that or Liza Minelli's memoirs, one or the other.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's pretty damn gay.

Speaker 1 Well, we say, you know, it reminds me of actually, am I thinking of it's Liza Minelli and maybe Michael Jackson who would have sleepovers in a bed and would just like, like a whole bunch of people would cuddle.

Speaker 1 It's like, that needs a bed microwave. You know what I mean? I don't want to leave the room.
We're having too much fun giggling about bubbles or whatever's happening. It's boring right here.

Speaker 1 Exactly right. And

Speaker 1 the melted lava cake and all that important stuff. Well, and the hot water.
Are you paying attention? Yes,

Speaker 1 because we don't eat the cake.

Speaker 1 Right. No, we just use it.

Speaker 1 And we got to spin that wheel one more time. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh my God, it's me.

Speaker 1 I would like to say it prepared for this moment, but

Speaker 1 okay, no, obviously I am obsessed with trivia anyway. I am constantly reading trivia when I don't have to.

Speaker 1 In fact, I am a writer on the new pop culture Jeopardy, which just premiered the other day on Amazon Prime, hosted by Colin Jost.

Speaker 1 It is so weird that he has two of my dream jobs, which is weekend update and hosting Pop Culture Jeopardy. So anyway, I'm going to try not to like assassinate him.
But anyway,

Speaker 1 so I'm thinking about trivia all the time. Honestly, a good gift that I think is fun for parties, Trivia Pursuits sells stacks of cards that are just like 80s, 90s, 2000s, 20s, 10s.

Speaker 1 When you have those out at a party, people read them. And like, if you bring them to a bar and and put them on a table, I'm telling you, they get read.

Speaker 1 And those fights you say don't happen at bars happen. The fights happen because the trivial pursuit things are outdated.
Which is, by the way, the best kind.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so you can argue, no, it's not Gone with the Wind. Avatar made more money than Gone with the Wind.
But the card says Gone with the Wind. I'm sorry, the card was before Avatar.

Speaker 1 Can we throw down now? Or just...

Speaker 1 No, but when you get like old 80s trivial pursuit cards, it's shocking how many times the answer is like dynasty. You know, it's just like that was the last thing that happened in pop culture.

Speaker 1 You know? Right.

Speaker 1 So truly, if you set them out at like just a dinner you're having at your house or literally bring them to a bar and put them on the bar, I'm telling you, magic occurs.

Speaker 3 You can do that or every Thursday after Scrabble, you can watch Trivial Pursuit hosted by LeVar Burton.

Speaker 1 How about you? Yes.

Speaker 1 One of the menshas of our time, LeVar Burton. Come on now.
Now I assume, now,

Speaker 1 do you have a history with LeVar Burton? You both have like a long, long television history.

Speaker 3 Yeah, we do. Listen, a lot of the people that look like me, we all cool.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? We all know each other. So, yeah, I know him.

Speaker 1 I'm going to say you've probably been to like six Emmy Awards with LeVar Burton. No.

Speaker 1 I know him, and

Speaker 1 I met him actually. I was doing the Paul Lind Halloween special.
Oh.

Speaker 1 Forgive me for not asking about the Paul Lind Halloween special. Well, this will give you a taste of it.

Speaker 1 Roots had just been on that week, and we were shooting it. I think it was that week, or right around then.
And

Speaker 1 Roots was gigantic. I mean, it's impossible because we have so many universes now that we can choose from with streaming.

Speaker 1 But back when there were the three networks, everybody in America was watching Roots. And so it instantly catapulted him.
And we were shooting the Paulin' Halloween special, and we had a smoke break.

Speaker 1 So I went out with Paul, and we were standing outside the studio, and

Speaker 1 LeVar Burton came down, the

Speaker 1 outside at ABC came down the walkway. And Paul immediately recognized him, but of course he could not remember his name.
And so he just pointed at him and went, Rhodes!

Speaker 1 And LeVar Burton cracked up. Oh, my God.
Because he knew exactly what had happened, and he ran over. And of course,

Speaker 1 he was very busy being impressed with Paul. But Paul, you know, Paul really was an actor, and he really wanted to be taken seriously as an actor who could be more than just a one-line guy.

Speaker 1 And LeVar was brilliant. Brilliant.

Speaker 3 First job.

Speaker 1 Nope. Paul Lynn seems to be.
He was with the canyon, which was right around. Paul Lynn seems like he was both a combination of extremely hilarious and then also

Speaker 1 scary. Like he's just like full of anger.
He was a miserable guy. Yeah.
On one drink, he was a lot of fun. On two drinks, he was the Nazi high command.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 1 he was not happy. And when

Speaker 1 the light was on him, he was happy, but he was miserable. And he wasn't doing what he wanted to do and was rich doing what he didn't want to do.

Speaker 3 That always happens.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I've heard this tale before.
Yes. It's also in the book.
So there you go. Oh, okay.
More for us to excavate there. Now, when we're back, we're about to go on a joyride.

Speaker 1 And we're back.

Speaker 1 There really is a queued up woo for Love It or Leave It that the audience recreates for us every day, and I'm so thankful for it.

Speaker 1 Our producer Chris is standing out in the audience, so please raise your hand to take your turn on the joyride, which, by the way, is a very underrated Kesha single that came out this year.

Speaker 7 My joyride was literally down the coast of California, Northern California, with my daughter.

Speaker 7 I'm from California, and she was raised in Connecticut. So

Speaker 7 when we got to drive down from Mendocino and Sonoma County and watch the sunset,

Speaker 7 she

Speaker 7 had her head out the window and she was looking at the sunset and it was like a 360.

Speaker 7 And I was seeing her experience California the way I had when I was young and it was a moment that I waited 20 years for. So that was my joyride with my daughter.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 That was like a palm.

Speaker 1 Almost,

Speaker 1 I think Joyride just peaked. You just have to cancel this bit now.
Have either of you been on any particularly fabulous road trips in your life?

Speaker 1 No, you know, I mean, I know. I grew up in Jersey and we avoided them.

Speaker 1 Good for us. Midwest.
Yeah, same thing.

Speaker 3 I grew up with road trips. My mom used to drive from Atlanta to Los Angeles because I would shoot Hang with Mr.
Cooper in Los Angeles, and it was easier to drive.

Speaker 3 My wife and I just drove from Buffalo to LA because she was very sick and didn't want to get on a plane. So we drove across.

Speaker 3 But when I tell you, when you drive across America, it is a beautiful experience as long as you stay on certain roads

Speaker 3 after a certain time period.

Speaker 1 It's really beautiful.

Speaker 3 The food we got to work on, but I will say, I love a road trip. I love what it can do to family, just like you and your daughter, what it can do to strengthen a bond.
And I love a game.

Speaker 3 I love a game in a car.

Speaker 1 Oh, look, the eyes, the eyes. No, it's just good.
Psycho eyes. Yes.
It's good bonding. No, true.
You're right. I think of my mom and just like pointing out cars or signs or letters on signs.

Speaker 1 That was how I spent my whole childhood. And then like being way too thrilled to win and horrified to lose.

Speaker 3 I have this fun game that we play, and I'm going to butcher it right now, but I'm thinking of a word, and then you say what you think I'm thinking. And I'm like, hot or cold, hot or cold.

Speaker 3 And it's literally from an emotion all the way to like a rug. And I will play that for hours, won't I, babe? Like, that's my favorite game.

Speaker 3 And then I also really like trying to do the alphabet in alpha, beta, like the whole.

Speaker 1 Going through the list?

Speaker 3 Going through the list, that's really difficult, but it's fun. It eats up time.

Speaker 1 When we were doing Hollywood Squares, Whoopi

Speaker 1 had had a bad flying experience, and so she didn't want to get on a plane. So she rented one of Dolly Parton's buses.

Speaker 1 And we were shooting it in LA, and she was living in New York. And so she would drive out.

Speaker 1 It was 42 hours. She had two drivers who spelled each other.
And she drew a map from New York to L.A.

Speaker 1 It had every Popeye's chicken on it that you could stop at because that was what she was eating back then. It's all about the root.
It's all about the root. And she's all about fried food.

Speaker 1 42 hours. And she kept saying, oh, come on with me.
We'll have fun.

Speaker 1 I said, no, you'll be in the stateroom at the back of the bus and I'll be sleeping on one of the shelves, you know, because that's how those buses are built.

Speaker 1 And, you know, and it went when she would get there, I would, I would look, you know, and it had shelves for people to sleep on.

Speaker 1 And then, but because it was Dolly's bus, it had the upper shelf was all wig heads. Hilarious.
Oh, my God. They were empty because Dolly took the wig.
She was no fool.

Speaker 3 Because Whoopi definitely wanted Dolly's wigs.

Speaker 1 Well, you know, but she's not beyond, you know. Right, you're right.
It wasn't her. It would be Dolores Cartier who would.
Oh, yes.

Speaker 1 The sister actress.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 1 I can't believe Dolly Parton is real sometimes. Wow.
She just really has wig heads on a bus like that. That does.
She really does. And I've worked with her, and I'm working with her right now.
And

Speaker 1 her hair is a lot the same color as all those wigs, and it's a lot like it. And she has real hair and all that.
She just never wanted a show.

Speaker 1 It goes back to all the days where you had to do that to be on country music television, basically. And so she just got into the habit of doing it.

Speaker 1 And now they're all very modern looking, but they are all wigs. I am a little resentful when people whose job it is just to be like a singer or a songwriter also then happen to be hilarious.

Speaker 1 Like, no, that's my whole job. Like, you do my job on accident.
Right. Yeah.
You know?

Speaker 1 Not fair. Anyway, that is our show.
Thank you to Raven Simone and Bruce Valange. I had a blast with you two.
Fabulous time being here.

Speaker 1 Fantastic. Thank you.
Yay.

Speaker 1 Some quick math for you. There are 93 days till the Oscars.

Speaker 1 Yep. Maths, thank you.
Thank you. Callback.
Maths with an S. Yes, that's Britain.
Yes. Yes.
Yes. There are 696 days until the 2026 midterms.

Speaker 1 But until then, have a great night and have a great weekend.

Speaker 8 Love It or Leave It is a crooked media production. It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, and Lee Eisenberg.
Kendra James is our executive producer. Chris Lord is our producer.

Speaker 8 And Kennedy Hill is our associate producer. Hallie Kiefer is our head writer, Sarah Lazarus and Jocelyn Kaufman, Peter Miller, Alan Pierre, Will Miles, and Mohanad El Shigi are our writers.

Speaker 8 Evan Sutton is our editor. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis provide audio support.
Stephen Colon is our audio engineer. And Milo Kim is our videographer.

Speaker 8 Our theme song is written and performed by SureSure.

Speaker 8 Thanks to our designer, Bernardo Cerna, for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast, and to our digital producers, David Tolles, Claudia Shang, Mia Kelman, and Matt DeGroote for filming and editing video each week so you can.

Speaker 8 It's love it or leave it.

Speaker 8 It's love it or leave it.

Speaker 1 Now's the time to start your next adventure behind the wheel of an exciting new Toyota hybrid.

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Speaker 1 Visit your local Toyota dealer today, Toyota. Let's go places.
See your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details.

Speaker 6 Extra value meals are back. That means 10 tender juicy McNuggets and medium medium fries and a drink are just $8.

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Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California, and for delivery.