2025.08.13: Xenomork & Mindy

You will not believe what just happened.

I'm so mad right now.

Hey!

We're recording!

Another podcast!

Gun up!

Good morning.

I feel like I'm gonna do a mad.

There we are!

Because it is Morning Subway!

For August 13th, 2025.

Wow, my timing on that, I've done that too long that I can now recover from a stupid joke at the beginning of it and get the timing right.

Hey, sitting right over there, she's super impressed.

It's Ashley Burns.

Super, duper impressed.

That face, by the way, you were not at all impressed by what I just did.

No, welcome, everyone.

That's what we call in the business improv.

I feel like I would enjoy life a lot more these days, especially as an online content creator, if I liked improv even a little bit more than I do.

I'm not, I'm just, I've never been an improv guy.

I just.

This coming from, weren't you the one who told everyone that they were going to have to do like improv classes and then do like a stand-up set at like at one point in Russia T's career and they all threatened to quit?

We took improv classes because I thought

this will show you how I feel about improv in general.

I felt it was like the lowest level of theatrical training that we could have as a company.

There was like 40 people in the company, and I thought we're making like shorts and stuff like that.

And people were just

trying to think of the best way to say this.

I talked before about like when people would come and see me at a convention, it was kind of like initially was like a job fair.

One of the things that people always aspired to do was be a a Let's Player or a Twitch streamer.

And one of the cruelest things that successful Let's Players and Twitch streamers do to people is they make what they do look easy and effortless.

I mean, that's the case with anything, right?

You get an elite level athlete and when they do something really incredible, it looks...

almost not impressive because it looks easy.

Right.

Right.

And you're like, yeah, I could do that.

Yeah, let's see you do the splits.

Just drop into some splits right now.

And that's what I tell people.

They say, I think I'd be a great fit in like the Let's Play group or whatever.

And I'd said, that's a lot harder than it's like.

Just do it at home.

Like turn on a video game and put a mic in front of your face.

Start recording and then watch it back.

And then you'll go, wow, that is way harder than it looks.

And the thing that goes, another category like that is voice actor.

There's a lot of people who are like, I'm a voice actor because I've watched like five anime and i've got a voice basically that's what a voice actor is apparently anyway uh so i i said to everyone at the company i said we can't like go in and be like you know we're just doing this stuff and haha we're great let's let's have some actual mechanics here funny guy yeah exactly we let's have some training so we did improv training uh for two weeks uh and then we had a second round of it probably a month later for another two weeks and everyone seemed to enjoy it and everyone seemed to be learning skills.

And then I thought,

hey, why don't we like continue this educational journey that the company is providing for everyone who works at the company?

Next thing we're going to do is we're going to do stand-up comedy.

That was the thing.

And we're going to do like training for stand-up comedy.

And then at the end of it, everyone has to do a five-minute set at like an open mic, and that'll be the goal that we work towards.

That was one of the few times that I had people pull me aside in the company and say, if we go down this path, I will quit.

They were so mortified about doing stand-up comedy which i get like somehow that's another example somehow you see stand-up comedy and people look at it go oh my god that seems incredibly horrifying even though stand-up comedians make it look really easy Right.

You see a good stand-up comedian up there, especially I find like one that can talk to the audience and then come up with things on the fly.

They make it look like it's just this sort of easy, natural thing.

I can't even imagine.

Oh, you're talking about crowd work.

Yeah, like i can't even imagine what it looks like getting to that point of speedy wit and comfort doing it as well just the comfort that like the confidence and knowing that whatever they're about to say you can tackle that also comedians careers are like the ultimate example of survivorship bias because you don't see them until they're doing like 500 seats or at the bare minimum, like 50 to 70 seats in a comedy club.

You don't ever see a comedian when they're doing a room with three fucking people drunk in the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday.

Like, you don't see that set where they started.

And just plowing through all that stuff must be incredibly hard.

There's a movie that came out recently on Amazon Prime, and this is not War of the Worlds.

This is a.

Oh, that was really nice.

You called it a movie.

You can see it over there.

Didn't you just like watch part?

I watched a clip from it, and I was mortified that there was an actual narrative device in the movie.

You probably know this.

I don't think I'm spoiling War of the Worlds 2025 to you, but they have to solve a problem and they solve it by using an Amazon Prime drone to deliver a device to the.

It's unbelievable.

And they say Amazon Prime like 50 times.

Bernie, that's just synergy.

No, but this is a movie.

I forget what it's called.

I'll look it up.

But it's Bryce Dallas Howard and Orlando Bloom and Nick.

I feel like I I should know this movie.

And

the guy who played, who had his villain arc in Ted Lasso.

Villain arc in Ted Lasso?

You mean the guy who played Ned, Ned, Nick, Ned, Ned?

Nick.

Anyway.

Ned.

For sure.

But

the premise of the movie is really fun.

Season four starts shooting, by the way.

Oh.

Of Ted Lasso.

I got to say, I'm curious about it.

I'm curious about it.

I'm curious.

I feel like it wrapped up with a bow, and I'm like, we don't need it, but I'm still curious about it.

I've seen no pictures of Hannah Waddingham.

Well, in that case.

On set.

That concerns me.

That dramatically drops my interest.

She's necessary.

She's a treasure.

A treasure.

But the movie is about basically these improv actors.

Like they just go to like improv classes and practice for fun and get roped into like a police sting.

Like your job is to go into this convenience store and you're going to ask for the special menu.

It's a sting, right?

But they feel like police officers aren't comfortable enough with situations where they don't control all the factors.

So they decided to get these improv actors in to do the sting.

However, the improv actors, yes and a little bit too hard.

And everything goes off the rails.

And it just escalates from there because they can't stop yes anding.

They just don't know how to stop.

Because they were told to never say no.

Right.

And then like they end up like doing like drug heists and they're like sent off on all like doing chases and it's it's a ridiculous movie and they're up they're on a plane to the old country to fulfill a vendetta it's actually a surprising amount of fun you know it's uh it's funny because uh

whose line is is it anyway is probably the biggest example of that and who's line to me is one of those shows do you ever like you have a tv show you don't actually ever know when it aired like i couldn't tell you what network that show was on it didn't it didn't air for you know like a good couple decades i wonder how many people like probably more at this point more people know drew carry from whose line is it anyway than from the drew carry show

right but was that like on his same network that's the name of the movie and it's nick muhammad from ted lasso nick muhammad what's the name of the character though does he play nick right does he have his own name beats me hold on gonna do some research that's what i'm gonna look up but uh yeah it's it's it's it's one of those shows and i think there's a lot of people who have that that like there's a tv show they're like I have no idea.

Was this a syndicated show?

Was this a network show?

Was there a primetime network improv show that aired on American television?

Like, was that on ABC on Wednesdays at 9 p.m.?

Nathan.

He plays Nathan or New York.

Nathan.

That's it.

Not Nick or Ned.

Nathan.

But it's, it's, you know, you share that first letter and it starts to get really like when your brain gets, does your brain ever get close enough to an answer and goes, yeah, I'm not giving you the real answer.

Man, I got you close.

One of my favorite things to do is, and this happened in weapons, real time with you.

In monsters.

Monsters.

I really had to stop and think about that.

I saw a person, I'll just say this.

He plays a police officer.

He's one of the main characters in the movie.

Weapons.

And I said, I fucking know this guy.

And I couldn't, he has a mustache and I couldn't place him.

And I said, I know this actor.

And you were like, hmm.

I think so too.

And I was just like racking my brain.

But when your brain finally comes up with it, man,

that is such a satisfying feeling.

That's one of the most satisfying feelings that you can have.

Must be like when they connect the railroad, they do that last spike.

That must be like, that's how it felt in my head.

I was like, oh my God, yes.

And Pan Solo Barbara.

It all just comes together.

It was Alden Eric, which is funny because going into that movie, I had seen his name in the cast list.

And we were like, who's that guy?

It was like, I have no idea.

I've never seen that man in my life.

It just goes to show.

Bernie, that like we all laugh at like the, they're like, oh, you put on

some glasses and now we're just like, Clark Kent, what are you doing here?

It It would totally work.

It would totally work.

It would totally work.

Somebody said that about Zoe Dashnell.

She was on a red carpet and she had no bangs.

She doesn't have bangs.

You wouldn't have

to know.

And you're like, who the hell is that person?

There's famously, though, a person from the 80s.

She was in Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Dirty Dancing, huge role.

I mean, that movie was, Dirty Dancing was the movie of the summer that year.

Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Gray.

By the way, I can't go back and watch that movie because I'm just sitting there going, girl, your dad's right.

Yeah, it was a summer fling, though.

That's like the movie is like a summer fling itself.

You go back and you're like, what the fuck was I thinking watching this movie and going, it's like, this was the summer of labooboos.

Trust me, summer of 2026, you're going to look back and go, girl, come on, you what?

What you're, everyone around you was right.

What was wrong with you?

Buddy, let me tell you about laboo boos.

Labooboos have officially arrived.

You know how I know.

There's been a laboo boo heist.

What?

People are like risking prison time for labooboos?

Yes.

Hope they have Jeff Ramsey's phone number memorized.

Yes.

This is from AP News.

A group of masked thieves stole about, guess how much they're worth?

Wait, wait, wait.

So how much money was stolen total?

This was a store's full stock of laboo boos.

A stores full of LA.

But they can't keep these things in stock.

It might have been two left, right?

I don't know.

They stole $190,000 worth of of Laboo Boos.

Okay, well, these thieves are not nearly, I guess, prestigious enough, but they stole $7,000 worth of Labo Boo dolls.

That's either two Lububus or like 8 million Laboo or 7,000 Lububus.

Yeah, hard to tell, right?

Right.

I don't have like a solid grasp on like the per-unit laboo boo value.

Yeah, what's it?

Is it a like a super tier one ranked secret laboo boo or is it whatever, whatever the fuck they're doing?

Right.

Also, weren't the luboobus

you got more education on this from Becca than I did, but aren't some of the luboo boos like blind items?

Like they're in a blind box?

I think they're all blind items.

Right.

So, how do they know it's $7,000 worth of luboo boo?

There's

one in there, and it could be $190,000 worth of labo boo.

Right.

That's like if somebody broke into a 7-Eleven and stole the lottery tickets, they stole $27 million

worth of merchandise from a 7-Eleven.

Like, you don't know that, but maybe, maybe, they stole a winning lottery ticket.

But this is amazing.

So, some people specifically broke in to this and they stole the full stock of Luboo Boo dolls from this store in LA.

As they were absconding, they could be heard singing the lyrics to Gnarly by Cat's Eye.

So it was probably.

I mean, look, that's everything, though, right?

Anything only has value because we all agreed that it does.

But not necessarily because there are some things that are scarce, right?

You know, I mean, that's what Bitcoin tries to recreate is they just say, look, here, we're setting a limit of the amount of this thing.

There will only be 21 million Bitcoin ever made, right?

So they try to have the scarcity of it.

And I guess when something goes up in value, then the scarcity becomes a thing.

They can make as many goddamn laboobus as they want.

They can.

Right.

You think they're going to be able to replace these $7,000 worth of laboobus?

Or, like, what's the grade market?

What's the labooboo black market look like?

You know, it'd be great insurance fraud.

You just have a bunch of empty labo-boo boxes, and then you say it's a blind item.

So it's like somebody stole all these empty boxes.

There's There's no evidence to hide besides the boxes, which you can recycle.

And then you say it was $47 million worth of laboo boos that went away.

Speaking of crimes, Bernie, and doing crimes, I'm really excited.

There's a new series that's coming out.

I'm going to pitch this to you as I believe it was pitched to the network.

Okay.

Is it the Alien Earth Ice Age cartoon crossing?

No, what is up with that?

What is that?

So Alien Earth, the TV show, just started, and all I've seen about it is a screenshot of a character from Ice Age, like superimposed on the screen.

So, there's clearly a lot of

sloth.

I don't understand this name, I remember.

And it's a parent,

and it's apparently like it is, it's in there for no apparent reason.

Apparently, one of the main characters, I had to look this up and I had to do research on it.

I don't know if I'm spoiling anything.

I don't think I am because I haven't seen it either.

And I am excited about it, but I can't.

You know, if you read the marketing materials, you might.

This is not quite marketing materials, but it's probably close.

We're probably all getting sucked into some like viral thing they came up with but one of the main characters is on screen and superimposed like over her shoulder at like 30 to 40 percent opacity

is

sid the sloth from ice age and people are posting and saying this is an actual screen grab from alien not only that but then like you can you can then find the clip like it's not like because i was like someone obviously was trying to make a meme and edited this this screenshot added this in whatever no they didn't you can find the clips where this is actually added in.

And at first, I was like, I wonder if this is one of those weird like editing errors, right?

Like someone was watching Ice Age while editing together Alien Earth.

It's not like that has happened in the history of the Rooster Teeth podcast, right?

Where there was some music that was edited in somehow because it was being listened to while the podcast was getting edited.

So that sort of stuff can happen.

This appears to be an intentional choice, though.

There's a weird thing like that, too, in Red vs.

Blue Lord.

It's very recent.

Red vs.

Blue Restoration, there's a scene with a character towards the end of the movie and in two shots in the movie, there's a mouse cursor on screen and no one can figure out how that mouse cursor got on the screen.

It doesn't even make sense.

Like what would be the workflow where a mouse cursor would appear?

Like there's no setting.

Right, because there's not a mouse cursor in the game capture or anything like that.

there's no step in the process where a mouse cursor would end up in there and so even the team that worked on it when i'm like working on some stuff for the library they're like can you please remove that mouse cursor like every how

do you have to know

but don't you know i have to know how it got there to get rid of it here's my solution I have a picture of Sid the Sloth that I'm superimposing over your mouse.

Nobody will ever see the mouse cursor ever again.

So I looked it up.

So I did, I took a bullet here.

You did this for years at Rooster Teeth where you had to go look up stuff that you knew you were going to want to watch and you had to keep you were the meat shield for spoilers and i'm doing that here so i read up on what this is about so here's the reason why i said the sloth is featured in alien earth apparently there's two main characters in the movie where the movie ice age

is a strong connection between the two characters and in this scene it's somebody talking to someone else on like a teleconference video call or whatever you want to call it.

They're on Zoom.

So I'm assuming those are the two characters that have some kind of of connection in their past because of Ice Age, the animated movie.

And someone thought, oh, this is like a memory.

And she's thinking of this lot.

I'm like, I'm really curious about it.

And then an Amazon Prime drone

delivered the solution.

Luckily, the Amazon Prime drone is showing up to save us from an unrecovered tangent.

And that is Jennifer Gray got a nose job in the 80s.

And therefore, she was unrecognizable after dirty dancing.

And she says it hurt her career.

She got a nose job.

She was known for having a very prominent, distinctive nose, kind of like the lady from White Lotus with her teeth.

But Jennifer Gray got her nose corrected and then never really worked again after that.

Well, it's trickier, right?

Because then you are more what they say would like, you fit the conventional mold, right?

You're like, now all your features tick the boxes.

But the one that didn't tick the box made you distinctive.

Made you distinctive, yeah.

Yeah, right.

And especially, you know, when she had a huge successful movie, like Laboo Boo the Movie in 1988 or whatever it was yeah she people knew her as that and then she became unrecognizable like and then what do you do we go back and you go hey can you put the nose back on like i don't think they go that way with that stuff

in fact i'm looking at a preview for alien earth episode two here and it looks like they're gonna be super imposing labo boo dolls uh no but this so this show let's come back around to your change yeah before you know we have to wrap this up here's my show i'm pitching this to you uh uh as i believe the network uh received this this pitch hey you remember you know um only murders in the building and you know how it's really popular and everyone loves it and thinks it's really great?

What if we did that, but British, and we put it, we put Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan and Sir Ben Kingsley in it.

I love the idea.

I know me.

Okay, okay.

I was about to say, is this going somewhere negative?

Because I like this idea.

This is going somewhere right up my alley.

This is, I guess it's a new show that's going to be coming out on Netflix, but I was really excited.

Remember, there was a show that came out.

I don't even, I don't know what network it was on.

It was called mobland i think and it was pierce brosnan and helen mirin uh and i think tom hardy but it was on one of the many many streaming networks that like i just don't have like uh one of the the this very small very niche and also probably not available in the uk so i never saw mobland but i was like god what i wouldn't give uh to see pierce brosnan and helen mirin in like some project together obviously i'd give a lot of things except for signing up for whatever the streaming streaming service was.

But now they're going to be in the thing together.

They're in this Netflix series and it's called like the Thursday Murder Club where it's just they get together and go over cold cases for funsies.

It's like, you know, have a spot of tea.

It's very, very British.

They British the only murders in the building right up.

And so they get together and they just discuss these cold cases and then Bernie.

A murder happens.

Man, you're just reminding me.

I pitched a show at somebody.

This is before I hadn't thought about this in years.

I pitched a show that was a little bit like that in that vein just by listening to someone talking on a podcast and going, You could actually build a whole show around what you're talking about right now.

Right.

And it was a great idea for a show.

And they just weren't interested in it.

Like they weren't, they weren't, they were not the least bit interested.

Well, look on the bright side now that you're your own boss.

I can make whatever you want.

Show if I want to.

Turn into a hit and go, I told you so, bitch.

It starts with a laboo boo heist.

That's what it really raises the stakes.

It's a labooboo heist.

Could be worth anywhere between $5,000 and $27 million.

You don't know.

You don't know.

You just don't know.

This nose job is so impactful on Jennifer Gray's career.

I was just looking up Jennifer Gray's nose job here on my handy, dandy, handheld internet device.

And she's still doing interviews about it in 2023.

Damn.

Still doing interviews about her nose job.

Can you recall anything else?

Like, what's a big physical transformation that affected something negatively?

Sort of.

Sort of.

It's the girl from the boys.

The girl from the boys.

Oh,

she got the buckle

removal.

It got so bad we wouldn't talk about it.

Remember, we said we actively said we're not going to talk about it.

Everyone just went full dogpile.

And the thing is, the next season came out, and she's still a beautiful, attractive girl, right?

She's still absolutely stunning, but she does look different.

and she's following the path that that like that's a really popular trend right now in Hollywood everyone's getting buckle fat removal

and so it's one of those things that you can do to better fit the conventional mold but then you're also less distinctive right you're just as you're as pretty as everyone else I think it I think that if you take away

you know fat from your cheeks you also run the risk of just that's what happens as you get older right and it makes you look older which is like a double-edged sword.

Hey, girlfriend, I'll take that fat.

You know, it's, I had one that we may have even talked about this back when we had the initial discussion about Erin Moriarty.

Is that her name?

Yeah.

And

when we said, like, this is so bad, it's like, it's, this is horrible.

Like, we wouldn't talk about it at the time.

That's how we learned to pronounce Buckle, first of all, because I thought it was pronounced Buckle up until that point.

But I might have discussed this then, but I used to love the show Felicity, one of the first J.J.

Abrams projects.

It was him and Matt Reeves, the guy who does Batman now.

It's so weird to think that he was Felicity.

Both of them, like the guy who did Planet of the Apes and now The Batman.

And J.J.

Abrams had a show on the WB called Felicity.

And I watched it and loved it.

It was all about a girl going to college.

And Carrie Russell was the star of it.

Carrie Russell, who's had an incredible career, but man, they tried real hard to make sure she didn't have a career because she cut her hair

in the second season of the show.

And we actually worked with someone later in our career, Richard, who worked at the WB at that point in time.

And it it was such a big fucking deal when she cut her hair

that people blamed the decline of the show on her cutting her hair, everything.

It was crazy.

And she tried for years, I think, to try to escape it because that show was like this huge hit in the first season.

And yeah, it was crazy.

And she went on to be like

Mission Impossible, The Americans, which we still need to watch.

I've watched some of it, but it's very like.

I don't know.

The early episodes are very like

grim.

Grim?

Yeah.

Yeah, too grim?

Oh, just like stuff happens in like the very first episode of the Americans, and it's like set up.

And in some ways, it's like there's a

narratively satisfying element to it.

But I'm like, I don't like that happening to people.

Well, discussion point for the day then.

What is the person that if you ever see them, you will definitely watch whatever they're in?

Like Carrie Russell is that for me.

I would watch Carrie Russell in whatever.

Don't care.

John Wick.

Hold on.

Let's see.

I'm a Hugh Jackman stan.

Yeah, really.

Well, like, like, he's fantastic in everything that he's in.

He can go from being like the super action star to being like the greatest showman.

And I'm like, yeah, I'm on board for whatever you're in, my friend.

Yeah.

I watched, what was it?

Really close to whose line is it anyway over there, pal.

All right.

Well, I want to say a big thank you to our friends in Lububu Heisting, Lorekeeper Toby, and James.

Thank you both for sponsoring this episode of our show at patreon.com/slash morning summer.

I didn't even talk about it.

Hold on, who would you watch?

Carrie Russell would be one of them.

Tom Cruise, I'm just a sucker for for Tom Cruise, man.

I really am.

I just think he's like,

there's some people who call him like the last real movie star.

I am one of those people.

I just like, it doesn't matter what he's in.

I will fucking watch Tom Cruise.

He has a captivating presence.

Although they have talked about now, they're making another Top Gun movie.

And I was like, don't do it.

Why?

Why do you have to make a third one?

You had two, and they were amazing, right?

I'm not looking for another Top Gun.

I'm not looking for another Blade Runner movie.

You want to quit at the 100% on field goals?

Yeah, exactly.

Quit at 100% on field goals.

Don't call the Amazon Prime drones and fight those and cop on three.

Don't do it.

You go out.

Part of a walk-off home run, Ashley, is walking off.

All right, well, that does it for us.

August 13th, 2000.

We will be back to talk to you tomorrow.

We hope you will be here as well.

Bye, everybody.