2025.09.15: Inescapable Cringe

Unbelievable.

Hey, we're recording the podcast.

Gun up.

Good morning to you, wherever you are, because

it is

Moody Somewhere.

2025, my name is Bertie Burns, sitting right over there.

She's not going to go a second over her allotted time for her speech.

It's Ashley Burns.

Say hi to Ashley, everybody.

I'd like to thank God.

I'd like to thank Sal Saperstein.

I'd like to thank Satan.

Sal Saperstein.

Great jokes.

You know, Seth Rogen did not thank Sal Saperstein the entire time.

Man, missed opportunity.

Kind of a missed opportunity, but kind of everyone pointed it out.

So maybe he thought it was too obvious.

Maybe.

So the Emmys happened this weekend, which it's weird because we talked about the creative arts Emmys that happened and we were talking about the Emmys coming up.

And then I forgot the Emmys were happening.

And I saw

all these articles about the Emmys and I was like, oh, were those?

Oh, those happened.

Oh, shit.

Nate Bargazzi was the host, too.

I thought we would be all in on that.

How do you feel about his shtick?

Have you read about this?

Yeah.

So he, he basically said he's going to pay

was $100,000 to like the Boys and Girls Club,

but he was going to subtract to like $1,000 for every minute someone went over their allotted speech time.

I think it's a funny and cheeky way of making sure things run to time, right?

And I think he also,

I read about this again, haven't watched it yet, but I'm going to, I imagine I'll see clips if it happened.

He was going to have some boys and girls there to dramatically cry at the actors who were going over their time.

What the word?

Like, like, losing, it's like, these are the children that you're losing the money.

Also, didn't see, I'm commenting on something I didn't see.

So, tonally in the moment, it could have been very different, but I think it was actually announced beforehand too, this whole plan to do this bit.

It just reminds me of, you ever hear the story about the guys who tip by putting out money on the table and saying, this is your tip.

And every time you do something I don't like, I'm going to take away a dollar from it or whatever.

It always just seems like, oh, I get it.

I get a skeevy feeling from that.

I mean, okay, I get that.

I do.

The difference being, you know, taking away from someone's like counted living on wage and a contribution to charity, which is in the six figures.

Right.

So let's hurt these kids, disadvantaged kids.

We're just going to hurt them and then you'll feel fine with it.

I imagine they're just, they're going to, if they're going to hand across the, the hundred thousand, it's just a bit to try to get people to like stick to the time, right?

I would, though, love to cut down an award show to just the winners.

Even if you did the announcements of the candidates, didn't show the clips, just the announcements of the candidates, and then the winner, and then the speeches.

If you just did that, the show would probably be about 45 minutes.

And we all like

cut the song and dance.

Right.

We fret everybody going over 20 seconds when they worked for years on a project and decades on a career to get to this moment.

We're like, yeah, yeah, keep it short, you.

Congratulations.

Fuck off.

We're just going to put it above like your next credit is like Emmy award-winning actor.

Okay, just go piss off.

We got to get to the next stilted bit by two actors who were there to present to promote their new movie that's coming out in a month, right?

Right.

It's like,

and then, you know, even the host of it is like a lot of monologuing and stuff like that in between almost every single award.

Does keep it moving.

It is an entertainment product you know and i guess at the end of the day

the speeches when they drag on do suck the energy out of the room but at the same time i'm like come on let these people have their

maybe

maybe they can continue like they their their podium just sort of like moves off to the side and they're often like a stream now they're live streaming right to on like instagram live or facebook or uh twitch or whatever it's like now they're they get their full speech over here on twitch like that continues the live stream somewhere else it's like a sidecast sidecast and you can get the full screen experience for it.

I love it.

But there was some big winners last night.

The biggest one, I think, being the studio.

Well, the biggest one is weird.

The biggest one during the ceremony was Adolescence because it won the most awards apparently during the ceremony.

But the real story was the studio winning the most awards in this year's Emmys.

Right, which include the creative arts Emmys we already talked about.

So Adolescence is a huge one.

So that one, I love this because

the kid won best actor for adolescence.

And like, this is like a kid, right?

This is a teenager.

Youngest ever male winner at the Emmys.

I think it's awesome.

So congratulations to him.

And then, yeah, they had they, that Adolescents also won for Outstanded Anthology Series.

And I think Best Supporting Actor, Actress as well.

So they, like, there's some.

I got to see it.

I got turned off a little bit by.

what I felt was kind of the gimmicky nature of the marketing around the one-shot stuff, which is funny because Seth Rogan won best directing for a comedy series for the Wonner episode of the studio.

That was the one-shot.

Yeah, have you seen it yourself?

I've seen part of the studio.

I haven't watched all of it yet.

It's all.

But you know the Sal Sappersen joke.

I do.

Okay.

Which is

a running bit in the studio, but award shows.

But the Wanner episode is about...

Long takes and how they're trying to get a long take.

And then the episode itself is one long take, the entire episode.

That's multiple layers of meta that must have been so complex to put together can you imagine that they're a flowchart of production on that it is also too really fitting tone wise for the episode because it's one of those torture cringe comedy indulgences and to stick with it without any even edits to break it up you're just immersed in this horrible so you're just you spend a 30 minutes just dying slowly if you can make it through it it's really impressive.

If you won the best director, but now the studio has won more comedy Emmys than any other comedy series in its first season.

That's the big thing.

It beat the bear, which was always a controversial one anyway.

I think, do you think everyone, including like the bear production, are breathing a sigh of relief?

I just so after all the grief they got.

Yeah, I think, but who knows?

Everybody wants to win awards.

That's true.

But the weird thing is, from what I'm reading, it also tied for the most ever Emmys for a comedy series ever.

That seems like a bigger award than this, like, qualified, like, freshman year award and all that stuff.

Yeah, but it is nice.

They're celebrating the new kid on the block, right?

And it's also a big joke in itself because everyone is the big joke for everyone is that Hollywood loves Hollywood.

And so to the

show that's like all about Hollywood and yeah.

being crazy about Hollywood is winning the Hollywood show

awards is like, yeah, okay.

Yeah, it's true.

I mean, that is the case.

And I love the studio, but I don't know because I worked in production.

I have kind of recused myself from that.

I think it's a great show.

It won a ton of awards.

But then again, it also seems really well received, right?

The studio?

Yes.

No, it's been really well.

I have very,

I don't think I've seen anyone who has something bad to say about it.

I've seen people say that, like, it's not for me.

The reason I haven't watched the full thing is I love the idea.

I love what I've seen so far, but cringe comedy really takes it out of me.

Yeah, no, I get it.

It's not all cringe entirely, but that episode is definitely like, it's that thing where you're just like, you just want to reach into the screen, grab the person by the arm and go, hey, you need to stop.

Like, just, just, please, just, just walk away from this scenario, please.

Yeah, so normally how I consume stuff, if I can, is I binge it, and I just, I can't binge the cringe.

Well, the other thing about the studio, which is Brian Cranston won for best guest appearance in a comedy series.

The crazy thing about that was almost every single nominee in that category was from the studio.

Yeah, we have John Bernthel for the bear, Brian Cressett for the studio, Dave Franco for the studio, Ron Howard for the studio, Anthony Mackey for the studio, Martin Scorsese for the studio.

Like that one cleaned up the nominations.

Is it weird then if you're competing against your own castmates?

Okay, well, let's talk about that because there's a bigger category for that or another show that really, it's like, what does the next day on the set look like when they all get back together?

Right.

Are you like high-fiving or are you just a little bit like,

so literally

every single person

in the main cast for Severance was nominated for an acting Emmy.

And three of them were in a category against each other.

Tramel Tillman, John Toturo, and Zach Cherry were all up for best supporting actor in a dramatic series.

And Tramel Tillman won, fantastic.

Also, John Toturo, fantastic.

Zach Cherry.

Zach Zach Cherry, I would argue, carries that show.

He is the comedic relief in that, but Dylan does so much heavy lifting in that.

How do you pick between those three?

And especially his story was so compelling with this season.

Jamel Tillman plays Mr.

Milchuk.

Yeah, and

he's been, you know, I think getting his flowers very well-deservedly because he is a fantastic character in that show.

Yeah.

And that's a character that I feel like could easily have been

not a fun character, not a compelling character, but he plays it so, so well that it is just absolutely mind-boggling.

But you're right.

That could be a thing where you're like, hey, congrats, Jamel.

Real happy for you.

Yeah, I know, right?

It is like, what do you do?

Because Adam Scott was up for best leading actor dramatic series.

Britt Lauer, who won, was up for best leading actress in dramatic series.

And then Patricia Arquette was kind of in her own by herself.

But these three together competing against each other, that kind of sucks, man.

Yeah, that's hard.

That's hard.

But, you know, the ones that did win, So Britt Lauer won for lead actress, which is awesome.

She was fantastic in that.

And once again, her performance was one of those ones that garnered a lot of really intense scrutiny because of the storyline of the second season and the subtleties of her performance really came through.

So I'm not surprised that she won after all that.

One could even say, Ashley, performances

because they all play two characters.

Yes, at least two characters.

Except for Tramel Tillman, who

plays one character.

That's true.

And there's a show as well, Bernie, that's that's got a lot of wins.

I need, you need to watch this show.

I think you like this show.

It's the show Hacks, which is

Gene Smart won for best lead actress in a comedy and Hannah Einbinder won for best supporting actress.

So do you, are you familiar with the show at all?

No, the weird thing.

Besides the fact that it keeps winning.

Here's what I can notice by looking at this is it seems like that most of the nominees and wins

for hacks all seem to be women.

Is it mostly a female show?

It's sort of a female-led cast.

So the premise of it is Gene Smart plays

what was kind of like the first big female comedian, right?

And she like she broke out when it was really a boys' club and she's been doing this for decades.

And she's like, if you think of like female comedians, she's the female comedian and she's got this residency in Las Vegas.

She's like the big name.

And then on the other hand, you have this like Gen Z.

She's an aspiring writer in Hollywood.

She really wants to be a writer and work on these shows.

And she's very funny.

And also she got herself canceled with the tweet.

It happens.

And so no one in Hollywood will talk to her anymore.

And so she ends up kind of a reluctant intern in Las Vegas for this comedian.

And so it's that sort of the butting of heads of Gen Z humor and boomer humor.

And these characters are both, they're both really great and they're both really driven and they're also both kind of wrecks.

Yeah.

And so it's like how those two interact and then they drive through a lot of like different storylines as they navigate the world of comedy.

And it's a fantastic show and it's also very funny.

You know, I was, I just tuned into season five, episode one

of Marvelous Mrs.

Maisel.

And it seemed like I have to go back and watch.

I'm like, where the hell are, there's like a huge time jump at the beginning of season five yeah

like way far forward is it five seasons I thought it was three it goes to like her daughter in the future what like it goes way goes way out there okay so I want to finish that we should finish that and then I will watch hacks after that I also have to watch apparently the pit

which is noel wiley won an Emmy I wonder if that's his first Emmy after being on ER for like 20 fucking years or whatever I don't know if he ever won an Emmy for that but he won for the pit the pit won outstanding dramatic series, and it beat stuff like Andor, Last of Us, Paradise, Severance, Slow Horses, and White Lotus.

So I gotta watch it.

Every single one of those shows is a critical darling.

I left one off here that I didn't recognize.

The diplomat.

I don't know what that is.

Yeah, that's a streaming show.

I think the thing about the pit that I find

I think is compelling, but is also probably going to make it difficult for me to binge because I'm going to need breaks is that it happens in real time.

So if an episode is like 30 minutes, it's like this 30-minute segment of what's happening, you know, in the emergency room.

And so it's like, it sounds very intense.

Yeah, yeah.

And I loved ER and I loved all those hospital dramas.

It seemed like there was a lot more of those like 20 years ago, you know?

And I feel like there's...

less of them now.

Has there been amazing?

Is Graze Anatomy still going?

Hold on, let me look at this.

Graze Anatomy would be, yeah.

Yeah, Grace Anatomy, I think, is still going.

It's been going forever.

22 seasons.

But there's something else, Bernie.

I don't want to spend the whole episode talking about the Emmys because I have to talk to you about something else.

It's still screen-related, but I'm very excited about this.

And

I've been waiting to talk to you about this.

Have you ever heard of Manicold?

Manacled?

No.

Okay, Manacled, Bernie, is a Draco and Hermione Harry Potter fanfiction.

Okay, it sounds like an SM thing.

Think 50 Shades of Gray as it relates to Twilight, right?

But okay, so

this is

one of, if not the biggest, Harry Potter fanfictions of all time, like most popular.

If you ask someone like,

what's the big Harry Potter fanfic?

It's probably going to be like manacled.

Well, it's now changing its name.

It's going independent.

It's pulling a 50 Shades of Gray, change the names of the characters, change a couple details, and now you've got yourself an original IP, right?

So it's now going to be published as an original fiction called Alchemized.

And it's already, the book's not out yet.

I mean, I guess technically it's been out on AO3 or whatever for ages.

But the book itself, as an independent entity, not even published yet, it's already been optioned in a seven-figure deal for a movie.

What?

Oh, well, I mean, it's been, when you say it hasn't been published,

it's out there.

It's traditionally published, but it's also, it was out there as the Dramione fanfic, but it hasn't been out there as its own independent property.

So did I always heard that 50 Shades of Gray started as a Twilight fanfic?

Was it actually put out there with the characters' names in it and everything else at one point?

I think it was, yeah.

There's actually a pretty strong fan fiction to traditional publishing pipeline with things like that, where once you develop the characters enough and they start to take on a life of their own, give them original names.

Control F.

Change the details of the world a bit, and you're good to go.

Really?

That's true.

That is interesting to me.

I mean,

I guess it was never officially licensed.

What can they do?

Right.

And it's not like it's a canon thing in the Harry Potter universe that Draco and Hermione ever had a thing for each other.

Right.

So this is something that some people took the ideas of the characters, you know, twisted them around and told their own story with those characters and they built a life of their own and they went, now we're our own thing.

I get what you're saying there.

And

I would agree with you, right?

Because it is an original story.

And if you change, take all the details out, then you should be okay.

But there is also

all this marketing that's going along with it for being associated with harry potter even though it's not associated with harry potter and it does kind of open a can of worms for you know a very protected ip which is also going through a complete reboot right now itself right i guess that's true but if you're really clear from the get-go that like you know, this is not official Harry Potter anything, then are you clear?

Yeah, but the get-go is gone.

Like you're already, we're already in it.

It's already out there as a harry potter thing right but not a canon thing what does that mean though a canon thing the canon does it doesn't have any implications on a copyright level right i know but uh but it is like you know this was never

you know you're being honest up front that this was never uh an official harry potter thing i get you i get you i get you you know what i mean obviously like harry potter takes inspiration from a lot of different things as well like it didn't invent

trolls

what's in harry potter you know what i mean You know, I can tell you a lot of things that I thought were original about Harry Potter that turns out aren't original at all, like schoolhouses?

Points?

How many points?

You get what I'm saying?

It's like,

if I took the Harry Potter story itself and just made it sci-fi, but it's still all the same beats as Harry Potter, is that a totally original thing?

Like, I changed all the names, you know?

I'm pretty sure you just described the hero's journey, Bernie.

But yeah, no, no, no.

That's the thing is like, if you change the setting and and you change the names of all the characters, you do have a new story.

That's the age-old argument of like, what's a rip-off?

And like, what is,

there's only so many types of stories to tell, right?

So if you have your own cast of characters, even if they structurally share a lot of similarities with these other cast of characters, because guess what?

A lot of cast of characters will be made up of similar types of groups of characters, then how is it not original?

No, I get what you're saying, but usually that happens before anybody else in the world knows knows about it.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, this is out there and published as a certain thing.

You're saying it's not published, but it's available publicly.

Well, I'm saying it's not traditionally published.

Like it hasn't gone through like a traditional book publishing house.

But it's been made available to the public, whatever that means, you know, in this format where it is a Harry Potter fanfic.

You know, I would guess, though, that around Harry Potter, they're not going to stir the pot anymore with bad PR.

That's just going be my guess.

That's gonna be my guess.

And then J.K.

Rowling woke up, cracked her knuckles, and got to work.

I read some

kind of negative stuff.

Was it Christopher Columbus who said,

he probably doesn't go by Christopher.

Chris Columbus who said

that he saw some of the early stills from the new Harry Potter series remake, and he just said, like, why are they even doing this?

Doesn't make sense.

I think those, yeah, those comments were specifically in regards to he saw a shot of Hagrid.

Hagrid, yeah, and was like, he's wearing like the same clothes.

Like, why, if you're not going to do something new, then why are you doing it?

Yeah.

Um, but I think that was also a very small comment in a much longer interview where he said he's looking forward to like seeing what they're doing with it.

But when he saw that, he's like, do something new with it.

That was his, seemed to be his feedback: was like, go somewhere else, which I got to say, I'm not following the whole thing super closely, but I did see a still shot of like the whole Weasley family, I guess, like at the train station.

I was like, oh, God, I love where they're going with this.

It looks like married with children.

Oh, really?

You know, you get like, she's got like the, you know, like the hair and like the, like a bright, like a bright knit jumper.

And I was like, I like where they're going with this.

Well, even though I've never seen it, we were talking on the Patreon discussion this weekend.

I love that one, by the way.

That was a lot of fun.

We had a lot of fun this weekend.

Almost an hour.

Talking about, just, well, we, yeah, we just kept sidetracking ourselves.

We're like, we're going to play a game.

And then we would just take a left turn and go off into

talk about absolutely anything else.

Which is funny taking a left turn because we were supposed to be talking about the long walk the entire time.

But we talked about our favorite adaptations and then talked about like what movies am I going to rebuy on 4K now that 4K is a format.

And Harry Potter, the franchise, is one of those.

I think I'm going to go in for franchises first, like big ones like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and then I'll work my way through some other ones.

I say prioritize the big franchises and then prioritize the ones that are known for

being eye candy.

So So, real beautiful special effects and things that where you would lose detail if you don't have the whole four K's.

But if you are a sponsor for the Root Sheath website,

you can listen to it because the first 32 minutes of it is just us talking about our favorite adaptations.

Yes, adaptations like a book to film, ones that are great adaptations, ones that are very loose adaptations, things that are more riffs.

And then we don't get into long walk spoiler talk until 32 minutes in.

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty safe.

We went and discussed what's our favorite faithful adaptation and what's the best adapted adaptation where they made the most amount of changes.

I was kind of shocked by what I narrowed down as being my top choice for best adapted work.

I'm telling you, I think my upcoming favorite adaptation is going to be Alchemized.

Alchemized.

What happened to

Fuzzy Handcuffs?

What was it?

Machine?

Manacles?

Manacles.

I guess part of changing the name is part of turning it into a new IP.

Oh, I see.

Like, I don't know if 50 Shades of Grey was originally called that.

Well, yeah, it was called some Twilight-based thing, I guess.

Who knows?

That would be really interesting if you had like a signed copy of 50 Shades of Grey when it was a Twilight fanfic, if that was ever available anywhere.

Like it's some artist alley, you know.

Right, like or if you

was on like AO3 or Royal Road or whatever, and you like printed it out and got it signed.

Yeah, that'd be that'd be pretty special.

I think you just give me hope for the future of red versus blue.

Change like three words, and then suddenly it's its own thing entirely.

Just wait for

the church and Griff BDSM

fan pic to spin off to its own universe.

It's Griffin Simmons, by the way.

They get the bulk of that.

Thank God.

Thank God.

All right, Ashley, well, who do we have to thank for letting us go over in our time today?

I want to say a big thank you to Sean Neff, Lee Sanders, and Dan Fettuccini for sponsoring this episode of our show at patreon.com slash morning somewhere or on the Rooster Teen website.

All right, well, that does it for us today, September 15th, 2025.

We will be back to talk tomorrow.

We hope you will be here as well.

Bye, everybody.