Ben Schwartz

Hello, it's Ed Gamble here from the Off Menu Podcast.

Hello, it's James Acaster here from the Off Menu Podcast.

And before the episode starts, we'd like to talk to you about All Our Relations, a non-profit co-founded by your friend of mine, comedian Jen Brister, and Georgia Takax.

Yes, All Our Relations was originally started to support 15 families in Gaza when the genocide started, but now supports 21 families and funds several mutual aid projects, including two seven-day food kitchens and two mobile food parcel delivery schemes, as well, feeding hundreds of families in Gaza every single day.

They've created an absolutely amazing thing.

And we feel like, you know, it's the off-menu podcast.

We talk about food and we are very lucky to eat wonderful food and have access to absolutely brilliant food all of the time.

And I think we need to talk about people who have access to no food, James.

Absolutely.

So if people would like to donate, please go to allourrelations.co.uk or look at the links in Jen Brister's bio on Instagram.

Every penny raised goes to supporting people in Gaza.

Thank you so much and enjoy the episode.

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Welcome to the off-menu podcast, taking the sweet cream of conversation, sprinkling over the sugar of friendship, and blowtorching it with the flame of humor.

That was good.

That's a gamble.

My name is James Acaster.

Together we own a dream restaurant.

And every single week, we invite in a guest and we ask them their favourite ever start of Mancourse dessert, sideshow, and drink.

Not in that order.

And this week, our guest is...

Ben Schwartz.

Ben Schwartz, a wonderful comedian, actor.

He's been in so many things we love, James.

Iconic.

Iconic John Ralphio, of course, in Parks and Rec.

Sonic the Hedgehog.

Anyone heard of Sonic the Hedgehog?

Hello?

Are you living under a rock?

Also, really enjoyed him in After Party.

Yes.

Don't want to give too much away about that series, but

he's a very, very good series.

Series one of The After Party.

Yes.

Co-starring with Jamie Dimitri.

Friend of the pod.

Friend of the pod, who has been very eager for us to get Ben on.

And look, we've always wanted Ben on.

Yes.

It's a joy we finally made it happen.

But Jamie's like, you've got to get Ben on.

He's so funny.

He'd be so good.

He really likes food.

So we're very much looking forward to this one.

We know we're in good hands today.

Very excited.

However, if Ben chooses a secret ingredient, an ingredient which we have deemed to be unacceptable, we will still kick him out of the dream restaurant.

Yes.

And this week, the secret ingredient is pork knuckles.

Pork Knuckles, Knuckles, Sonic.

Yeah, Knuckles is a character in the Sonic franchise.

Yes.

And Ben is Sonic.

Ben is Sonic.

What a day that must have been.

Getting the Sonic job.

Getting the call.

You're Sonic the Hedgehog.

Wow.

Wow.

We'll never get that call.

We'll never know how that feels.

Well, they might reboot it again in the future, and they're not going to do it.

They're not going to pick either of us, man.

Come on.

Look, I know you are Lars Pinfield, but I don't think that's a natural stepping stone.

I think Lars Pinfield is a step.

Look, when you think about how much of a step forward Lars Pinfield was from John the Mouse.

That's true.

Do you take

an equal step forward from that?

And John the Mouse from Against Rolling Josh.

Yes.

That's a big jump.

I played a character whose name I can't even remember in the sitcom Josh in one episode.

Then I was John the Mouse and an Amazon Prime film.

Yes.

Then I was Lars Penfield in the Ghostbusters franchise.

I reckon it's two more steps till I'm Sonic the Hedgehog.

You're a franchise guy.

I just do franchises.

Yeah.

Cinderella?

Yeah.

Josh?

Yeah.

But

the Whitticom Cinematic.

Yeah.

It's a huge franchise, Josh Whitticomb.

Everybody appears.

It just expands the franchise.

Ben Schwartz has been in a lot of stuff, though and has a lot of projects coming up that we're very excited about.

Yeah, we normally get like a really detailed sheet of stuff about one project.

But with Ben, we've got three lines and it's three different projects.

Yeah.

DNA.

Yes.

A comedy that I think Ben created.

Yes.

With Sam Rockwell.

Also, Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice.

Yes.

Which also features Vince Vaughan, James Marsden.

And also, of course, Ben Schwartz and Friends' improv show, which is touring US.

And they've toured here quite recently.

Yep.

And obviously, Ben is Sonic.

Yeah.

I mean, how does this guy even fit in guesting on podcasts with all these projects going on?

Madness.

I mean, he's really fast, I suppose, so he can just zoom around town.

That helps massively.

Yeah, yeah.

Being able to zoom around town.

In his special shoes.

I'd like to zoom around town.

Would you?

Like Sonic?

Like Sonic?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Would you like to zoom around town?

I think so.

I'd like to think I'd take a moment for myself now and again.

Sonic can though.

He can slow down.

Yeah.

He's not always zooming around town.

Yeah.

I wouldn't want to be the flash.

I know the flash can stop, but this flash tends to zoom around town all the time.

Yeah, he's zooming because he's stressed, I think, a lot of the time.

Very, very stressed.

Yeah.

But Sonic, maybe not as stressed.

His friends have a nice little fox and

a pink hedgehog as well.

Can I tell you something that happened last night?

Because I don't know if I'll get it into the conversation with Ben.

Yeah.

About two o'clock this morning, Charlie, my wife, was sort of like tossing and turning around in the bed and it woke me up.

And then she was fast asleep.

And we have an Alexa thing next to the bed.

And she said, in her sleep, she said, Alexa, play fart sounds.

And that is something you can do.

Yes, my nephews have shown me that.

Yeah.

And it went blue, blue, and started loading up.

And I went, Charlie, what are you doing?

And woke her up.

She went, what?

I went, you just asked Alexa something.

And she said, yeah, to play rain sounds because I find it relaxing.

I went, that's not what you did.

and then as I said that it went

and then Alexa went that was a wed one

so I'm like incapacitated with laughter yeah and Charlie's got no idea what's going on yeah it doesn't have a planet she's you went Alexa stop and Alexa went okey dokey

okey dokey

So there you go, I thought I'd get that off my chest.

That's brilliant.

I love that.

I'm a bit tired today because I was woken up by fart sounds in the middle of the night.

It's hard to get back to sleep after that.

Imagine you're constantly thinking about how funny it was.

How you get all you meant to get back to bed?

Oh, there you go.

And Alexa knew really that Charlie wanted rain sounds, so he gave a wet one.

Yeah, yeah, wet one.

There you go.

It's as close to rain as I can get with the fart noises.

Anyway, should we crack on with this?

Yes.

This is the off-menu menu of Ben Schwartz.

Welcome, Welcome, Ben, to the Dream Restaurants.

Oh, I can't believe I'm here.

Whoa!

Welcome, Ben Schwartz, to the Dream Restaurants.

We've been expecting you for some time.

Oh, there's so much smoke in the room all of a sudden.

Pretty cool, right?

That's crazy.

Yeah.

How are you?

Good.

What color's the smoke?

The color is blue, of course.

I watched Aladdin when I was a kid, so of course it's going to be blue.

And you're dressed, you have earrings on, but you're also very chic.

English chic genie flavor is what I'm going to say.

Thank you very much.

Of course.

Can you describe your outfit for me?

Yes.

Should I start with what's on your head, because I've never seen anybody wear a hat like that.

Okay, well, it's actually a tiara made of unicorn horns.

I wasn't going to say anything.

It looks like a Macbeth's crown, but all unicorn horns.

Yeah, yeah.

Ed killed them.

Yes, I'm.

Oh, good for you.

And harvested the horns for me to give me genie palace.

What do you do with...

Do they just become horses?

Do you have a bunch of horses around?

Yeah, well, they're dead.

So they're corpses

regardless.

Couldn't you bring them back to life, you being a genie?

Yeah, yeah, I could have done, but I didn't wish for it.

So they all just...

So you stole my wishes.

Do you ever, ever and listen i haven't listened to enough episodes to understand do you ever use wishes for good like go back in time and like save people's lives or anything or no there's a lot i mean it's all food based really so you'd have to sort of include a meal within the okay what about poisoning someone who's created a lot of harm for people you could do that have you done that as a genie no one's asked me i would love to do it You want to kill.

You want destruction.

You want to take a break.

You can't go back in time and kill someone

with poison.

There's a lot of smoke.

No, I mean, who would you if you had that wish?

If I was like...

Oh, the big ones.

i'd probably just hit off the big ones yeah i'll just probably hit off the big ones yeah we're talking uh who do you think the the dolph

sorry you call him the dolph well sometimes you're talking about dolph lungren

would you go back in time to kill rocky forest star dolph lungren yeah wow this genie is

up yeah it's a curse are we letting curse yeah yeah yeah do you bleep it out no no we'll leave it all in people have to deal with it unbelievable especially when we talk about killing dolph lungren wow this is the real this is the real deal yeah unbelievable guys probably probably never get Dolph Lung Lungren on the podcast now.

Let's call him up.

I bet we can get him.

Let's get him.

Let's call him up.

I bet we can get him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll be interested to hear what his app is, but his first appetizer is a next meal.

Dolph Lundgren's.

Have you got his number?

Yeah, let's call it Dolph.

Yeah.

Let's call him real quick, all right?

Oh, yeah.

Call Dolph Lundgren.

Ring, ring.

Ring ring.

Oh.

Is that Dolph's London's name?

I can do any.

Do you guys know that I'm incredible at impressions?

You can do any impression.

You can name anybody.

It can be English.

It can be anybody you you want.

Yeah, yeah.

I will immediately after you say the

Jesse J the singer.

Yes.

You want me to do Jesse Jay the singer?

Yeah.

Of course.

Here we go.

Pretend you're calling Jesse J.

Bring, bring, bring, bring.

Hello?

Hello, Jesse J.

Hey, how are you?

I'm good.

Anybody else you want to hear?

No?

Weirdly, your impression of Jesse J was better than James' impression of a phone.

I said, bring, bring, bring, bring.

Bring it to me.

Bring, bring, bring, bring.

From the 30s

on the wall, where you have to turn the little thingy and make it work.

Yeah, I get it.

I'm a genie.

You're a a genie.

All you know is old stuff.

Well, thanks for coming down.

I appreciate it.

Thank you for coming down.

Oh, my God.

This is very excited to have you on the podcast.

I've heard of this podcast so many times from so many people I respect and love in comedy.

So I'm very happy to see that the chemistry is unbelievable in this room.

Oh, it's electric.

It's absolutely unbelievable.

You should see the genie's going bananas right now.

I am.

I'm literally covered in bananas.

Do you have a different name when you're a genie?

Are you yourself?

Oh, good.

Yeah, good question.

No one else.

Should I call you?

What should I call you?

You're a genie, so you're not yourself.

Yeah, well, I'm a bit like Rumpelstiltskin in that if you guess my name, then you have control over me.

Is that how it works?

Okay, that you haven't read Rumple Stiltskin.

That's it.

I don't think I've read it either.

If you guess his name, he lets you go.

He trapped a woman

to the floor?

Spin a wheel.

Is this what the show is?

He stamps on the floor, yeah.

We try and remember.

Can we try and guess what happens in Rumple Stiltsky?

A different fairy tale?

Okay, what happens?

Let's do Three Bears.

Let's do Three Bears.

Remember what happens in Three Bears?

Oh, definitely.

Okay, what happens in Three Bears?

I'll set it up for you.

You tell me what happens.

Obviously, a woman goes at this little girl.

It's not a woman.

Sorry, you're right.

It's not a woman.

You're right.

Red Riding Hood goes in there and there's three bears.

Yeah.

What happens?

They

all...

One of them.

Wow.

Well, they're not there for a start.

Oh, they're not there.

That's smart.

That's what freed me off.

We should start by saying they're not there.

They're not there.

They go there.

Which is a bold move.

Huge.

She goes in there.

She's breaking it.

So, have three of the main characters not be there.

But we're fine with saying it's Red Riding Hood, right?

We're going with that?

I don't know if that's right, is it?

No, it's Goldilocks.

Is that true?

Yeah,

it's not Red Riding Hood.

This is true.

We don't know any.

We don't know anything?

We must know one.

Name one.

What's the most popular one?

No, hold on, kid story.

The free bears aren't there, and Red Riding Hood's not there.

No, so basically, we're in an empty house.

This is like the movie Up Without the Old Man.

It's just an old house just hanging out.

Even Sada.

Yeah.

The opening montage is very dull.

Very dull.

It's just blank, different rooms.

Red Riding Hood is the one who goes to visit.

We've heard empty rooms over the years.

What did Red Riding Hood do?

Goes to visit her grandma, but it's a wolf.

So grandma's not there.

No, man, everybody's missing somebody in these things.

Well, I thought his grandma is there because she's in the wolf's stomach.

A lot of fairy tales include someone not being there.

Yeah.

Being eaten.

Anyway, Jeannie, lovely to meet you.

Lovely to meet you.

I can't wait.

Thank you for using your powers today.

Oh, we're very excited as well that you've got a number of projects coming up, Ben, that we're dying to talk about.

Oh, wow.

Very excited about all of them.

I'm excited that you're doing about this DNA project with Sam Rockwell.

Okay.

That's what I'm excited about.

It's just announced.

Just now announced.

So we've got one of the

first announcement.

This is the well, it's the second announcement.

One was two years ago when I sold it to be to write it.

Kajing.

Jose Kajing.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

And especially with like, yeah, please, you know how much you get paid for writing not a high-budget movie.

And then

it was me and Sam, and then we attached Yorima, who is amazing, who probably has been on the show, if not, should we?

No,

have you had any Lonely Island guys or no?

We've had no Lonely Island.

We'd love it.

I'd probably geek out a bit too much about Lonely Island songs.

So

James gets really geeky around some people.

Really?

Are you music people?

Yes, I like it.

You don't give a fuck about me.

So it's like...

Oh, listen,

you have no idea.

You don't care.

The amount of things we're holding back on now, Ben, you have no idea.

It's like nothing.

You have to look at a bigger one.

We told our friend Nish yesterday, is he's a comedian.

Nishkumar.

We told him this was coming on.

Yeah, friend of the show, absolutely.

And then we spent like about half an hour just doing John Malfio quotes.

Oh, that's exciting.

So, you know, believe me, we're holding back a lot on geekdom at the minute.

Okay, I can't wait.

I can't wait for you to explode.

Yeah, yeah.

If Nish was here,

he would be, we can call him up.

I don't know why we keep threatening to call people.

I don't think there's ever been on a podcast where we call people.

We're bringing back pranks.

Oh, wow.

Is this

like the, what was it called?

Not the Farty Boys.

What was it called?

The Jerky Boys?

Did you guys have that?

Maybe it was too, I'm too old.

We have the Farty Boys.

How old are you guys?

You're younger younger than me by EEE.

39?

39.

Okay, we're close.

You're younger than me.

38.

38?

Yeah.

When's your birthday?

Let me guess.

I do not know either.

All right, Ben, I don't know yours.

I will guess all three of your birthdays separately.

Okay.

This is a special skill that I do.

Yes, yes.

Okay.

Is it like the impressions?

So it's like my impressions.

Then it'll be perfect.

April 13th.

Not far off.

What is it?

That's correct.

That means I'm within.

Two and a half weeks.

Okay.

Okay.

If I get within two and a half weeks, that's unbelievable, Ben.

It's crazy you didn't even react.

You guys are too British.

That's unbelievable.

If this was a skill he wasn't going to be able to do that,

that's unbelievable.

That's true.

That's right.

Okay.

Give me a second.

Yeah.

Ben doesn't react to anything.

Don't ever take it personally with him.

We've been doing this podcast for a long time.

He just sits there like he's not coining it in.

God.

He laughed at the genie part.

You laugh every time at the genie part?

No, he hates the genie part.

I always hear him

left going predictable.

July 6th.

January 9th.

Oh, Jay.

You got the Jie.

September 10th.

No.

October 4th.

But hang on.

You got the number right.

I think in your head, you saw for me, it begins with Jay, and you saw the number nine, and you flipped up.

Yeah, yeah.

And I was trying to think, I was trying to January 6th, the big thing that happened in America and DC.

I was like, you're definitely born around that time.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

On that day.

You're the 10th, but it's not a bet.

Yeah.

February 10th.

No, March.

You're so close, though.

To get the 10th straight in.

Is this what the podcast is?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's 100% what the podcast is.

I love this.

I love this.

I love how you're initiating these games and then you ask us, is is this what the podcast is?

We've got two more projects to talk about.

Yeah, sorry.

Oh, sorry.

DNA.

So we just attached Yorma and we're eking towards a green light, which is very exciting.

And we haven't, I'm not allowed to say what it's about yet.

It's under wraps.

The plot is under wraps.

That's cool.

But I wrote it.

I've written many drafts of it.

The first draft was written years ago for Searchlight.

And then we attached Party Over Here, which is Yorma, Andy, and Akiva.

And then we attached Yorma's director, and now we're fixing the script up to hopefully shoot with me and Sam Rockwell, who's won an Oscar.

And he's doing an Oscar for free billboards.

Oh, yeah.

He was

the.

Here we go.

He was great in a green mile.

Remember him?

Very good.

Yeah.

That's when I first saw him.

But he was in Teenage Mutant Turtles.

The original Teenage Mutant Turtles is as lead thug.

Now I'm interested.

You've got to see a picture of him.

He's amazing.

He's a thug, isn't that?

He's wearing a white t-shirt and he has like cigarettes underneath his white shirt.

Always, he's like a cool.

He's the coolest thing.

The coolest.

Yeah.

God.

Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice.

Does the name Vince Vaughan mean anything to you?

A little bit.

Did a little role in that.

Smaller role in that.

We could just wrap that.

That was very fun.

There's a very

Ben David, who directed it, did Scott Pilgrim, the animated series, and is a genius.

And he called me and he had this really fun role and he pitched it to me and showed me the storyboards.

And it was so cool.

I was like, I got to do it.

So I did that.

That was really fun.

James Marsden is in that, who's also in Sonic.

Yes.

One, two, and three.

Is this your first time meeting James Marsden face to face?

Because in in Sonic, you're cartoons.

That's true.

I met him during publicity, but you're right.

Must be weird.

I like it.

I just imagine you on set in Sonic, just sort of painted blue, walking around doing the voice.

Yeah, that's what I remember.

Just hanging out.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't smoke cigarettes, but I imagine I'm smoking cigarettes.

Smoking cigarettes, being like, all right, another one.

Yeah, yeah.

I feel like that could be me.

Do you think you could, if you had to be Sonic in real life, you could do it?

Tell me what that means.

Take me through what that means, and I'll tell you yes or no.

Won't be fast.

Run into all the coins, run upside down.

Rings.

Coins is Mario.

keep going

anything else you want to shit on getting hit and dropping rings everywhere there you go that's good one yeah yeah yeah picking up my barrel and throwing it like Danke Kun yeah yeah

and you have to defeat Robotnik at the end and Robotnik is Jim Carrey Jim Carrey is amazing so do you could you beat him in a fight in real life no Jim Carrey I think can absolutely destroy me 100% you ever see Truman show yeah he can do anything yeah and Truman's show does he beat someone up in Truman's show no he probably gets he gets his ass handed to him a lot he does

by weather and by people yeah uh Ed Harris is pretty mean to him actually yeah and it wears very small glasses do you remember how small his glasses were

yeah two little monocles tied together little cancer great movie though that was one of the first him and Robin Williams for you guys are both comedians him and Robin Williams doing drama was such a big deal for me to see because growing up I'd never seen a comedian do drama before and then I saw Robin Williams do it and I saw Jim Carrey do it and I was like oh we're allowed to do both yeah and it was a huge eye opener and so Jim Carrey those that and uh Eternal Sunshine was huge to see as a kid I spoke to David Cross recently on his podcast yep and he would not, I kept saying to him every now, yo, how often a week do you think to yourself, I was in eternal sunshine?

And he's like, never.

Oh, really?

I was like, come on.

It has to be all the time.

Come on.

I would think it all the time.

All the time.

Now, I'm trying to quote one of his lines to him.

I am building a birdhouse.

Very good.

And we wouldn't have any of that.

No.

He didn't.

He didn't know that.

He wasn't biting.

No, he didn't want to play with you.

I get it.

We haven't tried to guess your birthday.

Women try to guess my birthday?

We haven't.

Women do.

Do women try to guess your birthday?

Do you want to try?

I think you guys can get it.

Yeah.

I'll zap it to you.

This is the thing you didn't give to to me.

I will zap it to your head.

I was zapping, man.

Look at that.

You were not.

I was zap the number.

You were zapping the number.

Yeah, yeah.

Zap it into my head.

I'm really doing it.

Okay.

It's in your head.

I can see it.

Just say the first thing you're thinking of.

September?

This is unbelievable.

Is it September?

Keep going.

I'm not going to say it's so tough.

You're done.

Are you fucking with me?

It doesn't matter.

Keep going.

Just whatever you feel.

The 15th.

Google it.

Benito, Google it.

15th is September.

No, you are kidding me.

You must have looked it up before.

Yeah, I looked it up.

Yeah, yeah, I saw it.

But when I said you calling this, he was looking it up.

Yeah, yeah.

I left just enough time.

I thought you were just on Twitter for some reason.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know.

I thought Genie just goes on Twitter for no reason.

I'd put a little mark, a little sticker on in my head going like, be horrible to James afterwards and really take him to task for going on his phone during the podcast because he's never done that before.

I couldn't believe that.

Really?

Yeah.

No, it was really rude.

I was like, oh, I guess this is what everybody's chill.

Everybody's chill here.

I'm supposed to start like a sort of cool American like bro podcast.

They're all on their phone.

Yeah, yeah.

It feels like, yeah, I'm sure their podcast everybody's on their phones.

But I thought, I'll look up Ben's birthday.

You did that so well.

You delivered that so well.

Then later on, I'll bring it up.

But I thought I'd do it now because I didn't want the whole podcast for you to be sitting there going, the fucking dumb's on his phone, Alex.

Yeah, sure, I'm happy to.

I didn't like it.

No, no, no.

Even though it gave us that moment, I still don't like it.

Of course not.

We could take it back in an instant.

Yeah.

Of course.

Oh, wow.

Live and die by the sword.

It's one of the main.

One of your genie wishes to go back in time to start with.

Yeah, he's one of my three wishes to make you never look at your phone.

Poison myself.

Poisoning.

Yeah.

A food-based poisoning.

Are you much of a foodie ben?

I am.

I love food.

So the three of us tour comedically, and I do an improv show called Ben Schwartz and Friends, and I tour or whatever.

I came here a couple of times.

And one of the things I do is I bring three improvisers with me, and I try to go to a fancy and beautiful restaurant in every city we go to.

So I have a Google Doc of all the restaurants I've been to, rating them, my favorite dishes there.

And if we love it, we go back.

If not, we explore.

So I love food, but it's more of like a new thing.

I didn't really have money before to eat the type of meals that we're eating now.

And now when we're on tour, I I just feel like it's like I want to show those guys how much I appreciate they're coming out.

And so, we go up fancy whenever we go on tour.

What are the other improvisers who like out of all your improv friends that you bring out with you, who's the biggest foodie?

You're like this person's

great question.

Well, it's almost different because the people who love it the most are the people who aren't foodies.

So, like, we went to a restaurant in Toronto.

Uh, Matty Matheson, who you should have, who's a chef and hilarious on the bear, he has a restaurant in Toronto.

He has many, he has like 20,000 restaurants, but he has one called Prime Seafood Palace.

And one of the dishes was, was, I believe, ice cream with caviar on it.

And like, anytime we go to a place that has, like, something that none of us had tasted before, that's when it's the most exciting.

It's almost more exciting when someone never goes out like that.

Then we have the most fun ever because we're tasting things we've never eaten.

Also, if you're all improvisers, you can't turn anything down, can you?

No, we have to say yes.

No matter what.

That's right.

We can't turn down an idea.

Matty Madison's in the back just being like, put fucking caviar on ice cream.

Say full and eat that.

Yeah, there's literally, you have to say yes.

It's a great line.

You're absolutely correct.

We'll eat anything.

But it's been one of the most fun things.

And because you talk to people, it's like, you know, a bunch of comedy people talking and like becoming friends, and it's just great.

Prime Seafood Palace is a restaurant I've not been to.

I've never been to Toronto, but it's one of the restaurants I follow on Instagram and just look at the pictures.

Is that true?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What other restaurants do you follow?

I mean, a lot of Matty Mattison's stuff, actually, his burger, his burger place as well.

Sure.

You got to get him on the show.

Yeah.

Oh, God.

Yeah, he's on the list.

He's on the list.

Let's get him.

Get him on the phone.

Get him on the phone.

Let's get him on the phone.

Bring, bring, bring, bring.

Bring, ring hello it's charlie

is it always charlie xex oh no jesse jesse j sorry

xex charlie xex now yeah that was charlie you could tell difference right yeah yeah

we always start with still a sparkling water still can't do sparkling bubbles acid reflux bubbles up my stomach makes me feel full before i'm full oh no same with not drinking too much when i eat a real meal i will only have like one or two beverages and usually save it for the end save the beverages for the end yeah because it'll fill me up and then I'm full.

By the way, can we talk about a tasting menu thing?

Have you guys?

I love the idea of a tasting menu, but it gets me so full by the end that the experience is sometimes ruined because I'm so uncomfortable going home.

Is that true?

False?

Do we agree?

Absolutely.

I don't get full, really.

Really?

Yeah.

I can see you as one of those people who can just eat everything.

Oh, God, yeah.

Plow through it.

Yeah.

What did you eat for breakfast this morning?

I didn't have breakfast, actually.

Wow.

Really playing the game well.

I can eat anything.

We're just going to go to the house.

I I didn't know we were doing that.

I thought we were having an honest joke.

No, we are having an honest joke.

You can never tell with these guys.

Do you fast?

Do you fast a certain time?

Not deliberately, no.

I just think, because it's an early morning record, so

I've wanted to sleep as long as possible before I came.

Oh, that's smart.

Yeah, yeah.

So you're just going to absolutely eat something right now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James is making his own jokes, laughing at his own.

I'm looking at Ben because I'm trying to get reactions out of him after it was established that you can't get a reaction out of him.

Ben is laughing all the time.

I deliberately did a bad joke and he said I didn't send the music.

You ever give Ben a microphone?

No, no, you never give Ben a microphone.

He doesn't want to talk on it ever.

He's very reluctant to talk.

He doesn't like it when producers talk on podcasts, which is fair enough.

Oh, I understand that.

You want to say something about it?

And actually, a lot of people.

The microphone is now in Ben's face.

He absolutely hates it.

Still water, please.

Still water.

I found out recently, my dad, so I went out for breakfast with my dad yesterday.

Okay.

Some water was brought over to the table.

I poured my dad a glass.

He went, no, no, no, no, thank you.

I drink water.

I didn't know this about him.

And he went, I I hate it.

He said, whenever I have to drink it, I hold my nose.

But how do you go your whole life without knowing that about your dad?

Well, yeah, no,

that cannot be the first time your dad has refused water in the 40s.

So are you going back through all your memories and going, have I ever seen everybody drunk water?

Wait, wait, this is too big.

This is too big for you to gloss over.

You're entirely, you said you're 39, 38.

Yes, 39.

39 years old.

Is this the father that raised you and everything?

Okay, so you've been around the table 100 times.

You've been to a thousand restaurants.

Yeah.

You've never seen your dad hold his nose and drink water and been like, hey, pop.

No.

Really?

No.

I've never seen my pop icon.

I think if you'd met James' dad, this wouldn't seem as big.

Get him on the phone.

I remember it.

I'll do it a moment.

Bring, bring, bring, bring.

Hello.

Hi, dad.

Hey, it's Katie Perry.

Just a lot of pop icons are falling.

But like, I mean, I remember once he was like trying to lose some weight.

And he was like, I'm not drinking water because it's a con.

It's a con.

It says a con.

Your body just retains it all.

You're put on too much weight.

I'm not drinking water.

I remember that happening.

Wait, so what does he drink?

So if he's not drinking water, how is he keeping himself hydrated?

Hot chocolate.

I mean, definitely, he'll be drinking hot chocolate.

Really?

And

like, he'll be drinking a whole bunch of stuff that puts on way more weight than water does.

This is so funny.

He'll drink tea, which is water, just hot water.

Yeah, he would drink that coffee's.

Don't tell him it's just hot water.

Oh, he ordered an orange juice at the breakfast.

Okay.

And here's how he ordered it.

He said to the waitress, there's absolutely no rush on this, but I'd love an orange juice in the next five minutes.

So he had an oven's juice, he had a coffee.

Didn't hold his nose for either.

Didn't hold his nose because he loved it.

Yeah, yeah.

But it has no smell.

Water has no smell.

I don't understand what you're.

Usually you do that when something smells so you don't want to taste the smell.

Yeah, he hates it.

Or, yeah, maybe it goes up his nose.

Maybe it sort of comes out the back of his mouth and down his nose like you're swimming.

Could you get in one of those?

One of those things.

Yeah.

That's right.

It's really smart.

You could do that.

It's really smart.

Poploves or or bread.

Pop-loves or bread, Ben Schwartz.

Pop-dums or bread.

Pobloves or bread?

Yes.

What is a pobloves?

As is tradition, when James screams pop a dumbs or bread.

What is a pop-a-dum?

It's when you go to an Indian restaurant, they give you those at the start of the meal, before the food comes out, they might bring you a big, like big round crisps.

Oh, I love those.

And you smash them up.

But I love a bread.

I love a bread.

I love a bread.

What type of bread?

Do I get chews?

You can get whatever bread you want.

It could be a specific one that you've had.

By the way, when I come to England, the most fun thing is eating bread because you get bread and then you have your butter, you have your marmalade, you have your rat.

Like, it's like a whole.

When you get bread in America, it's just like they throw it on the...

Here, it's like a beautiful presentation.

It's gorgeous.

But you're going to nice places as well.

If you're traveling, you're going to nice places.

That's where I'm trying to.

Or the hotel.

When you get a breakfast at your hotel, that'll give you like something.

But I feel like every breakfast here has at least some like strawberry jam or marmalade and butter for bread.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, the other thing I love, anytime we come here, like if you go to a hotel, the like places where you put the towels are hot, love that invention.

Oh, yeah.

Love that.

I don't know why we don't do that.

Do you just put the towels on there or do you put other things on there?

I put my balls on there, yeah.

I'm giving you what you want.

I don't know what you're going for.

I don't know what you're doing.

Where are your balls going?

Yeah.

And

everything we talk about.

I don't know where you're going.

Okay.

So I'm annoyed with balls on the water.

Pop a dumbs, you say?

Can we just go back to the water?

Of course, yeah.

Are you going to put your balls in there?

In the water?

Yeah.

I'm going to fucking plug my nose and put my balls in the water.

Yeah.

I got to plug my nose before I put my balls in the water.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

But if I'm doing that, I get sparkling.

If it's for, if it's for my balls, I get sparkling.

Oh, yeah, that's true.

Yeah, massage them up a little bit.

100%.

So, we're doing a separate menu today, as well as your dream menu.

We're doing what would you rather put your balls in?

And this is the show?

I didn't introduce this.

This is the show.

You did,

actually.

I asked you if you put anything else on the heat if I'll actually use a bubble.

I just figured that's what you want.

You were like winking at me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm pointing at your own balls.

I'm going to say, you're right.

I have the SN everything.

I'm whispering.

Your balls.

It's fine.

Oh my gosh.

Remember Roger Rabbit when he goes like shave and a haircut and Roger Rabbit has to finish it?

Yeah.

That's like me.

My friend Gil Ozari always uses that as a context.

It's like we have to finish the joke, whatever it is.

But you always finish it with your balls.

Yes, no matter what the joke is.

Knock knock.

Who's that?

Charlie XOX.

XOX.

Yeah, it's a different Charlie XOX.

She's friendlier.

I'll be always with the balls.

There you go.

Ben's almost laughing.

Ben's having a great time.

I'm going to pop on the mic.

Not today, Ben.

Not today, Ben.

I would do do bread.

I love bread and butter.

Yeah.

The specific type of bread.

The canala.

Yeah.

Or I like a whole wheat in the morning.

I'll do that.

But a croissant when I'm here, you guys have the best pastries also.

And I go crazy for that.

But bread and butter, I usually always start, always have a little bit.

And then we can dunk.

If we're in like an Italian restaurant, we can dunk and get some of that sauce.

And

we can do this whole thing as a platter for you, all those different breads.

Is that okay?

Some oils.

Is that okay with the gym?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

You can have a bread platter and be dunking them and mopping stuff up.

Thanks, guys.

Putting your balls in all the dips.

If you got all the different dips, are you putting your balls in those?

I didn't say the balls and the dips, but do you want me to do that?

Well, I guess we have to ask.

Okay, I guess then I would slowly lower myself into the series of dips you put in front of me, like a double-dare obstacle course, if that's what you're asking.

Well, work on my quads, really get a good down, like get really low squat.

Bull Samic.

Yeah, that's good.

Bullshit.

Bullshammick.

Yeah,

this is the podcast.

Now

this is the podcast.

This genuinely is closer to what we normally do.

Yeah, plugs about bulls.

Yeah, that's great.

It's great.

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Your dream starter.

Okay, dream starter.

There's okay, I'm gonna name some restaurants that I went to also.

Yes, please.

I feel like the specificity helps on this podcast because you two are very much into food.

An appetizer I loved is this place in LA called Capo.

It's an Italian restaurant, and it's sweet corn ravioli.

And it's just like a decadent, beautiful little way to start.

And it's one of my favorite dishes ever in the universe.

It's just sweet corn in there?

It's sweet corn, it's ravioli, sweet corn, like an incredible sauce at a very fancy Italian place.

Yes, this is.

Because we want to go dirty food, I can tell you the very disgusting, like fast food places we go to too, wherever you want.

We want to hear about it all, but for your dream menu, you want to start with this sweet corn ravioli.

I want like three little pieces of sweet corn ravioli.

I don't want to close my eyes when I eat them.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

It's that type of sweet corn ravioli.

You know what I mean?

Oh, yeah.

I was just

thinking of all the different types of sweet corn ravioli.

It's an eyeshadow one.

It's an eye shut one.

An eyes wide shut one.

When people say, like, yo, that small portion of ravioli just makes you think of the first episode of Chef's Table.

Okay.

Yeah.

With the Italian chef whose name I now can't remember.

What happened in it?

Well, they talk about how that was his, like, one of his big dishes early on was his like three pieces, I think, of

and how everyone in Italy was like.

Absolutely appalled because they makes a full bowl

and be eating that.

Do you like having like the free?

Do you savour them more when it's easy?

I do.

I do.

And also, because then I just know, because you know, it's appetizer.

if you have too many then you're in a main course we're already in a main course and what is the genie done we're like not even there yet do you know what i mean yeah yeah so that would be starter i think that would be the starter i love i love a little thing i love a little amuse bouche what does that translate to do you think it's funny food just like livening up the mouth is that true yeah amuse bouche amuse bouche great amuse amuse yeah bouche mouth mouth wow just getting the mouth started seems like you're not sure i'm just do you trust i just still i'll trust but like i just always amazed at how how clever it is It's unbelievable.

I never really know but you knew that huh?

I didn't know that

Do you know what appetizer?

I was saying it was like Mighty Boosh No Mighty Boosh is a TV show here.

Used to be now you know that right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know that you didn't know that before you know that like all I think of when I hear of a music bush is mighty boosh mighty bush.

Yeah, okay.

That's all I think of.

Okay, that makes sense.

Funny surreal comedy.

Do you guys, when you guys eat at home, do you watch TV or do you eat and not do anything?

No, I watch TV.

You do?

Yeah, yeah.

I can't have a moment where I'm just

doing nothing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Are you very bad at slowing slowing down?

I'm bad at not having something else playing in the background.

Why do you think that is?

Same with you?

No, no,

I can do it.

You can be yourself?

Yeah, I can.

James is very Zen.

Okay.

Do you meditate and stuff?

Is that where your Zen comes from?

Do you yoga?

You do?

I often try and focus on my breathing during that.

Sure.

I love this.

Listen to...

Do the listeners know?

They know about all of this.

What kind of stuff?

No, I think it's been brought up before.

They know I do yoga and I watch ASMR videos to relax.

I get called a perv by him.

What type of ASMR?

He finds it sexually arousing.

I don't find it sexually avowed.

He's always.

You look at his penis real quick, right?

Okay.

Oh, I'm getting a bonus.

Yeah, you don't have to look at his penis.

He's telling you.

He's literally working around.

That was the sound of James's dick, by the way.

Yeah, I haven't even started the ASMR yet.

That was literally the sound of him getting hurt.

It was inflated.

Yeah,

I'll start now, okay?

Yeah.

Oh, he's coming.

Can I start?

Can I start?

I haven't even started the ASMR.

This is ludicrous.

It inflated all the air came out in you.

Just fake it if I had to.

One final breath and said the little ASMR.

I just love the studio.

When you're watching TV, do you watch something you've seen in the past or are you watching something new?

It depends.

Like, if I've got something that I'm currently watching, yeah, I'll be.

What are you currently watching?

Well, I just finished a whole bunch of stuff.

What does that mean?

Ponce of Mechanic.

He watches Ponce of Mechanical.

I just finished loads of AMD.

I got loads of series that I was watching, so now I don't have anything new on the go.

What was the last show you watched?

Penguin.

Oh, how was that?

Great.

I bet.

Loved it.

I bet.

But quite hectic.

So, you know, you can't eat and enjoy the food and watch the penguin all at the same time.

This is the podcast.

Because

every time I look up, I'm going, are you sure that's Colin Francis?

That's what I'm saying.

If I'm eating something, I find it hard to, if I'm really

entranced by what I'm watching, I find it that I'm always missing something whenever I go down to eat.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Is that the style?

I mean, obviously, the listening.

That's the die Bugs Bunny.

Yeah, where my fork goes like this.

I have a cookie monster vibe.

Comfort shows are good when you're eating.

Yeah,

when we all were watching DVDs instead of ever streaming, I had like all the Simpsons seasons and I would go to bed watching them because I knew all the episodes so well that they were relaxing to me because I knew what all the lines were.

And if it was something new that I was watching, I could never go to sleep because I really wanted to know what was going to happen.

So I had to watch something that was comfortable.

So I used to go to sleep at the Simpsons for years in bed.

Well, who's your favorite Simpsons character?

Mill House.

Yeah.

It has to be.

You could play Mill House.

My voicemail is Mill House.

Huh?

My voicemail is Mill House.

I got the person, Pamela, too.

It could be you again.

Yeah, as long as it's not you doing an impression.

Do you want to hear it?

Yeah.

Hi, it's me, Taylor Swift.

Wait, I wonder if I could.

If your impressions of people are hi, it's me, and then a different name.

Wouldn't they say that?

They would say they're

a little different.

Yeah, I love that your impression of Mill House is hi, it's me, Taylor Swift.

Is this it?

This would be it, I think.

Should we play it?

Yeah.

Here we go.

God, it'd be really funny if it was Taylor Swift.

Hey, Bennett's in here.

But guess what?

Everything's coming up nowhere.

That's my voice for a decade now.

That's so good.

Oh, my God.

I got Captain Barnacles to do a voice note for my nephew.

Barnacles?

Yeah, good question.

It was

from the Octonauts.

Oh, okay.

That's beautiful.

Oh, my God.

I did this thing for a show here in England, and I found out what I did was a huge deal for people that grew up with this character.

I'm forgetting what it is.

I'm forgetting.

it's a hugely famous kid show here.

Yes.

And Sonic got a badge.

Blue Peter.

There it is.

That's what it is.

Blue Peter.

Sonic got a badge.

And I told people at home that were British that I was like, oh, I did this thing.

Have you ever heard of it?

I got a badge.

And they're like, are you kidding me?

You got a badge.

I didn't get a badge.

Sonic got a badge.

It's like, that's unbelievable.

I can't wait to see it.

When we were kids, that was the, you know, getting a blue peter badge.

Yeah, but now we're older, right?

Now we're cool dudes, right?

You know what I mean?

You know what I mean?

Yeah, we barely eat breakfast anymore.

You know what I mean?

We're so cool now.

Your dream main course.

This is the problem.

I find this to be the hardest part because there's so many different versions.

There's a, I love sushi, and there's this place called sushi bar in LA that the omicase is like the most incredible thing in the universe.

I also love chicken.

I'm going to tell you the things I didn't pick.

Chicken parmesan is like my favorite Italian dish.

Yeah.

Cheeseburger, anytime I go on the road, I always get a cheeseburger fries, a barbecue sauce, and a ginger ale.

That's my comfort food.

Cheeseburger is my favorite thing to eat.

Is there a particular check?

It doesn't even matter.

There's a place called Burgers Never Say Dad that's really good, but I'll eat any city I go to all.

That's like my baron.

I'll go in the hotel.

I'll get that.

And it like makes me feel happy and home.

But what I picked, I'll go back to my email.

Am I allowed to say omakase?

I'll say omakase.

Is that fine?

We're going to have to get into it, though.

Why are you not allowed to say it?

Because it's so many different dishes.

Is it really amazing?

Well, also,

it takes the uh decision out of your hands because it's literally a chef's all i want it's a chef's selection right that's all i want whenever i go to a restaurant i ask the waiter uh i say are you cool even when i go my guys i go is it cool if we just you we trust you just give us whatever the best things are that's my favorite way of going out to eat yeah always i don't want to make a decision i love not making decisions but now what you're doing is you're asking for a high-end sushi on mikase from from

i'm leaving it in your hands yeah but i don't like uni if you don't mind huh i don't like Ooni.

So, what was your first course out of this?

Let's say six pieces of sushi.

What are you going to give me?

Oh, that's good.

Okay, here we go.

Make the genie work.

He's so like, he doesn't do anything.

Get your Hell's Kitchen from Sticks and Sushi.

I don't know what that means.

There's a chain called Sticks and Sushi.

Can you translate everything he says?

Absolutely.

I have to do that for the majority of our North American guests.

It's a chain called Sticks and Sushi.

It's actually a Danish chain, I think.

Oh, wow.

But Hell's Kitchen.

And it's bad, I'm assuming.

No, no.

No, no, it's good.

No, It's not giving you a bad thing.

It's not authentic, I would say.

If you got it in a Japanese restaurant, you'd be like, this is crazy.

Right, I've never heard of someone getting a Hell's Kitchen.

Yeah, yeah.

It's not a thing that I've heard of.

I've been at many sushi restaurants.

I've never said, sir, can I have a Hell's Kitchen?

Is that a roll?

Yeah, yeah.

It's like,

yes, it is, yeah.

What's in it?

It's got like

a tempura prawn in the middle.

Ed help.

Tempura prawn.

Tempura prawn in the middle.

In the middle.

And then chudo on the top.

Tuna on the top.

And some little kind of sauce on the top.

Some little kind of sauce on the top.

Like,

it's very nice.

Rice.

It is very nice.

Rice.

Oh, very nice rice.

I'll tell you what I would do.

Thank you.

Genuinely, so you have a very nice experience.

Please.

So I went to Japan early this year for the first time.

He keeps name-dropping all these countries he's been to.

This is insane.

This is unbelievable.

Even the Hell's Kitchen, you're like, it's a Danish restaurant.

Of course, we get it.

You've been all over the world.

Okay, yeah.

So he went to Japan.

I went to Japan too.

I knew this.

Oh, my God.

But see, he doesn't like, he doesn't throw it in my face.

He gently.

So we're going to Japan.

I would love to go.

I was obsessed with that Jiro Dreams of Sushi.

Oh, my God.

It made me feel like so.

It was amazing.

Maybe that could be you, Emika.

Say, we get you.

I've never been.

We get Jiro.

Get him in here.

And Jiro can make it.

Call him fun.

I'm not falling down that track.

I figured it would just be a little woman saying hello.

Yeah, yeah.

You just do.

Yeah, hello, it's my love.

Don't bring me out as an improv at all.

I'm constantly worried in improv that people are trying to trap me.

Really?

No, no, no.

I I don't do it.

Don't do it.

Well, it's just the Ed's own brain.

So, you know, you wouldn't be worried in that situation, but Ed's own brain goes, be racist.

So you're afraid you're going to get cancelled.

So in your head, if you allowed yourself to really go nuts, you don't know what you'll say.

I only did improv once, but we were filming a show where I was in character and the other improvisers didn't know I was a character.

Oh, like Ali G?

I'm good at

a gentle version.

What was your character?

Georgie Carlton.

Georgie Carlton.

Excuse me, can I talk to you first?

Georgie Carlton?

No, no.

He's not spoken for 10 years.

Can I hear one word?

Can I just hear what he sounds like?

He just sounds like a posher version of me, really.

Can I hear him?

Yeah, that's him now.

This is Posher?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We did it?

And let me hear you, normal?

Hello.

And then you, Posh?

Hello.

Oh, yeah, I hear you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I hear you there.

It's a subtle little, it's a subtle thing.

That's the reason I got the part, Ben.

Right.

It's like the salt bay of like,

just a little bit of like, yeah, okay.

God, I love that guy.

But I was very good at fucking up an improv show.

Okay.

Saying no and saying that things aren't real.

Yeah.

I would hate you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But if we did improv, I bet you would have, I would take care of you, and you'd have a great show.

Thank you very much.

There you go.

I think you guys would be great together.

Yeah.

I'd love to do the improv show.

Yeah.

Great.

Benchmarts and friends.

Let's do it.

So we're going to get you Giro to come down.

This is actually great.

And he can make your sushi for you.

Your Amakasa.

Do you like the sort of fancy rolls with loads of things in it, or do you like the really simple?

Okay, so this place called Sushi Bar in LA.

It's in Encino.

It's like in a little speakeasy.

By the way, I very rarely get to eat at these fancy places.

I'm name-dropping a lot of them just because this seems like what the show is, but it's like a little speakeasy.

There's seven of us.

It's like so fun.

And they give you, you don't, there are no utensils.

They give you one piece of sushi on rice, but they put like different special sauces on it.

And it's just absolutely fantastic.

So I like a clean piece of fish with a rice on it, but I love when they, I don't need a lot of stuff in a roll.

I love when there's different sauces or if they like heat up something or something like that.

I love that stuff.

But I don't need like 20 things.

Yes.

Let me tell you about this place that you might really like in the UK.

I went last week.

I need places for tonight and tomorrow.

Well, this only happens on Saturdays.

Okay.

And it's in Notting Hill.

It's a supermarket during the day, and then they turn it into a restaurant in the evening.

I'm already obsessed with this.

I love this.

And you arrive, it's one sitting, there's like 15 of you or whatever.

And they go, welcome.

They give you this little miso soup with lobster in it.

That's the first thing.

Wow.

And then they go, well, the tuna's arrived.

And you all go out the front of the restaurant and there's a van out there.

Oh, I've heard of this.

Yeah.

And they open the back and a whole bluefinch in the back.

And they bring it in.

I've seen video of this on the internet.

It's slid onto a stretcher and they wheel it.

It feels fresh.

People eat it fresh right off the thing.

You can scoop it off the thing.

They did it last week.

Yeah.

And how was it?

He sent me a photo.

He sent me a photo of it.

It looked like he had gone to some illegal underground.

The videos are insane.

It's called Tuna Fight Club.

No, it's not.

Yeah, it's called Tuna Fight Club.

Well, that is why it's called that.

And was a tuna like incredible thing?

It was incredible.

I'd be scared to eat it that.

I know that it's uncooked, but the idea of scooping it off the tunnel.

They scoop it off the thing thing and just put it straight in a piece of nori and then brush some soy sauce over the top and then straight in and that's it.

That was different

than it was.

It was just so fresh.

It was mad.

I mean, look, it feels weird because you're all stood around this.

It looks like you're watching an autopsy.

I can't see the thing that I'm eating.

I can't see the thing that I'm eating.

I can't see, like, if you show me a picture of a cow and then like point to what I'm eating and I'm eating this, I can't do it.

Like, I went to a fancy restaurant that had like

the chicken leg was still, like, the claw

was still there.

I was like, oh, now I know what this whole thing is.

It's too much for me.

I have to remove that part of it.

So what's happening in your head when you're eating the food when you can't see it then?

Are you like, this is different?

Oh my God, it's from.

I don't know where it's from.

It could be from anywhere.

I don't even know.

Chicken,

where does this come from?

This is crazy.

It's just appeared on my plate, brazed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The photo that Ed sent me of Tula Fight Club

was like they had like, you know, knocked out a cow and just had it

on a gurney.

Yeah.

Some absolute fuck was walking around it, just scooping bits off the cow and giving it to people and going, there's your burger the thing is it was delicious but it did it does make you go oh this is fucked tough this whole thing is what else do you eat or is it now they cut the tuna into it's like a whole like tasting menu and you just get loads of with that one big yeah exactly yeah yeah and that you get loads of like the the really fatty bits like the people when you go and eat and this is a real question i know that you're you're humble people and you won't talk about this or uh but when you go to restaurants they know you do this podcast do you get treated a little bit differently at restaurants because they know you'll probably talk about them sometimes give me an example of the most crazy version of that I can always tell a little bit when they ask at the top if you want still a sparkling water, you see a little glint in their eyes.

That's every restaurant says that.

Yeah, but

they'll do it in a certain way.

So you can tell if they don't listen to the podcast.

Give it to me in the special one.

This is they don't listen to the podcast, right?

And do you want still a sparkling water at the top?

Okay.

That's normal.

This is if they listen to the podcast.

Do you want still a sparkling water?

For podcast listeners, you can't see, but there was tongues and cheese.

That was really good.

Yeah, yeah, that was really really good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I get it.

Okay, this person knows.

And then they might, you know,

we spoke about it on the podcast before.

They might send over an extra little dish or something.

This was very nice.

Will they ever pay for your meal?

Sometimes they'll try to.

Sometimes there are a restaurant that we have shouted out on the podcast.

Yes.

Will invite us.

Two to five.

And then you might go in and then have to kind of, you know, wrestle with them to let you pay.

Right.

Because we liked, but I'm sure you're the self.

He means it as well.

He wrestles with them.

them yeah I'll be like you I'll be like get on the floor we're wrestling wow so ASMR and wrestling with random waiters are like your two things

was very quiet wrestling very quiet you both sit on the floor yeah and just whisper what you would do to each other if you're wrestling oh that's great

that's great

that's really cute i like that a lot actually that's a stone cold stunner wow you went from a regular headlock to a full wwf move yeah that's a short match as well yeah by the way we're done because no one's kicking out the stunner no that's it what happens after the stunner That's a protected move.

Yeah, that's true.

That's it.

That's your finishing move.

That's your finish him in Mortal Kombat.

Would you like to do a Stone Cold Stunner on Stone Cold Steve Austin?

Is this what the show is?

That's a valid question because James asked that question.

You know what?

I wouldn't.

I wouldn't.

But

I would love to perform a finishing move in a wrestling match.

I feel like that'd be, and have it, and be able to name it.

and like establish it as there is something when one of the things that uh you know like how wrestlers when they come out they come out to the same song and so you'll hear it like did you guys watch wrestling when you were younger?

Yes.

Okay.

So like when the under and now

of course I did a movie with John Cena and I got to ask him all these questions about wrestling which was so fun.

But so like when the undertaker comes out the first thing is dumb and like if you watch one of those matches the second that first the first note of the bell comes out the crowd goes Fucking crazy.

And so I love the idea of training You know people's brains to be like when you hear the song whatever so for improv we always pick the same intro song to come out to I don't don't know if you do that when you guys come out so i have like the same song and different groups have different songs because i love the idea like when you hear the song oh we're gonna get these people are about to come out nice and i got that from wrestling i was like oh help do you have the sound effects and then the song kicks in no just the song starts because the sound effects are like the undertaker obviously yeah stone cost steve austin has glass smashing oh yeah that's true so they go wild for it you can have this what is the rock if you smell what the rock is cooking it's just him shouting

right that's right yeah but he's a it's different from any other ones that we think of.

What did Jake DiBiase?

No, that's not his name.

Ted DiBiase.

Ted DiBi.

What did he have?

It's just music, but it's just recognizable music.

Yeah.

There's no noise.

It's exciting.

What's the theme song to this?

Can you sing it?

Off menu.

Get ready to eat some food.

Ben Schwartz is coming on one day.

Oh, it's this day.

So your theme song always talks about me.

Today's the day that it pays off.

So we're going to have to change it now.

Oh, my God.

Now you got to change it.

Do you remember when Ben Schwartz was benchmarks was on here yeah that's great for anybody i love that yeah it's pretty good did you guys sing the theme song or that's yeah wow spare no expense yeah i sang it ed didn't want to sing it because he was afraid that if he had to improvise lyrics it'd be racist

so yeah i heard the first take of ed's version was very unpieceless

you would get cancelled in a hurry

in a hurry you would get cancelled yeah by me yeah of course i try to cancel ed many times you want to be solo we know you've been trying to get solo for years imagine this solo yeah yeah imagine imagine this without the translator here.

It'd be tough.

Yeah.

It would just be a genie.

It'd just be mayhem.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Imagine the UN without translators.

Yeah, it'd be impossible.

People yelling at different worlds.

People are making points, but nobody can understand each other.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Yeah, I get it.

Thank God you're here.

Yeah.

You're welcome.

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A dream dream side dish.

That's where con comes in.

I wrote it down.

Okay, so side dish is crispy okra from con in Portland.

That's where, okay, so con is, I think it's a Haitian menu, but it was like one of those other things also where when we ate there, after we ate there, we're like, oh my God, this is, we'll say, I'll say top five meal, but I have like a hundred places to say for, but I'll say top five meal.

This is one of my favorite meals I've ever ate in my life.

But I also think part of the fun is like the people you're around and stuff like that.

But that, especially, that side dish was amazing.

And I never really had okra before.

It it was amazing i love it especially that crispy um jim karner here for a while did a crispy okra and i so good was so yeah so addicted to it and then went once and it wasn't on the menu anymore and i very did the kind of like sad do you not do it anymore and then they bought it out wow that's the sort of privilege this podcast gets here you invent a new

demand they didn't know who i was i was with someone more famous who was the person you were with jivo

was he dreaming of sushi he was are you serious was he they brought him some sushi out oh that's it.

He went excuse me.

I was also

Jesse J.

Taylor Swift.

And it sounded a little something

like this.

Hi, hi, hi, hi, Jiro.

Hey.

That's kind of how it went, right?

All of the Spice Girls?

All the Spice Girls are there.

Do you want to hear them?

Yeah.

Tell me which one I am.

Ready?

Spoily.

Sorry.

You got to wait.

You got to wait.

You got to wait.

You got to wait.

All right, ready?

I'm going to say hi as each spice girl.

Tell me which one I am.

Ready?

Hi.

Baby.

Correct.

Ready?

Hi.

Posh.

Correct.

Ready?

Hi.

Jerry Halliwell.

Correct.

Last one?

Hi.

Scary.

There you go.

Yeah.

Are we missing any?

Spoilty.

Hi.

Hi.

God, they're all here.

Speaking Spice Girls fans, were you growing up?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Were boy bands big here?

Yeah, yeah.

Where were your boy bands?

I mean, we had all the American ones, obviously.

We had NSYNC and people like that, but there was also Boys Own here.

Boys Own.

I've never heard of Boysone.

Boys Own West Life.

A lot of Irish boy bands here.

Oh, wow.

Are both of you from?

Where do you grow up?

I'm from a town called Ketwin in the middle of the country.

England.

Okay.

London.

Wow.

London.

London Bon and Bread.

Yeah.

Wow.

But Wimbledon.

Is that a fancy part of it?

Fancy part of London.

Did you go to Wimbledon quite a bit?

No, never went to the tennis tournament.

Really?

Yeah.

Look down the road.

We should get him over there.

We should get him over there.

We should get him over there.

Yeah.

Can't believe you've not been.

You'd love the strawberries and cream.

You're a foodie.

Yeah, lovely.

That's true.

You'd probably be racist on the court, though.

Yeah, that would be a shame.

That would be a shame.

That'd be game over for you.

no i'd fit in is that true yeah oh god have you seen that place no is it there yeah they're all they make it look like a commoner okay well now you can't now you can't go to wimbledon you just screwed that up for yourself i'm not shitting on it i won't go to wimbledon wimbledon is like full of people from saltburn i've seen saltburn i just know he drinks bath water is that the whole thing well it's not well the bath water is the

season that's not the headline no i'd say i'd say in that mouthful the bath water is the thing that most people would be okay with what happens in the bath he drinks a guy's jizz out of the bath is that true Yeah, that's why it's the bathwater.

It's like, oh, that's a bit weird.

This is so different.

But

he sucks all the jizz out of the plug hole.

So someone just told you this is 100% the show.

This is 100% the show.

Yeah.

Sucking the, you just said sucking the jizz out of the bathwater.

Yeah.

The plug-ole.

Yeah.

So that means it's floating?

You kind of don't see it floating.

You know that he's floating, but it's more inferred.

It's classic.

You know, it's inferred.

It's classy.

Oh, okay, okay.

So we add him on the podcast.

You want to give him a call.

Bring, bring, bring, bring.

Sorry, that wasn't even me doing it.

You were getting hard again.

I mean, we haven't asked you your dream drink yet.

And there's time to change it if you want.

You know what's funny?

When I go out in England, I really, if I have a chance to, I try to have some jizz bath water.

I usually get a gin and tonic when I'm here because it feels like what I'm supposed to get or a different gin and tonic.

Yeah, gin and tonic.

I don't know why.

Yeah.

But an old gizzentonic.

Or an old old-fashioned, I like an old-fashioned.

But what I usually do is

I look at old-fashioned jizz, of course.

This is what the show is.

I can't believe it.

Yeah, old-fashioned bathwater jizz.

Out of a jug where you go,

bathroom.

You know, like hey, make bathroom whiskey.

Yeah.

That's a bathtub jizz.

Yeah, yeah.

I also oftentimes like to look at a cocktail list and find like, I like a fruity beverage with a lot of fruit and stuff like that.

We've both decided to leave cocktails too easy.

It's too easy.

You don't want to do it.

I know.

I try to help you guys out.

So you are a cocktail guy.

I I like a cocktail, but I don't drink very much.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I'll, but I'll have a cocktail.

Last night we had a cocktail after dinner.

What did we have?

I don't even know.

It had charcoal in it.

I don't know.

It was like some.

I like, it had ginger beer.

It had some like two spirits in it.

I like a little beverage that tastes sweet.

Nice.

I know.

You got sweet tooth?

Yeah.

Love dessert.

Can't wait.

We're not there yet.

No, but I'm a big dessert fan.

It's just nice for me to know that

we're heading to a good place at the end of the meal.

James likes to feel safe to know that the guest is going to pick something sweet for dessert.

I don't trust people who don't eat dessert.

Yeah, me too.

Do you eat dessert, Ed?

No.

I do eat dessert.

Sometimes he gets cheese and biscuits instead of a popular dessert.

Not dessert.

Yeah, exactly.

I don't think that's a good idea.

It's in the space where dessert would be.

No, it's a fake to make you feel good about yourself because that's not.

I agree that it's not dessert.

I never feel good about myself afterwards.

Is that true?

Then why do you get it?

Well, it's delicious.

If you're going to be naughty, what are you going to get?

I mean, cheese is not well-behaved.

God, that's you being crazy?

Cheese is not well-behaved, Ben.

How sharp is that cheddar?

It It gets pretty sharp and you can get creamy.

Do you like a smelly cheese?

I love a smelly cheese.

You gotta show this bathwater stuff.

You're gonna love it.

Shot that.

No, I get dessert as well.

Barely.

You know.

He's not involved yet, right?

Head is barely around for this.

Yeah.

Are you embarrassed when everybody gets dessert?

It's a real question.

No, you're fine.

What if I get cheese and everyone gets dessert?

Or like everybody's going to get dessert?

You're like, ugh, now I got to tell everybody they don't get dessert.

Raw cheese.

Sometimes I do say dessert.

Or sometimes I'll get like, I'll get an espresso martini instead of dessert.

That's not dessert.

That's a beverage.

But either way, but he loves it when people thick.

It's bath water.

He loves it when everyone's got dessert and he's there with a cheese board.

He feels better at the same time.

Of course he ate the king.

Yeah.

And then you feel like you didn't gain as much weight as everybody else.

No, no, no.

It's not easy.

Cheese if you're eating cheese.

Come on.

I guess there's a bunch of fat in there.

It's luxurious.

Are you afraid that big cheese is going to take you down?

You're really defending cheese.

Shout out to cheese.

Shout out to cheese.

See if you've got some free samples or something.

Shout out to cheese.

I'd love some free samples of cheese.

Yeah, no.

your dream drink will come at the end of the meal

probably or i get a drink you like the beginning and then i'll finish near the end so what would you like at the beginning what would you like at the end i'd probably take an old-fashioned then a ginotonic tank nice but i usually like to look at other people's cocktail lists and the funny names and i'll pick like a fun cocktail or a tequila drink i love a little margarita every now and then yeah margarita come on salt in the room come on oh yeah are we not having fun when you're when you're are you not entertained i'm entertained

too great does he say it in glancing too as well i don't know i hope maybe they are surely they don't have to to.

They don't.

Doesn't say it.

Does he say any other catchphrases?

Schmoking.

I think he says smoking.

I said, I'm almost certain that Pedro Pascal says, somebody stop me.

I think.

I'm not 100% sure.

I mean, it would truly be my favorite if that happened.

If they're all just saying, like, Jim Carey catchphrase

Denzel's like, oh,

that'd be great out of his asshole.

Yeah, yeah.

I just got rid of it.

I was wondering if you know why they got it somewhere.

It'd be great.

It'd be fantastic.

Because there's like animals in Gladiator, too, like big wild animals.

Have you seen it?

Is it great?

I can't wait to see it.

Yeah, Paul Haskell crawling out of a rhino's butthole at the beginning.

Kind of hot, these rhinos.

One of my favorite lines from Jim Carrey.

The other one, one of my favorite lines also, Jim Carrey, who's in Sonic.

One of my favorite lines in any movie is in Dumb and Dumber, the beat when he's still the limo driver and he's just dropped off the

was it, Swanson?

No, what's her name in it?

Yeah, Mary Swanson.

Mary Swanson.

And he's driving and he looks and he goes, goodbye, my love.

And then he gets her accent.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Then he gets her an accent to me.

The goodbye, my love, is one of my favorite, like, not famous Jim Carrey lines.

I do love him so much.

And also the other one in Dumb and Dumber is our pets.

Heads are falling off.

We were talking before you got here about two guns.

Well, two guns.

He threw out two guns.

James threw out two guns.

You can see that in this camera.

Two guns, James.

Gun per camera.

All right, let's see what happened.

We were saying that we recorded.

So Benito was on a flight recently.

Mrs.

Benito, Ben.

This is Benito there, Ben.

And he watched Dumb and Dumber with the sound off.

Was it still amazing?

And could, because he knows it off by heart.

Ben's got the sound off, yeah.

So he was able to just like still do it.

He just watched it so many times.

Yeah.

And we were saying that we think we could do that as well.

I used to be able to, I don't think I could do it now, but me and my friend could do the whole film to each other.

It's a top five movie for me of all time.

It's a real stun.

I think it might be my favorite comedy and one of my favorite movies all.

Back to the Future is my favorite movie.

I think Dumb and Dumber would be right after it.

Yeah.

I think we might have a similar top five.

Those two are certainly in there.

Okay, ready?

Now I'm under pressure because I want to get it right.

Yours is probably American History X.

Spice Value.

Oh, no.

Never seen to cut all that stuff to build up, but that was a really good callback.

Never seen the last 10 minutes.

Yeah, I know.

Mine is Back to the Future.

I think Back to the Future for me is the best movie ever made.

For me, it hit me at a time where I was like, this is what movies are?

and I got so excited.

Shaw Shank Redemption is in my top five.

Yes, correct.

I'm not going to throw you any curveball.

I feel like you know, when people do Letterboxx, they're like, There's a French film that you've never heard about, a tiny tech inside a young woman's shoe, and it's filmed just in black and white.

It's the POV of the tech.

And I'm like, I literally, I'm, if we have to do that for Sonic, mine is going to be Back to the Future, Shaw Shank Redemption, Dumb and Dumber.

Is that going to be you in the Criterion closet, desperately searching for shows?

Going, fucking a watch.

My movies are here.

Do you guys have big daddy

i'm looking through the bees

big trouble in little china i see uh um

i would do i would do an animated movie either up or aladdin probably one of those two and then what will be my fifth there has to be a great one i'll figure it out there's a lot of movies now that like i'll re-watch now that i love like jurassic park i still think is one of the best movies big one of the best movies ever that is an honest singing one of the best movies yeah that is just like straight down the line i'm not trying to i'm not trying to

impress you with that I've seen a French film.

Yeah.

I've seen a few of them.

But yeah.

What are your top or give me the top three then?

Five is too hard.

I think I did the Letterboxd thing once.

Oh, great.

I said Spinal Tap.

A great movie.

You know, they made a sequel?

Yes, they're making a sequel.

Yeah.

I'm looking forward to seeing that.

Can't wait.

I said Eternal Sunshine.

Oh, unbelievable movie.

You definitely did one that you're ashamed of.

School of Rock.

I know, I would have done.

Oh, fuck.

I should have said School of Rock.

Yeah, School of Rocks in my top film.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

It's a perfect film.

Rob Reiner, by the way, I think, has one of the best directing movies in a row streaks ever.

And eclectic.

It was like Spinal Tap, then it was Princess Bride, then it was like Fugu Sally, Fugen Men, American President,

Misery, all different genres, all incredible film.

I don't think any other filmmaker has done in a row such an eclectic.

Although I guess Spielberg did like Schindler's List and Jurassic Park in the same year.

That's crazy, isn't it?

Can you imagine that?

And your dad can't even drink water.

Isn't that insane?

Spielberg did Schindler's List and Jurassic Park in the same year, and your dad can't drink water without plugging up his nose.

Isn't that insane?

They're two very different men, Spielberg and my dad.

They both have different strengths.

Who knows?

Do you think Spielberg ever got it mixed up in his head, which film he was directing?

Yeah, I think, I think, yeah, I think there must be moments, of course.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dolph Lundgren was Dolph Lundgren in Schindler's List?

I forget.

Yeah, yeah.

He was off-screen.

They talked about him a lot, I think.

The Dolph you said.

He said a lot about the Dolph.

Wait, what's your three?

So you said one and the three i think i i think if we're going yeah back to future dumb and dumber and school of rock

very sensible uh top three for me to say right now yeah why would my dad survive quite long in jurassic park though oh good question okay why would james's father survive quite long in jurassic park yeah yeah okay okay um

not a lot of drinking water i guess yes exactly Oh, because the water shakes?

Is that where you're talking about?

So if he's not drinking the water, he can see whenever the dinosaurs come.

Everyone else is drinking the water.

So he constantly has.

He has like signs, the new signs.

Where there's like the constantly full glasses of water everywhere.

So he can always see where the dinosaurs are coming.

Yeah, it's a great line.

Everyone else.

Man, that's a slow bird, but when you get it, that's unbelievable.

Have you considered he might be one of the aliens from signs?

That's why he's so neck-friendly.

He can't drink the water.

Yeah, yeah.

Also, he must not be able to watch Saltburn.

There's too much water in that fucking world.

He would be like, get rid of that water, just hand me the giz.

cut the chaser no chaser no chaser just give me that creamy white i can't wait for the chat after this episode where you go you're gonna have to cut that bitch no we're leaving it all in and i'm looking forward to the text messages from my mother who listens to every episode i haven't met either one of your parents but i'm assuming they're wonderful people they are do you want to call your dad on the phone real quick

We arrive at your dream dessert, Ben.

Oh, this is easy.

I love a classic Sunday, ice cream sundae.

I want either cookies and cream ice cream or vanilla ice cream.

I want chocolate syrup.

I want marshmallow syrupy thing.

I want a cherry on top.

I want nuts.

I'm lactose intolerant, and it is one of my favorite things to eat even then.

Yeah.

Do you take a little pill?

I don't.

I just get punished.

I'm punished.

I'm destroyed after that.

Are you like eating it on the toilet?

Yes, there's no middleman.

Yeah.

It goes down.

It's like an x-ray of washing the.

No middleman would just be tipping the whole thing down the toilet.

That's correct.

That's just throwing it in there.

Yes.

You're right.

You are the middleman.

I am the middleman but aren't we all middlemen we are you know what i mean 2025 we're all vessels for you know uh but i think that would that would probably be it that's that's delicious i mean i always feel quite nostalgic ice cream sundays it might be good yeah remember when you feel like a kid you're excited i love that same a lot of dishes it's almost like a ratatouille you know when he eats ratatou and he's like i that's what cheeseburgers are to me that's what all those a lot of those dishes uh just bring me back because when i was younger we didn't go out to eat very often and now that I'm able to do it a little bit more, it's like me having new experiences, these tasting menus or or everything like that is such a new thing I didn't try sushi till I was like almost graduated college and I was like what is it what is this and then slowly you know when you start off as comedians you have no money so I'm eating fast food all the time or pizza from New York all the time and then slowly when I was able to afford real meals that whatever then I that's why it's like still new and exciting anytime we go to these restaurants stuff like that that's why I want to try them out while I can how do you feel about like crazy Sundays you know when they like go completely over the top there's like the freak shakes and all of that stuff oh too much I know what Spilling over the sides.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

First of all, I don't like it, I don't love a mess.

I don't need, I don't need it to be a mess.

But I love having a sip of that, but can't do it.

If it's too, too much going on, I feel like I'm not tasting it.

That's why with Sunday, I get to choose.

I put my spoon and I'm really choosing how much of each ingredient I want.

Heaven.

Are you a banana split fan?

Not really.

I love bananas.

Don't love a banana split.

What do we think about that?

It's curious.

You just like the purity of the banana, I guess.

Oh, yeah.

I just don't want anybody to hurt that banana.

I love the banana.

But a little treat that we do when we're filming is banana with peanut butter and honey.

That's one of my little treats when we're filming.

I'm trying not to eat too much and get too bloated.

When you say we, it sounds like someone's making that for you.

Just like me, The Rock, your dad, Charlie XOX, Jesse J, Katie Perry,

Charlie XCX,

Taylor Swiss.

Yeah, she's there.

There you go.

Yeah.

You want to end by doing an improv scene?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's the right thing to say, isn't it?

You have to say yes.

Well, is there more before I know you are?

The two of you are in an ice cream parlour.

Well, this is, you can't set it up.

Well, that's not how you do it.

That's short form.

Give me a suggestion.

Any word, and I'll start off.

Are we not doing short form?

We're doing

an impact.

We only do long form.

Yeah, okay.

But we'll do a scene.

We used to do an improv thing when we do the off-menu tour where it's Shrek prov where James pretends to be Shrek and then I get suggestions from the audience and he has the improv scene of Shrek.

Yes.

Okay.

But that was normally ended with Shrek.

Shrek wanking, right?

Yeah, every time.

I would say

what kind of a mood is Shrek in?

And they would say horny.

But can't you say, well, we want want another, give me a different one.

No, because I fucking know.

What is it?

I'm in control of it.

So you're always making drink as a Shrek.

Yeah, I've always got to be Shrek.

Yeah.

Yeah, beating it.

Unbelievable.

Sorry, you guys are doing improv sites.

We don't have to.

I'm up for it, bud.

Okay, so what I do in my shows, we do improv for an hour and a half on stage, me and three people.

We won't do it here, but basically what happens is I interview an audience member.

I just ask someone, what's the most exciting day or night of your life?

And they tell me a story about the most exciting day or night of life.

And we use that as inspiration to make an hour and a a half show.

Wow, but anyway, so we wouldn't ask for like, give me a place, whatever.

We just wanted to talk to you, learn about that person, or learn about that story, and go.

So, for you and I, if you want to do a scene for real, do you want to do a scene?

Oh, you're saying for real.

I was deliberately gonna ruin it immediately.

Do you want to try one?

You gotta do it.

Sure, you gotta do it.

Do you want to try one?

Yeah, yeah.

Don't try to say no to it.

Like, when we're in it, don't make it bad on purpose.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

So, James, give us, I guess, or just like, tell me, tell me something, tell me something interesting that's happened to you in the past couple days uh anything that that is that felt a little unique in the past few days unique yeah or interesting or fun or anything because this is i went to see i went to see a band last night play uh which band do you see

super milk super milk and then are you big fans what type of music is super milk they're a rock band like a punk rock band and i i've only just bought their album very catchy punk music ed's wife is in the band is that true that's true wait hold up so your wife is in the band so you were at that concert as well i was Okay, man.

Is that going to make the improv scene harder?

No, it's going to make it easier.

That's going to be incredible.

And there's the security guard.

There's a problem at the gig.

Oh, shit.

Here we go.

Keep going.

Never mind, James.

Keep going.

The security guard kept on IDing everyone, even though everyone was clearly over 40.

I was going to make it about something else, but we can just make it about that instead of putting your wife in this improv, which would be probably weird for you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Can I see your ID, please?

Sorry, I don't carry.

You don't carry it?

No.

I suppose I know you're 21 years old.

Well, I've never really been asked that before because I look awful.

What are you talking about?

You look awful.

You look beaten up and ruined, but I don't know how old you could be.

I had this 10-year-old kid try to come in the other day.

It was two 10-year-olds in a trench coat try to come in here.

They looked awful.

Let me see your ID.

Well,

I'm not two 10-year-olds.

Just leap in here now.

Is Ed constantly refusing to show you his ID a problem?

No, is he saying yes to the game?

Is he saying yes?

In my head, he's saying yes to the game.

Yeah, carry on.

In my head, he's saying yes to him.

Because if I can show the ID, then that's the end of the game, right?

Could be.

I'd find a way to keep you there.

Either way, I'd keep you in the scene.

Absolutely.

But this is great.

Now, the game of the scene, in my head, the game of the scene is that he can't show me identification.

He's going to keep trying to get in any way he can, and I'm going to keep trying to get it.

So we can play this game for maybe 20 minutes.

Ben's saying there's four minutes.

Oh, we only have four minutes.

I can't throw this in there.

Don't you guys have to ask a question?

Do the audience members normally get involved and say, is this going to be a problem for the scene?

Especially when you were doing something well.

No, I just feel like he wasn't.

James just wanted to be involved in the scene.

Both of you feel horny, by the way.

Sorry, your idea.

The picture in your ID looks really fucking hot.

My god, it says likes, dislikes, water, bath, water, widget, isn't it?

Is that what you want, James?

Yeah, we just start fucking.

Yeah, well, yeah, carry on.

ASMR ASM improv is a good idea.

ASM improv is great.

You can do a couple of hours of that.

Can we get a suggestion, please?

Good.

I heard

church.

Hello, priest.

How are you?

I'm very well.

How are you?

Oh, my God.

I'm doing so fucking well.

That's good.

I think that works really well.

Only four minutes.

What do we do with the last three minutes?

I'll read you back your menu.

You're going to tell me how you feel about it.

Is there a question that you ask?

No.

I think I've asked a few.

There's the whole menu stuff?

Yep.

You would like still water.

James.

You would like the bread platter.

James.

Your starter, you want sweet corn ravioli from Capo?

There you go.

There you go.

You can't believe it.

Main sauce.

Amakate made by Giro.

Yes.

Yeah, no uni.

Side dish, Krispy Okra from Khan in Portland.

K-A-A-N.

Great place.

Drink.

An old-fashioned at the beginning, a gin and tonic at the end.

Great.

Dessert, a classic ice cream sundae.

Yes.

That sounds very nice and very, very clean menu.

Thanks, guys.

Yeah.

I think you're, because you were worried before that with big meals, you're coming out feeling bloated and full.

I think you've saved yourself a dessert there and you've given yourself the option to feel like that after.

Exactly.

I gave myself the gift of feeling comfortable.

I love a walk after after a meal too.

Oh, yes.

Love a walk after a meal.

One time I was in Vancouver and I was with a chef and I was going to eat at his restaurant.

He was a lovely guy.

And he said, meet me 40 minutes before.

I want to talk to you about stuff.

I was like, okay.

And we walked for 40 minutes around the, we were in Vancouver around this huge seawall.

And then we walked to his restaurant.

And we were like tired.

And he's like, the food's going to taste better.

And I go, what do you mean?

He goes, because we just walked for that long and you're thirsty and you're hungry, the food's food's going to taste even better.

And he was right.

Food tasted so good.

So he's like purposefully made me walk a bunch beforehand to get ready for the meal.

But I always love after a meal to walk and it always makes me feel better whenever I walk after a meal.

Was he like, so sit down, enjoy the meal?

I've got like eight more tables booked in.

So

I'm getting my steps in today.

He's not cooking nothing.

Yeah, he never cooked.

I didn't eat anything.

Yeah.

He was on an empty plate.

The most ripped carbs you've ever seen.

Yeah, it was incredible.

It's like Popeye calves.

It's crazy.

Shout out Popeye.

Hey, shout out Popeye.

By the way, while we're here, shout out Bluto.

Shout out all of oil.

Shout out Popeye.

Push out.

Plot is a type of shitting Popeye.

You know what I mean?

He's allergic to spinach.

He's allergic to spinach.

It's crazy.

Thank you so much for coming on, Ben.

Pleasure.

Delicious menu.

Very, very good.

Delicious conversation.

Oh, beyond delicious.

It tastes even better because we walked here.

You've not noticed every time we said anything to each other, I was whispering yummy under my breath.

Oh, yeah, you kept saying it.

I didn't understand what you were doing.

That was so delicious.

It was really really yummy yeah okay that was really good all right great and this is the podcast this is the podcast

well there we are what a brilliant episode james oh thank you ben for coming on the podcast and making us feel i mean i think yo it's early in the morning and um i just feel much more rejuvenated he's got a wonderful energy he does he's got a fantastic energy couldn't keep up oh you were floundering man in the you're gonna get a lot of tweets but how you couldn't keep up?

Yeah, I don't know.

It's going to be pretty tough.

Instagram him.

Yeah.

Is that what people do?

Yeah.

Instagram Ed and tell him how much you floundered.

Just say, you didn't keep up, man.

Papa James.

Please don't do that.

Even though I know it's set up, it'll still make me feel better.

Yeah, it's still ruined his day.

Don't do that.

Don't do that.

He's a person with feelings.

Thanks so much to Ben.

Keep an eye out for DNA.

Keep an eye out for Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice.

And if you get a chance to go and see Ben Schwartz and friends, you must.

Go to the cinema, watch Sonic 3.

Yeah.

And do you know what?

Just treat yourself to Ben's entire back catalogue.

There's plenty of stuff out there.

You can become a Ben Schwartz stan.

Yes, of course.

If you're not already, of course.

Yes.

I think you might be, especially after that episode.

Yeah.

Great menu.

Great chat.

Very funny.

Great impressions.

Great impressions.

So, such good impressions.

Really good.

And he didn't say pork knuckle either.

Which you really appreciate because that would have, we would have had to kick him out, and that would have been a shame.

Thanks for that, Ben.

And thank you for trying to get Benito to speak.

And we apologise that it didn't pan out.

Yeah, it's the first time a guest has ever held the mic up to Benito.

Repeatedly.

Multiple times.

Three or four times.

Like a reporter at the press conference.

Moving it over to him.

Yeah.

And sadly, because of the way Benito has set up the few cameras in this room,

none of them are pointed at himself.

So, yeah, there will be footage of that, but you'll just see the mic go out of frame and then then come back in again.

And it never works.

Never works.

He will never speak.

Thank you for listening to the Off Menu podcast.

We'll be back next week.

Bye-bye.

Popsicles, sprinklers, a cool breeze.

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Hello, I'm Carrie Add.

I'm Sarah.

And we are the Weirdos Book Club podcast.

We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival.

The date is Thursday, 11th of September.

The time is 7pm, and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies.

Tickets from kingsplace.co.uk.

Single ladies is coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September.

At the London Podcast Festival.

The rumours are true Saturday, the 13th of September at King's Place.

Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet.