She's A Bon Vivant!

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Speaker 2 Hey, Bestie, I'm a snow angel

Speaker 2 and I'm here to tell you you are more beautiful than the snow bestie.

Speaker 2 Let it snow.

Speaker 2 Let

Speaker 2 it snow.

Speaker 2 On this episode of the Commercial Break,

Speaker 2 I want to be a bon vivon.

Speaker 2 How do I go to be a bon viv?

Speaker 2 Brian Green and his longtime co-host and bon vivon, Kirsty Hoadley,

Speaker 2 sit around and stare at penises as they're slowly revealed behind a curtain. Look, that bon vivon is uncircumcised.

Speaker 2 He's a true bon vivon.

Speaker 2 The next episode of the commercial break starts now.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 boys! Oh, yeah, Cats and Kittens, welcome back to the commercial break. I'm Brian Green.
This is the Teresa to my Frankie. Kristen, Joy Hoadley, best to you, Chrissy.
Best to you, Brian.

Speaker 2 Best to you out there in the podcast universe. Thanks for joining us.
We're all back in studio after a fart of snow here in Atlanta. Took the entire town down for three seasons.

Speaker 2 We did not get a fart of snow. We got a huge covering, Christina and I, down where we live.
Yeah, but what would you say? Like a total of two inches? Yeah, but it was a big blanket. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It was beautiful. It's amazing.
Did you see the picture? Yeah, I saw the pictures.

Speaker 2 Lots of traffic jams yet again. Happened yet again.
The city still can't get it right.

Speaker 2 But I mean, you know, these meteorologists, they tell you it's going to happen happen late in the afternoon or in the evening. So everyone figures, okay, let's go to work.
Let's go to school.

Speaker 2 Let's do the things. The truckers are driving through Atlanta.
Everyone's having a good time. And then, of course, these fucking Nudniks can't get it right.
I mean, I love that weather guys.

Speaker 2 I know that they have a hard job. And I understand the weather is really hard to predict.
But they got it wrong again by like four hours. So of course it starts snowing at 10 a.m., not 5 p.m.

Speaker 2 And everybody gets stuck out there on the fucking roads. They're killing each other out there, trying to drive in ice and snow in a town that's ill-prepared for any event whatsoever.

Speaker 2 And so there you go. So now what about Florida? Well, that's true.
That's a different animal. They don't even have snow plows.
They don't even snow plows. They don't even have long-sleeved shirts.

Speaker 2 I know. Let alone snow plows.

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 2 Yeah, Florida, New Orleans, all that Gulf area, Houston. I just saw that Amelia Island, one of my favorite places, got a good, more than a dusting of snow.

Speaker 2 And that's like the first time in 30 years that that's happened.

Speaker 2 I mean, it has to be really fucking, it has to be a really weird event for snow to happen in Florida, which is usually no, you know, it's usually never below freezing there.

Speaker 2 I mean, I can't think of a time when I've been down in Florida and I've spent a lot of time there when it's actually been below 32 degrees, maybe one night during the winter, maybe.

Speaker 2 But then they got snow. That's crazy.
And the crazier part is, I am literally four miles from three inches of snow. Do you know what what I'm saying? I am four miles from three inches of snow.

Speaker 2 But I guess that's how the weather works.

Speaker 2 Why are we talking about the weather again on this show? I feel like we're one step away from the weather.com.

Speaker 2 Well, it was a big event. It was a big event.
It was a big event. It took us all down.

Speaker 2 And the reason why it's a big event is because then I have to deal with my children three days in a row, fucking stir crazy and absolutely nothing to show for it.

Speaker 2 Like we say it's a snow day and they fully expect they're going to be out there making, smicking snowballs, and there's nothing. And it was just too cold to go outside.

Speaker 2 It was really cold. Too lazy to bundle them up.
So I said, hey, make the best of it. Drive yourselves.
Drive yourselves.

Speaker 2 You and Astrid got in the studio together? We did. We got in the studio together.
We managed to have some. And thank you so much to Astrid.
I mean, I literally am just like, okay, you're on.

Speaker 2 Like, what are you talking about? And she hates the microphone. I know she does, but she does a great job.
She does.

Speaker 2 And so.

Speaker 2 It was a back-to-back. It was Gustavo on Saturday.
Gustavo on Saturday? Yep. Astrid on Thursday.
Wednesday. Or Thursday.

Speaker 2 Well, Thursday. Which day is it? I don't know.
Well, the episode. Yes, the episode is a Thursday episode.
So there you go.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 another reel about Venezuela going viral out there on the internet. Good.
Yeah. I think we're just going to start speaking Spanish on this show.
I think we're going to put a Venezuelan.

Speaker 2 It's going to be called the Maduran break. That's what we're going to call it from on.

Speaker 2 Those Venezuelans are just lovely and they're so loyal. Like once you

Speaker 2 once you show affection to them, they will show affection back to you. Unlike our American listeners can't be bothered to click follow on Instagram.
I know.

Speaker 2 I feel like we've become part of the family. We're in the fold.
There's no doubt. Now we have our naysayers.
We have some people who call me kind of like the Spanish or in Spanish,

Speaker 2 it would be an idiot idiot and

Speaker 2 a dunce, a slow person, if you will. Yes, I'm a dunce.
I'm an idioto.

Speaker 2 But you know, you got to take the heat when it comes your way, you know, when you're riding the waves, chance it's going to crash. Everybody happens.
That's right.

Speaker 2 So we've had two, we've had a number of reels go viral, and most of them are because I say something about Venezuela. Yes.
But eventually we're going to get backlash.

Speaker 2 So I figure we stop while we're ahead. But stop all the Venezuelan

Speaker 2 So let's just stop while we're ahead. We'll believe it.
That we love the people and it's a beautiful country. That's it.
And then we'll slowly watch as our Instagram following goes back down again.

Speaker 2 So much fun. So much fun.
Speaking of Instagram following, I don't know if you had a chance to stop by J.D. Vance's page and follow him recently, but I noticed you were.
Just throwing that out there.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that was not me. Yeah.
Wow. Unbelievable.
It looks like Meta made some changes. Meta made some changes.
The old Zuck Zuck. Yeah, the old Zuck, the old fuckerberg.
He's up to no good again.

Speaker 2 The old Zuck, the old Zuck cuck is what I'm going to call him because he's currently cuckholding the administration that just got.

Speaker 2 Listen, vote for Trump. Cool.
That's your right.

Speaker 2 I will fight for your right to vote. And I don't care who you vote for.
That's the way it works. Sometimes the cookie crumbles your way.
Sometimes it does not. I'm not here to cry over spilled milk.

Speaker 2 But I will say that the amazing amount of dick sucking that is going on on behalf of the big technology companies

Speaker 2 into Trump's, directly into Trump's zipper, is unbelievable. It really is very blatant.
It's blatant. It's unbelievable.
This used to happen behind the scenes when we couldn't know about it.

Speaker 2 Therefore, we weren't so stressed about it. But the fact that Zuckerberg or somebody made an actual decision that anyone who's not following J.D.
Vance or Donald Trump should be.

Speaker 2 So we're going to go ahead and do that for them, is insanity at the highest levels in a company that is run by insane people. Meta is for insane people.
Truly people who want to run the world.

Speaker 2 They want to control you and own you and everything about you. And it's just insane to me that I wake up in the morning to all this kerfuffle that everybody's following J.D.

Speaker 2 Vance and no one followed JD Vance. And I thought to myself, come on, guys, let's stop crying, right? Let's stop being big babies about this.
And then I go and I'm following JD Vance.

Speaker 2 It's unfucking believable. I was like, holy shit, it's true.
Oh my God, it happened to me. It was and it is.
Yeah, I wasn't following DJT.

Speaker 2 I wasn't following him, but I was following JD Vance, JDV, not J

Speaker 2 DJT, but JDV.

Speaker 2 I was following him. And then I noticed that a lot of my friends were following.
You know, it says also followed by.

Speaker 2 And there's just some people who I know would never make that, like, no one. That's correct.
I know their finger would never press that button.

Speaker 2 button yeah and as a rule on our particular like our our company account the commercial break the podcast account we don't follow people who don't come on the show and that's just one of those things like it's no offense to anybody it's just like if you come on the show we follow you otherwise we don't and that's for our personal accounts that's who we follow we follow all you plebs on our personal accounts we can't be seen messing around with the people who have less than 3,000 subscribers because we have more than 3,000 subscribers, according to social media.

Speaker 2 By a tiny bit. So, anyway, I say this not to like make anybody not to sound elitist.
I say this because I know for a fact that we would not have followed one of those accounts. And we were.

Speaker 2 And it was just unbelievable to me. Now, here's what I've also noticed.
I've also noticed that we have a thousand or so people following us on threads. Oh, yeah.
The

Speaker 2 Twitter knockoff that, yeah, I like threads too.

Speaker 2 I guess it's part of meta too. Yes.
I also know for a fact that those thousand people did not follow us on threads because we haven't posted anything on fucking threads.

Speaker 2 So, how did we get a thousand followers? It took us four years to get a thousand followers on the commercial break. How do we magically appear with a thousand?

Speaker 2 They are auto-subscribing people, auto-following people that follow us on the commercial break account. How they make the decision about who that is, I really have no idea.

Speaker 2 Maybe someone that has a threads account, then it automatically follows them. But that's just a shitty business practice, I think.
You, like, I don't want to be auto-following people.

Speaker 2 I just want to follow the. I have made my algorithm

Speaker 2 into a national treasure. Yes, you've been working on that.
Toil and trouble, through blood, sweat, and tears, many long nights of anxiety. I have made my algorithm something to behold.
Many,

Speaker 2 yes, many nipples later, I have my algorithm right in the sweet spot, or as Christina loves me to say, on fleek.

Speaker 2 Now,

Speaker 2 I don't want it to be fooled around with by Zuck Zuck, Zuck Cuck, and his friends over there at Meta. And I don't give a shit if he hears this.
He doesn't because he lives in a plastic bubble.

Speaker 2 People roll him around on his private yachts or jets or whatever.

Speaker 2 I just, that just seems like a really boner move to me. Don't do that, dude.
Don't do that. Keep your fingers out of the pie.
How's that? Don't seem so oblivious. I know.
That's been in the pie.

Speaker 2 I know. Always a part of the pie.
What's that new one, Blue Sky or Blue Sky? I'm going to get on that. Blue Sky's Sky's good.
Blue Sky is good. And there's only like six people over there right now.

Speaker 2 So you can probably get a following.

Speaker 2 That's only like six people. I have a Blue Sky account.
I got a Blue Sky account. I think I got one for the commercial break.
Yeah, it's like it's Twitter, basically, is what it is.

Speaker 2 But it's, you know, supposedly the better Twitter, like not as ruckus as Twitter has become. Because Twitter's, I mean, Twitter's always been kind of like a rough place to be.

Speaker 2 If you're going to get in those waters,

Speaker 2 you really got to know what you're doing. Yeah.
You got to have a very thick skin. And it's been that way long before Elon Musk took over, just to be clear about that.

Speaker 2 But there was some semblance of like reciprocity or, you know, it seemed like there was an even hand somewhere over there at Twitter when before Elon owned it.

Speaker 2 Now, now it's just like it's literally the Wild West. So, and I don't want to bash on everything that, you know, Trump does or Elon does or JD does or whatever.

Speaker 2 I don't care about that part.

Speaker 2 I'm not going to talk about that part, but I do not care for these billionaires getting so close to the seat of power and apparently it feels like they're buying the seed of power, feels like they're buying into a clear path to do whatever the fuck they want, whenever the fuck they want it.

Speaker 2 And I do believe that there needs to be some checks in place. I believe in your right to be a billionaire.
I really do. I'd love to be one.
I'd like to be a billionaire.

Speaker 2 It'll take another 6,020 episodes of the commercial break before we even get to 100,000 there. But just know this, I will also fight for your right to be a billionaire, but there needs to be some

Speaker 2 there needs to be some, like just like guardrails, you know what I'm saying? Like don't be so obviously bending over with your ready to have your bell rung by, you know, everybody in power.

Speaker 2 It's just so fucking funny. I didn't watch the inauguration, but apparently they were all, I guess, right there up front, like even closer than some other people.
Oh, Chrissy, they had box seats.

Speaker 2 And I'm sure that those box seats were sold to them by somebody.

Speaker 2 But don't worry, you can use Melania coin to buy a Melania coin.

Speaker 2 Oh, I was talking to Astron about this, or the preacher who was up there giving the whole sermon, you know, the kind of this sermon that was much ballyhooed online.

Speaker 2 He went right off stage into the backstage area and then announced his own altcoin too, because, you know, we should all prosper under the Lord or some shit like that. I mean, it's unbelievable.
know.

Speaker 2 The grift is unbelievable. It's really crazy.
The grift is on. Everyone's got their hands in the piggy bank.
These meme coins do nothing but just make other people rich. It's just unbelievable.

Speaker 2 And there's a sucker born every minute, I suppose. I told Astrid, I think we should have a TCB coin.
We should have a TCB coin so that we can get in on the action. What are we doing?

Speaker 2 What are we doing? We're sitting around here like idiots working for a living. I know.
Do you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 Why are we doing that? I don't know, Chrissy. I don't know.
Well, I did see that some of the crypto currency pioneers or people that are high up in it were mad because

Speaker 2 the Trump and Melania coins because it just

Speaker 2 does not lend legitimacy.

Speaker 2 It bastardizes the whole thing. And a meme coin has very little, if any, utility whatsoever.
You cannot walk into Kroger and spend your Melania coin on milk. Okay.

Speaker 2 It does not take it anywhere. It's simply a vehicle.
It's a pump and dump scheme. That's it.
Let's call it like we see it. And all meme coins really are at the end of the day.

Speaker 2 Some of them have some utility, but really, no, they don't have any utility. And so people who get in at the beginning, who make these, who hold on to a large portion of it, they control the price.

Speaker 2 And when the coin gets released or it gets really high or they pump it, then they dump it.

Speaker 2 And everybody else is left holding the bag, hoping that one more idiot behind them is going to come in willing to buy it at a higher price than they bought it.

Speaker 2 But people always get left holding the bag, always.

Speaker 2 And when the people who make the laws, who make sure that people don't get left holding the bag, are in fact holding the bag, what do you do? Nothing. I don't know.
I don't know. It's sad to me.

Speaker 2 It's just sad to me. And there are millions.

Speaker 2 I was looking the other day, like that Melania coin had $53 billion worth of transactions happen in a 24-hour period. $53 billion.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 whose money is that buying buying and selling buying and selling

Speaker 2 buying and selling

Speaker 2 if i was smart i would have bought you know what i'm saying if i was smart i would have bought maybe i'm just mad because i didn't buy any maybe i'm just mad because i didn't make any money on the lania coin

Speaker 2 i'm just jealous yeah where's the biden coin i'm waiting for it i'm waiting for it i'm waiting for the joe coin

Speaker 2 joe coin i'm waiting for joe coin to drop i don't know there's got to be a you know

Speaker 2 kamala coin buy the kamala coin It's all coming. They're all going to go the same way.
It's all happening. I'm telling you, I see this coming down the tracks.

Speaker 2 The liberals protest right now, but they're soon going to be willing to get into bed also with the billionaires and the oligarchs to make themselves personally enriched.

Speaker 2 And none of us are going to have representation anywhere. Be careful what you ask for.
It will appear.

Speaker 3 They're all doing that already with stocks.

Speaker 2 Well, they've been doing that for thousands of years, right? It'll be Nancy Pelosi. She'll be the first one.

Speaker 2 Listen, absolutely.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. It's been shenanigans going on for years, and the Democrats are just as guilty as anybody.
They're all in cahoots. They're all doing it.

Speaker 2 You think they go sit up there and work together because they really enjoy doing the work of the people? Sure. I'm sure a few of them do.
True servants of this country.

Speaker 2 Yes, the John McCains of the world and stuff like that. The people who give a fucking shit.

Speaker 2 But there's this whole other side of life where you can be fabulously rich if we could just pull a few strings here and push a few buttons there.

Speaker 2 And insider trading 101 here, let me give you that class. I'm sure they get that the second they become a senator or whatever.
And

Speaker 2 then

Speaker 2 we all are here voting them in term after term after term after term after term. And they're making the laws that push the buttons and make the power and make themselves more rich.

Speaker 2 And now it's out in the open. There's no more hiding anymore.

Speaker 2 It's out in the open. And all of them are guilty of it, or most of them are guilty of it.
And we are all going to suffer because already we have,

Speaker 2 you know, whatever.

Speaker 2 I know.

Speaker 2 No, I, I, I, I, honestly, honestly, I just had to say something. I just like my top just popped.
I haven't watched news in first in forever. I know.

Speaker 2 But when I started reading about Melania coin and then I got follow and then I'm following people I never followed, I just, it just made me incensed. It really did.
It made me incensed.

Speaker 2 And so next week, we're going to have a very special guest come on the show. And for one day, you guys are going to have to suffer through talk about politics.

Speaker 2 Do you hear me?

Speaker 2 The break is over. The break is over.
The commercial break has broken. You've done broke the commercial break.
How do you feel about that, Mark Zuckerberg? Fuck you. We'll be back.

Speaker 3 If you were wondering, obviously you were, yes, we did finally surpass 5,000 followers. But now here we are, thirsty for more.
So follow us.

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Speaker 3 And if social media isn't for you, just go to our website tcbpodcast.com because everything we have ever done lives right there.

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Speaker 2 All right, and we're back. Brian had to take a couple of minutes, go outside, spin around three times, take a deep breath, look at my children.
Say, everything's going to be all right, Brian.

Speaker 2 Everything's going to be all right.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 back in the day,

Speaker 2 now I think because of the internet and media and the way that we have to get involved in everybody's life.

Speaker 2 Back in the day,

Speaker 2 we used to have to run to the corner grocery store, talk to grandma about who is fucking who. Now you just look at that TMT.

Speaker 2 Back in the day.

Speaker 2 Did you mean TMZ? No, I meant TMT. Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 TMT. I don't know, but I just made it up.
But I mean, I don't know who grandma is or who the corner grocery store is either. I was going somewhere in my mind.

Speaker 2 Okay, I'm following. It just didn't.

Speaker 2 I had to stop

Speaker 2 because I didn't want to completely derail the show, as I'm doing right now. Okay.
So Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous was probably

Speaker 2 our first rich porn. Right.
I think this. I remember growing up with

Speaker 2 the 80s were kind of like it is today. Money and greed above above all else.
Yes, everyone's screwing everybody else. As long as I got mine, greed is good.

Speaker 2 And that was literally the vibe for some period of the 80s. And people were doing very well.
There was a lot of money flowing around.

Speaker 2 Wall Street was really taking off as a place where you could make your money. And there were a lot of people,

Speaker 2 that money, that kind of that hedge fund money, savings and loan money, it filtered down. And everyone felt good.

Speaker 2 They had an attitude, an air that they too could be rich someday if they just got this real estate course from the late night TV. Yes.
Like Brian did.

Speaker 2 Like Brian got his dad to pay for it.

Speaker 2 But I would say that Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, the show that aired from about 84 to 95, starring Robin Leach, produced by Robin Leach,

Speaker 2 was our first rich porn, where we were really gawking at people who had fabulous amounts of money and hoping that's a beautiful. You were getting an inside look.

Speaker 2 You were getting inside look at what it was like to fly a private plane or be inside of a mansion. Yeah.
It wasn't, Instagram wasn't showing this to us every other reel. Right.

Speaker 2 As some dip shit, you know, some 13-year-old in Colorado paid $100 to a pilot of a private plane to make it pretend and seem like he had a Lear jet. Do you know what I'm saying? Yes.

Speaker 2 We didn't have all of this.

Speaker 2 That's all the way I can say it, money porn that goes around today.

Speaker 2 And so that, but that show was fascinating. It was.
It got me just like it got everybody else. And I was very young when this first came on, but I remember it for a good chunk of my adolescence.

Speaker 2 Me too.

Speaker 2 And I loved it. I loved it when it came on.
The story is that Robin Leach had this idea to do this television show to showcase some of his friends' fabulous wealth, but no one would bite.

Speaker 2 There was no company that would bite. So Robin paid to have these shows produced at first on his own.
And then I think he continued to do that. And he would syndicate it on whatever television.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it was all over the place. It was all over the place.
You would see it in the mornings. You would see it in the afternoons.
It'd be on late-night television. It ran a lot.

Speaker 2 And there were many episodes, I think. I think they ended up doing like 180 episodes or something.

Speaker 2 So I thought, after my little, you know, diatribe on segment number one, that it was only fair to, I think, go back to the beginning when we all started looking at these rich people as

Speaker 2 status icons, so to speak. Let's look at some rich porn from the 1980s, kids.
We're going all the way back. I was trolling on the internet,

Speaker 2 as I oftentimes do.

Speaker 2 And guess what I found?

Speaker 5 Get ready for another incredible lifestyle, your VIP journey into the lives and loves of today's winners who really know how to enjoy the great things of life.

Speaker 2 Oh, look at that.

Speaker 2 Sexy fashion models, large pools, breasts of breasting.

Speaker 2 Helicopters. Ooh, helicopters.
I love helicopters. Nothing like a helicopter shot to

Speaker 2 get your morning wood going. That is the Breakers Resort in Miami, by the way.
I know that because I one time saw a picture of it.

Speaker 2 Oh, Polo.

Speaker 2 Polo. We know how I feel about Polo.
Okay.

Speaker 2 Yachting. Sailing.
Sailing.

Speaker 2 Gaudy Gold Tables.

Speaker 2 Oh. Oh.

Speaker 2 It's like a model tea.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we're watching the intro. And by the way, this is one of the, this is like season number one or two or something.
So this is one of the older episodes. It's a model tea.
It is.

Speaker 2 I think it's a model tea. I think it's a Rolls, but it's a lot of fun.
It's a Rolls Royce. It's a fancy.

Speaker 6 Host is Robin Leach, who circles the world to bring home the stories people will never see.

Speaker 2 What a fun job. Good for Robin.
What a fun job. And I think he was like kind of like a nobody television producer before that.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 I saw one time I saw a documentary about Robin Leach, but they don't show those anymore because I don't think, you know, he didn't really live on. And people of our age know about him.
Right.

Speaker 2 But it's not like Robin Leach went on to be super famous. He did this show and that's what he was known for.
And he hosted a couple of other things. I think he did a game show.

Speaker 2 But so, this guy pretty much glommed on to everybody else that was rich. He would just visit their house and take a camera.
Yeah, people love showing off how much money was.

Speaker 2 It was like the what was the MTV? MTV Cribs. The Cribs.
Yeah, it was like Cribs before Cribs.

Speaker 2 On this glittering. Cribs before Cribs.

Speaker 2 Lifestyles before Lifestyles.

Speaker 2 Utah Trad wife before Utah Trad wife.

Speaker 5 Big Ben chimes to a whole new beat now. Debbie Gibson is a Londoner.
America's Songbird inspires a retro response to the family.

Speaker 2 Debbie Gibson on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Now, my ears are perked.
Yes?

Speaker 5 In my old hometown by juggling two careers.

Speaker 5 There's a new big wheel on the River of Dreams. The captain of the ship is Merv Griffin.

Speaker 2 Oh, Merv Griffin. Wow.
Merv Griffin made every game show you ever watched. Yeah.
And still. It still is around.
Yeah, it's still around.

Speaker 2 That's a Jeopardy, right? Wheel of of Fortune. Wheel of Fortune? Yeah.

Speaker 5 What is Lady Luck? Hit the jackpot on his grand

Speaker 2 floating casino. What do you want?

Speaker 2 Is that his real first name? Merv? Merv? Yeah, it's baby Merv. Yeah, what's Merv? Did somebody name their baby Perv? Merv the Perv.
That's what they used to call him back in the day.

Speaker 2 This is 1984, and he looks 90 there. I know.
And didn't he live till like just a couple years ago?

Speaker 2 I think so. He was like 107 when he died.
People, again, they just looked older back then. They did.
I think Robert B. Mervin is the name.
Mervin.

Speaker 3 Mervyn. M-E-R-V-Y-N.

Speaker 2 Mervyn B. Perven.

Speaker 2 Mervin stays pervin. Mervyn stays pervin.

Speaker 5 A Brazilian bombshell has landed on children's television.

Speaker 2 Meet Shusha. The 100 million.
Shusha. Ah, good old Shusha.
A Brazilian bombshell has landed on children's television.

Speaker 2 Okay, you don't hear that every day. We've hyper-sexualized half of Australia.
With these beautiful breasts, you can't go wrong. The kids will be sucking at the TTs of Shasha.

Speaker 5 Can Satino Spitfire pull it off? You be the job.

Speaker 2 Slaughter Sesame Street. Wow, do you think she sat around in meetings and was like, we're going to slaughter Sesame Street?

Speaker 5 The other life of entertainment tonight's John Tash.

Speaker 2 Get to know the best. Wow, first of all, what I have to remember about these television shows from the 80s and 90s is they had extraordinarily long intros.

Speaker 2 We're already seven minutes into the show, and we haven't seen one bit of content.

Speaker 2 Yeah, by the way, John Tesh is one of the most successful musicians that ever lived, and that's a fact that befuddles me to this day. Really? He sold like 180 million albums or something.

Speaker 2 It's insane.

Speaker 5 Oh, diggity dog, you're not going to believe the platinum lives of Pampered Pets. Creature Comfort takes on new meaning for the four-legged friends of the stars.
Enter their world of luxury unlimited.

Speaker 5 The doting owners

Speaker 5 deep into their pockets to lavish multi-million dollars.

Speaker 2 How much stuff can you fit into an hour-long television show?

Speaker 5 Jewelry, spas, fashions, and parties. A dog life, don't you believe it?

Speaker 5 These amazing stories, and even more when lifestyles returns in a moment.

Speaker 2 Stay with us. Returns in a moment, yeah, because we're just an intro for ever.

Speaker 5 Guess who we found in London Town?

Speaker 5 America's teen idol Debbie Gibson grew up to conquer a whole new continent she even inspired a retro rock fashion craze from Bermansey to Bethnal Green by starring in the English production of a classic American musical

Speaker 5 Between eight shows of Greece each week, she also found time to explore the rockingest little city of Europe.

Speaker 2 She also found time to be a normal person, walking into stores with cameras all around her.

Speaker 7 I remember going to Covent Garden on a day off from rehearsal and walking around. And what amazed me in general about London, especially that area, is how people are just all out in the streets.

Speaker 7 It's kind of like the equivalent of the story.

Speaker 2 What amazes me is that there's people on the streets, Debbie. And now she's juggling.
Debbie, that's one of the dumber things I've heard said. There were people on the streets.

Speaker 2 I know, now she's juggling. Well, she's got talent.
Debbie Gibson, by far, was my favorite teen pop star chick for sure.

Speaker 2 Yes. Who was the other one?

Speaker 2 Tiffany.

Speaker 2 It was Tiffany and Debbie and then the two and the argument between the two, I would go Debbie all day week. Debbie, Debbie, Debbie.
Debbie,

Speaker 5 New York, only it's more central. Debbie's first surprise?

Speaker 2 Penis is in Italy.

Speaker 5 Language and cultural parallels, it is most definitely Europe. She also discovered that, like Rome, London wasn't built in a day either.

Speaker 6 There seems to be

Speaker 7 a lot of culture here. I mean, this is probably what every American says, and I'm going to sound really redundant right now, but

Speaker 7 there's so much history around. Not every building is shiny and new, but you could drive through in a cab, and there's history about everything to be told.

Speaker 2 It's nice. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Let's get to the good stuff.

Speaker 2 Show me what you're driving. Yeah, I love that blossom hat, by the way, she's got on.

Speaker 2 So 1984.

Speaker 5 Except, you gotta do something about the weather.

Speaker 7 Summer was like last Wednesday, and that was it.

Speaker 5 You're right, and that's why I moved to America. Taking a rain check on tourist hotels, Debbie checked into an elegant address that's a favorite for discerning visitors who stay for a while.

Speaker 7 The place I'm staying at was an old house, apparently, so it doesn't have that impersonal hotel feel.

Speaker 7 Instead, I feel like I'm in a house that happens to have room service and maid service, and being instead the water's cold and it smells like rat rat shit.

Speaker 7 I can't cook and I'm a slob.

Speaker 7 That is very helpful.

Speaker 2 I love what I get waited on.

Speaker 2 Engine.

Speaker 5 With a spacious suite doubling as an office, the dynamo and her manager mom work double time for a new generation of British fans.

Speaker 2 Look at that laptop computer back there. That is high polluting for 1984.
Yeah, it was. You do not find a laptop

Speaker 2 I promise you that had the memory, the same kind of memory as Christina's computer. That was like 1.2K.

Speaker 5 Between shows, she composed new music for an hour.

Speaker 2 I'm getting her a new one. Stop texting me.
I hear you already. I can hear you pounding away on that keyboard.

Speaker 5 To be released when she returns stateside. Her core Blimey Limey fans were amazed to learn that Debbie's written more than a thousand songs.

Speaker 2 Whoa, she wrote a thousand songs? And what's Blimey Limey? I don't know. I don't know either.
Yeah, Blimey Limey. I think I was post-blimey limey.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 You have to be a real Debbie Gibson fan to know what Blimey Limey is.

Speaker 7 I don't think I could really choose a favorite as far as recording and doing concerts and doing theater goes because they're both very different.

Speaker 7 Theater is a very different thing from, let's say, recording in the sense that the producers are.

Speaker 2 In the sense that there's people out there,

Speaker 2 show me the actual yachts.

Speaker 2 Shit, I don't want to hear about your recording. I don't care.

Speaker 7 The director, everyone has to be confident that you can get out there eight times a week.

Speaker 5 Though immortalized on film, Debbie had no hesitation about reprising her character on stage.

Speaker 2 Reprising. Reprising.
Reprising. Get it together, Robin.

Speaker 7 Sandy, since I was, you know, like eight years old and saw the film, I was just dying to do a West End show.

Speaker 2 So I remember this being a show that showed you all the glitz and glamour. And what this really is, is one big promotional tool to her tool for her off-Broadway show, Grease.

Speaker 2 What's that? No, we'll keep on rolling with it. Why not? Hey, listen, this episode couldn't get any worse than my grandstanding in segment one.

Speaker 7 So to be a part of that, it's just like being a part of history. It's unbelievable.
I think people will always love the 50s era. The upbeat kind of feel that Greece has, I think, is timeless.

Speaker 2 People do like Greece.

Speaker 2 People do love that grease. Do you like Grease? I like Grease.
Do you like Grease?

Speaker 2 Jeez. Something wrong with you, people.

Speaker 2 Rocks in your socks or something.

Speaker 5 Triumphant return to her mega million dollar mansion in one of the big apples.

Speaker 2 Here we go.

Speaker 2 20 bedroom.

Speaker 2 18. She was 18 years old.
Did he say 20,000 square foot house? 20,000 square foot house?

Speaker 2 That's

Speaker 2 32 of these houses.

Speaker 2 Square foot home.

Speaker 5 The house that hits built is sweet sanctuary for the girl who was destined for stardom.

Speaker 5 Picking out songs at age two, she quickly learned to play five instruments and was performing publicly by age 13. Wow.

Speaker 5 Her meteoric rise was so swift that only as an American songbird in London was she truly able to take stock of her accomplishments.

Speaker 5 Over there, Debbie looked around at a new triumph in a new land, and she liked what she saw.

Speaker 2 No time for a munchie, and I look at the radio.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 This This is one big fluff piece. Speaking of PR.

Speaker 7 And I go, I'm Jane Grease in London.

Speaker 2 This is how Robin got himself invited to all these places is because everybody knew he was just going to do one big f ⁇ ing jack-me-off session. Yeah.
The website. Exactly.

Speaker 7 I'm enjoying my personal life, my professional life. Yeah, and I do kind of go, is this really happening? You know, because it's just...

Speaker 7 It's one of those times in my life where I feel like I'm exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to be doing around the people I want to be around.

Speaker 7 Which doesn't come together that often in life, you know. So, when it does, it's like really.

Speaker 2 Oh, I don't know. Look at any Instagram of any influencer, and it seems like everything is going swimmingly for them also.
Yeah, it comes right together.

Speaker 7 Appreciate it and enjoy it.

Speaker 2 Debbie,

Speaker 2 good for you. Next.
Okay, move on to the next one. We've shown one shot of her house.
That's not the lifestyle for the rich and famous. That's Debbie Gibbs.
Buy tickets here.

Speaker 2 Shame on you, Robin. I remember this show being much better.

Speaker 6 If relocating's on your mind, look no further than the foothills of northern Georgia.

Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 2 I remember this. Beaver Dam Farms.
Beaver Dam Farms. Huh.
I think that went out of business. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I don't know what Beaver Dam Farms is.

Speaker 2 Beaver, Georgia. Do you see it? Is it still there, Christina? I mean, clearly, there's like a multi-million dollar house sitting there.
Hold up, hold up, hold up. This is a real estate agency.

Speaker 3 So Beaver Dam Farms. Oh, no, 900 plus acres of pure resort perfection.
Let's see.

Speaker 3 Oh, just outside of Athens, up for auction in 2016.

Speaker 2 Okay. All right.
Well, I don't know. Didn't all work out.
Beaver took a second.

Speaker 3 It'll go for auction on the 16th of

Speaker 3 2016. Estimated replacement costs between 30 and 40 million to be sold to the highest bidder at or above 3.5 million.

Speaker 2 Now, that's drama. Wow, that is $3.5 million for how many acres? Man, I wish it was.
$900 plus. Yeah, if I only would have known as a six-year-old boy watching this episode, it does look beautiful.

Speaker 3 But golf courses are famously hard to maintain.

Speaker 2 They're money-paced. Is this a black

Speaker 2 environment? This is somebody's private

Speaker 2 abode. Oh, no.

Speaker 2 You wouldn't stay there. Yeah, and there's a number of people here in Georgia.
And I knew one. Guy's name was Harrison.
He was a lovely real estate developer. And he had this dream.
One last hurrah.

Speaker 2 He would develop like, he helped develop like Sun City West out in Phoenix. Okay.
So he's like a true real estate developer. Who knows what the fuck he's doing? Master plan communities.

Speaker 2 And he bought a bunch of land down south of the airport to do this huge resort with houses and restaurants and hotels and blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, 17 square miles or whatever.

Speaker 2 It was going to be, he's going to make his own city, his own Disney World. He's going to have rides and all this other.
Here? Yes, here.

Speaker 2 And this guy couldn't, he couldn't get two nickels to rub together to make this happen because everyone's like, you're a dumb, who the fuck is going to come out here to go to your resort when there's nothing to do here like there's nothing to do who's going to be the first one to come down here and essentially he was he built his own house there and he was lonely because he was the only guy that living down there but now i remember why there's a commercial inside of this go ahead sorry um i'm just reading it uh formerly was the estate of kenny rogers oh kenny rogers and then

Speaker 3 it sold to a buyer in texas and then they used it as a private family retreat and home for a few years which is crazy and then it was later sold to a land corporation a land corporation yeah

Speaker 2 yeah meaning meaning the hedge fund who then bought this for $3.5 million. The reason why there's a commercial inside of this is because he was funding this all himself.

Speaker 2 So he would embed commercials into the show. Smart.
Smart thinking, Lincoln.

Speaker 6 Beaver Dam Farm is an old sweet song of Kenny Rogers, a 350-acre spread he designed and lovingly built with his country music millions.

Speaker 6 Like no other working farm, it's a masterful balance of practical luxury of shadows and light beneath soaring ceilings. There's a 3,000 square foot master.

Speaker 2 This must have been one of the very first seasons. Island industry.

Speaker 2 That is what we are. Lots of cocaine, and I'm at the bar.
Suite, professional kitchen, and movie star pool just for openers.

Speaker 6 The property also contains the world's largest privately owned horse barn.

Speaker 2 Can you customize all 72,000 horses of blue ribbon design from marble entrance to brass rail water? Wow, it's quite impressive. It is huge.
Now, this is Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

Speaker 2 This was owned by Kenny Rogers, owned and built by Kenny, and just a few short steps away, Chrissy. We didn't even know.

Speaker 6 Celebrity visitors, a five-bedroom guest house with every imaginable luxury, elegant salon, fully equipped.

Speaker 2 Geez, if someone gave me that guest room in their house, five-bedroom.

Speaker 2 Unbelievable. Guest house.
Guest house.

Speaker 6 Gymnasium and bar.

Speaker 2 Let's not. Look at that.
There is like a cheers-sized bar in that guest house. In the guest house, yeah.

Speaker 6 At the Par 72 18-hole golf course,

Speaker 6 branded off to draw headliner pals to the Peach State just to play a few

Speaker 6 of them.

Speaker 6 A hard drive from the green, you'll find a regulation-sized tennis court where visiting Hollywood chums came to work on their backhand.

Speaker 2 Is that what that was? Is that Willie Harrelson? It was. Wow.

Speaker 2 Okay, this is the lifestyle of the rich and famous. The guy's got an infinity pool, an 18-hole golf course, the world's largest horse barn, all right there in the luxury of his own backyard.

Speaker 2 That's what I'm talking about. Kenny Rogers is rich.
Debbie Gibson is paying the mortgage.

Speaker 6 Kenny's favorite spot? A gazebo by the lake, where he and his son spent lazy afternoons playing hookie.

Speaker 2 Now the clay.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 a helicopter landing on your backyard.

Speaker 6 It's moving on, and Beaver Dam Farm is on the market. Yours for $13

Speaker 2 13 million bucks. That was a deal back then.
Right. In 1984, that's probably the equivalent of

Speaker 2 1 million Melania coin.

Speaker 2 Directly ahead. One man.

Speaker 2 Okay, we're going to check out Merv Griffin's river boat. Steamboat.
Steamboat. Gambling boat.
Merv Griffin was into a lot of shit, huh? He's probably into SM, too. But that's just my interpretation.

Speaker 2 No offense to the Griffin family. With a name like Merv.

Speaker 2 If you want me to host one of of your gigs, if Ryan Seacrest should keel over at any point, you need me to do that Wheel of Fortune gig, I think I could do that.

Speaker 2 I was telling my son, who loves the Wheel of Fortune, I said, son, I could be the host of The Wheel of Fortune. And he said, I think I like Ryan better.

Speaker 2 That's what he said.

Speaker 2 Well, that's just the first in a long line of disappointing things you'll say to me, son. And this isn't good.
This is one of them. We'll be back.

Speaker 3 One of my New Year's resolutions is to hear more of other people's drama. So help a girl out and tell us your drama at 212-433-3822.

Speaker 3 You can text it, or if it's extra juicy, leave us a voicemail with the full story. And don't forget to follow us on Instagram at thecommercial break and on TikTok at TCB Podcast.

Speaker 3 And watch our video episodes at youtube.com slash the commercial break. But also, you can find everything I just mentioned and more on our website, tcbpodcast.com.

Speaker 3 Okay, let's listen to our sponsors and send us your drama.

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Speaker 2 All right, and we're back with the lifestyles of the rich and famous. We just saw Kenny Rogers trying to unload his amazing resort.
That thing was amazing. I mean,

Speaker 2 $13 million.

Speaker 2 It was huge. It was huge.
What did they say? They said it was like 900 acres or something. $1,000 million.

Speaker 3 Over 900 acres.

Speaker 2 900 acres in between Atlanta and Athens.

Speaker 2 That has got to be worth some money now. Some hedge fund made a killing on that.
All right, let's see what Merv Griffin is up to. He's the guy who started all the game shows you love.

Speaker 5 Big a million dollar gamble. Mighty mogul Merv Griffin goes for rope with a little help from a comedy.

Speaker 2 He does look like a jolly old man, doesn't he? He does.

Speaker 2 He's filthy rich. He's filthy rich.

Speaker 5 Hook superhero. Stay with us.

Speaker 2 Bank, bang, bang, bang, bank.

Speaker 5 Call Merv Griffin, Mr. Entertainment with the Midas Touch.
The super showman turned Mighty Mogul says his secret of big business success is is all down to an attitude.

Speaker 6 Well, I still have that wonderful optimism about

Speaker 6 life.

Speaker 6 I live by the philosophy that there were two stone cutters.

Speaker 2 I live by the philosophy that there's two young men, two young chiseled stone cutters.

Speaker 6 And they said to them, what do you do? And one of them says, well, I cut stones and I make blocks. And the other one said, I'm on a team that's building a beautiful cathedral.

Speaker 6 I like the second one.

Speaker 5 Everybody sings.

Speaker 2 Everybody sings.

Speaker 2 He's getting down on that piano. Everybody gather around Grandpa for one last hurrah.
Your billionaire grandpa. He's seen Vanna White's titties.

Speaker 2 All right, listen to him play a hootie-dooty at the Haddie-Daddy.

Speaker 5 And Erazimataz, an innate savvy that built Merv Griffin Enterprises, an empire captained by someone who's never been afraid of going against the stream.

Speaker 2 Merv, can a... Yeah, I would say of all the things your financial advisor would tell you to get involved in, riverboat gambling, probably not one of them.

Speaker 2 It's worse than a restaurant.

Speaker 5 The joke that he sold himself down the river on his newest gamble.

Speaker 6 Well, riverboats are going to be a thing of the 90s. I mean, there's no question about it.

Speaker 2 All the states are. Oh, yeah, no question about it.
They took off the 90s.

Speaker 2 All I can remember about the 90s was riverboat gambling.

Speaker 6 Gaming, and most of them are naming the fact that they have to be riverboats with the paddle wheel and all.

Speaker 5 A floating palace to Lady Luck. Wales Riverboat Casino boasts three restaurants, entertainment, and a 20,000 square foot gaming floor with room for 1,200 passengers.

Speaker 2 This really is just as an

Speaker 2 advertisement now for him. Yes.

Speaker 2 Now I see just how fragile my young mind was. I always felt like the lifestyles of the rich and famous was a fun show showcasing.
It came about that later. That's what I was saying.

Speaker 2 I think this had to be a really early episode. This is this is an early episode.
It's season one or season two.

Speaker 2 I can't remember which one I pulled, but uh, yeah, just this is just one big commercial for Merv Griffin's riverboat and his big gamble on you know the wave taking the wave of the future, riverboat gambling.

Speaker 5 Bankroll, the $18.5 million ship has every reason to toot his own horse.

Speaker 2 Wait, hold on. It's

Speaker 2 $18.5 million to buy that riverboat ship, and it was only $13 to buy Kenny Rogers,

Speaker 2 world's largest horse barn facility. I would have bought Kenny Rogers.
Yeah.

Speaker 6 That means somebody won a jackpot.

Speaker 5 A speeding bullet. Merv established the Super Casino's corporate headquarters somewhere rather fittingly.
A tiny northern town put on the map by a superhero.

Speaker 6 I guess the name Metropolis came first, I guess, when they were doing the

Speaker 6 strip in the papers of Superman. They took the name of Metropolis.

Speaker 6 The paper here is the planet.

Speaker 2 It's not daily. It's a weekly planet, and they have a statue.
Well, I did not know this about

Speaker 2 Metropolis, Illinois.

Speaker 2 And I do not care. I really don't.
I wonder if they still have that statue there. It's probably

Speaker 2 a Banksy at this point.

Speaker 6 One, but the tourists do cut this tier right in the town square.

Speaker 5 When he's not wheeler-dealing, Merv's having fun. Usually with longtime companion, Ava Gabor, and his family.

Speaker 2 Who's that?

Speaker 5 A world explorer and bon vivant, his favorite travel companion.

Speaker 2 I want to be a bon vivant.

Speaker 2 How do I get to be a bon vivant?

Speaker 2 Brian Green and his longtime co-host and bon vivant, Kirsty Holy,

Speaker 2 sit around and stare at penises as they're slowly revealed behind a curtain. Look, that bon vivant is uncircumcised.

Speaker 2 He's a true bon vivant.

Speaker 2 Bon vivant.

Speaker 2 Fucking elitist.

Speaker 2 Bon vivon. Fuck you.
Bon vivon.

Speaker 5 Sorry, son and daughter-in-law.

Speaker 6 They're a dream couple. They're great fun.
They're fun to travel with. They're fun to be with.
They're fun to be friends with. Other than being.

Speaker 2 And my son-in-law is sucking all my money. She's sucking up all my cash.
Close family.

Speaker 5 It's nice to go to the house.

Speaker 2 Oh, yes. Nothing like that.

Speaker 2 Someone pointed out on the internet the other day, they said shit started to go wrong in this world when sexy saxophone stopped being played in music.

Speaker 2 and he liked, he actually put a timeline together of how the slowly the sexy saxophone went away from music, and slowly things got worse around the world. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 I think he's onto something here, actually. He doesn't love a little slow saxophone.
Listen, sexy saxophone. I used to play the saxophone, of course.
It was one of my first instruments.

Speaker 2 Alto saxophone. I was second chair because Russell was first chair.

Speaker 2 He was much more talented than I was.

Speaker 5 But oh, so nice to come home to a choice of three dream West Coaster dresses.

Speaker 6 my main headquarters is in beverly hills uh i love carmel valley where i i have been for many many years and i have my vineyard there

Speaker 2 well bon vivant

Speaker 2 my vineyard with my bon vivant

Speaker 2 my hoes and poo boys

Speaker 2 my swingy i'm a wild roaming man i'm a bon vivant

Speaker 6 whole spots in the world 1700 feet high on a mesa with the big sur mountains up against me and uh

Speaker 2 he He was living the life.

Speaker 2 Oh, he was. This guy was a billionaire before.
Yeah. He wasn't that.
I don't think he probably would be now a billionaire.

Speaker 2 His company's got to be worth a billion dollars at least. He owns all those rights to all those famous television shows, but he's embedding restaurants into the side of a mountain.

Speaker 2 He's got golf courses everywhere.

Speaker 2 Vineyards? Vineyards, and he's got bon vivants.

Speaker 2 He's eating olives with toothpicks. This guy's really into something.

Speaker 6 I live in the wintertime.

Speaker 2 He's even got a La Quinta hotel.

Speaker 2 La Quinta. La Quinta.

Speaker 6 Everything in that saranche. They're two totally different.

Speaker 2 Well, that's how that's what bon vivants say, Chrissy. They do.
La Quinta. I say La Quinta.

Speaker 6 And I'm really crazy about both of them.

Speaker 5 When the islands call dayo, the follows the trade vinson splash.

Speaker 2 Daio.

Speaker 2 Da-o!

Speaker 2 Dao!

Speaker 2 That's from Betelgeuse, not the islands.

Speaker 5 She's down at a balmy hideaway.

Speaker 6 It's the greatest tonic in the world to come here. And you...
I sleep here.

Speaker 2 I sleep here.

Speaker 2 I sleep here with many people. I sleep here.

Speaker 2 He's got an island in the Bahamas? He's got an island in the Bahamas. I have an island in the Bahamas.

Speaker 2 Couple, Gabriel. Islands in my dreams.

Speaker 6 Steve, I'm very comfortable here.

Speaker 5 He's come a long way from a 50s crooner singing for his supper, risking a steady $125 a week gig. Merv went solo and scored a number one hit.

Speaker 2 What? What?

Speaker 5 He flirted with movies until a chance fill-in as a host spun him into the living rooms of the first television generation.

Speaker 2 That's right.

Speaker 2 He was like the guest host on the Jack Parr show. Then he did the Merv Griffin show.

Speaker 6 The whole world passed through that talk show in those 23 years.

Speaker 2 It was a 23 years. He wasn't.
23 years. He had that show for 23 years.
Wow. Wow.
He was 107 when he died.

Speaker 6 I'll let the audience know what's going to happen next.

Speaker 5 Did you spit that out of your mouth?

Speaker 6 It was part variety. It was part heavy conversation.
It was part everything.

Speaker 2 Yeah, just like an episode of a commercial boy.

Speaker 2 It was all improvised, and that's what I love about it. Don Luis? Or what was his name? Yeah, that is Don Luis.
Don or Dom Deloise. Don DeLoise.
That's right.

Speaker 2 Isn't he like Gallagher? Didn't he have a brother, twin brother that would go around? I don't know.

Speaker 2 Dom Deloise. Dom Deleeze.
Not Don.

Speaker 2 Dom with an M.

Speaker 5 Such flamboyance made his low-key 1986 farewell all the more poignant.

Speaker 6 We will not be right back after this message.

Speaker 2 That's all, folks.

Speaker 2 We will not.

Speaker 2 That's how I am ending the commercial break. Remember this moment, girls, because it might come sooner rather than later.

Speaker 2 When Brian says, we won't, you know, we must say we will say, we won't be right back.

Speaker 5 Behind the scenes, he created and launched the two most successful game shows in television history.

Speaker 2 Still on to this day, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, still extraordinarily popular.

Speaker 6 No game has ever in the past or ever will do what Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy have done.

Speaker 2 I mean, I think he may be right. Yeah, no, he's right about that.
They're the two longest running television shows, aren't they? And then The Simpsons or something? Yeah.

Speaker 5 Those shows.

Speaker 2 Oh, I guess the Tonight Show and 60 Minutes and CBS This Morning

Speaker 2 and BBC World. Okay, there's a lot of other shows.
Sorry, Merv. It didn't work out how you anticipated.

Speaker 6 Revenue's now of a couple of billion dollars.

Speaker 5 In 1986, Coca-Cola made Merv an offer he couldn't refuse $250 million for both shows.

Speaker 2 Oh, Coca-Cola bought it? I'm going to have some fun now.

Speaker 6 There's plenty for my son. You know, he'll never have to worry.
So why not have some fun? And I went out and just started buying things.

Speaker 2 I didn't know Coca-Cola owned the show.

Speaker 2 I had no idea. But it makes sense.
That's

Speaker 5 Merc Spree began with $102 million for a West Coast hotel to which he pumped out.

Speaker 2 Oh, he owns the Beverly Hilton. Wow.
Okay. Chrissy and I are really impressed with Merc Griffin.
He's the kind of billionaire we can fall in love with.

Speaker 3 Well, he is dead.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, yeah.
He's like that old school pedo that knows, you know, just he's kind of bothersome, but he really didn't do anything bad.

Speaker 2 And, you know, he just stepped over a few people's heads to get there and ruined a couple of thousand acres of land and stuff like that. But, you know, they were old.
You could give them a break.

Speaker 2 It was a different time. It was a different time.
Now he owns a Beverly Hill.

Speaker 2 He owned at the Beverly Hill. Now his son does, and his son's probably

Speaker 2 never mind.

Speaker 6 If it's going to be an extension of me, I want to know what's going on in a place, place, and I want input to it. I'm not a passive owner.
I don't want to own things and then sell them.

Speaker 5 His next purchase sparked a bidding war for Atlantic City Casino. Did anywhere Merv beat out Donald Trump?

Speaker 2 Trump? Oh! Oh!

Speaker 6 I don't know if it'll ever be rectified with Donald. I didn't bother at all.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. I'll think Donald.
There's a young Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 Merv Gift Griffin unbothered. by Donald Trump.
Yep.

Speaker 6 While he was running around saying, I want, I want, I want, I want, I was in the back of of the house with my sleeves rolled up, working on projects and getting things done.

Speaker 2 The shaming

Speaker 2 here for it. Wow.

Speaker 2 Trump getting shit. Trump being called out early by four years ago.
That's right.

Speaker 5 Winning bid of $365 million won him Resorts International Casino.

Speaker 2 And more.

Speaker 5 With it came an 80% stake in another moneymaker in the Bahamas. With a roll of the dice, the showman muscled his way onto the cutting edge of big business.

Speaker 5 Yet, despite his mover and shaker status, Merv remains a maverick, a mogul whose eye isn't totally focused on the bottom line.

Speaker 6 Now, some people do it for money. I don't do it for money.
It's very nice, I'm sure, that it comes in. If someone says, what are you worth? I have no idea.

Speaker 6 If somebody said, how much money do you have in the bank? I have no idea.

Speaker 2 Oh, God, God, would that be nice? God bless. Just for one day, I want to wake up and not wonder what's in my bank account.
Do you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 Not wonder how I'm going to pay the bill, not wonder who's going to call me next for money, not wonder any of this, or not worry who's going to call me next for money, not worry about any of that.

Speaker 2 I just want to be Merv for one day. I want to wake up and go, I don't know how much I have in my bank account.
Well, that's true. I don't know how much I have in my bank account.

Speaker 2 I do that, but it's only because I don't want to look. Yeah,

Speaker 2 I do.

Speaker 2 I do ignore my bank account largely because when there's a minus,

Speaker 2 when you open up your app, you just kind of forget about the rest of the numbers.

Speaker 5 Merv Griffin enjoying the fruits of success by spanning the worlds of showbiz and business.

Speaker 2 Wow. Good for Merv.

Speaker 2 I do think I like Merv very much. Merv lived well.
Merv lived well, and the fact that he beat Trump out for a couple of hotels makes me even more joyous on this day of our Lord,

Speaker 2 whatever day it is today.

Speaker 2 Is that important? You have to take that. Okay.
I think someone is calling you. They are.

Speaker 2 Is that who I think it is? Yes. You're kidding me.
No. How long has it been since you've talked to her? A while.
A lot of time. Really?

Speaker 2 Yes. Yeah, she's probably listening to the show going, what are these two fucking morons up to?

Speaker 2 I won't mention who because she might not want to be on this show. But hey, listen, okay, there's the lifestyles of the rich and famous.
We may not revisit that one, but you know, we did it once.

Speaker 2 That's all I got to say. I think if we go to a later.

Speaker 2 Yeah, when it's more like rich porn. Right.

Speaker 3 I can pre-screen for you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it.
And there aren't not every episode is out there on, you know, on the platform

Speaker 2 on the interweb. So, yeah, see if we can find one closer to like 1992 or 93.
And that one, and one of those, I might remember. Like, this, I don't remember.
I'm always too young for all of this.

Speaker 2 But anyway, all right. So, uh, bow to the

Speaker 2 bon viant violence. A bon viant violence.

Speaker 2 A bovino bon viant.

Speaker 2 A bovine fool. Otherwise known as a bon viant.

Speaker 2 Okay, well, that's it. We're back in studio.

Speaker 2 You know, thank you to Astrid for jumping in. Jumping in for joy.
There you go. I do love her dearly.

Speaker 2 I do love her dearly, but I do thank God that you're in this seat six hours a week instead of her.

Speaker 2 She probably does too. Oh, yeah, no, definitely.
Why do you think she... Part of her hates the podcast, the other part likes it.
I'm occupied with something besides talking to her.

Speaker 2 Also, Astrid and I talked about this yesterday about kind of the TikTok and creator economy.

Speaker 2 Some people will text in and they'll say, Love the show. If there's anything I can ever do to help, let me know.
There is something you can do to help, share the show.

Speaker 2 Share it with a friend, share it with a neighbor, share it with a boss you don't intend to be employed

Speaker 2 with for very long. Just send it to someone you don't care about.

Speaker 2 Sharing is caring. And if you can share the show, that's the biggest favor in the world you can do.
Biggest compliment you can pay us. Also, you can follow us on Instagram at the Commercial Break.

Speaker 2 We're posting content there now constantly, it seems like.

Speaker 2 At TCB Podcast on TikTok, I do try and post there as frequently as possible. Though TikTok's another scene altogether, and I just don't get it.
Yeah, I think we have less than 100 followers on.

Speaker 2 Oh, how impressed Roy Wood Jr. must be when he goes to our TikTok and he sees less than 100.
Anyway, 212-433-3823822. 212-433-3TCB.
Questions, comments, concerns, contents, ideas?

Speaker 2 We're taking them all right there. And tcbpodcast.com.
All the audio, all the video. Youtube.com/slash the commercial break for every episode now available on video.

Speaker 2 Chrissy, that's all I can do for now. I think so.
I'll say that I love you. And I love you.
Best to you. Best to you.
And best to you out there in the podcast universe.

Speaker 2 Until next time, Chrissy, and I do say we will say and we must say goodbye.

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