TCB Infomercial: Patton Oswalt

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You know what doesn't age well?

Woke.

It really doesn't.

I'm woke, I think.

But you know what?

I won't be someday, and so will all of you.

Be woke, be open-minded, just don't pat yourself on the back, because that will bite you in the ass.

Because everyone that's getting canceled now for not being woke was woke about something.

They just couldn't keep up with progress.

Progress will always fucking steamroller you.

I'm very pro-trans, very pro-gay marriage, gay rights, and pro-abort.

But now,

no, no.

That's not what I'm saying is that is going to blow up in my face someday.

I'll be doing comedy when I'm 70 and I will let slip something that I won't be able to keep up with I'll be like I don't think people should fuck their clones like boo There'll be some weird like

No wait, I'm pro-transverse fuck you clone hater

On this episode of the commercial break

Martin Luther King was the guy thinking on a 4d chess level and trying to actually bridge the gap and bring peace and bring people together and j edgar hoover was the guy writing him letters going you should kill yourself like that is not a a diabolical evil genius that is a panicky imperfect insufficient human being bumping up against an elevated soul and consciousness and his only response is you should you should kill yourself yeah like like that's when you actually look at the the real conspiracies uh the people that were pulling them off were not masterminds at all.

At all.

They were terrified.

The next episode of the Commercial Break starts now.

The 30 of the morning!

Oh, yes, cats and kittens.

Welcome back to the commercial break.

I'm Brian Green.

This is my dear friend and the co-host of this show, Chris and Joy.

Holy best to you, Chris and

the best to you out there in the podcast universe.

Thanks for joining us on a TCB Infomercial Tuesday, as we are very excited to present to you after this long Labor Day weekend,

the king of all media.

And not Howard Stern, Patton Oswalt.

I am very excited about this one.

I'm feeling a little tickle in my pickle.

I know.

A little wiggle in my giggle.

I'm a little nervous.

I am a little nervous, actually, if I'm being honest.

Because I've loved him from afar for so long.

He's been in so many things.

They are hard to name, even in an hour of the commercial break.

So I'll just go through a few of my own personal favorites.

The fan, the movie that he did by the same guy who wrote The Wrestler about the Giants fan who lives in his parents' house.

It's an amazing turn for Patton, and he does, I mean, it's one of the best acted films of all time, I think.

And Patton is the main character in that.

Let us not forget that Patton also took many turns in the incredibly funny situational comedy, the mockumentary known as Reno 911.

Yes.

He was always good in Reno 911.

When he showed up in Reno 911, he was a steen sealer, scene stealer for sure.

He was in

the voice of Remy.

The voice of Remy and Ratatouille.

One of the household favorites here.

As a matter of fact, I'll share this with him also.

When I told my kids that Remy may be coming on the show,

it was just pure joy, pure joy.

And they asked if they could talk to Remy.

And I said, I don't think it works that way.

You're going to be disappointed if you talk to Remy because it won't be Remy.

Also,

I think we forget, we easily forget that Patton for many years, the voice of Adam Goldberg in the Goldbergs.

Yes.

Remember that?

And although

he shows up on camera, does he ever show up on camera on the show?

I don't remember that happening.

But he is the voice that you will remember from the Goldbergs.

And stand-up, I mean, he's been doing stand-up for years and years and years.

Pod.

So funny.

Sci-fi.

Yeah, he's a big sci-fi fan.

Improv comedy.

Comedy bang-bang.

I mean, the guy is just...

He's everywhere.

He's a writer, actor, comedian, all of it.

Producer.

Select producer, everything.

Yeah.

Patton Oswald is one of our favorites, and we're so grateful to have him here today

in, well, not in our studio, but on our TV.

It's the same.

It's the same thing.

The magic of telepoding.

The magic of telepodcasting.

You know how it goes.

But first, we must address the rumors, which are true.

In fact,

I've gotten engaged to Taylor Swift.

That's correct.

Me and Taylor, Taylor and I,

we're going to get married.

Go into the chapel and there.

She may be surprised about that.

Well, no, he might be surprised about that.

As we're recording this episode, we're learning that Travis and Taylor have officially done the due.

They are getting engaged.

I can only imagine how many millions of dollars were spent on a ring for Taylor Swift.

What do you think?

It's going to be a big fat ring or an understated size ring?

I don't know.

I could see either way with her.

I could see her wanting the big fat ring.

Yeah, I don't think she's going to go huge.

But then telling Travis to keep it simple, stupid, so that she doesn't.

I think it would be something unique.

That's right.

Something special.

That's right.

But, you know, she's got a merch drop in like 10 days.

And so she's, you know, everyone's going to spend all of their money on a merch, including everyone in this house.

Anyway, that's the big news today is that Travis and Taylor are getting married.

But who cares?

Because Patton Doswald is here.

That's right.

And we shall talk to him about all things, everything.

I mean, as much as we can.

I don't even know where to start.

I know.

I feel like we could

have

a lot of things to talk to.

This could go a lot of different ways.

This could go a lot of different ways.

Let's just hope he stays on for the full allotted time, is all, I think, is the best we can hope for in this circumstance.

So let's do this.

Let's take a break.

And then, through the magic of telepodcasting, Chrissy, Patton Doswald, right here in our studio with us.

And I will fanboy over Remy, Reno, the fan, and all other things.

His whole career.

His whole career.

We'll just.

And he's had so much in the works, too.

We're just going to give him a virtual hand shandy while he's here.

What do you think?

Okay.

Okay.

We'll be back.

Hey, it's Rachel, your new voice of God here on TCB.

And just like you, I'm wondering just how much longer this podcast can continue.

Let's all rejoice that another episode has made it to your ears, and I'll rejoice that my check is in the mail.

Speaking of mail, get your free TCB sticker in the mail by going to tcbpodcast.com and visiting the Contact Us page.

You can also find the entire commercial break library, audio and video, just in case you want to look at Chrissy, at tcbpodcast.com.

Want your voice to be on an episode of the show?

Leave us a message at 212-433-3TCB.

That's 212-433-3822.

Tell us how much you love love us and we'll be sure to let the world know on a future episode.

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That'd be fine, too.

We might not air that, but maybe.

Oh, and if you're shy, that's okay.

Just send a text.

We'll respond.

Now, I'm going to go check the mailbox for payment while you check out our sponsors.

And then we'll return to this episode of the commercial break.

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The inumitable Patton Oswald here with us, Kristen Joy Hoadley.

You will be known for many things, I'm sure, when you're long gone from this ether and on to the next ether.

But in this household, I want you to know that you will live on forever, as many children will probably attest to, as Remy from Ratatouille.

It is one of our favorite movies.

And when I told the kids that the voice of Remy from Maratatui was going to be on the show, it was an explosion of pure joy coming into their face.

Can I talk to Remy?

And I said, well, it's not.

Oh.

Well, tell them thank you.

I'm very flattered.

Yeah, I know.

No, they cannot talk to Remy.

No, you know.

No.

Life is hard.

Life is tough.

We need hard, strong kids, damn it.

That's right.

No.

Toughen up these little shithes.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, it's what a brilliant movie.

And now I cannot think I mean like so many other roles I cannot think of another voice that would have fit Remy better than yours Just indulge me for one second.

I know this is a long time ago.

You've talked about this ad nos right right how

How did you say

how did you get how did you get the role for Remy

The way Brad Bird tells it is he

They were looking for a voice.

They couldn't find one.

He was driving around one night and

he

was, they heard my, they were playing my first album on satellite radio.

I was doing a bit about the Black Angus Steakhouse and he was like, that's the voice.

That's the guy I want.

And he

apparently made a pencil test of

Remy doing that bit and showed it to the Disney people.

And they were like,

is he going to curse like that?

No, no, no, no.

We just.

Listen to the voice.

And then

they brought me in.

And,

you know, I met everyone at Pixar.

I met Brad.

We hung out.

And then we just

clicked.

Yeah, it really clicked.

A brilliant, brilliant turn in that movie.

I was very happy.

Yeah, I can only imagine that.

And the movie did so well, and it's so iconic.

And now there's rides and all that other stuff off of France.

Yeah, I know.

It's weird.

It has this.

Brad Bird just sent me an article from the New York Times about

the,

there's these little magnetic shoulder plushies that's like the new rage I guess you put like a magnet under your shirt and then the thing sits on your shoulder and there's plushies but apparently Remy is by far like the most popular little plushie to have on your shoulder as you walk around the park yeah hey Patton I could walk outside my door and in three seconds I could have two of those sitting on my shoulder because I own two of them

oh yeah yeah I mean there's yeah there's all I mean all the characters now that these because when you read when you think about it Disney a lot of their main protagonists has a little helper on their shoulder, like talking to

cricket, stuff like that.

So, yeah, Remy is

the man.

He's the plushie right now.

He is the plushie.

We went there a couple of months ago down to Florida, and

they're all over the place.

And it's the first thing that the kids, you know, they want that.

I want that.

Can I have that?

How does it sit up there?

And then we got the little magnet.

So for

four days, one of my kids was walking around with that thing on his shoulder, sleeping with it on his shoulder.

Yeah, very adorable.

But I mean, you know, Ratsatoui, one of many iconic roles and

in television and in film that you have played, I think you have been,

I don't want to say lucky because you're very talented, but you really have had a very long and sustained career.

Could you have ever imagined?

Could you have ever imagined?

Luck is a part of showbiz, unfortunately.

It is a part of it.

I have been very, very lucky.

I think maybe the reason my career has gone on so long is I just, I am actually interested in a lot of things and I do get enthusiastic and I like trying new things.

So, I mean, I think if you keep your interest and enthusiasm and you keep the attitude of, I get to do this, rather than, oh, well, I got to do this.

You know, if you're not focused on the rewards and way more focused on, oh, wow, I get to work with creative people.

I think that really sustains a long career.

Yeah, I mean, fair enough.

That was going to be one of my questions.

I think because you are so wide-ranging in your varied roles, I mean, your voice acting, you're podcasting, your stand-up, you're doing movies, but not just one type of role, many types of roles.

Comic books, comic books.

Yeah, I mean, I just, I like doing a lot of different things.

I, I, I have a, I'm, I'm very lucky that I have a lot of creativity to burn, and I want to, um, I want to just, you know, try everything.

I want to try everything.

Why not?

Why not?

Okay, so

I have a question.

We can't find a whole ton of information about it, but we know it exists.

It's out there.

What is the dink?

Yes.

It's an upcoming movie.

I think it comes out later this year on

Apple.

It's about a, it's a, it's a, um, a pickleball comedy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's based on

Jay Johnson and not Jay Josh.

Jake Johnson.

I forget who's

there's a whole lot of Mary Steen Burgen, Jake Johnson,

Ben Stiller's in it, Ed Harris.

It's really, really funny.

And it's based on a true story, it says, based on true events.

Oh, wow.

I guess.

I mean, listen.

Pickleball is the race.

Pickleball and pro stuff.

Yeah, why not?

Yeah.

You also have to understand, listener, is that when Chrissy and I are trying to wrap our heads around having a guest in the studio, one of the things we like to do is like check and see, hey, what's going on?

You know, what are they, what are they up to?

And Patton's list was so long that we could not commit any of it to memory.

Oh, no.

Look at the dude.

Look at the list.

My God, please.

It's, it's feel free.

Yeah, it's unbelievable.

Tell us about the new, um, you've got an Apple audio series that's coming up also.

Black Coffee.

yeah, well, Icewater is that series.

It's not a series, it's it's my next special.

Um, I did it uh, just audio only.

The way they used to put out albums, like Apple is getting Audible is getting back into, like, hey, let's do albums again.

And I jumped at the chance.

I love the idea of doing that.

So, yeah, I was very, very excited.

Yeah, that's fucking awesome.

When is that drop?

That will be out in November.

That will be, I will announce all of that soon on my

Insta and my newly redesigned website.

You'll hear about it everywhere.

All right.

Links in the show now.

Everywhere.

He's got a PR push coming, folks.

A PR push.

Happening.

And you're in Star Trek, you've got a new thing with that, too?

Well, as we're talking, my episode already aired.

But yeah, I got to be on an episode of Strange New Worlds.

And

which was great.

I got to play Vulcan.

So that was amazing.

What?

Yeah.

And and it's uh

it was really interesting because i in my head when i got booked to play a vulcan i'm like oh well i'm going to be in the makeup chair for a couple hours

they apparently they really have it down to a science where you go in and they've got it ready to go and they can get you i i think the years of like nimoy sitting in the chair at desilu getting ready in the early 70s they have now refined that process so it wasn't as long as I thought it would be.

And it was just, it was very fun to play a extremely logical character that does not have emotional highs and lows that is very even that is very you know focused and is tamping down a lot of emotions that was that was really fun to play you so okay so huge star trek fan so i want to ask you a question about this a couple of years ago and i just want your opinion on this a couple of years ago there were a couple of fans and i i got really like into this because i know one of the players used to know one of the players in this particular saga, which was CBS sued some fans for making a fan fiction film that they said was profiting off of the IP of Star Trek, essentially.

It was like a CBS, it was like a Star Trek adjacent show.

It certainly had some of the same themes and it was, you know, in a different universe or whatever it was.

How do you,

where do you stand on the idea of fanfic?

And people.

Wait, wait, wait.

Hey, wait.

Yeah, go ahead.

CBS, you said stewed?

Sued.

Sued.

Okay, sued.

I'm very confused right now.

You literally said stewed.

And I said, I would love.

Yes, I would love

to be read back.

Somebody made a fan fiction.

Sport reporters.

Yes.

Somebody made a fan fiction of Star Trek.

A fan, a film.

A film.

Was it like on YouTube or something?

It went on YouTube.

It went on a website.

The person who created the film, the director and producer of the film,

he raised a bunch of money to make the film.

So he went like a GoFundMe or whatever the, whatever, wherever he got that at.

Right.

So the

reason why they came after him was because they said that he was profiting off of the IP, that he had made the film for specifically to profit off the IP.

And there's some questions about where the money went and how it went.

Essentially, he created his own little studio down here in the south

from some of these funds that came in the door.

So then there was this lawsuit, and it was really, you know, at least in that universe, because I had kind of kept up with it, was a big deal.

There were a lot of people on both sides of the aisle.

I'm just now hearing about that.

I had no idea.

I mean, I thought people made, don't people make

Star Trek, Aliens, Batman,

Predator,

Avengers, fan films constantly?

I mean, I see them all the time on YouTube.

All the time.

But most of them make them in there, I would imagine, right?

In their backyard on the weekend, doing this, is and that's not.

But some of them are really good.

Yeah, I agree with you.

I've seen a couple of them where it's like.

Some of them are very well made and really, really creative.

So I don't know, I don't know enough about the case to comment on it.

I'm just, again, I'm just now hearing about this.

I don't know how, again, I

see so many fan films.

I don't know why, why was this guy sued?

Because they believed that he was...

The

meat and potatoes of the lawsuit is you took the money, you took a bunch of money to make a film, right?

That then you knew you were going to profit off of because he paid himself to make the film.

He paid for his time and then he built a studio with the money that he got for making this movie.

So essentially, CBS

decided this was a bridge too far.

You had taken RIP, you collected a bunch of cash on the back of RIP, and that is something we will not allow.

You cannot make money.

You can make a fan fiction film in your backyard, but you can't make money off of RIP, which, you know, he made money because he paid himself out of the money that was raised.

Correct.

Yeah.

Again,

I don't know the legal intricacies of any of this.

Look at this.

I'm sorry.

I think it's a good idea.

Well, how do you feel about

fan fiction in general?

I'm sure you've had quite some interesting people that have come up to you at some of the some of the things that you've, you know, appeared at.

I mean, yeah, there's been, I don't know if that there's been any remy fan fiction uh but i'm

i know that there i mean didn't um

didn't um uh 50 shades of gray start out as twilight fan fiction yes that's a true story yes and then she turned it into like an uh bdsm narrative but it was twilight fan fiction and um

i mean fan fiction's been with us as long as there's been fiction I mean, you could almost say that the Greek myths were fan fiction.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

You know, they would just keep taking, and in fact, there's this really, oh, God, I cannot remember her name.

She's this really interesting classics professor.

And I listened to one of her courses on CD and she talked about how it's really interesting how the Greek myths were about

heroes who go to the edge of the mapped world, the edge of the known world, and they go beyond that map.

And they fight monsters and they bring back magic items or new technology or medicines to heal.

You know, that's their adventures.

And then fast forward to 1970, there's a show called Star Trek about heroes who go to the edge of the known universe and then go beyond it and they fight monsters and they bring back new technology, new medicines, essentially magic items to help the universe and help mankind.

And she goes, and like back then, the Greek myths, the heroes, the Odysseus and Jason and people like that,

emperors would

like say that, well, I'm, I'm of the, the, um, I'm, I'm of the same lineage as Hercules.

Like, I'm descended from these heroes.

And now in Star Trek, like, Captain Kirk, I think he was born in a certain actual town in America.

Okay.

And they say, birthplace of Captain Kirk.

Like, they link themselves.

to the future of these characters.

Yeah, to that lineage.

So the same, it's the exact same need and impulse that people, that humanity needs, which is that we do have to go into the unknown sometimes and it's scary.

And we hope that there are heroes that can do that and come back and bring things that will heal the world.

That is

super fascinating.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a hamster wheel.

It's a, it's, you know,

I was trying to explain to my son, Disney, the great company, Disney, right?

He said, well, how did Walt Disney come up with the story of Cinderella or Snow White or Sleeping Beauty?

And I said, he stole it.

I mean, honestly, he didn't steal it, but he took a fairy tale that had been around for hundreds of years in some cases and he reimagined it.

He wanted to see it come to life.

Well, I mean, look, the brothers Grimm just traveled the countryside listening to people's stories and then published them as their own.

Fair enough.

They were collectors.

So all that stuff was in the public domain.

But then it is interesting that when Disney started doing original stuff,

it still followed the same pattern of somebody goes beyond the known world, you know, fights monsters, brings back stuff to bring the world together even more.

You could even argue that that's the story of Ratatouille.

He goes beyond what is his known world.

There are these big, scary giants that he has to fight.

He has to convince one of them to help him.

And then he links rats and humans in cooking or something.

I don't know, but like the same story gets told over.

I mean, we could go back to Joseph Campbell's, the hero with a thousand faces, or, you know, the whole test and quest thing.

But yeah, it's just we have this need to tell stories because a lot of times in our own lives, our stories tend to be kind of sloppy or they just kind of end for no reason or there's not any satisfaction.

So why not create a story where we have a satisfactory ending where the evil are punished and the good are lifted up?

Why not?

You know,

who does that hurt?

It doesn't hurt anybody.

And as a matter of fact, I think that it gives us some comfort that everything turns out okay, some hope, some promise, a reason to reach.

You know, I mean, I think a lot of us right now are looking for heroes.

I believe it's why so many people are into religion or conspiracy theories is that they're looking for

they want purpose.

They want it all to make sense.

They want something.

I absolutely think that conspiracy theories come from a fear of, wait, no one's at the controls.

That's it.

They would rather have somebody be at the controls, even if it's for an evil purpose, rather than, no, stuff's just random and no one's in control.

That's terrifying.

So it's so much better to go, oh no, the

9-11 happened because there was a vast,

no,

we were asleep at the wheel and a couple of dudes realized, oh, wait, I can just take box cutters on a plane and then commandeer it.

And like, that's terrifying.

I agree with you 100%.

I think people find solace in that.

They want to know.

They want some measure of making it make sense when a lot of things don't make sense.

Because if the grand conspiracy is we're taking down the cabal of whatever for whoever and he's at the wheel, and then

at least I know, at least I know how this is.

And that makes me feel comfortable.

Now, you know, for what's really also what's kind of interesting is

the conspiracies that have turned out to be true, true, like COINTELPRO and MKUltra,

are ones in which people in power are actually trying to sow more chaos.

When we actually find out the ones that are real, the actual conspiracy theories that are real, it is always the most clumsy, embarrassing, pathetic.

The FBI is keeping files on John Lennon, where they're trying to send poison cigars to Castro.

It's like, oh my God, the people that are in control are in even less control than we thought.

So we imagine the conspiracy theories that haven't been proven that I think are

any conspiracy theory where there is a 4D chess level of thinking by the evil ones, yes, where there's this multiple.

I'm like, that one's fake.

But the ones where they're like, we got to track John Lennon.

That one's probably real.

That's probably, it is, it is fallible, frightened, imperfect people who somehow found themselves at the controls again all the conspiracy theories against um

martin luther king martin luther king was the guy thinking on a 4d chess level and trying to actually bridge the gap and bring peace and bring people together and j edgar hoover was the guy writing him letters going you should kill yourself like that is not a a diabolical evil genius.

That is a panicky, imperfect, insufficient human being bumping up against an elevated soul and consciousness.

And his only response is, you should kill yourself.

Yeah.

Like, like that's, when you actually look at the, the real conspiracies, uh, the people that were pulling them off were not masterminds at all.

At all.

They were terrified.

This is

this is a very

smart point that you're making, which is the people, the conspiracies that like MK Ultra and all this other stuff, these are just small people looking to so chaos terrified and because they don't know what else to do, they have no other tools at their disposal.

They're trying to put what they think is control, and they can't see that what they're doing is just adding more chaos because they,

I've always said, um, all this panic about you know, white people losing power.

White people were in control of 99% of stuff.

And in the last couple of decades, that has slipped precariously to 96.7

and they right all panic we're being replaced it's like

guys dear god you're like that it's panicky um

insecure insufficient people yep who uh they cannot abide any

having to give any of their stuff up it freaks them out so that and and that's where most Most conspiracy theories spring from that spring from someone who's chaotic and less than and terrified.

That's where the conspiracies start.

100%.

They don't like seeing the Black Panthers completely organized,

giving out free breakfasts, opening up free libraries.

Oh my God, actually trying to bring some order and sanity to their neighborhoods.

And of course, well, we got to infiltrate these people.

Oh my God, we got to.

They're giving away breakfast.

Exactly.

Wait a minute.

Well-fed children?

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

You know, that's where the conspiracy stuff always comes from.

Same playbook that they're using now, right?

Install fear,

sow the seeds of doubt, and let it roar.

And that's, that's...

It's all like weird

middle school petty bully shit.

You know, like the guy that they were going to deport to El Salvador, then they brought him back.

Now they just arrested him again.

That is crazy.

They're going to send him to Uganda.

Yeah.

And it's just that thing of like, if we made a decision, we cannot be wrong.

Even if, like, again, it's all chaos.

It is not this mapped out conspiracy.

It is emotional, fragile egos lashing out at the world.

And it's all it is.

It's 1,000% illegal.

If you don't look at that and say to yourself that we have spent millions of dollars persecuting just one person because we did something wrong, we got it wrong.

And now they're giving him the choice, he had the choice, to go to Costa Rica where they would just set him free.

He had to to admit

that he was running people out.

Whether or not he did, I don't know.

But they're not even giving him a chance.

They're not even giving him a day's work.

Now he's going to Uganda.

And he's going to Uganda because they don't want to be embarrassed.

That's right.

They want to silence him and send him away.

I'm just hoping, again, the outcry is so,

they're so panicky that they're doing a version of.

the Streisand effect where their moves are so clumsy that it's just shining even more light on their incompetence.

And hopefully that will.

I mean, my daughter read

for school, had to read George Orwell's 1984 Summer.

And

that's a very grim book to read.

Like it is just brutal.

And there were times she's like, I can't, this is really bumming me out of my, I know, but just finish it, finish the whole thing, and then we will talk about it.

I can, there is a weird hidden.

sliver of hope in that book that a lot of people miss.

You just got to read the whole book.

And she read it.

That last line: he loved Big Brother.

He sold out Julia.

He's just waiting to be killed.

You know, they completely crushed him.

And you're like, oh my God.

And then I go, Did you read the end note, the glossary of terms in the back about Newspeak?

That George Orwell, there's a the novel has a thing in the end.

And she read that.

And then she realized, oh,

and the first sentence is, Newspeak was a form of communication in a

dictatorship called Oceana.

Newspeak was

it was how they in other words, this is a report about a fallen regime.

It didn't last.

All totalitarian regimes eventually collapse because they only operate on illusion and fear and paranoia.

And eventually you run out of energy.

to keep that illusion going up and it just crumbles.

It just crumbles.

And it also it attracts

totalitarianism regimes always, always attract the most mediocre people to rise to the top.

That's why they're so popular at the beginning.

It's, I think Clive James was like, the Third Reich basically gave jobs to the unemployable.

That's really what it was.

It was people that you just could not employ anywhere else.

They were complete screw-ups.

And the...

The ruling regime always just turns into, as again, as

Clive James called it, just a bucket of eels.

They're all just fighting in each other they i mean if you look at the the administration right now they all hate each other they hate each other they hate each other and they're all trying to get advantage over one another and it eventually that exhausts itself and it crumbles yes and you know it's you can see it that it's bread at the top right trump wants these people to fight against each other they want he wants them to fight for his attention terrified of course he is if they're not fighting with each other they will turn their eyes because none of them want to be number two.

They all want to be number one.

So get them fighting for the number two spot and he can relax and be number one.

But if they stop fighting for number two, and you know, it's, he saw what, listen, he saw what happened to Newt Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich blew in with the whole contract with America and he surrounded himself with other people that, and then he didn't last a year because they were like, no, I'm leading this.

And they got rid of him.

And he, you know, Trump is not smart, but he's shrewd and he is like, oh, I better keep these people fighting or they will turn their eyes on me.

That's it.

That's a very, that's a very keen observation.

And they are a bucket of eels and they're all eating each other.

Bucket of eels.

Yeah, they're all.

And they're all go, go read,

go reread Bud Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run.

Sammy Glick gets to the top and he realizes the only other people around him are other Sammy Glicks who are looking to take his job.

Like you will eventually be surrounded by people that will, if, if you live, if you succeed by those means, you will only be surrounded by other people that will like, oh, I got to take you down.

You, you will become the main course in the feast that you've laid out.

You just don't realize it.

You can't see it because of all the glamour and all the glitter and all the shininess.

Oh my God, I'm surrounded in gold and everything's beautiful.

And you don't realize all that gold that's in the

overall office right now.

Those are all

table settings.

Well, it's also, those are all table settings around a grand feast, and Trump is the main course.

He just can't see it yet.

Very interesting.

Very simply put, as my dad used to say, be careful when you're climbing the ladder who you step on before you meet them on the way back down, right?

Who you step on on the way up before you meet them on the way back down or they event or they or they're behind you.

And it's just like if you sow this fear and this doubt and this

fighting and this negative, just pure base negativity, you're going to, you're going to chum the water.

And you're right about this, is that then the sharks are hungry.

All of them are hungry.

You don't think J.D.

Vance is sitting there foaming at the mouth over this episode shit?

Of course he is.

Any one of them would throw any one of the others into a meat grinder to get, or

to paraphrase my friend Dana Gould, they would rip out someone else's eye to use that socket as a foothold to get one level higher.

Oh, God, it drives me.

It just drives me crazy.

Do you have a, as someone who has at times been very vocal about your

first of all, you tend to be very progressive.

I think, I don't think I'm misspeaking there,

which I appreciate.

And you tend to speak out.

Do you fear the administration and the way that they're acting and behaving toward critics?

Sometimes, yeah.

I mean, I don't think I'm a big enough fish for them to focus on.

Although I am always reminded of

during the Anschluss

when the Nazis took back Vienna, the first people they went after were the cabaret performers and satirists.

The first people they went after,

Egon Friedel and Peter Altenberg, like that's the first people that they beat into pulps.

So

yeah, they don't like being laughed at.

I mean, that's why they went after Colbert.

They don't like the sound of laughter.

And

it is,

or as again, as Clive James put it, they want their jokes to be the funny ones.

Yes.

And

they don't understand

irony or

satiric

once removed or anything like that.

They just, it is all just bullying and I'm awesome and you suck.

And, you know, there's no

pointing out.

Oh, here's something that I learned from something stupid I did.

Like they can never be in that position.

No.

They have to be in the position i am the one pointing out i am bringing the elixir to hear the heal the world they can't see they think the whole world is sick because they can't see that they're sick

it's true

wow we're getting into some deep dark weeds here man

i love it i noticed see me at go bananas

this september gonna be a really fun night

go bananas

yeah well going back to that for just a second i noticed you had um uh commented on a jack white post the other day and i'm really enjoying jack white's voice right now on instagram yeah i you know i don't know if he's what i don't know if he would watch this i met him i was at um the memorial service for um paul rubens and he was there

and i am such a fan of of jack white

not just not just his music like just the way he pursues his career and what he builds and what he focuses on and how he does it.

Absolutely.

It was very apt that he was at a Paul Rubens memorial because they very much had the same artistic philosophies.

And he's one of those people that I met him and I just kind of clammed up and I didn't, I had too much to say to him.

I was like, hey, it's really good to meet you.

And then I like turned and then and then Andy Richter came up to me and I just started babbling with Andy Richter about something.

And I feel like.

He thinks I like blew him off, but it was one of those things where my brain just fritzed out.

I'm just like, what am I going to say to this guy?

And my wife, who is so much more socially adept than me, just she hung out with him and they talked for a while.

And she's, you know, and I'm just like,

if Jack White, if you're seeing this,

I, I, my brain fritzed out.

It hasn't happened a lot.

It fritzed out when I met.

Here's the people that happened with it.

Fritzed out when I met Cormack McCarthy.

And it fritzed out

when I met Ann V.

Coates, who is the editor.

She edited Lawrence of Arabia and Murder on the Orange.

Like, she is basically the

um she is the superman of

of editors like she's the one she like and i met her at an award show just like it's great and i had like in my mind like eight like 80 questions like pressed against my yeah brain like how did you do

and i and i just And then

I'm bored.

Yeah, my superhero's like, don't subject this person to your bullshit.

Like she's having an, she was getting like an honorary award and I'm like I'm not gonna fucking bother her and I just walked I there's certain people you meet you just go hi great to meet you and you just walk away like what the fuck am I gonna say to them yeah I listen I I know the feeling Patton I know the feeling and I because you're one of those people

I had to write them down I think you're just one of the I just think you're one of the smarter guys in the business.

I appreciate the way that you move through the world with authenticity and integrity.

And

I also appreciate that, you know, you speak up when you need to speak up, but it's not what you're all about, right?

It's not everything.

And you're a cat lover.

Oh.

I'm a big cat lover.

How many cats do you have?

Well, I had, well, growing up, we had like five in the house.

Really?

And I ended up taking like my main one with me throughout, you know, my college journey and then into my adult life.

And she lived to be 23.

So

you know why she lived to be 23?

Because you really loved loved her and she felt no stress.

And when you don't feel stress, you age slower.

Yes.

The calmer you are, the slower you age.

So that you gave that cat

patches.

23 years old.

She was a calico, white calico.

Yeah.

That was a very,

that was a happy cat.

I still have dreams about her.

I still have dreams about her.

Yeah.

But when you owned.

When you owned five cats, was there like a clear pecking order as to who was this is the person running things this is the right-hand man like did they kind of like break off into those like they did you see that in groups of animals there's little like okay here's here's what's going on yeah there was the ones you know the ones that were more dominant and the ones that you know kind of submitted to whatever the other one said do

i love that you well that's by the way that's i think we get A lot of times with animals when we see like there's a dominant animal and a not, we're like, hey, everyone be equal.

And animals hate that.

when the, when there's an alpha around the other animals, like, that the guy running thing?

Good, fine.

I can just chill.

Like, they don't care about all that weird.

No, we've all got to be equal.

And animals are like, are you out of your mind?

No, let that person do this.

What are you doing?

Why do you make it?

No, no, no, no, no.

I do think at times we as humans try and, you know, change the course of things in weird ways that sometimes don't always make sense.

And one of those is there, sometimes there does need to be a pecking order because a headless horse horse just runs in, you know, just runs in circles, right?

Sometimes also there's just good to have, I don't get jealous or pissed off when there's someone in my field, especially like a comedian

that is really kind of on the vanguard and pushing forward because it means that they're making,

if someone's doing something similar to what I'm doing and more, it just means, oh, that means people will be more receptive to what I'm doing.

They're making the atmosphere better.

It doesn't have to be, I've seen people pull other people down just for the sake of, no, I want to be the one to do this.

Like, let the Trailblazer be the Trailblazer.

Like, you're still going to get to do your stuff.

What?

Don't, it can't be.

There's a lot of people in showbiz where it's like, it has to be me and only.

They go through Showbiz like they're running.

for the office of comedian or the office of actor.

No, there can be a whole lot of us.

You don't need to, and it, it just makes the, it makes the the doing of the art so not fun when you turn it into sports or politics.

Yeah, rising tide floats all boats is like the old saying.

Yes.

And I think that that's true in podcasting also.

Listen, there are some, uh, we all know notable podcasters that we like or don't like or listen to or don't listen to, but you have to appreciate that, you know, I'm, I'm not competitive with that because I know that that brings money into the business and we all get to benefit from that.

And for that, I could be a little bit grateful and say, okay, all right, it is what it is.

And we all need voices.

So, and,

and, and the real king, Mark Maron, is retiring.

So there you go.

Um, well, you know what?

It's, it's, it, it's like the, the year that um uh Michael Jordan retired.

Like, oh, so which team's going to get the title this year?

It's open.

Yes.

Oh, my God.

Could be the next.

Could it be the Pacers?

We don't know.

Oh, my God.

Yes.

It's going to be some show about Love Island.

It's going to be some podcast about Love Island that

takes the kick.

You know it is.

You know what it is.

Patton, you can check out his Instagram where he will tell us about all the many, many, many things that are coming up.

There's a link down below in the show notes.

Patton,

you will, but keep doing you.

I love that you were at Paul Rubin's funeral too because I watched that HBO documentary.

That's great.

Oh, me too.

And my

mom, I always loved...

Pee-wee, right, as a kid, and then I loved him as an actor and the few things that he did that were notable after that.

But I will tell you that that documentary opened my eyes wide open to who he really was, or gave me a better perspective.

And it was incredible.

What's great about the memorial was the people that went up and spoke were the people that you could tell, as hard as he searched to try to figure out who he was and what he wanted to do,

he always had the extra energy to lift other people up that were also doing their own.

Like he got a it's almost like that thing in second city or the groundlings where um

they teach you try to make everyone else in the scene funnier and if everyone in the scene is doing that then the whole scene catches fire rather than if it's one person trying to dominate the scene and you see the truly great sketch performers the Phil Hartmans and the Kristen Wiggs yes they're being funny in the sketch and they're giving the other people stuff to react to and giving them moments then so then the entire sketch just blows up.

Yeah.

You know,

and

Paul did that in his life.

He wanted the people around him to also

shine and

hit their potentials.

And he was so tickled by that.

And it was, you just saw that over and over again at the memorial service.

And it was like, that's how to live a life.

That's how to live a rich life.

He was

a brilliant, brilliant artist.

And that's the only way to put it.

Oh, man.

He was an artist.

He was an absolute artist.

He was an artist.

And go back and watch

any episode of the Pee Wee Herman Show and tell me that that is just not some of the funniest, wackiest, craziest,

subliminal shit you've ever seen in your time.

As a kid, I remember watching it, and I don't remember why.

I was in on the joke, but I was in on the joke.

And Mecca Lekahi, Mecca Heine-Ho.

Okay.

Patton, we love you.

I really appreciate you.

Thank you.

You are my Jack White.

And so many questions to ask.

And hopefully you'll come back and answer a few of them.

Damn, absolutely.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Patton Doswald, all this information in the show notes.

Thanks again, my friend.

Thanks, guys.

Let me do something Brian has never done.

Be brief.

Follow us on Instagram at the Commercial Break.

Text or call us 212-433-3TCB.

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Well, what great fun with Pat.

I felt like we could have kept talking for another hour.

Once you get Pat.

He's so interesting.

He is.

He's very smart.

Like you had mentioned, he's very sharp.

He's very smart.

He connects the dots in a way that,

in a way that's interesting to me.

Like I like to hear people think things out loud.

He was just kind of putting the dots together while he was here talking with us.

And that's amazing.

He's such a cool cat.

And I do really appreciate the way that he moves through his life.

And we're all a little bit better off with Patton Dalswalt in our life.

I think we we can all agree on that.

Patton has requested that until his new website is live, we all go to his Instagram where we can keep up with the comings and goings.

That's Patton Oz at PatentOswalt.

And that is with AT, not with AD.

It is not the former cartoon character that became known as Mickey Mouse.

Not Oswald.

It's Oswald.

So just in case you were wondering, that's how it is.

But of course, I will put the links in the show notes just for you, my friends.

And thank you to Patton for his time today.

Hopefully, we get him in again.

Yeah.

What a life he's had and continues to have.

There's no slowing down.

Yeah, I mean, we were just talking about how we were trying to figure out what's his latest thing.

Once somebody has

one big project that they want to talk about.

But he's got so many.

Yeah, like a comic book out, and you know.

Comic book, and a movie about pickleball, and an audio series, and a comedy, and then he did a

tour and he's

who knows it's all there for the taking i have a feeling we'll see a lot more of patton coming up well into the future i've always thought that he might make for a good talk show host my personal opinion but you know it doesn't seem like talk show host jobs are a dime a dozen right now i think

i think they're slimming down not ramping up unbelievable we need stephen colbert he's gonna going to be somewhere.

He's going to be.

Oh, he's totally going to pop up.

As John Oliver said in his weekly address to the world on HBO, he said, I am just one of the late-night talk show hosts that doesn't know he's doing a podcast yet.

True story.

Yeah.

True story.

John Oliver's a good one, too.

He's so good.

Yeah.

I watched a whole thing about the My Pillow Guy and how he started something called mystore.com and how they're selling all of this, you know, colloidal silver and copper disinfectants and

dog toys.

We should go over it one day.

It's really funny, actually.

Yeah.

All right.

Congratulations to Travis and Taylor on your upcoming nuptials.

Godspeed, my children.

Godspeed.

You never forget your first.

This makes me happy.

I did want them to make it, so I'm happy.

It looks like they're

this will be the wedding wedding of the universe yes where will they get married will it be will they rent out venice or will they do a small little ceremony in one of her many mansions around the world who knows two one two four three three three tcb tcbpodcast.com for your free sticker youtube.com slash the commercial break for all the episodes on video

and at the commercial break on Instagram.

Okay, Chrissy, that's all I can do for today.

I think so.

I'll tell you that I love you.

And I love you.

Best to you, and best to you out there on the podcast universe.

Until next time, Chrissy and I will say.

We do say and we must say.

Goodbye.

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