Hour 2: The One Man Show (feat. John Tesh)

41m
"That's great. You want another beer?"

It's time for some b-b-b-b-b-basketball with our friend, John Tesh. He not only explains how and why he's debuting a new album, "Sports," but he also PLAYS ROUNDBALL ROCK LIVE ON THE AIR. Also, an ever-confident Tony, no matter how much Dan tries to demean him, delivers his Tony's Top 5.
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Runtime: 41m

Transcript

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Speaker 13 This is the Dan Labatar Show with the Stu Gats Podcast.

Speaker 3 Oh, look at him. He's in studio.
The ultimate renaissance man is joining us. He's a six-time Emmy Award winner.
He's a two-time Grammy nominee. He gives us free music.

Speaker 3 He just makes so much music that he just gives away the rights to stuff. And after more than 20 years away from releasing original music, he has returned with a new album.

Speaker 3 Mike, you're going to love this. You know

Speaker 3 what the title of the album is?

Speaker 7 No, tell me.

Speaker 3 Sports.

Speaker 14 Whoa.

Speaker 14 Just

Speaker 14 sports.

Speaker 12 He sounds like sports.

Speaker 15 Yeah, that Huey Lewis lawsuit is coming.

Speaker 3 This album features two versions of Round Ball Rock. I can't get enough versions of Round Ball Rock.
I don't know if he'll give us both versions because he just gave away the last time.

Speaker 3 He's been on with us a couple of times and he just called his answering machine one time when feeling inspired, left the sound, and then it becomes something that's enduring.

Speaker 3 So thank you, John Tesh, for joining us as NBC returns to basketball. Basketball returns to NBC after how many days has it been? About 9,000 days.
Thank you for joining us from your studio.

Speaker 3 This suggests to me that we're going to get a lot.

Speaker 3 What an honor this is. Are you shitting me? Are we going to get a live version of you giving us both versions of Round Ball Rock? Are we going to hear just stuff from sports right now?

Speaker 17 Whatever you want, whatever you want. And the thank you is to you guys because when we did that, when you debuted the shredded version, it blew up everywhere on X and everything.

Speaker 17 It was crazy. And so I appreciate you guys.

Speaker 3 And we appreciate you. So which of these versions do you like best?

Speaker 3 Are you allowed to have a favorite here or do you just make the stuff and let other people decide?

Speaker 17 I just make the stuff and let Rick Cordella over at NBC decide.

Speaker 17 And it was like a year ago that we started talking about this. Do you realize that?

Speaker 3 It's crazy.

Speaker 3 We now have, it feels like, how long, Roy, do you know how long our relationship with John Tesh has gone here?

Speaker 3 Because it feels like we have been talking about this with him for the better part of 10 years.

Speaker 16 Yeah, back when we were at ESPN, yeah.

Speaker 18 Yeah, long time. Exactly.

Speaker 2 He gave us rights forever.

Speaker 17 You have the rights. You have the rights.
Well, you know, and the most amazing thing to me is when you look back, it's been 35 years since the song was written.

Speaker 17 All I can say is supernatural and the fans did it, not me, you know?

Speaker 20 John, when it's basketball season, there are two things that come out.

Speaker 20 Your original performance where you have a very blousy shirt on and Jason Sadegas and Tim Robinson's version of Baba Ba Ba Baba Basketball.

Speaker 20 And I'm curious if this happens to you every time basketball is about to tip off.

Speaker 7 Do you see those two videos all the time?

Speaker 17 Yeah, all the time. And, you know, I used to be on Entertainment Tonight for 10 years for people who don't remember that because it was so long ago.

Speaker 17 But I used to, when I would walk through airports, I would hear people go,

Speaker 17 and now it's definitely Babba Baba Baba Ba Basketball. And when it was announced that the theme was coming back, a lot of folks said, no, I prefer the lyrics first version.

Speaker 17 So if folks haven't seen that, it's on, yeah, it's definitely on

Speaker 17 YouTube. The only thing you need, by the way, I'm going to teach you guys how to play a sports theme.
Are you ready?

Speaker 16 Yes.

Speaker 17 Okay.

Speaker 17 The only thing you need is this sound right here, okay? And this is a sound from the 1980s, blended with a little bit of piano, and it's this sound like your

Speaker 21 sports gooseies

Speaker 3 that's all you need that's all you got just do any do anything and it's a sports theme I have so many questions for him and I can't wait to go on this magical musical journey with him.

Speaker 3 But do you prefer, if you have to have a preference, do you prefer to be recognized as the host of Entertainment Tonight or the guy who wrote the NBA on NBC theme?

Speaker 17 Yeah, I'll take them both. I'll take them both, definitely.
But I mean, my... Not how the game is.

Speaker 17 The whole music thing for me, it exists only because of Al Michaels' brother, David Michaels, producer at CBS Sports when I was hired there in 1982.

Speaker 17 And the two of us were hired to cover the Tour de France bike race.

Speaker 17 And David said, hey, I know you're a musician. Why don't we ship all of your stuff over here to France and you can do the music while I edit the footage.
And so it was a lot of stuff.

Speaker 17 like, and this is a song called Legendary, which is

Speaker 17 which is on the record, but it was for Greg Lamont.

Speaker 17 You know, it's just like a heroic

Speaker 17 march, you know. So a lot of that stuff was what I started with.
And in the middle of a Tour de France coverage was when Round Ball Rock was written.

Speaker 23 Have you ever done video game music? I feel like you'd kill it with like video games from like the 1990s.

Speaker 17 Yeah, I would love to. I would love to.
Well, I mean, there's a song called

Speaker 17 there's a song called

Speaker 17 Chasing Gold, which goes like this.

Speaker 17 And then in the middle of it, it breaks down.

Speaker 17 And the song sounds like this. this.

Speaker 17 So it's just, you know, like

Speaker 17 galloping and then that sound that I'm going to send you.

Speaker 24 That thing.

Speaker 3 That studio is magical. How often do you just go down there to

Speaker 3 blow off steam?

Speaker 17 Oh, I'm this is where I do the rate, my radio show, too. I never leave this position.

Speaker 17 I can move over there and

Speaker 17 I love it.

Speaker 17 It's my space. But you know, my wife, Connie, you know, you know, Connie, Connie Selica,

Speaker 17 it's really funny because her office is right next to us in the house here, my house.

Speaker 17 And she'll, she'll, what I found when I was working on sports, she would walk by and she'd, she'd hear, you know, she'd hear like, you know,

Speaker 17 And she'd go, football

Speaker 17 that I'd be playing, you know.

Speaker 17 And I'd hear hockey, and then I'd do something else, and she'd go, nope.

Speaker 3 My wife hates how operatic all the football music is. She thinks, oh, come on,

Speaker 17 it has to be so big.

Speaker 17 So that's really what this, just a shameless plug here. That's really what this record is.
It's just, it's 11 new themes. And what I did,

Speaker 17 guys, was while I was writing them, I get like halfway through and I'd go in the backyard and get the battle ropes out and see if the tempos were right. And so it really is a workout record.

Speaker 7 I mean, this is technically unbelievable.

Speaker 20 Not only is he doing an interview with us, not only is he playing his own music, he's also in charge of his own graphics.

Speaker 17 I wasn't sure if you had the album cover.

Speaker 21 Incredible.

Speaker 3 He's a one-man show. He knows how to make a lot of different kinds of things.
Why is it that you decided after 20 years to do sports as your re-entry point on musical inspiration?

Speaker 17 It really was. I mean, you guys were a part of it with me

Speaker 17 when NBC decided to bring the theme back.

Speaker 17 And my son, Gibb, who's great, great musician and an actor, and he just said, I'm a grandpa, so he calls me Pop-Up.

Speaker 17 He said, Pop-up, you know, I never see you happier than when you're in that studio or when you're on stage. And we took a 20-year break.

Speaker 17 I took a 20-year break from writing music because we were touring all the time. And then, you know, when all the excitement happened with Round Ball Rock, I just said, you know,

Speaker 17 that's what I love most to write is sports music. And so I got back in the studio, worked with,

Speaker 17 wrote a bunch of songs, worked with my friend Timothy Heinz, who's another great composer.

Speaker 17 And, you know, the shredded version, all of that is really from Andrew Sinewick, this kid who is really Hendrix reborn, you know, and so we just got in there.

Speaker 17 And so it's not, none of this could be produced by AI. You know, a lot of people talk about, oh, music, we can make music with AI.
It's all live musicians, you know,

Speaker 17 just a great drummer, Tim Landers, the great bass player who's also played with Jethro Tell.

Speaker 17 And so when you listen to the record, there's a lot of stuff that comes back to my, that quotes a lot of my favorites, which is, you know, yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Rush, you know, all of that stuff.

Speaker 17 This is not an album that you can relax to. This is an album that you guys can pick up your guitars and play to.

Speaker 3 We're going to get both versions, but the NBA returns to NBC after it's exactly 8,532 days. It's a doubleheader, Rockets at Thunder and Warriors at Lakers.

Speaker 3 Are you going to be playing Round Ball Rock Live anywhere during this unleashing?

Speaker 22 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 17 Yes, we are, we'll be on the Today show on October 21st, the day that the theme comes back.

Speaker 17 I would love to play it a game.

Speaker 17 We haven't worked that out yet, but that would be a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 Well, Billy will put in a call. We need to do that for you.
That's awesome.

Speaker 23 And I got plugs at the NBA. As you can see, I'm wearing my Billie Eilish NBA connection here.

Speaker 25 Complex, they sent me this.

Speaker 23 So I'll make a call to Complex or the NBA or Mickey Harrison across the street.

Speaker 25 We'll get you on that court, John. Don't you worry.

Speaker 17 That's cool. I don't have the OG version loaded up here, but I have the shredded version, which I know you guys love.

Speaker 12 All right, let's do that. We're going to do it.

Speaker 17 But I have to tell you, too, if you have a second,

Speaker 17 when I heard the theme was coming back, remember, we talked about this and I said, hey, I want to freshen it up, right? Do that thing. So we went to Nashville

Speaker 17 where

Speaker 17 this great recording studio, Ocean Way, with a full orchestra. And we did the orchestral version of the song, mixed it all up, and then we put it on Instagram and everything.

Speaker 17 And people were like, nope.

Speaker 17 No, we want the OG version. So the version you're going to hear come back on October 21st is actually the demo that was done in 1989.

Speaker 17 I mean, you know the whole story where I did it on the answering machine. Not that, not kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, but the first, the first version that we did.

Speaker 16 Yeah,

Speaker 18 basketball.

Speaker 19 That's what you were doing.

Speaker 3 For those who don't remember the original story, you were in Europe, I think, right? And you called your own answering machine just.

Speaker 17 Yeah, obviously, yeah, good memory. I was in Majev, France, covering the tour.

Speaker 17 And I heard through the sports grapevine that, you know, the NBC had taken the coverage away from CBS, who had had it for years. Same thing that's happened just now, you know.

Speaker 17 Except it's a bigger deal now that they made with the NBA, obviously. And so I thought, well, what would that sound like?

Speaker 17 What would a sports theme? And nobody knew me as a musician. I thought, if I could just get something like this, I'd be talking to

Speaker 17 Dan LeBatard. And so

Speaker 17 I got the idea in the middle of the night, and I didn't have a keyboard. I didn't have a

Speaker 17 computer, nothing, a computer, nothing. And so I call my answering machine.
Yeah, anyway,

Speaker 17 and then

Speaker 17 it hung up on me,

Speaker 17 the answering machine. And then, you know, I call back, here's the rest of it, you know,

Speaker 17 and two weeks later, I came home to New York and I checked my messages.

Speaker 17 As usual, I only had two

Speaker 17 because I was that popular. And I put it on the piano and I went, let's see, you know, I gave it the first message, you know, kick, kick, kink, kink, kink, kink, kink, king.

Speaker 17 Kick, kick, kink, kink, kink, kink.

Speaker 17 And you know, the real key in this song is this section.

Speaker 17 Because that's when Marv can go, today, you know,

Speaker 17 and then...

Speaker 17 At the end of the song, it's just pads, so they can go,

Speaker 17 brought to you by Geico Macy's.

Speaker 17 And I think knowing that, knowing all of the sections that a sports section had to have and having it fully formed and sending it to Terry O'Neill and Tommy Roy and

Speaker 17 Dick Eberstall and all those guys, they were able to actually see it and understand that

Speaker 17 that's where all those sections, all those announcing sections would go. So it's really, I mean, the key of the song is really only like eight notes that people remember.

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Speaker 13 Don Lebatard.

Speaker 29 If fall, the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops. Oh, what a rain that would be.

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Speaker 29 Standing outside with my mouth open wide. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah ah ah ah.
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Speaker 13 This is the Don Lebatar show with his two gods

Speaker 30 John. Do you miss missed organs at sporting events? I don't know what happened to them.
They just kind of disappeared slowly.

Speaker 17 Are they not around anymore? I didn't even know that.

Speaker 30 No, some of them, it's just like pre-recorded things. It got rid of the organists.

Speaker 23 Now we have like, you know races in between yankee stadium doesn't have an organ

Speaker 17 doesn't have an organist anymore they canceled all of that i i feel like they they they still do that there uh do you have a matchup that comes to mind when you hear round ball rock playing john well it was in uh in the first game in in 1990 and it was san antonio and i think they were playing the lakers but i knew that the that the it's a great question because the story is hilarious i i i knew the song was going i was on the road somewhere and i knew the song was going to play for the very first time on television.

Speaker 17 So I found a sports bar and I was by myself on the road, went in the sports bar with all the

Speaker 17 TVs, you know, tiny TVs back then.

Speaker 17 And the bar is full and people are watching. All of a sudden, you know,

Speaker 17 it had the,

Speaker 17 it was.

Speaker 17 It had like the big, the big opening, you know, that comes up with

Speaker 17 the peacock. And it was great, you know and i'm just dying there and and uh and then the song and the song comes in

Speaker 17 right and and then it keeps going and it plays after a couple of different breaks going into commercial and i finally couldn't take it anymore and i said to the bartender i said i said hey do you hear that song you know and he's like uh uh uh yeah yeah yeah and i go i i wrote that song like like a jerk right and he goes uh that's great you want another beer

Speaker 17 i was expecting like a trophy or something i don't know. But it was just so sad.

Speaker 16 I was like, okay.

Speaker 17 So you're the guy that wrote the song. It's fantastic.

Speaker 17 I'm watching basketball. Can you let me alone?

Speaker 16 And I'm a bartender.

Speaker 3 Well, a bartender has heard so many stories like that that aren't true.

Speaker 17 I finally have the answer. Thank God.
I had no idea.

Speaker 3 Do you have, give me a number to this question.

Speaker 17 The number of times in your life that you have called your answering machine and done something like that with round ball oh my gosh yeah it's now you know it's not it's not this of course but before this came before the phone came out yeah i mean i've got stuff that's so bad on there you know it's like

Speaker 17 nothing like nothing like round ball

Speaker 3 was definitely encouragement to keep doing that Do you have a favorite sports theme that's not yours that you say, God, I wish I had done that?

Speaker 17 Yeah, and I'll bet it's yours too. Monday Night Football.
It's a good one. I love that thing.
Yeah, I really.

Speaker 17 and you know do you know the story about that that that was actually in in a do you remember production cds where they were you would buy a collection of like a musician composer would write a whole bunch of songs then we'd go into this production set and you'd buy it for like a thousand dollars you know like editing studios production houses and and the music was free as long as as long as they paid for that uh you know for the original original price and nbc found that cut and they put it on Monday Night Football and it became, it's called heavy action and it became that theme.

Speaker 3 Back then, they had just one Monday night game. Now they're throwing two out there, and they've cheapened the whole product by throwing two of these.
There was one song, one game.

Speaker 24 Now,

Speaker 17 yeah,

Speaker 17 I like the Fox football team theme, too. I think that's good.

Speaker 3 Which is your favorite of the other songs on the new album, Sports?

Speaker 3 And I know I keep asking you for preferences because you didn't answer my question on which you like better being associated with entertainment tonight. If I forced you to choose one, or sure.

Speaker 17 Oh, music, for music, for sure. Yeah, yeah.
Music, for sure. I mean,

Speaker 17 and live, live music. There's nothing like being on a stage with an orchestra with no net, you know, no way to fix anything.

Speaker 3 You're going to do something for us live right now that escalates to crescendo all the things that we've built in our relationship with you that makes this song the monster that it is. Because

Speaker 3 you have to be honored that this has the echoing, enduring staying power to be brought back to life again. Like, you must be excited about what NBC is about to do with you and this song.

Speaker 17 I just, I got excited just now, just listening to your great vocabulary.

Speaker 12 It's just cool, man.

Speaker 3 Like, it's you, you're talking about a time you just said to us, like, your fame as someone who was a part of a very big television show in America was confining compared to you being able to celebrate your biggest inspirations here, which is to be moved musically, I would think, artistically.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 17 Yeah, it's definitely a different feeling. And, and it's especially when you think about the fact that a song can

Speaker 17 be created 35 years ago, go on the shelf, and then YouTube picks it back up. People learn how to play it, right?

Speaker 17 And then Jason Sudekis and the guys at Saturday Night Live do the spoof, and it comes back.

Speaker 17 I think I may have told you the story where when they did that spoof, I was in Los Angeles and SNL

Speaker 17 came on with that bit, and I didn't know what was going on. I was just getting texts from all my friends.
Are you okay with this? Are you okay with with this? Oh my gosh, are you going to sue?

Speaker 17 Oh my gosh, are you okay with this? Oh, I can't believe this. And I'm thinking, what? And so they go watch Saturday Night Live.

Speaker 17 So my wife, Connie, and I watched the bit, and she turns to me and she goes, it's the best thing that's ever happened to you.

Speaker 17 She was right.

Speaker 3 Were you unsure how to feel about it at that point?

Speaker 21 Or were you still in any way confused?

Speaker 17 No, I thought it was great. The best thing for me, and I ran into Vince Vaughan out here in Los Angeles in a buffet line, you know, like 20 years

Speaker 17 after that. And he thought it was hilarious too.
But no, because I mean, those guys, they had, they were dressed exactly like me, had the same vest that I had at Avalon

Speaker 17 when it was recorded, and also same hairdo, you know, all of it. And even Snakeis was doing my voice.
Here's a song that I wrote on my answering machine back.

Speaker 17 So, no,

Speaker 17 it was great.

Speaker 3 I want to play

Speaker 3 what the video just showed there, which is Tony and Lewis rocking out to the last time John Tesh was on with us.

Speaker 3 I don't know, does this have an audio accompaniment, or should we just play this while John Tesh? All right, let's just run that while John Tesh does his version.

Speaker 3 We're going to do the shredded version here that is on sports.

Speaker 3 And I just wanted to get an answer to my question: Is there a second place song on this album that is your favorite next to the shredded round ball rock version?

Speaker 17 Yeah, I would say the one that I was doing, you know, you know, legendary, you know, legendary

Speaker 17 that thing, you know,

Speaker 17 which

Speaker 17 when it's fully formed, it sounds like this, you know.

Speaker 17 Okay, get ready. Key change.

Speaker 3 Right? So big. So wonderful.

Speaker 14 Abrupt ending. Good.

Speaker 12 Yeah, an abrupt ending. Is that how it goes on the track?

Speaker 16 Sorry.

Speaker 19 No, no. I was jamming, man.

Speaker 18 I wasn't sure.

Speaker 22 I'm a pretty much time.

Speaker 16 I'm not sure if you should fade that puppy down.

Speaker 17 I wasn't sure how much time you had.

Speaker 3 We were getting moved. We were starting to physically move with you, but now is the time.

Speaker 3 Let's break out what NBC is going to break out again. This is the shredded version.
It is one of two versions.

Speaker 3 I'm going to say it's the best version because it's our version, the one that he shared with us. So, John Tesch, what an honor to have you do this for us.

Speaker 17 Thank you.

Speaker 17 Woo! Yes!

Speaker 17 That is

Speaker 21 Peak October.

Speaker 3 Peacock October.

Speaker 12 Peacockto, Dan.

Speaker 7 Peacocktober.

Speaker 3 October 21st, a double header. The NBC is back on NBC and Peacock.
Check out the John Tesh podcast and more at tesh.com. It is really nice that you keep doing this for us, wasting your time.

Speaker 3 And we hope that the sports album is a monster hit. Thank you, John, for being on with us.

Speaker 17 We love you guys. Thank you so much.
Appreciate you.

Speaker 3 Look at how happy the group is. He brings just energy with him here.

Speaker 3 You guys should find for me, I remember being introduced to, you have to realize how shocking this was to me.

Speaker 3 I know him only as the Entertainment Tonight host, and then suddenly I see a video of him performing live on stage, and he's a rock star, and he's a ball of energy, but I had only seen him sort of polished on television, and so I didn't even know this part of his personality existed.

Speaker 12 Yeah, you and I had the same experience with that, but it's an insulting question to a musician.

Speaker 20 Like,

Speaker 20 what are you prouder of being known for? Entertainment Tonight or the music. He's He's got bona fides.
He also does

Speaker 20 overnight DJing, a nationally syndicated show. The music was a pathway to all the other things.
I'm sure he gets a little insulted by your question.

Speaker 6 I mean, I can imagine you felt, Dan, the way that Heat fans feel when they watch me just crush parody songs over here.

Speaker 4 They're like, wow, that guy who's a broadcaster over there just rocking out as a musician.

Speaker 7 I mean, gosh, me and John Tesh. What are you prouder to be known for?

Speaker 8 Hoisting babies.

Speaker 32 Yeah, that was a good one. I mean, come on.

Speaker 3 I think if I can only give Jeremy one, if I can only give, hey, you get to do only one for the foreseeable future, broadcasting or music.

Speaker 9 I mean, I win Emmys versus losing Sueys.

Speaker 7 It's really not that hard when you give it thought.

Speaker 23 Yeah, but one he hasn't accomplished. I mean, I'd say he's a failure on radio because he's a good one.

Speaker 2 You want to get paid for it?

Speaker 21 We got to, we'll figure that one out.

Speaker 3 Can you guys find for me the video before we go to Tony? I just want you to see what I saw because I'm assuming much of the audience doesn't know John Tesh's musical career. He's 73 years old.

Speaker 3 I'm guessing a whole lot of people don't know what he is as a musician. But I want to point out to the audience how shocking it was to see.

Speaker 3 The guy I only knew as this is the host of Entertainment Tonight, which at the time, guys, I don't know how to.

Speaker 3 Jeremy, help me quantify what this man's career was just on television because I didn't know he was a musician.

Speaker 3 And so to me, this was as comically absurd as suddenly seeing, I don't know, Al Michaels can really go and play the piano in a way that, you know, he's wearing a vest and he is just going to make you very excited with how much energy he has.

Speaker 3 It was just a weird thing to witness John. Tesh be great at controlling a crowd on his finger with the piano, given that I just knew him.
Was he with Mary Hart?

Speaker 3 Was Entertainment Tonight was one of the most popular programs in America at the time? I don't know how you'd quantify it.

Speaker 20 How about that time in the 90s where we're like, we got to do something about these neckties?

Speaker 20 We need to normalize buttons being fashionable neckwear and just anything that doesn't go all the way down.

Speaker 15 Like a little bow tie without the bows. How about that?

Speaker 3 Here's a question. You walked into a stash house and found it full of $20 million.

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Only on Netflix on January 16th.

Speaker 20 It's the holiday season and the 50th anniversary of Miller Light.

Speaker 7 The holiday is all about spending time with friends and family.

Speaker 20 Watch a sit-back and toast a few Miller Lights.

Speaker 7 Make your holiday time, tis Miller time.

Speaker 7 And with the 50th anniversary of Miller Light, you get to remember and reflect on all the good times that you had with your trusty buddy by your side, Miller Light.

Speaker 7 Brewed for flavor with simple ingredients like malted barley, rich, balanced toffee notes, and that iconic golden color.

Speaker 20 And at 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces, it lets you enjoy the season without weighing you down.

Speaker 7 The original light beer since 1975 and still hitting different 50 years later.

Speaker 20 The best holiday beers are the ones you don't expect. Miller Light, great taste, 96 calories.

Speaker 7 Go to millerlight.com/slash Dan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Light pretty much anywhere they sell beer.

Speaker 11 Tis Miller time.

Speaker 7 Celebrate responsibly, Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

Speaker 4 Critics are calling Marty Supreme a full throttle masterpiece and the best movie of the year. I couldn't be more excited to see this one.

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Speaker 13 Don Lebatard.

Speaker 14 To us, residents.

Speaker 14 Wow. That's pretty much

Speaker 14 better. Think I haven't been practicing?

Speaker 13 Stugats.

Speaker 16 Oh,

Speaker 14 I didn't realize we had a substitute complicated legacy practice.

Speaker 14 441 Powerline Road.

Speaker 27 Second down to nine.

Speaker 13 This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

Speaker 3 Get me some information on entertainment tonight at your leisure. Let's go out to Tony here.
Tony has been waiting patiently for more than an hour to get to his hurry.

Speaker 12 Get him information on entertainment tonight at your leisure.

Speaker 23 I always confuse him with the actor that played the butler in American wedding.

Speaker 25 I'll send a picture.

Speaker 12 Is that the information you're gathering on Entertainment Tonight?

Speaker 15 Well, he also,

Speaker 32 he also won an Associated Press Award for Investigative Journalism. So there's that side before Entertainment Tonight.

Speaker 15 What was a wait, for which show?

Speaker 26 I'll get to that in a second.

Speaker 3 He's a journalist.

Speaker 3 Tony is dressed up and ready for his top five he looks a little bored he looks like he might be mad at us because he's been waiting for an hour tony uh tell us where you are what you're doing and what we have in store for us right now

Speaker 26 uh Dan, we have the top five in store.

Speaker 4 I'm not bored.

Speaker 26 I'm just here listening to the show. Not mad at all whatsoever.
I'm actually very relaxed.

Speaker 26 We just finished a nice therapy session with Genesis and about to get into the hot tub here at the Elser, which is the first time that we do Tony's top five from the Elser hot tub, which is going to be very exciting.

Speaker 26 Hold this for a second.

Speaker 3 Oh, beefcake. We got a shirt.
Oh, look, he ripped it off Hulk Hogan style.

Speaker 5 While he does that, let me tell the people, this Tony Top 5 is presented by Smirnoff, the official vodka sponsor of the National Football League. Smirnoff, please drink responsibly.

Speaker 5 The Smirnoff Company, New York, New York, 40% alcohol by volume.

Speaker 3 Roy, why are you shaking your head at Tony right now?

Speaker 28 What are you doing, man?

Speaker 2 Why are we ripping off the shirt for?

Speaker 21 Just take the shirt off.

Speaker 2 What do you mean?

Speaker 33 What is that supposed to mean? All right, Dan, I was going to start in the OLI.

Speaker 26 I was going to start in the OLI, but I actually wanted to dedicate the entire OLI to Benoit Blanc.

Speaker 27 Again, no OLI.

Speaker 26 I'm going to just talk about Benoit Blanc as the greatest detective of all time.

Speaker 26 And if you remember in Glass Onion, when he goes over to Miles Braun's house, Miles Braun, obviously the eccentric billionaire, who, spoiler alert, we find out is a fool.

Speaker 26 He finds the dinner party mystery, finds it out in like 10 seconds. He's like, yeah, this is what happened.
You got killed by this arrow and this, that, and the other.

Speaker 26 And then ends up solving the other mystery too. So Benoit Blanc, probably the best detective of all time.
That's my OLI.

Speaker 3 But that's not what we were doing. We were doing top five

Speaker 3 football observations. That's your OLI.
Number five.

Speaker 33 Oh, that's fine, but that's my OLI.

Speaker 26 Because number five, honestly, are there any good teams in the NFL?

Speaker 26 Just asking, are there any good teams?

Speaker 31 I feel like there's no.

Speaker 18 I feel like everybody's back.

Speaker 26 Especially after the Bills performance yesterday. Where have you been?

Speaker 26 But we thought the Bills were good.

Speaker 14 What do you mean, where have I been? Billy.

Speaker 3 Billy doesn't like your first one. He made a face of great disgust.

Speaker 23 He was a Rasiti half an hour ago.

Speaker 26 My bad, I've been here for two hours waiting, so maybe I didn't hear that part.

Speaker 3 I told you he was pissed off. I told you he pretended like he wasn't.
I told you he was pissed off.

Speaker 27 Two hours doing nothing.

Speaker 23 You could step into the studio, help out a little bit. Jerry Bear doesn't have to come in on his day off.

Speaker 18 You know what I mean?

Speaker 33 Hanging out in a hot tub all day. I got to stand on my mark.

Speaker 26 This is actually the first time I jump into the hot tub, by the way.

Speaker 7 I've been outside of it waiting.

Speaker 18 Number four.

Speaker 26 At this point, I just feel bad for Kyle Shanahan.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm with him on this.

Speaker 23 Rossini did that one, too.

Speaker 26 What else can he do? Did Diana Rossini talk about that too?

Speaker 20 Billy, did you feel bad about Kyle Shanahan earlier?

Speaker 14 I did, actually.

Speaker 23 It was weird.

Speaker 14 Okay.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 3 Number three.

Speaker 26 Touche. Number three, just like we had it through a third of the NFL season, the Seahawks and the Colts are the best team in football.

Speaker 26 Somebody's got to be good, Dan. And it seems to be the Seahawks and the Colts.

Speaker 3 Wait a minute, what does that make the Bucs who won at Seattle?

Speaker 26 Makes them also good, but I think the Seahawks may be better, even though they lost.

Speaker 33 Again, quality loss better than a good win. Jeremy Tasha.

Speaker 3 This is not college football. This guy gets it.

Speaker 3 Thank you. Number two.

Speaker 26 Number two, Dan. Kyler Murray fans, cover your ears.
Jacoby Brissette threw for 320 yards and two touchdowns on Sunday. The last time Kyler Murray did that was 34 games ago.

Speaker 26 Three years ago, week eight, 2022. And that's according to Pat Thoreman.
So the last time Kyler Murray threw for 320 yards and two touchdowns was 34 games ago, three years ago.

Speaker 20 That was good.

Speaker 26 In 2022, Jacoby Brissette was off the couch.

Speaker 21 And threw for 320.

Speaker 3 That's a good one. And put it on the poll, please, at Lebatard Show.
Is Jacoby Brissette always going to be available for one last job? Yes or no?

Speaker 3 And number one, Tony.

Speaker 26 Number one, Dan, the Chiefs are kind of MFing back.

Speaker 26 We talked about them being a dink and dunk offense. We talked about them being an offense that didn't mirror the offenses of Chiefs lore.

Speaker 27 And I got another little stat here for you.

Speaker 26 Through week six, so the first third of the season, they're at a 10.5%

Speaker 26 explosive play rate through the first six weeks. So 10.5%.

Speaker 33 The Packers are the leaders with 14%.

Speaker 26 So as you can see, they're starting to climb up the rankings in explosive play rate. So it feels like they're MFing back, Dan.
And that's Tony's top five.

Speaker 26 I'm going to chill here in the pool for a little bit longer.

Speaker 7 Can I skip the meeting or do I have to go down to that?

Speaker 3 It looks pretty good. It looks like you're pretty comfortable.
You're also more confident in your nipples than I would be.

Speaker 14 Okay.

Speaker 23 Then you would be with your nipples or you would be with Tony's nipples.

Speaker 7 With whose nipples, Dan? Yeah.

Speaker 3 Thank you, Tony. We appreciate it.
I want to leave that up for interpretation.

Speaker 26 Wait a second. Wait a second.
Answer the question.

Speaker 3 You're very happy to be showing a lot of nipple. You ripped off your shirt.
You confidently showed a lot of nipple. And I was surprised at how confident you were about that.
That's all.

Speaker 3 Because your nipples, the last time I saw nipples like that, Mike Ryan was accused of pepperoni nipples and then never again talked about or showed his nipples on the program.

Speaker 26 Okay, well, again, to each his own. If Mike feels a certain way, he feels a certain way.

Speaker 33 This is how God made me, baby.

Speaker 27 What do you want me to do?

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 3 Let me out of this. Okay.

Speaker 3 Thank you, Tony. I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 We appreciate it.

Speaker 3 The two plays from last night's game I wanted to talk about because I don't know what to do with that Chicago-Washington game, although Washington would have won it if they could have just executed a handoff.

Speaker 3 Like that part, the margins in these games are so absurd because Washington's an eh today on their a good team, right?

Speaker 3 Washington, you're going to do the eh on their a good team, and it's because they couldn't execute a handoff in that game and then allowed Chicago a field goal position at the end of the game when all Chicago could do in that game was score with field goals.

Speaker 20 Terry, Scary Terry's a big part of their offense. Debo came into that game hurt, but Debo's also entered games hurt for five years.

Speaker 3 You say came into games hurt, man. We can't do the measurements on any of these people halfway through the scene.
You've seen the quality of football drop.

Speaker 3 Like, it's dropped because you're seeing a bunch of backups everywhere.

Speaker 3 Now, maybe not in Tampa, where somehow they keep doing it, but San Francisco is a lesser team and available to be slaughtered like that by Tampa because that's not a recognizable 49ers team.

Speaker 3 That is not the 49ers team that got to a Super Bowl with Garoppolo.

Speaker 3 That is not the 49ers team that can do anything with any quarterback when you can't sustain that many injuries and be a replica of yourself.

Speaker 12 The backup quarterback's injured, very injured, visibly injured.

Speaker 20 The funny thing about this season, as Jennings gets hurt seemingly every play, as Kittle's out, as Bose is out, as now Fred Warner is out, is Christian McCaffrey is going to get north of 400 touches on offense offense this year.

Speaker 3 I cannot imagine how all of those 49ers feel physically or who feels worse when that game is running through them as if you're throwing them in the wood chipper in Fargo.

Speaker 3 Like it's just running through their bodies. But the game I wanted to talk about because

Speaker 3 Juju told us before anybody, hey, my Bills are a fraud. They haven't beaten anybody.
The teams they've beaten at the 4-0 against are a combined 3-21, and they barely won that one against Baltimore.

Speaker 12 And the Dolphins game was sneaky close.

Speaker 3 Well, and the Saints game was close. Like,

Speaker 3 they have not actually shown you much of anything, and last night to me was particularly alarming because

Speaker 3 their quarterback can't look like who I've the MVP when his wide receivers seem limited and are also injured because they have injuries all over the field. One last note.

Speaker 20 Jawan Jennings, who got hurt every play in that game and has been hurt all year, he felt like he needed to start because of all the injuries. I didn't highlight Ricky Pierce hall.

Speaker 20 Here's what Jawan Jennings was playing with according to Jawan Jennings himself. This is what he told reporters.

Speaker 12 He was playing with five broken ribs, a high ankle sprain, and a low ankle sprain.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 21 that's just an ankle sprain, right?

Speaker 14 Inability.

Speaker 3 The inability

Speaker 3 to that is it? So if it's a high ankle sprain, what if they're on different feet?

Speaker 20 Then it's a Howard Bryan situation.

Speaker 16 Oh, that's true.

Speaker 3 Well, it's not a high ankle sprain and a low ankle sprain on the same foot, right?

Speaker 14 It's a high ankle sprain on one one foot.

Speaker 12 Jeff had never clarified. So I think one ankle's a high, the other ankle's a low.

Speaker 20 Five broken ribs.

Speaker 14 Oh, geez. No.

Speaker 3 We're not even halfway through the season. A bunch of the teams are broken.
We don't know who's any good.

Speaker 3 We don't. And it's impossible to do the measurements this way.
And everyone's ready to go ahead and make the Chiefs good again after two games, even though we made the Bills good after two games.

Speaker 12 You're not ready.

Speaker 3 You killed them. We made the Eagles good after two games.

Speaker 20 No, the Super Bowl made the Eagles good.

Speaker 3 But the last two games, they're now bad.

Speaker 3 The last two games, they are dysfunctional. They have all sorts of problems with A.J.
Brown and Saquon Barkley, and they can't generate offense in the last two games.

Speaker 3 They've got more three and outs than everyone in the league. But going back to last night's game, again, B.

Speaker 3 John Robinson, the physics of that defied me on the 81-year-old, 81-yard run, where defender's got an angle. Defender has the sideline.

Speaker 3 Defender cannot knock him off his track because his lower body is too strong. But also, Drake London in that game, Drake London's exceptional.

Speaker 3 He's a legitimate number one receiver in a way that surprises me.

Speaker 3 The end of that first half, where they've got six seconds left and Drake London has to make a decision between can I get to the end zone or am I going to lose the chance to get a field goal?

Speaker 3 They could have lost the game. In fact,

Speaker 3 I would say the Bills could have won that game if simply Penix made the throw that should have been returned 80 yards for a touchdown and the linebacker just dropped it.

Speaker 3 Like it would have been a clean path, pick six, ties the game 21-21.

Speaker 3 And we would have been talking about whether Drake London did the right thing at the end of the first half, where he cost them a field goal because he couldn't get to the end zone by half a yard.

Speaker 7 Fowler was brilliant on that call, too.

Speaker 20 That was a lot of information he had to share with the audience so they knew the situation and it made it super captivating, despite me wishing Chris Fowler would occasionally say no to one of these.

Speaker 7 Come on, dude, it's so gravely.

Speaker 3 His voice hasn't gotten better in two weeks because he's doing seven games a week, fighting through.

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