What if Jambi Box, but Orange? (Q&A with Ben and Adam)

March 12, 2025 1h 17m

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Here's to the finest crew in Starbreak.

Engage!

Captain John Lu Picard of the U.S.

Present the Crime!

Welcome to the Greatest Generation.

It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast.

My name is Wendy Pretty.

I'm the producer.

I'm Ben Harrison.

I'm one of the embarrassed ones.

I'm Adam Pranica.

How about that?

First time, first time it's been kicked off by someone who's not me and Ben.

I can't believe it.

Hey, Wendy, way to read the cue cards.

Yeah, thanks.

It said go fuck yourself, San Diego, but I just plowed through with the right opening.

I appreciate that.

You're embarrassed too, right?

A little bit, yeah.

What do you tell people when you're like, when you're at like a social function and someone asks you what you do for a living,

I usually start with podcast producer.

And if they ask for more info, my embarrassment grows.

Yeah, that could be a nice way to shut the conversation down, just podcast producer, and nobody wants any further information after that, right?

Yeah, they're like, oh, so you're unhoused.

Okay, I see.

If they say something like, oh, my grandson listens to podcasts, you know,

the conversation ends right there.

Well, thank you for thank you for bringing us in in such style.

And thank you for joining us for this special Q ⁇ A bonus episode.

Yeah, my pleasure.

We got a lot of great questions.

A bonus episode that's going to be in the main feed, which I'm really excited about, in the run-up to the Max FunDrive.

Just a quick reminder up top that we are a listener-supported show, and all of this is possible because of you.

So we really appreciate the folks who already support support and look forward to welcoming the legions of folks that are about to start supporting.

Yeah, we release bonus episodes every month.

This is just an example of one of the kinds that we tend to do.

Yeah, so we got a whole bunch of questions from Reddit, and then we have a lot of questions from prior call-outs from Q ⁇ A episodes in years past.

So do you want to jump in?

Oh, we're being called out.

We edited out all of the questions that were like not so much a question, more of a comment.

Stop doing the show.

Because I'm looking at the spreadsheet and I don't see those in here like they usually are.

Nice.

Right.

It's good to have a capable editor like Wendy.

Yeah.

That's what I'm here for.

The first duty of every star fleet officer is to the truth.

Scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth.

All right, we'll start with Pantsless Kirk from Reddit, which is a username I enjoy.

Yeah.

Great handle.

They say, hi, Team Ux, Bridge, Shimoda.

If Ben and Adam were having action figures made of them as Star Trek extras, which company or style, which era of uniform, and most importantly, which accessories would they want to have included?

Oh, man.

This is a fantastic question.

Yeah, good question, Panceless Kirk.

I keep looking to see if a Benjar Pranik action figure has been...

made available and nothing comes back.

It seems like every other character on Star Wars Skeleton Crew has an action figure except for the one, the breakout character, like the one that is as popular as Baby Yoda for some reason.

I mean, maybe it's a scarcity mindset, and when they do launch it, it will be, you know, like trying to order a PS5 on launch day, and like it'll be like impossible to get your hands on one.

But I mean, that's the one I'm really hoping for because I feel like that one's realistic.

But if it so, the question is basically: our likeness on an action figure in a box, which era of action figure, what uniform, uniform,

and what accessories?

Okay, this is a lot to think about.

My mind is going in a pretty particular direction, which is, I think it's maybe pre-Kenner.

I'm not sure who was making these, but there's a version of the Star Trek the Next Generation action figures that are like a slightly smaller scale than the main ones that we get sent in all the time.

And they're like less articulated and they're in the back zip like season one uniform with the piping at the collar.

I feel like that might be the action figure style.

I want to be this one, right?

There he is.

Yeah, oh, yeah.

Adam is holding up a you know, a Riker that looks like the water pressure in his sonic shower is a little bit reduced.

Low flow.

Well, I don't like the sound of that.

You may also notice a drawn-on beard

using a sharpie.

This was sent to us from a viewer.

Beautiful.

He lives in my plant now.

Avoiding Echo Papa's 607.

Yeah, I love that Outcast song.

He lives in my plant.

So I think that's the era I want.

And I can't think of a bet.

I don't know.

Maybe it's like Ben Harrison as Mr.

Hom or something.

Because

listen, there is one good accessory that they ever included in these in my opinion because all of the action figures ever came with a you know like the com badge for them to stand on either a trading card or briefly a pog but not called a pog because they didn't own the rights to the three letters p o and g they don't have the rights to pineapple orange or guava but then they came the the like actual plastic accessories were always like molded from one color of plastic So you'd have a purple phaser and a purple tricorder.

Ooh, those are nice.

But the one really good accessory they ever put out

was the

gift box that beams onto the transporter pad and yells rejoice when it is announced that Deanna Troy will be married this day.

Odd looking.

What if jobby box, but orange?

Yeah.

Yeah, like they, like, they couldn't afford to hit that with a little bit of silver spray paint, so it came in orange, but that only makes it more hilarious to me.

So I want to come with that.

All right.

And also it kind of looks like Baron Harkonnen a little bit.

Like the

face is not Jombie, it's Baron Harkonnen.

Coming out of the goo.

Gonna need a bigger box for Baron Harkonnen.

Definitely.

What about you, Adam?

Every time I walk around the merch floor at Star Trek Las Vegas, I am just stopped in my tracks by that X06 booth with the figurines that like,

they say they're museum quality, but what that really is is like Uncanny Valley quality.

They are so, so lifelike.

It almost seems like these mini actors are trapped in glass in this display.

I just think that they're like, both shockingly good and just shocking generally with what they put out.

Shockingly expensive also and and that's really the point of my choice is like i want any figurine that i am to be like three hundred dollars

uh the x06 figurine which would be like i don't know i don't know what eight inches is like like that tall i'm thinking wendy you're nodding your head no so there's no way we could possibly know yeah no one knows how tall that is so i would be like one of the big action figures like some some parents might call them dolls mistakenly that's how big I would be as an action figure.

And also, monster maroon, giant, high back jacket uniform with the, with the enormous pockets.

That's what I'd want to be wearing.

That's a great look.

Damn, that is an awesome call.

Wendy, do you have an answer to this question?

Are you about that action figure life?

I don't think I am.

I'm going to leave the action figuring to you guys.

You can't choose no action figure.

You must choose.

Okay, then I need to be like at a science station, you know, like

turned away,

working on the science station.

Looking into that like shoebox that you modify to observe the solar eclipse.

I'll look into the box, yeah.

Okay.

Oh, what's in the box?

Okay, next question.

This is from Boiled Stegosaur.

And this was collected on Reddit a while back.

So they would like to know more about your decision to commit to embarrassment full-time and turn the pod into a paid gig.

Was it scary and how did you make the decision?

Man, it didn't really feel like a decision in many ways, you know?

Like, I think it was like kind of a slow-motion lifestyle takeover.

At least

in my memory of it, like I think that I, my life was really changing a lot at the time that we started the show.

Also, like,

I think I had a job interview probably

right after the Ars Technica piece came out.

And it was like the only time I've ever gotten a job where I had to like go to an office every day from nine to five.

And like I mentioned that I had a Star Trek podcast in the job interview because it was.

Oh my God.

Why?

What?

Well, they were basically like.

Do you have any terrible secrets that you'd like to tell us before we do something like, I don't know, Google you?

Why should we not hire you?

Yeah.

It was,

we were in the like post-its going back and forth across the table phase of this thing.

And one of the things about it was this is a media company.

And so part of my employment contract was that they were going to own my creative output while I worked for them.

And I said,

problem about that.

you know, Ars Technica just wrote an article about this thing that I'm doing with my buddy Adam.

And so I had like a separate, there was like a covenant on my contract that carved out any Star Trek-related podcast content as something that I retained ownership of.

And that job lasted for like 11 months or something.

And then, you know, the company, which in retrospect was like almost ludicrously shady, you know, eliminated the entire floor of people that I worked with.

So, you know, it was kind of over.

And then I didn't have that many like clients left over after that to like, you know, cultivate freelance work with, which had been my entire professional life up until that point.

So I did like a few more jobs here and there.

And it was fine, but it was like, you know, like the show is starting to be enough work that I kind of would rather not try to like work in freelance gigs around the side.

And I mean, that was like 2017.

And that's when our

LLC was formed.

So it was kind of no looking back at that point.

And I felt very lucky that the show kind of rose up to catch me as I was falling out of the video production world

catch you with so so much work

because that's the thing I think I'm sure as the podcast grew it became a bigger and bigger project for you guys and then greatest discoveries started and it was just like yeah

it I mean Adam and I constantly talk about what a crazy choice it was in the early days for us to do two episodes of The Greatest Generation every week, given that we were both very, very full-time at other shit at the time.

Adam, what was your thought process about it?

It was at a time when I was already doing freelance work full-time, and so it just became like another client to me.

And then eventually it became the client that needed more of my time and paid me more regularly than than my other freelance work.

And eventually it just like became the one freelance client I had.

So like Ben said, it really did kind of make the case for itself.

But I don't feel like I chose it in a way that Ben also described as a part of his story, like it just became the noisiest work that I do.

And then I stopped picking up the phone for freelance clients.

And, you know, it's funny, you stop picking up the phone after when you're me, you stop picking up the phone after a couple of weeks and it never rings again.

So,

so that transition was fairly abrupt.

Yeah.

We moved to Los Angeles right around the time that it was sort of becoming full time for us.

And

yeah, like the couple of times I did get a freelance gig after moving to LA,

it felt like stressful and

like I was taking time away from my job to do this in a way where it was like that was like a real like tone shift because my job had always been freelance.

So like making a podcast was the thing that I was doing in my, in my funsy free time.

And I appreciated those freelance gigs when I got them because money was real fucking tight when we first moved to LA.

But

yeah, at a certain point, they felt like not worth the stress that they were putting me through, you know.

Even before we got attention or like professionalized, you know, like as a business, I never treated this like a hobby, even when we presumed that we were gonna do episodes that no one listened to.

Like, I think the approach in my mind was always like, do the best you can

and see what happens.

Like, so in my mind, to treat it like a freelance gig was sincere, like, this was a job, and it always has been.

That's fair.

It's just a fun job.

Yeah.

It's just better than other jobs.

Most of the time, it's fun.

Yeah, that's true.

Okay, I've got a two-headed question here, two FODs.

One question, basically.

So, Squonk from Reddit says, do you guys miss any of the previous series or the characters now that some time has passed since you reviewed them?

And then related question, Joshua Ridgway asked, what audio drops do you miss not being used from prior series?

Oh, man.

Yeah, I was actually, I had a

cup of coffee with a friend this morning, and he was asking, like, what do you do when you run out of Star Trek?

And I was like, I mean, we just go back to the beginning and watch more Star Trek, I think.

I don't know, man.

Why are you asking so many questions?

Yeah.

Are you a cop or something?

Yeah.

If you're a cop, you have to tell me.

I definitely

look forward to the loop back in a way that I think is a little fucked up.

But I think that, like, a lot of Star Trek fans, like, part of the fun of Star Trek is that it's always there for you, and you can always go back to it and get different things out of it.

Like, when we watched TNG through the first time on the show, I felt like

I was experiencing it in this whole new way that was really exciting because it was part of a new exciting chapter in my creative professional life.

But

I think revisiting it is something I really look forward to.

And drop-wise,

Admiral Necheyev drop drop got made on the last episode that Admiral Nechayev appeared.

And it's one of my favorite stupid ass drops.

I feel like the bits of audio that came together to make it are such a funny little conversation with each other that, yeah,

I'm always down to listen to that one.

Admiral Natayev and Valerian Canopies?

Is Admiral Nachayev?

Are those Valerian canopies?

Admiral Nechev.

Canopies in my ass.

Yeah, I mean, you can't miss something if it doesn't leave.

And I find myself watching old episodes of Star Trek fairly often.

It's on syndication all the time.

So I'm watching movies from time to time and I'm watching TNG from time to time in a way that means that it's never far out of my consciousness.

But yeah, I look forward to circling back to the beginning.

10 years from now or whatever.

There's not that much enterprise, thank God.

Well, I mean,

there's TOS before that, right?

We got to do the big circle.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

That's big news.

You heard it here.

Yeah.

there's that, and then there's Back to the Beginning.

And yeah, what was the other question about drops?

Drops.

Yeah, is there a drop you miss?

A drop.

A drop from the past.

I'll always love...

the Owl My Nose drop.

But the thing about that one is that it's so specific to one episode that I think was a bonus episode to begin with that it is totally inscrutable to anyone who ever hears it in the in a mainline episode.

Like when people put quarters in the in the drop machine for P1s and it gets played in a mainline, I don't think anyone understands what that is or what it refers to.

That's what makes it special to me.

Yeah,

would have definite advantages.

Look, it's typing everything I'm saying.

There it sits.

Stop it.

Everything you have done

with your fingers.

Stop.

With your fingers.

Stop.

How do you expect me to type with my nose?

Stop.

Stop it.

Stop.

Stop it.

Stop.

Stop it.

And magnet.

Standard.

You thought you could handle it.

So we can.

That's fun.

But I love the metamorphosis, the evolution of the Harry Kimdrop over the years.

Yeah.

And the way it's picked up more bits and then changed characters.

Like, when that popped back up recently.

For Mayweather.

I was so happy to hear it.

And I hope we keep adding stuff to the Mayweather version in that same way because it's striking how

there tends to be that kind of character on every Star Trek show.

And Mayweather is our shot with him for Enterprise.

It's just great.

Great job with that, Wendy.

Can't keep his shirt on.

The hunk that the show doesn't understand is a hunk.

Yeah.

It's just like being back in the wood.

Who are you?

In some Travis Mayweather.

Parents must be very proud.

When I was a kid, we called it the sweet spot.

Who are you?

I'm the helmsman.

I guess growing up a boomer has its advantages.

And your mom very proud.

That's true.

Takes practice.

Other than keeping Ninson Mayweather up at night, I'm not sure what we expect to accomplish here.

Yeah, I think my favorite older one

that I would love to hear more often is probably.

Well, some people put a quarter in the drop machine and play the Maggie O'Cower in.

That one's so good.

Would you like to hold my hand?

Would you like to kiss me?

Well, good morning, boys.

The spirits have turned her into a coward.

I'm not quite myself today.

What kind of a girl do you think I am, bitch?

I'm a cowgoo.

I was walking around town with nothing but a bell around my neck.

Everyone was staring at me.

That one gets me every time.

You're frequently telling me and Ben that, like, I don't get your references sometimes, like, especially with music.

That was one where I had to ask you, like, there's actually a song

where the vocalist says that they're a cow.

What are you, where did you even find that?

And then when you hipped me to the song, I was like,

this is a modern song.

This just came out.

How is there a cow song right now?

I thought you were a Doja Cat enthusiast.

No, I'm not.

No, I was unfamiliar, but I am now.

Yeah, I think that was me that was bringing most of the Doja Cat energy to the show.

That checks out.

Question about bonus content, and I guess the game of buttholes as well.

So, this is from Kyle McCowan on Twitter.

He's a cow, bitch.

which of the bokos has been the most fun to make and second question what is your actual favorite square in the game of buttholes i don't do you got a do you got a favorite square i think my favorite one just happened it was the slash fiction marin like i have missed writing that stuff for our for our touring shows and i was like oh that was neat That was neat that one time I did that.

And when we rolled and hit that square, I was like, I don't know if I still have this gear.

Like, I don't know if I remember how to do it.

And then, like, as soon as I started writing it, I was like, I know how to do this.

This is like I get into a car accident and suddenly I can speak a foreign language for some reason.

Like, it just seemed like a medical mystery that, like, as soon as we hit this square, I was like, activated to write slash fiction.

And there it was.

I have to say, I am more scared of that square than I am the one where we have to read bad reviews because

I don't know how I could possibly match your talents when it comes to the combination of comedy and neurotica.

All you need is a, is a great appetite for simile.

Just

all the similes.

I think that's what makes it really interesting to consider, Ben.

I can't wait until we roll that square for you because I would love to hear a Benjamin R.

Harrison version of that.

I'm terrified of that.

Well, we'll see.

We'll see if it happens.

Wendy, you had to edit that.

Did you think about quitting?

Did you have to take a break part way through?

Like, when you took the job, I don't think you had any expectation that you'd have to do that.

There have been a lot of surprises over the last three years.

There really have been.

You're so diplomatic.

But the nice thing about, you know, I think people would think that editing a podcast would get very redundant, but the nice thing about working with you guys is that it's always some fresh bullshit.

You know, and I get to hear the show first, so that's the

big bonus for me.

On some episodes, even before me and Ben.

What are the squares on the game of buttholes?

What's my favorite square?

There's all the drinking ones, and then there's like the art project.

I've been having a lot of fun with the Naomi Wildman art project square.

You're a much better drawer than I was expecting.

And not because I expected you to be bad.

It's just that I expect most people to be not as skilled as you at just drawing stuff.

I was really impressed by that.

Yeah, I think that the thing that surprised me about it was like feeling like a little bit reawakened.

Like I always, you know, doodled in my notebook or whatever in

school, but I haven't kept a practice of drawing stuff since then.

So it's been like a really fucking long time actually since I've regularly put pen to paper, except for like random little things like, oh, fuck, like for our challenge coin, we really need a likeness of Kevin Uxbridge.

So I like threw together a little image of him.

Or the logo for the podcrawl, which you were able to put together from scratch.

Amazing work.

A totally original idea by me that nobody else had ever thought of before.

Like, it's amazing that anyone would think that they thought of that first.

Yeah.

So since we started hitting that, I like went out and bought myself like an art pad and a and a nice mechanical pencil.

And I've been like doing little, I've been like.

Did you get the pamphlet from the Art School of America?

Like are you, are you drawing the cowboy and the turtle yet?

I haven't been able to nail the pirate, but the turtle's pretty easy.

Yeah.

It's also just like not a part of my routine.

It's like starting working out at, you know, 35.

It's like if it's not like part of the rhythm of your life, it takes a little effort to try and find time to do it.

But

I've been wanting to do it more.

And I've, you know, like, oh, maybe I should take like a, like a life drawing class or something.

Hey, Ben.

How's the life drawing class?

I don't think the game of buttholes was ever conceived to have like any wholesome positive upsides to it like that, but like the Adam Pranica School of Creative Writing proves that

even the game of buttholes can yield positive results.

Well put.

Yeah, we need to fully actualize your innate talents

through art and slash fiction.

Exactly.

That's what we need.

There was another half of that question that I feel like I totally elided.

Favorite Boco.

Oh, favorite Boco.

Man.

I love it when we do a movie, you you know, like the rollerball episode was such a random.

I was like, why am I even watching this movie?

But it was fun to talk about and fun to watch.

Yeah, I would agree, Ben.

And I think it was that it was chosen for us that made it better.

Yeah.

Force me to watch more movies

is my vote.

Wendy, are there squares that when you hear that we've hit them, you're like, oh, fuck.

Damn it.

It's got to be the drinking ones, right?

It's got to be the drinking ones.

Like, they're off the rails.

They're so funny.

They're usually like at least 20 to 30 minutes longer than a regular episode.

You've got to know that like we do try hard not to make them go long.

Yeah, yeah.

It's just tough.

It's tough not to take every tangent when you're hammered.

No, it's really funny.

And sometimes like, maybe we'll talk about this more in some of the production questions, but usually my process for editing is to like edit the Marin and then edit the end of the show.

I used to do it that way too.

Yeah, I think you did that.

And there's a reason, like, whatever.

But so it's hilarious to jump from the Marin to the end of the show on drunk associates because I'm like, damn,

what happened in the last hour?

The real before and after.

It really is with no like gradual entry into the drunkness.

So I think that like any given episode of The Grey's Generation is a descent into madness, but those really amplify what's happening.

I mean, God, the last one, the champagne one that we just did recently.

That champagne hits pretty hard.

By the end of it, I was like, God, I'm like just on a different fucking planet.

And I'm not even aware that I'm on a different planet.

The bubbles took you away.

I think some of the game of butthole squares have been so infrequent that I've had to like go back to the wiki.

and look up the last time it happened to go listen to that up to make sure all the little details about it are in place, you know?

So there have been a couple that have come around like that.

Like the no-notes version, I feel like we hit a bunch of times when we first introduced that, and we haven't hit it in a million years.

It's been a minute, yeah.

Inth degree was the favorite of the person who wrote this question.

Hmm.

That is a rare opinion.

That's why I made that sound.

I was like, that's unbelievable.

What?

Most people tell us about how much they fucking hate that.

You know what's funny about the first time we ever did an nth degree episode was I think, you know, like most things we do in pre-production, we did pre-production individually and then came to the show and just found out what happened.

And I think, Ben, you started with...

your extensive research and I immediately realized that I was not on the same page as you because I took it seriously with extensive research, like actual research.

Oh, bro.

And then you started with a bit.

And I was like, as the show is going on, I'm recapping and making jokes about the episode, but there's like a deep part of my brain that's like, come up with the fake research as we're doing the show.

So live, during the recording, I'm like having to do the work that was actually supposed to be done for the nth degree and trying to make it work.

So that very first nth degree episode, I fuck that up because

I understood the assignment only after you did it first.

If that's true, I feel very bad about that.

You have nothing to feel bad about.

Your decision was the funny decision.

Yeah, my memory of it was just that I looked around for any information about the episode we were watching and there just didn't seem to be that much that was interesting.

So I was like, I'll just make funny shit up.

The purity of it is that it's a very very greatest gen joke because it is not our way to do research, and it is also our way to make fun of shows that do the research.

Yeah.

And it's a good excuse to use the more you know drop.

Yeah, for sure.

But in terms of bonus episodes, I mean, you guys have done so many different things.

I think the favorite one to edit for me has always been TOS or T-A-S,

just because like the line deliveries and the music of the whole thing, like, it's just hilarious.

Like it's so funny every time.

But our freelance producer, Ali, does the Santa Monica Mountains podcast and those are always so much fun to listen to.

if you haven't been in the Boco feed yet, F-O-D, there is a lot of amazing stuff in there.

I think we started doing monthly bonus episodes around the time I joined.

So we have three years worth of monthly bonus episodes, plus...

everything that you guys put out before I joined the team.

So it's that classic new hire shit that people tend to go through, which is like you thought you were hired for one job and then we changed the expectation on you.

Hello, Peter.

What's happening?

I'm looking at

our spreadsheet here.

Five dozen bonus episodes and counting.

Yeah,

it's a lot.

That's five years by my account.

Yeah.

Lee Sturmans, this is one for you, Adam.

Okay.

Asks, what's Adam's favorite aircraft?

Like, just

what is it, or to fly on, or or to look at?

Wow.

Let's go aesthetics, and then let's go back to your flight simulator days.

Like, my favorite military plane.

I love that F-14 Tomcat from Top Gun.

I think that's an awesome plane.

Like the World War II era, I love

the P-51, the Mustang.

That's such a cool looking plane.

I always loved 747s when I worked at Giant Airplane Company, and I got to crawl around quite a few of them in my time there.

I thought those were the best.

And

my favorite plane to fly on as an airline passenger, that A220.

It's like the regional size, like like the big, it's the small single-aisle plane that more and more airlines are flying.

Window in the bathroom.

It's one of the notable things about that plane.

Are you like filtering your flight search results for that plane?

Wow.

When I go to Seattle and I tend to go back up to Seattle a couple of times a year, for some reason, Delta flies 737-800s, which is just fucking junk.

Is it a choad?

It's a fucking choad.

Like, that is a bad plane.

I will choose a route at a different time if it's a 900 or an A220 or something else.

What about your simulator?

What were you piloting?

Back when I was flying, like, Microsoft Flight Simulator.

You know, that's what I'm talking about.

I took that game super seriously.

Like, I treated it as instruction for...

for flying.

So like I would I would start with the Cessna and I would like plot out my routes and I would try to do things in the right way and and all that so yeah I mean like sometimes I would fly a Learjet just because it was fun but like I would keep it pretty real with the simulations and that shouldn't surprise anyone as an enthusiast of gears that I was

I have like a an ancillary question which is what's like the most excited you've been about a plane you got to be on

Because like I remember like the first time I got to be on a Dreamliner and I was like totally geeked out about it and you know like I'd read about the plane, so I was like excited to experience what it was like to be on like kind of the state of the art.

Like they figured out how to wait how to make it like much quieter and the windows are much bigger and all that.

I think my answer has to do with the plane, but also the circumstance.

The first time I went to Japan with my wife, we flew ANA

and we were on a Dreamliner for the first time.

I thought it was so fucking cool at pushback when the tug let the plane go and we started taxiing.

The ground crew bowed to the plane as we rolled out.

Wow.

And I was like, fuck yeah, like culturally, that is so cool.

And like every flight attendant was so nice and awesome.

And like the food was so good, even though like we weren't in first, like we were just flying to Japan.

Like all the little differences of flying a flag carrier from a different country, from a different culture.

I thought it was just amazing.

And it made like, it started the trip off so nice and it made it such a unique experience.

Like that is something that really stood out to me.

Yeah.

That's really cool.

Mine was kind of the opposite.

It was, it was really recently went to Culebra in Puerto Rico and it was a tiny little like eight-seat plane.

Wow.

And it was the smallest plane I've ever been on and it was, I was giddy.

It was so fun.

Was it propellers or was it jet?

It was two propellers and the propeller was inches from my face like i was in the seat right beside the propeller wow it was really really neat you wouldn't even feel it wendy yeah i'd be over before yeah

i feel like it really

that is a real like dividing line for a lot of people like they're like the little plane can really spook some people my wife hates anything that like she doesn't like flying in single aisle jets like she wants wide body she just feels safer in like the bigger the plane, the better, basically.

Like,

and I'm always, like, totally geeked to be in, like, a little puddle jumper that's, you know.

Yeah, I think it was called Islander.

Is that a type of plane, Adam?

Do you know?

Oh, I don't know.

I mean, there's like thousands of little carriers around the world that fly all sorts of planes, but yeah, I'll have to look into Islander as a type.

This sounds like a plane that you have to download.

Like, you have to pay a couple bucks to to download Islander on Microsoft Flight Simulator.

But if you crash one of those, you're in the Caribbean.

So, you know,

take the backstroke your way

to safety.

The water's warm.

Okay, Ben, I've got one for you.

Oh, okay.

This is from Mech My Day,

who says, as another soon-to-be dad of two, I'm wondering how Ben is feeling about keeping the balance with Darone, Tea Baby, and podcasting.

Oh man,

it's definitely a tricky balance.

Massive thanks to everyone here at the Uxbridge Shimoda Corporation for picking up a lot of slack that I'm leaving in the line.

I had a conversation last night with my wife where I was like, we were just talking about how the amount of time we were able to build into our schedule for family leave was a lot less this time, just because of like where the holidays lined up with where

second of two was born.

And so I was back to work pretty quickly, and that meant my wife was kind of on overnights in a more solo way than she was last time.

Like I was with Darone, I was getting up with her three, four times a night and doing

all of the parts that I could do so that she could focus on the one part that only she could do.

And this time she's doing pretty much all of it, but it's, it's still disrupting my sleep.

So I've been feeling very self-conscious about getting on mic and just being like, I don't know, man, I don't know what's going on here.

And

I think, Wendy, you've done an amazing job editing around how spacey I've been.

And Adam has definitely,

you know, I've been looking back at the sand and seeing Adam footprints only a lot of the time lately.

And we're probably like a month and a half away from when we can start to sleep drain the little one.

So, you know, hopefully, hopefully, things are, you know, heading in a better direction.

And she's already sleeping for longer stretches.

But

yeah, I don't know.

It is really, it's really tough.

And I definitely don't envy anyone that has a less flexible schedule than podcast, which is almost everyone, because it's a lot.

It's a ton to take on.

Yeah.

We're both childless heathens, the other people on this call.

it is instructive to hear this because, like, my wife and I have a lot of friends with kids, and it's always a little bit different, the things that you hear from the parents in your life.

And nothing you're saying is encouraging me to change my mind about my position on having kids.

I don't think anyone should have kids that is even a little bit not sure of it.

Like, I always wanted kids.

I always knew that I wanted kids, and I'm so happy to have them.

That's great.

But it is, it's like.

That's the sort of parent you want if you are a kid yourself.

Well, precisely that.

Like, I think

it is such a gift to the kids who aren't having to not do this if you aren't somebody that wants it.

Because the people that...

Did you hear that, Wendy?

It's a gift that we're not doing this.

Is there a gift receipt?

Yeah,

yeah, you get you get like a $250 Amazon credit.

Cool, you can only use it on MP3s or something.

Yeah, you can like, cool, thanks, I guess.

Uh, you can redeem it for season two of Reacher.

Sorry, that's the only thing you can get.

Great.

I am the putis of born.

Lock pages on that vessel.

I am the putis of born.

There are four lights.

Couple of production questions from Reddit.

La femme danger.

I don't know.

How would you say this?

La femme danger.

Okay, I've been an FOD from the beginning, and the drops have become such an integral part of the show.

Can you talk about the process of putting a new one together?

And do you been an Adam Q Wendy up for specific drops in parts of the recording that we don't hear or notes after the show?

Or does she make the choices herself?

Great question.

I think it's a bit of both

because you've definitely introduced drops to the show that neither of us saw coming.

Surprise, motherfucker.

And that is always

like the top of my head gets hot.

I'm just like, holy shit, I cannot believe

the monster we've created.

Wendy used to be such a respectable NPR employee.

Yeah, and then then she drops I'm a cow on us.

Yeah.

I don't like to signal when a drop should happen.

Like I think there's a natural moment where they do.

Like I kind of feel like that's giving an actor a line reading.

Like there are times when I want to be totally sure that one goes and I'll say it.

But like for the most part, the recordings are conversations and we don't stop them to note when a drop should take place.

And we

have never said anything like, Hey, Wendy, can you make a drop for this moment or this character?

Like, that request has never happened.

And I think that's one of the things that make the situation you're describing, Ben, so much fun.

Is like, we are genuinely surprised when we hear one come out of the blue the way it often does.

Yeah, it's like something comes over me.

Yeah,

I have to confess, I have, it will surprise no one to hear this, but a part of me that feels terribly guilty surrounding this.

And that is specifically.

What's Ben guilty about now?

Oh, we got to make another.

When we're QAing, the process for that is we have a like a Dropbox, and Wendy will post a link to the edit in Dropbox.

And then Adam and I will listen through, and they have a feature on there where you can leave a note at a specific time code on the file so that you can say, oh, if you could tighten this up or cut this thing that I said that I don't love the way I said it, or can you add this sound effect or this clip from the episode here?

Adam used a bad word for a bad thing that we're not allowed to say anymore.

Yeah.

Well, Adam, the point is we were never allowed to say it, and I'm kind of surprised you didn't know that.

That word is not for us.

um but if i'm you know listening to an episode while i'm driving or like washing the dishes or something if i'm qaing and i hear a thing that like needs to change about an episode i'll like you know turn off the sink and dry my hands and like put the note in but when a new drop drops sometimes i'm like

That is fucking hilarious.

That's the greatest.

And I'm enjoying the show.

And I don't put the note in that like just like A plus, great job, you know, and and I we owe you so much more gratitude and and thanks for all of the great work you do Wendy is what I'm trying to say.

Thank you Ben.

It's I I like the collaboration of it though because There have been a couple of times like the most recent thing that comes to mind is the hyper compliance drop

so good

Yeah, yeah good example.

Yeah, because I had put I think you guys had kind of been like hey, does this need a drop?

That was one of the few instances where like, hmm, we could do something here.

And so I put something together and then, Adam, you gave me like a really fun punch-up.

Ben's hyper-compliance.

Woohoo!

Woo-hoo.

Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the roll?

Did you see the memo about this?

Yeah.

If the rule you followed, rugged of this,

of what use was the rule?

Compliance.

Yeah.

Dark thank me or anything.

So that's like the most collaborative, I would say.

Yeah.

You guys record just the raw show and then the next time you hear it, it is fully edited.

Yeah.

And I would say a good 50% of the time, like that's the version everyone winds up hearing.

Like, you know, sometimes we have a few notes here and there, but like mostly you deliver like the final edit to us.

And it's just about us going like, yep, perfect.

Good job.

There's a version of this that I really do want to call attention to that I think deserves praise and respect that I think only the most hardcore might appreciate, which is like editing for comedy absent a drop or an effect or whatever else, like to use an interstitial for comedic effect, like at the end of a tangent or something.

This just happened to an episode I was listening to where I was like, that is

that's the next level.

That's one of the reasons I think our show is really great and good comedically is like it's not just the obvious stuff.

It's like, oh, yeah.

It's like the moment where you choose to take a break is like, yes, that is like the natural comedic conclusion do a thing.

Oh, I can think of a very specific example of this.

When we were talking about how great Susie Plaxon's voice is, and you dropped in her saying it doesn't have a stun setting.

Yeah.

Flawless.

Yeah.

That made the episode, you know, like that was

so good.

Yeah, it was from a much later scene, but I was like, this is the line.

It's got to be the line.

That's always been the philosophy, like additive and not duplicative with how those things are used.

Something I've noticed about drops over the years in terms of making them is that it's not always like the first time a character's introduced.

It's like the first time you guys call a character back as a joke.

So it won't be in, like, for example, I think Maggie O'Coweran was like this.

Like, it wasn't in the episode where she featured, it was in the next episode where you made fun of the fact that she turned into a cow that we actually made the drop, you know?

Because we don't know when we're mid-conversation how much longer we're going to be interested in this person or this concept.

Right.

So it's usually on the callback that we'll make a bigger thing out of something.

Yeah.

That's true.

Okay.