Muse

Hello. Hi, everybody. I promised I wasn't going to make a toast, and I'm not going to. Just going to do a little freestanding comedy, and if at the end everybody wants to raise their glasses to Pam and Jim, then so be it. Hey, what is the deal with the smart car? How smart is that? Those things are tiny. Can you even drive them in traffic? Yeah, I'm so smart. E equals MC squared. I drive a smart car. That's not smart in my book. The real smart car is Kit from Knight Rider. Knight Rider. That's a car that can talk. Can smart car talk? Nope, that's not smart. And also Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Very smart. And everybody can laugh. It doesn't have to just be the idiots.

TBTL.

Come on, what do you want me to do? I don't care. Yeah, get a job. Oh, get a job? Yeah. Just get a job? Why don't I strap on my job helmet and squeeze down into a job cannon and fire off into job land where jobs grow on jobbies.

All right, I'm going to assume that's hypothetical, right? Your hypothetical is kind of tightly constrained, and I doubt whether that kind of thing would ever happen. I'm not going to sit here and juggle hypotheticals that aren't in the world.

I'm sorry, but when I hear an undeserved compliment, it makes my ears want to throw up. Oh, your ears are always throwing up about something.

All right, hello, good morning, And welcome everyone to a Wednesday edition of TBT All The Show That just might be too beautiful to live

It's not as sexy as sending astronauts to the moon

My name is Luke Burbank I am your host

Oh yeah

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio First high above the mighty Columbia Once again, I've had far too much coffee for the broadcast

Put that coffee down

But maybe it'll give me just the energy that we all need for episode 4,156 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. Remember last week we were talking about how Wendy's might be surge pricing? And, of course, because of the day and age we live in, the other fast food companies. where there's a constant somatic somatic socratic there's a constant dialogue a constant back and forth between the fast food entities uh now online and places where they're all they're all everybody's trolling everyone else burger king buru ray has weighed in on memories are made in in your mouth on uh the wendy's surge pricing idea and i think that they may i think at bk have it your way you fool i think that the ceo of bk may have made a mistake which we'll talk about also time permitting uh we don't have john sklaroff here but i think we still might want to do a little tbtb team building where we continue getting to know each other yesterday we got exactly one question in of i believe it was 150 questions to get to know someone better um so we only have 149 to get through today and it's going to start as soon as we say hello to this young man the longest running co-bro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ship he's Andrew Walsh and he's joining me right now good morning Luke

um I want well you have a question for me or I sound like I'm asking you a question no I have

a question that will probably derail things am i am i have i lost my marbles or did we did we play the friday tbtl sounder on a on a way does our wednesday have a case of the fridays

i didn't even notice that slipped by me i don't have this labeled as a friday

it doesn't have any friday specific audio it doesn't you know it doesn't have the the usual stuff, but I just noticed that the acapella folks did the like the one that we use on Friday and what's amazing is, if you would have woken me up from a dead sleep and said what's different about the Friday acapella you know, whatever you want to call it, show announced I couldn't tell, I could never tell you in a million years, but when I heard it, I was like wait, I was looking around I was trying to find a dinosaur to slide down, I was like, god this week

went fast right yeah let me give a little backstory for folks who either are relatively new listeners or don't pay just a painful amount of attention to the minutiae of this show but for years and years and years I'm honestly surprised that I noticed no

I'm really this this is really interesting so for years and years and years and even before I was making the intros to the show we always use this acapella open in that intro and then at some point I started making the intros with the montages and everything and that went on for years and then I'm gonna say it was around the time I mean this is going back probably already 10 years ago because I think it was maybe around the time we joined American Public Media in some sort of archive that I do not know where this was, why I had access to it. I discovered something that I didn't know existed. You knew it existed, and it was a different version of those same singers doing a TBTL flourish jingle. TBTL. Now, of course, this was recorded in the Cairo studios, correct?

Yeah. I can't even remember the name of those a cappella folks, but we had them in. I mean, we had a lot of time to fill. Yeah, sure. We had them in. i believe they performed you know maybe they performed a song or they just talked about what it's like to do acapella and then uh i'm gonna give credit to jen probably somebody had the bright idea why don't we have them rip off a few rip through a few jingles where they sing tbtl and who could have known on that what i assume was probably a dreary wednesday night or something all i was thinking was how soon can i get back to azteca across the street that's the thing that's so weird about this show um you know both in the early days and even up till today um you never know when something that is happening is going to become sort of canon as they say right and and yeah those that little thing that happened of these of these a cappella singers singing that has become literally a daily experience on the show and also specifically broken down along if it's a friday or if it's one of the other four days of the week which is something that so this

is so again this was the original as i always knew it but like you said you or jen must have had them roll through a couple of different versions and like i say i don't know why what vault i opened like heraldo what arc of what covenant exactly but suddenly i remember hearing this for the first time again like 10 years ago or something and i i ran to you luke with my eye I ran to you and my eyes were open and I, my mouth was a gape. Why are you out of breath? Exactly. And I said, because I just went up one stair, one stair did that to me. And I was like, what is this from? You're like, I don't know. I don't even know if you recalled them doing different versions, but I'm like, I'll tell you what Dave Ross show. I'm like, I'll mix it into the show from time to time. And so that's what happened. I mixed it in a randomly maybe for a few weeks. And then at some point we, or I decided, you know what? that will demarc a friday show i'm gonna give you credit for that and i will also say i i love that about the show i love that yeah i love that for us it's a small little thing and then of course we had now we have other things that go into our friday intros the uh anybody know what day it is it's friday friday gotta get down on friday all of that kind of started to build around that and now we have a little special friday vibe which i like but i think that this intro that i played today with that clip of tape from the office is so old. It's from that period of time when I was just messing around by throwing that acapella version 2 into an intro randomly. In fact, this is very uninteresting and that's why I want to leave the show with it. The intro I number every intro that I've made starting with number one when I don't even know if I was a full timer on the show then Do you remember, do we remember, can it be

verified can you give me the 411 one yeah yeah um on what intro number one actually has in it as the intro tape it's i can you have it up yeah i probably do can we try to probably pretty rough no wait wait wait you're gonna have like will you have a some sort of indication on the file like of what's in there of what the

opening i might although i didn't start labeling i think i originally was just labeling them by a number i'd call it intro dash and a number and i would email it to you which is one of the reasons I had to delete tons of old emails. I used to just, with all the music bed, that's like a seven-minute file or a six-minute file, and I had hundreds of those that I would send to you before every show way back in the day. So I will dial this out. I did want to say, though, the thing that might not be interesting to other people, but I will mention is the last new intro that I made was a couple of weeks ago, and it was number 920 in a collector's series. And this one that I played for you today with The Office is like two.

You only have to make 72 more intros to get to 1,000. To get to the 1K. God, do you think you'll make 72 more intros in the... I do think so, yeah. I mean, that's not to... I'm not trying to sort of indicate that I have low expectations, but that's actually a lot of intros to make. It really is, and the thing is, and it doesn't, it's like... one of those things that doesn't account for everything we would make special ones for when we're live on the air we'd make special ones for fundraising that sometimes don't get the official numbers so who knows exactly what the numbers i have intro number one right here luke i can't tell what year it's from but i do know that this would have been probably i think this i started making intros for you before i was even a regular voice on the show i think i was working with you at Cairo I listened back to some old episodes of TBTL and heard like that used to have more more drops and stuff in the intro you'd kind of pulled away from that for a while then I got really into the Kevin and Bean show and I got really into beans intros with all the tape and I'm like hey if I made one for you on spec as they say and I emailed it to you and I said hey if you ever wanted to use this as an intro and you were like really happy you were like because you were doing a lot on your own back then and you're like yeah any of these that you want to make going forward it would be great to spice up the show a bit and that's probably like 2011 or 2012 and I have one here that is labeled intro number one it doesn't describe what it is at all but I will say this like I made some stuff for you that sometimes I think you always used them but there are a few that there's no way we would use anymore like there are some that are on the edge and then there are some that went so far over the edge that it splatted at the bottom of the ravine and that's where we'll leave it I'm thinking of one from Archer in particular about a certain robot. Oh, oh, oh, oh, sure. Oh, he's not Mr. Roboto. Let's just say that. Sure. So anyway, so I don't know what we're going to hear in intro number one here. It's not that, though.

Let me try to let me try to guess here. You said this would have been. So was this the first intro that you think you ever made for the show or the first intro? OK, the first one. And so you said this is you are not yet officially the co-bro of the show.

The version of the story I'm telling you right now, that is what I'm saying. I could be misremembering some things, but I'm pretty sure I was a producer who was helping you repackage stuff on weekends for Cairo Radio. I might have been a guest on the show once or twice. You and I were working together, but I don't think I was on the show when I made this.

You were making these maybe for the love of the game.

For the love of the game. The remix. Was that the Tori's show? Wasn't that the Tori's weekend show?

Well, I think he did a version. Yes, I think he had the remix. I forget what we called, like, there was some kind of a TBTL weekend thing, right? It wasn't called TBTL weekend?

And I'd go into the archives of the podcast and the old radio show, and I would cobble them together into a radio clock format. But anyway, yeah.

I wonder if we could get back on Cairo by way of my brother, who's now one of the main voices.

I was just texting him about Cairo earlier today.

He's like, it's wild to me how often my brother David, DFTB, is like, fills in for Dave Ross. And he's the producer of that morning show. But he does pieces. He fills in when people are out. I mean, it's like, there must always be a Burbank at Cairo, if possible. Right. Okay, so let me, this is, I'm just stalling now. Because I'm trying to think of what was going on. I'm going to guess that it's something, it's not a piece of, like, news tape. okay yes i don't know why but i'm just thinking maybe for your for you i i'm thinking it's something that you saw in a movie or tv show that was kind of caught your interest i'm trying to think this would have been you and veeves would have been on capitol hill still living in the shadow of the bno espresso exactly mere steps from the last boston market although it was already a star it had already become a starbucks but well or a nothing culturally it's always going to be a Boston Market to me. Okay, hold on. I'm trying to think. You've got your upstairs writing room where you like to smoke your cigarettes.

Nobody. No, I didn't.

No, you didn't. I'm sorry. You've got your upstairs writing room where you would never, where you'd sooner die than smoke a cigarette. I need to get, I need to physically inhabit your world at this time so I can think, what were you watching? To think like a Walsh, you've got to be a Walsh. You've got to, you've got to, I'm just trying to think. Think like a Walsh, you've got to be a Walsh. I feel like it's too early for Tim and Eric stuff. And maybe also maybe Tim and Eric, you and I now have, you know, endlessly discussed those sketches and played them. But maybe at that time, that would have been a little avant-garde for the time for like, I'm trying to think of the first thing you would send me that you'd be like, okay, this is going to be good for TBTL potentially. It makes me think it would have not been like a bizarro Tim and Eric sketch. It would have been like a scene from A Murder She Wrote.

I don't think I would have done anything. Columbo? Maybe Columbo? I don't think, and I'm trying to help you a little bit without spoiling it. Oh, you do know. No, I don't really know, but I will say that it wouldn't, these first ones would have been, I think,

funny on their face not sort of just like uh-huh subtly funny like I don't think I would have thought like hey this bit from Columbo or murder she wrote is sort of funny in its earnestness like it would have been just something that was a little bit more I'm sure so you do know what it is no I don't I just you know what it's not gonna be one of the I know what it's not and I know that like I see like intro number three is the first one that I slugged anything and I slugged it stupid and I think some of these early ones had themes and I think that's what I was really into like finding like insults like that's i cringe to think of this even though my voice isn't on this like even as a producer i cringe about what we're going to hear because i think a lot of the humor i was pulling i was just like and it was more acerbic at the time i feel like i was like this

is a bad idea should we have i let us down a no i mean if there's anything bad i mean we're not

live if there's anything that i can't stand by all i want to hear is the intro tape i honestly

don't i'm not even that obsessed with the i want to hear up to the tbtl okay well then let's uh that's the case we can actually click through a few of these hold on hold on i just hang on wait hold on i think i can get here wait am i holding on or no no oh here's a mystery for you where's

intro number five why does it go from intro four to intro six luke where is intro five um okay

Okay, intro number one. Okay, so it's something that's probably, it's probably comic for comic's sake or what, like you said, it's sort of self-evident. And so it would have been, I, you know what? I think, believe it or not, could it be something from The Office?

I think it could be something from The Office with 30 Rock. I think 30 Rock is good.

Which is ridiculous, not ridiculous, but which is hilarious. If this whole conversation started today with an intro package from the office, smart cars, and if low those many years ago, 10 plus years ago, it was also the office, I'm going to guess that it would have been the office or the 30 Rock, which is interesting because we really, we strip mined 30 Rock for audio content. I mean, honestly, we were not, and we weren't good to the environment. We just went right in there and just absolutely dynamited the entirety of that series.

Let me say one more thing here, too, and I'm sort of just realizing this. It also might not even be tape that was unprecedented on TBTL because I remember thinking, oh, well, you guys used to, you'd sort of pulled back on making the montages. So I went back and like you say, strip mine, I strip mine some of the early days of TBTL and kind of remixed stuff or like took a cold open and then started adding drops. I mean, that's what I was bringing back was the idea because you had gone away from having a montage at the top of the show. It was just like dry open tape, acapella and then music.

OK, I'm going to guess that it's something from 30 Rock. I'm going to say I am, too.

OK, I'm going to guess that, too. Here it is. This is intro number one.

I Brandy, Heather Channing, Brianna, Amber, Sabrina, Melody, Dakota, Sierra, Bambi, Crystal, Samantha, Autumn, Ruby, Taylor, Tara, Tammy, Lauren, Charlene, Chantel, Courtney, Misty, Jenny, Krista, Mindy, Noelle, Shelby, Trina, Reba, Cassandra, Nikki, Kelsey, Shauna, Jolene, Erling, Claudia, Savannah, Casey, Dolly, Kendra, Olly, Chloe, Devin, Emmaloo, f***ing Becky? Nope. Wait, was it any one of those names with a Lynn after it? Yes. Okay. Brady Lynn, Heather Lynn, Chambi Lynn. F***ing TBTN.

Dare we, dare we, just, I mean.

I've put down about 20, 30 pounds of beef in one sitting, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

My dream is to sail around the world. Oh, catamaran. With two members of every cat race, and share my love with cats for all the humans to see around the world. Today, I am making this studio a no-spin zone.

A no-embarrassment zone. Oh, no-embarrassment zone.

I met a guy yesterday, seven feet tall. I figured he had to be a sport, but he wasn't a sport. That is totally absurd. That's Hawk Carol?

You have to be mad. If you just sign up for a little yoga class, you're signing up for a little demon class.

That's Mark Driscoll. The last time I heard that, I laughed so hard. I fell off my dinosaur.

Hey, you know what, Andrew? I feel very good about that audio

Yeah, I don't think I would use any Mark Wahlberg tape There's something so bro-y about Ted I think another early one is him doing a bunch of other words for beer Yeah, Bruce Stoyofsky Yeah, exactly

You're saying that the show has evolved away from the deeply Catholic guy who wakes up at 3 in the morning to exercise

Who assaulted somebody in Boston

As a youth and made him go blind I believe Yeah exactly Other than the fact that we're sort of

We're not enchanted by Mark Wahlberg's work these days, per se. Other than that, I think that that's pretty. In fact, some of those are still in pretty heavy rotation.

Yeah, they are. No, I haven't grown a lot. Let me just hear. I'm not going to do the whole thing. Let's just do you want to take a guess at what number two would be? How far in do we have to go before we get to a 30 rock? Oh, that's a great, great game. We don't have to listen to them all. What's the over-under? I'm saying four, and I'm taking the under. And again, there's a missing number five. My guess is number five was something that I sent to you that you were just like, maybe pull that one out of rotation. I probably deleted it. We'll never know. Here's number two.

Now, Greg, you have some interesting clips. Oh, yeah.

We do not use this. It was just random tape from an old game show where some kid like raps or something.

Wasn't that one of those? That voice sounds very familiar. I believe that was a guy who hosted a talk show. And Andrew I know this sounds insane I know this sounds insane I think that Person's name might have been Mark Wahlberg There was I believe there was a show called The Mark Wahlberg show That was in the era of like It was sort of like when You post Donahue Kind of during the The time when they were launching a lot of those Shows there was a different Mark Wahlberg

There is something called the Mark Wahlberg show, but that's not what this is. What you're hearing is a game show, and it sounds like the Mark Wahlberg show or the Mark Wahlberg show was a talk show, right?

Okay, so this is a kid who is rapping before he participates in the game show? Yeah, you know, this is pretty good. You're sure this wasn't a character on the Mark Wahlberg show who's like, I'm on because I can rap? But this guy's voice sounds for all the world like Mark Wahlberg to me.

Well, let's take a listen. I could be wrong. I mean, I definitely could be wrong. My memory. So that only aired from 1995 until 1996.

And it made a real impression on me.

Apparently, yeah. So I thought this was a game show, but you're right. I could be wrong about it. Let's take a listen. I do think it's cringey. I think this is one that did number after intro number two, I was already feeling humiliated because I feel like this one didn't go over so great.

Now, Greg, you have some interesting career plans. Tell us about your career plans. yeah i'd like to be either a stand-up comedian or a baseball manager stand-up comedian or a baseball manager wait so you want to be a stand-up comedian tell me uh what kind of jokes do you do i tell knock knock jokes you tell knock knock jokes would you guys like to hear a knock knock joke by any chance it's not right okay gregory lay one honest let's hear it knock knock What a weird decision to make that intro tape

I love it because I've done I did that in Las Vegas Not that long ago We were walking It was Becca's brother's birthday And we were walking along the strip A bunch of us And there was like a guy playing drums And had a microphone and stuff It's a big thing on the strip these days And he like started doing Playing like the rhythm to the Humpty Dance Which is a song that Jeff knows well And Scott knows well Becca's brothers and I know well And we were all kind of rapping And I was on the side rapping And I was realizing how much I've forgotten The words of the Humpty Dance I think you're right That sounds like some kind of a game show Where they're introducing the kid Versus the Mark Wahlberg show But I am relieved to know That I didn't hallucinate the fact that there were two Mark Wahlbergs operating in the pop culture Space at the same time like the fact That there was already a Mark Wahlberg who Was from the Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch And then the second Mark Wahlberg was Still able to get a television Show is kind of amazing You feel like I could have been that could have That could have ruled him out the reason

I used that way back in the Day was just because I think I was Like oh this is fun I can now make I thought that was funny by the way and so i think i started going online and just like looking for random stuff that was sort of viral or something and again this is 2011 it was a long time ago and i am now on youtube and this is a game show there are three kids standing behind like you know

little podiums like kind of a mini version of jeopardy see if i recognize yeah look up a great

knock-knock joke because i don't see anybody describing what the show is it's uh i got

great knock-knock joke i'm gonna need more more info great great knock-knock joke what i typed

in to get there i believe was i typed in you ready for this game show kid rap knock-knock humpty that's your key to the game game show kid rap knock-knock humpty um oh let's see here and Now, Reddit, somebody has written.

this up on reddit as the cringiest knock knock joke over ever rather i should say poor kid um

hold on i wonder what that kid's doing now i mean i absolutely see myself in this in this young person because uh i uh let's see no thanks okay oh it's carmen sandiego it's i was just gonna say this looks for all the world like carmen sandiego the set it being carmen sandiego and apparently

This this kid as an adult 12 Years ago did a an AMA On reddit his name is Greg

Gethard what do you think he said About about that like I feel Like it's pretty open and shut he He wanted to Do the Humpty dance he wanted to wrap the Humpty dance He got nervous because he's on Television which he's probably never done before And and the rest is History like how many A's were There hey so what was happening well I thought it'd be funny if that said knock, knock, humpty, pronounce with an umpty, ladies, oh, how I love to funpty, or whatever. Like, I feel like it's pretty, it's, it's, I don't know how long that conversation could be.

Well, it's actually, I'm not going to read you his answers, because this, well, well, maybe you want me to, but this could go on way too long. But let's see here. Here are some of the questions. In your opinion, why didn't the crowd respond to your get up out your seat gestures? That was one question.

What was his answer? Because I was absolutely brutalizing the lyricism of Shock G from Digital Underground.

It looks like the answer is because the joke wasn't funny and it made no sense whatsoever. Some might describe my comedy is still in that vein. So it looks like he's being a little self-explicating.

Again, I feel like where this really broke down for this kid, Well one was assuming that the Studio attendees of The public television Geography related show Based I assume on some Kind of like What floppy disk based computer Game that because That's what how Carmen Sandiego started out right Like it was a very very old school Computer game people playing it on their Tandies right the idea that Those kids in that room Would have been like oh he did not he's not doing the Humpty dance that they were going to like start just vibing to that was a pretty ambitious idea but even if there was a small chance it was going to work as a joke he completely annihilated the lyrics so it just became completely nonsensical I don't think this is like my humor was too abstract for these people I think it was I really I really botched the lyrics of the

song people are also asking like did you come up with that joke yourself did you try it out on your parents or a sibling ahead of time he's like no Before the show aired, they asked us what we wanted to do when we grew up. For some reason, I said either baseball manager or stand-up. They asked if I had a joke. Being that I was 12, I didn't. So their production assistant wrote that for me, and that's what I performed. I tested it out on absolutely no one before I told it on the air. That's fascinating. See? And there's more A's, like this one. Why didn't you back up from the mic? Why, Greg?

You know what? I severely underestimated how many A's there were associated with this event. Now, so, Andrew, we are now two intros in, and we have not yet heard the 30 Rock. Can we hear intro number three, please?

Intro number three. This is the one that is labeled as dash stupid, which makes me think, in the montage after, which we don't have to listen to, this is probably the one where I just found a bunch of YouTube videos that were montages of insults from movies, like Nerf Herder. What is the Star Wars one? Fuzzy-headed nerf herders? Nerf herders, yeah. And so anyway, this is probably that. But how does it begin is the question. Hey, caller. You sound pretty sexy. Give me the measures. Oh, you know what this is? This is Kroll on, I want to say, Parks and Rec or some show where he plays like a really kind of douchey radio guy. In fact, his name might even be douchey or something. Oh, sure. And so it was radio related, so I played it. I'm not going to play it now because it's like, where is the line between sarcasm and it just being gross? And, again, that's why I don't play that anymore. Give me the measures. No, thank you. Here's number four.

Dennis? There it is. I'm not back. Jack sent me because he wants you on TGS. I guess I lost. I took the under.

You swore to me that you would never see me again, but this whole crazy on again, off again, Dennis listening, it just can't be stopped.

No, we don't have a crazy thing.

Yeah, we do. We're like Ross and Rachel, but just not gay.

I knew that there's some sort of joke like that in there somewhere. There you go. It only took us four intros to get there by way of Carmen San Diego.

And again, again, again, I lost because I took the under. And if it would have been three, then I would have won. But I guess four, I don't know. I guess four is, yeah, I said the over under is four. I'm taking the under.

Oh, the over under was four. I couldn't remember.

If you had the over it.

home you uh talk to draft kings about that you may be able to get them to honor that bet

congratulations well that was a lot of fun for me adventure for us maybe not good ear good ear on you for um realizing that that was the wrong little flourish we played the acapella

at the top of the should have been really proud if i had pulled a mark walberg on that but i i mean the other other mark walberg but it is what it is i was like don't i don't even know

what context you mean but please nobody pull a mark walberg no it's probably not good um

All right, let's thank a dazzling donor or two, and then we'll continue rolling on with the show, including, Andrew, because we can't dig deep enough into your life, the fact that you're going to Mexico with Vives. I am. I don't even know what, I feel like we're growing apart. I don't even know what part of the nation of Mexico you're going to. Neither do we. We're on the lam, Luke. We're on the lam. You're flying standby, and you just wrote Mexico on a sign. All right, I want to hear more about that after we thank these dazzlers. If you are looking for something to augment your TBTL listening with, I cannot recommend The Sporkful highly enough. You know about this show, right? Produced by friend of the show and friend of me, Dan Pashman. They like to say that it is a show for eaters, not for foodies. You don't have to know a lot about food. You just have to enjoy the experience of putting food in your mouth and chomping down on it and swallowing it. Um, I'm very jealous of this other thing that Dan did a while ago. He invented a new kind of pasta. It's called cascatelli. I've bought it in the store and then made stuff with it. It's amazing. It's delicious. It's toothsome. It's all the things that Dan was trying to set out to do when he invented his own pasta. Uh, they talk about all kinds of interesting stuff on the sporkful. Like, uh, why is the shallot super special? Is there such a thing as a halal pork? What kind of fast food should you eat on vacation? And stuff like that. We love Dan. You're going to love The Sporkful. Get it wherever you get your podcasts.

We was hoping for some razzle-dazzle. Razzle-dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle-dazzle.

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody rattle.

Hey, let's thank some dazzling donors. These are the incredible, generous, dazzling folks who are donating some dough to the program And we've got to start by thanking Kate Muller of Seattle, Washington I guess, yeah, Muller You call it the Muller Report, right? I got scared there for a moment

Like Mueller? And she does say it's like the Muller Report, but no relation

But it took me a minute to remember that we were calling it the Mueller Report. Right, yeah. And not the Mueller Report. Mueller, anybody? Mueller. This is Kate Mueller, who's in Seattle, Washington. I'm also doing some quick Googling just to kind of confirm my suspicions, Andrew, about something that will come up in Kate's message. Kate says, hi, Luke and Andrew. As in previous years, I'd like to use my dazzling donor message for some shameless self-promotion, if that's okay. It is. It sure is, Kate. My husband and I own the best small gym in Seattle, Green Lake Strength and Conditioning, and we would love for any 10s to check us out. We welcome and celebrate all bodies, all people, and all abilities, and we have coaches who can meet everyone where they are fitness-wise. I am personally about the furthest thing from a gym bro, as you could imagine, and I want everyone to experience the community acceptance and fun that I found at our gym tens please check us out at greenlakestrength.com and uh she says we are ready for that sweet sweet tbtl bump so go check out greenlakestrength.com I was on my phone doing a little um walking around you know as it were the streets of Seattle and I know exactly where this is this is this is you know right basically kind of near where so much of my time it's on it's over on the other side of Green Lake from where I actually grew up but it is a part of town that I just spent uh massive

amounts of time in I believe there's a there used to be a big cycle shop around there too it's a really nice part of Green Lake I used to walk around it all the time are you telling me Greg's

Green Lake Cycle is gone?

Oh, I don't know that it's gone. I just wasn't sure because I just haven't been in that neighborhood in a little bit myself. I feel like I used to be there all the time. I mean, not in my youth like you, but I used to walk from my Roosevelt apartment around Green Lake. I'm looking at it.

Greg's is still there. Okay, good. God, you had Lee collapsing, right? Our friend from Cascade Cycle Club.

Am I right that they're in the same neighborhood? Yeah, absolutely.

The corner of Green Lake there, sort of?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know what else? It's pretty close to. And I'm not saying you should go get your exercise on at Green Lake Strength and Conditioning and then toddle over to the Little Red Hen. But I'm just saying these are not very far apart as far as places go. And maybe that could be a way to while away a spring afternoon.

I love that you go to the gym and you're just like, I finally went to the gym. I was so good today. Let me just peek on over. I mean, since I was so good, let me just peek on over at the Hen and see what's going on. Maybe get myself a little basket of chicken wings or something.

I actually was once at the Little Red Hen on the same day that I think I had maybe done the Seattle Half Marathon. Oh, okay. And I think there was more than a couple people in there on that Sunday who still had their finishers, like, you know, shirts on. Oh, yeah. So I was like, there's a precedent for people exercising and then going to the Little Red Hen. But that's not what this is an ad for. This is a this is an ad for Green Lake Strength and Conditioning. It's also, by the way, a very beautiful facility and building that they're in, too. Like I'm because, again, I'm looking at it from the outside. I'm looking at Green Lake Strength and Conditioning and like very, very cool space as well. So it sounds like whatever your level of fitness, your body type, et cetera, your goals, that Green Lake Strength and Conditioning is for you. And I'm talking to you, Andrew, specifically.

Yeah, no, I know. And also, you're supporting the TENS community and your TENS brethren. And it looks like Kate's got a little tag on her note here, too. Back to TBTL, been a dedicated... Am I stepping on your toes here, Luke? Are you furious at me for just jumping in on this message?

That is a union violation.

I don't know why I'm doing that. I just wasn't 100% sure that you saw that or if we had moved on. And so I wanted to get it in there. And then I realized, oh, I'm just stepping all over you now.

I'm happy to let you share some of the workload. and it is a workload of reading these messages.

Well, then also, it's time for top stories. No, just joking.

I was just worried you weren't going to get to top stories.

The rest of Kate's messages. Back to TBTL. I've been a dedicated daily listener since Eli Sanders' 2008 Stranger article. I honestly don't know what my daily life would be without TBTL. I love you guys. Power out, Kate. That's awesome.

There's two, really, as I can think of it about, at least for many years, there were two sort of places from whence TBTL listeners came. Other than the original OG radio listeners, it was either the Eli Sanders piece in The Stranger or it was Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Yes. For many years, anytime I asked them, how did you hear about the show? They'd be like, I read an article on The Stranger that mentioned you. Or I kept hearing them say TBTL on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. I mean, one day I was just bored and I was like, all right, what is that? And now here I am.

I feel like there's a semi-distant third or actually maybe not semi-distant. I feel like there's a third place one and then kind of a distant fourth. Do you know what third place is as far as early introduction to TBTL? Okay.

This was before my time and everything. But this would be something that people, well, I guess a little bit the Bryant Park Project?

I would put that at number four. I think your appearance on Pesca's show, Mike Pesca's show, The Gist, brought a lot. I mean, I guess that's not so early, though. Yeah, so I guess that's later. But I hear a lot of people say, yeah, that The Gist. And then also you were on Adam, I almost said McKay's podcast back when I was a fledgling. But not McKay, though. Who am I thinking of? Adam Duritz. Who's the famous podcaster? Okay, this is really embarrassing. The famous podcaster. Oh, Adam Carolla. Carolla. You're on Corolla's show way back in the day. I was. I was up until I wasn't.

That was one of those things where I think that at the time, and I think this is a good life lesson, I remember I really wanted to do something notable enough that I could get on the show Loveline while Adam and Dr. Drew were hosting it because I just loved that show so, so much. I bet you a lot of our listeners who dig whatever this is probably also are familiar with what Loveline was like. And I missed that window. But then I was able to get on, you know, live versions of Adam Krola's show. And then the very last time it came through town, I I remember having a little bit too much to drink backstage, I think. And just being a little kind of just off my game and being on stage at the Neptune and just flailing. I think just not being particularly entertaining or maybe this is a little bit in my head. But what I know is I was never asked back again. And I think at the time I was like, I can't believe that I screwed that up And then, let's just say The tone and tenor of that show Yeah, right A lot has changed It moved off on its own course And it ended up being just fine That I wasn't really part of that scene anymore I mean, again, I think that I think they fired me where I could fire them, but I was never, here's what, I was never faced with the tough decision of should I go on the Corolla show with Adam and Dennis Prager? Oh, is it Dennis Prager? Is that still his? Oh, yeah. Is that still? I mean, I think that last I checked, I think that they're still, you know, collabing on things. I mean, it's just, it's taken much more of a kind of, I don't know, maybe you could say conservative turn or whatever, however you would place that. So, see, even the Krola thing, though, I feel like those were the live shows. I was never, I never ranked, I never rated high enough to get on the, like, come down to the studio in L.A. and sit around with me. It was more like, we're going to be in Seattle. Is there someone who's willing to come to the theater on their own dime and sit on stage and keep the needle moving? I think that was kind of where I was in the high level.

I didn't realize that. Because I've heard other people say, oh, I heard you on Krola. And, again, I don't want to make it sound like it was a huge flood, but I will hear that from time to time. And I used to hear it more, I feel like, when it was, you know, more recent. But I thought you did join the actual podcast, like, by phone or something. I just assumed that. I didn't realize they were all live appearances.

In fact, the first time I ever tried to get in contact with him, I had him on – or, sorry, I called into his L.A. radio show as I was driving to my NPR job. And I think I've told this story before. But I did the, I guess, classic mistake, which was they had been talking about some topic. I think this might have been when he had like Teresa Strasser was his, I guess you would say sidekick or whatever. And I'm driving along and I hear something and I think I have something to offer. And again, I'm very obsessed with this person in this radio show. And I call and I get through, probably bald Brian answers the phone and pushes me through. And I start by saying I'm trying to show off my radio acumen by saying I know you've kind of moved on But I wanted to like recontextualize it And I said something like I know you've moved on I know you're on another topic But And then I just hear him go I just I can't remember if I got hung up on or muted But I just I think I got hung up on And then I turned my radio up on the delay And I heard myself going I know you've already moved on And then Kroll just going I hate it when people call in And they want to talk about something that already happened It's like we've moved on Like, he just completely eviscerated me as a caller on the show.

That's so funny because, I mean, in a certain way, like, I know that you sort of love it when, like, that's kind of a...

I do love it when Stern does that, although I also find it maddening.

Yeah, exactly. And, like, I'm trying to think, there are other shows that I don't hear. I don't listen to a lot of radio like that. But, like, I will even say one of the local sports shows I listen to, and sports radio in Seattle is so gentle. It's just so gentle with its listeners. and what about the set list oh i don't know the set list what is that maybe i'm just that's

something that rock star bob stelton does that was a joke about how tame something called the

set list is oh that might be if he still does that i just don't hear that particular segment but anyway um but even i don't mind a host being like kind of having a reputation for being a little cruel to listeners not cruel but like a little harsh or whatever unless you know it can go a little bit too far and then it's not fun but like i certainly think that it can be done well but man it must not be great to be on the other side of only because i was not just a kind of

rando who kind of dialed in i was a person who had a multi-year parasocial relationship

yeah this person like and you had a show on a network you had a show not yet npr oh you had

a public radio job but not i think i was driving to my job as a booker okay although i could have I forget the exact time this happened, but I could have been at that point maybe a reporter because I ended up back in L.A. at that same facility for a brief period of time. Also, the very first TBTL podcast-only episode, so we'd been fired. Now I'm at my house. Corolla called in. I asked him to— Oh, okay. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of. I think I might have leveraged our friend Bean for that information or something because he had corolla had become already a podcaster if i remember right uh some that this is my memory of things that i that somehow he gave us you know a certain i don't know what you

would call it legitimacy or something so and did you do i think i remember this like did oh i don't remember from the time but you telling me was it kind of like okay well i'm a podcaster now like

what advice do you have as probably i mean again if i remember right too like i'm at my house Remember, this is the house in Seattle where the broadcast is being held up by a stick. I'm rolling into GarageBand. This is only interesting to you. I don't even know how I was making a phone call work. I think I have Sean and Jen there. But today has really been a trip down TBTL memory lane for reasons I can't exactly.

exactly um pinpoint but the fact that even from a technical standpoint this was even achievable is wild to me because I was both engineering it hosting it we were live I think we might have been live streaming it on stickam all this stuff that's just like a lot of things for my little small egg brain to be trying to keep going at once I'm sure it was a brutally bad interview but the fact that it even happened is kind of tech from a technical standpoint sort of surprising to

I just remember that we have a deadline for today's show because you have to be somewhere. Were you going to try to look that up? No, we're in the middle of Dazzling Donors, and we have six minutes left on the clock. I don't know how this is going to work. Maestro. Now ready. No, we've got. Ready.

Go.

There's 16 minutes left on the clock.

Oh, I missed. Okay.

I texted the fine folks that I've got to meet with, and I bought us five minutes. Oh, okay. You're welcome, listeners.

Well, then take your time. I'll go play the longer version of the song We're looking for some razzle dazzle

We gotta thank our second dazzling donor today Sarah Settlemyer Who's in Carlisle, Pennsylvania Home of Jim Thorpe I probably said that last year And then I probably said the same I think I do this every year, Andrew Can you just handle the rest of the show without me? I think I'm making I think I'm making my yearly mistake of confusing the Carlisle School and Carlisle, Pennsylvania. I think the Carlisle School was a school that Jim Thorpe and many other Native American young people attended, but I don't know if it was in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. And the thing that's confusing me is-

He did go to school at Carlisle. I don't know if you've confirmed that. Thank you. And now you want to know, let's see, Carlisle Indian Industrial School is what it was called at the time. Was it in Carlisle, Pennsylvania? Oh, you want to know where it is. It's in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Okay. There we go. Look at that.

Gosh. Because there's also a place called Carlisle's. I don't think it exists anymore. Tom Douglas used to have a restaurant named Carlisle's, but it was spelled different because it was named for the singer Brandy Carlisle. Huh? Got a lot. This is what I'm saying. There's just a lot going on in this head, and it all tends to get jumbled up. Thank God we have Sarah Settlemyer helping fund the whole operation. Sarah says, hi, Luke and Andrew. TBTL has been a lifesaver through a very difficult health crisis affecting my 11. Ah, Sarah, I'm sorry. Tim is the name of Sarah's 11. He had open heart surgery at the beginning of last December and experienced multiple complications that almost killed him twice. He's only 53. Thankfully, he is making a full recovery at home. And listening to TBTL at night when I got home from the hospital gave me hope that everything would be okay. I have been a faithful listener since 2009 When I heard you on the Adam Carolla show That's weird

When I heard you on the gist Which would come out five years later

That is, I did not expect that I have been a faithful listener since 2009 And your show has been an important part of my life Sometimes I look around at all the TBTL merch I have and at the amount of money I'm donating And I wonder, am I in a cult Don't ask any questions, Sarah Did you not hear yesterday's show? We're not allowed to say call. There, there, Sarah. Don't, you know what? Don't trouble yourself with such questions as how much money have I spent on this show? Never, never ask yourself that, please. I wonder, am I in a cult? But only sometimes you guys have definitely helped me over a mountain and given me good luck. Oh, wow. Well, Sarah and Tim, if you're hearing this, Tim, we're really thinking of you and wishing you the best. And Sarah, same to you. And thanks for being a pal of the show and hope that things are looking better in your home from a health standpoint. And no, it's not a cult. Hello and welcome to Top Story. Well, remember last week, Andrew, when we were talking about the Wendy's surge pricing? I do, sort of. I mean, you know. Really? Yeah, they announced to their shareholders that they are going to start doing this thing where they, you know, they use AI, apparently, to figure out the times of day when people are maybe not coming to Wendy's and then send out a push notification. Well, first of all, just lower the prices of various things. One thing I thought was interesting about that was I don't think we got to this when we talked about it But they were talking about lowering the price of something by 25 cents And they had done the math that that could increase their profit by $50 an hour Which I thought was I don't even know how you actually guess at that Like if we lower the price of whatever they sell By 25 cents That could be $50 an hour of additional I don't know.

profit you know per store and they have a lot of stores yeah i guess it adds up doesn't it seem

like that number seems less impressive when you break it down like that right yeah is that your

point too but it doesn't sound like that much no and and like they're redoing all the menu boards so that the menu boards will now reflect how more dynamic now the prices can you know go down now the the initial pushback on the story was oh they're going to like raise prices when it's hot out and everybody wants a frosty and they were the when these people were like no no this is we're only lowering prices with this we're not raising prices um so that and actually i tend to believe them in that well of course because of the day and age we live in and because everything must be a contact sport uh burger king has uh has has decided to seize the opportunity to uh basically make it very clear to their customers that they will absolutely never ever use surge pricing their CEO a guy named Tom Curtis said as the leader of this company I will never support surge pricing or charging people more when they're hungry when our guests come to us it's our opportunity to give them our very best in service and value for their hard earned money and then he added these colors don't run he literally ended his statement to the New York Post at Burger King comma you rule now this seems like a bad idea to me because I honestly think this is probably where a lot of this stuff will be going

at some point you think he's making a mistake by saying never you never say never

yes I mean like you're also I don't know if that was the same episode or not where you were kind of talking about how you went into a Thai restaurant in your neighborhood that you like but it's new ownership and they were like you got to order through your phone and it just kind of wasn't what you were looking for in that moment I mean I tend to think that there will be a point I don't know if we'll live to see it but I would imagine that a lot of these restaurants will become a place that's highly automated and that is highly dynamic in terms of the pricing and the whatever and you'll pull up to a place where there's probably very little, if any, indoor dining and you just get your thing handed to you that a robot may or may not have produced and that may cost whatever it costs at that moment of the day. I think it was short-sighted of the Burger King CEO to say, we will never use this kind of dynamic pricing because they may, I mean, will he be held responsible for that statement? I don't know. But I do think that it's a little short-sighted Because I could see them wanting to use this in five years.

It's almost like this is an imperfect analogy, but I'm sort of thinking about the fact that when I go to the grocery store now, whichever grocery store it is, like I always punch in my number or usually it's Genevieve's number for the loyalty card program thing, which is like maybe at one point that sort of seemed like a novel idea of, hey, you can save a little bit of money. But like now it's like a necessity, right? Like, I mean, because they jack the I don't even think it's like, hey, I'm getting savings. It's, I'm getting ripped off if I don't use it.

No, I'm, you know, the number one question I have to the nice person working at the self-checkout is, did it get my number? Is it in there?

You don't get the little screen that says your number has been accepted.

Sometimes I forget, and then I put it in midway, and then I'm, that's when I'm deeply worried that it doesn't retroactive. I mean, this is the simplest thing to ask a piece of software to do. But if I don't put my number in before I've scanned anything, I remain deeply concerned that it won't understand that the stuff that there has been stuff that is already scanned.

Oh, no, no, no. And I put mine in at the end and then it goes and then it like retroactively like highlights everything.

That feels risky to me. I don't know. It's satisfying. You don't know. I don't know if it's going to know about that. But I mean, the grocery store is another good example. You're right. You know, I'm the risk taker in this podcast. it's down i mean it really is now at the grocery stores i go to it's down to a person doing like regular checkout and for as much as i rail against self-checkout and as annoying as i find it and the fact that we're now doing something that used to be a job someone did it was built into the cost of the stuff they've they've won they've beaten me i now just instinctively go to the self-checkout line because first of all i don't buy a ton of groceries at any one time because it's pretty much just me and then number two it's just there aren't there are just no there's one potential human to help you at a regular checkout and there's like seven people in their 70s that are waiting for that and i'm a young person in my late 40s so i just end up going to self-checkout but all this stuff is changing and evolving and i feel like you know these restaurants these burger kings these buru rays and these wendy's and such are gonna look really different in five years than they do even now and again I guess the problem with my theory here is that Anyone except me will ever remember that the Burger King CEO said this.

Yeah, right, exactly. Like someone's going to pull up to a burger. Whether or not he's even still the CEO when this huge shift happens.

Will the Burger King, the actual king, will his bloodless coup have been successful?

Now that's the question.

He and the subservient chicken. You remember subservient chicken, right? Only through you.

Only through you.

I love the idea of like one day the CEO of Burger King, the human CEO, was just in his office, doing his thing, giving reports, releasing press releases to the New York Post about how they'll never do surge pricing, and just the king walks in in the full outfit, and he's like, oh, do we have a two o'clock? I didn't have that, and the king wordlessly just steps to the side, and behind him is the subservient chicken who's just holding a club and just shuts the door behind him. That's a very, very dark way to end the show.

You know who directed those – like when they brought back the actual king as we think of him today in that sort of like kind of creepy mascot outfit. Do you remember who directed those earliest Burger King commercials with that version of the king? I'm going to put this about 20 years ago, maybe 25 years ago. Your old poker buddy, Ruben Fleischer. Oh, Ruben. Ruben Fleischer. Do I have that name right? Yeah, Ruben Fleischer. Because before I – From Zombieland fame. Before I knew you, and one of my earliest experiences on the internet was I was – and I have no idea how I landed there, but this is the – well, not the early days of the internet. The early days of the internet, for me, it's like 2001, and I get the internet, and I spend all my time on RubenFleischer.com watching all of his music videos. He did things with Jurassic 5, and he made all these really cool commercials, and I was just obsessed. And then years later, I met you, and you're like, oh, yeah, I used to play poker with him every Friday or something like that.

He lived upstairs. He lived in the upstairs apartment of my buddy Kevin Arnovitz. And I feel like I remember him. He used to do stuff with Jackass, too, which I was obviously impressed by. I think he's friends with those guys. He used to do this thing, the Gumball 5000 or something. But I just remember, I have a memory, and it could be implanted. But he was like, oh, yeah, I'm working on this movie, or I'm directing this movie. I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. And he goes, yeah, it's coming out in whatever. It's Zombieland, which ended up being a pretty big film, pretty big film franchise. And I was like, you'll be moving. I assume you'll be moving out of the upstairs apartment fairly soon. You're directing Woody Harrelson et al in a big, big hit movie like Zombieland.

I know we got to get out of here, but I'm going to jam this in at the end. It's what I started saying at the very, very beginning of the show is you did something in your intro, which is you were singing that Burger King song, which kind of went viral itself about a year ago. But it's actually – I didn't realize this until an ATM listener pointed out that it was actually an old commercial from the 70s, an old jingle from the 70s. I didn't know that. I'll play it at the end of the show. And then there was a great, like, revisit of it in the 90s where a bunch of office people were trying to remember the lyrics. And it's actually really funny.

But wait, is the, like, the whole song? Well, here, I'll play it.

But here, I'll play it for you. But also, I still want to make my point on this before we get out of here. Okay. Have it your way Have it your way Have it your way at Burger King So it's a little bit different, but you hear the roots of it, though.

Yeah, because what I was wondering is, because it was so, the one that I think of is so intentionally idiotic, like, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, you know, whatever. I was wondering, were they doing that in the 70s? But not exactly. They were doing something close. Yeah, that one.

yeah but it's like you know like they kind of the course is the same uh at the very end after we say goodbye i'll play for you this one from the 90s which is actually really funny it's from 96 a bunch of office workers trying to remember the commercials um but uh what i wanted to say was the end of that song as we know it in 2024 is he says you rule and i get that stuck in my head but i always yell you fools like i somehow combine like like um what was the bad guy in gi joe like Oh, Cobra or Destro? Cobra, Commander, whatever. Say, you fools! And I'm not even trying to be funny. My brain just changes it to, you fools! And then you did that in your intro today. Do you have the same sort of earworm? Or were you just making a joke?

I thought, I was just trying to be clever. I actually wrote that on the show sheet. We had originally planned on talking about this story. And I had literally wrote dot, dot, dot, you fools. And then I thought, that's not a very good joke. And then when I started doing, I just got into a flow state when I was doing the intro.

and then I yelled you fools you fool yeah anyway thank you for letting me talk a mile a minute to get that really really important content in at the end of the show felt full circle to me it did I also didn't even get to talk about

my I was trying to show off my doctor's brush pics to you today oh those are little and we didn't even talk about you going to Mexico yeah I should say I'm gonna be out of here

You're taking care of the show for a few days, and I'm going to be out of here. We're going to, how do you say, Puerto Vallarta. Puerto Vallarta. There's a place there called Zona Romantica that our friends were telling us about. And Genevieve's like, sounds nice, but I'm going with Andrew. Is there a Zona Frendo that we can go to? Yeah. I heard you were putting it down at Secrets. No, we're not going to Secrets this time. All right.

Well, I'll look for, when you're back on Monday, I'll look forward to a full report from how Mexico is. You have fun and be safe down there. Thank you. Good luck with the show. You got this? I don't know. I don't know.

Don't mess it up.

I have no idea what I'm doing tomorrow.

I want to have a job when I come back. We'll figure it out. Okay.

Thanks for listening, everybody. I will be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio for you. In the meantime, have a great Wednesday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all.

you remember that Burger King song hold the pickles hold the lettuce crying babies won't upset us crying babies hold the pickles hold the lettuce hold the ketchup hold the lettuce

no no no no it's vegetables are out to get it even if you now just met us one thing's for sure your whopper is always made your way just 99 cents every day in the hallway the whopper always 99 cents at Burger King all we ask is that you let us serve it your way no hey guys that's it Power out.