Muse

We tear all the wood out. We want to get rid of anything that seems natural, authentic.

Get rid of the espresso machine, get rid of that, that all goes. Anything rustic is gone.

Anything authentic, anything organic, anything permanent. Also, this is a vape store. Yeah. So we want a carpeting that's going to absorb, and I don't mean mask, but literally just absorb the odor so that when people come in here they're just overwhelmed.

Okay, you want it to be pungent. Jaundice. Sickly, vomitous. The piece is vile. You want it to smell like old bubble gum.

Yeah, have you ever huffed an air wick? The lighting is too warm in here.

This is too, I'm feeling too good about this. You know, I want to see my own zits. Like an old thrift store or something, maybe. No, that's even too descriptive.

That's too kitschy.

It should just be like part of an airport that you ignore.

Think of hanging out inside a vending machine.

A cell phone store or...

Batteries Plus.

Make sure your bathroom really has got a toilet that's way too high and kind of big. Also, two plungers. Two plungers says it all.

TBTL!

Well, more bodily functions in the news this morning. The next time you pass gas, make sure no police are around.

That's science. These are facts. I'm just, I'm kind of flabbergasted when you say things like that. It's weird. Thank you.

Not a compliment. So maybe this isn't exactly the most polished radio broadcast you've ever heard.

No, you're, you're going to tell a story. I don't believe that I can bear to listen to another one of your stories right now.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of TVTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host right over there, my dear friend and the longest-running co-bro of the program here in the flesh, Mr. Andrew Walsh is joining us. Hello.

Hey, Luke. I just had an idea. Before we get into our special, and by the way, I should mention, this is probably a pretty bad idea. Before we get into our show topic today, I believe we're continuing our project of going over some of the missed top stories.

If your bright idea means we don't get to the topic at hand, which is a topic we already skipped this year. Is that good or bad? It's not cute anymore. It was cute last week.

It's not cute anymore. Really? I think I can make it cute.

I can make it cute.

Anyone can. It's you. Well, I got an invite to something one time that the wording on this invite has stuck in my head. Now, I'm not going to use names, although I'm sure you could probably figure this out, but there's no need to make this a guessing game. We're now two games in, and we're not even to the main project yet.

but um which by the way is to get to some top stories that we promoted endlessly and didn't actually get to um for weeks during this year we're trying to clean a little bit of that up now

we're trying to do a little bit of business but um you saying or me saying make it cute reminded me of an invite i got one time i was part of a wedding for some people who were significantly younger and I would say younger but significantly hipper and more beautiful than I am. What? Than you? Than me. Stylish. No pasta. I'm working on my Fred Arliss. Oh, no, no. When you eat pasta. When you eat pasta. It's really one of your best impressions. I can do a, on Levitard they call those limited fakes. I can do a limited fake Fred Arliss. That's a whole

There's a genre of TikTok, which is doing, like, three-word impressions, and those are often the best, because that's about the amount of time I can keep one up.

That's so funny, because long before we had this verbiage, and long before we even had the internet, or at least people like you and I had the internet, I remember in high school coming up with my limited fake, well, it would help if I could, well, I'll tell you what, I won't say his name. I'll just do the impression, and you can tell me if you recognize this. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, let's see. Sean Connery. Sean Connery is exactly right. And by the way, I didn't think of his name after I... My impression was so good that once I did the impression, it actually reminded you. That's all I can do, though. I can't do anything other than that one word. So anyway, they invited me to some sort of like pre-wedding festivities that were going to be out on, I think, an island somewhere. Some place very beautiful. I did not go. But I remember they kind of broke down what the activities were going to be. And it was going to be a bunch of these people, you know, and these are all wonderful people. I ended up being in this wedding with them. They're very, very, very nice, loving people. But I definitely felt like an outsider. I felt like an old troll because I was being invited to this to stay in this like lake house or something on an island. And they said like your self-confidence was on an island. I think exactly. I think for like the brunch, they said something like casual, but make it.

cute or something or like casual brunch but make it cute and I was like girlfriend I I can't make anything cute how would you expect me to make it cute I have a I have a Cintas work shirt oh I see this was outfit related it was outfit related it was dress code it was exactly it was

and it was like they wanted you to eat brunch cute I'm sorry no I guess I didn't make that

very clear but it was like the invite but the thing is it was like an invite to a whole weekend with a whole bunch of things, but then individually, you know, activities within the house had separate, like, kind of categories, and they were saying, like, okay, well, for brunch, you know, dress this way, but make it cute. And I was just like, well, first of all, y'all are living together in a house. Like, you're, I don't know. It's just, it was such a world of difference between how I've ever lived my life. I've never made anything cute in my life, is my point.

But if anyone can make us not getting to the top story that we already didn't get too cute, I still think it's you. I have hope.

And this was my idea. And this is the reason it's a bad idea is because it really throws me under the bus as a very lazy producer. But I was listening to that intro, speaking of Fred Armisen. I was listening to that Portlandia intro, and I was thinking, wow, we definitely use a lot of Portlandia intros. And there was a time when it was all 30 Rock. I feel like 30 Rock would have been the number one source of intro tape. I mean sort of like dry intro tape, not little drops in the montage afterwards, but like what we literally begin the show with. And then it occurred to me, well, I have this spreadsheet that I made or spreadsheet in the parlance of TBTL that I made in January of 2021. This was the very so this we're getting very near the end of 2024. So we have exactly four years of data that I could search for right now in the spreadsheet. What show do you think it's Portlandia? what show do you think if i type in the name of a show the spreadsheet by the way is keeping track

of every piece of intro tape once that orca card tried to predict or tried to report what bus line you took the most you've now you're you've gone on a data dive i've gone real deep data dive i know

that's a lot of d's dude data friendly so i am going to type in portlandia here how many times in the past four years almost exactly four years have we started a show with dry tape from portlandia

So the question isn't what is the most frequent, from which show do we harvest the most, or at least do we most often use tape from?

Well, that was my original question. That was my original question, but I guess we've got to start by typing in the name of the show and then seeing how many times. I see, gotcha. So do you want me to tell you Portlandia, or do you just want to? I'm guessing Portlandia, it's 21. We've used that 35 times in four years. And some of them have been repeated in four years, since 2021, and we're almost in 2025. And it was the very beginning. So let's look up 30 Rock.

And this goes back, sorry, you might have mentioned this. How far back does the spreadsheet go? Four years. Okay, so this is, now, I think that, yeah, I think that Portlandia was ascendant, and I bet you 30 Rock was slightly descendant in that time. There would have been a time in the first decade of the show, and yes, Andrew, that's a statement we can make about this program. The first decade of the show, I think it would have been very over-indexed for 30 Rock, but I bet you 30 Rock was happening less and less. I'm going to say 22 30 Rocks in four years.

Because of the there's a little bit of issue with the data here, but I'm just looking at the best way I can look it up is by working, working in the word rock or looking up the word rock, which is also bringing me some strays like the Rockford files and whatnot, because we're a young show, if nothing else. But it is it looks like in the mid 20s. So I'm going to estimate that around 25 ish, maybe because we probably didn't do that much Rockford files. what other show would even are there any tim and eric oh right now they of course we might have them under various project names that's probably categorized in a bunch of different ways it'd probably be hard to know honestly honestly i think if i look up eric i'm seeing a bunch of these it is picking up a few extra spares like for some reason coming to america is oh eric eric is in america putting the eric america that's what we do here on the show that is exactly what we do so uh cutting out these extras and i'm going to include the ones that have like tim and eric in other projects like uh yes what was the aziz ansari show where um eric uh had a master of none exactly so but i'm counting that he was talking about his chameleon or his pet lizard or something like that i'm going to count that as part of their do we count him from the i think you should leave

universe too talking about heidecker yeah yeah that's how far does this go i mean that's that

That's a good point. I would say for the next one we're going to check that I think you should leave is probably got some pretty doing some decent some decent numbers. Yes. For Tim and Eric, I'm going to say that includes Cinco Party Snoozer that, you know, anything like that. I'm going to say it's in the mid 20s as well.

I'm going to go with 20 here because it looks like I'm getting a total of 22. I'm looking at it's giving me 22, but I know at least two of those are wet hot American summer. so I'm going to go 20 on the ones put in the wet hot in America exactly and then okay leave so let's look up leave do you want to take a guess as to the number I think it's probably

I think it's probably actually not as many as you would think considering how much you and I talk about this in our personal lives I would agree how much of our personal time is taken up with just like making you know reference to it I bet you the amount of things that really work as tbtl intro tape i'd say it's more like in the 15 range if that

that is exactly right because even though it takes up a lot of our brain space and we talk about it a lot a lot of them don't really a lot of the best moments of that show just don't stand alone as audio only intro tape however uh it does look like and i don't think we have any i think these are clean numbers here you'll be excited about that i don't think leave is pulling in any strays and so it looks like we have a solid 17 17 I was pretty close including fully loaded nachos did you see the photo that was going around I don't know if this it looked like a real photo but it was probably just somebody having fun at a Taco Bell but somebody put like a printed out sign on the front door of a Taco Bell saying if you order nachos there's a rule that one person can't eat all the fully loaded nachos with all the cheese and stuff and it was like it was a direct quote exactly how he says it awkwardly in the show. It was a pretty good spoof.

I saw that recently. I like that. I go in for that kind of stuff. Okay, last but not least. Let's go to the old standby. The old stalwart. I think you know what I'm talking about. Actually, there's two old stalwarts. Amazing stalwart.

Is it stalwart? I've mispronounced at least three things wrong today, and I just barreled through. Stalwart?

I think stalwart. S-T-A-L-W-A-R-T. It kind of trails off from there for me. Let's just go. A couple of old lions, Andrew. There are actually two old lions of the show. when it comes to intro tape one would be the simpsons and the other to be the office of course

how did i not even think of those of course okay i'll bet you the could the office win maybe it's

a biggie there's some the michael scott stuff is just and also the dwight schrute it's really it's it's it's because it's a lot of kind of you know sort of monologues delivered directly to the camera it's it's it's i mean you got ed helms talking about uh you got ed helms in the car saying uh give me the beat boy and free my soul fear my soul you got bear me you got also uh boo tummy diarrhea real bad which is a totally different scene where he's been called in you've got michael scott doing stand-up comedy it just doesn't have to be the stupid people i said

that what was i at oh i should be a little careful i was at a um i was at a you're at a wake i was I was at a holiday party, I won't say where, but I was at a holiday party, more of a formalized holiday party, where somebody was giving a little talk, and they left in what was, I think, supposed to be just like a little pause for laughter, and the laughter didn't really come. And I leaned over to Veve and I whispered, everybody can laugh, it doesn't have to joke for the idiots. That got a bigger laugh than the person who was giving the little toast. So the office is going to probably actually have kind of a lot, right? Yes, The Office ranks. Yeah, do you want to throw a number out there?

Well, now I'm thinking maybe, could it be in the 30s? Could it be all the way up there in the 30s?

Better than, so Portlandia, as a reminder, we put it 35.

Maybe, I don't know.

And 30 Rock, we put it 25.

Yeah, which is ironic, because it's called 30 Rock. I know, we need to play it five more times. But yeah, I'm going to say maybe in the 30s, has been played maybe in the 30s of time.

It was actually 28, 28 for The Office, but I'm very confident in those numbers. Office only appears in that context, but now The Simpsons.

You've got to edit out all the O.J. Simpson trial stuff.

Okay, oh, then we're down to nothing, it looks like. That was a weird time for the show. Let's see if it fits. If it doesn't fit, you must acquit. Okay, get rid of that one.

How do you spell Cochran again?

all right so i have a number on um the simpsons it's okay now again i think the last four years

because you and i first of all have just like stopped watching the simpsons uh which um just you know not due to any kind of personal grudge against its creators or actors

but just whatever life moves on so i would say that probably the simpsons is getting played less it's getting yeah it's getting a little less play in the last four years than it would have let's say the you know were we still watching it or were it even closer to when we were watching it so i'm going to say i'm going to put the simpsons in i'm going to say 19 19 24 still gets played quite a

still doing some numbers you know how do i where do i count bart scompson though that's the sweet spot between portlandia this is like a view into your like like your

organizational brain andrew like and you're like okay is it yeah is it portlandia but it is bart simpson related content where does that go what what bucket do we put that in okay i'm saying

that because i'm staring at a bunch of buckets in my oh yeah okay now now i want okay i'm gonna to lay one more on you and i will say that i am surprised by this number i'm not going to say how

or why i'm surprised by this unbreakable kimmy schmidt oh there that is a that is one that would

i'm guessing okay we can look that up but then i'm going to tell you about this other one but uh here if i look up kimmy um look up snost what do you and lost oh i love that drop see now that one though that's not that's not dry intro tape that's just a little drop we used to wrap up a intro oh right right um kimmy schmidt is lower i mean it's like under 30 rock it's 10 kimmy schmidt outside bones outside bones oh yes so funny but here's one thing you don't know about me and my organization in these in in this arena luke and then we we can move on and we can decide whether or not we want to do that top story um but um when you and these are mostly coming from you although sometimes they they will originate from my own scrolling but when you send me a viral video as a category i have tiktok as a category and i want to mention to you that i also sometimes will include like an instagram story if it's a comedian doing an instagram story usually they're doing that on tiktok and then bringing it over to instagram as well for the olds like me so i will just label them all tiktok because i think of tiktok as like a genre right well it's tiktok And I do my best to, like, actually label, like, what they're – because sometimes people will be like, what was that tape from? And so I, like, try to remember who the artist is or the comedian or what have you. If I type TikTok into this spreadsheet, do you think it is – where do you think we're going to land? Somewhere in the middle? Is it going to be less than everything? I think it would be in the high 20s. The high 20s?

Because it's a really, well, first of all, we have just the guy, some guy, some guy, what's his name?

Some guy, Mark.

Some guy, Mark. Chris is leaving the room. Some guy, Mark, it's got to be three, maybe, that we've played. You've never seen a video of Abraham Lincoln.

He does the Flintstones, and then I think we do maybe one or two conspiracy versions of him.

Chris is leaving the studio. Barney? Maybe that's part of the link.

She wants a divorce.

That one. All right. The cancer, it's back. Happy holidays, everyone. Happy holidays. So I'm actually going to revise upward. I'm going to say it's over 30, just because it's such a broad umbrella. And if we're wrangling in Instagram stuff, I think it's a pretty broad umbrella.

It is a very broad umbrella. And I am surprised by this. It is more than any other thing we've looked up so far. It's coming in at 44 TikToks. The very first one, at least since 2021, and I'm guessing that that is when we started playing things from TikTok, the first one that at least I've labeled TikTok was played in June of 2021. Would you like to guess? And this is one that we talk about a lot. This is a big part of our canon now, if our canon is stealing other people's comedy. what do you think is the first TikTok we ever played on the show? The very first one. At least that I have records of that go back as far as records go back. What do they say with weather and baseball? They always say as far as we were keeping track of these things. Right, right. As long as the Elias Sports Bureau

has been tracking these things. Okay, okay, okay. So the first TikTok that was ever, I think it might have been maybe this was it maybe this either the woman who kind of older woman who was talking about being a stand-up comedian on Tiki Taki although maybe I just used that for short quick pops of tape not an intro maybe something from is it from a person is it a one-off is it a random one-off or is it a person who then we started to play more stuff from like did this person's comedy or people's comedy become kind of a more regular thing i'm trying to narrow it down that

is honestly that is a great question and i will answer it with and i'll even

and put a little extra mustard on my answer that's going to help you um it is a one-off and in a certain way it is the most one-off of one-offs because you've let me put it this way you've commented before this probably says too much you've commented before about how even though we think this is such funny tape how it does not fit in at all with the this other per with this person's other posts on tiktok oh sorry i said that the i said that very complicated but you

know what i mean like this was very much a one-off yes and is it also is it not only a one-off but we learned later actually a recycled joke yes yes yes this was somebody doing battle hey grandma

can you come get me from the rap battle no i didn't win no he saw you drop me off it was pretty much over after that he did a pretty devastating rhyme about it i think

I think the word devastating rhyme, I think of those words, all of it has a pretty devastating rhyme.

It's a very, very, very, even if that guy, and I like that I'm saying recycled, that sounds like the guy was reducing his carbon footprint by just doing someone else's material.

Reusing, reducing, and recycling.

That's right, all three, but the delivery is great, too. But you're right, even at the time, because you and I, I think, then scrolled the rest of that guy's content, and it was like him just being like, well, here's how you put a compression miter cut together if you're doing a... That's what you were telling me. Yeah. It was like construction stuff. It had nothing to do with comedy that I could tell.

But apparently, and we found out years later, that that was actually a viral tweet that somebody had tweeted out, just like that, literally that, which was funny as text. And then he just took it and turned it into a TikTok by pretending he was on the phone. That TikToker's name, by the way, and I'm sure everybody remembers this. I don't even have to say it, but MSD123467 is who that TikToker is.

That is also called me trying desperately to set a new password, but not one that is one I've already used. There is a point of frustration for me where I just start slamming numbers into it, like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, double exclamation point, 3, 2, 1. It'll just be an insane string of digits because that will at least satisfy the thing that it's not too close to one of my other passwords.

And your attitude, I'm assuming here, if we want to get into this, and I do, is you're in the moment, you're frustrated, you're trying to unlock something, you have to create a new password, and at this point, you're not even thinking about the future, which is why basically every time you try to access something on your computer, you say, I'm locked out of it. It seems to me that with the exception of maybe websites you go to quite frequently, you're constantly just creating and forgetting passwords and then having to create new passwords.

Well, what I don't have, and this is going to sound defensive and dismissive, what I don't have is the system that I think you have, which is a pretty detailed post-it note system, right, which will have the passwords. Are you using a password manager now?

I've gotten modern, yeah, and I've got to say it does help, although I will say this. I don't use it the way they recommend. The password manager wants to create just absolute batshit passwords for you, like all symbols or whatever. and I'm like no no I still want to create something that is kind of memorable I have like I have certain I can't explain it and I don't want to well I can't explain it but I don't want to explain it too much but I have a certain category of words that I mess around with and so I kind of always know okay this and then there but the problem is it's gotten so complicated and having to change things and then a lot of the websites getting more strict is some of them are like this style of word with like two exclamation points here and you know or two question marks here whatever like and then I start adding them on like either side like sandwiching the words in between the punctuation and so there are so many variations on a theme now that um and Genevieve signed up from some password manager and was able to get like a family plan or something so I'm like yeah just put me on that baby and uh and so now we are doing that and it so it has been a bit of

a game changer i think my systems have you know allegedly a kind of a built-in version of that because you know i it's like a fingerprint on my laptop you know that's basically like my fingerprint and so there's sometimes when it'll just be like what's the password but then it'll just ask me to touch my finger on yeah the key biometrics and so i at this point i have totally like i'm fine with if that's password management that's i'm fine doing that like i don't i honestly would rather leave it to the robots yes as long as it falls as long as seriously i mean good luck with these peepers yeah um but i would yeah with your with your recent your somewhat recent eye

injury the computer just says no i don't want to work with you yeah exactly

we don't know who this is and also do you have an std we're not We're not raw-dogging this, sir. But I'm happy to let the computer make an insane password that I'll never remember. Because, honestly, even my kind of go-to passwords I don't remember. Because I don't ever remember what particular flavor of that password is now logged in. And, you know, I've long ago left the bounds of, like, a particular unique password that I use. Because why? They keep making me change it. And every time I change it, then I can't use something that's too similar to the old one. so this idea of like having a password that you carefully designed and then keep at least some semblance of as you as you update these things is totally out the window so at this point i'm just like when the computers like want to use a strong password i'm like yeah absolutely now here's the problem there are some times i know this is insane where the strong password also does not somehow fit the criteria which seems what totally i mean it's probably a quirk of the computer or the website I'm on there have been times where I say yeah use a strong password and then it says that doesn't work for whatever reason and that's when I will find myself and then it'll be like okay well I'm going to put it in myself and then what will I do well I'll start with my kind of go a couple of my go-tos and then it'll say you need more characters in this or you need more numbers or it's too close to one you did before and that's when I just start just mashing the keyboard until I get to some sort of until i get that green indicator that i've now satisfied all of the requirements you know something i mentioned on the show like now months ago and i never i never caught you up on andrew uh and it sort of related to this is you know i pay for a lot of uh media because i think that that's uh worth supporting journalism but there are occasionally news articles or something that are coming from a publication that maybe i'm not subscribing to and i just desperately need to read them for professional reasons for purely professional reasons and there are a couple of uh websites that i know that are maybe not technically legal but they are um where you can kind of throw in a url and it'll actually kind of like get you around maybe some of those rules and the thing is i don't know who makes this this website i don't know how it works i don't know why it works but it often changes the like the the it's like a word and then a dot and then two letters so it's like the word i'm just i don't know why i'm being i don't know why i'm being

coy about this is the name of the website that helps you get around because i don't know what this is i don't think we i don't think this is something that i use i support all all journalism yes um all journalism no man no matter what um all journalism matters i believe is what that is what i often go around saying no it's monday no so for whatever it's worth i don't know what you're talking about but you're talking about the url of this uh let's say a gray area website Their name is two words, did you say?

Their name is a word, and then it's a dot, but instead of dot com, it's the word that is the name of their thing. And then it's dot. Sometimes it'll be P-H. Sometimes, lately it's been like M-D. Like, the little kind of tail on this thing keeps changing, and I think it has to do probably with staying one step ahead of the law. I think so.

Because I think dot P-H, could I be wrong about that? But that could literally be from Philippines.

right oh very possible i think and i don't know what md is madagascar who knows yeah all that is to say every time i go to use this website it's a roll of the dice as to what the how it's going to finish you know what the what the end of the thing is going to look like and sometimes it makes me do a captcha and sometimes it doesn't but recently when i would go on to use it it was giving me a captcha but then it was written the language that it was written in like the directions so click on like click on all pictures that feature a motorcycle click on all features that all pictures that feature a whatever right the captcha instructions uh-huh were in like what looked like maybe it was like tie writing or something it was a not even it was not even like an alphabet that used the like in you know it wasn't even like cyrillic or spanish or something It was a form of letters I don't have any context for.

You don't know what the characters are. And so do you – so first of all, by the way, we were right about PH Philippines. MD is Moldova, by the way.

Okay, so sometimes it's taking me to Moldova, sometimes the Philippines. Which I've looked at.

Romanian is the language in Moldova, apparently. Okay. But that's interesting. So when you were confronted with that, it was a character of a language that you don't understand. So you have no idea. But are you then looking at the caption saying this one is probably motorcycles or this one is probably street lamps?

and i have a pretty decent success rate i had a feeling not knowing what like again months ago i said literally in the intro of the show my capture game is on is is tight right now that's really

tight if you're any time that i'm capturing Any time that I've had to do, now it's only been a few times, but the fact that I've ever been able to successfully just go off of gut instinct as to what it is I'm supposed to be focusing on in the captcha, it honestly felt like I have an extrasensory perception or something. Like, I couldn't, when I clicked on the, like, you know, fire hydrants or something, or whatever it was, and it was, and then I clicked, I'm not a robot, and then it took me to the article, it was, I couldn't believe my intuition.

I believe the quote is, the quarterback is toast.

I mean, but think about this, it's a game I'd never even played. Yeah. It's like saying the rugby, whatever, like, it's, I was so proud of myself. Now I'm wondering if, honestly, if it was actually that hard or not. But it felt slightly miraculous when I was doing it.

Well, all that leads to, what do you think is the show that we've used the least as far as intro tape? The least.

So it has one appearance.

There's got to be a bunch of those, right? That's what I was going to say. Oh, shit's creepy. By the way, I was going to say Monk. We've only used Monk once and never returned to it.

Well, how about this? I definitely would say that Columbo I think we have one Columbo that we love, right? I don't think for a dry

intro. You don't even have any Columbo I don't think for a dry intro tape

I'm confusing the things that pop up as little bits of sound versus the full dry

If I type in Colum, all I get is The Office, the Columbia Music Club which is not a club it's just a for profit

But that is how I found out about one of my favorite bands

Contemporary Hits of the 90s Exactly

What about, no, Schitt's Creek, I know there's at least a couple because we have Bert Erflinger. Oh, God, yeah. We have a casket one that played not that long ago.

Yeah, a couple weeks ago. And then Moira Rose Scadding is a big one. Scadding, we have the shame eating.

We don't have time to get into that.

That might be a drop, but I think that a mailman is, when the two siblings are talking about, But, like, you know, like a little cute guy in a postal uniform comes up and drops off the mail. And then you pay him. That's a good one. Yeah.

So I think we've got a decent representation from old Schitt's Creek. Thirteen, it looks like.

A total of thirteen. So, yeah, I mean, that's a decent showing. Kimmy Schmidt was only ten. You know, I'm not trying to make anybody feel bad here. Oh, of course. Wait a second here. Parks. Parks and Rec. Oh, yeah.

I would say Parks and Rec is south of 20 and maybe north of 10, which I guess was my way of saying 15.

Yeah, it looks like it's coming in around 16. So congratulations on that one.

I forget about there's a lot of Parks and Rec stuff where they were just from when they were sending up Michael Silverblatt.

Yes, that's true, too. I don't know if we've played that in a while, but certainly there's like a lot of that.

We don't do a lot of Leslie. I feel like we don't do a ton of just straight up Leslie Knope looking into the camera talking, but we do a lot of. But there was the fake public radio. There's a lot of Aziz Ansari talking about food rakes.

Exactly, exactly. And then the public radio stuff. And then, yeah, not a lot. There's like accounting jokes. Remember, like, I'm sorry, what's the name of the actor? Adam Scott. I almost said Michael Scott. Adam Scott, like, talking. He's a nerdy accountant. So I think we have various pieces of tape of him telling, like, accounting jokes or just being super nerdy.

i am really hoping that another season of severance comes out by the way it is it's coming out you

mean oh wait are you talking about no season three are you already up to date on season two wait season two's out no i don't think so okay yeah no but it's in production though i've been seeing a lot of i mean bts stuff so it's definitely coming out i thought you weren't

sure if it was coming out or not no i guess i didn't realize they were in production on it i remember i think i was complaining uh you know in a way from a from a place of love from a place of jam i was complaining at the end of season one because with severance i was thinking of that because of adam scott yeah because i did not know that i was i thought i was watching a like a i don't know what i thought i was watching a season of something that was going to be the full arc of the story uh-huh i didn't realize until like i look at the thing and there's 10 minutes left on the final episode i'm like how are they wrapping this up it was like oh they're not it's gonna go to season two and it was something about my emotional it was like when you think there's another step you're going up the steps and then there isn't and it just like throws you off so much yeah i was really expecting them to to explain a bunch of things i didn't understand by the end of season one and that wasn't how it was going that being said i love love love that

show yeah um i think it might be i don't know i don't i i guess if they're filming now i guess a release date isn't right around the corner and i was trying to look it up but i can't i don't see anything definitive here. But yeah, there's a lot of buzz around that right now. I think Ben Stiller works on that show, right? Is he the showrunner or is he a creative? Because I know that on Blue Sky, he's been posting a lot of behind-the-scenes shots, which are very interesting because it takes place in such a surreal universe to see a behind-the-scenes shot of this surreal office space that seems to go on for eternity, right? But then to see somebody just eating a bologna sandwich in it or something is sort of just a mind-eff.

I overuse the term aesthetic because I don't know what it means, and also I feel like it applies to a lot of things, But the the the visual aesthetic, the vibe, the set design of that show is just off the charts for me, like the way they nail within the world of this, this workspace. Yeah. The weird a kind of historic like is this the 80s? Is this what what is this? It's just so perfectly done.

You know, I'm sorry, cut you off there for a second. Yeah. And, you know, one thing that I I struggle with is short term and long term and medium term memory loss. and so like while I sort of like I remember the last scene sort of or I remember like where the last episode sort of takes place and it's outside the workplace and I remember it like being very very gripping and it's a book reading but like I don't quite and we shouldn't say it here if people are kind of catching up and haven't seen it before but I don't remember exactly the cliffhanger but I remember it being a hell of a cliffhanger so I don't know if you do this too but I'm going to go back probably and watch i mean that was a pretty short series it might be worth binging the entire season one again but i'll certainly watch the last like at least the last three episodes and the like probably because my i have forgotten so much i'm sure about that yeah i could probably for me i could

at least use the last episode as a refresher yeah but speaking of ben stiller you know i there was a brief moment i thought maybe i was going to be able to have a an online interaction with ben stiller i thought there was a small chance he for some reason posted on blue sky something that i feel like i saw the stew bot commenting on a reposting or somehow it got maybe the stew bot just like looped me in on it but it was just bent and i think it was really ben stiller posting on blue sky like burbank has incredible views and then i think i responded we were all thinking it now someone's finally saying it and i was and it's blue sky is still so new that it's you know probably ben stiller over on x or whatever would have had five million followers but i think he had like a you know somewhere south of a 100 000 followers and i thought and it was like the first comment because again it's blue sky it's like there isn't that much entrenched behavior yet i was like oh he might actually and it says my name luke burbank i was like will ben stiller respond to my response the answer andrew is no and the answer is no the answer is sadly not yes that's okay i i do i am i am a ben you know there are some like some stuff from the ben stiller show that will again kind of just like burble up in tiktok for me and i can't give you a good example now but some really genius shit from that show oh yeah i was a big incredibly high level like parody like again this would be a much better observation for me if i could give you a specific example but there was something that came up a while ago where i was like that is a that's almost a perfect piece of comedy, whatever it was.

I was a huge fan of that show, and that was Bob Odenkirk before we all knew who Bob Odenkirk was. He was on that show and one of the writers on that show as well. So if you see sort of like the DNA of things like Mr. Show and then eventually his role on like the Tim and Eric projects, they're all sort of like, you know, they're all in the Bob-a-verse, which I appreciate too. Like they sort of share those similarities. By the way, how many times do you, because we have used intro tape, I think it's only two maybe but we've reused it several times so how many times do you think we've used Ben Stiller tape as dry intro tape oh the Ben Stiller show is T.J.O. Pooter Toots a Ben Stiller? It most certainly is, that's one of them I'm guessing we only have used two but we've repeated it so the total is six, I'll just tell you, we've used it six times it's Pooter Toots and it's Casey Kasem, there's this sketch where um some annoying guy i mean how long is casey casem even been not here been not here

is almost as long as he was here and he was here for a long time you know um let's see i was gonna say i could casey casem was of course how i would famously like the only working stand-up comedy joke that i had um uh was uh you know basically doing a casey casem impression and talking about request and dedication that was my big closer for for my college years of trying to kind of do

stand-up here and there okay well I'm not gonna play it because you know what I realized I just found the full intro package we will open tomorrow's show love it with the Ben Stiller Casey Kasem tape let me say mention this to you though because I'm kind I know and then after that I'm going to congratulate you for something I know that you said that this is not cute anymore and And I believe that.

No, but I would like to say, you did it. You were the cute one, Andrew. We blew right through nap time. We are not getting to today's Forgotten Top Story.

Well, I have an idea, and feel free to say no to this. Feel free to say no to this, but we could do this again tomorrow, but not with drops, a different thing. You mentioned the word aesthetic before, which is a very tough word for me to say, although I would quibble that we don't know what it means. I think we know what it means. It's a look. It's a vibe. but something fitting into a certain, again, sort of look. But we got a note from listener Kristen, who, by the way, this is a Kristen who we often, she also has a Z in her last name, and she pointed out, you keep on crediting me as the Kristen who picked you up at the train station, but that was a different Kristen.

Well, that was a, oh, okay.

Anyway, but I think I've been conflating two people in my head, and my apologies to both of those listeners. But anyway, this is a potential thing we could talk about on tomorrow's show. This Kristen from Thunder Bay says, last year somebody compiled a list of words that you guys have said over the year's worth of episodes. And it's not a word cloud, though. This year I kept my own words list or words list, W-O-R-S. And I don't know why. Maybe it's like spreadsheet. I don't know. The TBTL words list. I figured I should send it in now that we're reaching the end of the year here. So there's a list of about, I'm going to say about 20 words here that just sort of stood out to listener Kristen, like big, like kind of, well, you know, you're famous on the show for having a very big vocabulary.

And yet I use the same words so frequently.

I was wondering, would you like to go over this list of words that we've used or probably you've used on the show and see if we can give them all some context tomorrow?

Is it? Okay. Well, yes, let's do this. I like this I love that we are the kind of show That can have a whole plan That we have multiple meetings about And then throw the plan out I think that's the strength of the show I love that we just basically We basically recalled What's the word I'm looking for We called an audible And we basically changed the play at the line of scrimmage And I think that's what keeps this show At the top of the ratings That being said I'll just ask you tomorrow about how this list was, I know you just explained it kind of, but I'm wondering if these are most frequently used words or just words that the listener took note of because they were weird or what, or words we misuse. I think this is great, actually. I think this is actually a very good idea for content.

Exactly, and I'm looking at this list, and I'm wondering if all of these are actual words. I think some of them, you can tell, like the ones that you used were big words. The ones that I probably contributed were things that were like, well, I kind of like the sound of a part of this word and a sound of the part of this word, What if I just use them together and Frankenstein them into one word? But we'll look at this list tomorrow. Okay, I love it.

And good job, Andrew, once again. I am a cute one. You really showed me something today. This was actually a very fun episode of the show, even though we didn't do the thing we set out to do.

Thank you for being a Tam.

All right, let's thank some tens before we skee-daddle today. These supporters are sending in some money every month, or maybe one time in a year, and it's how we were able to do TBTL for our jobs. I can't overshay this. It's 100% listener-supported podcasting. Why? Because no advertisers want to support it. That's not true.

I was literally going to mention to you I just opened up my email to look at this email from Kristen, and we had received several. I'm just going to say it. We received several emails that were all ignored from somebody who is representing a company that really wanted to advertise with us. And I will say this is a company that we recently learned is sponsoring our friends over at Text Me Back. They wanted to sponsor us as well. but we know that okay I don't know what that was I'm sorry it's getting late that's the kind of thing

that we were able to do on the show because we don't have any sponsors to answer to exactly people were paying if advertisers were paying money for this they wouldn't let me make that sound

but we have chosen not to do that because it's not worth it because honestly as silly as it might sound most people wouldn't listen to this podcast and say oh these guys they really put quality first they really like to keep things tight but the truth is we do like we have we have an aesthetic on the show I can't say it aesthetic on the show and part of that is keeping it kind of clutter free or at least the clutter is what we're adding not ads and we were able to do that because of list

like the folks we're gonna thank right now that's absolutely true listeners like cassandra caswell

of victoria british columbia british columbia what do you think the chances are that we would have another person from british columbia on the list today i could look it up on the zero yeah it's like the monk it's in monk territory yeah that one of the least used intro what is the what is which is the monk one it i am the monk one um it's monk i only used it once it's like monk who obviously is a very beyond straight laced person i think trying to trying to act like he knows drug talk or something like that and so he's trying to maybe um well i if i type in monk only one thing should pop up well unfortunately it also catches the the monkey hotel from community Here, let me see if I can make this work.

You know, there are no secrets in a town like this. I know all about you, former Detective Adrian Monk. Heard you're asking about me. You want to ask me something, you go right ahead. Okay.

What's back there? Let me guess. I love you so much. Fields of reefer. Fields of reefer. What kind of cop were you? You know what I mean. Ditch weed.

Boo.

The old Alibaba. What makes you think that I'd actually... Magic Dragon, Bumbalache, Yellow Submarine, Black Bart, Dr. Giggles, Kentucky Blue. You know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Railroad Weed. That's right. The Devil's Parsley, Skunk, Splim, Splam, Mooster, Side Salad.

I got to start using some of those. When did we play that? Once. And I remember you specifically saying that you didn't really like it that much. No. Yes, that's why we've never gone back to it.

I'm sorry. I must have been in a bad place.

Luke, that was the first one we played on when I started keeping track. On, let's see, I guess Monday, January 11th, 2021, the very first entry into the spreadsheet is Monk Marijuana Drug Nicknames.

Andrew, I'm worried the baby thinks people can't change. You were a real piece of shit. You used to be a real piece of shit. Used to be. You think this is slicked back? This is pushed back. I love that tape you just played so much, and I literally feel bad that there was ever a time when I was kind of looking sideways at it. Sir, please play that at will. I think that should totally reenter the catalog, because that was making me laugh out loud.

Well, we will save that for an upcoming show in 2025.

It was also making Sarah Farley laugh, who's over there in Spokane, Washington.

Nice, Spokane. I still haven't been, but I always say this. Sarah, I hear you have a wonderful city. Yeah, it's a great place.

Timothy Petrick is in Kamloops, British Columbia. I should have placed that bet. Wow. You could have made a lot of money off of me, Andrew, because when you said, what are the chances that we'd have two donors in British Columbia, I was like, this guy's out to lunch. This guy's on reefer. This guy's on... The Devil's Parsley. The devil's parsley. He's on other things, said by the actor Tony Shalhoub.

By the way, Tony Shalhoub, I've heard from people who've met him, they were like canvassing or something. I had some friends who were canvassing in L.A. and ended up knocking on his door. And I think they needed some help or something, too. I know that sounds like a weird thing. What a dream.

I mean, literally, that sounds like a dream I would have.

And he apparently was so friendly. I don't know if they needed to just use the facilities or what it was, but he was apparently just so, so kind and nice. I love Tony Shalhoub so much

I've only spoken to him in the context of Wait, wait, don't tell me I was a panelist when he was the Not My Job guest And he was an utter delight An absolute utter delight So I'm not shocked to hear Think of all of the doors you could knock on And have to use the facility It's Tony Shalhoub And he's nice to you I mean that would make We wanted to get more people out Rocking the vote and knocking on doors Tell them they might meet Tony Shalhoub

Do you know or do you recall that he was in a Coen Brothers movie that almost is like lost to history? I saw it in the theater, but I know it was Coen Brothers. It was called The Man Who Wasn't There. It was a black and white noir film.

Wow, that's not a Steve Martin movie? No. No, The Devil Wears Plaid. Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, I think. Was that a Steve Martin noir film?

Yeah, that was a parody noir film. I don't think I've ever seen it, but my understanding is Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid was like a parody noir. but the man who wasn't there and I'm looking this up 2001 I think it was the um yeah uh Joel Nathan Cohen with Billy Bob Thornton Francis McDormand is it good James Gandolfini oh I don't see I don't I only saw it in 2001 in the theater I think with Genevieve so I don't remember it well other than just being like in love with Tony Shalhoub

performance because i'm in love with all of his performances and that includes wings oh a hundred percent now that's a show that i would enjoy like you know i know that you you sometimes will go back and just kind of like watch maybe a few seasons of a of like a 1980s or 90s sitcom i would love to go back and see you know kind of how entertaining wings was because at the time i loved the show i think with all due respect i think that's a dangerous game Really? With wings in particular?

I don't know that. I mean, you're a huge Stephen Webber fan. I know that. I am.

Well, I'm a Tim Daly fan first, but a Stephen Webber, then a Crystal Bernard. Isn't that Crystal Bernard, the kind of woman who works at the...

You should enter yourself into a Spanish Scrabble contest. You can just remember big blocks of names of people from wings.

And who played the mechanic, the kind of doofy tall guy? Well, that was Thomas Hayden Church.

Oh, Thomas Aiden Church, of course.

Again, this was a launch pad.

It really was. You know, for a lot of folks. Although you mentioned that woman's name who played, I believe she kind of ran the diner in the airport, Crystal Bernard. But you know her from other things other than wings?

No, I just had a crush on her on that show. Oh, okay. I just thought she was, yeah, I just thought she was, you know, quite fetching. Sure, sure. Yeah, that was one of those shows that I, and I feel like it was kind of a little bit of a sleeper. like it was on for a long time I mean it was successful but it wasn't I feel like it wasn't talked about the way Cheers was talked about or you know it wasn't the kind of thing where it was like where were you when you watched the last episode of Wings

and you know and whether or not do you think that her character died in the final scene before they cut to black is the question precisely do you know that she's listed first as a singer songwriter and actress and she was apparently also on Happy Days back in 1983 and 84, so she must have been like a teen, I'm guessing, on Happy Days. She played K.C. Cunningham on Happy Days. So the Cunninghams are the main family, so maybe she played a cousin

or something. Yeah, Richie Cunningham, so was she like the sister of Richie Cunningham? That's what I'm trying to figure out here, yeah. So anyway, while you're working on that, I'm going to go ahead and keep thanking folks here, including Becky Day of Aberdeen, Washington. Hey, right over there in Aberdeen.

Thank you, Becky.

Appreciate it. Thank you, Becky. And then not too far, just a bit north, maybe a bit northeast of Becky, would be our friend Jake Bowman, who's in Tacoma, Washington. Stay-at-home pops. It's our guy.

Do you think that one of Jake's ancestors was somebody who was very good with a bow and arrow, and that's why they have a family named Bowman?

The finest in the land, and that's why they got that name. And then they came over here and then really pursued a kind of less archery-based lifestyle. Jake Legolas Bowman. That's right. Thanks, Jake. And then thanks to Mary Gerlach, who's in Aurora, Colorado.

Thank you, Mary.

Mary, appreciate the support. Andrew, any closer on the Crystal Bernard question?

Who she played? What was I supposed to be looking up? Because I'll be honest with you, I closed all the tabs.

I liked how you said earlier that you struggle with short-term, long-term, and medium-term memory.

Well, I wasn't sure what we were trying to do, because we know that she played somebody named Casey Cunningham. We just wanted to know more about who Casey Cunningham is. Is that what the question was?

I guess, yeah. I guess it was just like, where did she fit into the Happy Days kind of structure?

Oh, this is great. Oh, and this is a great show pick, too. You're going to love this. is, I'm going to email you because there's a Happy Days Wikipedia page here or like a WikiFans thing and you're going to love her little baseball card for her character. She's a character who appears in season 10. She's played by Crystal Bernard. She's Howard's niece. So Howard is the kind of portly father, right? The father figure, the patriarch. So it's his niece. I had a feeling she was going to be Richie's cousin. moved in with him and Marion after their daughter Joni left with Chachi for Chicago. So the series is getting pretty long in the tooth probably by this point, and they're just like swapping in younger characters. It's a real poochy situation.

Uh-huh. By the way, Crystal Bernard's music career included the hit song Don't Touch Me There from 1999.

It was a lyric-by-lyric response to um let me lay me down in the tall grass and let me do my stuff exactly exactly it was a diss track

it was a clap back at fleetwood mac it was a mac don't touch me there 1999 crystal bernard so she's kind of got an interesting like life story her father was a televangelist um um her her let's see yeah let me scroll back to this she was born in garland texas her dad was jerry wayne bernard and her mom was Galen Fussell. She She was a gospel singer as a kid. She also was an actress. She studied acting. She went to Baylor University. And then, yeah, for her music, she released two albums, one, The Girl Next Door, and then also in 1999, Don't Touch Me There. The latter includes a gospel track she recorded with her father, and she sung with the country artist Billy Dean. The single, Don't Touch Me There, peaked at number 25 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary Chart. There was a moment in time, Andrew, where Americans were rocking out to Crystal Bernard singing Don't Touch Me There.

Is this the song that's going to get us finally pulled? Oh, wow. This is way more produced than I thought it was going to be.

This is going to be deeply uncomfortable. What year did you say this was? It's a song that's as much about, like, let's just say, it's a metaphor, Andrew. Put it on the list for tomorrow. How come the first thing I heard was used? Do I use the word metaphor a lot?

You slipped inside the walls. I'm just, I don't know, man.

It's a song about someone who is, you know, it's about a complicated relationship where her, I just read the lyrics is why I know this, where basically it's like this person that she's singing to can really get under her skin and really get into her heart, but she doesn't want them to do that anymore. Again, the name Don't Touch Me There has a lot more like after-school special, you know, tell a police officer or a trusted adult kind of connotations there.

It's got Stranger Danger vibes for sure. But, I mean, I kind of figured that couldn't literally be what it was about, but it was a strange place where I sort of needle-dropped it.

But she also appeared in the video for Birdhouse in Your Soul by They Might Be Giants.

Oh, wow. Do you know that song? I do. That's a biggie for them. I don't know them very much.

Put a little birdhouse in your soul. That's a very catchy number from the guys over there at They Might Be Giants. I was a big They Might Be Giants guy, which you might be kind of surprised to hear, because it's a little bit—I feel like it's kind of a slightly—oh, God, why? Why on this day of all days, Andrew?

We had a contractor over there.

No, I'm just thinking, why am I going into this? It's like either kind of a higher brow—I feel like They Might Be Giants is a higher brow, bare naked lady.

oh i see why you were you don't want to offend i'm looking around for listeners i might yeah because i literally saw you look over both shoulders and go like oh what about what's going on here and i was like i was actually like knocking on your door no i was just worried that

i was worried that like no reason for me to like unnecessarily uh yuck the yum of the of the uh of the bare naked ladies but i feel like they might be giants and bare naked ladies kind of occupy a kind of a corner although they might be giants very you know the sun is a bass uh the sun is a ball of incandescent gas a gigantic nuclear furnace where hydrogen is i don't know they have a whole song explaining how the sun operates um i i it is smart catchy music and i think it's actually musical it's very it's like well done from a music standpoint but um but yeah i think it you might be surprised to know that i was as into they might be giants as i was because it seems like there's a lot of other stuff like that that i just didn't really ever catch for me stuff that's a little bit more on the self-described nerdy end of the spectrum or or even somewhat

novelty end of the spectrum as well like i there are a few things like that that one didn't catch me but like i there was a while there i was i had like um the dead milkman record milk you can really hear my the dead milkman record milkman funny i grew up saying milk instead of milk um i think that's kind of a midwest thing right i think so although i swear i've kept some pacific northwesterners saying it as well but um you know they had that album i still like the name of it metaphysical graffiti which is a pretty funny name for a record um but like same deal like i liked that in high school but i don't think i could go back to listening to something where its main its main purpose is to sort of make you wryly grin at its lyrics it's kind of not something

yeah that's the stuff that's like uh that's the stuff that hasn't i have not pursued other music like that as a fan throughout my adult life but there was a i think partially because i got a they might be giant cd as one of my columbia house purchases there you go you know it was like just going through the list and i was listening to a lot of 107.7 the end at the time and so there was probably one they might be giant song that was in rotation it might have been birdhouse in your soul and then i was like i like those guys and then it was on the list of columbia house cds and then i like checked it and then uh and then of course because that was the era where if you got a cd you listen to it from front to back extensively so i could definitely give sing every single song on that particular CD which has like a sea monster grabbing a spaceship or something on it. It's the cover, I can't remember.

And is it one of those records that even though it was not a greatest hits, it has so many hits on it it reads like a greatest hits, not unlike Rumors by the aforementioned Fleetwood Mac? Don't touch me there

Andrew. It was called Apollo 18 and I'm gonna tell you right now no it's just a it's like a kraken it's like a squid grabbing a whale but in the background I believe is a is a Apollo 18 or it's like a rover a lunar rover oh my god Andrew this album dig my grave she's actual size but she feels much bigger to me I'm adding the second part in mammal spider the statue got me high they do a cover of the lion sleeps tonight but their own weird version they do a song called uh i palindrome eye which is actually such a good song and then my evil twin he always wants to start when i want to begin my evil twin fair weather friend he always wants to start when i want to begin i might have to

spend the afternoon listening they might be giants dial it up baby what a life what a life you lead

Mr. Burbank enjoy okay that's fine I think I think that's yeah I'm I got a lot to do around here so this will be a good little um oh you know what what I wonder if that's a nothing this doesn't matter I I'm I'm thinking that the uh I saw I saw a link on the internet that made me think that they might be giants cover for Apollo 18 was a um an allusion to a different uh old magazine cover

which is neither here nor there okay we did it everyone we did not we did it by not doing it We did not do the top story today.

We'll see you tomorrow, everybody. In the meantime, have a great Monday. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Excuse me, can I talk to you for a second? How can I help you? My date's eating all the fully loaded nachos. All the ones with the meat, cheese, and everything. The ones that are fully loaded, she's hogging them. So I'm mostly getting just like just chips. like mostly just chips like nothing on them but like a little bit of cheese and maybe one little nugget of meat okay can you say something to her say what maybe go up the table and just say like hey stop that or like hey that's not allowed you want me to go over and say stop eating the meat on the chips just say the restaurant has it's not you it's the rule the restaurant has that if you get an item to share you can't one person can't just eat all the fully loaded ones like don't look around find the one with the most meat and always eat that one had you just ask her to share with you you just say the restaurant has a rule power out