Hello, friends, benders and non benders alike. I'm Janet Varney and I'm Dante Bosco, and this is Braving the Elements, Nickelodeon's podcast about all things Avatar verse Dante. Before we do anything else, we have to announce that we are going to be bringing our little podcast to a live audience at New York Comic Con. That's right, on Saturday, October nine. We are going to be doing a live episode of Braving the Elements in front of a crowd. It is going to be a safe crowd, and we're really excited to do it with a bunch of you. Obviously, check out nyc cs website for more info on that. If you have plans to be at New York Comic Con, please put that on your slate of events to do on Saturday than night. Cannot wait, buddy, Okay, let's just take a moment, because we got to really get excited about what's happening right now. I mean, come on, I mean, this is the moment a lot of people have been waiting for, and many people thought we could not pull this off, but we were in fact able to track down the Avatar, not unlike his character as far as the fans concerned as he was, he's been gone, I mean a hundred of years, like where, we don't know where this guy's at, right, We've got to get to the bottom of it, positive and excited way. And guess who found him, Prince Zuka. It's true, it's true. Longer round finding him, regained his honor, he found the man, and here he is. Everyone. We're so excited to welcome Ang himself, but also many other things in his life and world. Zack Tyler is Zack. What's up guy? It is so good to be here. Good to see you, Dante, welcome back. Good to see you. Yeah, Janet, this is the first time we're meeting, so it's it's great to meet you. It's it's so great to meet you. Thank you for having me. I'm glad that this is happening right now. I'm very very very glad you. Thank you. This is very very very cool. You know, we've been doing this podcast for many episodes and we are constantly talking about of course Ang, and your performance was so fantastic and thank you so just like innate, so bravo, thank you. I appreciate that I I had no formal training, so that might have honestly been a good thing. Uh, from what you're telling, I think sometimes it is. Sometimes that is so, but but yeah, I mean, looking back, it was. It was just a great experience in my life and I'm very thankful for it. So when did you start acting? I started acting at the ripe old age of four years old. Um, I know, I learned how to read at a young age. I was articulate for a four year old. Um didn't help, it didn't hurt. Rather that I was pretty adorable. Um, so yeah, it was kind of the perfect So. Yeah, I started out doing like shows and stuff like that, and um, it just kind of evolved. I was doing a lot of on camera stuff at the beginning, um, some like small roles and television shows and stuff like that. And then I kind of found my niche in invoice acting. Um. And I did that until I was in high school and yeah, the rest of history. Wow. And this is all on the East Coast, right East Coast. I am, I am. I'm originally from Connecticut. I live in New York now, um and yeah, I've spent my entire life here in the East Coast and um, I love it. I'm sorry to you West Coast folks that it's so nice there all the time. But I love the East Coast. I wish. I mean, I'm always excited any opportunity or reason I have to to be on that side of things. Um, but I've never lived over there. Yes, it's it's place to be. And so when you started recording for Avatar, most of the cast, if not all, of the rest of the cast was in l a. Right. Were you going into the booth just by yourself or were there other projects that you were doing that happened to have more of the cast in the same room, because it can be a different experience, right, Oh, such a different experience. And and honestly, the vast majority of the work that I did was solo in the booth. There are a few opportunities recording Avatar where I would work with other actors, but just being pretty much the only principal cast member on the East Coast, it made it difficult. And and that went for the other shows that I was a part of as well. I was in the Nick Jr. Series Little Bill, which I primarily did alone. I was much much younger when I did that. I also was in the backyard against I played Pablo, which is something that has, for one reason or another, been getting some attention on TikTok Twitter lately. I don't know why. No one knows why anything trends on TikTok. That's the beautiful, magical mystery of TikTok for real, Right, If either of you guys know, I would love to know the secret. We can offline about that later. But so you mentioned starting out in commercials at you know, age four. Issue, was that something that you specifically approached your folks about or you know, it was just kind of something that really happened. I wasn't like forced into it by anybody, but I certainly didn't approach my parents at four years old saying hey can I can I act? Um? So Um, you know, it was just something that like we experimented with and I started finding a bit of success and and yeah, just my my, I was lucky to have a relatively successful career in a small amount of time. Um. But yeah, I know, I wouldn't like describe myself as a as a thespian or or a born actor or anything like that. Um, but you know I was. I was in it just as much as the next guy, were you alone like at Dante you He's mentioned that he would get to at least hear your voice in some reportings. I don't know if that. Like did a lot of records, so we did a lot of stuff where we'd come on booth and it's like usually me, Jack May and uh, you know Marco, would we we Especially the first season, you know, you're trying to get the cast together as much as possible so you can get some kind of jel and going on with the performances, and it would be like in Zack's here on the East Coast and be like it would be basically Zack's voice and you're like, hey, We're like, hey, what's really he was on the scenes. He really wasn't too like you were just hearing, yeah, you were just here. When he was in session with us, it would just be his voice over. And then I met him at we first met when you were very young at the premiere party Nickelodeon, which we actually talked about that with Brian, and there was a whole martial arts yes of course, phibition, Yes, Kissy was there and it was it was cool and I met your whole family and you're you know you were a kid. I was a full kid. I was. I was pretty much like the same age as Ang. I might have even been a little bit younger by the time the premiere rolled around. I think the show premier didn't oh five, I want to say that would have made me twelve or eleven, depending on the time of year. So yeah, I was, I was young. Uh. And you guys were all like the cool older kids, like, you know, intimidating in a in a cool way, not a not a scary us older than others. I look at Jacky up those days too, I'm like, you guys were like the children. Yeah. Yeah, we we all were something and you know that was that was part of part of the fun of it. It was cool playing a kid who was my age. I was kind of going through the same you know, age progression as Ang at the same time. You can hear it in my voice a little later in season three. Um, I think it makes it. I think that makes it very exciting and special. And a lot of times kids age out of the characters and they get recast, right. Yeah, and this is like a character. You did the whole city, the whole duration of the series, which I think is really special. Thank god it was only three seasons, because I don't think I could have made it a fourth. Was there ever a conversation about moving to the West Coast? And I'm not saying that because I think it's better, because I don't. But I'm just wondering if I'm just wondering if there that was ever even like on the table, if it was just like, no, that's not going to be. This thing is part of my larger life here, and it's not going to become my life by me going somewhere else. Yeah, exactly the latter. This, this was very much just a part of my life here. I never really considered moving out to the West Coast. I you know, later, much later after college. I thought about it for a little bit, but ultimately decided to stay here. But you know, my whole families on the East Coast and my whole life is here. Um. And yeah, as you said, it was really just something else that I did. And I don't mean to like sort of discounted in that way. But I was able to, like thanks to the hard work of my mother and my manager and all the people around me, I was able to, you know, play baseball like a normal kid and work, you know, recording sessions into my quote unquote busy schedule that I had as a as a twelve year old. So listen, most twelve year olds I know are busier than most adults I know. So there is a lot that can keep you busy. I guess sometimes it's the adults are glad because they have maybe more time to do their stuff. So that like in Ballet, exactly exactly I I you know, between between the recordings, the recording sessions were like, you know, a couple of times a week, I was coming into the city for additions. You know. It wasn't um as part of the beauty of voice acting. It wasn't all encompassing. I didn't have to be on a set for weeks at a time, so I could go to school, I could, you know, do all the things that a normal pre teen could do. And that was I'm very happy for that. Now leading up to the show, when you when you end up booking the show, did you have any expectations of what it was or what it was going to become. Did you have an idea that we'd be talking about on a podcast some fifteen seventeen years later, and how how it's kind of impacted the world. I I don't think that anybody really could have predicted just the phenomenon that the show would evolve into. And and I think everyone knew that there was something special about it. It was very different from anything that Nickelodeon had aired in the you know, in the years prior. Um. Like, clearly Mike and Brian our geniuses. They they knew what they were doing. They knew exactly where to take this series and how to pull it off. Um. But I personally, like, I know, I had no idea that I'd be sitting here years and years later, you know, talking about the show. And and you know that last summer it was number one on Netflix. Oh my god, like just the way it has culture yeah and insane. Um. So no, I couldn't have predicted it. But like I think, especially after after it premiered, I think we kind of knew that, uh, it was special, but how special? You know that that came with time, right, And I think unlike the rest of us castmates, like you're the kid, you're the age of the kids originally watching it, so you would actually when it came out, you were going to school, your classmates were watching the show first before it kind of spread out to other age ranges and whatnot. So do you have any memories of what the kids were talking about when it came out? I mean, like it's been something that has followed me throughout my life. I uh, it was. It definitely had a ton of fans at my school. I went to public school, Um, you know, a pretty large school at that and uh, yeah, I mean I wouldn't. I wasn't getting mobbed in the hallways because you know, I had kind of been doing this for a while at that point, and some people knew. Some people did, and they'd find out and it would be an exciting thing. But yeah, no, it was very cool being the same agent and kind of aging with the character. Um, you know, I would watch it with friends every now and again, Um, which you know, Uh, it was. It's a cool experience. You're right, it's it was. It was very special that you know, I was able to kind of experience it through the eyes of a fan as well. What a good and sweet and wonderful and humble person you are When you could have just become insufferable, You really could have decided like, yeah, I guess I'm gonna be kind of better than everyone. Like, yeah, my friends like the show I'm on. It's cool whatever, I'm in the avatar. That's not me, that's not it's that you. It was never gonna it is weird as a kid, Varney and you're like your friends, see you want to show or here you want to show, and it's and you go to school on Monday and it's it's a very weird thing. It's kind of strange, and it's everyone tackles it differently. I think how you know, not everybody can deal with it, and it's it's tough. It is, you know, um, growing up and and dealing with just all the pressures of the biz. Yeah, but all the pressures of being a teenager and the biz at the same time in your little psycho that and I could barely keep it together. I mean, the idea of trying to professional career. No one said we were keeping it together, right, exactly, touche touche, well, Zach. Was that where your interest in the entertainment business or in storytelling started to expand out to include more things than just you know, sort of being the talent. Oh totally yeah, and um, you know, I've I've been around this industry in some form or another for the vast majority of my life. Um. You know, if I'll say the number of years, you know, kind of give away my age. But um, yeah, like he's too old for blah blah blah, Like you're fine, no, I mean, but yeah, you know it's it's it's like I think, Um, it gave me a nice introduction into this world. And and UM, you know, I still am working in the industry in a different form. I'm behind the microphone camera now. Um so I you know, I'm a I'm a camera guy. Now That's what I do. Um, I love it. And I definitely think that you know the fact that I was I had some connection to this world that that led me to where I am today. And did you study that throughout school? Like did you did you committed to Yeah, like filmmaking more. Yeah. So I went to college. I majored in television, radio, and film. Um and uh yeah, you know I as as a as a teenager, I like wanted to kind of figure out a way to like parlay my voice acting experience and you know, also interested in media and communications and like a huge, huge hockey fan. I love the New York Rangers. It was my dream to uh to be the play by play announcer for the Rangers. Never quite materialized, but you know there's still time. We don't know, um, but but you know that, you know, I think I started down that path and then eventually I kind of discovered camera work, and UM, you know, I I love doing that and that's what I'm doing now. So okay, I we know that. And I got very excited as I was kind of looking at some of the stuff that you've done, as you've been evolving as an artist on the production side, I got very excited that you have done some fully work. So no one is going to ask you to make any sounds, but we we would like to hear what you think off the top of your head you would use to achieve a certain sound based on your experience doing some fully or as a fully artists and explained to people to fully artists for people fully artists, sure, sure, A fully artist is someone who in post production artificially manufacturers the sound effects that you hear. So whether it's foots, steps or raining or whatever, it is very talented people behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies, whatever is are just creating these sounds from scratch, and often with interesting or unconventional objects or methods. Um. I think I think I captured the Yes, that's beautiful. No, that's great, that's great. That's better than what I would have said. Yeah, oh no, way, better way. But he clearly knows this stuff. We saw the wonderful fully artists like sound designer Benjamin Win and his team kind of crunching ang's feet through the leaves and stuff like that in the studio. Oh yeah, I saw that. Yes, yes, you want to start. We're gonna start with a more traditional fully sound and we'll see what you think you would use to make that sound. Thunder thunder to me, okay, thunder, you need to get real deep. Um, you know, I'm thinking like a large sheet of like a thick stock of paper. Maybe shake it out a couple of times, and maybe add some some drums in the background. If you if, if you're you know, getting feeling a little musical about it, love it? Okay, next one. I love that. That's great. And I don't even know what I meant when I wrote these, So good luck. A zapp of electricity oh man, this is see this is where my we we need some d Bradley Baker to help here get some human noise and interaction. I like it. Yeah, that's that's a tough sound because you know, I think, um, it kind of depends on if the lightning makes contact with something. You know, I need I need a visual reference for this one, Danny. See, I don't know enough about the business to even apple Dante. What about this third one we have? Let's see, what was that footsteps in moss? You know, I think I might go oh natural for that one and either put put my hands in some shoes and uh, you know, maybe use some felt or or some actual moss. Or I'd even just swear shoes on my feet as one does, and uh you know, hold the mic low and just literally walk on moss. That's sometimes the best. You never know. I love the idea that what if you were like, as everyone full of fully work knows, you never wear shoes on your feet everyone and fully only wear shoes on their hand. I wish that were true. Okay, next one, eating a burrito. A character, an animated character is eating a burrito. You know this isn't going to be the most interesting answer. Um, but it is the most truthful. I would I would eat a burrito. I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, there's no there's no substitute. Sometimes great and the last one, last one swimming the backstroke in your studio. You are in a studio in a studio, okay, Um, you know I might have to like rent a sound stage for it and get one of those big production tanks for it and go swimming. But you know, for really scaling it down. Got okay, okay at Pottle Water, how big is the pot Dante. That's a big one. It's a good it's a good size. Culture maybe maybe a v you know, somewhere in that range that would help the better we're going. You know, this is this is a serious stuff here. Um yeah, I think, Um, I'd probably use my hands, um just you know, make a little bit of slashing noise, make sure that water is reflecting off the sides of the container. That whatever you want to whatever we have and available and yeah, fully artists, I do have to ask where where did this come from? Because I have done fully it's on I am doing there on IMDb. Your crew, like there's a ton of different crew credits. So I think that the project that we're talking about here was it was a project that I did in college as part of my major. We created a television series. This has gone back a couple of years. Um and yeah. I I assistant directed a few of the episodes. I d pat an episode which was my cinematographic debut, if you will, Um, yes, yeah, um and um. It was all student done. Um. You know, the whole whole production crew as well as the actors were all students at my university. It was called Truth or Dare. Um. It was about you guessed it, kids playing Truth or Dare in the woods and uh and something goes wrong. You know, I'll let I'll let the audience dive deeper if they'd like. But yeah, I know it was It was like my first real for a into production experience from a live action perspective and on the crew side of course. But yeah, no, I definitely like credit that experience with just where my career has taken me. But you mainly focused now on cinematography. What Simmons offers do you admire and power do is that you inspired by? I'm a big fan of of Roger Deakins, who is a very renowned cinematographer. Um, because he recently a couple of years back now won the Oscar for Cinematography for Blade Runner, which was just an absolutely beautiful movie and in every way shape and form. Um. And yeah, I really admire his work. I tend to pull a lot of his frames as references, Uh, in my work. I can't hold a candle to him cinematography fun um, but UM, you know, you gotta, you gotta idolize the greats. Um. There's a reason that you know that they are where they are. Um. I had the pleasure of, through my current job, working a little bit with the cinematographer Robert Richardson last summer. We were doing like a remote shoot on an iPhone, UM, and we had a great exchange where I was trying to walk him through using this little dinky l E D light And this is a guy who is you know, he works for Tarantino, and he's asking me how to operate this little tiny l D light And I was, yeah, I was that was great. I mean, I'm fascinated because I mean we're kids in the setting. Like you've gone on, I've gone on to do other things in the industry. What was your memories like as a kid on the set, you look at the camera guys, look at the sound guys, at the production designers. I mean when I was a kid, like the boom, the guy with the boom was the coolest dude on the set. When you were on the sets and a live action stuff, did you have any kind of like affinity for what was going on? How was your mind? What do we think? I think it's some regard I did. It was probably like a little more subliminal than I was. I was a lot younger when I did the bulk of my on camera work. But that being said, like when it comes to Avatar, like one of the one of my favorite people to work with was Justin who was the audio engineer in l A. And I would either, you know, every so often I'd come out to l A to do a session. Most of the time I was on the East coast, so even just talking to him over over the over the air waves was great. So um, you know, we were He was a cool guy, great guy. He was a cool guy, great guy. People. I don't know Justin. He has like a long haired guy. He's joined. He ran the boards and engineered the board as we're recording, and so he's kind of recording the whole time. But also, of course, since he's a music engineer, he was also a musician, and he looks like a rock us and you could totally you're like, are you and Buddy? You can totally tell he's like, yeah, no, he's in a band. He gave me the tape, the demo tables called Camaro. I'm gonna have to check them out. Thank you. Thanks for that. And now that you're pretty firmly focused in cinematography, if you could be a fly on the wall in any past production, what would it be? Hands down, it would be The Sopranos, A huge, huge Sopranos fan. Okay, but now I think we do need to talk about a very different, beloved television show. Now right, everybody, should we get into some Avatar verse stuff? Do you want to get into some like favorite this is and favorite? Let's do it. I've been waiting. We have a segment that we call animal crossing. Okay, love it. That is the Avatar animal crossing of hybrid animals. Do you have a favorite or a handful of favorites? I hate when people ask me for just one, because I have a very hard time choosing. So what are the ones that pop into your head when you think about some of your favorite hybrid animals? Okay, I think, Um, I think I'm gonna have to go with um hog, monkeys her up there. I I just I just really like monkeys for whatever reason, like real monkeys. Um So I think that was a that was a good one. Um. You know, I'll admit I haven't seen Cora all the way through. I did start it recently and I'm very into it. But I do love the polar bear dog. Uh So that's one thing that was kind of lacking from the Last Airbender. Real dog characters, I think. And you know, Naga was part of the original concept and she just didn't make it in. That was a really early designment that I believe Brian had done, and he they like held onto her and then they popped her in when they had a chance. Based on based on Brian's real dog, ya, he's like even look the same, like huge back legs and small front legs. Like somehow that was all happening in real life. So Brian's dog is massive, is what you're saying. Yes, I think about Nauga. I thought about this thing Jen about Naga and Apa, Like, you know, we we realized, like Opa is so important without Apa, our gang, Zach, would I mean what we we do, we can't go anywhere. We can't go like that. Half the plot was based around being able to travel around the world. We do these, we do these most valuable bending the most valuable non bending moments per episode, and early on we were like, well, we can't give it to Opa every time, but he kind of is the reason that they're able to do anything, and he is an airbend or technical comes through the clutch. How about episodes, Zach, any episodes that really stick out? This is another tough one. It's you know, I have a lot of memories, and I think I really do think that most of the lasting memories have come from the first season, which is odd because that was, you know, farthest from now. Um, I think that the most memorable to me, and I've said this before is the King Booming episode. I feel like that's kind of where I like started to feel like I was hitting my stride as an actor, like I started to understand the character. Um, it was just a very fun episode. That being said, there are a few that like also throughout the rest of the series that stuck with me. One is Zogo Alone I, which is I think the only episode that I'm not in. UM. But Dante, you were incredible. Uh Zuko's character arc is is amazing, and I mean you were just so phenomenal in voicing him tales and bossing say, obviously, that's that's a classic, unforgettable UM. And I've also loved that is my favorite that. I mean, that could have won all the awards from as far as I'm concerned, Oscar and I'm happy to hand over the Oscar like I'm ready. Tears are are always in the in the festivities when when that one comes on. UM. I also think I like I like the gurup aatique stuff. UM. I just think it took the show in in an interesting direction, added a lot of spirituality and and other things that typically you don't see and cartoons that are made for kids. I don't want to call it a kid's show because that's kind of putting it into a into a box a little bit. But yeah, I think it's just like it was a very cool and and different direction. I love that you brought that up that's so true. Right for Shadow Report, what are your thoughts about the times that Hang lied. I mean, for the fandom, it's very conflicted about those moments in the show. It's an emotion. Yeah, it's an emotional topic from any fans, even you as a kid. I mean, I imagine you as like twelve or younger doing this show and you're like, hold on, secing I get to lie, like, like, what did you feel at that age? He's such a pure character that, yeah, it is. It was. Um, it's kind of hard to take a character in a direction doing something that they're normally not in a position of doing. And Dante, I feel like you probably had a similar experience when Zuko undergoes his kind of awakening. And I was an adult, I was a bona fide. I was like I was going on. You're like, you're like eleven years old, Like, I that's how I do it. I'm just lied about the whole thing. Yeah, alright, good next episode, Like what happened? Bring it on? Bring it on? Yeah? No, I mean I think like like part of part of why Ang was was I don't want to say an easy character to play, but like he really was just so genuine and so all I had really had to do was was be genuine. So so telling a lie and acting and figuring out how to how to do it and still make it convincing but not you know, yeah, no it was. It was difficult and um uncommon, very uncharacteristic. Yeah. So it's funny too because Foreshadow Report, Foreshadow Report. Those those two Book one lies are are so different in their utility like people. One of them that enrages people because it's such a toss off at the end of something that it's like, how can he just so comfortably in the great divide, just like, yeah, I just made it up. I need the whole thing off like that that would come so easily. That one is so light and just fluffy and like and it's gone like it like that, don't tell no about your lie. Just that's an adult lie. That's an adult lie. It's an adult lie that an adult tells children, you know what I mean, And then they write it off as an adult being like, oh, yeah, I lied. It was just too big of a headache. They need they need to get it together, like yeah, versus like the other one, which is like the heaviest of lies that we all feel like, Oh, those are the times when it's that dark part of us that just is so hurt and so afraid of losing something that you know, we make a decision that is like eating us up inside even as we're doing it, and that episode is so important. When he really confronts that, it's like, that's a real tear jerker for me. Let's move on to our next topic. We've never done this segment before. It's called cannon fodder. C A N O N cannon fodder. And we're just gonna play a quick game with you. Which of the following is true of these four A T l A factoids. Number one Apa was based on a stuffed animal my cat as a kid. Two Momo is short for more money, three mo money, thank you. Three three The Rebels treehouse is based on the walks dwellings in the Jet episode. Or four The Cabbage Merchant is hidden somewhere in every episode. M M, I really want to believe that it's the Cabbage Merchant. I don't think that's true. UM. I think I really think that that would be more of like an internet slew thing. I think that would be out there somewhere. I haven't personally come across that. Um, that's a good one. I'm leaning towards the jets dwelling is based on the Walks. Um, I can totally see that being Mike and Brian thing. But also I don't think it's Momo unfortunately, although that would probably be the coolest thing. Um, mo Money's cool, Mo mo money. Um oh, and then is imagining me writing that right now, just laughing his butt off, like what a door. She is such a dork, like patting her self on the back, like, mo money, more money, more money. Um, I'm gonna go with I'm gonna go with the e Walk one. Correct. I would that you have triumphed cannon fodder. You have triumphed my friend fodder. Star Wars mixed into everything. Star Wars basically makes it into everything you have to do in more ways than one. Because we did have a pretty special guest star on the show, exactly Papa, Big Papa, Big Papa. So this is the question we asked all our guests. Of course, what kind of bender would you be? And I can't I can't say the avatar, right. I think that's that's two the ava. We have two avatars on this program right now. I'm really feeling kind hand over the throne, I hand it over avatar or whatever to avatars talking in one podcast, it's going on here, one of the avatars came up with more money for moment. It's not good. Clear clearly Zach deserves the title. Oh man. I so, I think that in terms of like your bending ability, um, at least for an avatar, is closely related to your personality, as we learned in both series. Yes, um, so, I would say that I like most closely associate with with the air Nomads for for pretty obvious reasons. I I just like awesome. Um. I feel like that's that's not the answer that people want to hear, but it's true. I think I think it's the answer people want to hear, all right, Like, yeah, no, I'm so curious what you think people would prefer, you say, I don't know. I think maybe they just they just want some some drama, some some hot taps. But I'm just saying I'm fire Nation all the way like Dante. Yeah, but but I'm not. I'm not an angry person. Janet. I'm throwing the question back at you. Have you have to answer this yet, I've had to answer it so many times, and I have I feel, Yeah, I feel an intense loyalty to the Water Tribe. I love the Water Tribe of all my heart. I'm during the course of us doing this podcast and of like understanding myself as Janet, the character on this podcast, I identify so hard with Tough. It's an interesting thing that's happening because I'm just I'm kind I feel like I'm more apt to, like, you know, let a burp out and uh still managed to like take care of business. I'm just starting to wonder in the in a few episodes of Cora that I have seen, I can see that I can see similarities between Cora and Tough and just like their rebellious spirit, so that that that that doesn't it doesn't not as far as the departure as I was afraid it was, Okay, that's a little yeah. Co is a little rough around it to say, at least around the edges, because if you think about it, like the original cast, like the original Gang, if you would be the o G. They're actually all rich kids. They're all I mean, Prince Zuco is the Prince of the Fire Nation. Tof is to She's like from the richest family. And then even the water Qatar and soccer are is pretty Their dad is the it's the chief. So it's like they're all they're all refined. That's a good point, you know what I'm saying, that they all came together. And then of course, I mean that's the Avatar is the Avatar there, I think all they're all they're raised my feet wherever I go. Yeah. So, but when it came to Cora, you I mean cars, a little cars, a little rough around the edges. That one. It's true, it's true. It's a whole different vibe. It's a whole different vibe. And then the rest of your gang is all messed up to None of those guys are royal. None of those guys are royal. Posh guys were like a bunch of posh kids doing off. And then you guys, listen again, my heart. I give my heart to the people who are still hurt that they turned on Cora thinking they were getting more Avatar. The Last Airbender. I love you. I know your pain. I know you don't need me to love you, but I still love you because I get it. Because I love The Last Airbender so much and it is a wild ride into the future when you start chorus, I am so happy just to be myself as a nerd talking about this show and speaking of nerds talking about the show. What about our final question we're going to ask because we get asked and we feel responsibility as the kind of representatives of the fans. On the podcast Dante, who do you Ship? I had a feeling that I learned about the whole concept of shipping on our on our last reunion, Dante, which is which was on on one of your one your streams, um, well, like again, I'm gonna give the answer that everyone wants to hear that. I just can't say Katang, you know, like tank every it's Katang, like everyone was waiting for it the entire series. It happened. You know, what else is there? You know, I mean there is there are other ships. There are other ships, of course, of course. Hey, I think I think Zugo and May are great. I love both of those characters. I think Cricket who voice May is great. Yeah, Mako is a great ship. Um. I like that you hear about these you know, we don't talk about that in these parts. All right, this is this, Yeah, it's all in your head, buddy. Um, it's all in your head, buddy. I love it. I love that good. I I also I I will say one more thing that I think, um any any of Soccer's ships, I love you a and uh and also Suki um just I think you just saw a different side of Soccer in those moments. That was It was cool. It kind of rounded out of his character a little bit more. Let's get real. Soccer gets all the girls. Like, yeah, it's a popular cool guess who gets all the girls? I mean, we can ben, but Soccer is getting a girl in every place he goes. By the way, Katara has a lot of people interested in her as well. I will say she's got a lot of suitors where a lot of suitors deservedly so. I mean, she's quitar what are you gonna do? She's a knock She's just a knockout human being. Like she's an amazing here those it's those bangs, it's those little yeah yeah Dante. That's what it is. That's all it is. It's not that it's one of the best characters ever created in animation or otherwise amazing. How you know, you're just stinging right now because Zach totally schooled you on drop and tree yah zitara being in your head. This has been in so much fun, Zack, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to hang with us. We have been looking forward to this and it has not disappointed it all. I had a great time with you guys. Varney, we found the avatar. You found him. It was my honor to find him. Thank you so much. Again, this has been so much fun. And next week we were talking about part two of the Winter Solstice, which of course is called Avatar Roku. So I don't know. We figured we probably better get Avatar Roku a k a v o Actor James Garrett to have a little chat with him. But I don't know, Zack. He has got a tough act to follow. And I've been doing a bunch of fun merch giveaways on Instagram and on Twitter. I'm at Janet Varney on Twitter and at the j V Club on Instagram. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast We Love You Friends See Everybody next Tuesday on Apple, podcast Spotify, the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, friends, benders and non benders alike. I'm Janet Varney and I'm Dante Bosco, and this is Braving the Elements, Nickelodeon's podcast about all things Avatar verse Dante. Before we do anything else, we have to announce that we are going to be bringing our little podcast to a live audience at New York Comic Con. That's right, on Saturday, October nine. We are going to be doing a live episode of Braving the Elements in front of a crowd. It is going to be a safe crowd, and we're really excited to do it with a bunch of you. Obviously, check out nyc cs website for more info on that. If you have plans to be at New York Comic Con, please put that on your slate of events to do on Saturday than night. Cannot wait, buddy, Okay, let's just take a moment, because we got to really get excited about what's happening right now. I mean, come on, I mean, this is the moment a lot of people have been waiting for, and many people thought we could not pull this off, but we were in fact able to track down the Avatar, not unlike his character as far as the fans concerned as he was, he's been gone, I mean a hundred of years, like where, we don't know where this guy's at, right, We've got to get to the bottom of it, positive and excited way. And guess who found him, Prince Zuka. It's true, it's true. Longer round finding him, regained his honor, he found the man, and here he is. Everyone. We're so excited to welcome Ang himself, but also many other things in his life and world. Zack Tyler is Zack. What's up guy? It is so good to be here. Good to see you, Dante, welcome back. Good to see you. Yeah, Janet, this is the first time we're meeting, so it's it's great to meet you. It's it's so great to meet you. Thank you for having me. I'm glad that this is happening right now. I'm very very very glad you. Thank you. This is very very very cool. You know, we've been doing this podcast for many episodes and we are constantly talking about of course Ang, and your performance was so fantastic and thank you so just like innate, so bravo, thank you. I appreciate that I I had no formal training, so that might have honestly been a good thing. Uh, from what you're telling, I think sometimes it is. Sometimes that is so, but but yeah, I mean, looking back, it was. It was just a great experience in my life and I'm very thankful for it. So when did you start acting? I started acting at the ripe old age of four years old. Um, I know, I learned how to read at a young age. I was articulate for a four year old. Um didn't help, it didn't hurt. Rather that I was pretty adorable. Um, so yeah, it was kind of the perfect So. Yeah, I started out doing like shows and stuff like that, and um, it just kind of evolved. I was doing a lot of on camera stuff at the beginning, um, some like small roles and television shows and stuff like that. And then I kind of found my niche in invoice acting. Um. And I did that until I was in high school and yeah, the rest of history. Wow. And this is all on the East Coast, right East Coast. I am, I am. I'm originally from Connecticut. I live in New York now, um and yeah, I've spent my entire life here in the East Coast and um, I love it. I'm sorry to you West Coast folks that it's so nice there all the time. But I love the East Coast. I wish. I mean, I'm always excited any opportunity or reason I have to to be on that side of things. Um, but I've never lived over there. Yes, it's it's place to be. And so when you started recording for Avatar, most of the cast, if not all, of the rest of the cast was in l a. Right. Were you going into the booth just by yourself or were there other projects that you were doing that happened to have more of the cast in the same room, because it can be a different experience, right, Oh, such a different experience. And and honestly, the vast majority of the work that I did was solo in the booth. There are a few opportunities recording Avatar where I would work with other actors, but just being pretty much the only principal cast member on the East Coast, it made it difficult. And and that went for the other shows that I was a part of as well. I was in the Nick Jr. Series Little Bill, which I primarily did alone. I was much much younger when I did that. I also was in the backyard against I played Pablo, which is something that has, for one reason or another, been getting some attention on TikTok Twitter lately. I don't know why. No one knows why anything trends on TikTok. That's the beautiful, magical mystery of TikTok for real, Right, If either of you guys know, I would love to know the secret. We can offline about that later. But so you mentioned starting out in commercials at you know, age four. Issue, was that something that you specifically approached your folks about or you know, it was just kind of something that really happened. I wasn't like forced into it by anybody, but I certainly didn't approach my parents at four years old saying hey can I can I act? Um? So Um, you know, it was just something that like we experimented with and I started finding a bit of success and and yeah, just my my, I was lucky to have a relatively successful career in a small amount of time. Um. But yeah, I know, I wouldn't like describe myself as a as a thespian or or a born actor or anything like that. Um, but you know I was. I was in it just as much as the next guy, were you alone like at Dante you He's mentioned that he would get to at least hear your voice in some reportings. I don't know if that. Like did a lot of records, so we did a lot of stuff where we'd come on booth and it's like usually me, Jack May and uh, you know Marco, would we we Especially the first season, you know, you're trying to get the cast together as much as possible so you can get some kind of jel and going on with the performances, and it would be like in Zack's here on the East Coast and be like it would be basically Zack's voice and you're like, hey, We're like, hey, what's really he was on the scenes. He really wasn't too like you were just hearing, yeah, you were just here. When he was in session with us, it would just be his voice over. And then I met him at we first met when you were very young at the premiere party Nickelodeon, which we actually talked about that with Brian, and there was a whole martial arts yes of course, phibition, Yes, Kissy was there and it was it was cool and I met your whole family and you're you know you were a kid. I was a full kid. I was. I was pretty much like the same age as Ang. I might have even been a little bit younger by the time the premiere rolled around. I think the show premier didn't oh five, I want to say that would have made me twelve or eleven, depending on the time of year. So yeah, I was, I was young. Uh. And you guys were all like the cool older kids, like, you know, intimidating in a in a cool way, not a not a scary us older than others. I look at Jacky up those days too, I'm like, you guys were like the children. Yeah. Yeah, we we all were something and you know that was that was part of part of the fun of it. It was cool playing a kid who was my age. I was kind of going through the same you know, age progression as Ang at the same time. You can hear it in my voice a little later in season three. Um, I think it makes it. I think that makes it very exciting and special. And a lot of times kids age out of the characters and they get recast, right. Yeah, and this is like a character. You did the whole city, the whole duration of the series, which I think is really special. Thank god it was only three seasons, because I don't think I could have made it a fourth. Was there ever a conversation about moving to the West Coast? And I'm not saying that because I think it's better, because I don't. But I'm just wondering if I'm just wondering if there that was ever even like on the table, if it was just like, no, that's not going to be. This thing is part of my larger life here, and it's not going to become my life by me going somewhere else. Yeah, exactly the latter. This, this was very much just a part of my life here. I never really considered moving out to the West Coast. I you know, later, much later after college. I thought about it for a little bit, but ultimately decided to stay here. But you know, my whole families on the East Coast and my whole life is here. Um. And yeah, as you said, it was really just something else that I did. And I don't mean to like sort of discounted in that way. But I was able to, like thanks to the hard work of my mother and my manager and all the people around me, I was able to, you know, play baseball like a normal kid and work, you know, recording sessions into my quote unquote busy schedule that I had as a as a twelve year old. So listen, most twelve year olds I know are busier than most adults I know. So there is a lot that can keep you busy. I guess sometimes it's the adults are glad because they have maybe more time to do their stuff. So that like in Ballet, exactly exactly I I you know, between between the recordings, the recording sessions were like, you know, a couple of times a week, I was coming into the city for additions. You know. It wasn't um as part of the beauty of voice acting. It wasn't all encompassing. I didn't have to be on a set for weeks at a time, so I could go to school, I could, you know, do all the things that a normal pre teen could do. And that was I'm very happy for that. Now leading up to the show, when you when you end up booking the show, did you have any expectations of what it was or what it was going to become. Did you have an idea that we'd be talking about on a podcast some fifteen seventeen years later, and how how it's kind of impacted the world. I I don't think that anybody really could have predicted just the phenomenon that the show would evolve into. And and I think everyone knew that there was something special about it. It was very different from anything that Nickelodeon had aired in the you know, in the years prior. Um. Like, clearly Mike and Brian our geniuses. They they knew what they were doing. They knew exactly where to take this series and how to pull it off. Um. But I personally, like, I know, I had no idea that I'd be sitting here years and years later, you know, talking about the show. And and you know that last summer it was number one on Netflix. Oh my god, like just the way it has culture yeah and insane. Um. So no, I couldn't have predicted it. But like I think, especially after after it premiered, I think we kind of knew that, uh, it was special, but how special? You know that that came with time, right, And I think unlike the rest of us castmates, like you're the kid, you're the age of the kids originally watching it, so you would actually when it came out, you were going to school, your classmates were watching the show first before it kind of spread out to other age ranges and whatnot. So do you have any memories of what the kids were talking about when it came out? I mean, like it's been something that has followed me throughout my life. I uh, it was. It definitely had a ton of fans at my school. I went to public school, Um, you know, a pretty large school at that and uh, yeah, I mean I wouldn't. I wasn't getting mobbed in the hallways because you know, I had kind of been doing this for a while at that point, and some people knew. Some people did, and they'd find out and it would be an exciting thing. But yeah, no, it was very cool being the same agent and kind of aging with the character. Um, you know, I would watch it with friends every now and again, Um, which you know, Uh, it was. It's a cool experience. You're right, it's it was. It was very special that you know, I was able to kind of experience it through the eyes of a fan as well. What a good and sweet and wonderful and humble person you are When you could have just become insufferable, You really could have decided like, yeah, I guess I'm gonna be kind of better than everyone. Like, yeah, my friends like the show I'm on. It's cool whatever, I'm in the avatar. That's not me, that's not it's that you. It was never gonna it is weird as a kid, Varney and you're like your friends, see you want to show or here you want to show, and it's and you go to school on Monday and it's it's a very weird thing. It's kind of strange, and it's everyone tackles it differently. I think how you know, not everybody can deal with it, and it's it's tough. It is, you know, um, growing up and and dealing with just all the pressures of the biz. Yeah, but all the pressures of being a teenager and the biz at the same time in your little psycho that and I could barely keep it together. I mean, the idea of trying to professional career. No one said we were keeping it together, right, exactly, touche touche, well, Zach. Was that where your interest in the entertainment business or in storytelling started to expand out to include more things than just you know, sort of being the talent. Oh totally yeah, and um, you know, I've I've been around this industry in some form or another for the vast majority of my life. Um. You know, if I'll say the number of years, you know, kind of give away my age. But um, yeah, like he's too old for blah blah blah, Like you're fine, no, I mean, but yeah, you know it's it's it's like I think, Um, it gave me a nice introduction into this world. And and UM, you know, I still am working in the industry in a different form. I'm behind the microphone camera now. Um so I you know, I'm a I'm a camera guy. Now That's what I do. Um, I love it. And I definitely think that you know the fact that I was I had some connection to this world that that led me to where I am today. And did you study that throughout school? Like did you did you committed to Yeah, like filmmaking more. Yeah. So I went to college. I majored in television, radio, and film. Um and uh yeah, you know I as as a as a teenager, I like wanted to kind of figure out a way to like parlay my voice acting experience and you know, also interested in media and communications and like a huge, huge hockey fan. I love the New York Rangers. It was my dream to uh to be the play by play announcer for the Rangers. Never quite materialized, but you know there's still time. We don't know, um, but but you know that, you know, I think I started down that path and then eventually I kind of discovered camera work, and UM, you know, I I love doing that and that's what I'm doing now. So okay, I we know that. And I got very excited as I was kind of looking at some of the stuff that you've done, as you've been evolving as an artist on the production side, I got very excited that you have done some fully work. So no one is going to ask you to make any sounds, but we we would like to hear what you think off the top of your head you would use to achieve a certain sound based on your experience doing some fully or as a fully artists and explained to people to fully artists for people fully artists, sure, sure, A fully artist is someone who in post production artificially manufacturers the sound effects that you hear. So whether it's foots, steps or raining or whatever, it is very talented people behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies, whatever is are just creating these sounds from scratch, and often with interesting or unconventional objects or methods. Um. I think I think I captured the Yes, that's beautiful. No, that's great, that's great. That's better than what I would have said. Yeah, oh no, way, better way. But he clearly knows this stuff. We saw the wonderful fully artists like sound designer Benjamin Win and his team kind of crunching ang's feet through the leaves and stuff like that in the studio. Oh yeah, I saw that. Yes, yes, you want to start. We're gonna start with a more traditional fully sound and we'll see what you think you would use to make that sound. Thunder thunder to me, okay, thunder, you need to get real deep. Um, you know, I'm thinking like a large sheet of like a thick stock of paper. Maybe shake it out a couple of times, and maybe add some some drums in the background. If you if, if you're you know, getting feeling a little musical about it, love it? Okay, next one. I love that. That's great. And I don't even know what I meant when I wrote these, So good luck. A zapp of electricity oh man, this is see this is where my we we need some d Bradley Baker to help here get some human noise and interaction. I like it. Yeah, that's that's a tough sound because you know, I think, um, it kind of depends on if the lightning makes contact with something. You know, I need I need a visual reference for this one, Danny. See, I don't know enough about the business to even apple Dante. What about this third one we have? Let's see, what was that footsteps in moss? You know, I think I might go oh natural for that one and either put put my hands in some shoes and uh, you know, maybe use some felt or or some actual moss. Or I'd even just swear shoes on my feet as one does, and uh you know, hold the mic low and just literally walk on moss. That's sometimes the best. You never know. I love the idea that what if you were like, as everyone full of fully work knows, you never wear shoes on your feet everyone and fully only wear shoes on their hand. I wish that were true. Okay, next one, eating a burrito. A character, an animated character is eating a burrito. You know this isn't going to be the most interesting answer. Um, but it is the most truthful. I would I would eat a burrito. I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, there's no there's no substitute. Sometimes great and the last one, last one swimming the backstroke in your studio. You are in a studio in a studio, okay, Um, you know I might have to like rent a sound stage for it and get one of those big production tanks for it and go swimming. But you know, for really scaling it down. Got okay, okay at Pottle Water, how big is the pot Dante. That's a big one. It's a good it's a good size. Culture maybe maybe a v you know, somewhere in that range that would help the better we're going. You know, this is this is a serious stuff here. Um yeah, I think, Um, I'd probably use my hands, um just you know, make a little bit of slashing noise, make sure that water is reflecting off the sides of the container. That whatever you want to whatever we have and available and yeah, fully artists, I do have to ask where where did this come from? Because I have done fully it's on I am doing there on IMDb. Your crew, like there's a ton of different crew credits. So I think that the project that we're talking about here was it was a project that I did in college as part of my major. We created a television series. This has gone back a couple of years. Um and yeah. I I assistant directed a few of the episodes. I d pat an episode which was my cinematographic debut, if you will, Um, yes, yeah, um and um. It was all student done. Um. You know, the whole whole production crew as well as the actors were all students at my university. It was called Truth or Dare. Um. It was about you guessed it, kids playing Truth or Dare in the woods and uh and something goes wrong. You know, I'll let I'll let the audience dive deeper if they'd like. But yeah, I know it was It was like my first real for a into production experience from a live action perspective and on the crew side of course. But yeah, no, I definitely like credit that experience with just where my career has taken me. But you mainly focused now on cinematography. What Simmons offers do you admire and power do is that you inspired by? I'm a big fan of of Roger Deakins, who is a very renowned cinematographer. Um, because he recently a couple of years back now won the Oscar for Cinematography for Blade Runner, which was just an absolutely beautiful movie and in every way shape and form. Um. And yeah, I really admire his work. I tend to pull a lot of his frames as references, Uh, in my work. I can't hold a candle to him cinematography fun um, but UM, you know, you gotta, you gotta idolize the greats. Um. There's a reason that you know that they are where they are. Um. I had the pleasure of, through my current job, working a little bit with the cinematographer Robert Richardson last summer. We were doing like a remote shoot on an iPhone, UM, and we had a great exchange where I was trying to walk him through using this little dinky l E D light And this is a guy who is you know, he works for Tarantino, and he's asking me how to operate this little tiny l D light And I was, yeah, I was that was great. I mean, I'm fascinated because I mean we're kids in the setting. Like you've gone on, I've gone on to do other things in the industry. What was your memories like as a kid on the set, you look at the camera guys, look at the sound guys, at the production designers. I mean when I was a kid, like the boom, the guy with the boom was the coolest dude on the set. When you were on the sets and a live action stuff, did you have any kind of like affinity for what was going on? How was your mind? What do we think? I think it's some regard I did. It was probably like a little more subliminal than I was. I was a lot younger when I did the bulk of my on camera work. But that being said, like when it comes to Avatar, like one of the one of my favorite people to work with was Justin who was the audio engineer in l A. And I would either, you know, every so often I'd come out to l A to do a session. Most of the time I was on the East coast, so even just talking to him over over the over the air waves was great. So um, you know, we were He was a cool guy, great guy. He was a cool guy, great guy. People. I don't know Justin. He has like a long haired guy. He's joined. He ran the boards and engineered the board as we're recording, and so he's kind of recording the whole time. But also, of course, since he's a music engineer, he was also a musician, and he looks like a rock us and you could totally you're like, are you and Buddy? You can totally tell he's like, yeah, no, he's in a band. He gave me the tape, the demo tables called Camaro. I'm gonna have to check them out. Thank you. Thanks for that. And now that you're pretty firmly focused in cinematography, if you could be a fly on the wall in any past production, what would it be? Hands down, it would be The Sopranos, A huge, huge Sopranos fan. Okay, but now I think we do need to talk about a very different, beloved television show. Now right, everybody, should we get into some Avatar verse stuff? Do you want to get into some like favorite this is and favorite? Let's do it. I've been waiting. We have a segment that we call animal crossing. Okay, love it. That is the Avatar animal crossing of hybrid animals. Do you have a favorite or a handful of favorites? I hate when people ask me for just one, because I have a very hard time choosing. So what are the ones that pop into your head when you think about some of your favorite hybrid animals? Okay, I think, Um, I think I'm gonna have to go with um hog, monkeys her up there. I I just I just really like monkeys for whatever reason, like real monkeys. Um So I think that was a that was a good one. Um. You know, I'll admit I haven't seen Cora all the way through. I did start it recently and I'm very into it. But I do love the polar bear dog. Uh So that's one thing that was kind of lacking from the Last Airbender. Real dog characters, I think. And you know, Naga was part of the original concept and she just didn't make it in. That was a really early designment that I believe Brian had done, and he they like held onto her and then they popped her in when they had a chance. Based on based on Brian's real dog, ya, he's like even look the same, like huge back legs and small front legs. Like somehow that was all happening in real life. So Brian's dog is massive, is what you're saying. Yes, I think about Nauga. I thought about this thing Jen about Naga and Apa, Like, you know, we we realized, like Opa is so important without Apa, our gang, Zach, would I mean what we we do, we can't go anywhere. We can't go like that. Half the plot was based around being able to travel around the world. We do these, we do these most valuable bending the most valuable non bending moments per episode, and early on we were like, well, we can't give it to Opa every time, but he kind of is the reason that they're able to do anything, and he is an airbend or technical comes through the clutch. How about episodes, Zach, any episodes that really stick out? This is another tough one. It's you know, I have a lot of memories, and I think I really do think that most of the lasting memories have come from the first season, which is odd because that was, you know, farthest from now. Um, I think that the most memorable to me, and I've said this before is the King Booming episode. I feel like that's kind of where I like started to feel like I was hitting my stride as an actor, like I started to understand the character. Um, it was just a very fun episode. That being said, there are a few that like also throughout the rest of the series that stuck with me. One is Zogo Alone I, which is I think the only episode that I'm not in. UM. But Dante, you were incredible. Uh Zuko's character arc is is amazing, and I mean you were just so phenomenal in voicing him tales and bossing say, obviously, that's that's a classic, unforgettable UM. And I've also loved that is my favorite that. I mean, that could have won all the awards from as far as I'm concerned, Oscar and I'm happy to hand over the Oscar like I'm ready. Tears are are always in the in the festivities when when that one comes on. UM. I also think I like I like the gurup aatique stuff. UM. I just think it took the show in in an interesting direction, added a lot of spirituality and and other things that typically you don't see and cartoons that are made for kids. I don't want to call it a kid's show because that's kind of putting it into a into a box a little bit. But yeah, I think it's just like it was a very cool and and different direction. I love that you brought that up that's so true. Right for Shadow Report, what are your thoughts about the times that Hang lied. I mean, for the fandom, it's very conflicted about those moments in the show. It's an emotion. Yeah, it's an emotional topic from any fans, even you as a kid. I mean, I imagine you as like twelve or younger doing this show and you're like, hold on, secing I get to lie, like, like, what did you feel at that age? He's such a pure character that, yeah, it is. It was. Um, it's kind of hard to take a character in a direction doing something that they're normally not in a position of doing. And Dante, I feel like you probably had a similar experience when Zuko undergoes his kind of awakening. And I was an adult, I was a bona fide. I was like I was going on. You're like, you're like eleven years old, Like, I that's how I do it. I'm just lied about the whole thing. Yeah, alright, good next episode, Like what happened? Bring it on? Bring it on? Yeah? No, I mean I think like like part of part of why Ang was was I don't want to say an easy character to play, but like he really was just so genuine and so all I had really had to do was was be genuine. So so telling a lie and acting and figuring out how to how to do it and still make it convincing but not you know, yeah, no it was. It was difficult and um uncommon, very uncharacteristic. Yeah. So it's funny too because Foreshadow Report, Foreshadow Report. Those those two Book one lies are are so different in their utility like people. One of them that enrages people because it's such a toss off at the end of something that it's like, how can he just so comfortably in the great divide, just like, yeah, I just made it up. I need the whole thing off like that that would come so easily. That one is so light and just fluffy and like and it's gone like it like that, don't tell no about your lie. Just that's an adult lie. That's an adult lie. It's an adult lie that an adult tells children, you know what I mean, And then they write it off as an adult being like, oh, yeah, I lied. It was just too big of a headache. They need they need to get it together, like yeah, versus like the other one, which is like the heaviest of lies that we all feel like, Oh, those are the times when it's that dark part of us that just is so hurt and so afraid of losing something that you know, we make a decision that is like eating us up inside even as we're doing it, and that episode is so important. When he really confronts that, it's like, that's a real tear jerker for me. Let's move on to our next topic. We've never done this segment before. It's called cannon fodder. C A N O N cannon fodder. And we're just gonna play a quick game with you. Which of the following is true of these four A T l A factoids. Number one Apa was based on a stuffed animal my cat as a kid. Two Momo is short for more money, three mo money, thank you. Three three The Rebels treehouse is based on the walks dwellings in the Jet episode. Or four The Cabbage Merchant is hidden somewhere in every episode. M M, I really want to believe that it's the Cabbage Merchant. I don't think that's true. UM. I think I really think that that would be more of like an internet slew thing. I think that would be out there somewhere. I haven't personally come across that. Um, that's a good one. I'm leaning towards the jets dwelling is based on the Walks. Um, I can totally see that being Mike and Brian thing. But also I don't think it's Momo unfortunately, although that would probably be the coolest thing. Um, mo Money's cool, Mo mo money. Um oh, and then is imagining me writing that right now, just laughing his butt off, like what a door. She is such a dork, like patting her self on the back, like, mo money, more money, more money. Um, I'm gonna go with I'm gonna go with the e Walk one. Correct. I would that you have triumphed cannon fodder. You have triumphed my friend fodder. Star Wars mixed into everything. Star Wars basically makes it into everything you have to do in more ways than one. Because we did have a pretty special guest star on the show, exactly Papa, Big Papa, Big Papa. So this is the question we asked all our guests. Of course, what kind of bender would you be? And I can't I can't say the avatar, right. I think that's that's two the ava. We have two avatars on this program right now. I'm really feeling kind hand over the throne, I hand it over avatar or whatever to avatars talking in one podcast, it's going on here, one of the avatars came up with more money for moment. It's not good. Clear clearly Zach deserves the title. Oh man. I so, I think that in terms of like your bending ability, um, at least for an avatar, is closely related to your personality, as we learned in both series. Yes, um, so, I would say that I like most closely associate with with the air Nomads for for pretty obvious reasons. I I just like awesome. Um. I feel like that's that's not the answer that people want to hear, but it's true. I think I think it's the answer people want to hear, all right, Like, yeah, no, I'm so curious what you think people would prefer, you say, I don't know. I think maybe they just they just want some some drama, some some hot taps. But I'm just saying I'm fire Nation all the way like Dante. Yeah, but but I'm not. I'm not an angry person. Janet. I'm throwing the question back at you. Have you have to answer this yet, I've had to answer it so many times, and I have I feel, Yeah, I feel an intense loyalty to the Water Tribe. I love the Water Tribe of all my heart. I'm during the course of us doing this podcast and of like understanding myself as Janet, the character on this podcast, I identify so hard with Tough. It's an interesting thing that's happening because I'm just I'm kind I feel like I'm more apt to, like, you know, let a burp out and uh still managed to like take care of business. I'm just starting to wonder in the in a few episodes of Cora that I have seen, I can see that I can see similarities between Cora and Tough and just like their rebellious spirit, so that that that that doesn't it doesn't not as far as the departure as I was afraid it was, Okay, that's a little yeah. Co is a little rough around it to say, at least around the edges, because if you think about it, like the original cast, like the original Gang, if you would be the o G. They're actually all rich kids. They're all I mean, Prince Zuco is the Prince of the Fire Nation. Tof is to She's like from the richest family. And then even the water Qatar and soccer are is pretty Their dad is the it's the chief. So it's like they're all they're all refined. That's a good point, you know what I'm saying, that they all came together. And then of course, I mean that's the Avatar is the Avatar there, I think all they're all they're raised my feet wherever I go. Yeah. So, but when it came to Cora, you I mean cars, a little cars, a little rough around the edges. That one. It's true, it's true. It's a whole different vibe. It's a whole different vibe. And then the rest of your gang is all messed up to None of those guys are royal. None of those guys are royal. Posh guys were like a bunch of posh kids doing off. And then you guys, listen again, my heart. I give my heart to the people who are still hurt that they turned on Cora thinking they were getting more Avatar. The Last Airbender. I love you. I know your pain. I know you don't need me to love you, but I still love you because I get it. Because I love The Last Airbender so much and it is a wild ride into the future when you start chorus, I am so happy just to be myself as a nerd talking about this show and speaking of nerds talking about the show. What about our final question we're going to ask because we get asked and we feel responsibility as the kind of representatives of the fans. On the podcast Dante, who do you Ship? I had a feeling that I learned about the whole concept of shipping on our on our last reunion, Dante, which is which was on on one of your one your streams, um, well, like again, I'm gonna give the answer that everyone wants to hear that. I just can't say Katang, you know, like tank every it's Katang, like everyone was waiting for it the entire series. It happened. You know, what else is there? You know, I mean there is there are other ships. There are other ships, of course, of course. Hey, I think I think Zugo and May are great. I love both of those characters. I think Cricket who voice May is great. Yeah, Mako is a great ship. Um. I like that you hear about these you know, we don't talk about that in these parts. All right, this is this, Yeah, it's all in your head, buddy. Um, it's all in your head, buddy. I love it. I love that good. I I also I I will say one more thing that I think, um any any of Soccer's ships, I love you a and uh and also Suki um just I think you just saw a different side of Soccer in those moments. That was It was cool. It kind of rounded out of his character a little bit more. Let's get real. Soccer gets all the girls. Like, yeah, it's a popular cool guess who gets all the girls? I mean, we can ben, but Soccer is getting a girl in every place he goes. By the way, Katara has a lot of people interested in her as well. I will say she's got a lot of suitors where a lot of suitors deservedly so. I mean, she's quitar what are you gonna do? She's a knock She's just a knockout human being. Like she's an amazing here those it's those bangs, it's those little yeah yeah Dante. That's what it is. That's all it is. It's not that it's one of the best characters ever created in animation or otherwise amazing. How you know, you're just stinging right now because Zach totally schooled you on drop and tree yah zitara being in your head. This has been in so much fun, Zack, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to hang with us. We have been looking forward to this and it has not disappointed it all. I had a great time with you guys. Varney, we found the avatar. You found him. It was my honor to find him. Thank you so much. Again, this has been so much fun. And next week we were talking about part two of the Winter Solstice, which of course is called Avatar Roku. So I don't know. We figured we probably better get Avatar Roku a k a v o Actor James Garrett to have a little chat with him. But I don't know, Zack. He has got a tough act to follow. And I've been doing a bunch of fun merch giveaways on Instagram and on Twitter. I'm at Janet Varney on Twitter and at the j V Club on Instagram. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast We Love You Friends See Everybody next Tuesday on Apple, podcast Spotify, the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.