Hello, friends, benders and non benders alike. Welcome to Braving the Elements, Nickelodeon's podcast about all things Avatar Verse. I'm Janet Varney and our beloved Dante Bosco. Is I am afraid still on location? He can't be here today. He's absolutely here in spirit because I knew he loves what we're about to talk about just as much as I do, and yet he still shall be very missed. Well, last week we told you that we would need a whole episode of the podcast to talk about the Cave of two Lovers and specifically the let's use the word phenomenon that is the song secret Tunnel. We thought the perfect guests to bring into Braving the Months to get into this would be our wonderful composer whom you know from Braving the Elements Season one, Jeremy Zuckerman and one of the writers of the episode in song Lyrics and a fantastic writer who has worked on many other episodes, were so happy to welcome onto the podcast for the first time. Josh Hamilton's a k a. Joshua Hamilton's Listen. Do you want me to refer to you as your writing credit or your regular life credit. Do I qualify as a friend enough to not call you Joshua or would you like me to search josh all the way Joshua, I don't know. I just think I just wanted more letters up there for my credit. Hello, podcast world, Thank you for having me. This is really awesome to be here and to see everybody in to talk about this magical song that Jeremy of course did so much awesome work on, and thank you. Yeah. Yeah, Well, before we start talking about Secret to One, I feel like we need to just get you know, Jeremy has done the podcast before, so he knows the kind of bender he would be. We've really dug into some of the meat of the show in the kind of broader picture past secrets and tunnels. So I would love to hear, you know, just for a couple of minutes, if you'll indulge, just josh and tell us kind of where you were in your life when you came into Avatar, The Last Airbender, Oh, just the show in general. I um. I started as a p A at Nickelodeon Andra the Explorer, but I'm actually from Hawaii. I graduated from the University of Hawaii. They had a communications program which I did, and they let me take theater classes and write. It was like, do whatever you want knife. I even wrote a screenplay for my thesis. But I would come. I came over here as a p A and I would just give you know, scripts to anyone who would read them. And I'm like, I want to be a writer. I love writing, everything about writing. And they gave me this opportunity to be a writer's assistant for all these pilots that were potentially going to become picked up. An Avatar to Last Airbender was one of the pilots. And this is really very early on and I did very little, but we actually built a writer's room. Um, AARONI has came aboard, and this is all before like the official pick up, but every everyone had this momentum going and they had this great pilot, you know, and everyone was just like it was buzzing, and of course I got picked up and it was great, and I like, like, this is the best day in my life, you know. I was really excited and I got to be the writer's assistant. So that's how I sort of became came into the world of Avatar Last Airbender and it just opened a world of anime for me, which I never really knew about before. A lot of people don't love that. They're like, oh, you must be like an anime geek, and did you grew up watching you know, Miyazaki and all. And I'm kind of like, I love that stuff, but I didn't grow up with it. So it was great. That was kind of how I got my foot in the door. And I was just season one, I was a writer's assistant and I just learned everything I could how to break stories. You know, Aaron was in the room, he's the head writer, Mike was there to show creator, and I think we had about three or four writers, so it's a pretty big writer's room. And it was built sort of like primetime television would do their writer's room, and so we're putting cards up on the board, breaking like act one, at two, act three, every scene, and it was like I didn't know. I thought I knew about writing, and I didn't know about writing, and I learned like everything I could. So that was really my experience, just coming into the show and getting this awesome opportunity. And then by season two I got that write an episode, and the very first one I wrote was a cave of two lovers. One of the things I love about this, as I'm sitting here realizing I haven't thought about it until I'm looking at both of your handsome faces, is just this idea of what it's like to experience the show from the genesis of an episode where there's nothing that you're coming, Josh into a situation in which you're sort of going, Okay, we've sort of been planning this arc and these are some of the things that are going to happen. But especially early on post pilot, everybody's kind of still getting our feet wet in terms of what it's going to take to animate all of these moves and fight sequences and things that you guys are bandying about. It's so simple when it's on a little white card and you know, you're just sort of using words to describe something and you put it up there, and then it has to go through this whole crazy process before it gets to you. Jeremy, right, I mean, you see more of you see something that has come through a series of phases, and then you are tasked with bringing it to life in this whole different way. I just love the juxtaposition of that. Yeah, it's really interesting how Josh and I are sort of on opposite ends of the process. Yeah, I often would have like I wouldn't see a script. I wouldn't really see much until you know, all the dialogue was recorded and all the animation was done, and everything was cut and everything was locked. I wouldn't even see like rough cuts. But what was interesting I think I might may have talked about this was that I was friends with Brian as he and Mike were developing the show, and I did get to see a lot of that creative says, that really early stuff, and that was wild to see, and it really gave me a connection to this that I don't think I have with anything else, you know what I mean, Like since you know anything else that I've worked on since obviously I've gotten really into stuff, but I've never had that same sort of connection like seeing it birth, seeing it develop over time, and sort of like writing that whole process and sort of being a fly on the wall. And it was funny when Josh was talking about how he was really they were working before things before we actually got picked up. I think we all kind of knew it was really special and it was going to happen, and I don't remember really feeling like, if this happens, it'll be great. I was just like Avatar was gonna happen, and it's gonna be amazing, you know what I mean? Because I could just see like all the creativity that was pouring into it from Ryan and Mike and it was really inspiring to see. Yeah, as far as like the process goes, I wouldn't see the episodes until they were mostly done, at least in terms of the acting and the animation and Josh, for you, were you seeing like once you had written, how much interaction were you having with you know, sketches and people like John Carlo and animatics and stuff. How much of the bits and pieces were you seeing before you would see a final episode. Did you see a whole lot of that process or was it kind of the opposite for you where you would see a more finished version and sort of gasp like, oh my god, this is what it looks like. That was just on a card, a white card, you know. Yeah, it was kind of interesting because I had that, Like I said, I was a writer's assistant, so I had to like poke in a lot. By the time I got to be a writer, and I got to sit back and just say I'm done with it, you know, and and sort of like get to let other people deal with that. In different shows, I do different elements, but definitely when I was a writer on Avatar Last Airbender, I got to see a lot of the antimatics, and we would go to a lot of the meetings for automatics and kind of poke in maybe ad jokes or kind of like see if action was working out the same way, you know, on the same page with what Mike and Brian wanted. A lot of times it would be way over almost at howmost happened. Every time the episodes would run a long, so you know, there are storyboards that have been like probably animatic that like twenty five minutes where it should be twenty two, and so we kind of get the task of cutting things or try attempting to cut things in the writer's room. So there's a lot of steps. We would see a lot of steps. We would see designs. But even at that point, even after you sent all that stuff off and shipped it off to create, when you got it back, it was still magical. It was still beyond you know, anything, And by the time the music was set in then it was like, this is real. The music I never had to tell you, Jeremy, but you know, blows my mind. I remember the first episode the Avatar theme, so I don't know if that's what it's called. The I can't do because I can't sing, but he like he does his like Avatar tornado whirlpool thing and these fightings do and it's like DNA no no no, no, no no no no no. And it's like, oh my god. It's cinematic. You know. It makes it more of a movie than just this isn't It doesn't feel like it's just a TV show. It's like The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, something really really epic. So I definitely had that magical feeling when it would come back. Well thanks. I remember actually um Ben and I came up with that theme together because in the early stages when we were working on the automatics and stuff before the show was even made, like a you know, pencil tests, and I think we did two pencil tests, you know, we did a pencil test in a pilot, like an eleven minute pilot. We worked on everything together in the music, on the sound design and then we branched off once the show started because it was just too crazy to try to do everything. Um. But we were working actually in the house that Brian and Ben were renting together, and we were in this weird little like makeshift studio that was essentially like a little cubicle hallway thing right next to the bathroom, like a sliding Jane door. The ideal spot. Yeah, I mean, nothing but the best. And we were working on the theme and then we're plunking around and then Brian from the other room was like, that's it, that's the theme. Were like cool, alright, well great, so he sort of knew like a lot of times, you know, you plunk around and you sort of don't have perspective as to what's working and what isn't. So that was kind of amazing to have Brian like often a you know, a couple of rooms over working on character design and the story and things of that sort, and he'd be sort of giving us space but listening, you know. And so a few of those early themes that really persisted throughout the whole series were made during that period, and it was just such a such a humble time, you know, it was it was like we were breaking every rule they teach you in film school and you know, music school in terms of scoring, and you know, we were sort of doing everything wrong, but it worked. I remember like when we first did the pilot, there was this really long six minute action scene and like you Josh, this was our first big project, first big gig. I've done a bunch of commercials, but not you know, show, and the whole six minutes was like one musical sort of like idea with no changes, and we didn't know what we were doing, you know what I mean. So Brian came in, he was like, uh, this needs happened here. This needs to change here, this needs to change here, we need to shift here, we need to highlight this moment here, we need to come down here, we need to go away here, you know what I mean. And he explained every need to happen, and then it was like a light bulb. Was like, oh that's how that were okay, cool. So it's kind of amazing that we even got to get the gig. I guess Brian heard something, you know, he definitely did. And you know that just occurred to me as you were talking about that, just understanding how important it is for show runners to know what they want and to be able to they want to bring in people that they know we're going to do a better job at the thing they want than they themselves could, but to also be able to articulate that is such a huge gift. I feel like there are so many people and I'm one of them who wouldn't know how to articulate that, who would say like something's missing, good luck, Like I just wouldn't know even how to express that, you know, totally. I mean a lot of people feel that way when they first working with composers if they don't have any musical training, which I do you have musical training? I think? I feel like you do. Yeah, but I still feel like I know. But that's that's okay, because it's actually better to not get too technical, you know, when dealing with these things. Because I always telling people who are like new directors or don't have a lot of confidence in this area, I'm like, you know what needs to happen in terms of like story and emotion and beats, and you know when you act or you're dealing with actors, you know what to tell them. Just tell us the same thing. It's the same stuff. You know, it's just a slightly different media, but it really is the same stuff. You don't need like some special vocabulary. But Brian did have a little bit of an advantage because when we were all really good friends, so we felt really comfortable and safe and too, he did have a good bit of musical background and here very much so, I mean, he knows way more bands than I do. He's always turning me into new music, and he's got great taste and he listens to so much. You know, he's constantly listening to stuff. So he's kind of like you know in encyclopedia when it comes to music, and he's full of references. And there was a lot of that too. There are a lot of references um in Avatar and not Cora as much, but Avatar like so many references, and that helped, you know, it gave us somewhere to push off from well, speaking about references to Josh, you know, you said, as a writer's assistant, kind of coming into this fresh and not being as familiar with some of the stuff that Mike and Brian were so inspired by. Was that kind of the way that you got to know it? Were you simuled paneously going back and looking at Miyazaki because if someone said, you know that Miyazaki, were you like, the writer's assistant needs to go watch this movie immediately. Can we time out this conversation because I don't know what you're talking about. Yes, I definitely did. I did go watch that. I went back and watch all Miyazaki stuff. You know, really like dove into a lot of different animals at the time, different series. But a lot of the writers in the writer's room were primetime comedy writers, you know, they were they wanted to be. Also, they weren't in this world as well, so they were kind of discovering it along with me, and we were kind of like having those conversations at the same time. So it wasn't kind of like we had an ultra geek in there that knew everything and then me who knew nothing. So it was great. Yeah, and it was fun to like kind of watch and learn and see where pulling references from. And of course, as like anime has some of the craziest plot lines and storylines that's hard to keep up with. I love how crazy they are, and so it's really fun to like to get to explore that world I never knew. Yeah, And then when the show started airing, We've talked a little bit with like Tim and John O'Brien about just the experience of going onto like a chat, like a forum and realizing that people pretty early on in the Internet the way this all lined up, needed to find a place to talk about shipping and you know, the hybrid animals and like plot points and what might happen next. Did you expect that at all when you were working on the show, Like, did you understand that the fandom would form so quickly? Kinda? I mean it was kind of like what Jeremy was saying, where you felt like there was a buzz and I remember Lord of the Rings had come out, you know, it was huge. Peter Jackson and everyone loved I loved it, and this really felt a lot like it. It felt epic, and it felt really big. And so when my friends would ask me what I'm working on. Of course, when you're like younger, everything you're working on it's the greatest show ever, But this one really was. Yeah, it's still the test of time, that's for sure. It was. And so we would kind of look on but we didn't have Twitter, like we do now or whatever it is. So it was really hard to find those little the groups of the chats that were people talking about. But I dug and I looked and I found them, and I learned about shipping and I didn't know what shipping was. How do you feel about shipping now? I mean, did you have a ship again? John o brien was like, I feel like we argued over Zutara and versus the Katang, Like, you know, you sort of have a sense of where you think you want the story to go. Did you have ships like that before? You eve knew what ships were? But no, I did not, but we did fight. He was right. I do remember arguing about that. I'm Zutara, you know, I'm just an original time ago and he said they're supposed to get together. So I still think we did it wrong. That's just Zutar ship. I hear you loud and clear, favorite hybrid animal or just one that you're like, how could you not love so and so as obscure or as general as it might be. Um, the platypus bear comes to mind. I know John o'bro hand came up with it and laden egg or something. I don't know. John O'Brien told this story. This is my point of view. I was a writer assistant. This is gonna make him sound bad. This is perfect, perfect, That's my favorite kind of story for johnah Bryan. He was there, a few of the writers were in the room, Matt hoverd somebody else anyway there early on, they all had like Aaron was there and Mike was there, what are some you know, ideas, you guys, but and they most everyone had these like kind of fully fleshed out ideas and like in the beginning, middle, and end, and John O'Brien pulls out a piece of paper, crumbled up, just half sheet of paper, and he's like, oh, fellas, I didn't really know we were supposed to come up with ideas, and he had like, uh, I got a platypus bear on here, and that was like it, that's all he had. And of course Mike was like, we'll put it on the board and so we put platipus bear on the board just before it was even a show, and it just stayed there forever and eventually made it into a show. So I really remember Plattiff was bear. I love it. That is a great story and for sure it has not been told. And yes, the crumpled a piece of paper that he has to like smooth chocolate off just kind of like crap, what I got my pockets. Here's a word that's amazing. That's amazing. What kind of bender do you think you would be, Josh me, I'm water bender all the way. I like surfing. I like snowboarding, so you know, to be able to control the waves that they're not too big but not too small, that's ideal. Yeah, I love a water bender. Jeremy. Do you remember what your answer was for when we had you on before? I'm so fickle with this, yeah, yeah, b fickle. So I wanted to say air bender, but it felt obvious because music is pushing air, right, But that's really what I should have said. And then I changed it to firebender, just because in the moment I thought about how cool it would be to just sort of the moment that's cool, that's cool, capturing the impulsivity of fire. Yes, but think I got to go back to air. I think I think, really experience, it's always been air, you know, that's what music is, right. Yeah, you got a chance to correct that wrong, and I feel better now. I'm glad you got that off your chest. Meanwhile, Dante is wrapping the present back up and tying and just putting it back. I think the fact that he's not here is giving me the ability to be honest about this. That's right. You don't have that bully in the corner, the gentle bully. Okay, So I'm gonna state the obvious here, which is that season two is suddenly replete with music. Right, there's just more. I mean, obviously there's wonderful and beautiful music, and you get some of the sense of but I'm speaking of lyrical music, right, that this idea of these um, what do you call it, Jeremy, You know, when it's sitting up above the scene versus being inside it. That's what I was thinking of. The swell of the composition. That's like one of the many hearts of the show, but a big heart actually happening. And yeah, when it's like a character, you see the character singing it. Yeah, you know that cracks open in a big way in season two, and of course this is the episode that really sets that tone and sort of is the pinnacle of that. Although it happens early in the season, were you guys talking about that in the writer's room. Was that something that you were part of to Jeremy where people saying once you got picked up for a second season, was the scuttle butt kind of like, you know, we should have more songs. Let's kind of flex that a little bit, Like, what was there any of that going on. I'm curious to hear Josh's perspective, because for me, it was not at all discussed other than I just finished the season finale for season one and we were about to go in a nice break. We used to have breaks back that that was back in the day when people that would have breaks, you know, when they were working on TV. It was a different time. Yeah, So we were getting ready for like a nice three month break or something, and Mike sent me the script for the Cave of Two Lovers and he said there was a bunch of on screen music that needs to be made. He just sort of like notated everything that needed to have in the script. And I had just finished finale and I decided to just knock it out sort of like doing your like essay, your term paper before summer break, which is not my style at all, but I was all fired up from finishing the finale. So I did that and it was like the most spontaneous, effortless It was so weird. It was so low pressure for some reason. It was just like, hey, we need some cute like ditties. And I felt very low stakes for some reason, you know. And I had my people, which is like a Chinese loop, and I played it more like a guitar, which is good because I can't really play it well. Playing like a guitar so hard to play. And so I just recorded like a bunch of stuff and it took probably like I don't know, an hour and a half two hours. And I'm definitely not like trying to rag. I'm sort of like trying to show you like it was very um. It just didn't feel high stakes for some reason. Like I don't think I realized how important those songs were going to be. I definitely didn't realize how important those songs. I thought they were just gonna be like some silly, little forgettable moments that are like goofy. And I think that like allowed me to just like write these little tunes and not overthink them. I don't think there are any notes or revisions or anything. I think it was just like, great, thanks so much for doing that. And then like I had to record like a little guide track with my awful singing voice and for the actors, you know, and I just sent them everything and then I was like done, and I enjoyed my break. And when two lovers showed up, I couldn't believe it. It It was so cool, Like it works so well, you know, I was I have no idea that it was going to be so integral to the storyline, but that was my relationship with it. Scre scre sc Yeah. I mean the whole tone of that episode is just if you had let it become overwrought, like it would have suffered for it, you know what I mean. So I think also give yourself the credit of, you know what, I don't need to lean so hard into like the precision of this because it fits so well with what we find out about the character and you know, again the sort of it's about the journey, you know, and the sort of not needing things to be perfect. That group of characters are so not overwrought, and so it just works so well. I think it's a testament to the writing of that script. You know, it was so clear who these characters were and like, like what kind of music they would make? You know what I mean, It's very easy to imagine. I remember the CD Coming Fast. I have my own story version of where it's kind of like, yeah, like you said, Jeremy, no one said hey, let's put more music in this season, or we need more music. It just is it appeared where it appeared. We kept it. It just did, you know, and everyone was kind of giving freedom to I'm thinking about like Tim, you know, he wrote some little things. I think Andrew Hubner wrote the Leaves on the Vine song. He may have written the lyrics the lys leave from the Vine falling so slow, like fragile, tiny shows drifting in the phone the All this time I thought Mike had written everything and I've been giving him credit. Sorry, Yeah, I'm talking in terms of the lyrics, of course. Yeah. So I wrote the script, and I think in the outline everything was just kind of like, oh and they sing a song about this, So they sing a song about that, And there wasn't even half as many songs in the outline. You know, it's an outline. It's kind of like they get they have to have some plot points as character moments. And so when I finally wrote the script, no one had talked about songs or they just let me do whatever. So I went back and I opened up the old script, the first draft, and I'm like, secret Tunnel is really a long remember in the writer's room when we yeah, it's very long, lots of lots of I mean, it's a first draft. And this is also the first script I wrote. And so we get into the rewriting of it, and I don't know who pitched it, but someone's like, why don't we just like cut here and then just say he forgot it and then jump into secret Tunnel. And that was That was genius because it's really bad, so good. It's so bad, it's great, I know. So we did a bunch and a few I think just stayed. It was like everyone's like, it's fine. And some of them didn't even rhyme. There was no like clear melody. It wasn't like I was hinting at anything. I think I might have had some idea in my head, like I'm like, okay, I kind of like music. I played guitar, I played drums, you know, it's in punk rock bands. I learned like three chords or whatever. So this was kind of like, oh, this is could be this could be real good, you know really, and somehow if it rhymes, that's not serious stuff. So let's just like have it not rhyme because some of the phrasing was so weird in such a great way and it worked so well with the characters, you know what I mean, Like it was just ridiculous, like repeating certain words, stumbling of phrases. That's sort of like in here because that's what I gotta do. I love Jeremy. It's like I just wiped it out and I was like, I was really like really, I think I was trying make it great. It was just not working. But then so we get all of them. I think we did like a second or the record draft. We're kind of done with the script and Tim and I ran to my house. Tim was the other writer, Tim Hedrick, and we're like, let's go record him real fast because I had like a way to do it. I have a guitar and I had a whole little setup, and so we ran to my house for like two or three hours. We just recorded all the songs, like our version with like the guitar and everything. And the next day we come in and we handed to Brian, like, we recorded the songs, you know, in case you're wondering what they sound like, because obviously the script doesn't really help. And he goes and listens to it. A couple of hours later, he's like, this is real funny, real real good try. And he's like, but Jeremy already did them, and then he hands to see them like, oh my god, like that's fast. It was like he's, oh, they're done already, but maybe I would have gotten out of it. You're right. I listened to him and I was like, these are terrible, that's kidding. I was like, yeah, this is a professional, this guy that he it was awesome. I was like, wow, this is great. I couldn't That's what blew my mind. I'm sorry. Now there is no thunder to steal. I actually have them. I don't have any way to play them. They were like some old file type that. So I went and dug him out, but didn't listen to him. You know, I'll send him over to you and you can do something with you. Oh this is so satisfying right now, I can't even tell you. Oh my god. Okay, So that's amazing. Yeah, there's a ghost version of the songs. Wow, this is great. So obviously now we know that this song means so much for so many people that have been a million covers of it. My first con that I ever did, period was San Diego Comic Con for the premiere of Cora with Mike and Brian, and they said, you know, before we went out on stage at the end, we would love to sing Secret Tunnel with everyone, and I was like, oh, that sounds nice. And then we went out and there were like five thousand people in this hall and say Diego, and the response when we started singing it, and when, you know, when my comparinement like we thought it would be fun if and everybody knew it perfectly, and it was such a wall of sound and it was so moving, you know, so lovely, and it's such a great nugget that represents the kind of overall experience of being a part of the Avatar verse, right. It is. It's sort of like the theme song in the sense that it's like a secret language. Not to keep using the word secret, but you know it is. And I think the lyrics and the sort of idea of what's happening in the episode has so much more weight than maybe you guys realize at the time, or maybe you did, Josh, but you know, this idea of the Romeo and Juliet of the story because people loved Avatar so much and continue to do so, you know, all of those kind of human frailties and things that go wrong or ways in which we feel like we can't be our authentic selves, Like all of those moments in the show become so iconic and so emotionally important. How did you guys feel when you were writing that part of it, like, well, we want to have these tunnels. You could have done it a different way, and instead it was the story of you know, these two people who wanted to find a way to be together. Yeah, when I first pitched it, it really was just sort of like hippie nomads that were going to help kind of be a foil to Socca. Who you know, it's really about getting places, and these guys are more about enjoying the journey. And Mike and Aaron were the ones that said this, I like the story, I really like it, but I feel like there needs to be more. You know, we had the labyrinth and the tunnels, and I think we wanted to introduce airbending in the Badgroom mole, I mean earthbending because we knew that tough was coming up in this is season too Earth So that felt like a story to me, you know, I was young, and they said, no, we need this, there should be another story in there. And and I think also when they were in the tunnels, I also were in the when I pitched it, it it was that they got separated and hang and guitar ended up together, and that's sort of like we gotta push the love element of it. To push it even further, they said, hey, let's have this a legend. There should be a legend in there, maybe about like you know, lovers or something. And I don't remember who came up with it. I'm gonna say I did. Now it's cannon. They would do that where it's kind of like, hey, we need more, let's do this legend. And then the legend, the Cave of two lovers legend became a thing, and then I know we were like, oh, let's do it Oman Shoo and so it'll be Omas Sho, and that I think really started to put it was really great because we get to do love songs, and we got to do a theme of love, and then we got to talk about this Romeo and Juliet style, like romance I was happening in the past while another romance is happening in the present, and sort of like what people would do for each other. And so it actually like combined so many fun elements with the music. I think it just really tied everything together, and I thought it was fun to be able to do that and have that old legend kind of represent like new love. It's so great. And the glowing crystals on the ceiling. I have the art book, and I don't remember it being mentioned in there. And I been known to draw a lot of parallels to things, thinking maybe they were the inspiration, and they totally weren't. Like I cannot bring up Tron one more time on the show, Mike and Brian are going to be like, no, not everything was inspired by Tron. Most things weren't in the show. But the key system in New Zealand that has the little glow worms that are on the ceiling that light up the cave, are you familiar with us? Because it really reminds me of that. And so I didn't know if that was something. Yeah, I don't know about those. That's great and they're all on the ceiling and it feels very romantic when you're in there. Yeah, total coincidence, nothing to do with it. So what happened with that party? I remember the story must have been like the first draft or maybe outline, going to first draft, and I came up with with that idea like in script, and then I was like, yeah, that was a great fix. That was a great fix. Well, I'm going to pay out of pocket to send you to New Zealand for a wonderful getaway. You guys have that kind of budget on the show. No, yeah, no, I'm listened. We got all the money. Good Beka, what were you going to say? I was saying, he's lucky. All right, you can go to you wrote you you're a brilliant composer. I suppose that reason enough to send you to that cave. I'll bring my CD of songs on the airplane. We can listen to them the whole time. Well, is there anything that either of you feel like we haven't touched on with respect to this episode or to the music in the episode. Any experiences you've had like the one I described where I experienced all those people singing it together, anything like that that's come up for you over the years, and the fandom with respect to the song or that or the episode I have very similar to yours is better than mine. No, But it was on an Avatar fan panel also a San Diego comic and the room was people. It was big. But I walked in and I was on the panel and they were singing Secret Tunnel, and I just thought, I wrote that they know, that's that's for me. They loved me say that. I wrote, you know, they knew, but I don't think they did. You know, they just come together and then they sing that song, and I think it's fun to have. You know, music really brings people together, and that song definitely does. And d Bradley Baker is such an ambassador for the song and the show as well. You know, we've got to do a couple of cons together. Just in the fall. We knew we wanted to sing with everybody. It's kind of a regular thing that we do when we're live, and you know, he loves to do it, and he loves to share that with people and loves to tell the story of you know, the character and his experience of it, so that lore is out there as well because he loves to talk about it, so it's nice to have that piece of it represented as well, right, have that human voice that he got to do. He's always excited to talk about a non animal as well. So, Jeremy, what about you? I was gonna say that I was completely shocked by all the covers online that came up of Secret Tunnel. And you know, it's funny because a lot of people think it's like a full length tune somehow that yes, it almost was. It's actually you know, it's like a chorus and like a verse or something. And these people do these like four minute covers and they like extend them, and it's just like amazing to me. This one person did this metal version that was so great. I just couldn't believe it. It was so good, it worked so well, it was epic, and I just like feel this pressure because people want a full song and I just have to be like, um, that's not really how it works. So sorry. It's like so much of the magic in this song obviously is to some of the parts, including the audience, you know, in the relationship to it and the song itself is just like a cute little ditty, but it's just like the context and the writing and the characters and the like you were saying, Janet, sort of how it means something a lot more profound to the audience. A lot of the audience, I think is people who you know, are very unique and nonconformists, and especially when they were younger, they probably had a hard time fitting in. And somehow that song, I think it's like the anthem for that. Somehow it was a strange, sort of perfect storm of events that allowed that to happen, you know, and not one person is really responsible for that, which is so cool. I mean, Josh would like everyone to think that it's him, but you know, it's cool. I just think that, and then I had to be reminded again I'm still in your thunder dude. No, no, like it wouldn't even be what it is. It got you, absolutely no, there's no doubt in my mind. But I'm going to find the CD and I'm going to release it to I just we're just ripping on like music, and I watched my kids are now older, the ten and thirteen, but when during the pandemic, of course, we watched it, like everyone in America seemed like was watching it again. And you know, we seem like the Momo theme like whenever I kept something silly or you know, and like I love the title theme. I here, I'll do it. It's kind of like when something ends, it just lives with my family, and I think it lives with a lot of people. So I remember one time I tuck it. I think it was around second season, and I just had a moment with Mike and I'm like, I haven't really heard the Avatar theme song for I really miss it. And then I think it was like the Drilling episode and it just spam. It was back. I said that, I don't know if that's why he put it in. Maybe he may have asked for it. Yeah, I think it's the kind of thing where it really happened, you know, when there was an Avatar state for the most part, and if there was no Avatar state, we wouldn't get it, you know. Yeah, I'm just taking credit for everything everything created, the art, direction, you wrote the music, Yeah, you did all the voice acting, Yeah, I got it. Speaking of voice acting and d me and Mike recorded that. Mike invited me to it was like my first one and it was just him and I. Sometimes you know, the writers will be there if it's inside the studio, but I think it was like a different studio and d Bradley Baker was there and he's like, I kind of have this idea for a voice, and he does chong and Mike just goes, what do you think. I'm like, that sounds great and he's like me too, I think it sounds great too, and it was like that's it was like that. It wasn't like, well, it's a little bit of course, he nowed it. Yeah, And it was his command and understanding of again like kind of trusting his gut because of what he's tasked with, the specific kind of video that he so often does with creatures and stuff. I feel like he's so finely tuned to how something's written and how it might work orally in the ear is like it's so great. So I love hearing that he kind of nailed it on the first try. And one of the things I was gonna say to Jeremy about what you were saying is, you know, that's one of the things that Mike Brian I think are good about as far as the fan art that comes out of the show, and the covers are absolutely a part of that, which is we made the part that we made, and now what makes it so special is to see what you guys do with it. And again, if it had been the really long song that was really specific and every note accounted for, of course there would be covers of it, But would they be as creative? Would people take as much license as they did? Is it not? The kind of the way that it was delivered is what causes people to be imaginative, more imaginative and create a new version of it and sort of build it out because it is literally incomplete. And so I think that's a good thing, and that's that's not your responsibility. You did your part, you know what I mean, And now people have taken it and they're they're growing the universe for us. Yeah, I love that. That's such a good point. Yeah, it's really beautiful. So thank you Josh for writing and all the music that you did with that. Again, thank you so much for being the sole voice of this episode. And must have advatary the last I feel like this is a misrepresentation of what I was trying to say. It's been so wonderful talking with you guys. I've been looking forward to this since basically episode one. I knew we had to have an episode about this song, and I'm so happy that you were both available. And I know Tim wanted to be here too, but I think possibly you may have done something to a schedule, Josh, so that it worked out that he couldn't do it, so that you could be the loane writer. Well played, my friend, because you really you were wonderful, and you know again as as a new guest to the podcast, it feels great. We're collecting the set and um, I feel really really excited that you were able to do this. So thank you both so much for for giving some more time to braving the elements, and I hope we both come back absolutely my pleasure of tries. Thank you so much for having me. It's been awesome. And so before we go, anything that you would like to let our wonderful, wonderful listeners know about places to find you on the internet and social media. Jeremy, how about you, I'm on Instagram Jeremy's look. Also Janet, by the way, thank you so much for pronouncing my last name correctly like that never happens. That's really impressed. I was told once and then I never said it wrong again. As soon as I knew what it was, I was like, great, now I know. Thank you. You're so welcome. Joshua Hamilton, how about you nailed it? Nailed the name. I'm not cannot find me, good luck. Well again, thanks guys and everybody else. We will talk to you next week. Thank you, Thank you all right, everybody, thank you so much for listening to Avatar Braving the Elements, and hey, make sure to subscribe, follow, leave us a review. All of that really helps the podcast so much and we love you guys. Next week on Braving the Elements, we are recapping Return to Omas Shoe that episode with a voice of Suki Jenny Kuan. You can follow me on social media at the JV Club on Instagram and at Janet Barney on Twitter. Will see you next Tuesday on the I our radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. M hmmmmmm hm