How Did We Get Weird with Vanessa Bayer and Jonah BayerOn today’s new episode we are thrilled to kick off season 3 of HDWGW with our friend Lance Bangs!! We’re talking about everything from the time Lance and his wife Corin Tucker took the Bayer siblings to dinner and Jonah almost had a panic attack, to Lance’s work on Jackass and the recent George Harrison video he directed that Vanessa got to be in. Plus, we reminisce on the days of watching tv shows and films during school and Lance introduces the Bayer siblings to the incredibly bizarre “educational” short film Cipher in the Snow and we all have a lot of thoughts. Finally, in a round of CHANGE.DORK we discuss whether a fandom summer camp is possible and how much Vanessa thinks it would cost! Want the answers to both? You gotta check it out!
Hi. I'm Vanessa Bayer and this is my brother Jonah.
We're two siblings who love to talk about our childhood and nostalgia and how it shaped us into the people we are today.
Who are pretty cool dudes, if I do say so myself.
Welcome to how did we get weird?
So Jonah, I know we're both really excited about our guests today, and I thought we could talk really quickly about when we actually met him, which spoiler alert, was another time when you almost had a panic attack.
Yes, I got very nervous meeting today's guest and his wife.
We were in Portland or guests, Yes?
And were you shooting Portlandia or were you just hanging out?
I think I was shooting Portlandia. Wait, wait a second, I'm not sure because I think we were staying at Fred Armison's.
Right, that's right.
So we were staying at Fred had this apartment, and we were staying at Fred Armison's apartment, and he was very nice. He got us like a fold out futane for me to sleep on.
He was not in town. Maybe I was shooting Portland, ya, but maybe it was like we got there a.
Few days early or so.
I don't know.
We were visiting Portland's for some reason.
Or maybe we just like broke into Fred's apartment.
I don't know. Somehow we're in his apartment he wasn't there, Yes, yeah, but very nice of him to let us use it. And I remember you were talking to him or something and you were like Fred Hazi's friends Lance and Korn and they're they're gonna there can go out to dinner with us tonight.
And then I sort of started thinking about it.
And I was like, Okay, I think this is Lance Bangs, Corn Tucker, Slater, Kenny, and then I started looking up all the stuff Lancea did and then I was like, okay, I can't go, Like I can't do this. This is just like too much for me to deal with. I'm not like prepared mentally. This guy's worked with so many of these artists. I've like followed his work for so long, and I was complet letely freaked out. But you you kept it cool.
Well. I think sometimes you know who really cool people are, and because I'm not as cool as you, I don't know who or I'm not as familiar with their work, so it allows me to keep it cool. And then once I learn more about what they've done, then I'm like, why wasn't I freaking out the whole time? But then also, I think from my experience at SNL, where we were constantly like you know, there were cool people around all the time, guests and stuff, that I kind of learned how to keep my cool.
Yeah, I would say it was a mix of those two things.
I remember.
Yeah, I was like, I have some friends record Dave Fridman, like, I don't know, Dave fram I was just looking for any sort of reference to sort of prove I was cool too.
Yeah.
Yeah, And Lance and Corn took us out to like a really nice restaurant.
Really nice restaurant.
Nice. Then I think Lance took us out after and he was like, this is, yes, a bar that Elliott Smith used to hang out at. This he kind of gave us a tour of all these cool places we probably never would have figured out on our own, which was so nice and cool people he didn't even know.
They didn't even know so that yes.
Yeah, that was so nice.
They did.
They didn't know us at all. They just knew that we were friends of Fred's and they were friends of President. By the way, once we introduced our guest. I want to hear if he thought that you played it cool that night or not.
Okay, okay, great, great, Well let's just get into it. If you haven't figured it out yet, our guest today is a filmmaker. He's worked with, you know, directed music videos and comedy specials, worked with bands like Green Day, Deathcat for Cutie ri Em, George Harrison. He's done specials for Fred Armison, David Cross. He's worked with all the Jackass shows and movies so much that we don't have enough time to go through a cell resume. But let's just please welcome our friend Lance Bangs Hey, Lance.
Hello, good to see you about and speak.
To you you too, So, what's your memory of that experience?
Lance?
I'm pretty sure that I'm familiar with with Vanessa as a performer at that time, but hadn't met the two of you in person or hung out with you Jonah, and So I do love the adventure of showing people around.
I like traveling.
I like learning how to move around different cities and different parts of the world. And so if I can ever catch up with someone somewhere and take them to like a great place to hang out or have a conversation or look at water moving or anything like that. I'm always open and so it felt good to be able to with my wife Kryn show the two of you around Portland and give you a sense of things that you might not have already stumbled into on your own.
Did you think that I was like a cool music guy or did you think just as kind of I guess.
I never I've never judged people about coolness, like I just like humans and I like conversation, and I'm not like telling any score of scene points or anything.
I just like the world and the people in it.
Fair enough, Well, I think that's a great answer. I'm just guta to embarrass myself. I was very nervous, but I hope there's.
No embarrassment in my who I move around with or who I spent time with.
Okay, incredible.
And then yeah, and we've you know, Lance did my old podcast and yeah, Lance, obviously I think I saw you did that. So you were involved with that Slint film as well?
Yeah, think I saw a movie about the band Slint that you spoke about.
Yes, Yeah, And I recently got to work with Lance because he was directing this video for George Harrison for his estate, and I got to be a part of it with so many other cool people, so many other cool musicians, and it was truly an incredible thing to get to do.
And yeah, just.
Yeah, that was I'm so happy that you were available to do that and jumped in and elevated and made everything better. That was a sort of a short film and music video for the song My Sweet Lord by George Harrison. It was around the fifteenth anniversary of the release of that great triple album that he put out after the Beatles.
Yeah, and there.
Had never really been a music video for My Sweet Lord, and so his estate and his management David Zonshine and Olivia and Danny asked if I would make like a film and video to go with that song. Wrote a script that called for two people to be kind of exploring and looking but kind of missing signs that were around them, and thought that you and Fred would be a great combination for that and you were excellent in it.
Thank you so much. It was so cool to be a part of it. And just wow, that's just wow right on. So Lance, is this true? You were born in Sacramento? Is that where you grew up that's correct.
I was born at like the American River Hospital in Sacramento. My dad was in the Air Force, and so we were only there for something like maybe ten days when I was born, and then had to kind of move other places, and so I didn't really like have any memories or formative stuff from Sacramento, but went from there to Colorado and Texas and Omaha, Nebraska, and Valdosta, Georgia, Montgomery, Alabama, different parts of upstate New York, different parts of Central New Jersey, wow, like Wellingborough, Smithville, Mount Holly, East Tampton, and then left Tumbell went down to Athens, Georgia, which was primarily where I spent like the nineteen nineties, mostly living and being based.
But I would travel a lot to make things.
Started visiting Portland, Oregon in nineteen ninety two, and that Rebecca Gates from the Spinanes and Elliott Smith and a band called Hazel that I really adored and would feel so great in Portland that I started just like renting a cheap room in a group house with musicians and leaving some books and records in a mattress in Portland, but mostly living in Athens, Georgia, and kind of going back and forth. And they were both remarkable cultural scenes throughout the nineties and inexpensive to kind of live or be based out of.
But then I didn't really work in either place as much as I would go.
Work in like New York or la or London or places where there were like films to be made.
Well, you know, it's interesting because I feel like you know all these places, but you know, specifically, I guess I'm thinking of Athens like you were there during such a special time and play like it seems like you keep kind of landing in these places like Elephant six and RAM, like you keep landing in these places while these incredible things are happen and you were able to sort of document it.
Yeah. I don't know, Vanessa, if you've listened to this stuff.
But while I was in Athens, there was a great sense of like the work that Pylon and the BFG two's and RAM had done at the sort of late seventies early eighties and everything that they'd built up, and that drew a lot of people like myself to Athens. Once I was there in the early nineteen nineties, there was a sense that bands needed to kind of like react against that sort of like pop or jangle guitar or catchy thing. So there are a lot of like very kind of heavy, deliberately noisy, non commercial bands that were active in the early nineties. But then young people from Rustin, Louisiana, Jeff Mangum, Will Culin, Hart, Bill Doss, a whole bunch of their friends all moved from Rustin to Athens, Georgia around like ninety three or so and started playing in the early versions of Neutromil Hotel and Olivia Treuma Control and Circulatory System and all these great bands that felt like they were doing things that were melodic or had interesting visuals in theirs and building a real community that jonah Kind referred to of this like Elephant six scene that went on there throughout the nineties.
And I ended up being roommates with Jeff Mangham.
And other members of Neutroment Hotel and Elf Power and the Music Tapes and Olivia Turma Control while they were at that kind of peak moment of the release of in the Airplane over the Sea and touring for that, And then it was roommates with Jeff Mangham when he sort of stopped being a public figure and just kind of stayed in the room and worked on things personally, but wasn't accepting all the offers to go tour or play live shows or make a follow up record in the airplane and really treasured that friendship and that time of my life and shot a lot of footage during that era and have completed a feature film that'll be out later this summer called the Elephant six Recording Company, along with Chad Stockflith from Louisville, Kentucky, producer from Los Angeles named robatch.
Miller, and a great editor named Greg King.
We made like an entire feature film, but we're very proud of about that whole music scene in Athens and I look forward to with you seeing it.
Oh, we look forward to it as well.
Yeah, this is so much like my experience being Jonah's sister is like hearing all this cool stuff and like just feeling like I know, like one or two things like I just but I'm very comfortable in this space of being like the much less cool like but just knowing I can tell from the reaction on Jonah's face that like what you're saying is so incredible and I wish that I had more familiarity with it, But I truly can't wait to see this film. And I also like everything you do, Lance is so great and it's always I don't know, I'm just I am very excited about it, even though it's stuff that Jonah has a lot more.
I think that you will love this film and the people in it and just watching these people great stuff and yeah, the bizarre, amazing things that were going on in.
That totally Lance, I'm curious. You know, we had we recently had Amy Man on the podcast and we were talking about and this is not only in the Weeds, so I'd like to hear your take on this. So we were talking about the Replacements book, and in the book they're sort of talking about how they were almost had this rivalry with RAM, Yeah, which was I never knew. And this is so interesting because I think of them as such different types of bands. And did you experience that out? Was that a real like? What was that like?
What's yeah?
Honestly, like like the personalities of the guys in RAM and who they chose to work with, they were not competitive, they were not like in my experience, they weren't like, Ah, we got to outperform Radiohead this tour cycle or anything like that. They were always sort of like mentoring or you know, willing to kind of help get into the studio or give advice about whether or not to sign to a particular record label to all the other great musicians that were doing things from that sort of American independent music scene of the nineteen eighties.
Not only that, but like they would take people.
From England under their wing and they would like help Billy Bragg or Robin Hitchcock or people that they admired that were of a sensibility of like making internal, self fulfilling music from anywhere that across their path.
I think that there was a different energy in the Replacements, who are a band.
That I love and admire, where they might have had a little bit more of a like, ah, like we're going to fuck with whoskerdo in this dressing room and dtaing their amp and they won't know it or you know, they had a bit more of that to them, and often self sabotage and often like yes, you know, fucking with each other in a way that was detrimental to like the potential larger audience that they could have got their music in front of Have they maybe been less?
I don't know.
I think that like you could objectively say that there was some insecurity or self sabotage among certain dynamics of the Replacements and their music.
Is that fair?
I think so. Definitely definitely love.
Them, but like they may have been competitive, but I don't feel like Arim were competitive against them.
Yeah, it makes sense, yes, And.
Honestly, like through Arim, I spent time around the Replacements, like when they would if anyone you know, from the Replacements came through Georgia to do a replacement show or a solo published show or a bash and pop show, Michael and Peter would always go support them and talk and give advice, and like I definitely went into dressing rooms with Michael and Paul Westburg when Michael would be giving all sorts of like positive support to Paul when he was like going to change labels or management or whatever. Like you know, there's nothing that support and love from the Rim guys that I ever saw for the Replacements.
That's great to hear because also I love Arim right so.
Great? Yeah, yeah, Lance, I was also curious about you know, when I was in college, I used to watch the Ky two K video a lot. Yeah, like like a lot a lot of me and my roommate Bruce, And I'm curious, like, I know, you worked on a lot of the Jackass stuff. Did that come up? Was that afterwards or was that? Like how did that?
I would say that I'd met Spike Jones in the mid nineties and started working with him. He would bring me out to Los Angeles from Athens, Georgia, and he was really my sort of connection into like what you might call like Hollywood or like California stuff of working on like professional music videos and things like that, or short films or just whatever stuff he wanted to make that I was like a good fit for. And he's been a great friend and colleague and supporter and collaborator artistically and all kinds of stuff since the mid nineteen nineties. So I think that through him, he was friends with a lot of interesting characters, like Johnny Knoxville was just like a writer who was like getting by is sort of like a character actor that would pop up and stuff here and there, but like a really interesting guy to talk to or go out to a bar with, who was reading Patty Chayevsky and thinking about the screenplay for a network and just like a clever, interesting, fun, good to have a drink with guy.
It was through him and his.
Friendship with Spike and Jeff Tremaine, who has been like a childhood friend of Spike.
When those guys started.
Developing the TV show Jackass, they brought in the footage from Cky and Bam and De Camillo and that crowd to kind of like add to it. And once it was time to start shooting the TV show and movies, that's when I met Bam at ryde Don and Rake and Dee Camillo and that crew and started making stuff with them.
Yeah, that's amazing.
It's what's so weird is when I watch Hulu, if something ends, it defaults to this family Feud where it's the cast of Jackass. So I've seen it like so many times because it just automatically comes on and I just end up usually just watching it again.
Have you seen that?
Yeah, it's great. They had a band of blast doing that. It's pretty funny.
Jonah, would you ever do family feud?
That's a really good question. I would. I think we would do pretty well.
I do too, It's so funny.
I had to talk with someone about this recently, Like, I think our family would kind of destroy, but.
I just saw the other three members. B do you think?
So?
Wait, how many people are on the panel.
I think it's five. I could be wrong, but I think it's five.
Yeah.
I guess it would be mom, dad, you, and.
VICKI yeah, so my yeah, my wife and then yeah, our parents and you yeah yeah, and then I don't know who would play against. I think that family double there we would not do well.
No, and actually I don't want to play family double there, Okay, fair enough, just because it's so messy. It feels humiliating. Also, I don't think family double there. I think that'd be harder because I think you'd have to bring it back because.
Yeah, yeah, right, Derek came back. Still a thing, right, Lance.
It would be so fun if we could go against your family, even though.
I would, I would love that.
I would want both of our families to win.
I think we would be strong competitors.
I do too. Yeah, oh, sorry, what were you going to say?
I have a daughter, Glory who's fifteen, and a son, Marshall, who's twenty two, and I think that with Kren we would really.
Yeah, we'd be pretty solid.
I kind of think you.
I'm not saying this, Jonah as an insult to our but I wonder if you might beat us just because you've got like some gen z in there, and we're pretty solidly millennial to boomers.
Yeah, millennials, millennial? What gen x?
Is that?
What you are? Jonah?
We're both on the cusp of either way we're we're kind of we're kind of leaning boomer, heavily lean in boomer, where you've got like a more diverse setup in terms of Yeah, but it's not a competition. I would I would hope would be that we would tie in, that we would both we win.
Some vacation and all this go together.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly, Yeah, Lance, Like I feel like this is me you maybe projecting a little bit and not your personnel, but like speaking of like younger generations and stuff, do you feel like I saw all these incredible artists and you know, nothing's as good, and you seem like someone who's very up on current things.
But I also feel like you were at so many amazing moments. I could see how you could be cynical, though you're not. I might be cynical if I were you.
No, Yeah, I don't have a strong cynical element to myself. I love the things that I put myself at and was present for a lot of them were not accidents. A lot of them were because I could tell this is going to be great. Someone should be there to document this or share this with other people that can't hear it currently. I definitely love going to see younger performers and new things that are happening now. I definitely go see weirdo comedians that might interest me. I go see writers that might interest me. I go see musicians or bands or performances or events that could culturally excite me.
And yeah, I haven't like.
Gotten cynical or I wouldn't judge anyone for what they were interested in.
What about when I was just going to say, I think that's a real sign of like a lot of people that I've met that are may It reminds me, Jonah, your question reminds me of kind of what I asked Keenan about being on SNL and kind of being able to embrace the new people. But also, you know, miss have nostalgia for the people that he was working with when he first started there.
And when he was younger and stuff like that.
I think when you're I think a lot of really talented people part of their one characteristic they have is that they can sort of appreciate things in the past, but also I'll appreciate newer things. I don't mean to ramble about this, but I just think that that's such a great ad and it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, going with your personality too, that like, you're such a lovely person to be around, and it makes sense that like you can you're not like oh, nothing's like when I was younger, you know, like, yeah.
I try not to go through the day of being like oh, that's always a good sound to make.
Yeah, sorry, Joanah, What were you Gonnak?
Well?
I was curious, like Lance when you were younger, you're like little Lance, you know, bouncing around the country. Where you did you also have that kind of excitement and curiosity, like what were you kind of like as a kid?
I was not.
I was probably enthusiastic about things that I was excited about, but it was pretty internal.
I h.
I went through some tough things and was kind of disassociated and living in an internal landscape of listening to music on headphones and reading and hiding from physical people and okay, on different military bases.
And kind of leaving and hiding up wherehere I could.
So it wasn't until I kind of got down to Athens, Georgia, I guess no what I was like In different parts of New Jersey around McGuire Fort Dick's military bases, I would cover a lot of ground. I would go see things at this great venue in Trenton, New Jersey called City Gardens.
I would go up to New York City, I would go to Philadelphia.
I would like drive or get rides of friends to go see as much as I could. And when I would a chance to talk to a performer that I loved, that meant a lot to me to kind of like strike up a conversation with Jonathan Richmond or Robin Hitchcock or the guys in RAM or the Replacements or whatever. And that venue, City Gardens, in trent New Jersey, was amazing and insane. The John Stewart was the bartender. James Murphy was one of the door guys. It was this cement bunker in a no man's land of like a place that you would take cars to strip them for parts and illegally run a racket in this lawless, very insane area of like beat up New Jersey, but performers that were based in New York or DC or wherever you could safely go do a show here and there wouldn't be any writers from Rolling Stone that we're going to be like, oh, the new songs were mediocre. Like you could safely go test out your new Ramon's album or Sonic Youth album or whatever in front of like mutant teenagers in Trent, New Jersey without it, you know, damaging your your trajectory or anything.
It was wild.
There were like insane battles like you know, sort of like skinheads and like Metallica washing audience members. Like all of that was in the wasteland of New Jersey and it was insane.
Yes, there's a documentary about it. Did you make it? I didn't you make every documentary?
Yeah?
Basically, this guy named Randy Now that was like a mail carrier postman. He would take the money from his postal work and book the Beastie Boys and Butthole Surfers and Ween and Black Flag and Sonic Youth and the Replacements to play shows for a very low ticket price in this cement bunker that previously was like a car dealership that had gone out of business, literally not exaggerating, not being hyperbolic, next to like a place where they would scrap cars, and you know, organized crime was all around and it was a dangerous place to be. And yeah, you would be like at risk going out to the parking lot if all the skinheads had been kicked out of the show, because they might want to try and jump you.
It was insane.
And yeah, pre cell phone, pre everyone having a digital camera or way to get safety, you would just hope that James Murphy would keep an eye on usy walked out to your car and the tires might be slashed.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, because we had Chris Gether on the podcast, and I think we talked about Action Park, which was also kind of an outlaw New Jersey thing from the path.
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of outlaw natures.
So I did cover a lot of ground and loved those bizarre places, and I'm glad that other people have talked about them or verified that they weren't just in my imagination.
Yeah, that must be very validating because in retrospect it probably feels like did I just make that up?
That's so crazy, But.
It also worked my perspective, like I didn't realize how rare that was, Like I thought that they were always going to be bartenders that were as funny as John Stewart, or bouncers that were as cool as young James Murphy, or that I didn't understand that there were like I don't know, ten to fifteen cities in America like that. I just thought that there'd be like great record stores and Fugazi's coming to play two nights every spring in.
Everywhere, and didn't realize like like, oh no, that's not really everywhere.
Wow.
Wow.
Well, on that note, we're going to take a quick commercial break and we'll be right back with Lance Bangs.
And we're back with Lance Bangs.
So, Lance, you had some any great ideas for topics, and you know, one of your ideas was sort of these educational TV shows or movies we watched in school, and you recommended one called Cipher in the Snow, which me and Vanessa both watched. And I'm just curious sort of why this topic resonated with you and sort of what your experience was like this kind of as a kid.
I just wanted to say it wasn't that you recommended it necessarily, but this was something that was definitely shown to you in school.
Yeah, I would recommend it, Okay, I'll stand by it.
Essentially, when I looked at what your guests tend to talk about, I wasn't sure if the things that were formative in my childhood would have still mattered.
I think you're probably, you know, nine or seven years younger than myself.
But the idea of something that you see that's like, what was that or why did someone show that to us as kids in a darkened room when maybe there's a substitute who's not available, or someone gets ill and they just need to like pacify a classroom of thirty kids and keep them quiet for twenty minutes. And this genre of like education films or kind of placeholders or things like that. There was this incredibly striking film that was so emotionally like baffling, informative called Cipher in the Snow that I wanted to talk.
About Lance, how would you kind of summarize the plot of Cipher in the Snow.
Cipher in the Snow was made It bring him Young University by presumably Mormon students who had just been excited by maybe French New Wave or the first Robert Altman experimental films. So they're taking a sixteen momentor camera and putting it in places that it normally wouldn't get to go. They're zooming with the zoom lens during shots, they're doing overlapping dialogue, all kind of like experimental film processes that weren't normally happening in you know, narrative films at that time yet. And it is a story about a young boy eighth grade, basically Kurt Cobain, who is lonely on the back of a school bus. All the other kids are talking and socializing. No one's talking to this kid. He's in silhouette. He gets up quietly and moves in his denim outfit through all the kind of like rambuncious kids.
Who don't acknowledge him.
He goes up to the bus driver in the first minute of the film, he kind of quietly taps on the bus driver's shoulder. He's like, excuse me, I have to get off here. It's in the winter and the snow. The bus driver's like, we're not supposed to stop here. The bus driver like lets the kid off. He steps off of the bus and he dies. He falls face first into the snow and it freeze frames and does an optical print of like the title cipher in the snow, like zero in the snow on the dead kid's face within the first minute of this like film for kids to watch. And then like a grumpy teacher that was in the car in traffic behind the school bus who's kind of grumbling like, oh great, I'm behind the school bus. We have to stop all the time. He kind of gets out to try and tend to the kid. All the other children come off the bus and they're like, who's that kid?
Did anyone know him?
Like, we don't know, you know, they don't even know the kid that just died because they so completely ostracized him, and they put him on a stretcherer.
They put him in the back of an ambulance.
You're seeing like nineteen seventy three Utah ambulances, which are basically like a station wagon painted orange. Everyone's wearing the clothing they would wear in nineteen seventy three, and the kid's dead. And that's the beginning of this like twenty one minute short film to show to children, and the idea is essentially that he was so neglected that he died of being erased, like becoming nothing, becoming a cipher a zero, and so because no one paid attention or cared or achnologist kid, he just dies. So the teacher goes to the school and is kind of grumbling to like, you know, like what are we like, you know, trying to research on the kid's paper records, and whoever working at the office administration is like, oh, it says here you were his favorite teacher.
And the guy's like, I don't.
I don't remember this kid, you know, And they look back at his previous stuff and he had like an IQ of one hundred and six in first or second grade. Then his parents get divorced, which to the Mormons was like super bad, right, and everything declines in his like academics. He writes some poems you get re enactments and flashbacks of essentially like a young Kirk Coubbin type of kid, like writing poems about frogs.
I like frogs.
Frogs are nice, you know, But no one's paying attention to him. He gets bullied. Some mean kids like steal his hat and put it on a snowman. He essentially transfers his personality or persona or will to live into a snowman by taking the items out of his pocket and like making a face on a snowman as he's on the verge of tears after getting like bullied by other kids. And it's an amazing film. It's so emotionally resident. There's some kind of like sad flute score over everything. It's only twenty minutes long. I saw it as a child. Basically, you know a situation you probably have been through where it's like, ah, like so and so can't stay this period. They've got to go, what do we do with these kids? Let's close the shades and turn off the lights and run a sixteen milimeter film on a projector made by the Mormons. And it was so devastating and psychologically intense. And at the end of it, there's not enough people to go to the funeral. There's like a mom he had, like a step dad that didn't really care, and no friends, and so the teacher who barely knew him is like watching and the cameras in the grave looking up at like the mom.
He's like, oh, I should have talked to him more, shouldn't I?
And then another sad kirk couldbean child comes up to the grumpy teacher and is like, hey, mister, can I talk to you? And the guy's like no, no, it's not a good time and like shuts him down as well, and that kid kind of turns and starts to walk off, very sad and dejected. And then there's a moment of recognition on the teacher's face and he's like, wait a minute, and he leaves.
The funeral, abandoning the funeral to go talk to the kid who's like, Oh, I'm going to be in your class next year? Could I get some help with math?
So he's going to maybe like help future kids and not be such closed off, you know guy. But now it means that like poor Cliff Evans is being buried alone with only his mom who barely paid attention, so very intense, Like you know, they could have done it where the kid is in a coma, but they're like, no, let's have him die in the opening seconds.
Yeah, I guess.
Yeah.
The point is it's supposed to be, like, it's supposed to help with bullying and stuff.
I did.
A couple the couple things that I noted about it. One is everyone's reaction to this kid fully dying feels a little muted. Like kids come off the bus and they're like, I've never seen a dead person before, and you're like, aren't you guys absolutely flipping out like you're looking at a dead body. And also the teacher's like, oh man, is he dead? It's like, guys, let's what. Let's like wake up. And then even like when the okay, and then so the principal or something is like there's like a little bit of a shady move cold where yes. The principal's kind of like, uh, okay. He's like he's like, do you know what happened? And that teacher who was like in the car I think that was the teacher who was in the car behind the bus. And the teacher comes in and he's like, yeah, he just like died, and the principal's like this is not good, and the principle is basically like, okay, could you tell the parents? And the teacher's like what and he's like he's like he's like you kind of he said the kid said the your's favorite teacher. And the teacher's like, oh yeah, I guess I like gave him a few notes I like, don't He's like, yeah, would really love for you to tell the parents. And then the teacher's like to the principal, he's like, why can't you tell the parents? You're like the principal of school, and the principals like, I have a meeting in ten.
Minutes, yes, exactly.
Why are we like treating this like somebody got the flu?
Like, go go ahead, j right.
Well, then then he follows up and asks to say, the principal has the teacher to write the obituary for the kid?
Yeah, he's like, he's like, oh, and also before I leave the office to go to my meeting in ten minutes, could you also write an obituary?
That would be great?
And it's like this principle actually sucks, like he's the true villain of the whole thing. But it's like then this teacher's like right. And then the teacher goes to the parents' house to tell them their son has died, and the mom's sort of like, yeah, I should have talked to him more. It's like, wouldn't you be like crying and freaking out if your son just died? The stepdad is like, uh, he was like a stupid kid, and the mom's like, don't call him stupid, And it's like, wouldn't you be freaking out if your husband was calling your debt now debt, your son who just died stupid? So so little, so little emotion. And then also, I want to go to the bullying scene. So the scene that's supposed to be sort of like the big bullying like you know they show they showed different moments when this kid was sort of neglected and no one was really talking to him. But the bullying scene, there's these kids and they're making a snowman, and the snowman.
This I couldn't get out of my head.
The snowman already has like three circles to it, which generally that's what makes a snowman.
Like you're complete, that's all you have.
So then this kid is like rolling up a fourth circle and you're like, that's not how a snowman works. Like also, to the creators of this film, why wouldn't you just have two? It just it's just a little weird, because wouldn't you just be like they're done with the snowman, Like I'm not going to add a fourth fourth circle to the snowman.
It just the whole thing to me read a little bit.
I felt like the acting and emotion of it where I didn't even notice all the cool, kind of revolutionary camera shots because I was so taken by the lack of emotion that someone died. It's also like, if you're going to have someone die and make this big statement in the first minute of the film, you know, maybe follow up with people treating it like a death as opposed to again some kid like got the flu or something like that.
Yeah, Jonah, what did you get out of it?
Yeah? I wasn't sure what to expect.
You know, it didn't really remind me of a lot of stuff that we watched in school. Yeah, Like, And that's kind of what I was thinking about a lot, because I feel like when I was growing up, the media portrayed like, when you're sixteen, you're going to watch all these really scary driving videos to like scare you from being responsible. I don't remember that ever happening, and I don't remember watching anything like this. So I was actually thinking, I wonder if, like culturally I graduated high school in ninety eight, if these types of really kind of dark, like scare you into the message videos. We're kind of coming out of fashion a little bit. I know're right, I think that this.
You know, when people I don't make a big deal about generational things, like I just am curious about the world around me. But when people are like, oh, gen X, we had it so much weirder than you got, you know, this is the sort of like what the fuck were you doing to kids showing them this yeah right type of a thing like I think this might be where Genine Groffalo writes a Santa bit or whatever, like this is like something it might have been different in that age bracket of like what kids in the seventies ear ladies saw versus like a less crazy thing of a kid dying that might have.
Been yeah, yeah, even like I feel like after school specials were pretty big when we were kids, but I don't I don't know, Lance, because you have kids what they were watching when they were younger, Like did those sort of go away?
Too?
Because I remember the one for the Love of Nancy with Tracy Gold about anorexia. My friends and I I would always say for the love of Nancy instead of for the love of God because we thought we were so funny and awesome. We were, but like there was the anorexia one with her like that was such a popular thing that and I feel like we watched some in school. But yeah, would do you think that those were those still around?
No?
I think that it really was, like throughout the seventies and eighties that there might have been these like bleak, pessimistic bummer warning things about like the dangers of someone that took LSD and jumped out of a window, or a kid that held a friend switchblade and then it turned out it was used in a stabbing and they got put in jail, or things like that that were around as like.
After school specials or in school educational films.
Yeah, I think that people realized that that was not that healthy to share the kids, and yeah, probably stopped before my kids were in school.
Yeah, yeah, well yeah.
And also it's interesting that this is like kind of a Mormon based thing because I wonder, like you said, sort of the message around the war, like it does feel like there was a bit of I would say, maybe like an agenda was something like this as well.
Yeah, for sure, And you know, the whole physical thing of this being like a sixteen moment of print that would be running with a beam of light going through the classroom and hitting a projector you know, like a screen, and that kind.
Of like like sound run the whole time.
It added to like the mood and sadness of the whole experience, yeah, in a way, but taking like what's really like a brightly lit classroom and turning it into this like dark, weird dream state was also a strange thing to go through psychologically. And so I tracked down like a sixteen momter print from libraries that we're going to throw everything out when they were switching over to VHS and gearing rid of like film and projectors, and kept a couple prints of it and would like screen it for people to try and explain or show, like can you believe that they showed this to us?
Yeah?
And then eventually the Mormons, like the Bringham Young University, made like a DVD available, and I tracked that down through some like educational program. But now the Mormons have put it up on YouTube, so anyone listening can search for cipher in the snow and see like a a decent scan of it.
Yah.
Don you remember what happened to you after you watched it that day, because it seem would seem very strange watching this in class and just walking out into hallway and be like, hey, like you want to play basketball recess.
Yeah.
It definitely you know, certainly related to the main kid and was kind of changing schools regularly. We go be stationed somewhere for you know, not that long, and go through like a year or two at one school district and then change or move from Like you know, there's like big cultural differences in that time period between Valdosta, Georgia, Montgomery, Alabama, and like New Jersey or New York State. Like kids are all in a different age when they're in a certain grade, Like they might have started school at five and one part of the country and seven another part of the country. Uh huh, So like your peers could be a foot taller than you or like think that like any accent that wasn't a Deep South accent meant that you were like a Yankee. And you know, like they were just like weird cultural biases among random people at that time. So definitely felt a sense of identification with this Buyet kid that was being ignored or neglected and then dying in front of everyone.
Yeah, yeah, and.
Then everyone being like was he in our grade? Like I don't, like, I don't remember him from last.
Year, right right, right? Right right?
Yeah, I mean I remember I remember being shown stuff in school, but not like Jonah and I were talking about, we were shown like Square one, that show that was on TV, Jonah, Voyage of the Meme?
Uh, what's that.
Voyage the mem I think it was one of what ben Affleck was on it or something. It was one of his as a kid, and it was sort of this show that took place on like they would have adventures on like a boat. They would sail around and kind of like learn stuff about boating. And I just remember we would watch it in school all the time, and then it's on YouTube and all the comments are like I remember watching in school in like the eighties?
Is it ben Affleck is like a teenager late teen or how old is he?
He's a pretty young kid, right yeah, he's what you say, like, yeah, maybe around that yeah, and it's pretty young. But I think I taught you how to tie certain kind of knots nautical mats right right now.
And Jonah, someone was saying, did you get this to someone was saying at the end of the year in math class, they would always show us stand and deliver that movie. Okay, you know what's weird is that like a theme? And also one time they brought my whole grade. I was talking to some friends about this last night to be like did I make this up? They brought my whole grade into this room called the LGI Room, and they showed us all this nineteen eighties movie called Watcher in the Woods that was like god, yes, yeah, which is like kind of a supernatural, kind of scary and weirdly starring Kyle Richards of when she was a kid of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Like, so, what was weird to me is that.
I don't know if you noticed this, Lands, but it kind of feels like this applies to you watching Cipher in the Snow, Like we would be shown these movies that were at least like ten years old, right, like a lot of stuff where it was like you couldn't just show us something modern that was like had normal, like looked like the normal stuff we would watch was like forbidden, Like you had to show us stuff that was at least ten years Yeah, And looked really yeah dated, so you've seen watch her in the Woods.
Inside God, yeah, I definitely recommend that people check it out. It's so visually striking, like it's creepy, it's spooky.
It has its own atmosphere to it.
Don't you think it's weird that they brought my whole grade into like a room and played it for us, like it must have been before summer break or something. And then other kids were telling me that, Jonah, you had Missus Delile right in sixth grade.
I think you did.
You might not remember, memory.
Someone was saying that Missus Delile showed their class the birds Wow, un a break. She also showed episodes of Twilight Zone. Not trying to burn Missus Delile, but if she's listening to this, I don't want to make a different choice, very beloved teacher, So I feel okay making this you know who knows. But then yeah, I remember, I think that Missus Kitcher, the art teacher, might have shown some kids it. I could be speaking out of turn, but like I just do remember. And also Lance, you were saying the projector thing, the thing that sort of we sometimes would have stuff shown on a projector, and I don't know if you remember this, Jonah, but sometimes it would also be that cart that had a TV on it, and they would roll that cart into your classroom, and I remember always being excited about that because it meant they were going to pop a VHS tape in and you were going to get to watch TV in class, which always felt fun and in retrospect, was probably so fun for the teacher too, because they didn't have to like we thought we were getting a great deal, they were also getting a great deal.
They were getting it and.
They yeah, they were made. They were getting the best deal.
Yeah. Just weird the stuff that teachers show you sometimes to teach you a lesson, sometimes just because they don't have, you know, a lesson plan.
Yeah. I watched the Challenger launch on a TV on a cart. Wow.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember actually watching I remember that day, and I remember we were watching it in school too, so yeah, that was like a huge cultural moment.
I think, Yeah, oh I don't remember us watching that. Yeah maybe, Yeah, didn't you have a class. Weren't you in a class where there was like the teacher put a VHS tape in and someone had switched it with porn?
I don't know if I was in the class, but that definitely happened.
Okay, potentially a criminal offense.
Isn't that crazy, But it's like VHS tapes that would be so easy to do at the VHS tape.
Oh yeah, I don't think I was in the class. I don't, but I think people were talking about it like it was literally like the biggest news in the world for like months.
Yeah.
Did people know that it was him or did he keep that loose?
Yeah?
I think they knew.
I think he immediately got in trouble, like I think it was.
Yeah, he probably as much as he didn't want to get in trouble, he probably also wanted like the credit for it. Yeah, you know, so got shown all kinds of things at school. I guess it's the lesson. Yeah, Cipher in the.
Snow lance, when you were a kid watching stuff, were you kind of conscious of these more kind of I don't know, like cinematography or kind of filmmaking aspects of it, even before you're kind of making your own films, thank you.
I don't think I was completely conscious of the choices that were being made, but I would know that emotionally. How Cipher in the snow felt was different from other sort of like more scientific films with like a narrator and voiceover and music and graphics and quiet and things like that, Like you could tell that it felt alive in a different way, or that the cameras where it wanted to be in a different way.
Did you you know, it sounds like you were kind of you know, introspective kind of kid, and it's like, you know, I think of like watching like I recently just rewatched all the Freaks and Geeks, and you know, they're kind of relating to comedy. They're kind of like outcasts. Like, were you also into comedy and that kind of stuff? Obviously you work a lot with a.
Lot of means or yeah, honestly, yeah, there were like things that you would just get and even if they were meant to be comedy, they might come to you in a sad transmission.
Like there was an English comedy called The Goodies.
It's like three guys that could do kind of like physical comedy on sixteen milimeter camera, Like they would do things with like stop motion or the camera cutting and then a banana is chasing a monkey or you know, things like that that were visual kind of Monty Python with fewer people and maybe aimed more at kids in Monty Python, but like clearly people in England with a TV show who were aware of what the Monty Python guys were doing and had access to similar cameras, but were like a little bit goofy or broader for.
A younger audience.
But when that gets broadcast on like a public broadcast station in the Philadelphia area onto like a black and white TV late at night, it all looks sadder and spookier, sure, and stranger than like the colorful thing that you would have seen in England during the daytime. And so those three guys like there's like a rocket ship and they aren't maybe they're not supposed to be on, but like somehow they end up accidentally going to the moon and then this giant hamsters on the moon and then they're kind of like cultural references that people do in a comedy, like if you're doing an impression of like a previous generation, Like right, I can't think of an example, but like if you Vanessa on SNL did a parody of like eighties jazz or size videos, like people in your age group would get it. But right then when you move forward like another decade or two, it's like, what why are they dressing in those clothes and dancing like that?
Or you know, yeah, it kind of becomes stranger.
Or so if they do some reference to some nineteen forties English comedy trope, like it just makes no sense and seems strange to like a child in nineteen eighty two, right, and then it's intercut with like commercials for the Shining or whatever, like you know, so there are things like The Goodies or I don't know if you guys saw The Young Ones, or there's this thing called Bad Trip that was like English people doing like heavy metal and a tour and things going wrong.
It was kind of pre spinal.
Tap, okay, like strange things like that that would cross my transcend by being on late night via airwaves on like a black and white nine inch television late at night under the blankets or something.
I would recommend that people.
Watch The Young Ones and that tour, that Bad News Tour. Yeah, I see protos kind of pre spinal tap rock parodies.
Great, so yeah, I was seeing stuff like that. It was resonating and stuck with me.
And then other things that would just be on cable TV like mel Brooks movies, and I got to direct like it definitely is a child saw History of the World, and I liked his other things better. I liked you know, Young Frankenstein, Spaceballs are other ones more, but like definitely watched History of the World and then got to direct part of History of the World part two forty seven or forty eight years later, which is.
Y It's incredible. I thought, yeah, how cool, that's so great.
This is very grateful to get brought in for that and had a great experience and its own.
People should watch it, yes, And mel Brooks like, yeah, yeah, I.
Made something with Melbrooks like a decade ago at the Chateau Marmont. He came to be on a thing that I made with John Hodgman called in Residence, and we were so happy to film with Melbrooks and he was great.
But I was also conscious, like I had my daughter Glory.
There with me, of like getting her to meet him and being like, wow, this is probably the last chance that I'll get to have a shot at working with Melbrooks or whatever. Then like a decade goes by and he's like executive prouising.
Yes.
Another thing that I drafted in and it's like, oh no, he's still chugging along making.
Things so cool, so cool.
Well, I think we're going to take another commercial break and we'll be right back with the incredible Lance Bangs. Okay, and we're back, so Lance, Now, we're going to play this game with you called change dot Dork, otherwise known as let's make fun of people who don't know how to use change dot org. And in this game, we'll bring up three different petitions that people are trying to uh for like sort of a lot of for like nostalgic things that people are trying to bring back on change dot org. And at the end of like hearing these three petitions will each kind of decide which one we would sign if we had to sign one of them.
Right on.
Okay, I can start us off with this first one.
Let's go into it.
Okay, let's get into it.
It's called change Scooby Do Fruit Snacks back, so this person says. Scooby Doo themed fruit snacks made by Betty Crocker have always been a childhood favorite of mine and others alike, particularly the blue Scooby Doo shaped one, the one most people got their enjoyment of the snack from There was no greater feeling than tearing open a package and finding two or three Scooby shaped ones. Kids would rejoice, feeling as though they had been blessed with good enough luck to get multiple pieces of the best flavor in one pack. Unfortunately, sometime in the past year, Betty Crocker has changed their fruit snacks entirely. They are now no longer the same scoobies we all know and love. They are now semi transparent colors with all different tastes than what they used to be. So they're saying, I won't read the whole thing, but the Scooby Doo one is no longer opaque. Light blue doesn't taste the same. And so this person says, I wish to ask Betty Crocker on behalf of myself and thousands of others, to simply return to the way they make these fruit snacks back in the way they once were before the change in tasting color shattered the hearts of many many people who once knew these as a memorable part of their childhood.
I want to be able to enjoy them again.
Blah blah blah blah with the bottom of my heart. I wish for nothing more than to get this issue resolved. Now, I'm going to look at how many people so this petition was made out I believe to Betty Crocker.
It's got three six hundred and sixty one supporters. Okay, so kind of a lot.
Yeah, a lot of supporters out. Here's my question. This person seems like they're an adult.
Now.
I think the thing about fruit snacks like these are you sort of grow out of them, so like if they change the formulation, you wouldn't necessarily notice because you're Okay, I.
Think it depends I I as an adult, I'm enjoyed, you know, more than a few bags of Welchi's fruit snacks, so I can relate. But I will say a blue fruit snack to me does not sound good.
And also, you, as.
An adult, probably haven't had a ton of like animation themed fruitsna I'm not judging you, but like, right right, you're not eating a ton of Scooby Doo themed but by the way, maybe so anyways, Lance, what do you think about this petition?
I have a lot of questions. How does one come across this petition? Like are people on forums talking about right.
Snacks or where does this? Where does get how does one come across?
As such a good question.
I think people sometimes share their petitions on social media. Maybe other people were thinking the same thing and they looked it up to see if this existed, and then they signed it. That's a really great question, because yeah, three six hundred and sixty one people have signed it.
Are their Facebook groups about fruit snacks?
Maybe?
Yeah, you know.
But to your to your point lance, what we have found with these petitions is a lot of times the people that are made out to, For example, this one's made out to Betty Crocker. It's not sent to Betty Crocker. It's just they say Betty Crocker. So there's a I don't know that this would be brought to Betty Crocker's attention unless someone directly sent it to them, because just writing their name out on the petition doesn't necessarily signal to them that this is happening.
Yeah, it's it's strange.
I want to add that there's a comment on this Andessa, I don't know if you saw it, oh, but it says I bought some Scooby Doo Snacks fruit snacks this week specifically for the opaque blue ones. My boyfriend wanted pokemon fruit snacks and we got in a fight because he said the squirrel ones were probably opaque blue and I was like, absolutely not.
An now we're both wrong, change them back.
So it's like, I don't want to say you're not mature enough to be in a relationship if you and your part are fighting about, uh, which animation you want on your fruit snack. But uh, but that's yeah, that's an interesting take.
Yeah, I don't mind if people have little things to kind of like have a conversation about, like it might add to your relationship to be like, oh I thought it was gonna be opaque, I remember it different, Like, yeah, that's true, non uh personality based thing to kind of both have.
It's not like your breath, you know.
Yeah, yeah, it's not a real loaded topic.
Yeah, your mom's a bitch.
Yes, the place for defining yourself differently from each other.
Yeah yeah, okay, you know what, Lance, Actually I'm going to change change my my cynical stance yet again and come around to your side, come around to the more open minded side, because I totally agree with that.
I think it's a really good point.
But yeah, there are quite a few comments on here where uh yeah, someone wrote this is so important. I was so sad when I opened up a pack and discovered the scoobies weren't the same. Maybe these are people of kids. Actually they're trying their kids Scooby snacks. And again, I don't judge anyone who's an adult who's buying Scooby snacks, although I guess that's exactly what I'm doing.
But it just feels like.
I also like change generally.
I like when things are different, and I, you know, I don't know the reasoning behind, is it, Betty Betsy.
Crocker, Betty Crocker, Yes, yeah, but like.
It could be like, oh, the carcinogenic blue five is no longer syllable in the state of California.
That's why it's slightly less opaque.
And generally when something doesn't taste quote unquote as good, it's because it's healthier, right, So maybe take that into account. Okay, Jonah, do you want to read this next one?
Some really good points? Yeah, so this next one is pretty short. It's called make chess, an Olympic sport. Oh, which, yeah, this is not what I've seen before it says this one is made out just a chess player. So I don't know where that goes, but you know it says far too long chess and chess players alike have been silenced and forgotten in their communities. The ancient game played by many intellectually superior athletes has the opportunity to gain the recognition it deserves. Many sports to and the Olympics require their athletes to have strong muscles. However, the strongest muscle in our bodies is our brains. Chess is a support which to exercises one's brain to the highest degree. Therefore should be including the Olympic Games. And it goes on and on, and they also say it can be played during COVID virtually and online, making it safe lance. What do you think about making chess and Olympic sports? What are your thoughts on.
I think that's a great idea.
That's what this kind of a change dot org org thing is probably best suited for. That's a good idea that someone had. They can build momentum for it. Any reasonable person can hear it and be like, have an opinion yes or no, but yeah, why not like it? It's so many people could become eligible to consider themselves Olympic contenders. Sure, a lot of like fourth graders could be like, this is my shot, this is my path.
I think that's great.
Yeah, I think it's great too. I think, you know, chess is does require a lot of brain power. You know, Vanessa recently got me. When I was in LA last time I was, Vanessa had Rubik's cube, yes, and I was messing around with it a lot, making no progress. Vanessa recently got me a keychain Rubik's cube, just with four squares. I keep it in my jacket pocket and I use it all the time and I have not gotten anywhere near solving it. Yeah, I mean it is tough. So it's like, yeah, this stuff requires a lot of brain power, And I think, yeah, why not?
I think why not? What should have been the What do you think, Vanessa?
Well, I think not a lot of people agree with you, guys, because only thirty eight people have signed. And look, here's my only thing about this is I think there's something to like the showmanship of the Olympics, and that it's generally kind of a physical.
Test of whatever. I worry that if you included.
Chess, which yeah, a lot of people loved Queen's Gambit is that what it was?
A gam But yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought it was good.
Yeah yeah, But like I think the show was good, not because you were necessarily following the chess game, but more because of like the drama of the show. I just worry that watching someone else's chess game, unless you're truly it's just like a little bit of a harder thing unless you like really educated yourself on chess. And again I'm not trying to but like by the by those standards too, would you have to include like could you would you include like spelling bees, would you include Rubik's cubes competitions? Like you said John, like there's so many brain things you almost would want to have like almost a separate kind of Olympics that's maybe called something else for more intellectual games, and absolutely no one would watch it.
But but I.
Want to see this at the Olympics.
Yeah yeah, I mean, look, I don't know, I just feel like the kind of the the presentation quality of watching someone play chess might not be as entertaining. But look, I don't watch the Olympics a lot because they stressed me out, because I always feel bad I always want everyone to win, and I feel bad, especially during figure skating when people mess up. So I guess I feel like I'm not the one to be the judge of this necessarily. I just think it's kind of a slippery slope if you start including brain games.
Sure, and also a viewership nightmare.
Okay, I want to add that one thing that is not going for this petition is the image like the torso lower tours of a cat and then a blacks. I mean it doesn't really Yeah, yeah, it's strange. I think they could have put a little more work into this potition.
And also making the petition made out to chess players as opposed to to the Olympics.
It's like, yeah, what, I don't even know.
Speaking of brain games, I don't know if this person knows how speaking of intellectuality, intellect is that a word? Who's talking? But the point is just speaking of like being smart. I don't know if this person was super smart about the way they did this petition.
Okay, all right, for it, Okay, lances for it. Okay for that record, lances for it.
Okay, love to hear that, love to hear that.
Okay, Now, this last one Jonah, and I thought was very funny.
It's called fandom Summer Camp.
So this person found on Pinterest this thing that says, why isn't there a summer camp for fandoms and we can all meet at the end of the summer, our idols come and do a concert and meet and greet. Okay, So the petition is I know a lot of people would love this so much, including me, so I decided to make a petition for it, because why not, and if it does happen, I know I will be going.
Okay.
So the person doesn't do a great job of explaining what they're asking for. But this person says in all caps, actually meeting and then instead of just talking over the internet, a bunch of my fandom friends, and then at the end of and then at the end of possibling meeting Rick Rard and Suzanne Collins, Veronica Roth, Marissa Meyer, Lin, Manuel Miranda or any of my favorite authors and our actresses would be so amazing. And I just want to put the out there in case other people would want to, and I know they would, so please if lots of people vote for this, please consider it summer camp. Please consider it Summer Camp. Makers, because I know it'd be a hit. We could be in can we could be in cabins sorted by fandom. Have a camp half Blood type of layout for the camp cosplay. Our favorite characters take writing, slash singing, slash acting lessons from our favorite authors, slash actors slash actorses.
And I can't even imagine how amazing that would be.
So I think this person wants to have a fandom camp or they're divided in camp cabins by what they're fans of, and then the people they're fans of they get to take like workshops from and meet at the end of the summer.
Sorry, I'm sorry, Yeah.
This is there's just like a person is one step away from completely being able to achieve this. Like there's somebody right now that's trying to book a venue in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania or Wilkspar, Pennsylvania, and they're struggling and they can't get enough off audience and they wish that they could book Gia Margaret or whatever, and they you know, like that person who has that skill set of like booking a venue just needs to find out what the appearance fee of Lynn Manuel Miranda is or Rick Reordan or these other people, and it's going to be five thousand dollars to leave New York City and come do an afternoon you know, if they were going to go speak at a college in Pennsylvania, like what they would charge. And then that person just needs to do the math of like how do I get these fandom people and like could they each pay three thousand dollars to come for a week to a camp in the cat Skills right, and then like book that otherwise empty cat Skills camp and pay the appearance fee of five thousand dollars to get Rick reord in er. But you know what I mean, Like it is doable, and someone who has those skills could make a bunch of money off of these fandoms. I don't know that world, but like I know that that try and promote or put on events that like wish that more people had come out for, like the Super Chunk concert or whatever that could apparently like fill camps of fans.
So Lance, you're saying, you think, you know you could connect this person with some people who can make this happen.
Past I feel like in certain regions of the country where it's not that big of a ask for like, hey, can you leave your apartment in New York and go across to Pennsylvania to on a Sunday afternoon like shake hands and take photos and talk for ninety minutes about storytelling to very appreciative fans who spent the week dressing up as characters that you previously created.
I think you'd have to pay these people like a million dollars.
I think there are these like appearance booking companies that like, yeah, if Penn State wants Lin Manuel to go yes, yes, lecture, there is a fee of this many thousand dollars for him to go do.
It, go stay overnight at a camp.
I don't think they have to go overnight.
I think that like you run the thing for the week, and then on the Sunday afternoon at the end of it, that's when Rick Reordan or whoever is there to like talk about storytelling for ninety minutes and posts Well, IoT.
I think that that's true.
I think this person maybe thinks that people are just going to be like a accessible at the camp, just kind of hanging open.
They think that the fan.
While is like teaching archery all week long. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I can't I can't make that happen.
Like imagine if Lynn Manuel Miranda was like you, like there were like these super fans who were like singing Hamilton all weekend and just like and then like that's already kind of like a charged up group to meet, Okay, especially because this person's writing I'm not gonna do it.
But this person's probably like fourteen.
Or something like can you it's gonna be the kind of thing where they meet Lyn Menuel and they're like, oh.
My god, you're my favorite person in the world. Oh my god, Like you know what I mean.
It's gonna be like being around those kinds of teenagers such like kids, Like it's gonna be like the most intense, like so it's like fandom people, so you have to like take that into account. Is like, they're not gonna be cool about it. Okay, they're not gonna ask like Jonah was when when you guys took us to dinner. So it's gonna be full circle. So it's gonna be callback. So it's gonna be so such intense teenagers. And then I think this person is I think that they would they want a concert and also a meet and greet, but I think what this person is sort of asking for is cosplay our favorite character. So they're so imagine so these people have also been cosplaying lin Manuel for a week, okay, all week they've been like pretending to be him and then take writing slash singing, sack slash acting lessons from our favorite so they wanted to. So it's sort of like they change in the description where they're asking for because at the beginning, what this person had put on Pindrist that this person picked up on was just like at the end of the summer, we get to meet them one day and meet at Green. What this person's asking for is like we get to take lessons from them. Like this is again I think you're gonna have to pay each person, even if they're only there for a day, a million dollars.
So this is going to be an expensive camp.
It could be expensive.
But again, like when they said Rick Reard and I really think that if they're being divided up into Percy Jackson themed bunks and dressing up and doing rowing competitions among themselves and then on the final day he shows up and signs copies of books and talks about characters or whatever, maybe that's enough for a three thousand dollars a person camp experience.
No, let me ask this for the for our listeners who don't know who Rick Reordan is, can you explain who he is?
He wrote Percy Jackson the Olympians series, okay, and like you know, thirty million books. Again, he's like a very successful contemporary writer for young readers.
I know that, okay, But I just didn't know if for some of it, I'm just kidding.
I had no idea who it was, but I had heard of the name that was familiar with the thing. Yeah, but like I guess, so, I guess the point that you're making lance is maybe if we manage the expectations of this camp, if we manage the expectations of the campers, then maybe why not.
Why why couldn't why not this camp?
Yeah, one could get on a cruise with the Impractical Jokers, Yes, within the next three months. Like if that's your fandom and you're sleeping and people are pulling pranks and you're yes, hearing stand up comedy from people from their world or aesthetic, like those things do exist and that kind of like weird cruise ship deal.
Yes, yes, yeah, I mean I guess I feel, you know, like this fandom or like fan service or these things are just you know, and not to make it, you know again me being cynical or generational. But but I feel like, you know, a really formative experience for moves. My mom took me to see Guns N' Roses in nineteen ninety one, a user illusion tour, incredible formative, life changing experience, And no point did I think like I should be able to just like hang out with them, meet the band, Like it's just like that, that's just not something like we're I'm like a thirteen year old kid, Like this is just not in the realm of the universe of possibilities.
If there had been a Paradise City rock camp, how much would you have asked you, like, what would you have.
Expected my parents to, like, great question put up.
For something like that for you to go for a week and like learn guitar from slash.
Yeah, I mean that you're no, You're absolutely right.
I mean I was actually was really bummed because Vanessa, this isn't your fault, but Vanessa got bought Mitzvad in Israel the same week that the Metallica Guns and Roses tour came to Cleveland.
Oh my god, I didn't you never told me that?
Yeah? Yeah, Well you know what's funny is mom and dad actually felt so bad that they offered to take me to the show in Columbus. I think, whoa.
And I don't know why I didn't take them up on that.
Yeah, I had no idea this controversy was going on.
Yeah, yeah, I was very upset because those are like my two favorite band.
This is probably like early to mid nineties.
But but yeah, again, if that existed, yes, Lance, answer question, I would be totally into it. But I wouldn't.
I wouldn't expect it, I guess, or I wouldn't advocate for it. It would be more Yeah, I don't know. So there's a lot happening here.
Well. The other thing I was just thinking of is like, would there be scholarships for kids? Like it would be so expensive? Would be the issue too? Would it just end up being all these rich kids?
Yeah, you cut up in it up to like, you know, five slots of campers that anonymously didn't have the same resources.
Right right, right? Sure? Sure. And there's an article actually in the New Yorker this month about private concerts. Like all these artists now that will do private events or play bar mitzvahs for these kind of exorbitant fees. So yeah, people are willing to pay it, that's fine. I'm not sure this person is willing to pay it, and I'm not sure there's a group of people. But yeah, if people want to support this and they can make it happen, sure, why not.
I Lance, You've been so much more positive about petitions.
But I have a positive take on the competitiveness of the replacements. Now, part of the reason that we know and love all of their songs that they were able to write and record is because they were more competitive than Run Westy Run, or the Wallets or the suburbs. Sure, yeah, bands of their same milieu and scene in city. Yeah, and maybe that competitiveness is why they broke through to us and a larger audience and some of those other bands.
Yeah, I think that's true. I think competitive can be a really positive you know, waiting Yeah, yeah, to take your your whatever you're working on to the next level. So so fair enough, that's a really good point.
Lanes.
Yeah, all right, Now the moment of truth, we have to decide if each of US had to sign one of these petitions, which one would be signed, and just to remind you of what the petitions are, the first one was changed Scooby Doo fruit Snacks back, the second one was make Chess an Olympic sport, and the third one was Fandom Summer Camp Joe.
Nance, I'll go, I'll go, I'll go. I'm gonna go with chess as a sport.
You know.
To me, the Scooby Snacks, I can't. I can't really get behind that one. That the fandom thing not for me. But but yeah, chess is where I do think it requires a lot of skill, a lot of intellectual prowess, and yeah, why not?
Why not?
I think we should recognize, you know, that kind of intelligence in our society and not only recognize it but celebrated and like Lance said, like the replacements in RAM, maybe that competitiveness can help these players go to the next level. Lance, what do you think.
I'm definitely chess as an Olympic sport supporter. Yeah, I think that's like a realistic thing. And even if it doesn't get to the level of Olympics qualification, I think that either people could tell each other, like hey, Dommy. There is a international yearly competition. That's what the Olympics of Chess is. Here's how to enter. See you there, yep. And I think that also people that really want to go hear lin Manuel Branda speak or show them archery or whatever. I bet he does some kind of lectures or events or workshops or something in some form. So maybe that means that you're going to like the Daughters of American whatever place in DC to go see him speak.
Then yeah, he's He's not like JD. Salinger. He's around.
Yeah, Okay, Vanessa, what about you?
Honestly, I'm shocked that I'm going to say this because I thought it was kind of stupid at first, but I'm going to I'm going to sign change Scooby Doo Fruit Snacks back because to me, it feels like the most realistic and also, I don't know, I feel like, give these four these people are really like feel so passionate, passionately about it, and I don't necessarily feel as strongly about this in particular, but like I would love if they would bring squeeze Its back, even though I never it would drink them as an adult, So there's something nostalgic and sweet about it.
So I want to bring back Scooby fruit snacks.
All right, I can solve that problem for everyone. Go on eBay search for expired, out of date Scooby Doo snacks from whatever the cut off when they got rid of blue dye, carcinogen number five or whatever. Yep, And I'm sure that you can buy a palette or a caseload of those and gradually eat those whenever you need to, fair.
Enough, Yeah, when you're like about to do a cleanse or something stick in your well. That was so much fun. Lance, Thank you so much for doing this. Now that we've decided which petitions we should uh we would sign, where can people find you? I mean, I know you're you always have so much stuff coming up, But what are some things that people can check out?
Yeah, there's on Hulu right now. Is History of the World Part two, the mel Brooks series that I directed part of. We made a Jackass film called Jackass Forever that came out last year. Another thing for Netflix called Jackass four point five. That's like another feature length thing of things that didn't make it into the movie. Great Vanessa stars in the music video for George Harrison for My Sweet Lord, which is a great song, and I'm proud of how that that film.
Turned out so great. It turned out so great.
Yeah, and then coming up this summer, I made a feature film that Jonah kind of talked about. The bands under the reo of the Elephant six recording company Neutramil Hotel Olivia, Trauma Control, Apples and Stereo elf Power, a bunch of other great artists musicians primarily Athens, Georgia in the nineteen nineties. There's a feature film that'll be out in movie theaters. It got like national distribution coming out later this year. We can't they haven't announced like the date yet, but like people can look forward in theaters this year. I'm going to make a bunch of great stuff for a musician that I love from Chicago. Her name is Geo Margaret and I've made like a conceptual thing for every song on a new record that she just put out, the records called Romantic Piano, and those will be appearing in upcoming months. And yeah, I just love making things.
Yeah, clearly.
And You've made so many incredible things and people got to check them out.
Thank you so much.
Lance.
This has been so much fun.
Thanks to everyone for listening, and if you enjoyed this, please subscribe to the podcast and keep an eye out for next week's episode of How Did We Get Weird, where we will discuss more stories from our childhood and cultural touchstones like educational and odd shows.
That we watched in school. Thank you so much, Lance.
It was so much fun.
All right, Take care everybody, You too,
