chesterdouglas

Horatio Sanz came across as absolutely unhinged throughout this entire episode. It was hilarious. There really is no one else quite like that guy.

This is, indeed, very welcome news, but is anyone else starting to get the feeling that Earwolf's next move will be to annex Czechoslovakia?

I absolutely loved how when things got a little somber as talk turned to an apparently true incident in which Jason Woliner was recently mugged at gunpoint, and Howard struggled to find something meaningful to say, Horatio's instinct was to add a moment of levity by dead-panning: "I guess the guy made him blow the barrel...so it's harsh." I think I re-listened to that moment ten times.

A couple of weeks ago, I had never heard of Molly Bretthauer, but between this and her appearance on the Comedy Bang Bang Halloween episode last week, I've got to say that I'm pretty impressed with her talent.

That's funny, because I had almost the exact opposite reaction. I really enjoy Tom Lennon in general, but a minute or two of Lil' Gary is just about the perfect amount of time for me.

Natasha's excellent comedic instincts combined with her complete lack of knowledge about anything really made for an effective fill-in performance. Well-played.

Although I'm sure that Edgar "the Doug Loves Movies Savant" Wright must have realized this, does anyone think that either Scott or Nick ever really got it through their head that when Simon kept referring to Michael Caine's relationship with "Shakira," he was originally referring to Michael Caine's real-life wife and Man Would Be King co-star Shakira Caine, and not -- you know -- the Columbian musical sensation? Simon explicitly mentioned this once, but the moment passed pretty quickly and I'm not sure that anyone else really caught his meaning. I don't know, maybe Nick got it, but was just playing up the misunderstanding for comedy. The idea of an aging Michael Caine stalking and wooing "Hips Don't Lie" Shakira is probably a hell of a lot funnier anyway, but I was just wondering if people really caught the disparity there.

Yes, you're right. I didn't really give that enough consideration, though -- to be fair -- I think that that episode occurred during the week that Scott Aukerman appeared on every show on the earwolf network in order to promote the new CBB TV show (formats be damned). So, that was sort of a special case.

Enjoyed this one. Just out of curiosity, is Todd Glass the first guest the show has had who doesn't really come out of a significant, formal improv comedy training background? Maybe there have been others that I'm forgetting -- I don't know. But, if this is a new direction that the show may start heading in, does this potentially open the door for an eventual Paul F. Tompkins appearance as part of his quest to appear on every comedy podcast in the world?

So, in the official continuity, did young Garry "Ponyboy" Marshall's construction of a space ship and subsequent trip to an alien planet occur before or after the time he spent in his youth as a stab-happy New York street tough?

I agree. When they first started getting into that story for a second time, it briefly caused me to question my sanity and wonder whether the first version that I remembered hearing earlier was actually the result of some sort of delirious, prescient fever-dream, but no, it seems that all is right with the world.

Listening to the Cased Closed segment -- despite the fact that I was more or less in full agreement with Matt and disagreed utterly with what the caller was trying to express -- because the caller was getting raked over the coals so thoroughly I had the rather odd sensation of mentally trying to come up with arguments that the caller could use to verbally fight back (I guess this is just because I have an innate love for an underdog). In any case, it seems to me that when the debate got down to whether or not Jason Collins is a "hero" (and various bets were being thrown around to settle the question), it is ridiculous to ever think that anyone could ever "win" a bet to determine whether someone is a hero or not. That's a definitional question. You can't bet on something like that in the same way that you could bet on a question like, "How many Canadian provinces are there?" One could easily define the word "hero" in such a way that Jason Collins qualifies, and one could equally easily define it in such a way that Jason Collins would not qualify. The same would be true of Jackie Robinson. Or George Washington. Or Susan B. Anthony. Or whoever. This is one of those cases in which whoever controls the definition of what it means to be a "hero" will win the debate 100% of the time. The same is true in debates about what terms like "good," "fair," or "just" mean, and whether or not they can be applied to a given real-world situation. The power to define is an immense advantage, and -- as the host of the podcast and the guy steering the course of the conversation -- it seemed pretty clear that Matt was in a better position than the caller to do that. Plus -- and again, I actually do agree with Matt in the substance of what he was saying -- I really don't think that doing a google search of "Jason Collins + hero" and finding a bunch of results is going to prove anything. For instance, I'm sure that there are plenty of websites on the internet (some of them in Chinese) which would identify Mao Zedong as a genuine "hero" who brought China into the modern world and helped to end centuries of feudal oppression through tremendous individual effort and conviction. That's a perfectly valid viewpoint. Other websites (some of them in Chinese) would identify Mao Zedong as a cold-hearted mass murderer who willfully promoted policies that cost millions of innocent lives. That's also a perfectly valid viewpoint. Deciding who qualifies as a "hero" is all a matter of interpretation. A lot of things are. End of screed.

I, for one, love Stamps.com's catchy new slogan: "Stamps.com offers more features than a meacher."

That's an excellent idea: Scott appears on WTF in order to make a Todd Glass-esque "big announcement," but things go awry when Don Dimello haplessly wanders into Marc Maron's garage. Hilarity ensues.

Is it just me, or did the guy who called in and talked about flying around and taking photographs for digital mapping seem like an absolute maniac?

Embarrassingly enough, the first time that Eddie mentioned "Pin-Interest," I actually thought to myself, "Wait a minute, have I been mentally mispronouncing that word all this time?"

I found Paul Dooley to be charming as hell. How could you not?

Yes, I think you've put your finger on something significant here. When Scott's "hold-on-a-second-I'm-not-letting-you-off-the-hook-so-let's-go-back-to-that-bizarre-thing-you-said-and-really-dive-deeper-into-it" routine isn't working out so well, it can result in some awkward moments, but when it does work, it really, really works. I think that this is why I enjoy Andy Daly's Comedy Bang Bang appearances so much -- Scott has a tendency to pounce on every slight oddity, inconsistency, or conversational cul-de-sac that the guest stumbles into, but because Andy Daly is some sort of preternatural Jedi master improviser, he just rolls along with it and somehow elevates the entire show to new comedic heights. That guy is singularly talented. There are others who occasionally match him, but I don't think that there is anyone better (at least, not that I've heard).

Yeah, that was pretty great. I was reminded of the time when Lauren Lapkus kept shoe-horning the notion of "ass play" into scenes throughout the episode and then Matt suddenly went "meta" with the last scene and made it about Lauren returning home that day and dealing with the implications of what she had done.

I really enjoyed how all of Shelby Orangina's psychic pop-culture references seemingly came from the period between 1992 and 1994. Also, it's always a wonderful sign when, halfway through the podcast, Scott is forced to stop and say, "No wait, what are we talking about right now?" I really do mean that in the best possible way.

Wait a second, didn't Adrien Brody once-upon-a-time win an Oscar for Best Actor? Or, was that whole incident just some kind of crazy (and oddly specific) fever dream that I had one time? If so, please, somebody set me straight.

Based on contextual clues sprinkled throughout the episode that indicate that this podcast was actually recorded several months ago, I'd say that Scott is inching closer and closer to actually achieving what he used to only joke around about: recording episodes of Comedy Bang Bang one year in advance.

"You should suck on a hotdog all day and night." Lauren Lapkus was great on this episode.

Wow. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy it (because I did), but the last twenty minutes of this episode were legitimately...disturbing.

The suicidal tendencies of each and every Andy Daly character are a sweet tonic for my soul from which I derive happiness and pleasure. Now that I've written that down, it strikes me that I may, in fact, be developing some sort of a mental illness. Oh well. Great episode!