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Erudite crudite

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Everything posted by Erudite crudite

  1. Erudite crudite

    Episode 157 β€” IQ of a Corpse

    Uh oh, I was a little worried I might get an invitation to Case Closed! I think I might be a little too shy about public speaking in front of a podcast audience. I don't have much experience doing that and the audience might be bigger than I'm comfortable with. On the other hand, it might be a lot of fun. Let me give it a bit of thought. (pfchangs, if you feel like stepping in, be my guest: you're killing it in this thread.) Thank you for the invitation, in any case. I have to say that I didn't realize you thought that Lewinsky kept the dress in order to set everything off! That is more extreme than I thought. Linda Tripp convinced Lewinsky to keep the dress as insurance just in case Clinton ever sought reprisal or tried to fire her. That's on tape. Lewinsky wanted to get rid of it. Lewinsky was already a household name when she went on SNL. Molly Shannon had already played her 10 times at that point for almost a whole year. Going on SNL was Monica's way to stop being the butt of the joke by making herself seem to be in on the joke. That's a totally standard and reasonable way to try to fix a reputation. It didn't really work, but you can see what she was up to. (It actually worked somewhat: SNL stopped making fun of her, and jokes focussed on Tripp instead of Lewinsky.) She wasn't looking for a payday or looking for fame. She had been forced against her will to have a public image, and she was looking for image management. The Jenny Craig thing made a ton of sense as a response to the shameful cracks about her being fat. It's actually a pretty strong way of announcing, "Fuck you, media, I am making it so you do not get to call me fat anymore." I still don't really know what your criticism is, other than some sort of complaint about her character for being fame-hungry. I don't really get what would be so wrong with that (it's not like she caused problems with the presidency *because* she was fame-hungry), but I don't even think it's true. She didn't stay in the spotlight; she basically did go live in a shack. If she's so fame-hungry, why haven't we heard from her in over a decade? You think she hasn't been on Dancing With The Stars because they haven't asked her?
  2. Erudite crudite

    Episode 157 β€” IQ of a Corpse

    Boy, I really didn't like the discussion of Monica Lewinisky before the skit. Saying that she should be living in a shack and that she's getting appropriate criticism is totally buying into the narrative that bullies have written for her. It's the reason that she is right to do what she's doing now. Lewinsky was wrong to get involved with Clinton. That's true. But, well, take the worst sexual decision you've ever made in your life. Imagine that every person in America knew that about you, and that's all that they knew about you. That would be horrible, right? How many of your friends do you think have fooled around with someone else in a relationship when they were in their early twenties? How much criticism do you think they deserve for that? If every single talk show host on the planet started calling your friend a slut and started making jokes about how much she likes cum, would you think he or she deserved it and that it was fair criticism? Or would you think that there could reach a point at which the "criticism" became sexist bullying? Monica was a young girl who made a mistake, but holy shit yes, she was bullied harder than nearly anyone before her for what was a youthful mistake. (Not to mention, it's little more understandable for a young woman to get involved with some guy who approaches her if he's the PRESIDENT. If Clinton asked me to blow him and stick a cigar up my butt, I'd probably do it.) Then there's the self-promotion stuff, but remember this: Lewinsky was court-ordered to not say anything about Clinton for years and years. She had no voice, and she did not appear on TV for a long time, so comedians and late night hosts invented a whole persona for her that bore no resemblance to reality. All of her friends said they saw nothing of Monica in the popular conception of Monica. She lost control of her own identity, and that fake identity was the one everyone saw, so she could not go out for a coffee without the world slutshaming her and people on the street calling her fat. Her life was ruined, and she basically tried to retreat into a shack (like Besser says that she still should be doing), but that was impossible. Besser saying that "If you want people to leave you alone, don't go in TV; it's not like she was a celebrity before" is totally false and gets the order of events wrong. She was a celebrity without any self-promotion and could not avoid it. The whole country was baying for her blood, even though they only knew her as a cartoon. Monica tried to remain private, but privacy was basically impossible, so a few years after the trials she tried to reclaim her image while also paying off her legal debts. After all, she had millions of dollars in legal fees, and media execs were lining up at her door with million dollar contracts. That is hard to ignore. She turned down the really clownish ones like Celebrity Boxing, and instead did a few other gigs that paid enormously. I thought it was pretty hypocritical to hear comedians mocking someone else taking a well-paying gig on a reality show. Are all of you proud of every one of your past credits? You wouldn't host a reality dating show for millions of dollars when all other avenues of income were destroyed? Doubtlessly she found something a little thrilling about the celebrity she was receiving, but is that really worthy of criticism? It seems human to me. Not to mention, she was only about 25 at the time. Once she dipped her toe in those waters and got bullied even harder, she *did* disappear for a long time and tried to reclaim her private life. She's only now re-emerged, ten years later. Anyway. Watch her speech. It is great.
  3. Erudite crudite

    Episode 315 β€” Sandwich Therapy

    The answer to Scott's riddle was "Wanna neck?"
  4. Erudite crudite

    Episode 315 β€” Sandwich Therapy

    Scott needs to figure out how to start a game so that the guests immediately get how it's played! It's too hard to stitch together a pun about giraffes, businessmen, and Valentine's Day. Three things is too many. Something simper like "What did the giraffe give to his girlfriend on Valentine's Day?" or "What did the giraffe say to the businessman?" would have a chance of prompting a guest to think of a funny pun. Ken Marino's question would have been a good opener, but the game was already broken at that point. I think he also needs to say that the answer should be a pun. No one seems to get that. He explains the game by saying that they're looking for the "best answer," but no one knows what that means. Joe Wengert is really good at coming up with a funny conceit for a character and then forcing Scott and the other guests to figure out what it is. This guy being a food addict and the duck guy being a duck were slow reveals. They're like little mysteries for the guests to solve.
  5. Erudite crudite

    Episode 310 β€” Little Button Puss

    The second act of this episode, including Gemberling's self-description as a robot dog with fleshy gential patches, was among the funniest segments ever on this show. I could not keep from laughing in public when on the subway. Good stuff. Pamela Murphy should be a contender for the next Patrick McMahan episode of the Andy Daly Podcast Pilot Project. That Riddle Me This game sure fell apart though. Scott gave up in the middle. I've noticed that the games really thrive or bomb depending on how well Scott manages to communicate the idea of the game during the first round, and he gave a terrible opening riddle question. "What kind of blender do bears use in their caves?" How many kinds of blender can you name in the first place?! Riddle Me This needs riddles with general categories. Players need to be able to brainstorm in order to make puns. "What kind of cars do bears drive?" or "What kind of fruit do bears like?" or "Why did the bear move from his cave into a house?" would generate some fun answers, I bet. But I can't even think of a good answer to "What kind of blender do bears use?" when I'm not on the spot. There are too few kinds of blender. The problem with making the example question really esoteric and specific is that no one picks up on the point of the game... it makes the guests think that they have to make their questions really esoteric and specific, and then you never get a good round. I think Scott needs to make the first-round Riddle Me This questions more tractable.
  6. Erudite crudite

    Episode 196.5 β€” 9/05/14 TWO CHARTED 135

    This was probably my favorite Who Charted episode ever. Howard was being so... Howard!
  7. Erudite crudite

    Episode 296 β€” Taking the Bladder Out

    Yeah, it had the normal set-up for Showalter to be playing the new character, so I thought it was him for quite a while. I remember thinking, "wait, what's going on? Showalter is being funny!"
  8. Erudite crudite

    Episode 290 β€” Shed Busting

    Daly is really good at obliquely referring to lurid stuff in such a way that it doesn't come across as line-crossing. He only directly states the over-the-top stuff it as a shocking punchline that it feels like you wheedled out of him. He doesn't luxuriate in it. It's a really impressive ability. The Don Dimello ep of the ADPPP showed that Matt Gourley also has this ability (but Manzoukis and St. Clair don't. Or at least, they didn't manifest it then).
  9. Erudite crudite

    Recommendation episodes for new listeners.

    I think the Calvins Brothers episode is a really great introductory episode that shows off what makes the show unique. In the old AV Club article where Scott picked his favorite episodes, he discusses how the show hit its stride when he figured out that his role as interviewer was to sidetrack an improviser rather than setting them up for bits, challenging them to keep the backstory consistent. This episode really highlights how much comedy you can wring from that technique, and Scott's at the top of his game. It's also hilarious. There's a reason they played it pretty much verbatim on the TV show. I mean, you gotta laugh.
  10. Erudite crudite

    Episode 182 β€” Gandalf Vs. Snape

    I loved all of the Armen episodes. They were special. The guest hosts for the Kulapless episodes were all good, but I like these Howardless episodes a lot more. Armen made them ooze character, I think I'm unlikely to forget them any time soon. Besser was a perfect guest for the final Armen episode.
  11. Erudite crudite

    Episode 286 β€” Time Bobby 3

    I kinda expected Scott to unzip himself and reveal that Scott has been a PFT character this whole time.
  12. Erudite crudite

    Episode 286 β€” Time Bobby 3

    ziiip! [Three minutes of everyone circling eachother warily, unsure about where this new revelation has taken them, waiting for someone to make a move.] [And then...] [...] CHARACSPLOSION!
  13. Erudite crudite

    Rank The Pilots

    August Lindt, Dalton Wilcox, and the first segment of Don Dimello are the clear standouts for me. All the other episodes were funny, but those two and a third... jesus, they're outstanding. I still isten to them.
  14. My ordering is so different from yours, I honestly cannot tell whether you are ordering them from worst to best or best to worst. How can Dalton Wilcox and August Lindt possibly be at opposite ends of the spectrum and not nestled together at the top?
  15. I loved the songs. I loved Aukerman's accent being so terrible, and I loved Gourley compensating by taking on the challenge of doing both an accent and a lisp. I loved this podcast and I'm so sad I can't look forward to it every Thursday any more.
  16. I knew that Gourley played one of the Grimm brothers for the Dead Authors Podcast, but I only just recently realized that ! That episode was also one of my favorites (I relistened to it in celebration of the return of Cosmos). I think he should bring Sagan back somehow. I like that Gourley's clearly very smart and is willing to make his characters intelligent. Mall was a creep in the Dimello episode, but pretty knowledgeable about theater ("Greek catherni" was a crazy deep cut!) Honestly, Matt Gourley has so many great characters, I could imagine a Matt Gourley Podcast Pilot Project. Do that for season 2, and have Andy Daly bring his characters along for backup. And then, season 3: Gourley's and Daly's characters go to war with the Pod F Tomkast!
  17. The joke was often on Marissa. I love Wompler, but I have to admit that I hate when St. Clair goes off about how ugly she is. I like Wompler for being a relentlessly enthusiastic and naive teenager. But unfortunately, most of the Wompler segment was about how weird she looks. It was humor about a woman's looks that brought a further level of hostility to an episode that needed to tread lightly on the topic. Andy and Matt understood this, I think, and they didn't really contribute further to uglifying Marissa. But Jason egged it on, to the point of fourth-wall breaking. This wasn't about laughing at creepy guys thinking a a perfectly attractive woman is ugly; it was about laughing at a woman for being ugly. In the context of this episode, I hated it. Not to mention that it didn't make sense with Don's character, who is done with a woman if she starts to look even a little bit less than perfect. I also didn't like Jason making Don join the Taliban, bronze his penis, etc. Stuff like that is fine for a zany character like Chip Gardner, but not Don Dimello. I just don't think Jason gets the character. The first segment was probably the strongest segment of all the podcast episodes (goddamn, Matt Gourley's Mall was a perfect accompaniment. CHEKOV'S GUN!), but the latter two made me cringe a lot.
  18. As much as I was looking forward to Don Demillo, this was the weakest so far. I adored the first segment and it had me looking forward to the rest. But I thought Zoukes unfortunately kind of misjudged the tone, and it brought down the rest of the episode for me. Demillo and Mall brought hilarious creepiness full of heavy breathing, but Falcon was brash, which meant he kept stepping on their bits. While the other two were playing the slow game, Falcon kept adding zaniness that detracted from the creepiness of Don Demillo. He kept saying, "Don, didn't you....", which forced Don to keep Yes Anding his suggestions, and they were were more zany than creepy and didn't have the right feel for the character. Marissa did this a bit too. I'm not sure Don should be paired with other people playing big personalities.
  19. Erudite crudite

    Episode 274 β€” Oh, Golly!

    If you're going to separate Andy Daly characs into good and evil, I'm pretty sure that Bill Carter would be one of the bad guys. Maybe he's a mole. Poor put-upon August Lindt is an agent of good. And I'd kinda like to think that Don Demillo is a mole as well. He's a secret agent for good. (To be honest, I hope all this stuff is non-canon and won't spill over into the Podcast Pilot Project season 2. Don Demillo is a great charac on his own and making him an agent of hell muddies up his charac a bit.)
  20. Listen. I'm a terrible mime.
  21. Erudite crudite

    Episode 266 β€” The Calvins Twins

    This episode was outstanding. I want to hear the Calvins Boys meet the Bachelor Brothers in an all-twins spectacular.
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