EPISODE 30 - Vent Haven Ventriloquist Museum

[JulyDiaz 2797]

Paul F. Tompkins welcomes all unseen visitors back to SPONTANEANATION! This week, Paul’s special guest is Laraine Newman, alumna of The Groundlings and Saturday Night Live! They chat about Laraine making sacrifices with her husband, a dinner party that was hijacked by vegans, and the first & last time she got drunk. Paul is then joined by Maria Blasucci, Marc Evan Jackson, and Jeremy Carter to improvise a story set at the Vent Haven Ventriloquist Museum in Fort Mitchell, KY. And as always, Eban (only the best) Schletter scores it all on piano!

 

Don’t forget! The next LIVE SPONTANEANATION is happening Saturday, November 7th with special guest Keegan Michael Key and more! There will be special moments that you can only experience LIVE so get your tickets now over at www.paulftompkins.com/live!

 

PFT's EPISODE NOTES:

 

 

We usually take the group photo before recording. One of our guests hadn't arrived by the time we were ready to record, so we left space for that person in the picture, so his or her image could be spiced in afterwards. Can you guess the identity of the latecomer?

[Bumpy 1674]

LOOORRAAAAI- Oh, let's skip it this time.

[KatherineIsOdd 486]

Sleepy Schimmy Joins may be my new favourite ad character. Sorry, Mitch and Delores! But you've been through worse.

 

One of the funniest improvs yet! Possibly record levels of PFT chuckles, which makes it even greater!

"Now, actually, we do not call them puppets, we call them dummies, because...that's what they're called."

"That's a rock-solid argument."

[itsrobobo 78]

I got excited thinking the mystery of the strange sound from last episode would be solved when it was brought up, but MEJ and PFT only deepened the mystery. Until the truth comes out, I can only believe in MEJ's speculation that it came directly from Sarah's mouth.

[Jon Onyx 1226]

I get a very strong Maria Bamford type vibe from Laraine Newman

[IanR 153]

I think the Kevin Bacon movie Laraine was thinking of was Stir of Echoes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stir_of_Echoes

[Kickpuncher 5012]

Did I love this episode? Oh, baby, yeah.

 

Michael Jackson was an especially funny choice for a puppet dummy, because the first thing most people would think of to impersonate him doesn't require moving your lips.

[brotherTodd 22]

I take back what I asked for, last week. You stay AWAY from me, Shimmy...

[DanEngler 5249]

"For as long as I can remember, I was adrift upon a sea of meaninglessness, but then I listened to this podcast and my life finally found purpose: to listen to this podcast. Thanks, SPONTANEANATION!"

— Speculative iTunes review

[VinsanityV22 500]

"No, no - let the Doctor do his work: I've got to be able to survive that hanging"

 

is one of the best things I think I've ever heard Just 100% manly thought there; just will yourself to not die. lol. There was so much hilarious stuff in this one, but that line is sooo good!

 

Also, PFT doing Michael Jackson's voice is great, but damn if I don't associate "Earwolf Michael Jackson Impression" with Mookie Blaiklock now. I hope Mook ends up on Spontaneanation in the future! Btw, did anyone else Google "Michael Jackson Ventriloquist Dummy" after listening to this? Have fun sleeping now! Bwahahaha

[Bernard_Shakey 3484]

Fantastic ep! I hope we hear more from this Jeremy Carter kid.

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

in case anyone is curious

 

http://venthavenmuseum.com/

[Mathey 419]

Holy shit, this episode.

 

I've listened to it three times now and its still hilarious. The dynamic between the guys was pretty fantastic.

[DerekTan 21]

Not to be a buzzkill buuut with Paget's episode and now this, as a biologist I feel a bit ticked about how uninformed a lot of them are about GMOs. By no means am I point fingers at them; GMO technology is very new and rapidly advancing, at a rate that is unfortunately surpassing the rate of which its understanding is relayed to the general public. GMOs are just as healthy and environmentally-friendly as (and arguably better than) organic products.

 

[JacobCrites 4977]

The improv segment nearly brought me to tears with laughter. Jeremy Carter is such a perfect fit for this show. I hope he's on again before too long!

 

People complaining about GMOs definitely does not bum me out. It doesn't make people come across as rich white weirdos who are completely out of touch with real problems.

[Paul F. Tompkins 736]

Not to be a buzzkill buuut with Paget's episode and now this, as a biologist I feel a bit ticked about how uninformed a lot of them are about GMOs. By no means am I point fingers at them; GMO technology is very new and rapidly advancing, at a rate that is unfortunately surpassing the rate of which its understanding is relayed to the general public. GMOs are just as healthy and environmentally-friendly as (and arguably better than) organic products.

 

Hey, thank you for sharing this. I did not know much about GMOs, like a lot of people, but also like a lot of people, I had the vague idea that they were bad. The video you linked to was definitely illuminating, not just in terms of how GMOs help us, but also why it's very easy for people to misunderstand what they are. I think you're right about how rapidly things are changing and how little we are informed without having to dig for information. I think many of us have a very primal reaction to the notion of food being "modified" and that a small number of corporations are doing most of the modifications, and I'm glad Hank touched on those ideas.

 

I'm glad I watched this, and I hope to learn more about this stuff. Thanks for posting.

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

Yea, I wanted to echo PFT... thanks for the video. I've been reading a lot lately about how people are listening to unscientific non-experts (e.g., The Food Babe, etc.) on issues that require expertise and science (nutrition, GMOs, vaccines, etc.). It's problematic, and not a little bizarre.

 

Glad a scientist commented, we need more actual experts to listen to on these things.

[JimB-Reay 53]

I just had to chime in - I was literally in tears on a crowded airplane from this podcast - it's sheer genius. Maria's kickoff was just so brilliant, and Marcevan and Paul's skeptical museum goers... just so great. Thank you for a great show!

[mattman92ish 823]

"Careful the bottoms heavy" holy shit this fucking ep was too good!

[orphan yachts 217]

yes it was a so very good episode. I do believe that the question "corn or flour" was about tortillas though.

[Darbler Cheesegarbler 1110]

Pro-GMO people are forgetting what happened when tomatoes and tobacco were spliced.

 

 

Oh and also, this was a really great episode.

[JimB-Reay 53]

OMG - the Donald Sutherland ventriloquist dummy. That was the moment I stopped breathing for a minute.

[BrianBouton 32]

This podcast is uniformly entertaining and innovative but every few weeks or so there is an episode like this or Dracula that just knocks the wind out of me with laughter. Listened to this coming home on NYC subway and looked like a loon to the people around me laughing with my headphones on. There was just one wave of laughter another like some kind of multiple podgasm.

[Darbler Cheesegarbler 1110]

in case anyone is curious

 

http://venthavenmuseum.com/

 

Vent Haven Museum: Our Logo Is Terrifying

 

Do you think they have a Nick Nolte dummy?

[clever username 35]

Hey, thank you for sharing this. I did not know much about GMOs, like a lot of people, but also like a lot of people, I had the vague idea that they were bad. The video you linked to was definitely illuminating, not just in terms of how GMOs help us, but also why it's very easy for people to misunderstand what they are. I think you're right about how rapidly things are changing and how little we are informed without having to dig for information. I think many of us have a very primal reaction to the notion of food being "modified" and that a small number of corporations are doing most of the modifications, and I'm glad Hank touched on those ideas.

 

I'm glad I watched this, and I hope to learn more about this stuff. Thanks for posting.

 

I'd suggest reading Altered Genes, Twisted Truth if you want the opposite side, Paul. It's written by a lawyer who sued the FDA over it's GMO policy, and in discovery found a bunch of documents from FDA scientists arguing that GMOs ought not be be assumed to be safe, but instead should go through extensive testing by the government. FDA administrators overruled them and gave GMOs a designation of Generally Recognized as Safe, which meant they could get around the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Safety Act. Because they're GRAS, the FDA just has to approve tests run by the biotech companies themselves, which often don't even use the crop in question, just the proteins that are assumed to be in the plant.

 

Independent researchers who study GMOs are often attacked harshly when they report results that clash with the narrative biotech companies are trying to spin. This Democracy Now! story goes into the case of Arpad Pusztai.

 

One thing that I really want to push back on is the idea that humans have been "genetically engineering" plants for thousands of years. That's pure sophistry. There's a huge difference between breeding plants with each other on the one hand and genetically inserting a mammal gene into a bacteria, which is in turn inserted into a plant. This goes along with the idea that scientists can target specific proteins they want to change and go in with a scalpel and make fine alterations, which massively overstates the level of control we have and understates the level of randomness. When a new GMO is bred, scientists create dozens or even hundreds of new plants, and pick out the few that seem to be exhibiting the phenotype they want. But phenotype isn't the same thing as genotype, and the only way you can find out if there are novel proteins that could have a huge effect on human health is through long term animal feeding studies.

 

A lot of progressives buy into the line the biotech industry pitches that portrays GMOs as "Yay, Science!" I'd recommend people watch the Cosmos episode on leaded gasoline (ironic because NDT himself is a big GE booster, but he doesn't write the show) if they want a reminder of how corporations can hide behind a facade of scientific legitimacy to make a bunch of money. I think Jane Goodall had it right in the forward she wrote to Altered Genes, Twisted Truth, where she says that it's the pro-GMO lobby that's actually anti-science.

 

TL;DR: Paul, trust your gut. It's good to be skeptical of corporations modifying the basic building blocks of life with minimal oversight. Even if you don't buy the health concerns, the whole experiment has been an ecological disaster.