Speaker 1: Warning, this podcast contained spoilers, mainly for Prey. We talk
Speaker 1: about I Am Groot on Disney Plus. There's no way
Speaker 1: to spoil that. We also talk about Harley Quinn, which
Speaker 1: is currently in season three. We talk about some plot stuff.
Speaker 1: But if you're catching up on Harley Quinn, you're in
Speaker 1: season one and two, or you just want to start
Speaker 1: season three and you're worried about it, don't worry. You
Speaker 1: can listen to this conversation, including our really really wonderful
Speaker 1: interview with Justin Halpern, and.
Speaker 2: You will not be spoiled. Les listen on. You have
Speaker 2: been warned. Hello Miami, is Jason Bonzepcion.
Speaker 1: Welcome to xt Ravision, The Crooked Podcast, where we dive
Speaker 1: deep into your favorite shows.
Speaker 2: Movies, comics, and pop culture.
Speaker 1: So many favorite shows this week in today's episode on
Speaker 1: previously on, we're gonna be talking about more WB Discovery
Speaker 1: drama in the airlock Oh, lots of stuff, including the
Speaker 1: delightful I Am Groot and the action packed Pray Watch it.
Speaker 2: Now on Hulu.
Speaker 1: In the Hive mind co creative Harley Quinn, Justin Halpern
Speaker 1: comes and sits down with us to tell a lot
Speaker 1: of really hilarious stories about Harley Quinn and it's great
Speaker 1: and it's a great time joining me today. For all
Speaker 1: of that is the number one comics historian, the number
Speaker 1: one comics reader, knowing more about comics, the characters, the plots,
Speaker 1: and all the weird stuff that goes on in there
Speaker 1: than any other human alive.
Speaker 2: It's Rosie Dight.
Speaker 3: Rosie, However, I'm so happy to be here to talk
Speaker 3: to you about all this stuff and to now have
Speaker 3: a career of all those things that you listed, which
Speaker 3: used to be something people would be like, please stop
Speaker 3: talking about that. Those are like a list of like
Speaker 3: please stop talking about it, But now it's like, hey,
Speaker 3: please talk about it. Bye.
Speaker 2: Godzilla versus Batra.
Speaker 3: Now you can purchase a BW.
Speaker 1: You can purchase it at the local comic shop near you.
Speaker 2: Let's get into the news because there's so much first
Speaker 2: up more WB stuff.
Speaker 1: So we were talking about this story last week, and
Speaker 1: of course the earnings call that we were all expecting
Speaker 1: took place in the day after we recorded our episode,
Speaker 1: and it was a news packed earnings call. Rosie, you
Speaker 1: wantn't you take us through it?
Speaker 3: Oo? Wow? So a lot of what we had talked
Speaker 3: about last week came true, which was essentially a big
Speaker 3: breakdown of what is going to happen. So that's On
Speaker 3: the Warner Brothers Discovery Q two earnings call, it was
Speaker 3: announced that Hbox and Discovery Plus would merge into one
Speaker 3: streaming platform to launch in summer twenty twenty three. We
Speaker 3: thought that would probably happen. The details are currently sparse,
Speaker 3: no name, no subscurrecription price at this point, though the
Speaker 3: hint and implication was that it would be expensive. So
Speaker 3: it's going to be expensive. From what they were saying
Speaker 3: on the call, it seems like it will be based
Speaker 3: on the Discovery Plus app, which is a very popular,
Speaker 3: well rated app. According to David Zaslav of Warner Brothers Fame,
Speaker 3: during the very intense, and I wouldn't blame you if
Speaker 3: you turned it off because it was public. You could
Speaker 3: listen to it. I listened to it. It was very
Speaker 3: numbers heavy, it was very financial, but there were some
Speaker 3: incredible moments, including when they put a slide on the
Speaker 3: screen that listed the two audiences of HBO Max and
Speaker 3: Discovery Plus. HBO Max, Skew's mail scripted lean in appointment
Speaker 3: viewing Home of Fandoms Discovery US female skew, unscripted, leaned
Speaker 3: back comfort viewing home of genre doums. As you can imagine,
Speaker 3: internet went wild. I still don't know what a genre
Speaker 3: dume is, Jason, I still have no idea. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: it was basically lots of questions. There was some very
Speaker 3: interesting stuff near the end when a caller from Deutsche
Speaker 3: Bank asked about Batgirl and zaz Lav spoke quite extensively
Speaker 3: about his vision for DC. He called The Flash a
Speaker 3: terrific movie, but he also said that they could make
Speaker 3: DC better, which was not particularly well received during the call. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's been very interesting. And since then we've had a
Speaker 3: lot of other news.
Speaker 2: So yeah, gosh.
Speaker 1: So let's first start with the DC of it all,
Speaker 1: which we can come back to in a second or
Speaker 1: touch on, but essentially laid out a ten year plan to.
Speaker 3: They said no, no, no, no, let's not give them too
Speaker 3: much credit. They said they were putting together a team
Speaker 3: to make it. So there's no telling you.
Speaker 1: Let me, so let me start with the let me
Speaker 1: start with this. There's no doubt, right, and I think
Speaker 1: any fair observer will say this. Despite some notable successes
Speaker 1: and some notable box office successes, right that the DC
Speaker 1: properties have been mismanaged. You know, you could point to
Speaker 1: any number of indicators to let you know that that's
Speaker 1: the case. That said, and I've been consistent about this
Speaker 1: for a long time. I personally believe I don't know
Speaker 1: when this will happen, but DC will figure it out
Speaker 1: because these properties are never going to do. Nobody's gonna
Speaker 1: stop king Batman, everyone movie. It's always everybody wants it.
Speaker 1: They're gonna want it thirty years from now, they're gonna
Speaker 1: want it two hundred years from now, assuming that we
Speaker 1: are here as a species thirty and or three.
Speaker 2: Hundred years from now. That said, the stuff right now
Speaker 2: has is.
Speaker 1: Mismanaged. You've got some successful stuff like The Joker that's
Speaker 1: going to get a sequel, but of course that takes
Speaker 1: place in a separate universe than the kind of shared
Speaker 1: universe that they've been trying to launch off the ground.
Speaker 1: And then you have, you know, issues related to the
Speaker 1: cost cutting, such as Batgirl getting shelved, and all of
Speaker 1: that looks kind of funky in the context of what
Speaker 1: appears to be the continued support for the Flash movie Yes,
Speaker 1: which is which costs upwards of two hundred and fifty million.
Speaker 3: Dollars for any kind of marketing, right.
Speaker 1: Has quote unquote tested well whatever, We don't know what
Speaker 1: that means, but apparently it's been testing. Well, that's fine,
Speaker 1: And stars Ezra Miller, who is in the midd literally
Speaker 1: in the midst of numerous legal problems and a spin
Speaker 1: out that.
Speaker 2: Is epic in scope.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just and has been, you know, basically a fugitive
Speaker 1: for the last several months. That said, a holly recent
Speaker 1: Hollywood Reporter article has a really really nuts sentence towards
Speaker 1: the final paragraphs quote. Miller participated in regularly scheduled additional
Speaker 1: photography over the summer, apparently without incident, before being charged
Speaker 1: with burglary?
Speaker 3: Was as Remiller not a fugitive? Were they not a
Speaker 3: fugitive at that point? From everything we know?
Speaker 1: So apparently, according to the authorities, Asra Miller has been
Speaker 1: housing a family of which includes a woman and her
Speaker 1: children who Ezra apparently met in Hawaii. And this person
Speaker 1: had been posting on social media from a location that,
Speaker 1: according to this Rolling Stone article, people have recognized as
Speaker 1: the interior of Ezra's house in Vermont.
Speaker 2: This was in July.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and people had even reported that they had been
Speaker 3: there and seen the family there, and there was even
Speaker 3: reports of babies being around, a lot of open weaponry,
Speaker 3: a one year old who had a bullet in their mouth.
Speaker 3: There's all kinds of almost its bad.
Speaker 2: It's very bad, and it's very bad and not good.
Speaker 3: Yes, And the thing that Jason was about to tell you,
Speaker 3: which is really a very worrying situation that had been
Speaker 3: going on for a while. Rolling Stone reported on it
Speaker 3: around a month ago, but this week the Vermont Child
Speaker 3: Services had been trying to serve a protection order for
Speaker 3: those children and that mother and Ezra Miller is now
Speaker 3: claiming they don't know where the family is, they haven't
Speaker 3: been living there, and that doesn't seem to align with
Speaker 3: the social media posts which have now stopped. It is
Speaker 3: an alarming situation for alarment. And even on the day
Speaker 3: of the Warner Brothers them highly anticipated, very buzzword heavy.
Speaker 3: I mean, Zaslav could have said synergy no more times.
Speaker 3: There was no more times you would have been able
Speaker 3: to say it in that core. On that very day,
Speaker 3: there was more reporting that came out about Ezra reportedly
Speaker 3: running a kind of flophouse cult in Iceland and taking
Speaker 3: in vulnerable people, taking in people struggling with addiction problems
Speaker 3: and treating them very badly, And this just doesn't seem
Speaker 3: to be going away and only seems to be escalating.
Speaker 3: And I still find it absolutely mind blowing that we're
Speaker 3: in a situation where there has been no statement from
Speaker 3: Warner Brothers on this other than the Flashes coming out.
Speaker 3: It's going to be out in June twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: I know that they say that, but it feels like
Speaker 1: it can't come out, That it can't.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: I know that we're saying that right now, and we're
Speaker 1: roasting Zavilavi and WB for the support of this, but
Speaker 1: there's legitimately no.
Speaker 2: Way I can happen.
Speaker 3: I thought maybe there was a world. I was having
Speaker 3: conversations people when the Bat Girl news came out, and
Speaker 3: I thought maybe there was a world that they were
Speaker 3: scrapping in inverted commas Batgirl to build it in to
Speaker 3: the Flash, to move the emphasis off of that version
Speaker 3: of the Flash, and to bring in more of this younger, new,
Speaker 3: more inclusive Justice League, which apparently that film was going
Speaker 3: to launch. But if they're going to follow the trend
Speaker 3: that recent reporting from tax filings revealed that Warner Brothers
Speaker 3: did take at eight hundred and twenty five million dollar
Speaker 3: right down on content that they canceled or didn't use.
Speaker 3: So if they're going to do that with Batgirl, which
Speaker 3: they have set a precedent for, then I don't think
Speaker 3: that they can use it in the Flash movie. So
Speaker 3: I'm just really I'm very confused about where this is,
Speaker 3: especially because the Batgirl cancelation news. I mean, DC Film's
Speaker 3: president Walter Harmada, who I am. I have to say,
Speaker 3: I just need to put this out there. I understand
Speaker 3: that it's very hard to look at any film franchise
Speaker 3: about Superos in the context of the MCU and look
Speaker 3: at it and be like, well, this is good, because
Speaker 3: really the MCU did something unprecedented. Warner Brothers, I'm just
Speaker 3: telling you this now. You will not be able to
Speaker 3: copy it. You already tried. So this is going to
Speaker 3: be a Dark Universe, Universal Monsters Justice League all over again,
Speaker 3: Like you can't replicate it. That was of a moment,
Speaker 3: of a mindset and of a despert oiration to get
Speaker 3: out of bankruptcy that created something absolutely incredible. And the
Speaker 3: thing that kind of blows my mind is I understand
Speaker 3: that it has been mismanaged, and the general overview does
Speaker 3: not support the kind of success that the MCU has had.
Speaker 3: But Aquaman made one point seven billion dollars and it
Speaker 3: was so great, and the new Suicide Squad movie was
Speaker 3: so great, and I absolutely loved Harlequin and Birds of Prey.
Speaker 3: I'm not a fan of Joker, but that really worked
Speaker 3: for a bunch of different people. I think that there
Speaker 3: is a world where if they wanted to make the
Speaker 3: most successful version of the DCEU or whatever it will
Speaker 3: be called from here on out, they need to still
Speaker 3: allow directors to have a full creative vision and to
Speaker 3: do experimental, weird, unexpected stuff. Aquaman is so different from
Speaker 3: anything else, and yeah, thos people think it's corny. I
Speaker 3: love It's one of my favorite movies. I love it
Speaker 3: so much in the world of the DC comics and stuff,
Speaker 3: and I think I would hate for them to lose
Speaker 3: what has made some of the movies so successful and
Speaker 3: so great. The Batman that is not a commercially viable
Speaker 3: movie in an MCU style situation, three hour long emo
Speaker 3: goth story about like a sad guy.
Speaker 1: I completely agree with you, and I'd go a step further.
Speaker 1: You know, whether Hamada steps down or not, who knows,
Speaker 1: but I think there and this is not This has
Speaker 1: been opened and many people have said this, and even
Speaker 1: Zavilav has alluded to it.
Speaker 2: They need a figure.
Speaker 3: That they've always needed, that they who can who can.
Speaker 1: Bring order to all of these kind of disparate stories.
Speaker 1: The strength of the MCU is that you can have
Speaker 1: a movie that is critically panned, right, that is not good.
Speaker 1: Throw the Dark World, the sequel to thor is, you know, arguably,
Speaker 1: and I think many would pick it as one of
Speaker 1: the worst, if not.
Speaker 3: If you're ranking them, is that the love right?
Speaker 2: But then what happened?
Speaker 1: But then what happens Ragnarok comes after that, it's one
Speaker 1: of the best, And all of that stuff ends up
Speaker 1: still mattering.
Speaker 2: All of the stuff from Dark World.
Speaker 1: Still impacts the overall world, the overall story, the overall storytelling,
Speaker 1: because all that stuff happened. If they can figure out
Speaker 1: how to tie all of these different tones and different
Speaker 1: colors and grimness and lightness together from all these different
Speaker 1: characters and textures, it will lift the entire agree Because
Speaker 1: even if something sucks, or even if it's like background,
Speaker 1: maybe it didn't test well, it doesn't look high quality
Speaker 1: of whatever, You've still got the fuel.
Speaker 2: For other stories, the fuel.
Speaker 1: For the lore of the world overall, that can use
Speaker 1: to make the entire DCEU feel textured and populated in
Speaker 1: a place, you know, vibrant with all these different characters.
Speaker 2: And that's really what kind of.
Speaker 1: Needs to happen, like and so, and I think that
Speaker 1: they will get there again. I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: a twenty years or when, but I just think that one,
Speaker 1: there's too much money at stake, and two, these properties
Speaker 1: are too iconic for them to never It's like at
Speaker 1: a certain point, it's like just by brute force, they
Speaker 1: will figure it out. But that's really what they need
Speaker 1: is someone to sit atop all of this to kind
Speaker 1: of draw all the lines so that they intersect at
Speaker 1: the same point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's the biggest question for comic book fans.
Speaker 3: I'm sure our listeners have thought about this, because even
Speaker 3: if you're not in the weeds on the business stuff,
Speaker 3: a lot of the business stuff for this is what
Speaker 3: gets us excited. Whether it's the comic book boom and
Speaker 3: bust that ended in the nineties, you know, whether it's
Speaker 3: the speculation market, whether it's how Marvel Studios was founded.
Speaker 3: But even if you're not really into that side of things,
Speaker 3: you know who Kevin Figy is. Everybody does. And I
Speaker 3: think the biggest question right now is who who can
Speaker 3: be the Kevin Feige for Warner Brothers. They can call us.
Speaker 3: I think we'd do it, Okay, Joe, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's a call. But I mean it's very hard. Figi
Speaker 3: had such a unique journey, and not only just the
Speaker 3: love of the comics, especially the eighties stuff, which I
Speaker 3: love because now he's really getting to dig into that,
Speaker 3: but he had a production history in making some of
Speaker 3: the first contemporary superhero movies. You know, he was so
Speaker 3: ready to be in that place and to take on
Speaker 3: that role. So I will be very interested to see
Speaker 3: who they can find. And I think they need to
Speaker 3: think outside the box. I think they need to find
Speaker 3: someone who has a vision and a way because the
Speaker 3: thing is, as we've said many times on this podcast,
Speaker 3: DC really is the multiverse trailblazer. So it's not even
Speaker 3: hard for them to find a way to tie this together.
Speaker 3: In fact, in that Holyrood Reporter article, very good article,
Speaker 3: they may mentioned that Harmada had kind of had this
Speaker 3: vision when they were going to put out three or
Speaker 3: four films a year to do a Crisis on Infinite Earth.
Speaker 3: So I think there is a big space to do that.
Speaker 3: I found it very interesting. Another thing that was on
Speaker 3: the call that not only did Zazav say they wanted
Speaker 3: to make a tenure plan, which we recently heard FIGI
Speaker 3: say they were doing over at Marvel, but he specifically
Speaker 3: said that it's a very similar to the structure Alan Horn,
Speaker 3: former DC CEO, Bobby get and Kevin Faige put together
Speaker 3: very effectively at Disney. We think we can build a
Speaker 3: much stronger sustainable growth business out of DC. As part
Speaker 3: of that, we're going to focus on quality. We're not
Speaker 3: going to release any film before it's ready. And then
Speaker 3: he said the iconic words that I'm sure will come
Speaker 3: back to buy him. D C is something we can
Speaker 3: make better as.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: We will say, you know, I have a We talked
Speaker 1: about this in our pre pre meeting, but I just
Speaker 1: want to put it out there. I think a kind
Speaker 1: of underrated part of the MCU's growth and how it
Speaker 1: managed to be what it is, which is the biggest,
Speaker 1: you know, movie UH dollar generator in the world, is
Speaker 1: the fact that when they started launching when they came
Speaker 1: up with the Iron Man, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the news started to break that, Oh, they're they're gonna
Speaker 1: they're gonna launch Hulk, they're gonna launch Captain America, they're
Speaker 1: gonna launch Thor, and they're gonna do the Avengers. The
Speaker 1: response was kind of like, who who the Like, we
Speaker 1: don't nobody.
Speaker 2: The response was basically, nobody cares about Thor. Yeah, Captain America, that's.
Speaker 3: Iron didn't even like back then explain that was a
Speaker 3: deep cut character.
Speaker 1: Yeah, these were thought of as like seed list characters,
Speaker 1: and I think that helped the MCU kind of sneak
Speaker 1: under the radar of expectations and take over, Whereas with DC,
Speaker 1: it's harder because it's like, fucking it's Superman, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like it's it's Superman. The Daddy of
Speaker 1: Superhero is the guy. It's fucking Batman, it's Wonder Woman.
Speaker 1: And I think any attempt to do something with those
Speaker 1: characters is just feel so fraught before you even start.
Speaker 1: And I think it's an underrated part of how the
Speaker 1: MCU was able to do it, because I think they
Speaker 1: were able to kind of sneak by everybody who didn't
Speaker 1: understand how cool these characters were.
Speaker 3: And I think you actually hit onto something that DC
Speaker 3: Films and TV has already someone that already knows that
Speaker 3: that's a part of it. But as we're going forward,
Speaker 3: if DC can recognize that they can do the same thing,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go back to Aquaman. That is a character
Speaker 3: barely anyone cares about. I love Aquaman, I love the
Speaker 3: campaigns and stuff, you know, but it's Ankleman, right, one
Speaker 3: point seven billion highest grossing DC Comics movie ever. Right.
Speaker 3: That is what you can do when you do something
Speaker 3: with a character that people are not too worried about.
Speaker 3: That is what you can do when you find a
Speaker 3: director like James One who has a vision for that character,
Speaker 3: a story they want to tell. So I think you're
Speaker 3: onto something. If DC Harlequin, now people do love her.
Speaker 3: She has become what they call the fourth pillar of
Speaker 3: the DC after Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman. But again,
Speaker 3: you can do something a little bit out there. You
Speaker 3: can do an raed TV show. You can play with
Speaker 3: the conception of who this is. It's why the Suicide
Speaker 3: Squad works so well. Poka dot Man. No one was
Speaker 3: out here like I need a Poka dot Man movie.
Speaker 3: But David Desmolshin made that character unbelievable and James Gunn
Speaker 3: bought its life in a way that somebody could find
Speaker 3: something really special in it. And same with Ratcatcher too.
Speaker 3: You know that the Taika Waitit t has the most
Speaker 3: unbelievable cameo in that movie. That's just everything, And I
Speaker 3: think that you've really hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 3: I love talking about that side of the MCU, about
Speaker 3: how I know you don't believe it, but once Captain
Speaker 3: America was not an A list character. You know, people
Speaker 3: don't know, but it's true, we don't remember that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but I think you've here. If DC can find a
Speaker 3: visionary who understands that Superman, Batman, the Justice League, that's
Speaker 3: something you work too. That's also I like, I loved
Speaker 3: the Batman movie, the recent one. You can let maybe
Speaker 3: let those three exist outside of your main world until
Speaker 3: you've got five ten years in. You can do all
Speaker 3: kinds of stories. You can tell all kinds you know,
Speaker 3: Blue Beetle that is apparently still on the cards for
Speaker 3: next year theatrical. Let's keep yeah, you know, Sauce Plastic
Speaker 3: Man like there's so many different weird atari r gool
Speaker 3: movie Like, there's so many different weird cool things and
Speaker 3: so many characters. You could do rogue movies. Joker did
Speaker 3: really well. You could do all different kinds of things.
Speaker 3: I think you hit the nail on the head. Let's
Speaker 3: leave Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Let's let them sit
Speaker 3: for a little while. Let's let them get that legendary status,
Speaker 3: and let's build a world that is something unexpected and
Speaker 3: that can go a little under the radar till it
Speaker 3: hits and becomes that, you know, fertile ground for something more.
Speaker 1: I remain on the record, they will eventually figure it out. Definitely,
Speaker 1: don't ask me when. And by the way, I just started.
Speaker 1: I've been reading Aquaman Andromeda on the Black label DC SQUA.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all right, ram V.
Speaker 1: And Christian Word really really great for the for those
Speaker 1: who are Aquaman curious.
Speaker 3: There's so many great Aquaman books. Kelly Sudiconic did a
Speaker 3: great Aquaman book recently. There's Yeah, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: fun to be had there. Yeah, you should check out
Speaker 3: Aquaman good stuff.
Speaker 1: Before we get into the airlock, I just want to
Speaker 1: announce that we're gonna We're gonna be running, or ask
Speaker 1: the Master House of the Dragon, say meant going forward,
Speaker 1: it's going to be coming up in coming weeks. If
Speaker 1: you have a question once, House of the Dragon starts
Speaker 1: rolling on August twenty first, Sunday, August twenty first. You
Speaker 1: have a question, what happened?
Speaker 2: What is this place? Who are these people?
Speaker 1: What's going on? Hit us at Askthemaster at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Ask Themaster at gmail dot com and we may answer
Speaker 1: your question on the air up next the airlock. With
Speaker 1: less than one hundred days until the midterms, it's safe
Speaker 1: to say midterm madness is setting, and right now you
Speaker 1: can find all new votes Save America merchant the Cricket Store.
Speaker 1: A portion of every single order on the Cricket Store
Speaker 1: goes to vote Riders, the leading organization focused on informing
Speaker 1: citizens of their state's voter idea requirements and helping them
Speaker 1: secure the documents they need to vote. So check out
Speaker 1: criocket dot com slash merch for the latest drop, then
Speaker 1: head to vote Save America dot com to find out
Speaker 1: how to get involved and do your part. In the
Speaker 1: lead up to this year's midterms, we're stepping out of
Speaker 1: the airlock and onto the Benattar to discuss the exploits
Speaker 1: Baby Groot, plus.
Speaker 2: The really really.
Speaker 1: Excellent addition to the Predator franchise, Pray. Let's start with
Speaker 1: I Am Groot, written and directed by Kirsten Lapour, incredibly
Speaker 1: talented animator partner of Daniel kwan Oh of Everything Everywhere,
Speaker 1: All at Once, Fame, Power Couple, Folks, Power Couple Folks,
Speaker 1: a voice acting by Vin Diesel. Of course, Bradley Cooper's
Speaker 1: rocket James Gunn makes a little cameo. It is five
Speaker 1: really really short vignettes for a total runtime of something
Speaker 1: like twenty something minutes, and let's just let me It
Speaker 1: basically tells the story of Groot after the events of
Speaker 1: the first Guardians of the Gas Galaxy. Grout has sacrificed
Speaker 1: himself to save his friends and has been reduced to
Speaker 1: nothing more than a twig. And then eventually that twig
Speaker 1: takes Root and what happens Then what happens before we
Speaker 1: catch up with Groot as a as a surly team
Speaker 1: in the events of Guardians of the Galaxy too. This
Speaker 1: is what happens. I Am Groot is what happens, and
Speaker 1: it's it's in almost like a like a stop motion
Speaker 1: style but not.
Speaker 2: And it is just really really wonderful, like really fun.
Speaker 3: It's such a showcase of animation. It is Disney reminding
Speaker 3: people that this is what their company was built on.
Speaker 3: Like it definitely harks back to that old era of
Speaker 3: Disney shorts that're so iconic now and I absolutely love
Speaker 3: to see that. I love to see experimental animation. I
Speaker 3: love to see anime is getting to have fun and
Speaker 3: push things to kind of the limit. And each episode
Speaker 3: has such a different visual texture and tone, but really
Speaker 3: don't feel the same. I mean grout. They all have
Speaker 3: really funny names. I didn't realize. I assumed it was
Speaker 3: like any show on Disney Plus where it's I Am
Speaker 3: Grout and then it's a series, but it's not. Each
Speaker 3: one is listed separately on Disney Plus. So when it
Speaker 3: came up on my Disney Plus, I thought that the
Speaker 3: whole show, because I have an English Disney Plus account,
Speaker 3: I thought that the whole show was called I Am
Speaker 3: Group the Little Guy, And I was like, what this
Speaker 3: is so cute. I was like, this is definitely some
Speaker 3: weird European thing, but that's just the name of the episode.
Speaker 3: But yeah, Grout takes a Bath. That was my favorite episode.
Speaker 2: Oh that's my favorite one.
Speaker 3: Great beautiful animation, looks gorgeous, so many funny physical comedy beats,
Speaker 3: like this is predominantly nonverbal, yes, storytelling. I think this
Speaker 3: is a great They've been doing this with like the
Speaker 3: Spark shorts and stuff. I think Disney plus this is
Speaker 3: a really great platform to bring short animation, unexpected animation,
Speaker 3: non linear narratives and stuff. I think this is a
Speaker 3: very cool way of using the platform, and it's something
Speaker 3: that not any really, no one else can do it.
Speaker 1: And to your point about like early Disney animation, like
Speaker 1: Steamboat kind of style that is there, Like there is
Speaker 1: this there is this weirdness, this wonderful strangeness that you
Speaker 1: see in a lot of that kind of like early
Speaker 1: twentieth century animation of just like strange things that all
Speaker 1: of a sudden are alive and acting in different ways.
Speaker 1: And you know, all of that tied together with this
Speaker 1: character you already know, Groot, it just is kind of
Speaker 1: magical and there's like a really childlike bit of wonder
Speaker 1: to it that translates because you're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: what what thing is going to start moving next? Like
Speaker 1: what is this flower going to be? And again it's
Speaker 1: not stop motion, but it's the textural and simple.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's influenced by and it something that I find
Speaker 3: really it's very like Silly Symphonies as those old a
Speaker 3: lot of the old Disney cartoons. I definitely had this
Speaker 3: moment because there was a big TikTok trend maybe a
Speaker 3: year or two years ago, which was the Silly Symphonies
Speaker 3: skeleton animation, which you know is like one hundred years
Speaker 3: old or something now, and I was when I was
Speaker 3: watching this show, I was just thinking, like I could
Speaker 3: definitely imagine in like a hundred years kids watching these
Speaker 3: as that kind of like, oh, look what animation was
Speaker 3: like back then. Also on a slightly more cynical but
Speaker 3: also just very clever level. I have to I have
Speaker 3: a niece and a nephew, actually have many, but I
Speaker 3: have two who are young, and they both predominantly watch
Speaker 3: YouTube and short animation and short videos. So I also
Speaker 3: just think this is a really interesting cyclical. Back then,
Speaker 3: it was short because of the nature of the business
Speaker 3: and how much you could animate and how much you
Speaker 3: could want to pay people to actually make an animation,
Speaker 3: so you could only do it for so long because
Speaker 3: of the technological developments at the time. Now that same
Speaker 3: format is actually the format of choice, especially for babies
Speaker 3: and little kids and stuff. So I can imagine that
Speaker 3: there's going to be a lot of parents who are
Speaker 3: going to be watching these five episodes a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you have kids, put them in front of
Speaker 1: yam group, they will absolutely love it.
Speaker 3: Up.
Speaker 1: Next, What a tone Switch? What a What a content switch?
Speaker 1: Prey on Hulu, directed by Dan Trachtenberg of ten Cloverfield Lane,
Speaker 1: starring Amber Midthunter as Nehru, Dakota Beavers as Tabe, Dan
Speaker 1: Di Liegro as the Predator. This is a Predator prequel.
Speaker 1: It is so seventeen nineteen, and a young Indigenous woman
Speaker 1: is kind of bucking the culture of her tribe in
Speaker 1: being an you know, wanting to hunt, being an active hunter.
Speaker 1: She recognizes that there is something out there in the
Speaker 1: woods that is not a bear, It is not French trappers,
Speaker 1: it is not a mountain lion. It's something else. And
Speaker 1: then she goes head to head with the Predator in an.
Speaker 2: Action packed story.
Speaker 1: Super This is such a surprise, like one of those
Speaker 1: really really fun surprises that you know, I was not
Speaker 1: sitting around going, oh, I can't you know a Predator movie.
Speaker 1: I can't wait for the next Predator movie. And it
Speaker 1: just kind of like snuck up and is great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really great. I was sitting around waiting for
Speaker 3: a Predator movie because I just absolutely love this franchise.
Speaker 3: But objectively, this is such a surprising, thoughtful, brilliant, stripped
Speaker 3: down way. It's not a requel, there's no original returning characters,
Speaker 3: it's not meta. It's just this absolutely stunning. The cinematography
Speaker 3: in this movie is just mined flowing for.
Speaker 1: You know, for a smaller budget, mid budget movie, you
Speaker 1: don't feel it at all.
Speaker 3: I wish i'd seen this. This is a classic situation,
Speaker 3: I think, especially because it's now. They released the numbers
Speaker 3: and this is who lose biggest launch for a movie ever.
Speaker 3: I think they're probably wishing they put this in the
Speaker 3: cinema now, I know.
Speaker 1: Until Miguel Wants to Fight by Chase Rano and Jason Sepsio,
Speaker 1: directed by Ozrodriguez some time it's twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Three, that's definitely gonna be the biggest. We're gonna make
Speaker 3: sure of it on this podcast. But like that, I
Speaker 3: would have loved to see that on the big screen.
Speaker 3: They did a limited for Beyondfested a couple of screenings
Speaker 3: that were free. I didn't manage to make it out,
Speaker 3: but it is so good, and I think something that's
Speaker 3: really great about it is it's very subtle and slow
Speaker 3: in its beginning. It has this really why a feel
Speaker 3: to it. I love the idea of kids and younger
Speaker 3: women watching this movie. It's very much this journey of growth,
Speaker 3: this journey of rebellion, but for all the right reasons.
Speaker 3: It's a slow story that lets you see the world
Speaker 3: of these Indigenous people and their community. Trachenbub was joined
Speaker 3: by Indigenous producer Jane Myers, who had a big role
Speaker 3: in making sure that the movie was authentic and showed
Speaker 3: real Indigenous life alongside the horror action of Prey. And
Speaker 3: there was a lot of work that was put in
Speaker 3: to make it feel authentic and real and not just
Speaker 3: be like, here's the predator in this space. Yeah. And
Speaker 3: also but when it kicks up and it gets to
Speaker 3: that action, it's just so good, which doesn't surprise me
Speaker 3: to talk because Dan Tracktenberg, I love ten Cloverfield Lane.
Speaker 3: It's so so good and it very much has that slow,
Speaker 3: mysterious journey before you get to that wild action and
Speaker 3: Dakota Beavera's and Amber mid Thunder are just so good.
Speaker 2: They're kind of revelations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's something about there's something really invigorating about a
Speaker 1: story about indigenous people in North America that is not
Speaker 1: a meditation on the horrible genocide.
Speaker 2: That was perpetrated against them.
Speaker 5: That is.
Speaker 1: People in their element, living at like the midst of
Speaker 1: their culture, amongst each other, amongst safety, amongst complete understanding
Speaker 1: about who they are. That part of it is really cool.
Speaker 1: And to do it as a genre movie, you know,
Speaker 1: with this kind of alien interloper that comes in just
Speaker 1: adds like so much spice to the stew. There are
Speaker 1: wonderful callbacks to the original Predator that fans of that
Speaker 1: movie will recognize, such as the moment that nauru Is
Speaker 1: falls into some quicksand and then pulls herself out. A
Speaker 1: bunch of moments like that. But this is really a
Speaker 1: movie that stands on its own in a really fascinating way,
Speaker 1: and it's a cool moment for indigenous storytelling, like kind
Speaker 1: of like writ large what with reservation dogs, other stories
Speaker 1: that are centering Indigenous characters. Amber Midthunter has been outspoken
Speaker 1: about you know that she doesn't take period pieces. She
Speaker 1: doesn't want to do that kind of the tragedy of
Speaker 1: what happened to indigenous people in North America. And man,
Speaker 1: this is a really really fun action, freaking action pat
Speaker 1: movie that takes a lot of surprising twist and turns
Speaker 1: for an action movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Amber mid Thunder's Naru is like, that's a
Speaker 3: final girl for the Ages because not only is the
Speaker 3: action great, and it's very much in the story. She
Speaker 3: already training to be a warrior. She has all these skills,
Speaker 3: but you get to these parts in the movie where
Speaker 3: her smarts and her wit and her planning are just
Speaker 3: so good. That is like you will literally be responding
Speaker 3: out loud because her planning is so smart and it's
Speaker 3: so quick, and it's very much in that horror movie
Speaker 3: tradition of smart the monster, whether it's Jason or Freddie
Speaker 3: or Michael Myers or whoever, or the predator, and this
Speaker 3: is the first time we've gotten to see that dynamic.
Speaker 3: Really Yeah, Alien Bus, Predta Sana, she outsmart at that,
Speaker 3: But that's different kind of movies. But this is this
Speaker 3: is so much fun to watch and the final act.
Speaker 3: I loved all the movie. I love the pacing, I
Speaker 3: love a slow burn, but that final act where you
Speaker 3: really get to see nuruin Tabe in this space with
Speaker 3: the predator, who, by the way, unbelievable predator design. It's
Speaker 3: a kind of really it's a different design. They actually
Speaker 3: managed to make the predator look scary with the mask off,
Speaker 3: which has never been done before. And yeah, I just
Speaker 3: I thought it was so much fun. If you love horror,
Speaker 3: I would say watch it if you also just love
Speaker 3: adventure movies. I have a very high tolerance for horror,
Speaker 3: so it might be a little bit gory for some people,
Speaker 3: but in general, I think this is like a really
Speaker 3: great adventure action movie that just happens to have a
Speaker 3: little bit of gory. Predator glad.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you mentioned the horror, because this movie does
Speaker 1: a thing that great horror movies, particularly great slasher movies,
Speaker 1: do really well, which is the monster at a certain
Speaker 1: point becomes like the sword of justice. Yes, our hero
Speaker 1: is absolutely at under threat from the predator, as is
Speaker 1: her beautiful dog sorry is absolutely like threatened by the
Speaker 1: predator at every turn.
Speaker 2: You're wondering, like, is she gonna make it out of this.
Speaker 2: But also like the assholes who.
Speaker 1: Don't think she can hunt, yeah, yeah, yeah, you pay
Speaker 1: the price, the French trappers who are abusing the land
Speaker 1: and don't know how to how to respect the land.
Speaker 1: In the same way the people who live here do
Speaker 1: and take Nauru captive and are indeed like torturing her
Speaker 1: to try and get her to help them hunt the presdtor.
Speaker 1: They will pay the price. Everybody who is, you know,
Speaker 1: morally out of line will pay the price. Is such
Speaker 1: a theme that I love about horror.
Speaker 3: But you know what I love about this that you
Speaker 3: make such a good point, as like in especially original
Speaker 3: eight slash of Horror, which is so much one of
Speaker 3: my just absolute biggest passions, that morality is very Christian
Speaker 3: and heteronormouy and repressive. But here that is subverted to
Speaker 3: be about the real morality. It's it's the colonizers, the
Speaker 3: people who are destroying the land, it's all these different
Speaker 3: it's the people who, like you said, couldn't believe it.
Speaker 3: It's the violent men who attack how there And in
Speaker 3: that way it becomes very cathartic.
Speaker 2: Yes, it does. Love this movie.
Speaker 1: If you haven't seen it, watch it now you can
Speaker 1: watch it on Hulu, and you can watch this. When
Speaker 1: you watch it on Hulu, you will have the option
Speaker 1: of watching this all in the Comanche dub version. Up next,
Speaker 1: Hive Mind with Justin helper Welcome to the Hive Mind,
Speaker 1: where we explore a topic and more detail with the
Speaker 1: help of expert guests. And this week we have a
Speaker 1: big time expert guest. We have Justin Halpern, co creator
Speaker 1: of the super super funny Harley Quinn.
Speaker 2: Justin, thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 5: Thank you for having me. I am very very excited
Speaker 5: to be here.
Speaker 1: Tell us about how did Harley Quinn begin as a project?
Speaker 1: How did this start?
Speaker 4: I wish I had like this really amazing story that
Speaker 4: is about, like, you know, creativity and its inception. But
Speaker 4: literally this starts in the most kind of sort of
Speaker 4: like bureaucratic, large company sort of way, which is that
Speaker 4: I was under an overall deal with my partner and
Speaker 4: an overall deal Warner Brothers, and an executive for Warner
Speaker 4: Brothers Susan Rogner, who's now the head of Universal, called
Speaker 4: us and said, hey, would you want to make an
Speaker 4: R rated Harley Quinn cartoon. We don't know what it
Speaker 4: would be about, but do you want to make it?
Speaker 4: We were at the time, we were like totally like
Speaker 4: in this. It was this is twenty sixteen, so we're
Speaker 4: like in this, like we've only been working in network
Speaker 4: TV right there isn't like a bazilion streamers.
Speaker 5: It's like everybody's like, oh, could we get a Netflix show?
Speaker 4: Like that was the only place, you know, And I
Speaker 4: was like, Wow, the chance to do like an R
Speaker 4: rated show when I'd only ever done like Vet.
Speaker 5: Dead for CBS, and like she.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh my god, yes, like please, Like
Speaker 4: it was like hearing the choppers come take me out
Speaker 4: of the prison camp.
Speaker 5: I was like, yes, we want to.
Speaker 4: Let we want to do this, and so they said, well,
Speaker 4: you got to come in and pitch it. Pitch your take,
Speaker 4: you know, because I think if they didn't like our take,
Speaker 4: they'd go to somebody else. And uh, you know, being
Speaker 4: a huge fan of sitcoms, my partner I were just like,
Speaker 4: let's do the Mary Tyler Moore Show but with Harley Quinn.
Speaker 5: That's the center of it. And that was kind of
Speaker 5: how it started.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that so much. I mean when post
Speaker 3: the pitch and kind of getting into the show, did you. Obviously,
Speaker 3: one of the biggest takeaways here, and one of the
Speaker 3: things people love so much about in an overarching sense,
Speaker 3: is that Holly and Ivy relationship. How early on was
Speaker 3: that a key part to your kind of long running
Speaker 3: plan for the show.
Speaker 4: It was always in our heads to Hander because Harley.
Speaker 4: Our feeling was Harley herself doesn't feel like she can
Speaker 4: be the like lead of a show without someone to
Speaker 4: bounce off of.
Speaker 5: So we looked at it.
Speaker 4: When we went into the pitch, we said, it's gonna
Speaker 4: be Ferris Bueller and Cameron Fry, and she's Ferris, She's Ferris,
Speaker 4: and Ivy is Cameron Fry, and we knew we wanted
Speaker 4: that to be the dynamic, and we listened to, like
Speaker 4: so many great actresses read for Ivy, and it wasn't
Speaker 4: really until we heard Lake Bell that We're like, that's
Speaker 4: our Cameron Fry right there, Like we want.
Speaker 5: That, and so we knew that that was the dynamic about.
Speaker 4: You know, it was these two friends who love each
Speaker 4: other dearly, who the world has sort of given up
Speaker 4: on in different ways, and they're sort of all each
Speaker 4: other has, and one of them realizes that which is
Speaker 4: Ivy and the other one doesn't. She thinks the world
Speaker 4: all like loves her, and so we always knew that
Speaker 4: was gonna be that dynamic. And then we knew we
Speaker 4: wanted to get them together, but we wanted to make
Speaker 4: sure the first season, which is like very much about
Speaker 4: Harley's like, you know, self discovery and of who she
Speaker 4: is outside of her relationship with the Joker, we were like,
Speaker 4: this is just you can't tell that story. She just
Speaker 4: immediately starts dating somebody else, especially her best friend, right after.
Speaker 4: And so we set our role for the first season
Speaker 4: was there's no Harley love stories. There's no dating with
Speaker 4: Harley in the first season.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Blake Bell. Can we talk for a moment
Speaker 1: about this cast. It's like not even a Murderers Row,
Speaker 1: It's like two and a half Murderers rose.
Speaker 2: From Kaylee Cuoco is Harley.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got Christopher Maloney delivering to us what
Speaker 1: I think is the best James Gordons, James going in
Speaker 1: DC questioningly volenteutic, playing multiple characters, notably Clay Face.
Speaker 2: We could go on and on.
Speaker 1: Michael Ironside for the old school eighties sci fi heads,
Speaker 1: Tom Hollander, Alfred Pennyworth, Jason, Alexander, Ron Fun just how
Speaker 1: did this all come together? Andy Daily Vis It's like
Speaker 1: you could just go on and on. It's actually insane
Speaker 1: to look at how did this cast come together?
Speaker 4: It feels insane to me too when we look at it,
Speaker 4: like I'm like, why don't all these people want to
Speaker 4: do this? I think it was this thing where Okay,
Speaker 4: so it's a couple of things, right, Like I've worked
Speaker 4: with actors my entire career, and there's something about being
Speaker 4: able to do when you're doing a vocal performance. It's
Speaker 4: like you come into a booth, you you're just like,
Speaker 4: you do not have hair and makeup, You do your ship,
Speaker 4: you have fun, and you're out. And so first that
Speaker 4: first layer of like oh am I really going to
Speaker 4: fucking sign up for this is.
Speaker 5: Kind of removed, right because they don't.
Speaker 4: Have to go anywhere. A lot of them can't even
Speaker 4: do it from their homes. So there that let layers removed.
Speaker 4: And then I think this is really sort of a
Speaker 4: testament to Kaylee and Lake was that after we got
Speaker 4: Kaylee and Lake to sign on, when you're pitching to somebody,
Speaker 4: you're like, hey, do you want to do the show?
Speaker 4: The leads are Kaylee Quoco and Lake Bell and then
Speaker 4: they're like, oh, well I'll read it then, where normally
Speaker 4: you're like they're like, well fuck off, you know, but
Speaker 4: Kaylee and Lake like brought this legitimacy to the project,
Speaker 4: and so we just kind of went on this run.
Speaker 4: We called it like our sort of like Vegas hot streak,
Speaker 4: where we'd be like, okay, now go out to June
Speaker 4: Carlos Posino, He's like, he said, yes, let's keep going.
Speaker 4: Let's keep going. Let's go out to Jason Zanders. He said, yes,
Speaker 4: let's do it. You know. So it kind of became
Speaker 4: this thing where it was also you know, we were
Speaker 4: trying we wanted every character in the show to be
Speaker 4: what we call like a home run hitter, where it's
Speaker 4: kind of like, because no actor wants to come and
Speaker 4: do the show, whether it's like they're always doing expository
Speaker 4: lines right like, it's like, well what do you mean
Speaker 4: by that, Steve, It's like nobody wants nobody wants to
Speaker 4: be that. But in this show, we were like, let's
Speaker 4: make it a point that everyone who comes on this
Speaker 4: show scores and they get to have fun and they
Speaker 4: get to be funny and they get to build this
Speaker 4: character with us. And also in animation there's not usually
Speaker 4: a lot of improv, but for our show, we were like,
Speaker 4: have fun in this booth, go crazy, you know, and
Speaker 4: people just don't usually get to do that in animation,
Speaker 4: and so it felt like this place where like, you know,
Speaker 4: John Carlos Azito gets to walk off the set of
Speaker 4: Better Call Saul, and then he gets to come and
Speaker 4: be Lex Luthor who's talking about shitting his pants and
Speaker 4: it's fun.
Speaker 3: That's truly. That sums up the magic of this show,
Speaker 3: like absolutely and something kind of talking to not only
Speaker 3: is it this you know two and a half Murders
Speaker 3: Rowse of incredible cost the amount of freedom that you
Speaker 3: have within the kind of harlequin Gotham world. How much
Speaker 3: fun is it? And has it been kind of dig
Speaker 3: really deep into everything you can go as deep cut
Speaker 3: as some weird you know, kite Man is a major
Speaker 3: part of this show before we even get to like cameos.
Speaker 3: And by the time this episode's out, episode five will
Speaker 3: be out. So you also have you know, swamp thing, Constantine,
Speaker 3: quart of Owls, Like you're getting to do a lot
Speaker 3: of really cool stuff. What's it been like to kind
Speaker 3: of dig really deep into that and utilize that cost
Speaker 3: to bring these DC characters to life in a way
Speaker 3: we definitely haven't seen before.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's been one of the coolest things about
Speaker 4: the show, right. It's like it's sort of like somebody
Speaker 4: like let you into their room that's filled with toys
Speaker 4: that normally they don't let anybody play with, where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: you have to brush my Barbie's hair this way, you know,
Speaker 4: and instead it's like, hey, have fun, do whatever you want.
Speaker 4: And I think part of the reason that that happened
Speaker 4: was because I think DC at the time in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 4: when this thing was coming about, DC had sort of
Speaker 4: they had that real stigma right of like we take
Speaker 4: ourselves super serious, we have no sense of humor, and
Speaker 4: we're not fun. It's like that was like the how
Speaker 4: the world was kind of like that. They had that stigma, right,
Speaker 4: and so when they came to us, they literally were like,
Speaker 4: that's not us, I swear, you know, like we're not
Speaker 4: those people like make a funny show and show people.
Speaker 4: We're not those people. And so DC really kind of
Speaker 4: like let us go. I mean, to their credit, like
Speaker 4: you know, I have no idea what it's like to
Speaker 4: work at Marvel.
Speaker 5: I've never worked at Marvel. I'm only work to d C.
Speaker 4: But what I can tell you about like DC is
Speaker 4: that they give you the rope to hang yourself, you know,
Speaker 4: and sometimes that that, you know, ends up allowing you
Speaker 4: to create something that you never would have gotten to
Speaker 4: create anywhere else. And so for us, it was like,
Speaker 4: oh man, it's awesome, Like we can just go through
Speaker 4: some of the you know, and we borrow from some
Speaker 4: of their big stories, like we didn't No Man's Land
Speaker 4: in our season first first seasons, you know, so it's
Speaker 4: like we really tried to like do a show that
Speaker 4: comic book heads would like, but also if you've never
Speaker 4: seen a comic before, he could enjoy the show.
Speaker 1: Were the takes on the characters kind of always there?
Speaker 1: I mentioned the wonderful Christopher Maloney is Jim Gordon, who begins,
Speaker 1: you know, is kind of this super super cracked out
Speaker 1: on caffeine like schlubby guy and has since evolved into
Speaker 1: like a kind of proto fascist who's like running for mayor.
Speaker 2: Were those takes always there or.
Speaker 1: Did it kind of evolve over time as the talent
Speaker 1: would come in and give voice to these characters.
Speaker 5: So some of them did, some of them didn't.
Speaker 4: We a lot every time anyone in the cast came in,
Speaker 4: they helped us build that character further. Like Chris Maloney
Speaker 4: was like, I mean we had said before him, we
Speaker 4: were like, look our Commissioner Gordon, if that person actually existed,
Speaker 4: he would have the most severe PTSD of any human being.
Speaker 4: A lot like there's no amount of therapy that would
Speaker 4: fix this broken man. And so telling that to Chris Maloney,
Speaker 4: He's like, great, and he could go to a dark place.
Speaker 4: And then in some cases, like with Baine James Adomian,
Speaker 4: we didn't know what kind of bane we wanted.
Speaker 5: We were listening to.
Speaker 4: Takes a Bane that were all over the map, and
Speaker 4: James Adomian came in and he was like the two
Speaker 4: things happened. James Domian came in and started doing his
Speaker 4: version of the Tom Hardy Baine, and I was like,
Speaker 4: this is this is because he was like this guy,
Speaker 4: if he actually talked like that, he would be like
Speaker 4: his whole life would have been ridiculed.
Speaker 5: And that's why he works out so much. Right, It's
Speaker 5: like beat a bullet.
Speaker 4: And then the other thing that had happened at the
Speaker 4: same time is when we were doing the character designed
Speaker 4: for Bane, we had a whole bunch of different characters signs.
Speaker 4: We talked to a character signer, this guy Shane Glins,
Speaker 4: who did like the original Batman the Animate series, like
Speaker 4: this amazing artist bruised him disciple and Shane drew this,
Speaker 4: He drew our Bane that we saw and I was like, Shane,
Speaker 4: this is really funny, like why did you choose that?
Speaker 5: And he was like, well to me, and is a
Speaker 5: guy who doesn't ever work out his legs.
Speaker 3: He always leg day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he doesn't do leg day because he just wants
Speaker 4: to look good up top. And I was like, fuck,
Speaker 4: that informs the character so much, like just hearing that thing.
Speaker 4: And so that character was built by Shane in us
Speaker 4: and James o'domian and you know, that was how that
Speaker 4: one was built. So so we try to kind of
Speaker 4: like come in with the take of who the character
Speaker 4: is and then let the actor kind of build from there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you you mentioned, you know, Batman the Animated Series,
Speaker 3: there's such a formative piece of art and creativity and
Speaker 3: TV show for so many of us. And obviously that's
Speaker 3: where Harley comes from what's it like to now be
Speaker 3: kind of redefining or reimagining who Harley is in this
Speaker 3: animation space, you know, decades later.
Speaker 4: I mean for me, it blew my mind because, like
Speaker 4: you know, we look at if you look at Batman
Speaker 4: animate series now, I don't think you can fully understand
Speaker 4: how insane in groundbreaking it was when it There was
Speaker 4: literally nothing like it on TV.
Speaker 5: Kids.
Speaker 4: Cartoons didn't look like that, they didn't tell stories that way.
Speaker 4: Nothing was like that made the animated series it completely
Speaker 4: broke the mold for animation for kids. That so for
Speaker 4: me as a kid watching it, I was like, this
Speaker 4: is unbelievable, Like I couldn't. I was just like they
Speaker 4: made this for me, Like I can't believe this, Like
Speaker 4: they don't think I'm stupid, they think I'm smart, you know,
Speaker 4: Like it was like a TV show believing in me
Speaker 4: that I could keep up with it as like a
Speaker 4: you know, nine, ten, eleven year old. So to be
Speaker 4: able to like build off of that in this show
Speaker 4: and to take hardly to a place that like you know,
Speaker 4: at the time we were doing it hadn't we don't
Speaker 4: be really taken her there yet it felt like being
Speaker 4: able to like realize things that I had kind of
Speaker 4: dreamed about as a kid. I mean, you just like
Speaker 4: so rarely get those opportunities in this business to like
Speaker 4: actually work with the things that inspired you. So it's
Speaker 4: been an unbelievable.
Speaker 5: Experience for me.
Speaker 1: You work on this alongside your writing partner Patrick, who
Speaker 1: together you also launched the critically acclaimed to abvid elementary
Speaker 1: Watch it now on ABC. How'd you to start working together?
Speaker 1: And what is that relationship? Like?
Speaker 5: Man, we took around. We've been together.
Speaker 4: I've been married for eleven years, but I've been married
Speaker 4: to my partner Patrick for twenty. Pat and I met
Speaker 4: we were interns at a band Apart Productions, which is
Speaker 4: Quinn Tarantino's production company.
Speaker 5: Yeah, in two thousand and one.
Speaker 4: We were working on commercials and music videos and band
Speaker 4: Apart was like the biggest commercial music video place they did.
Speaker 4: Pat I met right in the office when they were
Speaker 4: doing Instincts Bye Bye Bye video.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is unbelievable moment in time.
Speaker 4: Yes, I tried to steal shit off this like that
Speaker 4: they had brought back from set for the INSTNCT video
Speaker 4: so I could try to sell it somewhere else. So
Speaker 4: broke and so we met there and we became friends,
Speaker 4: and that was of how our partnership had started. And
Speaker 4: we you know, we probably didn't make any money writing
Speaker 4: until probably like eight or nine years later, but you know,
Speaker 4: that was that was how our partnership had started, how
Speaker 4: we met, and we've stayed.
Speaker 5: Partners ever since.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how does that kind of inform you talk about
Speaker 3: the original idea of Harley and Ivy as friends and
Speaker 3: that kind of symbioic friendship that evolves over time. Obviously
Speaker 3: not romantic with you and Patrick, but like, how does
Speaker 3: that inform this story about two friends that's so key
Speaker 3: and then getting to work alongside it with your friend
Speaker 3: and partner for so long.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 4: I feel like it's kind of like infused into the
Speaker 4: show a little bit of our dynamic, Like Pat is
Speaker 4: much more Ivy and I'm much more Harley in terms
Speaker 4: of like And what I find when I talked to
Speaker 4: fans of the show is that they'll say, I'm in
Speaker 4: a relationship.
Speaker 5: I'm the Harley, that's the Ivy.
Speaker 4: You know, It's like it is a pairing that kind
Speaker 4: of like exists in the real world, you know, different
Speaker 4: obviously not to the degrees it does in the show.
Speaker 4: But but you know, I think like it is something
Speaker 4: that comes out in our writing. A lot of times
Speaker 4: work into these stories about like two people who have
Speaker 4: a deep friendship but also drive each other fucking insane sometimes, you.
Speaker 5: Know, as Pat and I do.
Speaker 4: And I think that's always the thing I tell people
Speaker 4: are always like, oh, I'm thinking about getting into a
Speaker 4: writing partnership. I'm like, well, you should say that in
Speaker 4: the way that you would say I'm thinking about getting
Speaker 4: into a marriage. It's like, well, you've got to like
Speaker 4: get into those organically, because you have to be able
Speaker 4: to have, you know, really intense arguments and disagreements and
Speaker 4: still like love the other person and come back from
Speaker 4: those things. And if you can't do that, then that shit.
Speaker 5: Is going to fall apart.
Speaker 1: The relationship of Harley and Ivy's one that I think
Speaker 1: is deeply pro fans have you what's the feedback been, Like.
Speaker 4: It's and crazy. We went, like the people send us
Speaker 4: like tattoos they get of stupid jokes that we made
Speaker 4: in the show, Like we have this joke about we
Speaker 4: have this joke where Ivy orders a cop salad.
Speaker 5: To impress cat women. Yeah, and even though.
Speaker 4: She's vegan, and and she's like, we should get a
Speaker 4: word of the cops squad, we get cops alls together
Speaker 4: with the top squad. We should get tattoo, it says
Speaker 4: Cops Squad, Like it's a stupid joke, and then somebody
Speaker 4: got that tattoo and I was like, Okay, in real life,
Speaker 4: I'm like, this is the pinnacle of I think, you know,
Speaker 4: it's it's really like, uh, you know, I am a
Speaker 4: straight white dude, but I have heard a lot from
Speaker 4: the queer community that like this relationship being a like
Speaker 4: solid relationship between two people where we're not just kind
Speaker 4: of like having them break up and get back together
Speaker 4: and it's fallatile in that way has really meant a
Speaker 4: lot to them. And like we had somebody come up
Speaker 4: to us at Comic On this year and say like
Speaker 4: that this, you know, seeing this relationship finally like realized
Speaker 4: in the comic book world and not like hinted at
Speaker 4: or something like that was just like in a really
Speaker 4: emotionally moving thing for them that helped them kind of
Speaker 4: like do the same thing in their own life. And
Speaker 4: I'm like, fuck, I'm just making dick and far jokes
Speaker 4: like this. The fact that the fact that it did
Speaker 4: that is such a like an amazing thing to hear
Speaker 4: when you're just you know, and it makes you remember
Speaker 4: that like, oh right, like you make these things, but
Speaker 4: they have they have a life of their own as
Speaker 4: they go out into the world and like, let's put
Speaker 4: out shit into the world that we think is good,
Speaker 4: like you know, And I think that it's been really
Speaker 4: amazing to see the response to those two together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that kind of the dick and fart
Speaker 3: jokes thing is actually part of why it feels so profound,
Speaker 3: because it's like they get to be in a normal
Speaker 3: R rated adult comedy, but they yet to be queer.
Speaker 3: And I think like that and also, like you said,
Speaker 3: like for a long time that was implied then it
Speaker 3: became textraal, but really the show is the first place
Speaker 3: that gets to explore it in this kind of long
Speaker 3: form way. And something that I think is really cool
Speaker 3: that you know, you guys talked about a lot, is
Speaker 3: this notion of as long as you're running the show,
Speaker 3: Harley and Ivy aren't going to break up. It's not
Speaker 3: something you're interested in. But now that we're there and
Speaker 3: we're in that space, Honeymoon period's kind of over. What
Speaker 3: kind of challenges does that bring to you on a
Speaker 3: storytelling level?
Speaker 5: It's funny.
Speaker 4: I actually kind of like looked at it in a
Speaker 4: different way. I almost looked at it as a feature,
Speaker 4: not a bug. Like when we were telling stories. When
Speaker 4: we were telling stories when they were apart, and we
Speaker 4: couldn't tell romantic stories between the two of them because
Speaker 4: they hadn't gotten together yet. There were so many stories
Speaker 4: where I was like, ah, fuck, we can't tell this
Speaker 4: one yet because they're not together. And so as they're together,
Speaker 4: it brings up this opportunity to tell all these stories
Speaker 4: that we didn't get to tell the first two seasons
Speaker 4: because they work together, right, And it's like, to me,
Speaker 4: it felt like, oh, you know, like anytime you make
Speaker 4: a show with the will they won't they, the fear
Speaker 4: is that as soon as they do, the show sucks.
Speaker 5: You know, like it happens.
Speaker 4: It happens, right, If your whole show is built around
Speaker 4: will they won't they? And then they do a lot
Speaker 4: of times, your show is just like, oh, now they did,
Speaker 4: and they're a fucking boring couple.
Speaker 5: Can't stand up.
Speaker 4: And so I think for us it was like we
Speaker 4: kind of felt like, Hey, our show is not built
Speaker 4: around the will they won't they? So let's not put uh,
Speaker 4: let's not put that kind of pressure on the show,
Speaker 4: and instead, let's allow ourselves to tell, you know, the
Speaker 4: kind of stories you might tell on.
Speaker 5: Any show with two with you know, two people are together.
Speaker 1: Let's let's talk about the jokes for a second. I
Speaker 1: opined the other day on social media that that Harley
Speaker 1: Quinn has probably the highest joke per minute rate of
Speaker 1: a show currently on TV. I think people might quibble
Speaker 1: with that, but the jokes come fast and furious. What
Speaker 1: is the what's the philosophy there behind just absolutely spraying
Speaker 1: us down with jokes.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna tell you a secret.
Speaker 4: I think that it is built upon insecurity and self loathing.
Speaker 5: Uh Like, come on, because here's why.
Speaker 4: Because every time, like uh, I write a joke, or somebody,
Speaker 4: any good joke writer I think, writes a joke, they think, oh,
Speaker 4: this joke might be a total piece of shit, hacky joke.
Speaker 4: So if you write a thousand of them, then you're like,
Speaker 4: but if you hate that one, there'll be a different
Speaker 4: one coming up next. And if you hate that one,
Speaker 4: there'll be another one that comes up next, and if
Speaker 4: you hate that one, and so so on and so forth,
Speaker 4: and so really it sort of comes from, like, you know,
Speaker 4: like I think probably we all have like that friend
Speaker 4: who like literally is always making self deprecating jokes and
Speaker 4: too many jokes, and you're like, fuck, dude, just calm
Speaker 4: down a second and believe in yourself for one minute.
Speaker 4: And if and and but you know, in the writer's room,
Speaker 4: like you want, you always have that feeling of like, ah,
Speaker 4: but what if this one's not good? All right, let's
Speaker 4: write another one, you know. And I think that that's
Speaker 4: that's kind of where it was born from. And also
Speaker 4: just like the writers and Patrick and I like the
Speaker 4: shows that we loved growing up, like The Simpsons and
Speaker 4: Seinfeld and thirty Rock, Like those shows were all built
Speaker 4: on like a joke. Every two lines, you know, which
Speaker 4: is a joke is just happening, happening, happening, happening. And
Speaker 4: I love those challenges in joke writing. It's just like
Speaker 4: so fun to see something that really hits. And so
Speaker 4: that's kind of why we built it that way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean, I think that you will take
Speaker 3: such a brilliant takes such brilliant advantage of kind of
Speaker 3: the amount of good jokes there are to make about
Speaker 3: this stuff, like whether it is you're you know, like
Speaker 3: I've talked about this a lot. I actually talked to
Speaker 3: you about San Diego. So sorry for repeating myself, but
Speaker 3: I still I've watched the season. I think it's brilliant.
Speaker 3: I still can't get over like the Rube Goldberg machine
Speaker 3: death that introduces you know, we'll rap bat or batra
Speaker 3: rap Bruce Wayne, you know, things like that. Where So
Speaker 3: could you talk a little bit about how how much?
Speaker 3: Because I just imagine it's the most fun but kind
Speaker 3: of that building those many many jokes in, but also
Speaker 3: always bringing it back to that comic book place, because
Speaker 3: that's why the jokes are so good. It's like so
Speaker 3: many of them feel like jokes you just make with
Speaker 3: your friends if you read these comics.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean that's you know, it's funny.
Speaker 4: Like I would say, the makeup of our writer's room,
Speaker 4: it's probably half the people are hardcore comic book fans
Speaker 4: and half the people maybe don't even read them at all.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, And I think that.
Speaker 4: We wanted that kind of split because we we wanted
Speaker 4: to make sure the show wasn't too insular, It wasn't
Speaker 4: too inside inside baseball, and I think that, you know,
Speaker 4: so a lot of times what we do is like,
Speaker 4: you know, somebody's making and somebody pitches a joke, we
Speaker 4: talk about percentiles right of who's going to get it right,
Speaker 4: and we're like, is this ten percenter?
Speaker 5: Is this a forty percenter?
Speaker 4: And it becomes one of those things where I'm like,
Speaker 4: it's either got to be a sixty percenter.
Speaker 5: Up or it's got to be a one percenter.
Speaker 4: And because that one percent, And what I've found is that,
Speaker 4: like you know, especially with that sequence you were talking
Speaker 4: about right, which for those who haven't seen you, it's
Speaker 4: like the mayor is killed in this crazy way, the
Speaker 4: mayor of Gotham City is killed in this insane Roupe
Speaker 4: Goldberg kind of way. And during this killing, a rat
Speaker 4: family is a rat family that is dressed to go
Speaker 4: to a show, much like the waynes is. The parents
Speaker 4: are killed and the young rat holds up the mother's
Speaker 4: pearls like Bruce Wayne did when his parents, and we're
Speaker 4: seeing the origins of what would be this rat becoming batman,
Speaker 4: and I think that just became I remember in the
Speaker 4: moment we were talking about Batman, and we were like,
Speaker 4: how many fucking times are we going to see this
Speaker 4: man's parent stuff? How many times? And then I was like,
Speaker 4: you know what this is. We actually made it into
Speaker 4: an episode this season, coming up, episode eight, but we
Speaker 4: were like, let's kill this guy's fucking parents so many
Speaker 4: times this season.
Speaker 3: Then they never do it again that it's.
Speaker 4: Just that we've ruined it for everyone else, Like let's
Speaker 4: absolutely just beat the audience to death with the amount
Speaker 4: of times we kill Bruce Wayne's parents.
Speaker 5: And then we're gonna kill little rat Bruce Waite's parents.
Speaker 5: We're gonna anytime we.
Speaker 4: See Bruce Wayne's parents, we're gonna fucking kill them because
Speaker 4: we just want this to be this like oversaturated thing
Speaker 4: where we're kind of like poking fun.
Speaker 5: And again, to DC's credit, DC was like, do it.
Speaker 5: We love that rat.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, as a when you're just watching
Speaker 1: TV as a pure audience member and you see, you know,
Speaker 1: an episode is written by so and so, directed by
Speaker 1: so and so, maybe created by some other names, it
Speaker 1: might be hard to kind of like grasp all the
Speaker 1: hands that everything tell us, like what, you know, how collaborative.
Speaker 2: Harley Quinn is creating this show is Oh.
Speaker 5: My god, it's insanely collaborative.
Speaker 4: I mean, one of the things I point out is like,
Speaker 4: you know, we've gotten a lot of like goodwill about
Speaker 4: the queer relationship and the show, and I just want
Speaker 4: to be really clear that if it were left to
Speaker 4: be and Patrick, we would have fucked.
Speaker 5: Up the reship.
Speaker 3: I love accountability, love accountability, we.
Speaker 4: Would we would have done a bad version of that.
Speaker 4: And the reason that we didn't is because we had
Speaker 4: queer writers on the show who were like, this is
Speaker 4: your idea is bad. Here's a better way we should
Speaker 4: go with it, you know, And I think that that's
Speaker 4: the thing is like a lot of times you see
Speaker 4: the written by credit but where you see the showrunner
Speaker 4: or whoever, and it's like.
Speaker 5: But really, the thing is, it's like these things.
Speaker 4: Are built in a room with everybody's voice, right, and
Speaker 4: then you write an outline and it's everybody's chipping in jokes,
Speaker 4: everybody's throwing in story ideas. Everything is, you know, everybody's
Speaker 4: putting in stuff. And so by the time it gets
Speaker 4: to a script and then you just rewrite and people
Speaker 4: are putting in jokes and people putting in new stories.
Speaker 4: And people have different ideas and so it really is
Speaker 4: like I feel like, if you're in a good writer's room,
Speaker 4: you have a lot of different voices who all come
Speaker 4: from different perspectives, all helping like build this thing together
Speaker 4: in the best way that can build. And that's why
Speaker 4: you can have a show that, if left to the
Speaker 4: two dudes who you know ran it, it would have
Speaker 4: had a shitty love story that was probably not at
Speaker 4: all what people wanted to see at the core center
Speaker 4: of it. But instead we're able to kind of like
Speaker 4: get it to a place that feels like it hits
Speaker 4: it because there's so many different people that are helping
Speaker 4: make the show where it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that is so much more, even kind of
Speaker 3: expanded in this case of animation, where you also then
Speaker 3: have everybody who's animating it and it's life. Like I
Speaker 3: make comics, and one of the best feelings in the
Speaker 3: world as a writer who is terrible at art is
Speaker 3: to get back those pages and see somebody bringing those
Speaker 3: stories to life in a visual way that I could
Speaker 3: never do. So how does it feel, after the first
Speaker 3: part of that collaboration to then sit down and see
Speaker 3: these jokes and these characters and these kind of archetypal
Speaker 3: figures who inspired you in that format then come to
Speaker 3: life in animation. What's that like?
Speaker 4: I mean this my favorite thing is like a lot
Speaker 4: of the animators who work on our show. Previous to this,
Speaker 4: they worked on like kids' shows. But a secret thing,
Speaker 4: a secret a secret thing about animators is they are
Speaker 4: so fucked up there. They have the most twisted minds
Speaker 4: of any human beings I've ever seen.
Speaker 5: And so when you actually it's like when you take
Speaker 5: an animator who.
Speaker 4: Has been working on like Pepper Pig or like you know,
Speaker 4: Unikitty for six years and you free them and allow
Speaker 4: them to be there like really twistedself, then you start
Speaker 4: geting stuff that is just like unbelievably.
Speaker 5: Our team le Jeffer.
Speaker 4: Coyle, Sessieronovich, the all, all of our directors like the
Speaker 4: there their team just goes for it, you know.
Speaker 5: Like we have that in season.
Speaker 4: In the fourth episode of this season, there's an orgy
Speaker 4: happening at the Court of Owels, right, And there was
Speaker 4: like a couple of times in the script where we
Speaker 4: like specified what was happening in the background, but mostly
Speaker 4: we put there's disgusting fucking happening in the background and
Speaker 4: a lot of weird squishy sounds was like kind of
Speaker 4: what we said, right, and we realized after we got
Speaker 4: back the first bortomatic of the show, the animators, the
Speaker 4: like disgusting ship that was in the background of that
Speaker 4: episode was so vile and so like just like so
Speaker 4: discussed the sex acts that were in it were so
Speaker 4: upsetting that like we were like, wow, you can't you
Speaker 4: can never again stated animator like people are fucking in
Speaker 4: weird ways in the background because they.
Speaker 5: So they bring with it. I wish you guys could
Speaker 5: have seen the very first got that.
Speaker 4: Even even hwo Max was like absolutely not.
Speaker 3: I love that they bought that because it's that episode
Speaker 3: is so it's so eyes wide shot. So I'm glad
Speaker 3: that they bought that nefariousness to it, even if we
Speaker 3: didn't get to see it.
Speaker 4: Yes, there's the animation team. I mean, they bring so
Speaker 4: much to it. They add so many jokes too, like
Speaker 4: things you'd never that are not the script at all,
Speaker 4: are just like you know, put in in later on
Speaker 4: in animation because the animators just love having this like
Speaker 4: sort of like playpen where they can do what they want.
Speaker 1: You're running for the board of the WGA, the Writers' Union,
Speaker 1: and you've been really vocal about getting animation workers animators.
Speaker 2: Rights under the union. Walk us through that that argument.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So you know, it's funny.
Speaker 4: I have two We have you know, Harley, and then
Speaker 4: we have now this spin off of Harley, this Guide
Speaker 4: Mann you know show, and both those shows are not
Speaker 4: Writers Guild shows.
Speaker 5: And that is a.
Speaker 4: That is a function of the fact that I was
Speaker 4: incredibly naive when I came into the negotiations for these
Speaker 4: shows when we sold them. We came in and we
Speaker 4: we sold these shows, and we said, hey, we're Writers
Speaker 4: Guild members, so they're going to be writers skilled shows.
Speaker 4: And Warner Brothers, you know, the executors we were dealing
Speaker 4: with Warner Brothers were like, well, we'll run it up
Speaker 4: the flag bowl. We'll see because they had never done
Speaker 4: a primetime animated show before Warner Brothers Animation had never
Speaker 4: done it.
Speaker 5: They'd only done kids animation. It wasn't like Fox.
Speaker 4: And when we were like three months into our our
Speaker 4: development of the show, they were like, hey, and we're
Speaker 4: down the road. We've hired you know, we're starting to
Speaker 4: hire people. They're like, we can't. We have to do
Speaker 4: the SCIATZI, which is the Animation Guild, right, which just
Speaker 4: the animation Guild. Great guild for animators, terrible guild for
Speaker 4: writers because the minimums that they pay writers, the script
Speaker 4: fees that they pay writers, everything is treated like it's
Speaker 4: nineteen forty five. And while at Disney's screaming at them,
Speaker 4: you know, fuck you, you have no rights, You're a
Speaker 4: fucking pieces. Yet you know, it's like, that's how that's
Speaker 4: how writers are treated. I believe, and I think that
Speaker 4: Writers Guild needs to be covering that, right. But the
Speaker 4: only way we can make that happen with the studios
Speaker 4: is because it's so much cheaper for a studio to
Speaker 4: make a show IATZI because it means it means they
Speaker 4: can pay everyone on the writing side way.
Speaker 5: Way way way way less. Right.
Speaker 4: So the only way we're going to get all these
Speaker 4: studios to flip is if we, as an entire union
Speaker 4: collectively say we're no longer going forward, We're no longer
Speaker 4: going to create new shows that are animated that are
Speaker 4: not covered to our writers. Our writers are not covered
Speaker 4: under the guild. The animators can be covered under ass
Speaker 4: it's totally fine, yeah, but for our writers, they need
Speaker 4: to be taken care of by a writer's guilt. It
Speaker 4: is a guild for writers.
Speaker 1: Justin thanks so much for coming on and talking to
Speaker 1: us about everything you're doing. And Harley Quinn please come
Speaker 1: back again.
Speaker 5: Wow, thank you, thank you so much for having Rosie.
Speaker 5: I knew I saw you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was like, but I was like,
Speaker 3: I have to ask about that game because I listeners
Speaker 3: need to hear you explain it because it's like so good.
Speaker 3: It's what I also love. I deeply love swamp Thing
Speaker 3: and Constantine. So I was feeling very pandid too in
Speaker 3: episode five.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I was.
Speaker 4: I was worried about that a little bit because it's
Speaker 4: such a different Sam Richardson voice the swamping.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's so good, he's great.
Speaker 4: And it's such a different version of swamp Thing than
Speaker 4: we have seen before.
Speaker 3: No sexy boyfriend swamp Thing. You're going to be getting
Speaker 3: a lot of fan art for that one. Oh my god,
Speaker 3: I'm questioned, man, Bun swamp Thing. I gonna love it.
Speaker 4: If I could just tell you one quick story about
Speaker 4: yes please Okay. So I didn't realize when we did
Speaker 4: the show the level of fan art I was going
Speaker 4: to receive sent to me on Twitter on a daily basis,
Speaker 4: and to the point, so so to the point I've
Speaker 4: gotten the craziest shit sent to me, to the point
Speaker 4: where I found out that sharks have two dicks because
Speaker 4: of a fan art that was sent to me where
Speaker 4: it's King Somebody's drooped. They were like, hey, love your show,
Speaker 4: and then they drew a picture of King Shark in
Speaker 4: a straight jacket with wire wrapped around his balls and
Speaker 4: his two erect penises shooting out, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: I what this is insane. But also this is how
Speaker 4: I learned that sharks have two penises.
Speaker 5: I guess this is coming from this.
Speaker 4: Like the fan art is so nuts and so crazy
Speaker 4: and the weird it is the more I love it.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it's I'm hoping to get some good swamp
Speaker 4: thing din.
Speaker 1: Art justin thank you, thank you again, and thank you
Speaker 1: for giving us the two dick story.
Speaker 3: Well it's the story we need.
Speaker 5: Thank you guys for having me.
Speaker 1: Huge thanks to Justin Halpern, and of course to the
Speaker 1: great Rosie Knight for being here with us on X
Speaker 1: Ray Vision, Rosie.
Speaker 2: What have You Plug?
Speaker 3: You can find me on Rosie Marx, on Instagram and
Speaker 3: letterbox where I am this year updating every movie I watch,
Speaker 3: including lots of bad movies, so you can follow me
Speaker 3: there and judge my movie taste. You will be able
Speaker 3: to find articles about many of the things that we've
Speaker 3: talked about. I wrote an article I'm very proud of
Speaker 3: recently in regards to another horror movie we haven't talked about,
Speaker 3: which is Nope. So if you watched Nope and you
Speaker 3: are wondering if there's really an alien invasion themed electronic
Speaker 3: store in Burbank, I wrote an article about it. It
Speaker 3: was real, Rip Fries, I love you. Yeah, you can
Speaker 3: find me ign Den of Geek, Polygon, all those kinds
Speaker 3: of places. You can still go to a local comic
Speaker 3: shop and see if they have a copy of Godzilla
Speaker 3: Rivals Versus Batchrup. Some places are selling out. That's been
Speaker 3: a nice surprise. Want to give a big shout out
Speaker 3: to Secret Headquarters. They did such a brilliant job facilitate
Speaker 3: in giving away copies of the comic. They are out now.
Speaker 3: You guys really showed up, So thank you for that.
Speaker 3: And yeah here obviously every week with.
Speaker 1: The additionally, we have ten yes, we have ten issues
Speaker 1: of Godzilliversus Batcheler to give away.
Speaker 2: Hit us at x ray at crooked dot com.
Speaker 1: Tell us why you would love to read this issue.
Speaker 1: Hit us with your address as well your emailing address,
Speaker 1: and the first ten respondents can get a free issue
Speaker 1: of Godzilver's Batra by the wonderful Rosie Night and Oliver.
Speaker 2: X ray Vision is a new home.
Speaker 1: The Takeline, YouTube and Twitter channels are now dedicated to
Speaker 1: all things xtra Vision. So go check out at Xrvpod
Speaker 1: on Twitter and x ray Vision on YouTube. Plus, we
Speaker 1: have an x ray Vision discord. You can find the
Speaker 1: link in the show notes. Our next episode will be
Speaker 1: on August nineteenth. Remember, send your House of the Dragon
Speaker 1: queries to Askthemaster at gmail dot com. And the five
Speaker 1: star reviews, we gotta have them, we love them, we
Speaker 1: need them. If you're going to leave a review, please
Speaker 1: leave us a five star review, and starting now, if
Speaker 1: you leave us a five star review, send us the
Speaker 1: text of that review at our email address x ray
Speaker 1: atcrookad dot com and we will read your five star
Speaker 1: review on the air.
Speaker 2: X ray Vision is a Crooked Media production.
Speaker 1: The show is produced by Chris Lordensaulrubin the show is
Speaker 1: executive produced by myself and Sandy Gerhard are editing and
Speaker 1: sound design. News by Vascillias Phatopoulos. Dylon Villanueva and Matt
Speaker 1: Degroup provide video production support. Alex Rellaford handle social media.
Speaker 1: Thank you Brian Vasquez for O theme music.
Speaker 2: See you next time.