Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast in
Speaker 1: which we speak with some of the brightest minds working
Speaker 1: in the media business today. I'm Andrew Wallenstein with Variety.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of skibbety toilet? If you're a card
Speaker 1: carrying member of Generation Alpha, of course you have. But
Speaker 1: to anyone older, that absurd sounding phrase may mean absolutely nothing. Well,
Speaker 1: get ready for that to change. This strange internet phenomenon
Speaker 1: is about to go mainstream if everything goes according to
Speaker 1: the best laid plans of my next guest, who knows
Speaker 1: a thing or two about building big franchises. He's Adam Goodman,
Speaker 1: a film industry veteran who has shepherded intellectual property like
Speaker 1: The Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to global success.
Speaker 1: Skibbety toilet presents him a whole different challenge, which we'll
Speaker 1: talk to him about right after this, and we're back
Speaker 1: with Adam Goodman, co founder of Invisible Narratives, a company
Speaker 1: that melds the best practices of the creator economy with
Speaker 1: traditional entertainment, which he knows well from his days at
Speaker 1: Top Jobs, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks. SKG. Thanks for coming in, Adam.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. So, you know,
Speaker 1: because the median age of Mike podcast is probably slightly
Speaker 1: higher than fourteen years old, we got to do some
Speaker 1: level setting on Skimbity Toilet. We got to explain this
Speaker 1: phenomenon before we get into your best laid plans. As
Speaker 1: I said, what is this ip?
Speaker 2: Skimmity Toilet is IP, and that's the best way to
Speaker 2: describe it. It started as a meme. Our creator. We
Speaker 2: have a visionary creator, a filmmaker named Boom, and Boom
Speaker 2: was making for many years Transformers pre Viz videos that
Speaker 2: he was posting to his YouTube account and he was
Speaker 2: encouraged to start posting something original of his own, and
Speaker 2: he started with this crazy, wild, very random meme that
Speaker 2: really started with a viral song and a guy whose
Speaker 2: head popped out of a toilet. This was February of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. Boom had about a million subscribers on
Speaker 2: his channel. Cut to June of twenty twenty four, and
Speaker 2: we're looking at almost forty three million subscribers on this
Speaker 2: franchise right now. So it started as a really wacky, crazy,
Speaker 2: fun inspired thing and is now turned into something that
Speaker 2: has episodes and lore and Cliffhangers and about twenty other
Speaker 2: channels that are making daily content in the skibbity toilet multiverse.
Speaker 1: Now that's a great here, but we've got to unpack
Speaker 1: this on a number of fronts. First of all, when
Speaker 1: you're talking about forty three million subscribers, you know, at
Speaker 1: our Variety Intelligence Platform unit, we did some number crunching.
Speaker 1: We looked at the data. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: forty three million subscribers, we're talking about seventeen billion views.
Speaker 1: That's like second only to mister Beast. I think it's
Speaker 1: like quadruple what Marvel is doing. I mean from a
Speaker 1: data perspective, we're talking about elite at least on YouTube,
Speaker 1: and we're also talking about this is something that's a
Speaker 1: gaming phenomenon. This is top of the level.
Speaker 2: Of what you can expect from a digital creator, right,
Speaker 2: So this is unprecedented. I mean, you can't plan for this.
Speaker 2: The fact of the matter is years ago I worked
Speaker 2: on a cartoon about a sponge named Bob, and if
Speaker 2: somebody had pitched me that idea, I obviously didn't create SpongeBob,
Speaker 2: but I was lucky enough to work on it. I
Speaker 2: would have thought that was a crazy sill the idea
Speaker 2: or turtles that were mutants and ninjas and teenagers. So
Speaker 2: these things when you see them, they don't make sense
Speaker 2: until you do see them, and then when you squint,
Speaker 2: the whole world sort of opens.
Speaker 1: Up to you. Also, what's remarkable is, you know you
Speaker 1: referred to this as a meme and in the beginning
Speaker 1: at least, and you know, memes come and go, and
Speaker 1: at first, this thing, you know, I'm gonna actually have
Speaker 1: our podcast listeners take a listen to this audio. And
Speaker 1: I do this with some hesitation, because, dear listeners, once
Speaker 1: I play this, this may this may destroy your brain
Speaker 1: and never leave your head ever again. But with that warning,
Speaker 1: take a listen.
Speaker 3: What is going on on stimyt, what is going on on.
Speaker 1: St okay For those with functioning brains, Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the podcast. You know memes Hawk to a Girl is
Speaker 1: a meme, right, but this is like this meme became
Speaker 1: a dense, mythologically driven series. This is like Hawk to
Speaker 1: a Girl turned into like a six season HBO series.
Speaker 1: How on Earth did what was once a silly song
Speaker 1: becomes something that is so much richer and taken very
Speaker 1: very seriously among its fan base. Well, it starts with
Speaker 1: our creator.
Speaker 2: Boom is someone who is a massive student of cinema
Speaker 2: and television and animation and franchise, and we encouraged him,
Speaker 2: and the encouragement comes from his, you know, massive, massive
Speaker 2: audience to tell stories and to look at this as
Speaker 2: though he's building something that could be the next Transformers
Speaker 2: or could be a Marvel's universe. There are so many
Speaker 2: channels that started doing this, and initially it was referred
Speaker 2: to as brain rot and a lot of kids kind
Speaker 2: of looked at this, and there's a real kind of
Speaker 2: separation in dichotomy between those who get it and those
Speaker 2: who have turned off on it. And our mission has
Speaker 2: been to convert the unconverted, to really kind of surprise
Speaker 2: them and to defy and to subvert their expectations that
Speaker 2: they're storytelling. And there's characters and there's myth, and there's law,
Speaker 2: and there's a building blocks to a massive business that's
Speaker 2: being put in place here, all laid on the foundation
Speaker 2: of storytelling, and we really have just started to scratch
Speaker 2: the surface of it. Where this franchise goes is nobody's
Speaker 2: this guy's the limit for it at this point, but
Speaker 2: we believe it could be something that's generational and that's
Speaker 2: what's so excited amount it.
Speaker 1: And yet at the same time that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: convey that people take this, the fans, young fans take
Speaker 1: this deeply seriously, Like I still have to convey how
Speaker 1: deeply absurd the animation is. I mean, on the one hand,
Speaker 1: you have like a alien race with toilets for bodies
Speaker 1: with heads coming out of them, fighting a race with
Speaker 1: you know, TVs and cameras and speakers for heads, these
Speaker 1: you know, dueling sets of appliances, and a violent war
Speaker 1: for I don't know, shelf space at cost go. I
Speaker 1: don't know what they're fighting about. It's completely absurd. So
Speaker 1: you know you have been around IP of all kinds.
Speaker 1: What is it about this that is resonating because I
Speaker 1: have no idea.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's hard to know exactly. And I'm
Speaker 2: not going to sit here and tell you that I
Speaker 2: am the key demo for this, or or or I
Speaker 2: built this by design. My business partner in this venture
Speaker 2: is Boom, the creator and the filmmaker Michael Bay. We've
Speaker 2: heard of him, and years ago, when I was at DreamWorks,
Speaker 2: we bought the rights to Transformers, and everybody thought that
Speaker 2: that was a really silly idea to make a movie
Speaker 2: about a toy from the eighties. In fact, I think
Speaker 2: there were articles that came out that said, what's next
Speaker 2: a movie about Legos, which turned out Okay. I think
Speaker 2: this is the same kind of thing. I think if
Speaker 2: you look at this and you try to and you
Speaker 2: try to assess this through our point of view, it
Speaker 2: doesn't make any sense when you look at it through
Speaker 2: the lens of something that's fresh, that resonates with an
Speaker 2: audience that's not built on your parents or your grandparents' ip.
Speaker 2: This is something that Jen Alfa feels like they found.
Speaker 2: They discovered, it's something that they take a lot.
Speaker 1: Of ownership in.
Speaker 2: And for us, we look at this and we say, okay,
Speaker 2: if you squint, yes, there's a toilet in it. But
Speaker 2: the reality is is that what do we spend more
Speaker 2: time looking at television's cameras? Toilets we don't look at,
Speaker 2: but we obviously have our interaction with them. So these
Speaker 2: are things that we are interacting with on an every
Speaker 2: single day basis. The fact that the creator has turned
Speaker 2: these into kind of mechanized warriors is something that is
Speaker 2: just awesome and you've never seen it before, and that's
Speaker 2: what makes it so great. And it's weird and peculiar
Speaker 2: and it's fresh, and they get it and we don't,
Speaker 2: and that's what makes it super cool.
Speaker 1: So you keep mentioning Boom, we should mention Boom's real
Speaker 1: name is Alexi Jersimov. He is from Georgia, that is
Speaker 1: the from overseas, Georgia, not Atlanta, Georgia. Twenty six years old.
Speaker 1: How did you get to him?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: Who is?
Speaker 1: He had talk to me about the process of, you know,
Speaker 1: hooking up with this guy.
Speaker 2: He's an animator. He works on an animation platform that
Speaker 2: is very primitive actually compared to unreal owned some of
Speaker 2: the engines that other animators are working on.
Speaker 1: But he's a beast.
Speaker 2: This kid can imagine things and execute on things on
Speaker 2: a level that is unheard of before. He is doing
Speaker 2: shots that make Michael's headspin. Michael and he have a
Speaker 2: terrific collaboration and work very closely with each other, talking
Speaker 2: about episodes, talking about art, talking about action, talking about
Speaker 2: sound design, talking about where this franchise goes. Wow, He's
Speaker 2: very capable to hold his own in conversation with Michael,
Speaker 2: and then some and Michael and I are students to him.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're not trying to go in and teach
Speaker 2: him what the movie business is. This is a whole
Speaker 2: new medium for us as well, and we're really trying
Speaker 2: to define what I always refer to as our tradigital strategy,
Speaker 2: which is taking the best of traditional in terms of
Speaker 2: the business practices which have all been but perfected over
Speaker 2: one hundred and some years of filmmaking, but the nimbleness
Speaker 2: of UGC and the opportunity for a filmmaker or a
Speaker 2: designer or an animator like him to make something, to
Speaker 2: post it to an audience, to get an immediate feedback
Speaker 2: loop from that audience to know what's working, and even
Speaker 2: more interesting, allowing that IP to be shared and so
Speaker 2: that other creators can take advantage of it. And that's
Speaker 2: one of the things that is really different than anything
Speaker 2: that we've worked with before. Typically, we issue takedowns and
Speaker 2: we're ready to, you know, kind of make sure that
Speaker 2: nobody is messing with something that we know that we
Speaker 2: want to control. In this case, we've taken a very
Speaker 2: different approach to this. We want creators to play with
Speaker 2: our IP. We want to make sure that people are
Speaker 2: doing things obviously within reason, so long as it kind
Speaker 2: of follows a certain guideline for us. But it is
Speaker 2: something that we believe is kind of the internets, and
Speaker 2: we want to make sure that people have the ability
Speaker 2: to play with that and to enjoy it, which is
Speaker 2: what it's really exciting.
Speaker 1: So talk about that change in approach, because I mean,
Speaker 1: that is very counter to the way it used to be,
Speaker 1: and there does seem to be a lot of copycatting
Speaker 1: out there. Aren't you afraid to let this lose complete control,
Speaker 1: especially in the age of AI where this could really
Speaker 1: get out of control.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean, look, there's thankfully we have great
Speaker 2: protections in terms of copyrights and trademarks, which gives us
Speaker 2: a lot of you know, a lot of leverage in
Speaker 2: terms of who we allow to work on this property
Speaker 2: and who we don't. There are probably about twenty channels
Speaker 2: that are doing really quality episodes of skivity toilet channels
Speaker 2: on YouTube, channels on YouTube, and of those, there may
Speaker 2: be even like sixty or seventy that are doing less
Speaker 2: frequent updates and content. The less frequent we're fine with.
Speaker 2: We don't, you know, we don't really pay attention to
Speaker 2: we celebrate them. But the twenty that are doing really
Speaker 2: credible content, we consider them part of our alliance. It's
Speaker 2: the toilets versus the alliance. The alliance are the good guys,
Speaker 2: and the alliance is what we're building into this network
Speaker 2: of other channels that are making content for us. Boom
Speaker 2: is able to look at those scripts beforehand. Boom is
Speaker 2: able to address any creative concerns to make sure it's
Speaker 2: following the same kind of narrative that we're looking after.
Speaker 2: But we want to help those channels. We want to
Speaker 2: help those channels build, and we want to help those
Speaker 2: channels be able to continue doing what we're doing because
Speaker 2: he can't post every single day and YouTube. The algorithm posts,
Speaker 2: you know, and the more people that are posting, the
Speaker 2: more that it helps, the discovery for it, the more
Speaker 2: people that are introduced to it, and so that alliance
Speaker 2: is something that we've been building. Again, it's super counterintuitive
Speaker 2: to anything I've been involved with before, but it's been
Speaker 2: working because we're living in a world where the content
Speaker 2: is now free, So it's all the other businesses that
Speaker 2: we're able to monetize around it. So knowing that the
Speaker 2: content is free, the business is around it for whether
Speaker 2: it's roadblocks or consumer products or life lissing. Those are
Speaker 2: businesses that we're really trying to encourage to, you know,
Speaker 2: to make sure that that content is serving up those
Speaker 2: other businesses.
Speaker 1: Well, now let's talk about those other businesses, because I
Speaker 1: think what got a lot of people's eyebrows up was
Speaker 1: you know, obviously, people see that main YouTube business, They
Speaker 1: see this tremendous traffic, and people wonder like, okay, maybe
Speaker 1: he's just you know, building a business entirely on YouTube,
Speaker 1: and he's you know, keeping the control there. Maybe he's
Speaker 1: going to move off platform at some point, who knows.
Speaker 1: Then the deal with Bonkers gets announced, the deal with
Speaker 1: your company and Michael Bay. Okay, the merchandise piece of
Speaker 1: this comes into view. But then we see Michael Bay
Speaker 1: and your name, and we're starting to think, okay, movies, TV,
Speaker 1: other things got to be coming. So what business is
Speaker 1: starting with merchandise? Starting with you know, Comic CON's coming,
Speaker 1: Halloween is coming. We feel like there's movement towards the
Speaker 1: mainstream here, So explain the other businesses and what we
Speaker 1: could see coming down the pipe.
Speaker 2: Well, to be clear, this is the mainstream. True YouTube
Speaker 2: is about his mainstream as it gets.
Speaker 1: The conventional old school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well so traditional, we'll call it. Sure, this lends
Speaker 2: itself very well. I will say that Michael and Jeffrey Becroft,
Speaker 2: who's his longtime production designer and a colleague of his
Speaker 2: that's worked with him on all of his movies, have
Speaker 2: been working very closely with Alexi to design art, to
Speaker 2: start to really professionalize the kind of back engine of this,
Speaker 2: to make sure that if we ever decide to go
Speaker 2: film or television, that this is kind of lifted beyond
Speaker 2: just the resources that creators have on the Internet. We
Speaker 2: are absolutely in talks right now both on the television
Speaker 2: side and the earliest comer stations right now on the
Speaker 2: film side. But it's not a be all, end all
Speaker 2: for us, you know. We want to make sure that
Speaker 2: we are able to support all the other businesses that
Speaker 2: have been built in this fly flywheel that Invisible Narratives
Speaker 2: has helped to create for Boom and the other ip
Speaker 2: that we work with. But film and television is a flex.
Speaker 2: It looks cool. It helps to kind of fuel the
Speaker 2: consumer product business, which is obviously a really important thing.
Speaker 2: It helps buyers at Walmart or Target to know that
Speaker 2: there's going to be media and ads spent against this thing.
Speaker 2: But we're pretty successful just on YouTube as it is
Speaker 2: right now. So if we stay in this world, we're okay.
Speaker 2: And if we move into more traditional then that would
Speaker 2: just be for Michael and I pretty awesome and for Boom,
Speaker 2: our creator kind of a lifelong dream of his.
Speaker 1: Okay. Before we revisit that, though, how important is this
Speaker 1: merchandise piece, because that feels like the first piece of
Speaker 1: these business this is and it feels like that's what's
Speaker 1: coming this fall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's two thesiss that my company has.
Speaker 2: One is that we believe that IP is not going
Speaker 2: to come from rebooting The Fall Guy or looking at
Speaker 2: television shows that were frankly old when I was a kid, right.
Speaker 2: IP is going to come from TikTok and YouTube for
Speaker 2: where the audience is actually at right now. So our
Speaker 2: business is solely focused on trying to find those things,
Speaker 2: discover those things, nurture those things, and bring traditional resources,
Speaker 2: creative resources, or business resources to those creators so that
Speaker 2: we can essentially build out the next generation of blockbusters
Speaker 2: that are organic to young people in their lives. The
Speaker 2: second is that kids don't want to pay for content.
Speaker 2: They want to pay for stuff, and stuff is something
Speaker 2: that is really important for them and Bonkers what we've
Speaker 2: seen and we looked at all the traditional toy companies
Speaker 2: and new toy companies, Bonkers gets it. They understand that
Speaker 2: when kids are walking through the aisles of or target
Speaker 2: right now, the toys that stick out to them are
Speaker 2: not things that were their parents or their grandparents' favorites.
Speaker 2: They're things that they actually recognize. So YouTube, whether it's
Speaker 2: Lanky Box or af Mau or Ryan's World or whatever
Speaker 2: it is, these are the things that kids are really
Speaker 2: leaning into. And so the toy program that launches this
Speaker 2: fall with Bonkers is going to be sick and what
Speaker 2: comes over the next twelve months, even after this, the
Speaker 2: design of where this is going is something that we
Speaker 2: believe can be as robust as some of the toy
Speaker 2: businesses that Michael was involved with prior to Skivity Toilet
Speaker 2: and could be something years from now. That's pretty significant.
Speaker 1: So could you tell us what kind of toys we
Speaker 1: could expect?
Speaker 2: Well, everything now from mystery packs to role play to
Speaker 2: vehicles to.
Speaker 1: You know, you name it.
Speaker 2: There's really not a category anything that you would expect
Speaker 2: to see for Transformers or a Marvel toy or anything
Speaker 2: like that. Obviously, not everything comes online in the fall,
Speaker 2: but all the designs at this point because the franchise
Speaker 2: has everything. It has weapons, it has role play, it
Speaker 2: has characters, it has action figures, it has puzzles, it
Speaker 2: has games, it has publishing.
Speaker 1: It really has all the.
Speaker 2: Things that you're looking for in a mega hit so far.
Speaker 2: And that's a testament to the imagination of our creator.
Speaker 1: Yes, however, then I wonder whether, especially given the title,
Speaker 1: given the I don't know if you call it the protagonist,
Speaker 1: but the toilet main character, is that all that going
Speaker 1: to fly at Walmart? Is the violence gonna fly? I
Speaker 1: just wonder, especially when you're you know, you're looking at
Speaker 1: some of the press this has gotten, especially globally when
Speaker 1: there's talk about, you know, the moral panic, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's been headlines about like where they've actually talked about
Speaker 1: a skibbity toilet syndrome where kids, I mean, it's hard
Speaker 1: to take this stuff, si, I know where you know,
Speaker 1: kids have trouble potty training because of skibbity toilet and
Speaker 1: they're afraid, you know, heads are going to pop out
Speaker 1: of toilets, Like, could this stuff actually create a problem
Speaker 1: for introducing this to a mass market? It's beloved so clearly.
Speaker 2: I you know, I am not a retail expert that
Speaker 2: you know, we'll see the proof when you know, it
Speaker 2: starts rolling out at this point. But what I what
Speaker 2: I believe is we are seeing a very significant audience
Speaker 2: from episode to episode that's not growing significantly at this
Speaker 2: point just simply because it's so significant, But it's not dipping.
Speaker 2: We are seeing like real consistency in terms of who
Speaker 2: this audience is. And I think again, part of the
Speaker 2: you know, part of the thing that you and I
Speaker 2: or all of my friends or any of my kids,
Speaker 2: even in my own house look at sometimes and think
Speaker 2: this is weird and obscure is exactly the thing that
Speaker 2: makes it awesome. It's the thing that makes it unique
Speaker 2: and interesting and cool. And yeah, there's a toilet, but
Speaker 2: the toilet is the toilets are a small part of
Speaker 2: this franchise. And if you, as I said earlier, if
Speaker 2: you take the toilets out of it and you look
Speaker 2: at it, it's no different than Optimists and Bumblebee and Megatron.
Speaker 2: These are giant mechanized warriors that are having gigantic, dynamic
Speaker 2: battles and you know, terrific action.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with Adam Goodman and more on
Speaker 1: skibbity toilet, and we are back with Adam Goodman. Stephen
Speaker 1: Colbert had a little fun with Joe Biden and imagining
Speaker 1: what it might be like to well have a listen
Speaker 1: to what he did with this internet craze and the
Speaker 1: current president.
Speaker 4: And of course for the very online skibbity Biden Biden.
Speaker 5: Give me, give me evined, guit evided, give me these,
Speaker 5: give me evin that hiders like what tron.
Speaker 3: Trump Trump is, use Hitler's Likewhitler's like what Trump is?
Speaker 1: Useless language, giv d give.
Speaker 4: Me Now, if you don't understand that video, your grandchildren
Speaker 4: will explain it and you still won't understand.
Speaker 1: So, Adam, when you hear something like that, does that
Speaker 1: sort of uh give you a sense that it's kind
Speaker 1: of like priming the older audience for accepting what could
Speaker 1: be a household name for even people who are not
Speaker 1: in the target audience, that will give them a sense
Speaker 1: of what could be something that their kids or grandkids
Speaker 1: are soon going to be asking for.
Speaker 2: Or does that No, we have such a long way
Speaker 2: to get from where we are right now with our
Speaker 2: audience to Stephen Colbert's audience at this point.
Speaker 1: But that's okay.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of audience that there's younger audience that
Speaker 2: we need to accept in, and there's slightly older audience
Speaker 2: that we need to convert to being less wary of
Speaker 2: the brain rot and more aware of the episodes, the
Speaker 2: storytelling and the narrative that's being leaned into this at
Speaker 2: this point.
Speaker 1: So you said that, you know, there's sort of the
Speaker 1: earliest conversations going on about taking this property to film
Speaker 1: or TV. Why isn't it essential? I mean, can you
Speaker 1: really make the same amount of money on digital platforms
Speaker 1: on just YouTube? What about also the other digital platforms.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's certainly got a presence on TikTok. What
Speaker 1: is your general approach here in terms of monetization, because
Speaker 1: I would have, oh no, you gotta have the you know,
Speaker 1: a cinematic universe for this.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, there have been very successful businesses that
Speaker 2: have been wholly organic to the digital space. If you
Speaker 2: look at what Ryan did with his toy business, this
Speaker 2: is a business that has done solidly nine figures worth
Speaker 2: of toy sales alone over the last number.
Speaker 1: Of years Ryan meaning Ryan's World.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and eventually Ryan switched over to Nickelodeon, but its
Speaker 2: main driver was his YouTube channel. So going traditional is fantastic,
Speaker 2: and our design for it is something that we aspire
Speaker 2: to make something that is really awesome. I look at
Speaker 2: what fortiesh and Netflix did with our Cane and that
Speaker 2: was a terrific series in something that you look at
Speaker 2: and again as a video game person, it seems obvious now,
Speaker 2: but at the time, none of these things are obvious,
Speaker 2: and we do believe that we can do something that
Speaker 2: is really like, really cool and more anime and more
Speaker 2: sophisticated than what the YouTube channels do every single day,
Speaker 2: just because of resources that are there. But the business
Speaker 2: is so beyond YouTube. Roadblocks is something that our licensee,
Speaker 2: our license partners who are using Skibty and Roadblocks are
Speaker 2: doing such a phenomenal amount of hours spent with our IP.
Speaker 2: And so what's incredible about this IP is that some
Speaker 2: kids are finding it through YouTube, and some kids are
Speaker 2: finding it through Roadblocks and don't even really know all
Speaker 2: that much about the YouTube channel of its own. They're
Speaker 2: learning the characters and they're modeling it, they're twinning with
Speaker 2: their characters, they're talking to their friends about it.
Speaker 1: So there's a whole other.
Speaker 2: World that Michael and I have learned about over the
Speaker 2: last few years of being in this business that is
Speaker 2: as significant as anything that we've ever been involved with
Speaker 2: in our entire careers. And film and television will only
Speaker 2: give us escape velocity and allow us to do amazing
Speaker 2: things and to develop this out that years from now
Speaker 2: it be still has real relevance. But if we don't
Speaker 2: do film and television, it's still something that has, you know,
Speaker 2: incredible business opportunities. For The key is right now is
Speaker 2: that when you're working with traditional partners, which is fantastic,
Speaker 2: but number one, you're always subject to mother may I, Mother,
Speaker 2: may I do another season? Mother may I, you know,
Speaker 2: do a new toy line?
Speaker 1: Mother may I?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 2: And and so right now we have a lot of
Speaker 2: control over this ip and in giving our creator the
Speaker 2: ability to do things that typically once they go into
Speaker 2: a partnership with a film or TV studio, they may
Speaker 2: be firewalled.
Speaker 1: From some of their imagination at that point. Okay, it's
Speaker 1: just in terms of I kind of liken it to
Speaker 1: an organ transplant. I just wonder whether once you take
Speaker 1: this property out of YouTube, whether that's sort of underground
Speaker 1: appeal that I feel like it has could somehow be lost.
Speaker 1: He himself, Alexi Boom has talked about not wanting for
Speaker 1: it to feel corporate, and with all due respect to
Speaker 1: yourself to Michael Bay, does the association you guys bring,
Speaker 1: does that risk it turning corporate?
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't think that any of the properties
Speaker 2: that Michael and I have been involved with are necessarily
Speaker 2: thought of as being corporate. They're commercial, they're blockbusters. There
Speaker 2: are things that you know, again Michael, not me. I
Speaker 2: was only lucky enough to be the executive on those things.
Speaker 2: But I think with vision, this becomes something you know, imagine. Again,
Speaker 2: this is kind of crazy to think about because we're
Speaker 2: thinking through the lens of everything that we've seen. But
Speaker 2: if you thought about this more of a John Wick
Speaker 2: District nine version, where it's a hybrid of live action
Speaker 2: and you know, incredible you know, visual effects and animation,
Speaker 2: something like this and some of the art that we
Speaker 2: are developing and seeing right now can be so badass
Speaker 2: and so spectacular and so different than what anything that
Speaker 2: you've looked at and yes, you may look at this
Speaker 2: thing at first and kind of blink your eyes at
Speaker 2: this and say it's not for me, but our hope
Speaker 2: and the challenge is this is to make sure.
Speaker 1: That it's awesome.
Speaker 2: What we won't do is make something just to make
Speaker 2: it that would be a money grab and that we're
Speaker 2: not interested in doing because the business is doing so
Speaker 2: well for us right now. But if we find a
Speaker 2: partner in this that really believes that there is opportunity
Speaker 2: for this to grow and to really see the storytelling
Speaker 2: grow and for this to be what we hope this
Speaker 2: can be, then film and TV seems like a natural
Speaker 2: extension for us.
Speaker 1: I mean, you say live action, and we should note
Speaker 1: this thing barely has dialogue. I mean, there's been over
Speaker 1: seventy episodes. I guess you know there are multiple minutes.
Speaker 1: It's hard for me to even imagine like actors in it,
Speaker 1: Like is Glenn Powell going to show up and you know,
Speaker 1: audition with a toilet over his head?
Speaker 7: I just like it.
Speaker 1: Boggles the mind here. I mean, I actually wonder whether
Speaker 1: it's international appeal is the fact that there is no dialogue.
Speaker 1: It's just sort of translatable. Do you feel like that's
Speaker 1: part of the appeal.
Speaker 2: It's it's it absolutely. I mean, our international numbers are
Speaker 2: staggering for this. I would age we have a massive
Speaker 2: US audience to it, but it peals in comparison to
Speaker 2: the rest of the globe. At this point, I'm certain
Speaker 2: that it feels localized in every region it plays simply
Speaker 2: because there is a little dialogue in this. But the
Speaker 2: great thing about where we're going with this is we've
Speaker 2: been slowly putting dialogue into the episodes and the audience
Speaker 2: is reacting great to it.
Speaker 1: Well. I can't wait for the theme park rydes that
Speaker 1: I think will be the cherry on top. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming in, Adam. This has been a
Speaker 1: really interesting conversation. I can't wait to see what you
Speaker 1: do with this next. Thank you for having me. I
Speaker 1: appreciate it. And now for a bonus segment. You may
Speaker 1: not have heard of skibbety toilet before, but you may
Speaker 1: have heard the word skibbety or riz phantom tax yeah sigma.
Speaker 1: Now to the untrained ear, these words may sound like
Speaker 1: total gibberish, but when I heard them come out of
Speaker 1: the mouths of my next guess, I learned there something
Speaker 1: of a second language among Generation Z and Alpha, and
Speaker 1: they're known as brain rot. Think of it as online
Speaker 1: subculture where skibbety toilet is just one of many, many,
Speaker 1: really really stupid memes. And because my Generation X mind
Speaker 1: is too old and feeble to comprehend any of this,
Speaker 1: I am joined by my own sixteen year old son
Speaker 1: Max and his best pal Eli to help me make
Speaker 1: sense of it all. Thanks for joining me in studio, gentlemen.
Speaker 8: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 7: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: Let's just start real simple here and no pressure. But
Speaker 1: you're here basically as representatives of everyone on earth, like
Speaker 1: eighteen and under. What does skibbity mean?
Speaker 7: It really has no meaning at all, but really, yeah,
Speaker 7: there's no meaning behind skibvity. Well, it comes from a
Speaker 7: meme before the skibbity toilet meme, so like the skivvity
Speaker 7: toilet is like an animated show. And then it comes
Speaker 7: from a previous meme in which it's like some a
Speaker 7: Bulgarian song and like a fat guy like a belly dance,
Speaker 7: like a song, fat guy dancing like shaking his belly,
Speaker 7: and it's like a Bulgarian song, and it's like it
Speaker 7: sounds like the song is saying skibbty, like it's completely gibberish, like,
Speaker 7: but that's where the word is taken from, and then
Speaker 7: they made the serious off of that.
Speaker 5: So but but what are we what are we old
Speaker 5: people supposed to take to the fact that the language
Speaker 5: is gibberish and means nothing, like, what's the point of
Speaker 5: saying it?
Speaker 7: Then there are brain rot terms that have meaning, but
Speaker 7: the term skibbety has no true definition and is more
Speaker 7: of just like a filler word to throw in when
Speaker 7: you're talking about brain rot.
Speaker 1: Right, So then let's get to a word that you mentioned,
Speaker 1: phantom tax, Like, right, what does that mean?
Speaker 7: So this comes from the popular streamer Kaisinat and he
Speaker 7: has a friend named Phantom who likes to take his
Speaker 7: food while he's streaming and take a few bites of
Speaker 7: his food. And people kind of took that and started
Speaker 7: calling it the phantom tax.
Speaker 8: Uh huh, Yeah, that makes sense. But like skibbity is,
Speaker 8: there's no like etymological meaning or anything. It's it's just
Speaker 8: complete gibberish and it's completely meaningless.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm starting to understand why this is called brain
Speaker 1: rot because these words really I mean, well, first of all, like,
Speaker 1: should we actually be concerned for the state of your brains,
Speaker 1: Like is this a medical condition?
Speaker 7: No, not our brains, but the young generations.
Speaker 8: Yeah, the young one.
Speaker 1: Oh so you as like we should at at sixteen,
Speaker 1: you're sort of like the bottom end of generation ZE,
Speaker 1: but you're worried about the alphas.
Speaker 8: Well, we're fine, Like we think like this stuff is
Speaker 8: funny because they think it's funny and they take it
Speaker 8: like seriously.
Speaker 7: But brain rot and just like like TikTok in general,
Speaker 7: has a lot of like negative side effects. For example,
Speaker 7: it messes with attention spans and also memory consuming like
Speaker 7: hours of just short form videos with no meaning behind
Speaker 7: them does negatively impact a memory, especially in younger kids
Speaker 7: who are consuming it like all day long.
Speaker 1: Okay, so there is actual reason for concern here. Is
Speaker 1: there any part of brain rot that is like redeemable,
Speaker 1: Like like what about Riz? I mean, you know, riz
Speaker 1: seems to be something that's like that seems to be something.
Speaker 8: Cool, like yeah, I mean that that has a meaning.
Speaker 8: It comes from charisma. It's just it's short for that, right,
Speaker 8: It's just like your play like how much he can
Speaker 8: you attract women?
Speaker 1: Yeah, which begs the question, I mean, do you guys
Speaker 1: have riz?
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, a lot of riz.
Speaker 1: Is that measurable?
Speaker 7: It's hard to measure, but it can be done.
Speaker 1: Do I have riz?
Speaker 8: I mean you have a wife and kids, so I guess.
Speaker 1: So if I have a wife and kid, that meets
Speaker 1: you had to wife? Is a verb too?
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, it's it's actually multiple parts of speech.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot.
Speaker 8: Like a lot of these brain rot terms.
Speaker 1: Are it can be noun verb interesting? Yeah, okay, Well
Speaker 1: what about brain rot in general? Do you think it's
Speaker 1: going to be like a lasting media phenomenon that will
Speaker 1: grow as the generation that made it popular grows with it,
Speaker 1: Like it'll soon be like a television aesthetic.
Speaker 7: I think brain rot will definitely evolve into like other things,
Speaker 7: not just like skibbity toilet like on TikTok. At least
Speaker 7: there's definitely like trends that appear every now and then
Speaker 7: of like different types of brain rot like subgroups. Right,
Speaker 7: Like RIZ was probably one of the first ones to
Speaker 7: come up, and that was like many years ago, like
Speaker 7: twenty twenty two, maybe twenty twenty three. Skibbity toylets more recent,
Speaker 7: you know, phantom text too, Like it kind of like
Speaker 7: it grows over time. But I think it'll probably just
Speaker 7: stay as like a TikTok joke brain rock terms.
Speaker 8: Yes, I would also say it's worth noting that I
Speaker 8: think the word brain rot has sort of migrated as
Speaker 8: a definition, Like I think I think it originally meant
Speaker 8: like just that specific set of stupid, weird memes that
Speaker 8: were created by Jen Alfha, like skimby toilet and stuff
Speaker 8: like that. I think, like, like, do you agree, do
Speaker 8: you think people use it as just meme culture in
Speaker 8: general now as like anything stupid on TikTok?
Speaker 1: Yeah, why don't you think adults get brain rot? Like
Speaker 1: why don't they understand it and kind of freaked out
Speaker 1: by it?
Speaker 8: They didn't make it? Yeah, I can't blame them. It's
Speaker 8: really weird.
Speaker 7: Even us as gen z don't really get it because
Speaker 7: we didn't really come up with it.
Speaker 8: The younger generation did, so we don't. We don't think
Speaker 8: it's like funny. We just think it's funny that they
Speaker 8: think it's funny. So I mean we're laughing at them. Yeah,
Speaker 8: they're laughing at the brain rot like they think it's funny.
Speaker 8: We're laughing at them, like we're making a joke.
Speaker 7: Like I've tried to talk to my little sister about
Speaker 7: brain rot, right, I asked her if she if she
Speaker 7: knew about skibbity toilet, and she told me that she
Speaker 7: dabbles in skibbity toilet from time to time, and she
Speaker 7: was pretty serious about it. It didn't seem like a
Speaker 7: joke to her, and she couldn't really tell that I
Speaker 7: was joking, which is a little it's a little scary,
Speaker 7: I think.
Speaker 8: But yeah, I mean, like I guess that sort of
Speaker 8: talks to the point of like just the scope of it.
Speaker 8: Because like if you I don't know about you, but
Speaker 8: you can tell me your experience. But if you ask
Speaker 8: like any nine or ten year old or like somebody
Speaker 8: around that age range, like chances are they know what
Speaker 8: skimmity toy it is. I'd say like seventy percent of
Speaker 8: children that age know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: It's not as if like other forms of entertainment, they're gone,
Speaker 1: right usual TV shows, movies, whatnot. It's not like we
Speaker 1: could waive all that goodbye and brain row takes over
Speaker 1: everything exactly.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, I think it's it will be hard
Speaker 8: for brain rot, for the entertainment industry to sort of
Speaker 8: market brain rot to the general public if they want to.
Speaker 8: But I mean they've made a ton of stupid things,
Speaker 8: like they made Five Nights at freddy That's a movie
Speaker 8: now like that started out?
Speaker 7: Is like that comes from a video game with like
Speaker 7: an actual storyline like that. There's substance to that.
Speaker 8: No, but it's it's it's a younger like gen X
Speaker 8: isn't playing five Nuts at Freddy's And they made it
Speaker 8: into a movie.
Speaker 7: But what can you really like mark it off of
Speaker 7: brain ro I mean there's no meaning, there's no story behind.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it will be hard to market that.
Speaker 1: But you realize that, you know, not too long ago
Speaker 1: they had these kinds of conversations about like how are
Speaker 1: they going to turn the Transformers or Lego into a movie?
Speaker 1: And look at it now, so you never know. While
Speaker 1: we're on this subject, Max, we should point out this
Speaker 1: is not your first time on this podcast. Five years ago,
Speaker 1: at the tender age of eleven, you came on to
Speaker 1: discuss your impressions of virtual reality technology and you express
Speaker 1: some optimism for the development of this market. Let's take
Speaker 1: a listen.
Speaker 6: I think I'll probably do more because it's going to
Speaker 6: be more updated and more improved, and you can do
Speaker 6: more things, and it's probably going to be like, you know,
Speaker 6: like everyone's going to be into it. It's going to
Speaker 6: be like right now, VR is like the biggest thing,
Speaker 6: and it has used to grow and more people use it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, first of all, ain't puberty a kick? Second,
Speaker 1: it's awesome that Eli is here too, because you guys
Speaker 1: often played VR games together remotely over the years. So
Speaker 1: I want to hear you both comments on how you
Speaker 1: feel today about the state of VR as an entertainment
Speaker 1: device versus when you first started years ago. Do you
Speaker 1: feel that sense of optimism still.
Speaker 8: I feel optimistic still, but I don't think it exactly
Speaker 8: met my expectations that I set when I was eleven.
Speaker 8: I don't think VR has gotten substantially bigger as I
Speaker 8: as I said five years ago, but I still play
Speaker 8: it from time to time. I often I've had, like,
Speaker 8: you know, several two week three week phases, Yeah, phases
Speaker 8: where I play like super diligently.
Speaker 7: I'd have to agree with Max. I think, like at
Speaker 7: the age that he spoke on that podcast, like, I
Speaker 7: definitely had much higher hopes for VR. I thought it
Speaker 7: was going to get a lot bigger, like technologically, but
Speaker 7: it hasn't. I haven't seen a lot of change and
Speaker 7: it definitely hasn't gone that much bigger. The Apple Vision
Speaker 7: Pro did have some pretty cool like features and stuff,
Speaker 7: and it's definitely an interesting piece of technology, but I
Speaker 7: think VR has a long way to go before it
Speaker 7: gets a lot bigger.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll just have to check in again in another
Speaker 1: five years, and then another five years till eventually you
Speaker 1: inherit the Strictly Business podcast from me and are asking
Speaker 1: your own child about what he thinks of the next
Speaker 1: generation of devices. Sorry, like you're gonna have to get
Speaker 1: your own podcast, but I'm confident that you will. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I thank you both for joining me today.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 8: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3: Be sure to leave us a review at Apple Podcasts
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Speaker 3: in next week for another episode of Strictly Business.