Speaker 1: Hello, SNAFU listeners. Ed Helms here. I mean, who else
Speaker 1: is it going to be? I'm the host, this is
Speaker 1: my podcast, So yeah, it's Ed Helms And I've got
Speaker 1: another really fun surprise for you this week. I'm sharing
Speaker 1: the live recording of one of my favorite stops on
Speaker 1: last year's book tour, where I was essentially roasted to
Speaker 1: a crisp by the one and only Tig Notaro.
Speaker 2: Now, Tig isn't just a.
Speaker 1: Brilliant comedian, actor, writer, and podcast host. She's also a
Speaker 1: longtime friend. We go way back, and I've always admired
Speaker 1: her completely singular comedic voice. She has this magical rhythm
Speaker 1: to her delivery, like a deceptively gentle slow burn style
Speaker 1: to her jokes, and then these punchlines that just hit
Speaker 1: you in the gut so hard she can leave a
Speaker 1: massive audience doubled over without out ever raising her voice.
Speaker 1: You've probably seen her in her Netflix stand up special
Speaker 1: Happy to Be Here, or her TV series One Mississippi,
Speaker 1: or stealing entire scenes in shows like Star Trek, Discovery,
Speaker 1: The Office, or perhaps even the movie that Tig and
Speaker 1: I did together called Together Together. Now sharing the stage
Speaker 1: with Tig at La Live Talks was an absolute blast.
Speaker 1: We dug into the stories from my book, SNAFU, The
Speaker 1: Definitive Guide to History's Greatest screw Ups, talked about the
Speaker 1: research and production process for the book, and even tossed
Speaker 1: around a few bold predictions for the future. So listen
Speaker 1: in and don't forget. You can order the book or
Speaker 1: the audiobook at Snafu, dashbook dot com or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your books. So sit back and enjoy my conversation
Speaker 1: with the incredible tig Notaro.
Speaker 2: Could you guys give us a minute. We're gonna just
Speaker 2: catch up.
Speaker 3: I didn't see you there. Do you know when I
Speaker 3: get started on the questions that I printed out?
Speaker 4: Do I know what when I should get started on this?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 4: Should we just chat casually for a minute.
Speaker 2: I feel like that's appropriate.
Speaker 1: Okay, some casual chatter and then honestly, don't ever get
Speaker 1: to this stuff.
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, that's.
Speaker 2: The get Let's get real, let's get under the hood.
Speaker 4: Let's get real real fast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like, what's on my pants?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I realized on my way here tonight that I had
Speaker 3: a stain on my pants, and.
Speaker 1: I just asked backstage if she knows what's on her pants.
Speaker 3: She doesn't know, but I did decide would be the
Speaker 3: name of a really good talk show or game show.
Speaker 2: Game show?
Speaker 4: Yes, what on your pants?
Speaker 3: Crowd goes mild, great, Well, what's on your pants?
Speaker 2: So much?
Speaker 1: I've been wearing these pants basically every day for the
Speaker 1: last eight days.
Speaker 2: This is the last stop on my book tour.
Speaker 4: Congrats, thank you, and.
Speaker 2: Thank you Tig for doing this and being here.
Speaker 4: It is my pleasure. I'll go anywhere for you, my dear.
Speaker 2: Well, fantastic. All the way to Culver City.
Speaker 4: That's right to the straight area of town.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Should we get started?
Speaker 2: Why don't I ask you all the questions?
Speaker 4: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: How much did you love my book?
Speaker 3: I loved it so much that when I had time,
Speaker 3: I read parts of it amazing.
Speaker 2: Yes, read the excerpts, the blurbs.
Speaker 4: No, I read way more than that.
Speaker 2: Cool.
Speaker 3: Yes, but we'll get into that all right. What else
Speaker 3: do you want to ask me? Where'd you grow up?
Speaker 3: Mississippi and Texas? But I feel like you probably knew
Speaker 3: some of that.
Speaker 2: I know, but this is for them. Oh, I'm okay,
Speaker 2: I'm just yeah.
Speaker 3: I forgot that I wasn't just here to talk to
Speaker 3: my friend ed Mississippi.
Speaker 2: And Texas, and I'm from Georgia, Georgia.
Speaker 1: We're bringing it real southern some we're just bringing some
Speaker 1: Southern vibes.
Speaker 5: Yeah to California, which is that's right, that's what we do.
Speaker 5: I'm out of questions. You're out already out time out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you didn't even read anything on that.
Speaker 4: Well, I realized this was my grocery list.
Speaker 2: For Gilson's.
Speaker 4: Ham. That's not true.
Speaker 3: Can I tell you, speaking of Mississippi, my cousin who
Speaker 3: is a grown woman twenty nine married, has a child
Speaker 3: a couple of years ago, and she's not And I
Speaker 3: know people here Mississippi, and you picture whatever you're picturing.
Speaker 3: There are civilized areas and people. My family is one
Speaker 3: of them. My cousin went to college, she went to
Speaker 3: business school. Found out a couple of years ago. Ham
Speaker 3: is not an animal. She thought, like chicken and fish,
Speaker 3: there were hams running around.
Speaker 2: They don't teach that in business school.
Speaker 1: No where does she go to this business school in Mississippi?
Speaker 4: No, in New Orleans?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so uh, that is one of the few meats
Speaker 1: that has like multiple names, ham, bacon.
Speaker 2: There are all these things that aren't.
Speaker 1: What it is too well, also pig, pork, ham pork, bacon, pig.
Speaker 4: What'd you say that's not a pig?
Speaker 2: But it is. It is not a cow. Also, her
Speaker 2: point is that it's not right.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, are you from Mississippi? All right, Well,
Speaker 3: let's get in to these questions.
Speaker 2: All right, Yeah, I'm an onion. Just start peeling the layers. Okay,
Speaker 2: it's going to get real.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 3: If it's going to get real, then tell us a
Speaker 3: little bit about why you chose to write this companion
Speaker 3: book for the snaff Fou podcast? What spawned your interest?
Speaker 3: What a great question.
Speaker 4: In this time, I'm I'm a slow delivery.
Speaker 3: I'm still asking the question spawned your interest in this
Speaker 3: type of history project in the first place?
Speaker 1: That feels like a question you wrote. You use words
Speaker 1: like spawned in a lot of rates.
Speaker 4: Snafo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I always say snaff every time we talk on
Speaker 1: the phone. You're like this, what spawned this? What spawned
Speaker 1: what spawned this? Snaffo? Basically, everybody does a podcast, including you.
Speaker 4: Yep, it's called Handsome Check it out.
Speaker 2: Check it out.
Speaker 1: And there's so many great podcasts out there, and a
Speaker 1: lot of them are just interviews kind of style. Shows
Speaker 1: which I love, and I was consuming a ton of
Speaker 1: these shows as a fan, and I was like, do
Speaker 1: I fit into this podcast space somewhere?
Speaker 2: And if I do, what does it look like.
Speaker 1: I didn't really want to do an interview show because
Speaker 1: I felt like there were just so many of them
Speaker 1: out there. It's like, well, history is a fun thing
Speaker 1: that I've always love to just kind of go down
Speaker 1: these little rabbit holes of looking into stuff. Our show,
Speaker 1: this show, Rutherford Falls, was very kind of history oriented.
Speaker 1: I played an historian with who owned a museum in
Speaker 1: that show, and I just it's, yeah, it was something
Speaker 1: that that felt very organic to me. But then it's like, well,
Speaker 1: what's I still wanted to be funny, and then it
Speaker 1: was like, well, what's funny in history? The snaffoos, the
Speaker 1: car crashes of history that we can't turn away from,
Speaker 1: those will be fun, Like, that'll be a fun thing.
Speaker 2: To do a podcast about.
Speaker 1: So we partnered with the great people at Film Nation
Speaker 1: and their podcast department and.
Speaker 2: Set to work on this thing.
Speaker 1: And it just turned into a really intense project with
Speaker 1: deep research and heavy audio production.
Speaker 4: And were you expecting that the deep research?
Speaker 1: It did not account for that the first season I
Speaker 1: think we were very ambitious, but it worked, like it
Speaker 1: really clicked and we kind of figured out got a
Speaker 1: rhythm on to how to do this anyway. The the
Speaker 1: in doing all that research, you just accumulate basically like
Speaker 1: a pile of these crazy stories, and some of them
Speaker 1: don't warrant like the full podcast treatment, Like it's just
Speaker 1: it doesn't have quite as much material there, but it's
Speaker 1: still really funny or interesting. And those those just started
Speaker 1: to pile up and it was like, all right, this
Speaker 1: is this is fodder for a book. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: it's all right here. It's just sort of like quick.
Speaker 1: Each chapter is a different snafoo, so it's not nearly
Speaker 1: as deep a dive, and the stories are just kind
Speaker 1: of quick and fun and easy. It's which is part
Speaker 1: of what makes this book such a fantastic gift for
Speaker 1: Mother's Day or Father's Day. You can pick it up
Speaker 1: and just go anywhere and find a five to ten
Speaker 1: page little fun story. It's basically a book of short stories.
Speaker 1: There's thirty one snafoos in there. You can it's a
Speaker 1: great beach read. It's perfect for your nightstand. You can
Speaker 1: read it in the bathroom.
Speaker 2: Really, yes, yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: Of people that have read it in the bathroom.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying you can.
Speaker 1: I haven't asked people, but I have been told that
Speaker 1: it gets things moving. That one chapter is equivalent to
Speaker 1: nine grams of fiber.
Speaker 3: So would it be the longest enema ever given?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So there is a chapter about the ever Given, which
Speaker 1: is a container ship that was wedged in the Suez Canal.
Speaker 2: That's one of the more recent ones that you might remember.
Speaker 4: And yeah, I learned.
Speaker 3: I didn't realize this until I was doing my semi
Speaker 3: deep dive on the book. That snaffoo stands for situation
Speaker 3: normal all.
Speaker 1: Fucked?
Speaker 3: Uh right, Yeah, you can see you can also you think, well,
Speaker 3: if if what you silently said is what I think
Speaker 3: you said, then yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 4: Are you guys? Okay with me saying the F word.
Speaker 2: Fucked?
Speaker 3: But you can also put fouled up. That's how you
Speaker 3: kind of clean it up.
Speaker 2: Oh okay.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I also learned that, not from your book or podcast,
Speaker 3: but when I was researching Snaffoo.
Speaker 4: Yeah, snaffoos, I did you know? I I dove in
Speaker 4: here and there and I yeah, I just.
Speaker 2: That's a good one.
Speaker 1: That is a good one for for when I take
Speaker 1: this into schools to.
Speaker 4: Be able to say all fouled up.
Speaker 2: All fouled up.
Speaker 3: Speaking of schools, were you into history as a kid?
Speaker 1: As a little kid, we had a huge collection of
Speaker 1: national geographic magazines and.
Speaker 2: I just was always so into that.
Speaker 1: I would just like pull them out and thumb through
Speaker 1: and just be It was such a vessel for curiosity,
Speaker 1: and I really it made me really want to be
Speaker 1: Indiana Jones because it hasn't worked out yet. Also, I
Speaker 1: don't think it's I think that like his version of
Speaker 1: that profession is now frowned upon, but at the time
Speaker 1: it was just adventurous and curious and wonderful. But yeah,
Speaker 1: those National geographics and also the World Book Encyclopedia.
Speaker 2: Did anybody have those in their homes? Like? I just
Speaker 2: love those things.
Speaker 1: You could pull them off and just be like Ardvarks,
Speaker 1: Like what's up with Ardvars?
Speaker 4: So you started on page one?
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, because that's the double a right, sure. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But you could also just be like Zanzibar, where.
Speaker 1: Like what's the deal, what's the population? Where is it
Speaker 1: on the map? And anything that you wanted I just
Speaker 1: look at. I couldn't believe that we had like this
Speaker 1: book set that could just tell me anything I wanted
Speaker 1: to know. But the podcast and the book have become
Speaker 1: these what I hope and feel are very productive applications of.
Speaker 2: That that curiosity and interest.
Speaker 4: All Right, we're were we.
Speaker 3: So you you know, we all heard in our bios
Speaker 3: that I mean, are yours specially?
Speaker 4: I mean, you've done a lot.
Speaker 3: You've been an actor, a podcaster, a writer, comedy writer,
Speaker 3: all of these things. I mean, you know, musician. But
Speaker 3: we're not here to talk about that. Guys, settled down,
Speaker 3: We're not talking about that. How did all of those
Speaker 3: experiences inform writing this book? How like everything that you've
Speaker 3: done here we are now today you are an author.
Speaker 1: I do kind of feel like the Snafu podcast was
Speaker 1: a culmination of sorts because it's so it's so deep,
Speaker 1: and there are stories in the podcast that are very
Speaker 1: heavy and poignant and stirring, and that's not something I
Speaker 1: really expected coming up through comedy that I would be
Speaker 1: diving into. And so that sort of just I think
Speaker 1: opened my mind about just creatively, like what would be
Speaker 1: like what else I can do and how else? Like
Speaker 1: the book just felt like a very like a natural
Speaker 1: step from that, and.
Speaker 2: I've really enjoyed it. Yeah, I think there's going to
Speaker 2: be more.
Speaker 4: You enjoyed the process of writing? Yeah, how long did
Speaker 4: it take you to write? I wrote a book.
Speaker 3: It took me four years and you can read it
Speaker 3: in an afternoon next to the pool.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: How long did yours? Take?
Speaker 1: Like a year and a half and there was But
Speaker 1: the nice thing about this book is that it was
Speaker 1: it was not overwhelming to work on because it's such
Speaker 1: short chunks. So each chapter is a story, and that
Speaker 1: that caters well to like the way my brain works.
Speaker 1: Like I think writing a novel would just be terrifying
Speaker 1: and overwhelming, and even writing like a memoir feels or
Speaker 1: something along those lines. I don't know, anything like a
Speaker 1: narrative that's like two three hundred pages feels maybe I'll
Speaker 1: get there eventually, but right now that feels like scary.
Speaker 4: It doesn't sound like you'll get there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, based on the ADHD and yeah, all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And also the nice thing, you know, I had
Speaker 1: a lot of research support on this book because we
Speaker 1: built such a great team on this on the podcast,
Speaker 1: and so it was you know, it really was a
Speaker 1: collective effort kind of organizing this material and getting the
Speaker 1: getting the research materials together, and uh, and I just
Speaker 1: was working with great, great people pulling the kind of
Speaker 1: the information together.
Speaker 3: So in that research, were there any surprises that stuck
Speaker 3: I'm sure there were so many surprises, but any that
Speaker 3: really stuck out to you when you like really you know,
Speaker 3: because I'm sure you have some idea maybe of what
Speaker 3: one particular story or snaffoo is about, and then you're.
Speaker 4: Like, here's the twist. Well, in a major way.
Speaker 1: I'm going to back up or sort of like go
Speaker 1: high altitude for a second, because hopefully all the stories
Speaker 1: in the book are that for everybody.
Speaker 2: Because in and again starting.
Speaker 1: With the podcast, the idea like I didn't want to
Speaker 1: tell stories that that people know.
Speaker 2: I want.
Speaker 1: I wanted to tell history that feels new or fresh
Speaker 1: or or kind of like rediscovering things.
Speaker 2: And in the podcast, it.
Speaker 1: Just it was like trying to find stories that have
Speaker 1: a lot of power and impact but have been largely
Speaker 1: forgotten in the in the sort of popular memory. And
Speaker 1: and that's what that same thing I brought to the
Speaker 1: to this sort of like that was the sort of
Speaker 1: like organizing principle and building the content for the book.
Speaker 1: And because of that like every story is surprising, every
Speaker 1: story is like, holy shit that happened, Like that's real.
Speaker 2: There's a few in the book that you probably.
Speaker 1: Have heard of, like the ever Given in everybody Knew
Speaker 1: when that container ship got wedged in the Suez Canal.
Speaker 4: And what is your favorite story?
Speaker 1: Well, they're all babies, you know, so it's hard to pick,
Speaker 1: but I'll tell you too. There's one that I loved one. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's another one that's absolutely insane, which is in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2: This was this is the Cold War.
Speaker 1: So one thing that emerges when you read the book,
Speaker 1: the Cold War did not bring out the best in us,
Speaker 1: Like we were very scared and made a lot of
Speaker 1: really terrible decisions.
Speaker 2: This is one of them.
Speaker 1: So a plan was hatched to shoot a nuclear warhead
Speaker 1: at the moon. Now why would you want to do that? Well,
Speaker 1: the thinking was that if we can hit the moon
Speaker 1: with a nuclear.
Speaker 2: Warhead, the Soviets will see that and they'll be like
Speaker 2: holy shit.
Speaker 1: And then I guess we win the Cold War because
Speaker 1: they're so scared, because they're like, oh my god, the
Speaker 1: Americans can hit the moon with a warhead, Like we're done,
Speaker 1: Like we can't we just surrender. So they they really
Speaker 1: thought that this would like kind of shut down the
Speaker 1: Cold War or like scare the Soviets really badly, so
Speaker 1: they get they went really far down this road. They
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time and money researching this. Carl
Speaker 1: Sagan worked on this project. A young Carl say, he
Speaker 1: likes planets, but he was part of this plan to
Speaker 1: actually shoot a millions of dollars this, yeah, untold millions.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: They eventually realized that any tiny malfunction or miscalculation could
Speaker 1: very easily result.
Speaker 2: In the nuclear warhead slingshotting.
Speaker 1: Around the gravitational field of the Moon and just coming
Speaker 1: right back at us. The other thing they realized is
Speaker 1: that even if they hit the moon, you know, even
Speaker 1: if they actually were on target, that it wouldn't look
Speaker 1: like much. It would just be because I think the
Speaker 1: hope was like the Soviets would see this big like
Speaker 1: crater on the Moon, or see like a big explosion
Speaker 1: on the Moon. But they realized that it would really
Speaker 1: just probably be kind of a little gray dust cloud
Speaker 1: you wouldn't really see very much. And that detail I
Speaker 1: love because that is literally wily coyote, Like that is
Speaker 1: every time Wiley coyote falls off a cliff.
Speaker 2: It's like that little dust cloud.
Speaker 1: And this is a Looney Tunes idea, like, well, you
Speaker 1: could see acme on the side of this warhead very plausibly.
Speaker 3: You were saying before that you have this, you know
Speaker 3: a lot of great researchers, and you would have to
Speaker 3: But where do researchers even begin to get this information?
Speaker 1: This is a good question, because thank you, because it's
Speaker 1: important to point out.
Speaker 2: The only reason we know about that.
Speaker 1: The only reason we know about that nuclear warhead shooting
Speaker 1: at the moon, that whole thing, the only reason we
Speaker 1: know is because a one of Carl Sagan's biographers was
Speaker 1: researching him, looking through all of his old papers and
Speaker 1: he had actually put this project on a fellowship application,
Speaker 1: like applying to something, right, you know, right after grad school,
Speaker 1: and this researcher this, you know, his biographer was like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to put Carl Sagan aside for a second
Speaker 1: look into this moon thing. And they they uncovered it,
Speaker 1: and and all that's to say that the only reason
Speaker 1: we know about any of this stuff is because of
Speaker 1: so many dogged journalists and writers and people that just
Speaker 1: have like, yes, for sure, have a huge round of
Speaker 1: applause and and because of that, like when you just
Speaker 1: start looking for snaffoos, they bubble up. They're on Google,
Speaker 1: They're all you know, They're in history books.
Speaker 3: They're yeah, like where do you google like snaffoos nineteen seventy.
Speaker 1: Three, Yes, nineteen sixties disasters, problems. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: like there are books, there are there are books that
Speaker 1: focus on these things that aren't funny, and like they're
Speaker 1: that are written by serious historians unlike me.
Speaker 3: And has the government reached out and been like, do
Speaker 3: not shill anybody?
Speaker 2: Shut up? No?
Speaker 1: But I actually feel like now like this book would
Speaker 1: piss Trump off because it's like honest about our history,
Speaker 1: which he is like, seems right like it doesn't. It
Speaker 1: feel like we're at this moment where he's just like.
Speaker 2: Don't say any bad stuff about us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's anti American to point out that that we
Speaker 1: that the CIA tried to surgically implant microphones into cat's
Speaker 1: ears and then train the cats to go sit next
Speaker 1: to bad guys so.
Speaker 2: You can hear. And the only thing.
Speaker 3: The old one as a cat lover, that was one
Speaker 3: of my favorites, I must say, And the microphone on
Speaker 3: a cat like sitting next to a bad guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the only thing that came that it came
Speaker 1: from that entire like research effort was the startling discovery
Speaker 1: that you can't train cats.
Speaker 3: And how much money went into that. You don't have
Speaker 3: that right, millions millions? Yes, are there any other anecdotes
Speaker 3: that you would like to share? But I mean because
Speaker 3: it is like it's like an insight, like you're saying
Speaker 3: an encyclopedia of ard Vark to Sansabar.
Speaker 4: There's so many.
Speaker 3: Was there a Well, no, that would be that's not
Speaker 3: a good question.
Speaker 2: I can tell you another one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this one's this one I love because it's it's
Speaker 1: not as absurd. It's actually a Some of the nafoos
Speaker 1: in the book are are kind of have this silver
Speaker 1: lining of being a very obvious lesson that that that
Speaker 1: we learned culturally from it, or or there are heroes
Speaker 1: that emerged during snafoos and this is one of those.
Speaker 1: Also in the nineteen fifties, one of the first nuclear
Speaker 1: reactors is built in Deep River, Ontario, which is just
Speaker 1: up the Ottawa River from the city of Ottawa, and
Speaker 1: it's very early in nuclear technology. There's a very homer
Speaker 1: Simpson series of mistakes that happen at this nuclear reactor,
Speaker 1: and a meltdown starts, and it's a terrible accident. And
Speaker 1: this is the first nuclear reactor meltdown in human history.
Speaker 1: So nobody really knows what to do. They're freaking out.
Speaker 1: They call the US military and they're like, what do
Speaker 1: we do? Do you have anybody that can help us?
Speaker 1: And they're like, yeah, actually, we have this twenty eight
Speaker 1: year old kid who's been working on our nuclear subprogram
Speaker 1: and he's extremely knowledgeable about all this stuff. He's a
Speaker 1: great leader. We're gonna send him up with a team
Speaker 1: to help you out.
Speaker 2: That was.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter. Yeah, so that he became that. This is
Speaker 1: a story about a young Jimmy Carter. He runs up there,
Speaker 1: gets to Deep River, Ontario. The reactor's melting down. It's
Speaker 1: so radioactive that they can only spend they can only
Speaker 1: be in close proximity to the reactor core for ninety
Speaker 1: seconds at a time, or else they'll have like they'll
Speaker 1: die of radiation poisoning.
Speaker 4: So I know what ends up happening, you do, but
Speaker 4: go ahead.
Speaker 1: All right, don't spoil it, Okay, So they they build
Speaker 1: a replica of this reactor core on a nearby tennis court.
Speaker 1: So they start rehearsing this disassembly and they drill it
Speaker 1: and they drill it and drill it until they've got
Speaker 1: this plan down perfectly. And then they start running in
Speaker 1: a like a relay team of NASCAR pit crews just
Speaker 1: like this, you know, ninety seconds.
Speaker 2: At a time.
Speaker 1: They can only be in there, so and every time
Speaker 1: they do something to the reactor core, they come outside
Speaker 1: and they do it to their replica as well, so
Speaker 1: they can keep track of everything that's happening. It's a
Speaker 1: brilliant plan and it keeps all of the workers healthy
Speaker 1: and they save the reactor. There's still a partial meltdown.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of damage done, but they prevent the
Speaker 1: basically a Chernobyl from happening that very easily could have
Speaker 1: been North America's Chernobyl. And I love this story because
Speaker 1: it's you know, I grew up in a Southern Democrat household.
Speaker 1: My dad was very politically engaged, and we loved Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 1: We always he was like a venerated figure in our home.
Speaker 1: But I feel like, sadly, in sort of the popular memory,
Speaker 1: he's considered kind of wimpy, you know, even though he
Speaker 1: did a lot of really badass stuff both as a president,
Speaker 1: especially as he's one of the most productive post presidents
Speaker 1: we've ever had.
Speaker 2: And I think of him as a hero.
Speaker 1: I always have, and I've always resented this kind of
Speaker 1: popular sentiment that he's just sort of this wimpy and
Speaker 1: effective guy. But this is like a great little nugget
Speaker 1: of proof that he was a really courageous badass with
Speaker 1: serious leadership.
Speaker 2: And I can.
Speaker 3: Really accentuate this point even more with a detail about
Speaker 3: this story, the snapho in your book that when I said,
Speaker 3: I know what happens, this is what I'm talking about,
Speaker 3: his urine was radioactive.
Speaker 2: Or how long like three months afterwards afterwards?
Speaker 4: Yeah that's a badass.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, make fun of Jimmy Carter all day long,
Speaker 3: but have you had radioactive urine?
Speaker 1: And they were very afraid that all these workers would
Speaker 1: not be able to have children, And Jimmy Carter had
Speaker 1: four very healthy children.
Speaker 2: He's a tough guy. Yeah, yes, yeah, give it up
Speaker 2: for Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 3: Those are some of my favorite live moments, is when
Speaker 3: one person collaps and nobody chimes in and it's just
Speaker 3: an awkward and then you go, oh, did you feel
Speaker 3: like I should pull back? Nobody's joining, she's not even acknowledging.
Speaker 4: That I'm talking to.
Speaker 3: What are some patterns that you observed and lessons studying snaffs?
Speaker 1: The okay, so the well, one of the things that
Speaker 1: I don't think this is something that we sort of
Speaker 1: culturally would have would say we learned from this book,
Speaker 1: but it's but the book reiterates it in a very
Speaker 1: powerful way, which is that we just don't learn from
Speaker 1: history at all, which is so sad and dumb. We're
Speaker 1: so dumb and we just do the dumbest stuff. But
Speaker 1: I do think there is a like a positive takeaway
Speaker 1: from really digging into these snafoos. Like the more you
Speaker 1: the more you look into these really dumb or kind
Speaker 1: of horrifying, crazy events from history.
Speaker 2: It's very easy.
Speaker 1: Just when when we're in this moment like we're in
Speaker 1: right now, and this I think applies whatever your political
Speaker 1: stripes are, wherever you fall in the sort of conservative
Speaker 1: liberals spectrum, this moment that we're in feels volatile, it
Speaker 1: feels like it feels unstable, It feels a little like,
Speaker 1: you know, like we're polarized, and there's a just tremendous
Speaker 1: uncertainty about the future, which is just unsettling, makes us anxious.
Speaker 1: When we look back at crazy things in the past,
Speaker 1: it's actually kind of nice to be reminded that we've
Speaker 1: been there before, Like people have been terrified at lots
Speaker 1: of times in the past, and that at least all
Speaker 1: this stuff in this.
Speaker 2: Book, and like.
Speaker 1: Most of the time, there's some sense that we got
Speaker 1: through a thing, or that we got to the other
Speaker 1: side and found some sense of equilibrium again. And so
Speaker 1: I don't mean to be like glib or pollyannish about
Speaker 1: the moment that we're in right now, because I think
Speaker 1: it does feel legitimately scary in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: and I don't know what will happen, but I do
Speaker 1: think looking back it's nice to be just sort of
Speaker 1: reminded that we have felt this way before, or previous
Speaker 1: generations have felt this way before, and that they have
Speaker 1: gotten through these moments. And so maybe that gives a
Speaker 1: sense that there's a light at the end of the
Speaker 1: tunnel as well.
Speaker 3: I mean, I agree, you know, as tough as things
Speaker 3: are and scary as things may feel, I mean, this
Speaker 3: is really extreme but I go to like, God, it
Speaker 3: used to be normal to like behead somebody. Yeah, back
Speaker 3: in the old old timy.
Speaker 4: Times, And I'm like, we don't do that anymore.
Speaker 3: I'm also curious, like, there are so many amazing stories.
Speaker 3: How do you decide what to choose, what to put
Speaker 3: in your book, what to put in the podcast? And
Speaker 3: also you must have people. Are people contacting you or
Speaker 3: stopping you on the street going I have a story?
Speaker 3: I know I have some inside scoop on this thing.
Speaker 1: A few people actually on this book tour have been like,
Speaker 1: did you hear about this?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Like random?
Speaker 3: And do you have a lot of conspiracy theorists that
Speaker 3: are that reach out to you?
Speaker 2: Not yet I haven't. I'm sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm getting the vibe on it. Yeah, the guy
Speaker 3: I looked right at him.
Speaker 4: There he is.
Speaker 1: You know, Weirdly, I think, just like writing about real
Speaker 1: stuff that's crazy is weirdly a little bit of a
Speaker 1: hedge against conspiracy theories because it's like the research they
Speaker 1: think that's real, don't you. Yeah, Okay, that's the title
Speaker 1: of my next book.
Speaker 4: I'm curious.
Speaker 3: I mean, you're obviously going to do another You're going
Speaker 3: to do snafoo too right the next book, because there is,
Speaker 3: like you said, so much going on.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a it's such a fun space to play in.
Speaker 1: It feels like there's so many different kinds of ways
Speaker 1: to or different ways to frame snaffoos. We could do
Speaker 1: like a book about sports snaffhoos or you know, different
Speaker 1: time periods, medieval snaffoos.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, but.
Speaker 3: I'm saying, like you chronologically you go through this, you know, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, right now, we're sitting in a bunch
Speaker 3: of thank you, We're sitting in the middle of a
Speaker 3: bunch of snaphosa potential snaffoos more to come.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does feel like we're swimming and just like
Speaker 1: a big old sea of snaffoos right now.
Speaker 4: So I'm seeing snafoo too, snafoo three.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all kind of down just about the last like
Speaker 1: one hundred days.
Speaker 4: Snaff one hundred.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Have you ever heard This is unrelated to your book,
Speaker 3: but just curious any personal snaffoos in your life that
Speaker 3: you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: So many but not not not so many for public consumption.
Speaker 4: Wow. So should we end there?
Speaker 1: Uh, let's do it there, because I do think that
Speaker 1: we're going to get some audience questions.
Speaker 4: I think it'd be We're going to take some audience
Speaker 4: questions if The Office had a historical snaffho themed episode,
Speaker 4: which disaster would Michael Scott have proudly caused?
Speaker 1: I mean, isn't that every episode of the Office, like
Speaker 1: some horrible disaster.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel like the the ever given container ship getting
Speaker 1: wedged into the Suez Canal totally fits his particular kind
Speaker 1: of uh yeah, his particular weaknesses, because that's such a
Speaker 1: That accident was so mundane, like it was such a
Speaker 1: it was like people in the wheelhouse of this ship
Speaker 1: like trying kind of panicking, trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: to do. I mean, you can imagine an episode of
Speaker 1: the Office or something feeling like an Office episode unfolding
Speaker 1: in the wheelhouse of that ship as they're trying to
Speaker 1: like adjust for the wind.
Speaker 2: And then back up.
Speaker 1: But there's a guy behind him and somebody's yelling at
Speaker 1: the navigator, and the navigator is like Oscar and he's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know I had this is the data, this
Speaker 1: is all I have. And then and then Dwight Shrewd
Speaker 1: is freaking. He's like the engineer freaking out.
Speaker 2: Like we're losing power, We're losing it.
Speaker 1: Just yeah, the whole that one feels feels and Michael
Speaker 1: God is the skipper, just like Frozen with fear.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: This isn't a follow up question, but I will tell
Speaker 3: you for those that don't know, I was on an
Speaker 3: episode of the Office, and to this day I get
Speaker 3: recognized as that being my only credit.
Speaker 4: Where people will come up and be like, you're from.
Speaker 3: The Office, and I was like, yeah, thirteen years ago
Speaker 3: for one second.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's insane how massive that show is.
Speaker 6: And it's a bit of a preview question, but I
Speaker 6: wonder about one or two snaffoos that are on the
Speaker 6: list that you haven't done a deep dive into, but
Speaker 6: you're just dying to get into, really curious about.
Speaker 1: Season four of the podcast is going to take a
Speaker 1: little bit of a different shape, and I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: guests on take You're doing it, whether you know it
Speaker 1: or not, You're coming on the show, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell them about snaffoos and then we'll have just
Speaker 1: sort of fun it's kind of spin off chats about it.
Speaker 1: But so a lot of things that maybe kind of
Speaker 1: didn't fit the book or the podcasts framework, where I
Speaker 1: think are going to work really well for that. So
Speaker 1: that'll be things like the Donner Party and Ernest Shackleton's
Speaker 1: crazy attempt to cross and be the first to cross
Speaker 1: Antarctica in the early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: That's an incredible story. What else. The Lusitania is one
Speaker 2: the cruise ship that.
Speaker 1: Was sunk in the North Pacific by Germans, and gosh,
Speaker 1: there are so many cool there's so many cool, crazy,
Speaker 1: weird stories.
Speaker 2: But that's a sampling.
Speaker 4: Now again.
Speaker 3: Not really related to what we're talking about. You know,
Speaker 3: I know, you know you have two kids and I
Speaker 3: have two children as well, And at bedtime, we have
Speaker 3: a joke where I go where I say, come on, guys,
Speaker 3: let's get in bed. Let's I'm going to tell you
Speaker 3: some boring stories. And I tell them like mundane stories,
Speaker 3: like you know, it's pulling into the.
Speaker 4: Parking lot at the grocery store, and they're just like
Speaker 4: they fall asleep.
Speaker 3: And I, as we've been talking, I'm like, do you
Speaker 3: ever sit and tell your kids snapoo.
Speaker 2: Stories horrible tragedies?
Speaker 3: You should, I mean leave the tragedy out because they'll snooze.
Speaker 1: Before yeah, no, not this stuff. Although one of my
Speaker 1: favorite bits in a movie is, didnone remember the movie
Speaker 1: The Great Outdoors?
Speaker 2: Okay, so there's an amazing it's.
Speaker 4: Such a person over there to remember it.
Speaker 1: There's such a dumb throwaway joke in that movie. But
Speaker 1: Dan act Royd tells he has these creepy little twin
Speaker 1: daughters in.
Speaker 2: The movie, and I have twins.
Speaker 1: He tells the he tells them the story. They're like,
Speaker 1: can you tell us a bedtime story? And he's like, yeah, sure, okay,
Speaker 1: So he tells the story is basically like the military
Speaker 1: left a box in the woods and it turned out
Speaker 1: to have this this creature that they've done all these
Speaker 1: experiments on and the box spilled and opened up, and
Speaker 1: it came this creature came out of the box and terrorized.
Speaker 2: All these children in this little town. Are we good?
Speaker 1: And the kids the two kids are like wide eyed,
Speaker 1: and then it cuts to the morning and the kids
Speaker 1: are still just sitting there that that's what the what
Speaker 1: I think most of these stories would do to my kids.
Speaker 4: But they're not sitting on your laps going to Yady.
Speaker 2: Tell us there's more about nuclear warheads and the Cold War.
Speaker 4: But radioactive urine.
Speaker 1: But I will say that you do raise a great point,
Speaker 1: which is that reading this book will make you a
Speaker 1: killer at dinner parties, because you will have so many fun, quick,
Speaker 1: little zinger stories that you can just drop and they're funny,
Speaker 1: and the people will think you're smart.
Speaker 3: I've been sitting here honestly thinking, wow, Ed is a
Speaker 3: smart guy.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 4: So I'm a battlefield guide.
Speaker 7: I work overseas in Europe, and we all love the
Speaker 7: podcast so much. We use a lot the reference of
Speaker 7: Fidel Castro with those assassinations and how so many people
Speaker 7: are shocked about Hitler and all those failed assassination attempts.
Speaker 4: So we're wondering from.
Speaker 7: Overseas if you've addressed it a little bit about World
Speaker 7: War Two, but would you ever go more into Second
Speaker 7: World War, First World War snafoos because there's just so
Speaker 7: many to name.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, the world wars just a cavalcade of snaffoos.
Speaker 1: There's so much written about those, They're so heavily researched.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of again, outside of where I've been
Speaker 1: the most charged up with my curiosity the things that
Speaker 1: have fallen out of popular memory.
Speaker 2: But the Lusitania is a crazy world. War two story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, i've seen you both. You know some of your work.
Speaker 4: What's the relationship between you two? And why her to
Speaker 4: interview you tonight on this particular topic lovers ex lovers?
Speaker 1: Ye?
Speaker 4: But good question?
Speaker 2: Why me?
Speaker 4: How rude? Yeah? What what the hell am I doing here?
Speaker 4: I should be telling my kids boring stories?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I failed three grades and dropped out of have a
Speaker 3: seventh grade education.
Speaker 2: But you're smarter than most people I know.
Speaker 4: Next question, No, what we mean?
Speaker 2: I'm trying to remember the first.
Speaker 3: From the comedy scene Gelson's thank you? I mean, yeah,
Speaker 3: the comedy world, Largo, the venue here in town and
Speaker 3: at Largo. We've done I did the office. We also
Speaker 3: did a movie together. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4: Where'd you go?
Speaker 1: It's a bit of a uh it's yeah, Yes, why her?
Speaker 2: You have?
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know why I like hanging out
Speaker 1: with you? Take because you're not very nice to me.
Speaker 1: We did an interview when we were promoting a movie
Speaker 1: we did together where I think you just you kept
Speaker 1: telling the reporter how stupid my face was.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: To translate that, it's because he's so funny and silly,
Speaker 3: and he makes these little smirky faces when he delivered.
Speaker 3: You know, he's so unassuming and subtle and then boom,
Speaker 3: right out of his stupid face is the funniest thing
Speaker 3: you'll hear.
Speaker 2: That's actually very sweet.
Speaker 1: You're one of the only people that's ever called you
Speaker 1: called my comedy subtle, and I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: Well, no, you just have a subtle vibe about you,
Speaker 3: like you know, when when we're chilling and whatever, and
Speaker 3: then and then you'll do But also when we did
Speaker 3: that movie like all of your that's where it came from.
Speaker 4: Because when we were doing.
Speaker 3: The director said, and now just you know, riff and
Speaker 3: do some things, and he just was delivering all these
Speaker 3: different improft lines and face expressions, and I was like,
Speaker 3: this stupid face, that's where it came from.
Speaker 4: That is where it came from.
Speaker 3: It's when you started riffing and your face went nuts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was fun, but we still don't know why.
Speaker 4: I am here.
Speaker 6: Next question, have you thought about turning one of the
Speaker 6: stories into a movie?
Speaker 1: Yes, and that's a there's concerted effort on that front
Speaker 1: with a couple of these. I think someone actually had
Speaker 1: the idea to do that.
Speaker 2: The book.
Speaker 1: Does anyone remember a history of the world the mel
Speaker 1: Brooks movie. Like that's such a funny, like just compendium
Speaker 1: of basically just comedy sketches.
Speaker 2: And you could do all of these chapters as comedy
Speaker 2: sketches too. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's a few things in the hopefully in the hopper,
Speaker 1: and and then a few very abstract ideas.
Speaker 4: Is there a role for me?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 4: I guess that is the end of the evening here.
Speaker 2: Isn't it up for taking this? Ladies and gentlemen, give it.
Speaker 4: Up for mister ed Helms.
Speaker 1: SNAFU is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snapfoo Media,
Speaker 1: a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company.
Speaker 1: Our post production studio is Gilded Audio. Our executive producers
Speaker 1: are me Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Basner, Andy Kim Whitney, Donaldson,
Speaker 1: and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino
Speaker 1: and Tory Smith. Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical
Speaker 1: direction and engineering from Nick Dooley. Our creative executive is
Speaker 1: Brett Harris. Logo and branding by.
Speaker 2: The Collected Works.
Speaker 1: Legal review from Dan Welsh, Meghan Halson and Caroline Johnson.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane Klein, and
Speaker 1: everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Harry Lieberman,
Speaker 1: Nikki Etoor, Nathan O'towski, and Alex Corral. While I have you,
Speaker 1: don't forget to pick up a copy of my book, Snafoo,
Speaker 1: The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest screw Ups. It's available
Speaker 1: now from any book retailer. Just go to snafoodashbook dot com.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and see you next week.