Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, this is Snaffo, the podcast about history's greatest
Speaker 1: screw ups. I am your host ed helms, and today,
Speaker 1: before we wrap up season three next Wednesday, I thought
Speaker 1: i'd insert a little special bonus episode here. I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to take you behind the scenes of Snaffo a
Speaker 1: little bit and also share with you a bit more
Speaker 1: about my Snaffu book coming out very soon, which I'm
Speaker 1: so so excited about. So to do that, I have
Speaker 1: roped in one of our incredible, brilliant, unbelievable, talented, hilarious,
Speaker 1: and did I say brilliant, I think I did. Snaffoo
Speaker 1: producers Carl Nellis. Carl, thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 2: Hey, thanks for bringing me onto the mic. A little
Speaker 2: wild to be here.
Speaker 3: You're on camera. You're in the hot seat today, Carl.
Speaker 4: I'm feeling it.
Speaker 3: Feel the heat, Yeah, you feel the heat.
Speaker 1: Because whenever we're recording a Snapoo episode, Carl is here.
Speaker 3: Carl is with me.
Speaker 1: He's helping me with the spontaneous rewrites and edits, he's
Speaker 1: reflecting with me, and he's just one of the great
Speaker 1: sort of guide posts in this whole process and also
Speaker 1: just a genuine history fiend like myself. Which is why
Speaker 1: it's so fun to collaborate with you.
Speaker 4: Carl.
Speaker 1: Here's another little little Easter egg for you, Carl is
Speaker 1: in season three. Also, Carl voices some of the characters
Speaker 1: throughout the season. Do you want to fill us in
Speaker 1: on any of.
Speaker 5: Those, Well, I'll never tell who it is, but yeah,
Speaker 5: it's it's such a joy to do that and many
Speaker 5: of the other producers of Gilded Audio Film Nation team.
Speaker 2: Season three was so fun because they were those little
Speaker 2: chances to voice a bit here and there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we roped in the whole gang, and lots of
Speaker 1: little pieces here and there, which always makes it fun.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about where these snaffoos come from.
Speaker 1: Like you mentioned, we do have a we have a
Speaker 1: great team between Gilded Audio and Film Nation and my company,
Speaker 1: Pacific Electric. We just have a lot of really smart,
Speaker 1: wonderful people contributing to the show. And let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about how we find these snaffoos.
Speaker 4: Carl. Yeah, So.
Speaker 2: We often think of it like a treasure hunt. You know,
Speaker 2: there's so many great stories across time and play. We
Speaker 2: know they're out there, and so we get together, we
Speaker 2: set the vision, and we go looking and we just
Speaker 2: come back with so many incredible, sometimes small, sometimes big,
Speaker 2: you know, amazing stories of great screw ups to cover
Speaker 2: and consider, take lessons from, sometimes laugh at, laugh with
Speaker 2: it's so fun that we're all doing it together, and
Speaker 2: then we come and bring them to each other, discuss
Speaker 2: pick the best ones.
Speaker 4: It's chuckle. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And let's be honest, there are too many. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are too many snapfoos to choose from. We do dumb things.
Speaker 1: We've done dumb things throughout history. It is one of
Speaker 1: the great consistencies of human behavior throughout the centuries. We're
Speaker 1: just very, very dumb. And so there's so much to
Speaker 1: choose from. And as we as we dig through everything
Speaker 1: and decide what to put on the podcast, we have
Speaker 1: stumbled on such a treasure trove that this is what
Speaker 1: fueled the book. So I'm going to turn the tables
Speaker 1: on you, Carl. I'm usually the one interviewing on this show.
Speaker 1: I want you to interview me a little bit about
Speaker 1: the book so I can help listeners understand what to
Speaker 1: expect and why this book is going to be so
Speaker 1: fun and cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Well, and let's start right there with the foundational idea,
Speaker 2: why why go from audio to book? And what excites
Speaker 2: you about turning these snaphoo stories into a book?
Speaker 3: Great question.
Speaker 1: Well, I love the audio medium because there are so
Speaker 1: many opportunities to be playful, and it's obviously very adjacent
Speaker 1: to the film and television mediums I'm so used to.
Speaker 3: But there were a lot of snaffoos that didn't have.
Speaker 1: The depth that we require to dive into them on
Speaker 1: this show, and so it started to gel that maybe
Speaker 1: these are like, maybe these would just make.
Speaker 3: Good book chapters. A book allows you to.
Speaker 1: Be visual, right with illustrations and historical documents and so forth.
Speaker 1: We brought in an amazing illustrator, Mark Harris and had
Speaker 1: him sort of interpret some of these snaffoos into his
Speaker 1: particular form of artistic expression, which is these really cool
Speaker 1: kind of collage style pieces, and they're peppered throughout the book.
Speaker 1: That's something you can't do in a podcast, right, you
Speaker 1: can't rope into Mark Harris to throw in some jazzy visuals.
Speaker 1: And so do I feel like we've like we got
Speaker 1: this really cool collection of art, Like I want to
Speaker 1: hang this stuff in my house. It's a new and
Speaker 1: different kind of collaboration for the team, and one that
Speaker 1: that's been really really fun.
Speaker 4: You're right, it's so gorgeous.
Speaker 2: And some of the ways that he manipulates historical photographs,
Speaker 2: like you're seeing the real photograph of the real thing,
Speaker 2: but then he's really put it into his style and
Speaker 2: his idiom.
Speaker 4: It's so so fun to see.
Speaker 2: For my part, I was a book editor before audio,
Speaker 2: so I went book editor audio, now.
Speaker 4: Back to book again.
Speaker 2: I'm just feeling right at home. I'm so so glad
Speaker 2: to be doing this project.
Speaker 3: Hey man, what are you feeling about this.
Speaker 4: Being your first book coming out?
Speaker 2: Do you have particular book feelings with this book about
Speaker 2: to launch?
Speaker 1: Great question, book feelings, Like you said, never written a
Speaker 1: book before. I usually only look at books with pictures,
Speaker 1: cartoon books.
Speaker 3: I don't I'm scared of stretches of text.
Speaker 1: No, I will say that it's such a different approach
Speaker 1: and the process is so much more isolating and kind
Speaker 1: of individual that there's some beauty to that.
Speaker 3: I think it just hit me, like.
Speaker 1: How much work it is to make a book, and
Speaker 1: there's just so many steps to the process. The editing,
Speaker 1: the revising, the notes, and getting so much incredible feedback
Speaker 1: from the team.
Speaker 3: Is a lot.
Speaker 2: And then on the publisher side, editors, their team. They're
Speaker 2: also putting in work when you hand it off to them.
Speaker 2: So maybe we think of books as individual projects, but
Speaker 2: like you said, there are these pieces different people getting
Speaker 2: it ready to go out where people can actually pick
Speaker 2: up a chunk of paper and read the ink off it.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of steps along the way from your
Speaker 2: desk to there. It's fun to see it all come
Speaker 2: together as we head toward launch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very very proud.
Speaker 1: I'm also really proud of the comedic tone that I
Speaker 1: think we as a team on the podcast have worked
Speaker 1: so hard to dial in over these three seasons, and
Speaker 1: that I can tell you just it's it's informed so
Speaker 1: much of the book as well, like it's always echoing
Speaker 1: in my head, like how would we say this in
Speaker 1: the podcast, what's the funny thing or what's the appropriate
Speaker 1: joke here, versus like what's the easy joke or the
Speaker 1: maybe this joke is too crude, maybe this is not
Speaker 1: a place for a joke. It's a constant analysis but
Speaker 1: really really a fun part of the process and something
Speaker 1: I'm really proud of and speaking of.
Speaker 2: What the stories are about, how they shape the tone
Speaker 2: or invite certain kinds of Like you said, jokes, pathos,
Speaker 2: et cetera. Let's head into the book a little bit.
Speaker 2: Can you take us inside? How is it set up?
Speaker 2: What are readers going to find in there when they
Speaker 2: crack open the cover.
Speaker 1: The book is structured in six parts, which are roughly decades,
Speaker 1: starting in the fifties and through to the present, And
Speaker 1: within each of those chunks is a bunch of like
Speaker 1: a handful of snaffoos. It's really, I think, instructive and
Speaker 1: meaningful to group these snaffoos by decade because it gives
Speaker 1: us a little bit of a cultural lens for context,
Speaker 1: and it's a fun way to look at things. We
Speaker 1: all have associations with the sixties, we have associations with
Speaker 1: the seventies and the eighties and so on, and so
Speaker 1: we bring those associations to these stories that happen in
Speaker 1: these time periods. But also like they're meaningful, Like the
Speaker 1: things that are happening culturally are really affecting even what
Speaker 1: we think of as a snafu, right, Like.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it helps us in thinking about it and like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is my grandpa's snafu. This is the one that
Speaker 2: had him like white knuckling his armchair, and oh this
Speaker 2: was my dad's snaffoo. And then, like you said, we
Speaker 2: come up to the present and there are stories where
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, I remember that, I remember how I
Speaker 2: felt reading that in the news, and then the story
Speaker 2: that we get in the book kind of peels back
Speaker 2: that headline layer and takes us into with each story
Speaker 2: some of the intricacies behind it.
Speaker 4: And that's a fascinating process.
Speaker 2: Even for the stuff that is in the present where
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, that's my snaffoo, that's my present day snafu.
Speaker 2: I'm like, wow, there's some new nuggets here, even for
Speaker 2: me who remembers that present day event. You're right, like,
Speaker 2: each of them has a different flavor of the different decade.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of those stories, what are some of your
Speaker 2: favorites from the book now that you've put this book together,
Speaker 2: Like what's sticking with you?
Speaker 1: Honestly, they're all my babies, so it's hard to pick,
Speaker 1: but there are a few that jump to mind.
Speaker 3: One I love because.
Speaker 1: It has a little bit of a Hollywood rasmtaz to it.
Speaker 1: There was a CIA operation called Project Azorian, and basically
Speaker 1: a Soviet sub sank in the Pacific Ocean.
Speaker 3: The Soviets didn't know where it was, but we did.
Speaker 3: We knew exactly where it was.
Speaker 1: And not only that, we wanted it for you know,
Speaker 1: serious intel, right, it would have lots of technology, and
Speaker 1: it is a nuclear sub.
Speaker 3: I would have all this Soviet.
Speaker 1: Technology that we were trying to decipher and code breaking
Speaker 1: manuals and all kinds of stuff. So we wanted this sub.
Speaker 1: But it's like two miles deep in the middle of
Speaker 1: the North Pacific. You can't just like go and get
Speaker 1: that without causing a huge hub up. So the CIA
Speaker 1: approaches Howard Hughes, the reclusive billionaire Hollywood producer and weird
Speaker 1: businessman's who's like literally living in the penthouse of a
Speaker 1: Las Vegas casino at this point.
Speaker 3: And they say, hey, Howard, will you pretend like.
Speaker 1: You're gonna get into deep sea mineral mining and build
Speaker 1: and that you're going to build this ship that for
Speaker 1: your mining operations, But actually it's our plan to build
Speaker 1: a ship to lower a claw down into the ocean
Speaker 1: to grab this nuclear sub. But we're gonna, we're gonna
Speaker 1: the cover story is that you are doing deep sea mining.
Speaker 1: And Howard Hughes, of course, who's insane, is like, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: that sounds awesome.
Speaker 4: I love to lie about deep sea mining.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So they do this.
Speaker 1: They build this this crazy ship with a giant claw,
Speaker 1: just like the Arcade Claw games, and they head out.
Speaker 3: Into the middle of the Pacific. They lower the claw.
Speaker 3: It's two miles deep, and they get the sub but
Speaker 3: of course it takes forever. It's like it takes like
Speaker 3: two days just to winch it back up, and then
Speaker 3: once they get to the top, it breaks. It's just
Speaker 3: a wild, hilarious and insane story, and I just I
Speaker 3: love how much hubris is baked into it.
Speaker 1: But then also like it's weirdly successful. It's a funny
Speaker 1: thing to include as a snaffoo because a lot of people,
Speaker 1: a lot of CIA people were saying, I know that
Speaker 1: we didn't get all the intel we wanted, but we
Speaker 1: still pulled off this insane thing. So it's still like
Speaker 1: we want to call it a success, but at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, they it hardly justified the hundreds
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars it cost to do what they did.
Speaker 1: So I think it's it rests firmly in the snatfuo category.
Speaker 1: But it's just an awesome and wild, wild story. What's
Speaker 1: one of your favorites from the book.
Speaker 2: Well, and just from that story, there's also a phrase
Speaker 2: the CIA used to cover their tracks about that secret
Speaker 2: operation that has entered the public lexicon. And if you
Speaker 2: want to know what it is, got to read that
Speaker 2: chapter of the book. Thank you, Yeah for me. There's
Speaker 2: one from the nineteen fifties where there was a Canadian
Speaker 2: nuclear reactor that melts down and the Canadians need immediate
Speaker 2: emergency help to contain the disaster that's happening, and so
Speaker 2: they reach out to the nearest experts and it's some
Speaker 2: US nuclear sub guys in New York State. They head
Speaker 2: up over the border. They work out a wild plan
Speaker 2: to save this melting down nuclear reactor. And the thing
Speaker 2: that's so cool about this story is that the person
Speaker 2: leading that team trying to save the melting down nuclear
Speaker 2: reactor is future President Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 1: And he's what twenty two, I think, yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: twenty you know, he's very very young at this point.
Speaker 1: And there's also a little connection in this chapter to
Speaker 1: the Almond Brothers that I love. It's one of those
Speaker 1: really funny moments that I'm glad of the book. Well,
Speaker 1: Jimmy was buds with the Almond Brothers, which is a
Speaker 1: great detail. He's from Jimmy's from what America's Georgia, and
Speaker 1: the Almond Brothers are from making Georgia that it's just
Speaker 1: this Georgia where.
Speaker 3: We all walks am from Atlanta.
Speaker 1: It's like we just we all stick together Georgia, Georgia, folks,
Speaker 1: you know we have each other's back.
Speaker 2: How about one more from you at And is there
Speaker 2: another chapter that you'd like to talk about.
Speaker 1: We get into the fabulous Suez Canal disaster, which most
Speaker 1: people know, and because it was so recent, this the
Speaker 1: giant tanker or container ship that just got wedged in
Speaker 1: the Suez Canal and suddenly made the world realize how
Speaker 1: dependent we are on this teeny tiny little stretch of
Speaker 1: water that is actually a corridor for the biggest supply
Speaker 1: chains in the world for everything. And they wind up
Speaker 1: dredging and digging and digging and digging. But the great
Speaker 1: detail is that it's actually this full moon occurrence that
Speaker 1: allows the tide to rise high enough to just barely
Speaker 1: nudge it off the bank and get it free. But
Speaker 1: it's just a wild story and there's so many fun details.
Speaker 2: In terms of the book coming out, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: we're talking about this because we're getting close. What's it
Speaker 2: like gearing up for a book launch? Does it feel
Speaker 2: similar to you? I mean, you've had so many incredible
Speaker 2: projects come out over the years, including some great podcasts.
Speaker 2: I might say, how is gearing up for a book
Speaker 2: launch feel compared to promoting a new movie or TV show?
Speaker 3: It's very similar. Honestly. The book tour will feel similar to.
Speaker 1: Like a movie promotional tour in that I'll be doing
Speaker 1: talk shows, and I'll be doing appearances and all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff. The big difference is that I expect to
Speaker 1: be having much more in depth conversations with interviewers on
Speaker 1: the book tour, talking more about the content of the book. Typically,
Speaker 1: on a movie tour, you're just kind of staying pretty
Speaker 1: superficial about how fun it was to make.
Speaker 3: The movie and what's in the movie.
Speaker 1: In this case, I'm excited to really kind of like
Speaker 1: play a bit of more intellectual ping pong with people
Speaker 1: and just get into some of the ideas and ramifications
Speaker 1: of these snaffoos and how they've resonated or what meaning
Speaker 1: they've had throughout history.
Speaker 2: You're going to get to talk history You're gonna go
Speaker 2: around the country talk in history with folks like I
Speaker 2: get to nerd out so exciting.
Speaker 1: I get to nerd out in such a fun way
Speaker 1: and I truly can't wait.
Speaker 2: And So if people want to see you on this
Speaker 2: book tour that you're doing to support the launch of
Speaker 2: the book, where can they go where you're going.
Speaker 3: To be fabulous question.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm also doing live in person appearances in lots
Speaker 1: and lots of cities all around. Just off the top
Speaker 1: of my head, I'm going to probably forget some but
Speaker 1: New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, d C, Atlanta, Georgia my
Speaker 1: hometown where I grew up, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los
Speaker 1: Angeles my current hometown where I live now, and.
Speaker 4: Ding Ding ding Ding. You got it, all of them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So I'll be having events in all those
Speaker 1: cities where people can buy tickets and come. See go
Speaker 1: to Snafoo dashbook dot com for all the details about
Speaker 1: where you can both pre order the book and there's
Speaker 1: links to buy tickets to these events in all the
Speaker 1: different cities.
Speaker 2: Fantastic If you were going to cast yourself in one
Speaker 2: of these Snaffoo stories from the book, is there someone
Speaker 2: you would want to play.
Speaker 4: Obviously, these are snaffoos, so we're talking about screw ups.
Speaker 2: But if you had to be in one of these
Speaker 2: screw ups, who you want to be?
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, I've made a career of playing people
Speaker 1: screwing up on camera, so I could really probably slot
Speaker 1: into any of these.
Speaker 3: But I think that.
Speaker 1: I think, actually it would be pretty cool to play
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter where he's basically saving the planet. It's the
Speaker 1: first nuclear reactor meltdown in history, and that's the snafu,
Speaker 1: but Jimmy Carter is the hero, like he comes in
Speaker 1: and saves the day, So that would be a cool one.
Speaker 3: Of Course, I'm not in my twenties anymore, so that
Speaker 3: might be a little bit of a stretch.
Speaker 1: The other one that I think would actually be really
Speaker 1: funny to do is to be like a crew member
Speaker 1: or the captain of the Ever given the ship that
Speaker 1: was lodged in the Sue's canal, I feel like that's
Speaker 1: a very Armando Yaanucci, kind of like Veep or even
Speaker 1: like The Office, Like if you imagine the wheelhouse of
Speaker 1: this giant container ship is kind of like dunder Mifflin
Speaker 1: with just people like milling about doing their mundane jobs,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, the biggest disaster in
Speaker 1: logistics history is upon you.
Speaker 3: That feels like a ton of fun.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna retake control of this interview, Carl.
Speaker 1: You did a stupendous job, and I got to watch
Speaker 1: my back here. You're gonna like take my job. You're
Speaker 1: a great surviewer.
Speaker 4: No danger, no danger of that.
Speaker 1: But thank you so much, Carl for picking my brain
Speaker 1: and just having a fun little breakdown both of our
Speaker 1: podcast process and a little bit of backstory on this book,
Speaker 1: which I'm so proud of. Enjoy the rest of season
Speaker 1: three Formula six and check out snafuo dashbook dot com
Speaker 1: and come see me live in person. Let's talk Snafu.
Speaker 1: I'll sign your books. It's gonna be great here here.
Speaker 4: Do'll miss it, Lady,