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Speaker 1: Uh, Superintendent Dalmers, welcome. I hope you're prepared for an

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Speaker 1: unforgettable lungeon.

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Speaker 2: Why is the coming out of your ravncmyr oh.

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Speaker 1: That doesn't smoke, it's steam steamed from the steamed clams.

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Speaker 1: We're having steam claims.

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Speaker 2: I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry o'she. I served in

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Speaker 2: the CIA's Clandestine Service for twenty eight years, living undercover

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Speaker 2: all around the world.

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Speaker 3: And in my thirty three years with the CIA, I

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Speaker 3: served in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

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Speaker 2: Although we don't usually look at it this way, we

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Speaker 2: created conspiracies.

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Speaker 3: In our operations. We got people to believe things that

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Speaker 3: weren't true.

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Speaker 2: Now we're investigating the conspiracy theories we see in the

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Speaker 2: news almost every day.

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Speaker 3: We'll break them down for you to determine whether they

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Speaker 3: could be real or whether we're being manipulated.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Mission Implausible. Welcome back. Good to see you, guys.

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Speaker 1: Good to see you.

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Speaker 4: I'm here too, guys, I know because I can see you.

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Speaker 4: Good to see you.

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Speaker 3: John and Adam high jinks. Are we getting up to today?

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Speaker 4: Adam? You must have some cheese stories, right.

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Speaker 5: Vermont is a hotbed of cheese Innovation and Cheddar Innovation,

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Speaker 5: and my good friends at Grafton Village Cheese have just

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Speaker 5: created the first cow sheep milk hybrid Cheddar.

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Speaker 4: Grafton Village Cheeses. Use code Adam twenty two for ten

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Speaker 4: percent off your first order.

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Speaker 3: Do you know that main cheese that they were going

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Speaker 3: to be selling in Israel? But apparently it doesn't translate

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Speaker 3: into Hebrew very well, so they had to change the

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Speaker 3: name when they were going to sell it, and Adam,

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Speaker 3: do you know what the name they use for it is?

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Speaker 6: Oh?

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Speaker 4: No, no, so.

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Speaker 3: Selling it in Israel now, so they're calling it Cheeses

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Speaker 3: of Nanzrath. The only thing sillier at this conversation is

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Speaker 3: like the Simpsons.

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Speaker 4: Oh, it's funny you mentioned the Simpsons, because I think

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Speaker 4: I'm the biggest Simpsons fan of all of us. I

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Speaker 4: actually remember watching the very first episode live when it

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Speaker 4: was on Look Dad, it's Sana as little Helper.

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Speaker 6: Oh we keep him God true, but.

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Speaker 1: He's a loser.

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Speaker 4: He But that acht.

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Speaker 1: The Simpson.

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Speaker 4: And years later I had the pleasure of working in

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Speaker 4: comedy and finding myself crossing paths with all the Simpsons

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Speaker 4: writers and directors.

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Speaker 2: I think much more highly of you now, because I'm

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Speaker 2: a big fan of the Simpsons too.

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Speaker 5: I love the Simpsons very much, and I've tried to

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Speaker 5: interest my son.

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Speaker 2: It just doesn't what he's turned to you onto the Celtics.

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Speaker 2: But you can't turn him onto I can't.

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Speaker 5: Turn them them onto the Simpsons, not yet anyway.

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Speaker 4: So I can't say this for a fact, but I

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Speaker 4: feel like the Simpsons invented the Easter Egg. And so

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Speaker 4: if you watch The Simpsons and you want to watch

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Speaker 4: the episode the second time or a third time, you're

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Speaker 4: always finding these little visual jokes in the background and

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Speaker 4: a sign. And it really became the thing where you

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Speaker 4: pause and you put in slow motion because you want

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Speaker 4: to pick up all these little jokes. But that's the

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Speaker 4: perfect situation to think that you're seeing special messages that

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Speaker 4: aren't there just for comedy. Could you explain to me

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Speaker 4: the conspiracy theory about the Simpsons we're about to discuss, as.

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Speaker 3: I understand it is that CIA has recruited Matt Groening

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Speaker 3: and these writers as a way to either a telegraph

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Speaker 3: its predictions of the future that it's making, or b

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Speaker 3: it's to use this to somehow subvert American society.

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Speaker 2: I think people when they hear intelligence, they assume that

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Speaker 2: it's a predictive agency. Collect that that's your job of

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Speaker 2: the CIA is to go to the president say China's

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Speaker 2: going to collapse next year and there's going to be

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Speaker 2: who when in fact, as you and I know, intelligence

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Speaker 2: isn't really about prediction, even with perfect information, it's impossible

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Speaker 2: in this complex world to predict things. It's more about

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Speaker 2: providing as much information to help policymakers make smart decisions.

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Speaker 4: And so the reason The Simpsons is the focus of

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Speaker 4: this conspiracy theory is because The Simpsons has apparently predicted

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Speaker 4: so many things, and so many important things that it

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Speaker 4: stands out. But the most famous prediction was in a

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Speaker 4: two thousand episode titled Bart to the Future. Bart thinks

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Speaker 4: about the future, he envisions Lisa Simpson as president.

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Speaker 6: As you know, we've inherited quite a budget crunch from

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Speaker 6: President Trump. How bad is it, Secretary van Houghton.

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Speaker 2: We're broke.

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Speaker 6: The country has broke.

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Speaker 1: How can that be?

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Speaker 4: Well?

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Speaker 6: Remember when the last administration decided to invest in our

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Speaker 6: nation's children?

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Speaker 4: Big mistake. This aired long before Trump was president. Obviously,

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Speaker 4: See you guys ready for our guests, Bring them on.

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Speaker 2: I'm excited. I'm a big fan, so I'm excited to

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Speaker 2: do it.

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Speaker 4: These guys are legends in the world of the Simpsons

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Speaker 4: and comedy. David Silverman and Bill Oakley. Now, David Silverman

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Speaker 4: has been a director and an executive producer of The

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Speaker 4: Simpsons since the beginning.

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Speaker 7: Although we would say that the beginning those positions weren't

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Speaker 7: really there, because if you go back to the beginning,

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Speaker 7: beginning the Tracy Omens show, I was along with the

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Speaker 7: Weiss Archer, the two animators those titles were amassed bit

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Speaker 7: by bit later.

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Speaker 4: And Bill Oakley. He was a writer during what many

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Speaker 4: people consider the Golden Age with the Simpsons, when a

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Speaker 4: lot of the things were invented. His big claim to

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Speaker 4: fame is steamed hams.

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Speaker 1: Superden and I hope you're ready for mouth watering hamburgers.

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Speaker 4: I thought we were having steamed clams.

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Speaker 1: No, I said, steamed hams. That's what I call hamburgers.

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Speaker 4: You call hamburgers steamed hams.

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Speaker 1: Yes, it's a regional dialect. What region upstate New York?

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Speaker 2: Really, I'm from Utica and I've never heard anyone use

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Speaker 2: the phrase steamed hams.

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Speaker 1: Oh, not a Utica. No, it's an alboy expression.

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Speaker 2: The Simpsons is famous in many ways, both for predicting

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Speaker 2: things that happened. What's the process when you're putting together

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Speaker 2: a show and how do you come up with those

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Speaker 2: kind of issues that might be considered predictive.

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Speaker 7: I think it's all accidental. Are They're usually things that

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Speaker 7: strike somebody funny and they write it and we have

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Speaker 7: a big laugh over it, and then sometimes they manifest

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Speaker 7: as true and we go, look at that. But it's

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Speaker 7: not like we're sitting there like, Okay, let's get our

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Speaker 7: box of predictions and see which one we're going to

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Speaker 7: insert in this episode. Now, that's not the way it works,

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Speaker 7: and oftentimes people forget that. What become quote unquote predictions

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Speaker 7: were actually, if you will, low hanging fruit at the time,

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Speaker 7: and I will point out the most famous one being

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Speaker 7: Donald Trump. The Donald Trump prediction. First of all, we

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Speaker 7: didn't actually represent Donald Trump physically on the show, as

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Speaker 7: it was purported later when people sorted making stuff up

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Speaker 7: about it. But it was around the year two thousand

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Speaker 7: and most people don't remember, but Donald Trump at the

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Speaker 7: time was running for president. He was running for president

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Speaker 7: on the extinct third party, what was it called the

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Speaker 7: Liberty party that ross Pero started again. We weren't there

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Speaker 7: at a Ouiji board looking into the future. We were

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Speaker 7: just making a joke.

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Speaker 3: So you guys are being accused of being CIA agents, which,

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Speaker 3: by the way, is a tell that you're not right

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Speaker 3: because we're CIA officers. Agents are like the guys that

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Speaker 3: we handle. Although that's a possibility, And what does that

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Speaker 3: say about our society that Homer Simpson is like the

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Speaker 3: all knowing, omnipotent CIA predictor. And I'm not confirming nor

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Speaker 3: denying that you guys are CIA.

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Speaker 4: It's a very complicated issue.

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Speaker 8: I personally and many of us writers, especially from that era,

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Speaker 8: have been accused of being part of the Skull and Bones,

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Speaker 8: part of the Illuminati, or from the CIA, and only

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Speaker 8: one of those is true. So, but the thing is,

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Speaker 8: it's like, there's a couple different things about why would

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Speaker 8: the CAA want to have comedy writers on the payroll.

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Speaker 8: I don't think we have a lot of a lot

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Speaker 8: to offer the intelligence community. One of the things that

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Speaker 8: we've been accused of is telegraphing secret messages. Usually that's

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Speaker 8: we're accused of that by people who are crazy, but

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Speaker 8: we've also been accused and this most recently in that

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Speaker 8: very tragic incident where that guy set himself on fire

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Speaker 8: in front of the Trump trial. I don't know if

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Speaker 8: anybody read his manifesto, but there were several pages about

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Speaker 8: the Simpsons in there, and the insidious nature of the Simpsons,

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Speaker 8: which I believe he was accusing of demoralizing Americans giving up.

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Speaker 8: And I guess that's more of a would be a

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Speaker 8: long term operation to demoralize Americans into not revolting against

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Speaker 8: big corporations and the status quo, which is that's a

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Speaker 8: legitimate concern. And if we did that, it's probably just

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Speaker 8: because we were We want to be funny.

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Speaker 2: I think the intelligen curtity would be glad to have

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Speaker 2: creative comedy writers just because you guys are interesting, creative

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Speaker 2: and clever and funny.

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Speaker 8: Call me up then, Jesus, if you guys, if there's

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Speaker 8: anybody at the intelligent community listening to this, you can

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Speaker 8: send me at the DM on Instagram and you can

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Speaker 8: sign me up.

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Speaker 4: I'll do it.

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Speaker 2: The one thing interesting is, as we see in politics,

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Speaker 2: Americans don't even understand their system, and conspiracy theories often

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Speaker 2: come from people who don't understand how things work, so

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Speaker 2: they create some weird view of how they think it works.

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Speaker 2: In fact, the CIA, it's an intelligence organization, but it's

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Speaker 2: not an organization but prediction. Like, the point is not

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Speaker 2: to predict what's going to happen in the future, because

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Speaker 2: essentially the world's too complex and nobody can predict what's

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Speaker 2: going to happen in the future. Our job is to

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Speaker 2: collect foreign information, secrets that foreign governments are trying to

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Speaker 2: keep hidden from us, that can help our policymakers make decisions.

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Speaker 8: But I do think there's one thing that you could

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Speaker 8: predict that's very likely to happen, which is that everyone

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Speaker 8: is going to get stupider. That's one of the things

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Speaker 8: that has happened over the course of the past thirty years.

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Speaker 8: For example, in an episode that my partner John when

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Speaker 8: I say we throughout this, I mean my partner Josh

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Speaker 8: Weinstein and I. By the way, we're high school friends.

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Speaker 8: We were in this episode called Margin Chains, and at

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Speaker 8: the very end of the episode, the people of Springfield

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Speaker 8: are given a statue of Jimmy Carter, which causes them

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Speaker 8: to riot because he's the worst president ever and they

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Speaker 8: hate him. And that doesn't sound so unbelievable now, you know,

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Speaker 8: I think there's a lot of towns in America where

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Speaker 8: the populace would riot if they were a statue of

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Speaker 8: Jimmy Carter were forced upon them.

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Speaker 4: And at the.

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Speaker 8: Time, it was like, that's so stupid.

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Speaker 2: I give you on thirty ninth, President, Jimmy Cattah, come on,

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Speaker 2: bait History's greatest monster.

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Speaker 8: We're making fun of people who are stupid and gullible,

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Speaker 8: and unfortunately, I think a lot of the American populace

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Speaker 8: is now as dumb as the people of Springfield were

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Speaker 8: thirty years ago. So that's part of what we were projecting.

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Speaker 7: And it's interesting because Bill, when I was even in

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Speaker 7: high school, I was concerned with my fellow students because

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Speaker 7: I thought a lot of them are you guys aren't

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Speaker 7: too bright, and you guys aren't really paying attention. So

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Speaker 7: I've been worried for ever since I was in high

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Speaker 7: school of like, where are we heading intellectually in this

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Speaker 7: country in terms of like people's education, and that we

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Speaker 7: have at least one party who seems to be championing

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Speaker 7: that because that sort of helps them.

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Speaker 8: Now, that could be a CIA operation, but the CIA

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Speaker 8: is non harnessing, or isn't it.

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Speaker 3: Now?

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Speaker 4: We actually are.

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Speaker 3: When we were on the inside, we never knew what

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Speaker 3: people's political predilections were, and we stayed away from them.

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Speaker 3: And it really didn't matter to us as long as

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Speaker 3: it was legal and authorized and moral.

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Speaker 2: It was about protecting the American people, and we were

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Speaker 2: focused overseas. Our job was to understand the countries and

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Speaker 2: the politics of the countries we're in to try to

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Speaker 2: help American policy makers be smarter about what they do.

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Speaker 2: You guys, for whether you've met to or not. We're

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Speaker 2: always focused on societal and cultural issues and things. And

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Speaker 2: I think you can get a good sense of what

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Speaker 2: America is like by watching.

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Speaker 8: Oh yeah, The Simpsons, David, and you'll probably know more

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Speaker 8: about this than I with your travels. But The Simpsons

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Speaker 8: is very popular in many other countries, and specifically, in

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Speaker 8: my mind, Latin America and South America, where it's every

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Speaker 8: fifth bar is a mose Bar ripoff and stuff like that.

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Speaker 8: It's shown in Africa in some places, definitely, in a

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Speaker 8: lot of places in Europe.

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Speaker 7: It's immensely popular in England, France, Italy, Germany, Australia. So

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Speaker 7: you have all my travels, you draw barred and like

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Speaker 7: people are like very happy to meet you. Most people

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Speaker 7: do see it as not only a parody of what

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Speaker 7: a life is like in America, but that sort of

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Speaker 7: modern existence, particularly in Europe, is pretty universal. It's very

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Speaker 7: well understood what we're doing. And they don't think of

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Speaker 7: it as so much as they're looking at a window

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Speaker 7: in America, but they look at it as a sort

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Speaker 7: of reflection of themselves, even though they're not in America,

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Speaker 7: because as I say, Simpsons is mostly a parody or

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Speaker 7: look at modern culture.

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Speaker 8: The Simpsons family structure and their lifestyle. He's really taken

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Speaker 8: out of like sitcoms from nineteen fifty nine.

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Speaker 4: It's Homer.

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Speaker 8: As people repeatedly pointed out, Homer is a man with

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Speaker 8: a high school education who has a five bedroom house

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Speaker 8: and two cars and makes a fairly small amount of money,

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Speaker 8: and so his financial situation is really more out of

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Speaker 8: nineteen fifty nine than it is modern day. So if

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Speaker 8: people are seeing America through that lens, what they're seeing

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Speaker 8: is in America of sixty or seventy years ago.

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Speaker 2: Let's take a break, we'll be right back, and we're back.

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Speaker 2: You guys did grow up around washingon DC. Bill. I

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Speaker 2: know you went to Harvard and a part of the

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Speaker 2: Lampoon and have been the people to often talk about

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Speaker 2: that is having connections somehow of the Illuminati or to

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Speaker 2: national security State.

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Speaker 8: It's entirely possible that I'm a sleeper agent and don't

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Speaker 8: know it yet. It's been a long wait. But I

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Speaker 8: did grow up in that whole world. As I told

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Speaker 8: you guys before the show, my dad worked in the

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Speaker 8: House and the Senate, and then he worked at the

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Speaker 8: Department Energy for twenty years in the Atomic Energy Commission

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Speaker 8: and did have a.

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Speaker 4: Q security clearance.

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Speaker 8: I don't think I was used as part of some

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Speaker 8: sort of experiment, but I guess I don't. I'll never

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Speaker 8: really know. And the other part is the Lampoon has

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Speaker 8: definitely given way too much credit for being like a

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Speaker 8: skull and bones type of skull and bones. But there's

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Speaker 8: a conspiracy is that people keep hiring their friends from

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Speaker 8: the Lampoon to write for TV shows, and that's really

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Speaker 8: the conspiracy.

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Speaker 7: Also, by the way, this is touching on something else,

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Speaker 7: because people talk about the predictions. I like to think

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Speaker 7: that sometimes they're not predictions, but they're suggestions, and people

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Speaker 7: take us up on them famously. I think maybe at

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Speaker 7: one time Bob Igo was watching a Simpson episode, the

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Speaker 7: one that posited the idea that Disney owned Fox, and thought, oh,

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Speaker 7: it's not a bad idea. How much money we got.

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Speaker 4: The episode was titled When You Dish Upon a Star,

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Speaker 4: and Ron Howard pitches a movie idea a to Homer

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Speaker 4: and the studio that he's pitching to is twentieth Century Fox,

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Speaker 4: a division of the Walt Disney Company. And it wasn't

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Speaker 4: until almost twenty years later that actually happened, But it

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Speaker 4: was the.

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Speaker 2: Beginning of the mergers area, so it's not surprising. Someday

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Speaker 2: they're all going to be. There's gonna be one big

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Speaker 2: giant company.

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Speaker 4: About the other ones that also are possibly people followed

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Speaker 4: your suggestion Lady Gaga's halftime show Cypress Hill performing with

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Speaker 4: the London Symphony that.

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Speaker 8: Was Now that's an example of a suggestion, because that

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Speaker 8: was just a joke about how preposterous it was that

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Speaker 8: something like that would ever happen, and now it has

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Speaker 8: really happened, and I'm it certainly wouldn't have happened without

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Speaker 8: that joke.

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Speaker 7: Other bands have worked with orchestras. It's not like this

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Speaker 7: is the first time that's ever happened, but that certainly

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Speaker 7: was a suggestion. But also yet Lady Gaga was on

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Speaker 7: our show. Okay, she was on our show. She saw

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Speaker 7: the show. See putty thought that's a good idea. Maybe

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Speaker 7: they should fly in.

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Speaker 4: Could I ask about a few specific ones here before

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Speaker 4: Biden and Kamala Harris were a team. There is a

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Speaker 4: shot of them standing next to each other at the

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Speaker 4: White House? Are you familiar with this one?

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Speaker 7: On the West Side story one. How I can tell

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Speaker 7: you is because I directed that thing. All I can

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Speaker 7: tell you is that I had about I don't know,

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Speaker 7: forty seven people to put into a line, and I

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Speaker 7: just put them into line randomly, just TikTok, and we

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Speaker 7: have a lot of work to do and we have

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Speaker 7: a deadline, and out the door it went. And as

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Speaker 7: far as the order was, I mean, we probably put

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Speaker 7: some Democrats together and Republicans together and something like that,

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Speaker 7: but that's as far as it went. Now, the idea

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Speaker 7: that to say, hey see there, no, I'm sorry, that's

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Speaker 7: a colossal coincidence. Sorry is, ladies and gentlemen, No conspiracies here.

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Speaker 4: I guess you could argue that after six thousand episodes,

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Speaker 4: just the law of statistics, certain things would take place.

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Speaker 7: I would think so too. The thing that's really interesting

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Speaker 7: are the sports prediction. Those are the ones that really

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Speaker 7: do have is baffled. The other ones we can explain

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Speaker 7: a little bit. But the sports predictions are pretty amazing.

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Speaker 8: I think most of them, almost all of the ones

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Speaker 8: you're talking about came from George Meyer.

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Speaker 7: Who was that was the I was going to say,

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Speaker 7: who George Meyer?

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Speaker 4: Is talking about it?

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Speaker 8: Obviously, now if anybody could get I don't know this

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Speaker 8: for sure, but I'm fairly sure he's incredibly rich because

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Speaker 8: of his ability to predict things, including gold, which I

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Speaker 8: was told he invested silver. Okay, so yes it was silver, right,

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Speaker 8: so he I.

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Speaker 7: Believe he did silver investor.

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Speaker 8: I don't want anybody to burglarize George's house after hearing this,

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Speaker 8: so guys, they are be careful.

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Speaker 4: See.

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Speaker 8: But I think what happened was that he had he

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Speaker 8: was he was a very savvy investor because he did

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Speaker 8: have the ability. I don't know if he had the

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Speaker 8: ability to predict, but he could certainly he got lucky

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Speaker 8: a lot, especially in sports gambling as well in sports betting.

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Speaker 7: He was a very savvy sports handicapper. He told me

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Speaker 7: something very interesting. He was factoring people's psychology of how

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Speaker 7: much they wanted their team to win as a factor

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Speaker 7: in setting the odds, and he worked that into his

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Speaker 7: mathematical calculation on out of that very deep savvy thinker

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Speaker 7: and again not a prognosticator, didn't have a flux capacitor.

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Speaker 7: I think, just had a brain capacity.

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Speaker 8: I think also Sam was like that too, from what

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Speaker 8: I heard. Sam Simon was one of the other creators

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Speaker 8: of the show also was similar in that way. Is

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Speaker 8: a big sports fan better and so forth.

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Speaker 7: Both those guys were not only good big sports betters,

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Speaker 7: but aren't and successful sports betters because they understood what

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Speaker 7: was going on when the games they were betting. Yeah,

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Speaker 7: and George I think, was the one who was responsible

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Speaker 7: for all those Super Bowl sharing predictions. And then of

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Speaker 7: course it's just the accidental ones that we just for

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Speaker 7: a joke decided to pair two teams together in a

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Speaker 7: soccer match and oh my god, look they're in the

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Speaker 7: World Cup.

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Speaker 8: If that episode aired twenty five years ago, you got

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Speaker 8: twenty five chances for that particular pairing to show up,

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Speaker 8: and you're going to get lucky one eventually.

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Speaker 7: Oh how brilliant are they are?

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Speaker 2: They?

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Speaker 4: Right?

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Speaker 7: One set of twenty five times.

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Speaker 2: Well, and you can also see things that clearly just funny,

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Speaker 2: but then it happens and it's not really a surprise,

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Speaker 2: like the whole Siegfried and Roy being attacked by their tigers. Yes,

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Speaker 2: I can imagine that.

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Speaker 8: That was in my scripto just because it seems Yeah,

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Speaker 8: that's the joke. That's the joke, and it eventually came true.

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Speaker 8: What joke would you make to as a layman, there's

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Speaker 8: a tiger trainer, What joke would you make with tiger

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Speaker 8: trainer the tiger attacks him. That's the number one thing

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Speaker 8: that occurs to you to make a joke about a

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Speaker 8: tiger tracker.

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Speaker 7: It's a joke to make again the low hanging fruit.

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Speaker 2: Nsay, listening to everybody's phone calls or whatever.

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Speaker 3: That was my point as a CIA guy, by and large,

403
00:18:07,200 --> 00:18:10,199
Speaker 3: we try to keep things secret when we have secrets, right,

404
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Speaker 3: it's the whole point of a secret. If we knew

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Speaker 3: who was going to win the gold medal and curling,

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Speaker 3: why we would investigate that, I don't know, but we

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Speaker 3: wouldn't put it on a TV show with a huge audience,

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Speaker 3: and not when we think we know a secret, Hey,

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Speaker 3: we know that there is WMD in Rock.

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Speaker 4: We generally tell people that and go prove it. It's

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Speaker 4: actually the other way around, and just say it. Yeah.

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Speaker 8: I think a far more legitimate conspiracy theory is that

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Speaker 8: we're having some sort of demoralizing effect on the nation

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Speaker 8: as a whole. That would be more of a thing

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Speaker 8: that it's true. Why would we Okay, I guess there're

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Speaker 8: two more legitimate. One is that we're telegraphing information to

417
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Speaker 8: agents like those stations, those encoded number stations that you

418
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Speaker 8: guys use, right, We're somehow broadcasting information to agents through

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Speaker 8: encrypted material on our show or even non encrypted stuff

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Speaker 8: like that nine to eleven poster, which has been subject

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Speaker 8: to so many theories. And the other thing is that

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Speaker 8: more it's a more broad based thing, is that we're

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Speaker 8: having some sort of cultural effect on the nation that

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Speaker 8: some insidious large entity wants to take place.

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Speaker 2: Damn you guys for ruining our nation because you succeeded

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Speaker 2: very well.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, I know, it's not terrible just to put

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Speaker 7: some funny shows on the air.

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Speaker 4: There you go.

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Speaker 2: Let me ask, so, Bill, you mentioned a couple of

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Speaker 2: about the nine to eleven poster. Can you give us

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Speaker 2: a little background on that?

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Speaker 8: Yes, David, did you direct that episode? David, you went

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Speaker 8: to all those photos.

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Speaker 7: Though I took those photos. This is of course, before

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Speaker 7: you had the resource of the Internet. I happen to

437
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Speaker 7: be recording for the road El Dorado in New York.

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Speaker 7: I was dispatched down to the World Trade Center to

439
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Speaker 7: take as many photos as I putt only the center

440
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Speaker 7: and the locations, but the street across.

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Speaker 2: But no.

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00:19:47,520 --> 00:19:50,160
Speaker 7: Jim Rearden directed that episode very hilariously.

443
00:19:50,280 --> 00:19:52,359
Speaker 8: So this was an episode of The Simpsons that was

444
00:19:52,400 --> 00:19:53,920
Speaker 8: the premiere of the ninth season. It was one of

445
00:19:53,960 --> 00:19:56,840
Speaker 8: the last episodes of Josh and I produced and head wrote.

446
00:19:56,880 --> 00:19:59,399
Speaker 8: And it's an episode where Barney drives Homer's car to

447
00:19:59,400 --> 00:20:01,560
Speaker 8: New York and in the plaza of the World Trade

448
00:20:01,600 --> 00:20:04,119
Speaker 8: Center and Holmeer asked to go to New York and

449
00:20:04,240 --> 00:20:07,680
Speaker 8: the entire literally an entire act, if not two acts,

450
00:20:07,680 --> 00:20:09,760
Speaker 8: if it take place at the World Trade Center. And

451
00:20:10,040 --> 00:20:14,000
Speaker 8: so people obviously took note of that. But most importantly,

452
00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:17,440
Speaker 8: the conspiracy theory revolves around this poster. Is a newspaper ad,

453
00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:19,520
Speaker 8: a full paid newspaper add that Bart shows off in

454
00:20:19,600 --> 00:20:20,679
Speaker 8: Act one. It's like, how are we going to get

455
00:20:20,680 --> 00:20:22,160
Speaker 8: to New York? We can't afford to get to New York.

456
00:20:22,200 --> 00:20:24,080
Speaker 8: He holds up a newspaper ad that says New York

457
00:20:24,200 --> 00:20:27,200
Speaker 8: nine dollars on the bus line, and there's the nine

458
00:20:27,520 --> 00:20:30,320
Speaker 8: and then there's a silhouette of the skyline of Manhattan

459
00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:33,560
Speaker 8: including the two World Trade Centers, which does look when

460
00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:36,000
Speaker 8: you see it like nine eleven, the nine dollars and

461
00:20:36,040 --> 00:20:38,440
Speaker 8: the eleven I love to see New York.

462
00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:41,679
Speaker 6: We could all go at the bus company's special supersitter

463
00:20:41,760 --> 00:20:43,440
Speaker 6: fair nine books.

464
00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:44,280
Speaker 4: This one's on me.

465
00:20:44,760 --> 00:20:47,720
Speaker 8: And so the conspiracy theory goes that us, as members

466
00:20:47,760 --> 00:20:50,320
Speaker 8: of the Skull and Bones Illuminati, et cetera, et cetera,

467
00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:54,080
Speaker 8: we're broadcasting to our sleeper agents. Here's the target.

468
00:20:54,119 --> 00:20:55,480
Speaker 4: Here is the date. They took it off the.

469
00:20:55,480 --> 00:20:58,159
Speaker 8: Air for ten years, although now it's back, so it

470
00:20:58,240 --> 00:20:59,160
Speaker 8: was an interesting thing.

471
00:20:59,320 --> 00:21:02,679
Speaker 7: I would mention that that poster, though, was not designed

472
00:21:02,680 --> 00:21:05,480
Speaker 7: by the writers. We just did a drawing of it,

473
00:21:05,520 --> 00:21:07,120
Speaker 7: and I don't know who designed it, but just had

474
00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:09,800
Speaker 7: the nine dollars and just had a silhouette of the

475
00:21:09,800 --> 00:21:12,040
Speaker 7: New York skyline as it was back in that day,

476
00:21:12,280 --> 00:21:15,320
Speaker 7: and it was not like discussed back and forth. Probably

477
00:21:15,359 --> 00:21:17,719
Speaker 7: we just probably just did it. Really quickly, and it

478
00:21:17,760 --> 00:21:18,440
Speaker 7: makes perfect sense.

479
00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:20,560
Speaker 8: It's exactly what you would do. That's one of the

480
00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:23,959
Speaker 8: most prominent conspiracy theories there is that one, as well

481
00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:25,560
Speaker 8: as the Trump one, and the other things like that

482
00:21:25,600 --> 00:21:28,600
Speaker 8: and the Disney one are among the most most prominent.

483
00:21:28,680 --> 00:21:30,600
Speaker 7: But by the way, the other thing that really amused

484
00:21:30,600 --> 00:21:32,840
Speaker 7: me about the Trump one is they took this thing

485
00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:35,280
Speaker 7: that we did. We got it out very quickly. To

486
00:21:35,320 --> 00:21:37,200
Speaker 7: our credit, we must have got that out in two

487
00:21:37,240 --> 00:21:39,600
Speaker 7: weeks from the time that he went down, as John

488
00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:43,040
Speaker 7: Stewart jokingly put it as Stair Force one going down

489
00:21:43,119 --> 00:21:46,120
Speaker 7: the escalator of the Trump Tower. We got the parody

490
00:21:46,119 --> 00:21:49,560
Speaker 7: out within two about two weeks later onto YouTube. But

491
00:21:49,600 --> 00:21:54,199
Speaker 7: what happened was is some conspiracy theorist types took what

492
00:21:54,240 --> 00:21:57,520
Speaker 7: we had done for that and posited the idea that

493
00:21:57,560 --> 00:22:00,959
Speaker 7: we actually predicted not only him being that, but represented

494
00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:05,920
Speaker 7: him going down the escalator at Trump Tower as that

495
00:22:06,080 --> 00:22:08,439
Speaker 7: was in that episode. As if you look at that episode,

496
00:22:08,480 --> 00:22:10,359
Speaker 7: you can clearly see that's not the case. But I

497
00:22:10,400 --> 00:22:13,359
Speaker 7: would have to talk to people saying and they say, oh, no,

498
00:22:13,480 --> 00:22:15,800
Speaker 7: that was in the episode. He said, no, it's not

499
00:22:16,400 --> 00:22:19,639
Speaker 7: well that episode was made or we're still in the

500
00:22:19,680 --> 00:22:22,720
Speaker 7: four x three format and it's not done digitally. It

501
00:22:22,760 --> 00:22:26,200
Speaker 7: was done still on cells and you can see texture

502
00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:28,720
Speaker 7: now with AI. People ask me, is this true, because

503
00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:31,040
Speaker 7: something else happened. I think it was like the disaster

504
00:22:31,160 --> 00:22:33,479
Speaker 7: with the Francis Scott Keybridge. Yeah, somebody sent me this

505
00:22:33,520 --> 00:22:35,760
Speaker 7: image and I said, this is a fake image that

506
00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:37,560
Speaker 7: do anything even remotely.

507
00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:41,360
Speaker 8: But now using AI, you can generate almost any Simpsons

508
00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:44,960
Speaker 8: scene in like about five minutes or less of any

509
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:47,000
Speaker 8: event that happened. And that was the Key Bridge one,

510
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:50,719
Speaker 8: David was the most recent and most egregious one because

511
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:53,359
Speaker 8: to the casual observer it really did look like a

512
00:22:53,359 --> 00:22:56,720
Speaker 8: frame from the Simpsons of that bridge being hit by

513
00:22:56,760 --> 00:22:59,720
Speaker 8: a giant boat. Many of them are funny, like one

514
00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:02,480
Speaker 8: of what it was about March vacuuming the lawn. March

515
00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:04,280
Speaker 8: that she's going to vacuum the lawns dirty, She's going

516
00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:06,520
Speaker 8: to vacuum the lawn, and so there's just all these

517
00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:09,399
Speaker 8: frames of March using different models of vacuum cleaners to

518
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:12,160
Speaker 8: vacuum the lawn. It looks completely unbelievable and it made

519
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:14,560
Speaker 8: me really crack up. Anyway, So some people are using

520
00:23:14,560 --> 00:23:15,560
Speaker 8: this technology for good.

521
00:23:15,560 --> 00:23:16,280
Speaker 4: For entertainment.

522
00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:19,600
Speaker 8: Other people are using it to get clicks and drive advertising.

523
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:21,640
Speaker 8: To The Guardian, there was a January sixth to one

524
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:25,000
Speaker 8: too with Granz keeper Willie wearing that guy's buffalo hat

525
00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:27,560
Speaker 8: or whatever that somebody made. That one was pretty obviously

526
00:23:27,600 --> 00:23:27,920
Speaker 8: a fake.

527
00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:30,879
Speaker 4: There is an episode where there is an image of

528
00:23:31,119 --> 00:23:34,040
Speaker 4: people storming the Capitol from a while back. The episode

529
00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:37,440
Speaker 4: was called The Day the Violence Died nineteen ninety six.

530
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:39,960
Speaker 8: What you're seeing in that episode is a parody of

531
00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:42,879
Speaker 8: Schoolhouse Rock. If you remember school House Rock from the seventies,

532
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:46,359
Speaker 8: the episode the Schoolhouse Rock, I'm just a bill, And

533
00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:49,680
Speaker 8: there was true that at the end. First of all,

534
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:51,640
Speaker 8: it wasn't drawn in the Simpsons style. It was drawn

535
00:23:51,680 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 8: in the sky style of Schoolhouse Rock. And at the end,

536
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:58,600
Speaker 8: it's true that other bills, other constitutional amendments were running

537
00:23:58,680 --> 00:24:00,920
Speaker 8: up the stairs of the Capitol. But it didn't look

538
00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:03,200
Speaker 8: anything like the Simpsons. It looked like Schoolhouse Rock. And

539
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:05,639
Speaker 8: it wasn't people. It was amendments.

540
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 4: Hey, who left all this garbage on the steps of Congress.

541
00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:14,760
Speaker 4: I'm not garbage. Amnamma to be yes, and I'm Ema

542
00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 4: tob and I'm hoping that the runna Barby.

543
00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:22,440
Speaker 2: Why can't we just make a law against flag.

544
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:25,440
Speaker 6: Burning because that law would be unconstitutional.

545
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:28,160
Speaker 4: But if we changed the constitution.

546
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:30,400
Speaker 6: Then we could make all sorts of crazy laws.

547
00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:33,119
Speaker 4: Now you're catching on. There's a couple of others you

548
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:36,440
Speaker 4: might know about Homer at the Bat season three, not

549
00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 4: mad anyone.

550
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:40,160
Speaker 8: It's the sideburns, isn't it. I didn't really has embraced

551
00:24:40,200 --> 00:24:42,320
Speaker 8: that joke to become part of his personalit. It's like

552
00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:43,919
Speaker 8: the most famous thing about Don Mattingly.

553
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 4: Now. The episode follows home in a softball team as

554
00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:49,680
Speaker 4: they start to believe that they're lucky because of articular bat.

555
00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:53,800
Speaker 4: This enrages of jealous mister Burns, who hires major league players.

556
00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:56,960
Speaker 4: One of these players is Don Mattingly, who's benched for

557
00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:00,840
Speaker 4: what mister Burns insists are unruly sideburns. A year later,

558
00:25:00,960 --> 00:25:04,120
Speaker 4: during an actual game in nineteen ninety three, Yankees manager

559
00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 4: Stump Merrill points out that matting Lee did not cut

560
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 4: his hair for the game, which leads to the player

561
00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:10,000
Speaker 4: getting benched.

562
00:25:10,119 --> 00:25:13,720
Speaker 7: Originally, the joke was he had been benched prior. This

563
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:15,880
Speaker 7: was not a prediction. This is an event that happened

564
00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:19,280
Speaker 7: by Steinbrenner that I think had benched him for his sideburns.

565
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:21,200
Speaker 7: Somebody I didn't know, somebody.

566
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:23,360
Speaker 2: I forget what Steinbrenner did that a number, because you're

567
00:25:23,359 --> 00:25:25,120
Speaker 2: not allowed to have facial hair.

568
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:27,960
Speaker 7: Right, I'm not a sportsman, But I do know that

569
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:30,679
Speaker 7: was happened before hid. I believe that Jim Ririden explained

570
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 7: it to me, and he thought it was a hilarious joke.

571
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:35,840
Speaker 7: He just thought it was the best joke. So the

572
00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:39,479
Speaker 7: idea of that being prediction is no, It's obviously a

573
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:42,280
Speaker 7: reference to something that happened prior to the episode.

574
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 8: There's a number of those, by the way, David, that

575
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:48,199
Speaker 8: the most recent one that occurred to me was that

576
00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:51,000
Speaker 8: pandemic one where a lot of people thought we had

577
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:54,560
Speaker 8: predicted COVID in that episode, that Saint margin Chang's episode,

578
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:56,760
Speaker 8: because when the fact, what we were referring to was

579
00:25:56,800 --> 00:25:59,639
Speaker 8: the Hong Kong flu of nineteen sixty nine nineteen seventy

580
00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:01,280
Speaker 8: when we did that, so it was the first time

581
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:03,320
Speaker 8: many people had heard of a pandemic, and they thought

582
00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:05,679
Speaker 8: we had invented the idea of a pandemic, which clearly

583
00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 8: we didn't.

584
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 4: But that was another one, Yeah, a.

585
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 7: Referenced to a past event. And then oh, but so

586
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:14,639
Speaker 7: this is a prediction. It's not laziness writing.

587
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:17,880
Speaker 8: History repeats itself, and the show's been on so long

588
00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 8: that we're getting to the point where history is repeating

589
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:22,960
Speaker 8: itself over and over again, and things that we referred

590
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:25,119
Speaker 8: to that we're old are now new again.

591
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:28,399
Speaker 3: Okay, let's take a break from the craziness just for

592
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:37,159
Speaker 3: a minute or two, and we're back season nine.

593
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:41,920
Speaker 4: Lisa Sachs ninety seven. Marge holds up a children's book

594
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:46,159
Speaker 4: called Curious George and the Ebola Virus, three years before

595
00:26:46,359 --> 00:26:48,080
Speaker 4: the two thousand Bola outbreak.

596
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:50,159
Speaker 8: I wasn't involved in that episode, but I think that

597
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:53,480
Speaker 8: Abola was already a thing that people knew about, as

598
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:55,520
Speaker 8: with the flu. It's probably the first time a lot

599
00:26:55,520 --> 00:26:57,359
Speaker 8: of people heard of that, and that thus they think

600
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 8: the Simpsons predicted it rather than the Simpsons informed them

601
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:01,320
Speaker 8: of its existences.

602
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 7: A thing you can think of also from the comedy

603
00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:06,959
Speaker 7: point of view, the comedy writer he or she might

604
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:09,080
Speaker 7: just say, well, if you're going to have Curious George,

605
00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 7: n blank. It was probably one of those lists, right, Bill,

606
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:13,440
Speaker 7: because this is what we read.

607
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 8: I think it was a book, and al I think

608
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 8: this was an al Gene's script for Lisa's sex it

609
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:20,440
Speaker 8: was I think it was it was coming up as

610
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 8: something that people knew that was scary and weird.

611
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:26,080
Speaker 3: I was in Sudan in nineteen seventy nine and they

612
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:29,640
Speaker 3: had something called greed monkey fever, which was renamed as

613
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:32,120
Speaker 3: a bowl, so it was like way back then as well.

614
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 2: Reruns are so important for The Simpsons, right, so you

615
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 2: can see an old one and say, oh my god,

616
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:38,879
Speaker 2: they're talking about what we're doing today, and so it

617
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:40,439
Speaker 2: is in people's faces when it comes up.

618
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 7: We're getting closer to eight hundred episodes now, and after

619
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:46,720
Speaker 7: eight hundred episodes, there's going to be something that we

620
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:50,960
Speaker 7: just hit. I suspect has not as many episodes. The

621
00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:53,600
Speaker 7: gun Smoke had a lot of episodes. Maybe that would

622
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 7: have hit, but unfortunately took place in the Old West.

623
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:57,200
Speaker 9: So that's what I think.

624
00:27:57,320 --> 00:27:59,480
Speaker 8: Also, this is the nature of the you be to

625
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 8: talk about show more broadly, The Simpsons is one of

626
00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:04,680
Speaker 8: the few things that America shares as a cultural reference.

627
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:08,600
Speaker 8: The media landscape has been so fragmented into two gazillion

628
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 8: different media inputs for everybody all day long, and everybody.

629
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 8: Most people remember certain Simpsons episodes because they have seen

630
00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:18,280
Speaker 8: them so many times. So it is one of the

631
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:21,960
Speaker 8: few things that binds American society together is a knowledge

632
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:23,040
Speaker 8: of certain moments.

633
00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:23,680
Speaker 4: In The Simpsons.

634
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:26,639
Speaker 7: Matt have the idea that here's a TV family that

635
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:29,800
Speaker 7: watches TV, and that was a great staring starting point

636
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 7: because that allowed us to do a infinite number of

637
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 7: parodies of TV. Because we're animated, we don't have to

638
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 7: build a lot of sets. We just cross stuff, So

639
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:42,400
Speaker 7: that's an advantage. What I'm getting at though, is that

640
00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 7: after with this idea, and with this idea of this

641
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 7: family observing current life and so forth, and talking about

642
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 7: things and talking about futuristic things, yeah, we're going to

643
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 7: stumble across things that kind of come true or make

644
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 7: some sort of technological quote unquote prediction. Because that's the

645
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:01,560
Speaker 7: nature of the show, the nature of the writing. You

646
00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:03,920
Speaker 7: can look it like other people in entertainment who've written

647
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 7: science fiction. Star Trek kind of predicted these things, these

648
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 7: cell phone things. That's what happens when people dabble in

649
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 7: being futurists. And after eight hundred episodes, as I said,

650
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:15,480
Speaker 7: we're going to hit it a few times.

651
00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 8: I recall being told I think by Mike and out

652
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 8: we got there. We don't put in contemporary references unless

653
00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:22,719
Speaker 8: there's this really good reason for it, because we want

654
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:25,080
Speaker 8: people to watching the show twenty years from now and

655
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:25,960
Speaker 8: be able to get it.

656
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 7: Briefly, we had a in the Simpsons movie. We had

657
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 7: a reference to Nixon as a joke, and Nixon's.

658
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 8: At evergreen topic. I'm going to say, I'm going to

659
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:36,560
Speaker 8: double down on that.

660
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:39,560
Speaker 7: He's not dated, not quite, because he took it out

661
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 7: because it got no laugh. It just got to a

662
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 7: look from the audience. They're like, what, it's something.

663
00:29:43,840 --> 00:29:46,200
Speaker 8: They didn't wrong audience, but they didn't have a different audien.

664
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:46,560
Speaker 9: They hadn't.

665
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:48,680
Speaker 7: It wasn't that I would say, Bill, it's nothing. They

666
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 7: didn't get the joke that there was no passion behind it. Okay,

667
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 7: well you know what I'm saying. I can see that

668
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 7: you have to make the right joke about him that works,

669
00:29:56,800 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 7: But there's nothing the emotional passion of like love eight

670
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:02,880
Speaker 7: of Nixon is gone, yes, right, any more than people

671
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:05,600
Speaker 7: have love hated for like I don't know warranty.

672
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:06,080
Speaker 9: Now.

673
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 8: People know him now, people who know from Futurama. That's

674
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 8: where his that's where his legacy lives is in Futurama

675
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 8: and other and the projects that I'm doing, my projects

676
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:14,880
Speaker 8: for Audible, I have a lot of Nixon in them

677
00:30:14,880 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 8: because they're nineteen eight their period pieces.

678
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:20,000
Speaker 4: Bill also has a podcast, Space nineteen sixty nine, which

679
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:20,680
Speaker 4: is brilliant.

680
00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 9: Thank you.

681
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 4: I'll just plug this here.

682
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 8: It's not so much a podcast as it is an

683
00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:27,880
Speaker 8: audio book, and that's why it's but it's ten episodes

684
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 8: available on audible dot com. Starring to Tasha Leone. It

685
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:34,320
Speaker 8: takes place in a universe where Kennedy did not die

686
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:37,000
Speaker 8: from his wounds, but instead had a revelation that America

687
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:39,280
Speaker 8: had to expand into space as quickly as possible. And

688
00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 8: now I am writing the sequel, Space nineteen seventy two.

689
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 8: Look for that in twenty twenty five or twenty twenty six.

690
00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 8: Hopefully you can help us promote the living crap out

691
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 8: of Space nineteen seventy two when it comes out.

692
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:51,960
Speaker 2: You guys have tried really hard to pretend you're not

693
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:54,600
Speaker 2: connected in some way to the intelligence community, and this

694
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 2: of Kennedy, now it's just just sealed.

695
00:30:56,960 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 3: Bit. So you guys get to ask one question each

696
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 3: to CIA officers, truth or dares.

697
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 2: You can ask more than one.

698
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 4: Wow, okay, just not the age to go first.

699
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:09,080
Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, oh, where do you get those cool spy cars.

700
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 2: We didn't get cool spikers. We were trained before you

701
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:16,720
Speaker 2: go over season, depending on where you do get at

702
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 2: the training to learn how to like spin cars and

703
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:22,920
Speaker 2: smash them and break through road backs and crash and

704
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 2: burn and how to do reverse one eighties and all

705
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:26,960
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. That was like everybody loved doing

706
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:28,360
Speaker 2: that because of course you never got to do it

707
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 2: after that. The field and when you live overseas in

708
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:33,280
Speaker 2: a place where it's dangerous and you can't really bring

709
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 2: a car, they oftentimes you'll get a car, but they're

710
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 2: not fancy. They're meant. We're meant to be boring.

711
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 7: And then in the background, that was the thing that

712
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 7: always amused me up with these spy films is I

713
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 7: thought you guys were trying to blend in.

714
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 8: I have a question, and this may I want to

715
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,520
Speaker 8: make sure that nobody takes offense at this question, because

716
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 8: it has been on my mind for years, and I

717
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:56,240
Speaker 8: know that this is a very sensitive topic and in fact,

718
00:31:56,720 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 8: my partner are going to write a movie about it

719
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 8: at one point, and everybody and it's more realistic than that.

720
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 8: I'm sorry to say. We all know that the KGB,

721
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 8: at least in fiction, had a lot of sexy female

722
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:11,560
Speaker 8: agents that would seduce men to get information.

723
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:11,720
Speaker 4: Out of them.

724
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 8: Does the CIA also have that or do they just

725
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:18,040
Speaker 8: have to hire local prostitutes or do they have men?

726
00:32:18,080 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 8: Do they will tell me what you know?

727
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:24,240
Speaker 2: So, yeah, they call it swallows is the program that

728
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:27,160
Speaker 2: the KGB used, and many of us who've been I

729
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 2: served in Moscow, and there's a number of people who've

730
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:32,080
Speaker 2: traveled there and at night on your hotel door, you

731
00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:33,760
Speaker 2: get knock on the door and they'll be a pretty

732
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:37,600
Speaker 2: girl or what have you. But in general, not in general, no,

733
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 2: we don't use sex because the goal for us is

734
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 2: to recruit a spy, a source who knows what they're doing.

735
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 2: They're motivated, they want to work for us, they want

736
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:49,960
Speaker 2: to keep it secret for a long time. So what

737
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 2: you want to do is recruit some guy in the

738
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 2: Iranian Ministry of Defense who hates his boss or hates

739
00:32:56,120 --> 00:32:58,400
Speaker 2: the system, and we continue to meet and they provide

740
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:00,840
Speaker 2: us insight, and they continue to move up over time,

741
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 2: and they meet another CI officer and over time they

742
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 2: become you know, the deputy head of the Iranian missile

743
00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:09,320
Speaker 2: program or whatever. And we have sources inside and to

744
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 2: do that, you have to have people who trust you

745
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 2: and have and developed trust between the US government and

746
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:17,800
Speaker 2: the CIA and the person. And so the problem with

747
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:20,800
Speaker 2: using any kind of blackmail, whether it be sex or

748
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 2: any other kind of black mail, is that people want

749
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:26,200
Speaker 2: to get out of it or there law enforcement. Oftentimes

750
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:28,800
Speaker 2: they call them instead of calling them their sources or

751
00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 2: their agents, it's a snitch or an informer. And oftentimes

752
00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 2: they will pressure people to provide information for a short

753
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:37,960
Speaker 2: period of time. Our job is to get for a

754
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 2: long period of time to motivated people. And so we

755
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 2: found that using any kind of black mail is essentially

756
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 2: doesn't work. There are times when someone who is working

757
00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 2: for US or helping us and the terrorism side comes

758
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:54,040
Speaker 2: to the States and they want something like this. There's

759
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:56,440
Speaker 2: times when we can help them do that, but we're

760
00:33:56,480 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 2: not doing that for We're not doing it for ourselves.

761
00:33:58,160 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 2: We're not doing it to them.

762
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:03,560
Speaker 3: Interesting the agency, we're paid to break the laws of

763
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 3: other countries. Right every sp andage organization its job is

764
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:09,279
Speaker 3: to break the laws of other countries, but not its

765
00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:11,800
Speaker 3: own laws. So in CI we can't break our own laws.

766
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 3: True story on sex. There was at one agent he

767
00:34:14,160 --> 00:34:17,000
Speaker 3: was really important. So the agent comes to the US

768
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 3: and he says, I want to get laid.

769
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:21,360
Speaker 4: I want to go to a prostitute.

770
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:23,480
Speaker 3: And the case Opster is handling him is, first of all,

771
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 3: I don't know where to go. Second of all, I

772
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 3: don't want you to get sick or arrested. So he

773
00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:31,640
Speaker 3: went to the FBI and said, is there a place

774
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:33,880
Speaker 3: he can go where he's not going to get arrested

775
00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 3: or beaten up? And I guess the FBI said that

776
00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:39,480
Speaker 3: these are places that you'll probably be okay. But then

777
00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:41,359
Speaker 3: he went to our lawyers, and our lawyers said, you

778
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:45,240
Speaker 3: can't give him money to engage in the legal activity.

779
00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:46,080
Speaker 2: It is illegal.

780
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 3: So what they finally worked out is basically says you

781
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:52,760
Speaker 3: can give him a bonus. So here's two hundred dollars

782
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 3: and a pack of condoms. Right, here's a bonus for helping. Unofficially,

783
00:34:57,280 --> 00:34:58,960
Speaker 3: this is where the FBI said you might go. But

784
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:01,440
Speaker 3: that's as far as we can go. We do have

785
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:05,840
Speaker 3: some weird, weird rules around, like sexual activity for CIA officers,

786
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:08,719
Speaker 3: so that we're not blackmailed, but by Larnche No, not

787
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 3: by lunch. We don't do it, doesn't.

788
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 7: I just wanted to point out that how well Rocking

789
00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:14,560
Speaker 7: and Bowinkle presented.

790
00:35:17,120 --> 00:35:19,840
Speaker 9: I've seen that they're great. By the way, this is

791
00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:22,719
Speaker 9: off the kill Squad. Bill Scott told me this, Bill

792
00:35:22,719 --> 00:35:25,319
Speaker 9: Scott Bowinkle. Bill Scott, who was the head writer and

793
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:28,279
Speaker 9: the voice of bow Winkle and several other voices, wonderful guys,

794
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:29,880
Speaker 9: something of a mentor to me. He told me the

795
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:32,520
Speaker 9: story of I don't know what he was doing in

796
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 9: Russia or visiting Russia for, but the guy who was

797
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:38,840
Speaker 9: going his passport saying wait you look on the cartoon

798
00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:43,279
Speaker 9: show with Mousson's squirrel. Bill said.

799
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:45,160
Speaker 7: All I could remember is that he had a long

800
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:49,200
Speaker 7: time getting his passport clear for some reason. So apparently

801
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:52,480
Speaker 7: somebody did not like Boris Natasha Moosen's squirrel.

802
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:55,400
Speaker 3: So funny story. So I was one of the guys

803
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:58,640
Speaker 3: who was on a horse chasing bin Laden in the

804
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:00,799
Speaker 3: early days, right growing up in the mountains, and we

805
00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:03,600
Speaker 3: were looking for bin Laden and Zawahiri, right, the two

806
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:06,399
Speaker 3: guys running. So when I first went in to see

807
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:08,480
Speaker 3: the chief of station, and I was about to go

808
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:11,399
Speaker 3: up country to chase these guys. I said, so chief,

809
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:13,759
Speaker 3: what are my orders? And he looked at me dead

810
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 3: panted and said, kill moose and squirrel. Wow, official, we

811
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:24,399
Speaker 3: killed moose or squirrel. It was like we were unsuccessful,

812
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:25,080
Speaker 3: but we tried.

813
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:26,760
Speaker 2: It was like, those are the orders.

814
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:28,759
Speaker 8: I just want to ask one more question too, because

815
00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 8: I'm still I'm very interested in the whole number station phenomenon.

816
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:34,680
Speaker 8: Do you have any knowledge of what the number stations are?

817
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:37,680
Speaker 8: Have you used them? Shortwave stations that have recordings of

818
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:41,799
Speaker 8: people just going like four five all day long.

819
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 2: It's it's still a very secure way to communicate. And

820
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 2: so the Cubans still do that. That's using a one

821
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 2: time pad. Spies have been able to use that for

822
00:36:50,040 --> 00:36:52,320
Speaker 2: years and years. And the idea is you give people

823
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:55,480
Speaker 2: a pad of random sort of numbers. It's just a

824
00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:58,279
Speaker 2: code system. And so what happens is you send via

825
00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:01,600
Speaker 2: shortwave radio some and speaking goes on, I think goes

826
00:37:01,640 --> 00:37:03,400
Speaker 2: on twenty four hours a day, someone just speaking, and

827
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 2: then you give your source saying at certain times you

828
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:07,880
Speaker 2: go in and you listen to these numbers.

829
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 3: Say.

830
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:18,760
Speaker 4: Theta burno.

831
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:22,759
Speaker 2: And if you have the pad with numbers, when you

832
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:24,759
Speaker 2: go on and listen, you then put the numbers that

833
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 2: the person is saying underneath, and there's a thing called

834
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 2: something subtraction the numbers on your pad. You subtract the

835
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:33,560
Speaker 2: numbers that they gave you under them, and then that's

836
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:35,879
Speaker 2: the number of the letter that you need, and then

837
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:38,120
Speaker 2: that's how you put together a code. So the FBI

838
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 2: they could know that there's Russian in Cuba and other

839
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:42,960
Speaker 2: spies here that are being communicated with, and they can

840
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 2: hear the numbers on a radio, but they can't stop

841
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 2: the radio. They don't know what the numbers mean. So

842
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:49,560
Speaker 2: it's an effective way to communicate.

843
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 4: There was a conspiracy about that.

844
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:55,399
Speaker 3: It was like two thousand and three or something like that,

845
00:37:55,400 --> 00:38:00,200
Speaker 3: that l Jazeera that it's Chiron's underneath that if you

846
00:38:00,239 --> 00:38:03,400
Speaker 3: read them correctly, that they were the same thing. And

847
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:06,959
Speaker 3: it turned out that it was completely untrue. Wow, conspiracy

848
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:08,919
Speaker 3: that was in all the newspapers. See how you looked

849
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 3: at it, and it was debunked.

850
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:13,880
Speaker 7: I'll have to take all this information and work it

851
00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:14,800
Speaker 7: into my next meeting.

852
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 2: Please do really great to meet you, guys.

853
00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:21,440
Speaker 7: Great to meet you. We'll see if we predict either

854
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:22,680
Speaker 7: of the future of the past.

855
00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:26,200
Speaker 3: Or as we like to say in Cia five seven

856
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:34,160
Speaker 3: four three Too much information.

857
00:38:39,680 --> 00:38:39,839
Speaker 2: Now.

858
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:42,719
Speaker 4: There are a number of other predictions. In nineteen ninety nine,

859
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:45,239
Speaker 4: they predicted that the Rolling Stones would still be on

860
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 4: tour and there's still live is still amazing, That librarians

861
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 4: would be replaced by robots.

862
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:59,800
Speaker 2: Legal pot in Canada, smartphones, smart watches, NSA listening to everybody.

863
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:03,840
Speaker 4: The Greek financial crisis. That was predicting two thousand against one. Yeah,

864
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:07,359
Speaker 4: faulty voter machines two thousand and eight. That was a

865
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:10,880
Speaker 4: Halloween Treehouse of Horror episode. I'll add that there are

866
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:13,840
Speaker 4: some predictions that haven't happened yet, that the Fox Network

867
00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:17,200
Speaker 4: would become a hardcore sex channel, That Delta Burke and

868
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:19,799
Speaker 4: the actor who plays Major Dad would get divorced. That

869
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 4: hasn't happened. They did predict Rocky seven. There was a

870
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:24,840
Speaker 4: Rocky seven, but they got the title wrong.

871
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:26,360
Speaker 2: There was a Rocky seventh.

872
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:28,879
Speaker 4: There was a seventh movie in the Rocky franchise.

873
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:29,839
Speaker 2: Who Do You Fight?

874
00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:32,760
Speaker 4: It wasn't Rocky, it was the Creed.

875
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:36,239
Speaker 2: I guess there's Creed and there's Creed's kid. I guess

876
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:37,360
Speaker 2: we can call those connected.

877
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:39,400
Speaker 3: If they could predict the future, they'd all be like

878
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:40,640
Speaker 3: freaking richer than they are.

879
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:44,200
Speaker 4: It's like they'd know to Yeah, I got a feeling

880
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:46,279
Speaker 4: it worked out pretty well for them. Many I think

881
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 4: they're doing okay well.

882
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 2: The Sipton's episode was fun, and I hope we can

883
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:52,200
Speaker 2: do that again. I'd hope Stern can find more cool

884
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 2: Hollywood people for us to talk to, because I'm getting

885
00:39:54,160 --> 00:40:00,000
Speaker 2: sick of talking to you guys.

886
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:04,800
Speaker 4: Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'shay, John Seipher,

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00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 4: and Jonathan Sterner. The associate producer is Rachel Harner. Mission

888
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:13,560
Speaker 4: Implausible is a production of Honorable Mention and Abominable pictures

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00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 4: for iHeart Podcasts.