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Speaker 1: Okay, everyone, we are ready to shoot first position. All right,

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Speaker 1: let's shoot this picture, so and action. Whenever you're reading as.

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Speaker 2: From Leisure, you know it's interesting if you watch the

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Speaker 2: first commercial. I'm pretty normal, right, I'm going like, Hi,

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Speaker 2: this is a car, and I'm a guy talking about

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Speaker 2: the car. And if you come in tomorrow you'll get

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Speaker 2: a free house. You get my word on it. So

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Speaker 2: I'm just talking like i'm talking right now. And as

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Speaker 2: we went along, I got a little bit more animated,

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Speaker 2: and my voice got a little more different, and then

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Speaker 2: I got a little bit bigger. And now I'm talking

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Speaker 2: like this, you can have a new car. Yes, So

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Speaker 2: the character got kind of bigger as I went along.

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Speaker 3: You know, if you recognize that voice, then right about

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Speaker 3: now you're probably smiling thinking back to the man whose

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Speaker 3: voice that is. You may know his name, you may not,

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Speaker 3: but you most likely recognize that voice. For a half decade,

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Speaker 3: he was one of the most famous faces on TV,

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Speaker 3: a beloved figure who made folks actually want to watch

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Speaker 3: the commercials. His name is David Leisure, but you probably

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Speaker 3: know him better as Joe Isuzu.

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Speaker 2: It just sort of happened one day we're shooting a commercial,

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Speaker 2: and as a joke, the director put my name on

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Speaker 2: a name tag and stuck it on me. As we're

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Speaker 2: shooting the commercial, I said joe So he said, call

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Speaker 2: yourself Joe Zuzu. I said, okay. In one commercial I

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Speaker 2: said Hi, I'm Joey Suzu, and then I was that

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Speaker 2: guy for the rest of my life.

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Speaker 3: We thought it would be fun to take a look

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Speaker 3: back at a more innocent time in American culture, to

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Speaker 3: check in with a beloved liar from that bygone era

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Speaker 3: of the nineteen eighties. We also wanted to find out

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Speaker 3: what does Joey zuz think about the state of our

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Speaker 3: modern world. But also, and most importantly, David Leisure is

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Speaker 3: just fun to talk to. Plus, thanks to his wild

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Speaker 3: ride through American culture, he actually walked away with some

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Speaker 3: rare wisdom. Welcome to very special episodes and iHeart original podcast.

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Speaker 3: I'm your host, Zaren Burnett and this is being Joe Izuzu,

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Speaker 3: a conversation with David Leisure.

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Speaker 4: Welcome back, everybody. She's Danis Schwartz. Hey, he's Aaron Burnett,

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Speaker 4: one of I'm Jason English, Dana. I know all of

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Speaker 4: this happened before you were born. In this episode, but

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Speaker 4: I was wondering if you'd ever heard of Joe Isuzu.

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Speaker 3: I have not.

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Speaker 5: Unfortunately I had not, Now I have.

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Speaker 3: Have you ever heard the expression where's the beef?

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Speaker 5: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so that one.

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Speaker 5: But here's the thing. I had like heard where's the

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Speaker 5: beef as a meme, but it wasn't attached to anything

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Speaker 5: in my head. I didn't know. If you had asked

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Speaker 5: me what it was like an ad for I would

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Speaker 5: have had no idea.

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Speaker 4: Well, I'm hoping that this episode opens up the opportunity

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Speaker 4: for us to interview other advertising icons, even you know,

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Speaker 4: people from your generation data. If this does happen and

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Speaker 4: we are able to bring on more ad characters, anyone

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Speaker 4: have anyone for the wish list?

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Speaker 3: The Geico Gecko.

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Speaker 5: Ooh, the horny people from the Maxwell coffee commercial.

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Speaker 3: Yes, do you know what I'm talking about?

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Speaker 4: The siblings absolutely.

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Speaker 5: Because you're my present this year. I want to know

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Speaker 5: if they know the legacy of that commercial.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's good, brother.

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Speaker 4: Saren. I was gonna say crazy Eddie. I know you've

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Speaker 4: covered him on Ridiculous Crime. Heck.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they have a lot of crazy Eddie type characters,

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Speaker 3: Like there's the used car salesman who would be like mad,

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Speaker 3: MIC's come down. There's a lot of guys who are

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Speaker 3: like out there with a hammer or whatever saying I'm

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Speaker 3: knocking down prices. I think it's a very in regional

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Speaker 3: form of advertising. So maybe we could do a round

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Speaker 3: up with some of those guys.

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Speaker 4: Well, my hope with this is also that we get

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Speaker 4: David Leisure and Joey Suzu back introduced him to a

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Speaker 4: whole new generation because this was a truly delightful interview

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Speaker 4: and I learned a lot. And why do we get

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Speaker 4: to it?

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Speaker 3: First things first? What a name that is David Leisure.

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Speaker 3: It sounds like it was created in a Hollywood laboratory

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Speaker 3: where stage names are carefully constructed from the folks who

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Speaker 3: came up with Kerry Grant, Rock Hudson and Marilyn Monroe.

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Speaker 3: Now comes David Leisure. But if you can believe it,

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Speaker 3: David Leisure is not his stage name.

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Speaker 2: Yes, it's my room name. There's a bunch of leisures

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Speaker 2: in Indiana and that's where my dad came from. We're

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Speaker 2: not really sure what the origin is. It's a strange name,

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Speaker 2: but there it is.

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Speaker 3: Life growing up in the Leisure household was about as

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Speaker 3: all American as any mid century advertisement would have portrayed.

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Speaker 2: Gosh Gowie. Okay, talking about the fifties, you know, it

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Speaker 2: looked like seen out of you know, some sort of

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Speaker 2: fifties movies. You know, it was all pajamas and Christmas

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Speaker 2: trees and dogs and cats and mom making pies in

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Speaker 2: the kitchen. It was Norman Rockwell all the way.

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Speaker 3: Given that strong foundation, young David Leisure decided to throw

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Speaker 3: it all away and run off to California to go

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Speaker 3: to college and really experience all that life had to

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Speaker 3: offer in the nineteen sixties. Okay, that's not exactly true.

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Speaker 3: By nineteen sixty eight, the Leisure family had already picked

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Speaker 3: up and relocated to San Diego. And so there he is,

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Speaker 3: fresh out of high school, and David Leisure enrolls in

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Speaker 3: San Diego State for college.

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Speaker 2: I loved college. College was great. So graduate high school

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight. Everything's been really really conservative growing up

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Speaker 2: in San Diego. And you know, my dad would put

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Speaker 2: a bowl on my head and count my hair. In

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight, I graduate high school and there's a

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Speaker 2: hardy going on. I mean it's like long hair, hippies, music,

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Speaker 2: free love, get it on, and you know, I just

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Speaker 2: had the best time in college. College was super cool.

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Speaker 3: In an interesting twist of fate, one of his college

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Speaker 3: roommates would later be his co star, or rather the

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Speaker 3: star of the first big Hollywood movie David Leisure would

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Speaker 3: appear in. In the nineteen eighties, at the height of

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Speaker 3: his fame, David Leiser told People magazine about that old friend,

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Speaker 3: Bob Hayes, saying, how quote, I wanted to be Bob Hayes.

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Speaker 3: I used to dress like him, and walk like him

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Speaker 3: and talk like him. And he was great looking. Every

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Speaker 3: woman on earth wanted him. That's how I praise But

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Speaker 3: what was it like for him as a young man

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Speaker 3: to have this future Hollywood star as his college roommate.

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Speaker 2: We had a great time. He was a leading man.

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Speaker 2: I'm a character actor. So we get along fine, and

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Speaker 2: we've been best friends ever since. We still talk, you know,

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Speaker 2: like once a month or something like that. He's in

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Speaker 2: Hawaii now, but you know, to check each other out,

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Speaker 2: like how we do it, Like we're a barometer now

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Speaker 2: for where we are now in our lives.

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Speaker 3: After David Leisure graduated college with a fine art degree,

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Speaker 3: he headed off to Hollywood. His old college roommate Bob

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Speaker 3: Hayes found success far faster than David Leisure did, but

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Speaker 3: after six years of auditions, finally he landed his first

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Speaker 3: big part. The film was Airplane, and coincidentally, the star

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Speaker 3: of the movie was Bob Hayes, but it should be

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Speaker 3: said the newly minted star had nothing to do with

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Speaker 3: David Leisure getting the part. Instead, the role required him

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Speaker 3: to do four separate auditions, and he also had to

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Speaker 3: shave his head. That was so he could play a

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Speaker 3: Hari Krishna who was harassing people at the airport, which

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Speaker 3: was apparently a very seventies occurrence. The busy airports of

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Speaker 3: America were rife with Hary Krishna's trying to spread the word.

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Speaker 3: David Leisure played the hell out of that Harry Krishna believer.

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Speaker 3: He was perfectly annoying in the role. However, for David Leisure,

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Speaker 3: sitting in the theater watching himself in that first big role,

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Speaker 3: it was like sitting through dental surgery. But was zero novacamp.

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Speaker 2: I hated it. I had the worst time. I was

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Speaker 2: watching myself through my fingers. I had a lot of

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Speaker 2: lines that they cut because I'm sure they thought I

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Speaker 2: I sucked, and so it was a horrible experience watching

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Speaker 2: myself for the first time in a major botion picture.

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Speaker 2: It was terrible. I had a horrible time.

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Speaker 3: The experience of shooting the movie wasn't so horrible. In fact,

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Speaker 3: it was like attending a comedy camp, but with some

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Speaker 3: of the best minds in Hollywood at the time.

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Speaker 2: It was a really interesting movie. I mean, they really

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Speaker 2: set a tone, They changed what comedy was. It was

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Speaker 2: an innovative film, and I think the best part about

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Speaker 2: that movie was the fact that the networks wanted to

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Speaker 2: use comedians and they said, no, you're not understanding the concept.

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Speaker 2: We want the real guys, the real actors who were

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Speaker 2: in those movies, to be in this movie and play

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Speaker 2: it as straight as they can and just deliver the dialogue.

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Speaker 2: And it was brilliant. It was absolutely.

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Speaker 3: Brilliant when it comes to delivering dialogue. That is certainly

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Speaker 3: something that David Leisure has established. He is a rare

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Speaker 3: expert at he can even make the bad dialogue work.

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Speaker 2: My strong suit is making really dialogue work. I'm very

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Speaker 2: good at it. So when I was on empty nest

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Speaker 2: for seven years that writers would always come home, Man,

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Speaker 2: we're so sorry, I say, I don't worry about it, man,

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Speaker 2: I'll make it work. I got this, I got this. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I'll make your job easier. I'll make this work. So

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Speaker 2: I was pretty good at making bad dialogue work, but.

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Speaker 3: That was all to come later. After Airplane, which went

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Speaker 3: on to be a smash hit of nineteen eighty. However,

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Speaker 3: David Leisure didn't exactly book work off of its success.

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Speaker 3: He went to auditions, he did his thing, but he

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Speaker 3: just couldn't land that second big part. Things went from

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Speaker 3: iffy to dodgy to finally down bad. David Leisure had

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Speaker 3: to give up his apartment and he moved into his car.

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Speaker 3: Lucky for him, it was roomy. It was a nineteen

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Speaker 3: sixty four VW bus. Yet having to move into his

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Speaker 3: new hippie home on wheels was not the great moment

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Speaker 3: for the young actor.

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Speaker 2: Oh god, man, that was okay. So my marriage broke up.

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Speaker 2: I moved into my van. I bummed around la I

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Speaker 2: would park in front of friends' houses and then try

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Speaker 2: to find work as a waiter or a bartender or something.

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Speaker 2: I was just bouncing around, and then finally got an

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Speaker 2: apartment and I started waiting tables and nothing was happening. Now.

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Speaker 2: I'm in my mid thirties, divorced and going like, man,

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Speaker 2: this is not working out like I thought it was

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Speaker 2: going to work out.

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Speaker 3: This is not an uncommon story for those who run

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Speaker 3: off to find fame and fortune in Hollywood. It can

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Speaker 3: be a tough town. That's always been true. They don't

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Speaker 3: call it the dream Factory because people there deeply committed

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Speaker 3: to reality. It's a town that makes sells and runs

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Speaker 3: on illusions, which can be disorienting for young Hollywood hopefuls.

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Speaker 3: That's how David Leisure found himself living out of his

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Speaker 3: VW parked in front of his friend's places, hoping to

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Speaker 3: get any work he could while still holding on to

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Speaker 3: his Hollywood dream. But he knew something needed to change, or,

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Speaker 3: more specifically, his girlfriend at the time saw something in him,

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Speaker 3: something that set him apart. Specifically, he was really good

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Speaker 3: at being charming, and most importantly, he was charming on camera.

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Speaker 3: He was also really good at smarmy, and both are

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Speaker 3: perfect for advertising.

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Speaker 2: My girlfriend at the time, she says, why don't you

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Speaker 2: take a commercial workshop, you know, so you could do commercials?

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Speaker 2: And I said, ah, you know, there was a sort

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Speaker 2: of a stigma about being in commercials back then. But

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Speaker 2: I said, okay, well I give it a shot. So

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Speaker 2: I got in there and I just sort of basically

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Speaker 2: owned the room because you know, it was a bunch

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Speaker 2: of people. There were housewives and student and stuff, and

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Speaker 2: they weren't really actors, and so I just got in

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Speaker 2: there and I owned it. So I got an agent

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Speaker 2: right away. Being in commercials was fun. It was you know,

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Speaker 2: took up thirty seconds of your time too, that's all

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Speaker 2: I take. I immediately started working right away. And so

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Speaker 2: instead of earning like nine thousand dollars a year waiting

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Speaker 2: tables all night long, every day of the week, I

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Speaker 2: made twenty five thousand dollars that year. I worked four

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Speaker 2: whole days. I said, I'm in. I want to do commercials.

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Speaker 2: I'm in. I'm your guy.

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Speaker 3: Finally, David Leisure had found his lane.

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Speaker 2: After a year or so, I was making one hundred

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Speaker 2: thousand dollars a year being invisible in commercials. It was cool.

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Speaker 2: I had some great commercial gigs that nobody knows about.

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Speaker 2: They were so cool. I would go to New York

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Speaker 2: for a week and they would shoot a bunch of commercials.

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Speaker 2: They were regional, but I made a ton of money,

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Speaker 2: and I used to get to go to New York

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Speaker 2: and go see plays, see my friends, see my actor buddies,

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Speaker 2: And this is a great gig. I love that gig.

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Speaker 3: During his early run as a commercial pitch man, he

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Speaker 3: hawked products for a range of familiar companies. He played

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Speaker 3: a sleazy pizza parlor owner for Roundtable Pizza. He sold

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Speaker 3: burgers and shakes for Bob's Big Boy. He did ads

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Speaker 3: for the Canadian beer company Molson. Then David Leisure had

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Speaker 3: his biggest break yet. He did a series of ads

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Speaker 3: for The Yellow Pages. He played a no nonsense knockoff

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Speaker 3: of Detective Joe Friday from the radio and TV show Dragnet.

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Speaker 3: And during the run of all these various commercials, David

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Speaker 3: Leisure found a little secret to his success. One he

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Speaker 3: kept to himself, but he shared it with us.

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Speaker 2: I got a lot of jobs pretending to be Steve

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Speaker 2: Martin at the time, because Steve Martin had just hit

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Speaker 2: really big in seventy nine seventy eight, and I saw

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Speaker 2: him on Saturday Night Live. I said, this is the

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Speaker 2: funniest guy in the world. So that Bob's Big Boy

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Speaker 2: commercial and that Roundtable Pizza a commercial you just spoke

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Speaker 2: about that was me doing Steve Martin.

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Speaker 3: Doing his street level impression of the rising young star.

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Speaker 3: Steve Martin worked well, like really well, and it showed

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Speaker 3: David Leisure aside of himself, one that he could turn

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Speaker 3: into his own brand of fame.

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Speaker 2: I always say my acting range, you know, I played

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Speaker 2: a lying, sleazy Carl salesman and obnoxious mooching neighbors. So

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Speaker 2: my acting range is sleazy, obnoxious, mooching, slimy guy. That's

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Speaker 2: a pretty narrow parameter, but I'm pretty good at it.

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Speaker 3: Enter joe Azuzu In nineteen eighty six, David Leizer beat

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Speaker 3: out roughly eighty other young, hopeful commercial actors, but there

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Speaker 3: was just something that stood out about his take on

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Speaker 3: the car salesman character. He had it. Jean Marie Obuji,

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Speaker 3: the art director from the ad agency de la Femina,

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Speaker 3: Travisano and Partners, said at the time about his audition quote,

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Speaker 3: when we saw him, we knew he was Joey Zuzu.

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Speaker 3: He could lie like a pro.

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Speaker 2: That's hysterical, but.

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Speaker 3: Honestly, that was the thing. It was crystal clear here

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Speaker 3: was a guy who could make lying seemed fun and

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Speaker 3: even charming. You liked that Joe Azuzu was lying to you,

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Speaker 3: which flies in the face of what other advertisers were

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Speaker 3: doing at the time. However, lying was already having a

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Speaker 3: moment in the culture.

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Speaker 2: John Lovett's had been on Saturday Night Live and he

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Speaker 2: had this liar character, Johnny Flanagan or something like that,

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Speaker 2: and so he had this great bit where he would

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Speaker 2: like you catch him thinking about his lie.

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Speaker 5: I was on vacation at the time with my mistress,

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Speaker 5: Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Yeah, and then my wife find out about

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Speaker 5: it is the Morgan Fairchild.

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Speaker 6: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: While she was so jealous she cut off my allowance.

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Speaker 2: So he goes like my wife, yeah, and he's thinking

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Speaker 2: Morgan Fairchild. He comes up with this lie.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: Well, I said, that's not gonna work. They have twenty

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Speaker 2: one seconds, they have information they want to give out,

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Speaker 2: and if you sit there and you stop talking for

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Speaker 2: three seconds to think and act like John LOVETTZ did,

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Speaker 2: it's not going to work.

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Speaker 3: So David Leisure thought about what the role called for.

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Speaker 3: How to bring the lyre to life and make it work,

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Speaker 3: not as a skit on SNL, but as a quick

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Speaker 3: hit car commercial. He worked out the answer. He would

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Speaker 3: be irretrievably mendacious. He transformed lying into a medium for

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Speaker 3: his rare art form.

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Speaker 2: So I just went in there and did what I did,

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Speaker 2: which was smile and talk as smarmy as I could

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Speaker 2: possibly be, and I got the gig. It worked out

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Speaker 2: really well, and I just thought it was going to

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Speaker 2: be like one commercial, so it was fine. And then

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Speaker 2: they said they wanted to do a whole bit out

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Speaker 2: of it, which I couldn't have been happier. It turned

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Speaker 2: out really really well.

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Speaker 3: Okay, let's take a pause for some samples from the

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Speaker 3: modern milieu of advertising. We'll be back after these ads

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Speaker 3: with more from the Pitchman, an actor extraordinaire David Leisure,

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Speaker 3: and will unveil the secrets of his greatest creation, Joe Azuzu.

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Speaker 3: In the nineteen eighties, advertising wasn't like how it is now.

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Speaker 3: That should go without saying, times change, taste change. What

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Speaker 3: once worked becomes old hat, it falls out of fashion.

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Speaker 3: But in the nineteen eighties advertising environment you can find

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Speaker 3: the planted seeds of our modern marketing. Think of Burger

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Speaker 3: King and their custom focused tagline have it Your Way,

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Speaker 3: or Ronald McDonald and his cast of characters the Hamburglar,

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Speaker 3: Mayor mccheese and Grimace entertaining the kids in Saturday morning commercials.

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Speaker 3: Also don't overlook Wendy's battling its way into the burger wars.

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Speaker 3: Wendy's had possibly the most famous of all the advertising

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Speaker 3: catchphrases when a little old lady asked, Where's the beef?

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Speaker 3: And also let's not sleep on New Coke, Coca Cola classic,

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Speaker 3: and the Pepsi Challenge. It was a heady time for

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Speaker 3: advertising as it was being born into our modern era,

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Speaker 3: and standing there above it all was the most famous

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Speaker 3: man and commercials, Joe Azuzu. How did the iconic pitchman

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Speaker 3: come to be? Beyond the audition when David Leisure first

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Speaker 3: nabbed the part like how did Joe Azuzu go from

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Speaker 3: a marketing pitch meeting to America's TV screens.

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Speaker 2: The whole idea of the character came from Daryla Femina

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Speaker 2: Jerry Dela Femina. Specifically, he actually wrote a book about

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Speaker 2: dealing with Japanese car companies. It's called From the People

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Speaker 2: Who Brought You World War Two. It's a very funny

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Speaker 2: book and so everybody knows car dealers are not the

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Speaker 2: most honest people in the world. That's what everybody's image

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Speaker 2: of car dealers are. They hate that image, but that's

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Speaker 2: the way it is. So they were feeding on the

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Speaker 2: fact that car dealers just they just lie to get

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Speaker 2: you in there to buy cars. So they made that

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Speaker 2: part of an opera and I the of the commercial,

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Speaker 2: and it worked really, really well because they were really,

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Speaker 2: really funny.

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Speaker 3: The dynamic of the Joe Azuzu ads was simple enough.

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Speaker 3: It relied on the simple site gag. Joezuzu would say

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Speaker 3: some outrageous lies about Azuzu cars or trucks, like maybe

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Speaker 3: about the new model and early Suv. The beloved Isuzu Trooper.

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Speaker 3: Joe Azuzu would promise that the Azuzu Trooper could seek

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Speaker 3: more people than the astrodome, while on screen there'd be

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Speaker 3: subtitles which told the truth he's lying. It was a

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Speaker 3: simple concept, yet fun and funny, and it was a

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Speaker 3: next level way for a second tier car company to

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Speaker 3: boast about the truth of its product.

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Speaker 2: So what they could do with that is say what

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Speaker 2: the car is good in juxtaposition to what I said,

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Speaker 2: which was ridiculous. So then they said, no, what it

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Speaker 2: really does? It gets this many miles break Gallant. Oh,

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Speaker 2: what it really does is this much money. And no,

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Speaker 2: we won't give you a house, but we'll give you

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Speaker 2: a better deal on your financing. So it worked out.

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Speaker 2: It was a brilliant, brilliantly well constructed spot that they

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Speaker 2: came up with.

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Speaker 3: Of course, just as David Leiser was sipping from the

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Speaker 3: car of success, the bottom dropped out like the cup

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Speaker 3: was paper. In this case, what happened was David Leisure

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Speaker 3: broke his leg and he was scheduled to shoot a

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Speaker 3: whole run of new azuzu Ads, so the creative team

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Speaker 3: had to make it work. For the second Joe Azuzu Ad,

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Speaker 3: they had him lied to the viewers about how he

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Speaker 3: was racing at Monaco and he broke his leg, which

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Speaker 3: explains why he's on crutches and wearing a racetrack suit.

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Speaker 2: Van Jerno, I'm the world's greatest race car driver.

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Speaker 6: Recently, I had a little problem here at Monte Carlo,

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Speaker 6: so I switched to this two hundred thousand.

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Speaker 2: Dollars Formula E's Suzu. It comes with driving gloves and

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Speaker 2: the pit crew all standard. It's so fast it will

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Speaker 2: go from Paris to Rome in two minutes.

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Speaker 3: The ad worked perfectly, but at first there was well

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Speaker 3: a small panic.

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Speaker 2: They freaked out, man, So I shot the first commercial.

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Speaker 2: They wanted to go in to do this whole series

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Speaker 2: of commercials, and I come in on crutches, in a

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Speaker 2: broken angle and a cast on my and now they're

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Speaker 2: freaked out because they have all these things planned out

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Speaker 2: for me. The race car driver thing was one of

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Speaker 2: my favorite bits. You know, I got in like silver

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Speaker 2: lamey racing suit, but I'm actually at a go card

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Speaker 2: center and so it's pretty silly. Those are all fun for.

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Speaker 3: That first series of ads, as Joey Zuzu, David Leisure

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Speaker 3: and the creative team made the broken leg work. But

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Speaker 3: the creative team didn't want to come up with a

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Speaker 3: different reason for crutches in every single ad, so they

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00:21:28,880 --> 00:21:31,920
Speaker 3: found some workarounds, like the time when David Leisure was

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Speaker 3: chained atop a giant rock in the Utah Desert like

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Speaker 3: he was modern day Prometheus, only in his case he

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Speaker 3: didn't dare defy the gods. Instead, he just wanted to

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Speaker 3: sell the people. Some of Zuzu Troopers be amazing. Isuzu

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Speaker 3: Trooper too. It's four wheel drive can take you anywhere.

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Speaker 3: In fact, I drove it up here myself.

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Speaker 6: It has more seats than the astronom, plus enough cargo

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Speaker 6: space to carry texas and Isuzu will accept marbles and

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Speaker 6: sea shows's payment. They're selling fast, so you have to

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Speaker 6: come in in five minutes.

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Speaker 2: You have mine work on it. They took an idea

408
00:22:10,720 --> 00:22:13,920
Speaker 2: from Chevy commercial which was shot back in the sixties.

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Speaker 2: They had this beautiful woman in a Chevy convertible in

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Speaker 2: a chiffon dress up on this rock in the middle

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Speaker 2: of nowhere. So they said, well, let's do that, so

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Speaker 2: we shot this commercial up there. It turned out to

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Speaker 2: be kind of a logistics nightmare because you know, even

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Speaker 2: when I was up on that rock and Moab, I

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Speaker 2: had a cast on my leg. If you look at

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Speaker 2: the commercial, you'll notice down by my feet there's a

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Speaker 2: big pile of rocks to hide the fact that I'm

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Speaker 2: not wearing a shoe.

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Speaker 3: I got to cast. Murmur when he says, up on

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Speaker 3: this rock. If you haven't seen the ad, that phrase

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Speaker 3: wildly under sells the size and the scope of this

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Speaker 3: giant rock.

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Speaker 2: You're up at eighteen hundred feet up in the air.

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Speaker 2: I'm chained to have a metal diaper on that you know,

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Speaker 2: they have chains on it, and so I'm hooked up

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Speaker 2: in case, you know besta wind comes up, and there

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00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:08,600
Speaker 2: was always something that was happening because it was like, oh,

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Speaker 2: there's a storm coming in. We got to get you

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Speaker 2: within the next ten minutes. Otherwise you're the highest thing

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Speaker 2: in the world and you got a car, so lightning's

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Speaker 2: hitting you first. You're at TAG. So it was a

432
00:23:19,880 --> 00:23:22,080
Speaker 2: really cool shoot though. I mean we're out there for

433
00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:23,840
Speaker 2: at least a week, and then I had to dub

434
00:23:23,880 --> 00:23:26,840
Speaker 2: everything in anyway, and they had trouble because there was

435
00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:29,920
Speaker 2: red dust on the camber lands. I mean, everything you

436
00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:32,760
Speaker 2: could possibly think go run it went wrong. It was

437
00:23:33,040 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 2: just but it turned out to be very very cool,

438
00:23:36,359 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 2: pretty cool commercial.

439
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:42,880
Speaker 3: At this point in the American timeline, Joeyzuzuo fully entered

440
00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:46,119
Speaker 3: the zeitgeist. He was suddenly everywhere. He was one of

441
00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:48,919
Speaker 3: the biggest pop sensations of the late eighties. When it

442
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:51,760
Speaker 3: came to commercials, it was pretty much Joey Zuzu and

443
00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:55,200
Speaker 3: that little old lady from the Wendy's ads aka Clara Peller,

444
00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:56,600
Speaker 3: the one who got famous for.

445
00:23:56,600 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 2: Saying where's the beef?

446
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:01,840
Speaker 3: The where's the Beef Lady and Joe Azuzu in the

447
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:05,360
Speaker 3: late eighties. That was it. That was the mountaintop of marketing,

448
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:09,159
Speaker 3: and for Joe Azuzu that stayed true for years. But

449
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:11,840
Speaker 3: if you ask him, why do you think America loved

450
00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:15,240
Speaker 3: Joe Azuzu so much? David Leisure thinks the appeal of

451
00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:18,920
Speaker 3: his beloved character was actually rather simple and straightforward.

452
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 2: You know, just because I was goofy looking, funny guy.

453
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:25,159
Speaker 2: You know, I lied really well and they thought it

454
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:28,600
Speaker 2: was funny, I guess. I mean, let's face it, pretty adorable.

455
00:24:29,320 --> 00:24:31,359
Speaker 3: The height of his fame as a pitch man spanned

456
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:34,440
Speaker 3: from nineteen eighty six to nineteen ninety. The high water

457
00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:37,320
Speaker 3: mark had to be when joe'zuza got his own Super

458
00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:40,720
Speaker 3: Bowl ad, not bad for a scrappy Japanese car maker

459
00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:42,560
Speaker 3: not named Honda or Toyota.

460
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:45,200
Speaker 2: I love the fact that I was in the Super

461
00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:47,800
Speaker 2: Bowl ad. Thing I thought that was that was one

462
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:49,919
Speaker 2: of the coolest things. I'm on the stand. I'm in

463
00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 2: the Super Bowl as an ad man. That's so cool.

464
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:55,439
Speaker 2: I don't remember which one it was, but I remember

465
00:24:55,480 --> 00:24:56,000
Speaker 2: I was there.

466
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 3: The strangest thing was how during his run as Joe Azuzu.

467
00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:06,399
Speaker 3: David Leisure became super famous, like really really famous, the

468
00:25:06,520 --> 00:25:08,399
Speaker 3: kind of fame where talk shows want to have you

469
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:09,280
Speaker 3: on as a guest.

470
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:12,680
Speaker 2: After a while, yeah, we realized we had a big

471
00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:17,120
Speaker 2: deal going on because it got to be pretty famous.

472
00:25:17,200 --> 00:25:21,439
Speaker 2: I got more famous as being Joe as the character,

473
00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:25,800
Speaker 2: but more than me David. Right, so I got invited

474
00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:28,359
Speaker 2: to be on shows, but they didn't want David. It

475
00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:29,879
Speaker 2: took me a while to figure this out. What they

476
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:32,879
Speaker 2: wanted was Joe, and so they would ask me the

477
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:35,840
Speaker 2: stupidest questions. I'd be on like our Senior Hall Show

478
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:39,240
Speaker 2: or Joan Rivers or somebody, or you know, the Tonight Show,

479
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:42,280
Speaker 2: and they would be asking me questions. And I went

480
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 2: in there thinking, oh, they want to talk to David

481
00:25:44,359 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 2: Leisure the act. They didn't. They didn't care anything about

482
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:50,080
Speaker 2: David Lee the actor. They wanted to talk to Joey Suzu.

483
00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 2: And so they would ask me incredibly stupid questions. And

484
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 2: I didn't know it at the time, but on a

485
00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 2: TV screen would be those little disclaimers, those cry ons

486
00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:02,560
Speaker 2: that would go ross and I would like, I came

487
00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:05,680
Speaker 2: off looking pretty stupid a lot of the times, but.

488
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:08,760
Speaker 3: It wasn't just that he faced frustration on talk shows.

489
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 3: David Leiser was now so famous he couldn't leave the

490
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:14,280
Speaker 3: house without having to face the same folks who loved

491
00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:17,280
Speaker 3: his Joe Azuzu ads only when he wasn't on their

492
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 3: TV screens. David Leiser didn't think of himself as Joe Azuzu.

493
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 3: So what do you do when everyone you meet wherever

494
00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:27,400
Speaker 3: you go want you to lie to them?

495
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:31,560
Speaker 2: I lost my anonymity really really quickly. People would hear

496
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:34,560
Speaker 2: my voice, they'd recognize me, and then they would come

497
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:37,439
Speaker 2: up to me and they would say this gibberish and

498
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:39,280
Speaker 2: I wouldn't. I would like go, like, what are they

499
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:41,399
Speaker 2: talking about? What are you? What are you trying to

500
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 2: say to me? And then I would go, oh, they

501
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 2: see I'm the liar guy. They want me. They're lying

502
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:50,959
Speaker 2: to me. They're telling me these ridiculous little things that

503
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 2: are lies. And I'm like, oh, okay, okay, thank you,

504
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:56,879
Speaker 2: I get it, very clever, thank you. And I'd have

505
00:26:56,960 --> 00:26:59,359
Speaker 2: to excuse myself because I was like, I had no

506
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:00,440
Speaker 2: idea what they're doing.

507
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:03,399
Speaker 3: As an actor, he knew exactly what he was doing.

508
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:06,919
Speaker 3: He could almost effortlessly conjure up a compelling reality, he

509
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:10,480
Speaker 3: could turn it on and become that guy Joe Azuzu.

510
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:14,920
Speaker 3: But that was when he was working. That was his job. However,

511
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:18,720
Speaker 3: now his job bled into everything, into every aspect of

512
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 3: his life. Like David Leisure found he couldn't even stop

513
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 3: to get gas without having to do some freelance emotional labor.

514
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:27,640
Speaker 2: Like say, you go to put gas in your car,

515
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 2: right and you're just a regular person putting gas in

516
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 2: your car. But if you're recognizable and you're putting gas

517
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:36,159
Speaker 2: in your car and somebody wants to tell you and

518
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:38,680
Speaker 2: to say, hey, I appreciate what you do, but they

519
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:41,159
Speaker 2: get a little nervous and that what comes out is

520
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:44,520
Speaker 2: very awkward. And then now you have this awkward situation

521
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:47,120
Speaker 2: where you're like you want to go home and take

522
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 2: a shower because you're all grubby and you're pumping gas,

523
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:52,240
Speaker 2: and now you have to like communicate with another human

524
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:54,239
Speaker 2: being and you're not really in the mood for it,

525
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:56,680
Speaker 2: but you kind of have to be nice about it

526
00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:00,440
Speaker 2: and kind of go with whatever it was they were saying.

527
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 2: Then kind of like, you know, make it okay. So

528
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:05,560
Speaker 2: you have to make it okay for them, otherwise they

529
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 2: get pissed at you. They really do. They get pissed

530
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:10,280
Speaker 2: at you if you don't like go along with it,

531
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 2: so you have to kind of do that. It's part

532
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 2: of the deal.

533
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:17,280
Speaker 3: This calls to mind his gift for making a screenwriter's

534
00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 3: bad dialogue work. David Lesuer found he could also make

535
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 3: this emotional moment work for a stranger where they'd kind

536
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:26,840
Speaker 3: of written him into this impromptu scene for themselves, and

537
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:29,719
Speaker 3: so there he is not getting paid but having to

538
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:33,000
Speaker 3: work as Joe Azuzu and David Lesuer found that with

539
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:35,679
Speaker 3: patients he was able to go along with it and

540
00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 3: do so rather gracefully and artfully, which is why we

541
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 3: had to ask him did he learn about life and

542
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 3: grow as a person when he was constantly having to

543
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 3: do this spontaneous emotional labor just because he was trying

544
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 3: to get some gas.

545
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 2: Oh man, that's a very good question. Did I grow

546
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:56,120
Speaker 2: as a person? I'd like to think I have. It

547
00:28:56,280 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 2: wasn't easy. I wasn't the most congenial person to get

548
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 2: along with at the beginning because I didn't realize what

549
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:05,960
Speaker 2: was going on. It was like, it's very disconcerting to

550
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 2: lose your anonymity, you know, when people know who you

551
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:12,120
Speaker 2: are all the time. It's like it's a weird thing,

552
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 2: so it takes a while to get used to. But

553
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 2: I think I matured a little bit. Let's get this straight.

554
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:22,120
Speaker 2: Though I'm turning seventy five, I'm still as mature as

555
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 2: any twelve year old boy you'll ever meet.

556
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 3: Okay, it's time we scratch that itch and run some ads.

557
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:38,400
Speaker 3: Enjoy these, and hey, do it for Joe. Perhaps the

558
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:40,840
Speaker 3: funniest thing about the run of Joey Zuzu is how

559
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:43,120
Speaker 3: he made the car company a well known and beloved

560
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:46,680
Speaker 3: brand in America's marketplace. But really it was more like

561
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 3: the car company made Joey Zuzu a beloved brand in

562
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 3: America's marketplace. In fact, so much so that his name

563
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:58,280
Speaker 3: entered the murky world of American politics. In the presidential

564
00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:01,760
Speaker 3: election of nineteen eighty eight, the Democratic candidate for president,

565
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:05,760
Speaker 3: Michael Dacaucus, referenced Joe Azuzu as a shorthand and as

566
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 3: an insult to his opponent, George H. W. Bush. Governor

567
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:12,640
Speaker 3: Ducaccus said of the elder Bush that if the vice

568
00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:14,880
Speaker 3: president keeps it up, he's going to be the Joe

569
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 3: Azuzu of American politics. At that point, Joe Azuzu had

570
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:22,480
Speaker 3: become code. He was America's idea of what a liar

571
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:26,680
Speaker 3: looked like and sounded like. He was the new era Pinocchio.

572
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 3: But what was that moment like for David Leisure to

573
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 3: suddenly become part of American presidential history.

574
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:35,800
Speaker 2: Everything that ever happened to me is Joe Zuzu. I

575
00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 2: was flattered because I thought it was, like, it's just,

576
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 2: it's so insane that this character would be in the

577
00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:46,640
Speaker 2: lexicon of certain aspects of America, you know, So for

578
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 2: a politician to invoke the Joey Zuzu mystique against somebody

579
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 2: else as a threat or as a warning, I thought

580
00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 2: it was pretty funny.

581
00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:01,600
Speaker 3: But ironically, as much as people loved Joe Azuzu, he

582
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 3: wasn't selling cars. At first, the Joe Azuzu car commercials

583
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:08,880
Speaker 3: did translate into increased car sales. There was an initial

584
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 3: eighteen percent spike in year over year car sales, but

585
00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 3: then the next year, in nineteen eighty seven, the sales

586
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 3: numbers started to fall back to their normal range. In fact,

587
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty seven, the Zuzu sold fewer cars. They

588
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:23,760
Speaker 3: sold fifty fewer cars in eighty seven than they did

589
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 3: the year before, and so naturally, the Japanese car maker

590
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 3: and the ad agency both saw the same obvious problem

591
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 3: with this downward sales trend. But the actor, David Leiser

592
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 3: knew little about sales trends and marketing forecasts. He kept

593
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:39,000
Speaker 3: things simple.

594
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wasn't. I wasn't part of that scenario. I

595
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:43,920
Speaker 2: was just like trying to make the job work and

596
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:47,600
Speaker 2: keep working. I was more concerned about me, mostly me,

597
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 2: and just about everything. Me was fine with me, But

598
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 2: I wasn't too concerned about where the whole trend was going.

599
00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:58,000
Speaker 2: I love doing the gig. I didn't want to lose

600
00:31:58,000 --> 00:31:58,400
Speaker 2: the gig.

601
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 3: By nineteen ninety, the run was done, the eighties were over,

602
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 3: his era had passed. All that was left to do

603
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:09,160
Speaker 3: now was to tell David Leisure the good times as

604
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 3: Joe Azuzu had come to the end of the road.

605
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:14,760
Speaker 3: What was that moment like when he received that registered

606
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 3: letter and he read the bad news.

607
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 2: I sat on the floor with the letter and a

608
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:23,360
Speaker 2: balla vodka, and I'd take a ship and I'd read

609
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 2: the whole letter, and I'd take another pull on it.

610
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 2: I read the letter again, and I took another pull

611
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 2: on it, and I read the letter again and then

612
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 2: I put it down and I said, okay, that was that.

613
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 2: It was a pretty good run. Let it go, Liege,

614
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 2: let it go.

615
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 3: But the world, and specifically the car maker Isuzu, wasn't

616
00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:46,000
Speaker 3: ready to let their lying pitchman go. A decade later,

617
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 3: the car maker brought back Joe Azuzu for a new

618
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 3: ad campaign after taking the nineties off from ads. Joe

619
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:55,160
Speaker 3: Azuzu returned in two thousand. However, there was a little

620
00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:58,520
Speaker 3: secret about why the car maker resurrected Joe Azuzu.

621
00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 2: I didn't realize why they brought me back is because

622
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:04,440
Speaker 2: the company was going down, and so they thought this

623
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 2: was sort of a last ditch effort to save Isuzu

624
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:10,960
Speaker 2: in America.

625
00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:14,240
Speaker 3: In a strange turn of fate, returning to Joe Azuzu

626
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 3: also returned David Leisure to his home state of Indiana,

627
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 3: back to America's heartland.

628
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:22,840
Speaker 2: So they actually took me to the factory where they

629
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 2: built the Azuzus, which is in lafay At, Indiana, and

630
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 2: they were so happy to see me. They had these

631
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 2: little placards with my face on it, and I mean

632
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 2: that was flattered.

633
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:35,760
Speaker 3: However, the secret reason for the return of Joe Azuzu

634
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 3: Soon enough bubbled up to the surface and David Leisure

635
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 3: saw why he was there in Indiana at the Azuzu factory.

636
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 2: Well, the reason they were so happy to see me

637
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 2: is because they were thinking I was going to save

638
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 2: their job. And these people, I mean, these are real

639
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:52,479
Speaker 2: people with a real job, building a real product, and

640
00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 2: worried about their job. Some of them drove four hours

641
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:59,480
Speaker 2: to go to work every day. So it was that

642
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 2: was the first time actually felt the burden of what

643
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 2: the company goes through when it tries to make itself successful.

644
00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:11,600
Speaker 3: Here he was the actor, the lying pitch man, the

645
00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 3: nostalgia play, and in reality he was the last best

646
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 3: hope for the autoworkers in Indiana. That was when David

647
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:21,880
Speaker 3: Leisure fully realized what he'd meant as the face of

648
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:25,239
Speaker 3: the company, the image of these folks hopes. They felt

649
00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 3: that placing their fate in the hands of this world

650
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 3: famous liar was their honest, best hope for their future.

651
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:34,719
Speaker 3: But as an actor, David Leiser knew how impossible it

652
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:36,680
Speaker 3: was to catch lightning in a bottle twice.

653
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:40,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're absolutely right. Because it was such a later

654
00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:42,360
Speaker 2: time period, it went you know, it was like fifteen

655
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 2: years later. It was the year two thousand and then,

656
00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 2: of course, the trade towers things hit, and that pretty

657
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:50,359
Speaker 2: much killed any momentum that we might have had. They

658
00:34:50,400 --> 00:34:53,879
Speaker 2: took me to the Chicago Car Show and I think

659
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:56,960
Speaker 2: it was two thousand and one, and this is back

660
00:34:57,000 --> 00:34:59,440
Speaker 2: when they finally let planes back in the air, and

661
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 2: I was one of two people on the plane because

662
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 2: there was nobody traveling anywhere. So I got to the

663
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:09,360
Speaker 2: Chicago Car Show and I can tell you I literally

664
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:11,960
Speaker 2: shook the hand of every single person at the car

665
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:14,719
Speaker 2: show because there was only about fifty people. It's a

666
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:15,520
Speaker 2: weird time period.

667
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:20,280
Speaker 3: And speaking of weird time periods, how about the twenty

668
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:24,480
Speaker 3: twelve presidential campaign of Mitt Romney and perhaps the strangest

669
00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 3: chapter in the history of Joeyzuzu. In twenty twelve, the

670
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 3: car Salesman returned to the world of American politics. It

671
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 3: was a commercial mocking Mitt Romney. The ad featured Mitt

672
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:38,479
Speaker 3: Romney giving a speech and then morphed into Joeyzuzu giving

673
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:42,120
Speaker 3: the speech, and the subtext was clear, He's lying.

674
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 2: Ah man, that was I mean, I actually kind of

675
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 2: regret doing that. It was sort of a political stance

676
00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:53,040
Speaker 2: that I took against somebody who at this moment in time,

677
00:35:53,120 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 2: I'd kill to have that person back, Mid Romney. I

678
00:35:58,719 --> 00:36:04,359
Speaker 2: was chiding Mitt Romney and his political opinions and viewpoints

679
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:07,360
Speaker 2: in the world. I don't know. I kind of regret

680
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:09,880
Speaker 2: ever doing that, but it was It was kind of

681
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 2: tough because I had to mimic his cadence and his

682
00:36:14,239 --> 00:36:17,440
Speaker 2: words and just sort of fake it. And it was

683
00:36:17,520 --> 00:36:19,640
Speaker 2: a weird. It was just a weird thing. I just,

684
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:21,520
Speaker 2: I just I wish I hadn't done.

685
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:25,160
Speaker 3: It, which calls to mind our current modern moment in

686
00:36:25,200 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 3: American politics. Well, Joey Zuzu sat out the recent political cycle.

687
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 3: The actor David Leisure sees some parallels with his work

688
00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:35,400
Speaker 3: as a professional liar, so we asked what he thinks

689
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 3: about the joe izuzuification of American politics.

690
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:41,200
Speaker 2: I think we're in the middle of this is just

691
00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:44,359
Speaker 2: my opinion. I think, you know, everybody talks about civil war.

692
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:46,400
Speaker 2: I think we're in a civil war right now. I

693
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 2: mean that we are so polarized as a nation. There's

694
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:52,759
Speaker 2: one camp in the other camp, nobody likes anybody in

695
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 2: either camp, and the stuff that's going on now is

696
00:36:56,960 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 2: a little scary. I'm a little frightened for the state

697
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 2: of the nation.

698
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:04,000
Speaker 3: When he gazes out at the current zeitgeist and considers

699
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 3: the impact and importance of truth and honest conversations, David

700
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:10,360
Speaker 3: Leisure has more to say than one might expect.

701
00:37:11,520 --> 00:37:11,759
Speaker 4: See.

702
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:15,160
Speaker 2: The problem with the conversation is I don't think people

703
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:21,360
Speaker 2: have a conversation to suss out the truth and then say, Okay,

704
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 2: there's the truth and put a frame around it and

705
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 2: enjoy it. I think what they do is they try

706
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:31,600
Speaker 2: to have a conversation to justify their own opinions and

707
00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 2: not have it changed. They're not willing to change their

708
00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 2: opinion with a conversation. They're just trying to imbue their

709
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:41,959
Speaker 2: opinion into the conversation and say this is the way

710
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:44,960
Speaker 2: you should think. I mean, if you're going to change

711
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 2: your mind about something, that means you have to be

712
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:51,880
Speaker 2: open to what is formally known as the truth. But people,

713
00:37:52,239 --> 00:37:54,360
Speaker 2: I don't think care about the truth anymore. They just

714
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:56,120
Speaker 2: to care about their own opinions.

715
00:37:57,560 --> 00:38:00,880
Speaker 3: David Leisure finds that the emotional power of the certainty

716
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:03,320
Speaker 3: that is born of one's opinion, as opposed to the

717
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:06,600
Speaker 3: objective truth, which requires effort and a process of discovery

718
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:11,040
Speaker 3: remains a seductive option, but as with all lies, it

719
00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:14,320
Speaker 3: leaves a person vulnerable to exploitation by placing their trust

720
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 3: in the wrong things and in the wrong people.

721
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:19,880
Speaker 2: There's a certain amount of comfort that comes from having

722
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:23,560
Speaker 2: an opinion about something, and there's a certain amount of

723
00:38:23,560 --> 00:38:27,240
Speaker 2: comfort that you give yourself for having an opinion and saying, Okay,

724
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 2: this is the way it's supposed to be. And that's

725
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:33,439
Speaker 2: what puts the parameters around the life that you want

726
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:37,200
Speaker 2: to live. And it's really hard. People hate change, which

727
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:42,080
Speaker 2: is so ironic because nothing stays the same. You're born,

728
00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:45,120
Speaker 2: you change the second you're born. You're changing until the

729
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:49,200
Speaker 2: day you've died. Everything in the universe is moving. There's

730
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 2: nothing stagnant, there's nothing staying the same. Ever, we're moving

731
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:56,640
Speaker 2: around the sun. The sun's moving around the center of

732
00:38:56,640 --> 00:38:59,640
Speaker 2: the galaxy. The galaxy is moving around all the other galaxies.

733
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 2: Nothing stays the same, but we try to make it

734
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:06,160
Speaker 2: the same just to make us feel better about ourselves.

735
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:08,080
Speaker 2: It's not going to be the same. You have to

736
00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:10,400
Speaker 2: be able to adjust every day of your life.

737
00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:14,680
Speaker 3: If you're wondering, did David Lezier make out alright? Playing

738
00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:17,200
Speaker 3: Joe Azuzu all those years. The actor would like you

739
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 3: to know it was all fun and games. But if

740
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 3: we're being real about it.

741
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:23,319
Speaker 2: Well let's let down play the money.

742
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:28,800
Speaker 3: That was always a major motivator for why he endured

743
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 3: his street level fame and played a liar so happily

744
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 3: and for so many years.

745
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 2: Jozuzu gave me money. I was making money, but this

746
00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:39,640
Speaker 2: was better money, and then because of that, I got

747
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:43,000
Speaker 2: even better money. So Jozuzu, Yep, money was a big

748
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 2: part of it. Profile. I got a really high profile

749
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 2: with Josuzu. Longevity. Here, Look it's twenty twenty five and

750
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 2: we're talking about something I did in the mid late

751
00:39:55,120 --> 00:40:01,160
Speaker 2: eighties and another millennium. I go, so longevity, money, longevity,

752
00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:03,400
Speaker 2: what else? I guess the reason to get up in

753
00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:05,160
Speaker 2: the morning you were gonna call me. So I got

754
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:09,400
Speaker 2: up this morning to get ready for this conversation. So

755
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:11,680
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I got a bunch of cool stuff

756
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:14,960
Speaker 2: from Joe, nothing too esoterical, which.

757
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:17,719
Speaker 3: Brings us to the final question to consider. After all

758
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:21,240
Speaker 3: these years, would the man who made Joe Azuzu famous

759
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:24,719
Speaker 3: actually recommend an Azuzu? Of course, being who he is,

760
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 3: to answer that, David Leiser has a funny story about that.

761
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 2: Ah, So I have a long answer to that question. Yes,

762
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:37,240
Speaker 2: I got it Azuzu the second year, and my manager

763
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:40,480
Speaker 2: at the time said, I got them to give you

764
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 2: a car. So I went, oh, so I got a gift,

765
00:40:46,120 --> 00:40:48,440
Speaker 2: because that's what the word give means.

766
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:48,919
Speaker 1: Right.

767
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:53,760
Speaker 2: So but after I got the car, which I drove around,

768
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:57,439
Speaker 2: I got a Trooper two, which was very cool. After

769
00:40:57,480 --> 00:41:00,160
Speaker 2: I drove it around, she sent me a bill for

770
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 2: ten percent of the car for her fee because she

771
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:08,319
Speaker 2: got me that car, which is like money. So you

772
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:11,200
Speaker 2: owe me ten percent of the car. So I went out.

773
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:14,920
Speaker 2: So they didn't give me a car. It's part of

774
00:41:14,920 --> 00:41:17,840
Speaker 2: my salary now because you want ten percent of it. Okay, fine,

775
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:21,120
Speaker 2: So I sent her ten percent in a check. The

776
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:23,839
Speaker 2: next year, I got you another car, okay. So now

777
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 2: I got two troop or two's and she sent me

778
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 2: a bill for a certain amount. So I took that

779
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:31,279
Speaker 2: bill and I went to the parks department at the

780
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:35,600
Speaker 2: Zuzu and I said, give me this much money worth

781
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 2: a car and send it to this address. So I

782
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:43,879
Speaker 2: sent her ten percent of a car to her office.

783
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:47,240
Speaker 2: Like there was a hood and there were some wheels

784
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:51,319
Speaker 2: and there was like, you know, like ashtray holder thing,

785
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:54,680
Speaker 2: you know, and it just came sign here I go,

786
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:56,160
Speaker 2: there you go, payton full.

787
00:41:57,200 --> 00:41:59,400
Speaker 3: That's what you call a true Hollywood story.

788
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:00,960
Speaker 2: Nasty little.

789
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:07,920
Speaker 3: But back to the question at hand, would he actually

790
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:09,879
Speaker 3: really recommend than Azuzu?

791
00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:12,400
Speaker 2: Driving the car was kind of cool? I mean it

792
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:18,919
Speaker 2: was really early urban suv. It was there was only

793
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:22,279
Speaker 2: Jeep as like a four wheel drive vehicle that was

794
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:26,239
Speaker 2: it only ge and so before the suv thing took off,

795
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:31,160
Speaker 2: Azuzu was the first considered suv along with Jeep that

796
00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 2: was in the country. But it was more popular than

797
00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 2: Jeep because it was like, you know, more of a

798
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:39,319
Speaker 2: vehicle than a Jeep. They were pretty inexpensive and they

799
00:42:39,320 --> 00:42:42,680
Speaker 2: were very simple for cylinders, it wasn't a big deal.

800
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:44,680
Speaker 2: So I had a few of them and they were

801
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:45,239
Speaker 2: pretty cool.

802
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 3: So is that a recommendation, Well, they don't.

803
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:50,520
Speaker 2: Make it anymore.

804
00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:56,279
Speaker 3: So yeah, this is not where the story of Joe

805
00:42:56,280 --> 00:42:59,680
Speaker 3: Azuzu ends. Because the folks who still love a Zuzu

806
00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:02,440
Speaker 3: troops have adopted the Pitchman as our patron saint.

807
00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 2: I've been adopted by these guys who take Azuzu Troopers

808
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:11,400
Speaker 2: and there's like ten thousand of these people across the country.

809
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:14,719
Speaker 2: So they adopted me as their mascot. They take a

810
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:17,520
Speaker 2: Zuzu Troopers, they fix him up, and they take him

811
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:20,160
Speaker 2: off roading. Now they beat the shit out of them,

812
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:23,120
Speaker 2: but they fix them up. So they trade parts. Everybody

813
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:26,440
Speaker 2: trades how do you fix this? What's this thing? How

814
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:28,440
Speaker 2: do you fix that? And so they just all of

815
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:31,200
Speaker 2: a sudden, I kind of, hey, hi, guys, what's going on.

816
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:33,000
Speaker 2: I chripped in on this Facebook page, and all of

817
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:35,640
Speaker 2: a sudden, every like, now I'm a celebrity for sure,

818
00:43:36,239 --> 00:43:39,240
Speaker 2: and they sort of adopted me and made me their mascot.

819
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:40,160
Speaker 2: So it's kind of cool.

820
00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:44,399
Speaker 3: So there it is. That's his story these days. That's

821
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:47,720
Speaker 3: how Joe Azuzu became the patron saint, an unofficial mascot

822
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:50,440
Speaker 3: of those folks who's still rocking a Zuzu Trooper. And

823
00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:53,680
Speaker 3: as for the reasons for his prolonged fame some decades later,

824
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:58,440
Speaker 3: hopefully by now, that should be obvious. We Americans love

825
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:02,799
Speaker 3: a liar. No really, well maybe some of us. Look

826
00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:05,000
Speaker 3: at that Joezuzu was just ahead of his time.

827
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:14,400
Speaker 5: Okay, this was genuinely a delightful rabbit hole. This is

828
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:16,879
Speaker 5: one of those very special episodes on a topic that

829
00:44:17,239 --> 00:44:19,080
Speaker 5: it's not just that I didn't know about it, it's

830
00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:21,279
Speaker 5: that I didn't even know that I didn't know about it.

831
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:25,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's weird looking back because of how much Joeyzuzu

832
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:27,719
Speaker 3: had a lock on the culture. I mean, he did

833
00:44:27,800 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 3: Super Bowl ats. This guy was like the go to.

834
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:34,280
Speaker 3: The presidential campaigns are citing him. I think it's because

835
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:36,080
Speaker 3: he was a liar, and back then America was really

836
00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:37,960
Speaker 3: charmed by a liar. So do you guys have a

837
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:40,040
Speaker 3: very special moment from this one.

838
00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:43,040
Speaker 4: Early on when that director as a joke puts a

839
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 4: Joe Isuzu name tag on him and then boom, it

840
00:44:47,239 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 4: changes the course of the rest of his life. Like

841
00:44:49,760 --> 00:44:51,359
Speaker 4: that is wild little thing.

842
00:44:51,680 --> 00:44:54,000
Speaker 5: Yeah, maybe the name tag itself can be the very

843
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 5: special character.

844
00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:59,719
Speaker 4: I hope that name tag is in some advertising museum

845
00:44:59,840 --> 00:45:01,120
Speaker 4: or the Smithsonian.

846
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:02,040
Speaker 5: What are you talking about?

847
00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:04,880
Speaker 3: It just says Joe, Hi, my name is Joe. I

848
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:06,759
Speaker 3: liked the moment when David Leisure is up on that

849
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:09,439
Speaker 3: rock in Utah, the helicopters circling around him. He's wearing

850
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:11,960
Speaker 3: the metal diaper chain to the rock and He's like

851
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:15,719
Speaker 3: just hoping he doesn't become some living lightning magnet. How

852
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:18,240
Speaker 3: do you as a performer deal with that terror?

853
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:23,799
Speaker 4: Right the lifelong friendship between Bob Hayes of Airplanes and

854
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:26,320
Speaker 4: David Leisure, I love how we put it, like they're

855
00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:29,439
Speaker 4: barometers for each other and they check in with each other,

856
00:45:29,640 --> 00:45:30,720
Speaker 4: and like, that's awesome.

857
00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:31,360
Speaker 3: I love that.

858
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 4: I like the quote he's talking about his acting career

859
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:38,080
Speaker 4: not going well and he's living in his van and

860
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:41,520
Speaker 4: parking in front of friend's houses and says, this is

861
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:43,800
Speaker 4: not working out like I thought it was going to

862
00:45:43,880 --> 00:45:47,520
Speaker 4: work out. And just like how real that feeling is.

863
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 4: And someone who made a fortune and was a very

864
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:54,439
Speaker 4: prominent force in the culture for some time. I say

865
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:56,840
Speaker 4: that to anyone going through some version of that right now,

866
00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:00,920
Speaker 4: you two could wind up in a car commercial that

867
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:02,120
Speaker 4: runs for several decades.

868
00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:03,839
Speaker 3: You just never know.

869
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:08,040
Speaker 4: You never know, Zaren. This was perhaps not our most

870
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:11,840
Speaker 4: cinematic episode. I mean, it sounds great. Chris Childs doesn't

871
00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:13,759
Speaker 4: miss with these, but I don't know.

872
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:15,239
Speaker 3: I was able to cast it.

873
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:16,879
Speaker 4: You were, oh wow, look at you.

874
00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:18,880
Speaker 3: I was able to cast it, but I only have

875
00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:21,239
Speaker 3: really the two guys. It's just basically Joey Zuzu and

876
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 3: Bob Hayes. So for Joey Zuzu, I thought, there's a

877
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:26,279
Speaker 3: guy who looks a lot like him. I'm not sure

878
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 3: if you know him by name, John Michael Higgins. He's

879
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 3: in all the Christopher Guest documentaries. He played Save by

880
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:36,320
Speaker 3: the Bell. Yeah, yeah, and one more, one more Great News.

881
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:38,360
Speaker 3: Has anyone watched the show Great News?

882
00:46:38,680 --> 00:46:39,800
Speaker 5: Loved Great News?

883
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:41,879
Speaker 4: Let's get that out. It's you in the culture too.

884
00:46:42,200 --> 00:46:44,240
Speaker 5: If there are no fans left of Great News.

885
00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:50,719
Speaker 3: I'm dead. For Bob Hayes was a little more difficult,

886
00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:53,160
Speaker 3: But uh, I thought I was looking at faces and

887
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:55,600
Speaker 3: trying to get somebody who has the same charisma. And

888
00:46:55,640 --> 00:46:56,840
Speaker 3: this is kind of like a little bit out on

889
00:46:56,880 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 3: a limb here. But Jacob Olordi from Euphoria and the

890
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:02,680
Speaker 3: New Friend Kenstein movie. He's like a very handsome guy

891
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:04,840
Speaker 3: and he seems to have the same kind of quiet charm.

892
00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:07,360
Speaker 3: So there you go. There's my Bob Hayes. I love it.

893
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:09,960
Speaker 5: Get Jacob b Lordi in Anything You Can Do, Anything.

894
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:11,919
Speaker 4: That kids got legs. Get a role for our guy

895
00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 4: David in that. Because the other version of this is

896
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:18,399
Speaker 4: in the IP world let's ad some screenwriter to talk

897
00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:21,880
Speaker 4: to the a Zuzu Motors company and say we got

898
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:24,640
Speaker 4: to do our Joey's Zuzu biopic.

899
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:26,520
Speaker 3: Now, it could be actually a good movie and it

900
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:28,040
Speaker 3: has a lot of Americana to it.

901
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:33,040
Speaker 4: Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people.

902
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:36,880
Speaker 4: The show is hosted by Zaren Burnett, Danish Schwartz, and

903
00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:41,680
Speaker 4: Jason English. Today's episode was written by Zaren Burnett. Our

904
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:45,839
Speaker 4: senior producer is Josh Fisher. Editing and sound design by

905
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:50,800
Speaker 4: Chris Childs, Mixing and mastering by Beiheed Fraser. Original music

906
00:47:50,840 --> 00:47:55,400
Speaker 4: by Alice McCoy. Show logo by Lucy Kintinia. I'm your

907
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:58,640
Speaker 4: executive producer. We will see you back here next Wednesday.

908
00:47:59,239 --> 00:48:01,440
Speaker 4: You'd like to email the show, you can reach us

909
00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:05,880
Speaker 4: at Very Special Episodes at gmail dot com. Very Special

910
00:48:05,920 --> 00:48:08,359
Speaker 4: Episodes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.