Speaker 1: No really, Hello, everyone, welcome. I sound like snackle plus,
Speaker 1: but I'm actually.
Speaker 2: You always you come out of the shoot always every
Speaker 2: time it's you know, it's a different thing.
Speaker 3: I I I somehow, I I channeled. I channeled Snackles.
Speaker 3: I think that people are of company. See your house right, okay? Hi,
Speaker 3: I'm Jason Alexander.
Speaker 1: I'm here with my pal Peter Tilden, and this is
Speaker 1: our little podcast called Really Really, where we explore things
Speaker 1: that make us say really really Yes exactly ding, I
Speaker 1: say ding because they took away my bell once again.
Speaker 1: Peter is not wearing the patented really no Really shirt
Speaker 1: that I got him at my own expense. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a company right off, I actually put out money. Oh
Speaker 1: it will be I'm sure it's not going to get
Speaker 1: it will be reimbursed. Producer Laurie has it. She wears it,
Speaker 1: but you apparently something about it doesn't read for you.
Speaker 2: We will look like the rest of the soccer team
Speaker 2: hasn't showed up yet. It's everybody's in their emblem.
Speaker 1: My gift to you was an abject failure, and that
Speaker 1: brings us to our topic of the day, because here's
Speaker 1: our really no really Peter saw that there was a museum,
Speaker 1: a traveling installation, Museum of Failure, and it's a great success.
Speaker 2: Really, no, really, we don't know. We'll find out how
Speaker 2: much of a success that actually is. But we wanted
Speaker 2: to have on oxy moron there. I don't you know,
Speaker 2: And I'm sorry, did I use a word You're not
Speaker 2: familiar with?
Speaker 3: Oxymoron? Oh no, I know both of them.
Speaker 2: Okay, oxy us stuff used to clean shirts, and moron
Speaker 2: I think goes without is.
Speaker 3: What I take every time I have to work with you.
Speaker 2: Being kids at home. He did not mean that, No,
Speaker 2: he did not mean that, don't do drugs. Yes, please
Speaker 2: gonna get to doctor West. So doctor West is the
Speaker 2: founder of the Museum of Failure. And what's great about
Speaker 2: it is he misspelled the word museum when he applied
Speaker 2: to register for the domain name. It's so so right on,
Speaker 2: right on point. But you're also you have you're a
Speaker 2: doctor obviously, so there is a a bit of psychology
Speaker 2: involved in this, and it's not just about failure. But
Speaker 2: thank you, thank you for coming on, and it's love
Speaker 2: having you and finding out about the museum.
Speaker 4: Sir, thanks for inviting me.
Speaker 3: It's a pleasure. And doctor West You're in Spain as
Speaker 3: we speak.
Speaker 4: Right, I'm in Spain and I'm just thrilled.
Speaker 3: Now, why are you in Spain? Is the museum over.
Speaker 2: There or to No?
Speaker 5: I just I live in Sweden. But I got depressed,
Speaker 5: so I went to Spain.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right?
Speaker 1: Wow, hang on, isn't Sweden where people go? In Spanish
Speaker 1: people are depressed, they go to Sweden.
Speaker 3: Situation.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, You've got it all wrong. People in
Speaker 4: Sweden go to Spain. I did not know that Spain
Speaker 4: is better than Sweden.
Speaker 2: Well, looking boy, your hometown must be thrilled with you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: All right, Wow, So, doctor West, before we dive into
Speaker 1: the Museum of Failure, you had another venture. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was a success or a failure,
Speaker 1: but I'm equally intrigued the Museum of Disgusting Foods?
Speaker 3: What was that all about? Well?
Speaker 5: I started Musum of Failure in twenty seventeen, and I
Speaker 5: it was so much fun and it was so successful,
Speaker 5: ironically enough, so I thought I want to do something more.
Speaker 5: And I've always enjoyed I'm half Icelandic, and I enjoyed
Speaker 5: having tourists visitors come to Iceland and then I would
Speaker 5: give them rotten shark and I would tell them it's
Speaker 5: really disgusting. I give it to you know, friends and
Speaker 5: family and say, yeah, this.
Speaker 4: Is traditional, real Icelandic food.
Speaker 5: And as a kid, I would like, you know, give
Speaker 5: it to them and say I eat this every day.
Speaker 5: And they taste and they'd vomit, and I thought that
Speaker 5: was the most fun thing ever.
Speaker 2: First of all, maybe it wouldn't we do what we do.
Speaker 3: This is man is given.
Speaker 4: You're asking me, I love this this?
Speaker 1: Yes, of course, no, please, I didn't mean to interrupt.
Speaker 1: And and let's certainly set up a lunch date when
Speaker 1: this is done.
Speaker 3: Shark.
Speaker 4: It's actually called black death.
Speaker 1: Is it an actual thing that people have to eat?
Speaker 1: Is sort of a fermented is A.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's it's twice fermented, so it's really rotten.
Speaker 5: And uh, they actually do eat it, or they actually
Speaker 5: ate it, I guess when they didn't have anything else
Speaker 5: to eat in Iceland.
Speaker 4: So it's a real it's a real thing in Iceland.
Speaker 4: You should try it.
Speaker 5: Anthony Bourdaine described it as the worst thing he's ever
Speaker 5: tried in his life. And it tastes like it has
Speaker 5: the consistency of a urine infested mattress and taste the same.
Speaker 3: Jeez, how he put it on the menu?
Speaker 2: We'll take to special does to make sure that the
Speaker 2: museum grew out of that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, well that was a disgusting food museum, and then
Speaker 5: the Museum of Failure came before.
Speaker 1: Discussing what other Just I swear this is going to
Speaker 1: be largely about the Museum of Failure, But I'm just
Speaker 1: found that what other what other major exhibits filled the
Speaker 1: Museum of Disgusting Food?
Speaker 3: What was what? What was like the top ten must see?
Speaker 4: We have stinky tofu, which is one of my non favorites.
Speaker 5: It's it's basically tofu that has been fermented and the smell.
Speaker 4: Have you ever unscrewed a sink and the bottom like
Speaker 4: the drain of a sink that's a kitchen sink?
Speaker 3: Sure? Yeah, And there's like this.
Speaker 4: Flimy brown greenish substance there right, yes, indeed, yeah.
Speaker 5: Imagine that as stinkier than that, but the same consistency.
Speaker 3: And you can put it on toast. That's the selling point.
Speaker 5: I ate it, Kina, they fry it. It's actually pretty good.
Speaker 5: But when it comes straight out of the can or.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a you know I actually eat all the time.
Speaker 1: There's a noodle that I believe is made from help.
Speaker 1: It has no calories whatsoever. So when you open the bag,
Speaker 1: because it's isn't some sort of liquid. When you open
Speaker 1: the bag, you go, this cannot be consumed. This is
Speaker 1: not It smells like a bad fish product. And then
Speaker 1: but once you drain it and rinse it and you
Speaker 1: cook it up, it's actually quite wonderful.
Speaker 2: But by the way, segue here is so somebody for
Speaker 2: all of those horrible foods, some culture is used to
Speaker 2: that food and embraces that food. So a it's fascinating
Speaker 2: because I'm sure as you walk to the gross Food
Speaker 2: Museum you see different cultures.
Speaker 3: Let's say that's it.
Speaker 2: But same thing with failure, right, failures perceived differently in
Speaker 2: different places.
Speaker 5: Correct, absolutely, I like you're trying to make the segway
Speaker 5: into museum a failure.
Speaker 3: But I just want to stop.
Speaker 4: Take a little bit more of a disgusting food.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, the guy you're not going to it's called,
Speaker 3: by the way, what happened to this? I work hard, doctor,
Speaker 3: I worked so hard to get you off of gross food.
Speaker 3: And segue, and I handed it to you and you
Speaker 3: went not going you know what, we're here for you, sir,
Speaker 3: You go where you want to go?
Speaker 1: Do you ride your segue? You want to go back
Speaker 1: to the Museum of Disgusting Food. Let's go there on,
Speaker 1: go ahead, yes, tell us.
Speaker 5: I just wanted to say that, like, cause you imagine
Speaker 5: the different cultures of you know what this what's disgusting
Speaker 5: and what's delicious varies. Some of the American items in
Speaker 5: the Museum Disgusting Food Museum is, for example.
Speaker 4: Root beer. Nobody outside the United States likes root beer.
Speaker 3: Really, are you serious?
Speaker 4: Most of the Europeans they taste root beer and they
Speaker 4: spit it and they said.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, okay, okay, but we are comparing root
Speaker 2: beer to an unscrewed sink bottom. There's a bit of
Speaker 2: a difference there, you know, ones like a hazmat suit
Speaker 2: and the other is and maybe a beverage you don't
Speaker 2: like that. It's a whole different I'm done with this
Speaker 2: is what you're driving failure.
Speaker 3: His own. So now we're back a man who doesn't
Speaker 3: want to promote the thing he's on to promote.
Speaker 2: So so the museum, let's go, let's there's a bigger
Speaker 2: point in the museum about failure that we'll get to.
Speaker 2: But the items are in there. I think people would
Speaker 2: love to hear the specific items because they're fascinating these
Speaker 2: huge companies that invested so much money to come up
Speaker 2: with stuff that's just so wrong in retrospect. You look
Speaker 2: at him, Why don't you give us some of those
Speaker 2: Doctor West.
Speaker 4: I mean we were talking about food earlier. We have Olestra.
Speaker 4: You remember that.
Speaker 2: God David Leman did an episode we talked about a
Speaker 2: uxtra chips and he said the slogan was Elestra.
Speaker 3: I'm sitting in it.
Speaker 4: For those who don't remember Alestra.
Speaker 5: It was a Procter and Gamble had developed a zero
Speaker 5: calorie fat substitute. So finally you can eat as much
Speaker 5: junk food as you want to without getting fat.
Speaker 4: So yay, hallelujah. Good stuff. Except that it caused diarrhea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I believe that, And I believe the phrase was
Speaker 1: mild uncontrollable diarrhea, which was three words. I didn't book
Speaker 1: a good sign side by side in the same sense.
Speaker 2: Any anytime I'm told do not eat this product and
Speaker 2: wear light colored pants, yeah, or eat or wear like
Speaker 2: colored or where like colored pants?
Speaker 4: Do you go? Now?
Speaker 3: I think I'm out.
Speaker 5: I found it when I was doing research on it
Speaker 5: that someone had cleverly read because diarrhea is not something
Speaker 5: you really want to have associated with your food product,
Speaker 5: so some clever copywriters rebranded diarrhea and instead started calling
Speaker 5: it may cause quote, ain't no leakage?
Speaker 3: Yes, which is highly preferent, you doctor.
Speaker 2: What's fascinating? I wonder if it's going to be a
Speaker 2: theme in the other products you mentioned. I always picture
Speaker 2: the conference room when they're about to release that. They
Speaker 2: got ten people sitting around, and they go, how anybody's here?
Speaker 2: Why it's not ready yet? Ain't a leakage? Anybody else
Speaker 2: have a And then they weren't anybody have a problem
Speaker 2: with that? And they wouldn't know we're in I don't see.
Speaker 2: I don't see any reason to slow down production just
Speaker 2: for this. Let's get out, let's go to market, Well
Speaker 2: work it out.
Speaker 3: What that's out there? How do they have that?
Speaker 2: What was that conversation?
Speaker 3: What was that short?
Speaker 2: And how many people are responsible for saying okay, let's
Speaker 2: get this out there.
Speaker 1: In fairness, it only affected nine out of ten.
Speaker 2: Years, So there's this one guy today going, I can't
Speaker 2: believe my favorite chip is no longer here, and I'm impervious.
Speaker 2: It's explosive diarrhea. As a matter of fact, I've been
Speaker 2: constipated for twelve years. This was the only thing that
Speaker 2: freed me up was a Leicester. So talk about your McDonald's,
Speaker 2: because Jason, you can a had a huge feel.
Speaker 1: What's your what's your McDonald's fail we'll compare. I don't
Speaker 1: think mine is in your museum, but go ahead, give me.
Speaker 4: You're a McDonald's fan, I'm curious.
Speaker 3: Now, Okay, you go first, and then I'll tell you mine.
Speaker 5: So the item I have in a museum is the
Speaker 5: Arch Deluxe, which was apparently one of the biggest failures
Speaker 5: in fast food, and McDonald's put you know, millions of
Speaker 5: dollars into developing it. It was a luxury burger for adults,
Speaker 5: and their advertisements were children eating the Arch Deluxe and
Speaker 5: spitting it out.
Speaker 3: Oh that's interesting. Interesting.
Speaker 5: Get do get emails every now and saying, oh, hey, whatever.
Speaker 4: Happened to that? I want it back. I actually liked it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm like you probably liked everything else at the museum.
Speaker 3: Yeah, here's mine.
Speaker 1: So I I was hired when I was in my twenties,
Speaker 1: I believe, because I still lived in New York to
Speaker 1: be the singing dancing spokesperson for a huge new McDonald's
Speaker 1: project product called the McDLT And what this was was
Speaker 1: it was a you know, pretty much standard McDonald's hamburger.
Speaker 1: But they had determined that the biggest issue, the biggest
Speaker 1: complaint was that when you make a hamburger and you
Speaker 1: put your crisp lettuce and tomato into the hamburger and
Speaker 1: then it sits under the warming tray, the lettuce and
Speaker 1: the tomato become unappetizing because they're no longer crisp and cool.
Speaker 1: So McDonald's developed this two section styrofoam box, and the
Speaker 1: selling point was it keeps the hot hot and the
Speaker 1: cool cool, so on one half of a bun and
Speaker 1: the hamburger would go on one side and then on
Speaker 1: the other side was the other half of the bun
Speaker 1: with your tomato. Right now, if you assembled it that way,
Speaker 1: closed the lid and kept the box absolutely level, and
Speaker 1: handed it to the patron that way, and they took
Speaker 1: it to their table or their car and they opened
Speaker 1: it that way, you still would have the problem of
Speaker 1: I get these two halfs it together without creating a schmorgasport.
Speaker 1: But you what what usually happened is they would make
Speaker 1: sandwich this way and then they would turn the box
Speaker 1: vertically to put it in the bag, and whatever was
Speaker 1: in the top section would drip down into the bottom section.
Speaker 3: It was a disaster. Uh we we We released the product.
Speaker 1: There was a song that lives on on the internet,
Speaker 1: the McDLT song in which I am and uh oh,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. It was uh talking, let us
Speaker 1: in to meadow on the cool cool side at the
Speaker 1: cool stays cool, the new mcd LT.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 3: The song was the highlight of the product.
Speaker 1: And I think it ran less than one full commercial cycle,
Speaker 1: so that's less than three minutes.
Speaker 3: Everybody project. And I got a little call.
Speaker 1: From McDonald's saying thank you for your service, and you
Speaker 1: thought it the time I'm retiring on I thought this
Speaker 1: is going to be I'm gonna be the McDLT guy
Speaker 1: for you know.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 1: I was a little theater actor in New York and
Speaker 1: I thought I'm set for life. And it all, it
Speaker 1: all went with the Hamburger.
Speaker 2: By the way, Jason loves oreos and always talks about
Speaker 2: amazing how many flavors there are.
Speaker 3: The big failed.
Speaker 4: Flavor was, well, we have oreos at the museum, a
Speaker 4: lot of the different flavors.
Speaker 5: Not so much to say like hey and laugh and
Speaker 5: like which flavors failed, although I have a few, but
Speaker 5: more to show how they approach innovation, like they're just like,
Speaker 5: we're gonna try all kinds of crazy flavors and we'll
Speaker 5: see which of them, which woman stick?
Speaker 4: You know which one.
Speaker 5: So they're obviously creating crazy flavors to get publicity and
Speaker 5: get people to talk about it. But some of it
Speaker 5: is also you know, they're they're testing out new flavors,
Speaker 5: and that's a that's a great way to test the market.
Speaker 3: I'm guessing the root beer one not such a big
Speaker 3: seller overseason.
Speaker 5: The one, the one that's the most interesting is uh
Speaker 5: oreos with uh spicy barbecue chicken flavor.
Speaker 1: No, come on, come on dinner and dessert one really
Speaker 1: dang a spicy barbie?
Speaker 4: Yeah spicy.
Speaker 5: They're actually they taste like you know when you you
Speaker 5: know those instant noodle, those cheap instant you know that
Speaker 5: the little package that comes.
Speaker 3: With yes, I.
Speaker 4: If you dipped your finger and that and taste it.
Speaker 4: That's what they tasted like.
Speaker 1: And what are the is the flavoring all in the
Speaker 1: cream filling or or are they infusing it in the
Speaker 1: outer crust.
Speaker 4: They're sophisticated. They keep it all in so you can
Speaker 4: fail that way.
Speaker 1: So so now you have to add barbecue, chicken and
Speaker 1: sauce between two chocolate papers.
Speaker 3: What association?
Speaker 2: As I'm hearing that, I'm thinking somebody tried that and went,
Speaker 2: you know what, this is the thing?
Speaker 3: Yeah, again, to be to.
Speaker 5: Be fair to oreos, I bought those in shot and high,
Speaker 5: so they're real oreos, but they were geared towards the Chinese.
Speaker 2: My favorite thing that I shall in your museum is
Speaker 2: the euro Club, the golf club that you can also
Speaker 2: urinate in. So if you're in the golf course and
Speaker 2: you have to go and you're in your in your
Speaker 2: but think about this. Yeah, you're seventy eight years old,
Speaker 2: you have all you can do, go on the green. Well,
Speaker 2: I think that's what I think. That's what messed this up.
Speaker 2: That people went to a tree in the corner and
Speaker 2: when you know, I don't want am my opinion a club.
Speaker 2: By the way, if I was going to say you're
Speaker 2: your urine.
Speaker 3: A little bit. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there's.
Speaker 5: Nothing wrong with the europe It's a great idea, like
Speaker 5: you have to urinate you're on a big golf course.
Speaker 4: Just unscrewed this this fake golf club and urinate in it.
Speaker 5: What was interesting about it was the was the commercials
Speaker 5: which were sort of in between like funny and ridiculous
Speaker 5: and actually being serious, so you didn't really know are
Speaker 5: they serious are the joking?
Speaker 4: And one of the things that that the golf the
Speaker 4: golf clubs, So it had like a little towel green
Speaker 4: towel with it. So in the ad it says, and
Speaker 4: if you're playing golf with lady golfers, you have to
Speaker 4: use the privacy towel.
Speaker 5: You clip on this towel on your belt and then
Speaker 5: you fumble under the towel and urinate into the golf shop.
Speaker 4: That's hilarious.
Speaker 3: And by the time you get to use towel, I
Speaker 3: could have made it into the club.
Speaker 1: I'm also thinking someone's going to criticize my grip, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not really a wood wow.
Speaker 2: Before we move to the underlying if you're the big
Speaker 2: issue about failure and creativity et cetera. Any other items
Speaker 2: that stick out that people really love. I mean they're
Speaker 2: over one hundred and fifty items in the museum.
Speaker 5: I mean people everybody has their own favorites. The Ford
Speaker 5: Edsel is popular. We have some medical misshap they're interesting
Speaker 5: in like a lobotomy tool. It's quite interesting. We have
Speaker 5: the Apple Newton, one of the sort of iconic failures
Speaker 5: of the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 3: What was the Apple Newton? I don't recall that the.
Speaker 5: Apple Newton was. I think it was like early nineties.
Speaker 5: It was the first personal digital assistant. So the kick
Speaker 5: ass feature, like the main feature of this device was
Speaker 5: that you could just write with a stylist onto the
Speaker 5: screen at the entry.
Speaker 3: Dat oh oh like a Palm pilot is what I had? Yeah, yeah, way.
Speaker 5: It was just the same sort of similar time there where.
Speaker 5: But Apple was like their device was awesome except for
Speaker 5: the fact that it didn't work.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, and again made it to market.
Speaker 2: May I say something about because you brought up the
Speaker 2: edgel and I knew we were going to segue from
Speaker 2: talking about failures into success and the need to have
Speaker 2: fail to get to success. So Roy Brown Junior, I
Speaker 2: want to see the guy designing the Edgele. He designed
Speaker 2: the Attel, but he also to the point they didn't
Speaker 2: not only didn't they fire him, but he was transferred
Speaker 2: to England, where he designed the Ford Cortina, which was
Speaker 2: the best selling car and Great Britain. He returned to
Speaker 2: Detroit in nineteen sixty six and helped design the Ford
Speaker 2: a Conline van, which also really popular. So these people
Speaker 2: believed in him enough that even though he had this
Speaker 2: huge failure, they allowed him to continue designing stuff and
Speaker 2: he had huge success.
Speaker 1: But the Edsel apparently was mostly a failure as I
Speaker 1: understand it because of edseel Ford, that that edgel Ford
Speaker 1: was the son of Henry and that somehow he was
Speaker 1: really the guy who was pushing for this line.
Speaker 2: And I think the thing was too expensive. I think
Speaker 2: it it just didn't capture the public. Because even if
Speaker 2: that's for pushing it's the public doesn't like it. They
Speaker 2: ain't buying it, and they didn't buy it.
Speaker 5: Boy, you guys, are you guys really are experts on everything,
Speaker 5: aren't you?
Speaker 3: Well, well not, we're not experts on it. We haven't
Speaker 3: started talking about our own failure, you know what.
Speaker 5: Well, I just want to add I was being ironic
Speaker 5: there about the Edel because you're probably sort of right,
Speaker 5: mostly wrong. The Edsel failed because mainly things. One was
Speaker 5: that people were just confused is it an expensive.
Speaker 4: Car or is it a cheap car? There so many
Speaker 4: versions of it, and it was so overhyped.
Speaker 5: They had a The Ford even had its own sort
Speaker 5: of entertainment TV show with Frank Sinatra.
Speaker 4: Another big They really pushed it, they really hyped it.
Speaker 4: And then one of the most funny.
Speaker 5: Reasons why it failed is because the grill on the
Speaker 5: episode is vertical rather than horizontal like a regular car.
Speaker 4: If you can imagine that, yeah, turned on its side.
Speaker 4: And this is like the nineteen fifties in the United States.
Speaker 5: So people found it indecent because it reminded them of
Speaker 5: female genitalia.
Speaker 3: Oh sure, whoa wow and wow, sure, I got to
Speaker 3: check this out now.
Speaker 2: Look and by the way, Chevy's watching this close it
Speaker 2: because they thought if if people look like we got
Speaker 2: to change the girl on every car, we did, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: But more amazing is he said, you guys are experts
Speaker 2: and then show us we were totally wrong.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well yeah again, keeping on should be the criticism, right exactly,
Speaker 1: So so failure.
Speaker 3: I know that you talk about that a lot.
Speaker 2: That a big part of this museum is understanding failure
Speaker 2: and failure in our culture, correct, So why don't you
Speaker 2: dress that a little bit.
Speaker 5: I mean, one thing that's fascinating is the paradox. On
Speaker 5: the one hand, society says, hey, we really want you
Speaker 5: to innovate. We look up to entrepreneurs who take risks.
Speaker 5: All this is fantastic. But then at the same time,
Speaker 5: society stigmatizes failure. So there's like, we want you to
Speaker 5: do it, but when it doesn't work.
Speaker 4: Out, we're going to punish you in some way or
Speaker 4: judge you. So that's one element of it. The other
Speaker 4: is that there is something there's not really that many.
Speaker 5: Companies that do actually embrace failure, but some companies are
Speaker 5: much better taking risks and being willing to accept that
Speaker 5: failure is necessary for any kind of innovation or progress.
Speaker 5: So that's also the aim of the museum to drive
Speaker 5: home that point that we have to accept failure if
Speaker 5: we want you gotta we gotta tak the bad and
Speaker 5: the good.
Speaker 4: We can't just have the good.
Speaker 2: But it's inherent, like in science, I know, by failure, right,
Speaker 2: it's all about eliminating what it's not to get closer
Speaker 2: to what it is. And you rely on failure after failure.
Speaker 2: As long as you learn from the failure and its
Speaker 2: you're getting closer to what the answer is.
Speaker 1: Well, to that extent, doctors, do you are you aware
Speaker 1: of anything that began as a completely abject failure and
Speaker 1: was turned around to become a success? Is there anything
Speaker 1: that jumps out like that?
Speaker 4: There?
Speaker 5: There are the sort of examples that everybody knows about
Speaker 5: with the posted note and Viagra, which both were sort
Speaker 5: of unexpected successes. But but I mean I often get
Speaker 5: approached by both journalists and the corporate side where they say, hey,
Speaker 5: we really want you to give a talk, or we
Speaker 5: want to come visit museum or something, but we'd like
Speaker 5: to focus on the failures that lead to something successful, right,
Speaker 5: And I always resist that because I think, I think
Speaker 5: that's talking about failure within the narrative of success, and
Speaker 5: I think there's there's failure in and of itself, even
Speaker 5: when it doesn't need success is interesting also and should
Speaker 5: also deserve some attention. So like all these I got
Speaker 5: so tired of these success I was reading so much
Speaker 5: about innovation, and you know, entrepreneurship. And I got so
Speaker 5: tired of these successful often guys up on a stage
Speaker 5: and they're like, look at me, I'm so rich and successful.
Speaker 5: And then they tell their success stories and they always
Speaker 5: have shiny teeth and they you.
Speaker 4: Know, it gets boring after a while.
Speaker 5: They're all the same, they're all identical and it's not interesting,
Speaker 5: whereas the failures actually they're authentic, they're real, they haven't
Speaker 5: been you know, there's no spin doctors there, corporate types
Speaker 5: trying trying to curate.
Speaker 2: Well, and to your point what you just said, one
Speaker 2: of the things that bothers me about failure is that
Speaker 2: every guy gets up in the romanticience failure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the best thing.
Speaker 2: I would have never gotten here if I didn't fail it.
Speaker 2: And they love telling that story, and I go, hey,
Speaker 2: we have a family of failures and it ain't so romantic. Okay,
Speaker 2: you know, my uncle was a failure and there is
Speaker 2: no success story there. So you don't want to romanticize it.
Speaker 2: You want to kind of understand it and understand how
Speaker 2: to move on.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I tell a story to in my
Speaker 1: own speaking, I was in a big failure. Well, what
Speaker 1: was considered a failure. My Broadway debut was directed by
Speaker 1: how Prince and was written by Stephen Sondheim, and you know,
Speaker 1: legendary figures of the American theater in the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: But the show Merrily We Rolled Along was a failure,
Speaker 1: a critical failure and a popular failure. But I then
Speaker 1: go on to say, I believe the very next show
Speaker 1: that Steven's Sondheim wrote was Sunday in the Park with George,
Speaker 1: which everybody said was going to fail and wound up
Speaker 1: winning the Politzer Prize that year and has become one
Speaker 1: of his most successful and most revered pieces of writing.
Speaker 1: So in that case, you have I never asked Steve
Speaker 1: about you know, was this was the failure of Merrily
Speaker 1: any kind?
Speaker 3: Because Sunday in the Parklin George is artist.
Speaker 1: What what did did that experience give you an insight
Speaker 1: that you wouldn't have had otherwise?
Speaker 3: So who knows?
Speaker 2: But yeah, well, and then failures like Michael Tremino Heavens
Speaker 2: Gate was deemed one of the worst failures in movie history,
Speaker 2: and then they got a standing ovation just a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago at Venice with the Director's cut, and
Speaker 2: now it's lauded as this amazing film, So a failure
Speaker 2: that became in itself. And then Jason's if you want
Speaker 2: to talk about a failure, doctor the lowest scoring pilot
Speaker 2: in NBC history was signful. Yeah, you can't get can't
Speaker 2: get worse. You want to add to the museum, by
Speaker 2: the way, we can console.
Speaker 1: So Doctor West for when when when coch or Pepsi
Speaker 1: makes a product and it fails, we tend to recognize
Speaker 1: that because they have attained such a level of success
Speaker 1: that the misses make news. Is part of being a
Speaker 1: notable failure that you have to have that it is
Speaker 1: in the chain of a number of great successes.
Speaker 3: Do you have to fall from a great height to
Speaker 3: be a notable failure?
Speaker 1: Or is it? Or do are there are there casual,
Speaker 1: everyday failures that have become notable in and of themselves.
Speaker 4: That's an excellent question.
Speaker 5: What makes something a notable failure is often because either
Speaker 5: it's something that's famous is in and of itself, or
Speaker 5: a famous person or a reputable company, or sometimes it's
Speaker 5: because something is overhyped.
Speaker 4: So it doesn't always have to be.
Speaker 5: This fantastically successful Apple or Coca Cola or some super celebrity.
Speaker 4: It can also just be something that has been hyped
Speaker 4: to gone viral.
Speaker 5: There was a there was a I think it was
Speaker 5: last year somebody on TikTok launched got famous overnight for
Speaker 5: a pink sauce.
Speaker 4: It's like a gravy or something.
Speaker 5: And it's purple or pink, and it just went, it
Speaker 5: exploded overnight and became a massive success.
Speaker 4: And all this is within a couple of weeks.
Speaker 5: And then they had production issues and nothing worked and
Speaker 5: people were complaining, and it died equally, you know, as
Speaker 5: quickly as it as it as it. Yeah, So I
Speaker 5: mean nobody knew anything about that, you know, two weeks earlier.
Speaker 5: So so I think it has to do with expectations.
Speaker 5: And then obviously, like you said, how how far have
Speaker 5: they fallen?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Before we go, I just want to ask you
Speaker 2: about the change in failure, because I think you mentioned
Speaker 2: it and you notice it in Silicon Valley. Every venture
Speaker 2: capitalist I've ever talked to my life goes, oh, our business,
Speaker 2: you invest in ten things, eight are going to fail,
Speaker 2: one's going to do okay, and then one's a huge hit.
Speaker 2: Their whole business is built on failure and fast failure,
Speaker 2: like the better it goes, I mean people go, well,
Speaker 2: how did serenos happen? And you go, cause people may
Speaker 2: money on sertaoes. The guys who told you to invest
Speaker 2: in it made a lot of made a lot of money.
Speaker 2: They made commission stuff, And how did this happen? Well,
Speaker 2: they pitched it and they weren't that worried about it
Speaker 2: being successful. They didn't even know the tests didn't exist,
Speaker 2: and yet people got out and made money.
Speaker 3: So what do you think about that?
Speaker 2: The fast failure today and the whole Silicon Valley phenomenon.
Speaker 5: But Silicon Valley is really good at embracing failure and
Speaker 5: not sort of holding it against you as a business person,
Speaker 5: so they're willing to give people a second and third
Speaker 5: and fourth chances. But the problem with Silicon Valley and
Speaker 5: is fail fast mentality, fail fast often and cheaply, is
Speaker 5: that they're not very good at learning from their failure,
Speaker 5: so they do the same mistakes and fails over and
Speaker 5: over again, and it costs them and everyone else a
Speaker 5: lot of money.
Speaker 4: We do have their ends in the museum, but it's
Speaker 4: sort of borant.
Speaker 5: It's fraud and it's also failure, and it's failure from
Speaker 5: the perspective of you know, like, what what were these
Speaker 5: the pharmacy chains and these big badass sort of a
Speaker 5: level investors throwing money at a product that didn't exist.
Speaker 2: For a long time, for a very long incredible nobody
Speaker 2: said let me see it.
Speaker 3: Let it worked?
Speaker 4: Oh my god, yeah, I'm going to pay you five
Speaker 4: hundred million dollars. Can we at least see what we're investing.
Speaker 2: In and the incredible board and all before we go.
Speaker 2: Spray on condom didn't work because.
Speaker 5: Because you spray it on and you have to wait
Speaker 5: five or ten minutes to dry, you can figure it.
Speaker 4: Can figure that one out yourself.
Speaker 3: This would be a good time to wrap doctor. Thank
Speaker 3: you for being on.
Speaker 2: Where's the museum right now? And is it coming to
Speaker 2: LA again?
Speaker 4: I hope it's in New York right now. It's there
Speaker 4: for another couple of months.
Speaker 5: It was already it's already been in Los Angeles, but
Speaker 5: it was so popular in Los Angeles.
Speaker 4: I think it'll come back.
Speaker 3: In your professional opinion, this interview success failure? What do
Speaker 3: you think?
Speaker 5: I have?
Speaker 4: Great success? I thought it was fun.
Speaker 2: Well there, yeah we got My favorite part of that
Speaker 2: was the segue I'll never forget.
Speaker 3: Then you just you just went for it.
Speaker 2: It's the U turn, it's the you, and I'll give
Speaker 2: you this in the words of Conan O'Brien. Conan O'Brien
Speaker 2: gave a commencement at Dartmouth shortly after being fired as
Speaker 2: the host of tonight Show, and he said those you
Speaker 2: should not fear failure. You should do your very best
Speaker 2: to have avoid at all, which is a great way
Speaker 2: to go. Thank you for being on with US Soccer West.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: So that was pretty fascinating. The Museum of Failure. We're
Speaker 2: joined now by Google Him, who correct.
Speaker 3: Said David, Google him. He needs a theme.
Speaker 4: I have.
Speaker 3: What's your theme? I don't know. I have a theme.
Speaker 3: That's a thing. That's a diddy, that's not a thing.
Speaker 3: Are you guys doing? What do you die?
Speaker 2: Anyway, He's here to correct and informs as we go on.
Speaker 2: But we wanted, we wanted. Now that the doctor has left,
Speaker 2: I want to just talk about the bigger, the bigger
Speaker 2: issue I think with failures that we do romanticize it.
Speaker 1: Well you know, but you're you're talking about romanticizing failure
Speaker 1: where somebody gets up, who is currently having a success
Speaker 1: and because what it took me to get here, I
Speaker 1: thank the failures cultural to me, I don't think that's romanticizing.
Speaker 1: I actually think there is a sense of either true
Speaker 1: or false humility in that, because you know, when you're
Speaker 1: riding high, if you're smart, you don't want to You
Speaker 1: don't want to set yourself up for criticism at that level.
Speaker 1: You don't you want to be appreciated and embraced rather
Speaker 1: than create something that's going to distance you from people.
Speaker 3: So you don't go, yeah, I'm hit it now, I'm
Speaker 3: an a plus.
Speaker 1: So you go, yeah, this one worked out, But I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you, I've got twenty that didn't. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's a it's a it is true self humility,
Speaker 1: But I also think it's a little bit of a
Speaker 1: protective thing to go, yeah, listen, yes this one worked,
Speaker 1: don't don't.
Speaker 3: Don't begrudge.
Speaker 2: That may be true, but you never get to hear
Speaker 2: the guy going up going I've been a continuous failure.
Speaker 3: I'm waiting hasn't.
Speaker 2: Happened to you if I ever win an Emmy. And
Speaker 2: by the way, there are eight million books with failure
Speaker 2: in the title. Tell me if these are real books
Speaker 2: or fake books? Right, I'm read the Gift of failure
Speaker 2: truthful true? Yeah, yeah, the value of failure, uh, probably true.
Speaker 2: Fueled by failure, probably true. Ending failure. Yeah, you're failing
Speaker 2: just like your father and your uncle Harald's that's a
Speaker 2: Peter Tilden title.
Speaker 3: Iver I heard.
Speaker 2: Failure smailure, eat your eggs. Yeah, your rabbit. I'm not
Speaker 2: a failure. I'm not a failure.
Speaker 3: I'm just unlucky.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sure how to turn a failure into yet
Speaker 2: another failure?
Speaker 3: Guarantee? Oh, someone's been up writing. That's why you didn't
Speaker 3: answer the pH There are so.
Speaker 2: Many And this is the Tony Robbins thing about the
Speaker 2: implication is that you're not enough. Yeah, but you know
Speaker 2: what all that stuff is. We're not enough your failure.
Speaker 2: And if you just walk on hot coals yeah, or
Speaker 2: sit in a sweat lodge, you are going to go
Speaker 2: to the moon, friend and you go. Or I'm gonna
Speaker 2: burn my feet and have to go to the hospital. Yeah,
Speaker 2: which has happened. Well, I'm gonna pass out and die
Speaker 2: at the sweat lodge, which has happened.
Speaker 3: So people are so they so want to success, they
Speaker 3: so want to change.
Speaker 1: Well, they want to feel that they can be a
Speaker 1: I think that's more about people wanting to be a
Speaker 1: better version of themselves.
Speaker 3: Not you cause you're a.
Speaker 1: Well, not no because you feel incomplete. I don't know
Speaker 1: that that is directly tied to failure. Listen, I've watched
Speaker 1: enough documentaries about people like Anthony Robbins and their seminars.
Speaker 1: There there are a goodly faction of people who are
Speaker 1: doing quite well there who just feel they personally feel they.
Speaker 3: Are not doing quite well. That's follow the years from
Speaker 3: now Here's what I love.
Speaker 1: I think people enjoy a certain kind of failure because
Speaker 1: I cannot. When I go on YouTube. The first thing
Speaker 1: that comes up on my YouTube fail Army. That's the
Speaker 1: site fail Army, and every week, every two weeks they
Speaker 1: post compilation videos of people just just eating it, just.
Speaker 3: Wiping out.
Speaker 1: There's a whole the Darwin Award books that are given
Speaker 1: for people that and how tragic is this? People who
Speaker 1: have died in ridiculous ways, usually created by their own hand.
Speaker 1: The one that I remember so well was a gentleman
Speaker 1: who died because he he was living alone in a cabin.
Speaker 1: It was cold, he had a fire going, he was
Speaker 1: drinking heavily. He wasn't when he ran out of alcohol.
Speaker 1: He wasn't satisfied, so he looked at his kerosene lamp
Speaker 1: drank the kerosene. It made him sick. He threw up
Speaker 1: into the fireplace and the fumes backed up, and he
Speaker 1: blew out his lungs and killed himself. And I go
Speaker 1: that you gotta tragic. But a lot of people die.
Speaker 3: I don't talk about soundly.
Speaker 2: Must be waiting for somebody to ask here we go, wow,
Speaker 2: and you got so the other part of this is Broadway.
Speaker 2: I did radio and I get critiqued. Knows this TV. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but in radio it used to be got the rating
Speaker 2: book every quarter, then it was every week, then it
Speaker 2: was every month, then it was every week. Then it's
Speaker 2: our buyout. Yeah, so you can know if you're tanking,
Speaker 2: you're bad.
Speaker 3: Now you're bad. Now, Oh you're bad again.
Speaker 2: And I know a Broadway you told me that on
Speaker 2: opening night. If the review is good, you're okay. If
Speaker 2: the opening night review is bad, it's it's hell because
Speaker 2: you still got to do the show for another couple
Speaker 2: of weeks.
Speaker 1: Well, there's nothing worse than opening your show and you know,
Speaker 1: not one bad review, although the New York Times is
Speaker 1: still you know, being a castle. But if you know,
Speaker 1: if the general response. I did a show in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four called The Rink. It was a candorin EBB
Speaker 1: musical and it starred Cheta Rivera and Liz Manelli. And
Speaker 1: it was one of the few and only times I
Speaker 1: was ever fooled on an opening night because I thought
Speaker 1: that I thought the show was really quite wonderful. I
Speaker 1: still think the show is really quite wonderful. We did
Speaker 1: workshops of it. We thought the workshops went great. We
Speaker 1: had I think six or seven weeks of preview performances
Speaker 1: before critics were allowed to come.
Speaker 3: And I'm telling you, people loved it. They loved the songs,
Speaker 3: They surely loved the ladies. You know, that was.
Speaker 1: Unmistakable star power, yet standing ovations. We got to opening
Speaker 1: night and I'm telling you it was mixed to bad reviews.
Speaker 1: And the next audience came in the next night and
Speaker 1: things that had normally been giant laughs and huge applause
Speaker 1: and tumbleweeds because they had been told you don't like
Speaker 1: you don't like this.
Speaker 3: And we did that show for nine months.
Speaker 1: And if we had not had those two ladies who
Speaker 1: who had enough star power that they could pull an
Speaker 1: audience in that was at least curious to see them.
Speaker 3: We would have closed that week I have.
Speaker 1: I tell you there are shows that have closed the
Speaker 1: day after their opening night. There have been shows that
Speaker 1: have closed without getting.
Speaker 3: To an opening night preview.
Speaker 1: And that's the worst kind of failure because that's not
Speaker 1: a critique failure, that's the audience word of mouth going,
Speaker 1: I just saw this thing.
Speaker 3: Do not spend your money there.
Speaker 2: Tell the story. Tell the story of you doing a success.
Speaker 2: So Jason Warren a Tony Award, that's a that's a
Speaker 2: major thing, left the show as a conquering hero, and
Speaker 2: I'd never heard the story before recently, and the show
Speaker 2: needed you.
Speaker 3: To come back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So this is this is just a lesson of
Speaker 1: when you think you're a major success, somewhere, you're a failure.
Speaker 1: So I do the show Jerome Robbins Broadway. I win
Speaker 1: a Tony Award. A month later, I'm out of the show.
Speaker 1: My contract is up and I had other things to do.
Speaker 1: I was replaced by a wonderful actor named Terry Mann.
Speaker 3: Terrence Man. Terry takes over the show.
Speaker 1: But about two weeks into his run, he got sick
Speaker 1: and he couldn't do the show and his understudy had
Speaker 1: only recently been hired and didn't.
Speaker 3: Know the part yet.
Speaker 1: So I get a desperate call from the Schubert organization, going,
Speaker 1: can you please get us through the weekend?
Speaker 3: We need far shows? Five shows, just five shows. So
Speaker 3: I go back.
Speaker 1: You know, the Tony Award winner returns. Oh, this audience,
Speaker 1: what a treat for them. Normally you hear there's an
Speaker 1: understudy one, there's a groan, you're.
Speaker 3: Here, Terry's man is not here. But Tony Award and
Speaker 3: oh the excitement, the enthusiasm.
Speaker 1: So I go back feeling I am all that and
Speaker 1: then some I do the Saturday night show and I
Speaker 1: have to go pick up my wife at her parents' apartment,
Speaker 1: which is Crosstown. So understand, whatever I tell you now
Speaker 1: three seconds of time one way or the other, and
Speaker 1: what I'm about to tell you doesn't happen. I have
Speaker 1: to get on a bus. I go across town. I
Speaker 1: have to then walk the three or four blocks from
Speaker 1: where the bus left me off to get to my
Speaker 1: in law's building. They live on the third floor. I
Speaker 1: don't take the elevator, I walk up the three flights
Speaker 1: of stairs. I go to the door and the people
Speaker 1: that live across the hall for them are just going
Speaker 1: into their doorway. And as I walk to my in
Speaker 1: law's door, the only little snippet of their conversation I
Speaker 1: hear is, well, yeah he was okay, but I would
Speaker 1: have loved to have seen Terrence man. God put me,
Speaker 1: God put me into tom door exactly.
Speaker 3: That's three seconds more. They're in their apartment. I never know.
Speaker 2: That doesn't doesn't matter Googleheim.
Speaker 3: Any final words, Yeah we said wrong? What needs clarification?
Speaker 3: The mcdeal t I loved it at the time. I don't.
Speaker 3: I always loved this parter system. I did. I was
Speaker 3: the guy.
Speaker 6: Also for people interested in following up on the Merrily
Speaker 6: We Rolled All Along, there was a documentary made. It
Speaker 6: is called the best worst thing that ever could have happened?
Speaker 6: And so that you and that's quite romp.
Speaker 3: Yep. Yes.
Speaker 1: And I will also say that Merrily We Rolled Along
Speaker 1: has had many, many significant revivals over the forty years
Speaker 1: since we did it, and it is coming back to
Speaker 1: Broadway again while this fall in September of twenty three
Speaker 1: with a new cast.
Speaker 3: And I I saw this show off Broadway when I
Speaker 3: was in New York.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's essentially in many ways on show
Speaker 1: we did, but now it's a different time, a different expectation,
Speaker 1: and it has become I think it's become in arguably.
Speaker 3: There's also.
Speaker 1: The gentleman who filmed About a Boy where he shot
Speaker 1: it over eighteen years, right, he is doing because Merrily
Speaker 1: takes place over twenty years. He's filming a movie version
Speaker 1: of it over the next twenty years with Ben Platten.
Speaker 3: Beanie felt.
Speaker 2: So I got to write down it opens, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: I'll write it down the opening weekend makes Soon we'll
Speaker 2: be on the red carpet.
Speaker 3: We won't know it, but we'll be on the red carpet.
Speaker 3: Thank you Google. Heeim. I want to thank doctor West.
Speaker 3: Why are you discussing? I'm grateful that.
Speaker 2: You said that.
Speaker 3: Oh, go ahead, there you go.
Speaker 6: The one thing I wanted to get to was shodenfreude,
Speaker 6: which is basically when people get pleasure out of watching
Speaker 6: other people's failure.
Speaker 2: I thought that was an important Yeah, yes, that's the
Speaker 2: whole entertainment marketplace.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes it is.
Speaker 6: And because especially talking about the videos that Jason watches
Speaker 6: on a regular basis, there actually been a study published
Speaker 6: in Neuropsychologia that shows why we oftentimes laugh when we
Speaker 6: encounter people failing or hurting or falling or whatever it is,
Speaker 6: and it oftentimes has to do with brain confusion that
Speaker 6: our brain, as we're understanding or seeing facial reactions of
Speaker 6: people experience this, our brain is teetering between laughing and
Speaker 6: being horrified. And often subtle cues like perhaps a funny
Speaker 6: musical track will make our brain go in a certain way,
Speaker 6: well we will laugh in a seemingly inappropriate situation.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you, doctor Google. Thank you, sir. Well there
Speaker 3: you go there, I google that.
Speaker 4: Now, really, really, really.
Speaker 1: Hopefully we done something successful today. If you think so,
Speaker 1: let us know at really noreally dot com, our little
Speaker 1: website where you can leave us messages.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: If you're watching us on YouTube, remember to subscribe and like,
Speaker 1: and of course we drop episodes every Tuesday.
Speaker 3: We'll be back and you can catch us on.
Speaker 1: The iHeart app, the Apple app, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Great success, mister doctor Sammy West. Look up the Museum
Speaker 2: of Failure. You'll get a real kick out of the
Speaker 2: items that are in there. And he does a great
Speaker 2: ted talk too, So thank you everybody, and thank you.
Speaker 3: Producer Laurie crivile David, we'll see you next time.