EP. 360 — Christmas Mail (w/ Jessica St. Clair)

[00:00:00] Paul Scheer: Ho, ho, ho, is what Santa said when he saw his daughter in this film, we saw You’ve Got Christmas Mail, so you know what that means.

[00:00:11] Music: [Intro song]

[00:00:13] Paul Scheer: Hello people of Earth and I mean that, because this is going out all around the world. Welcome to our virtual live show of Christmas Mail, AKA You’ve Got Christmas Mail. And I got to tell you, this movie came out in 2010 and there is very little information about how it was made. We have a little bit, but not much.

[00:00:41] All I can tell you is this, this is a movie about a mysterious woman who comes to town to write letters from Santa to all the children in the small beachside community and gets mixed up in some postal intrigue, uh, and reinvigorates a man who has been left with a child that he may or may not should have had.

[00:01:05] But love is in the air and Santa is watching over everyone. It’s also a movie that if you told me was funded by the United States Postal Service, I believe you. All right. We have a lot to break down tonight and let’s do it by bringing in my two co hosts. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome. Jason Mantzoukas.

[00:01:29] Jason Mantzoukas: Welcome. What’s up jerks?

[00:01:30] Paul Scheer: What’s up, Jason?

[00:01:34] Jason Mantzoukas: What? It’s it’s a little, it’s a little candlestick.

[00:01:38] Paul Scheer: Oh, I love that.

[00:01:39] Jason Mantzoukas: It’s my little candlestick for Christmas.

[00:01:41] Paul Scheer: Now, Jason, I know you’re.

[00:01:43] Jason Mantzoukas: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[00:01:48] Paul Scheer: This movie. Wow, wow, wow.

[00:01:50] Jason Mantzoukas: This is like the movie that it seeks to answer the question. What could you do with unfettered access to a U. S. Postal facility?

[00:01:59] Paul Scheer: I want to talk about the postal service because I got a lot of thoughts about it. But you know, there is somebody that truly does have a lot of thoughts about the United States Postal Service. Somebody who has some bold opinions about it. Now, I have not heard what she has to say about this movie. But please welcome my other co host June Diane Raphael.

[00:02:18] June Diane Raphael: Hi, Paul. Hi, Jason. How are you?

[00:02:21] Paul Scheer: I am good. How are you doing, June?

[00:02:23] June Diane Raphael: Oh, man, alive. This was a, this was a ride.

[00:02:29] Jason Mantzoukas: Mere moments ago. You had to watch one more minute.

[00:02:32] June Diane Raphael: Just seconds ago I had another browser up while we were doing our tech check and I finished the last, I finished the montage of them in different, the postcards that I guess were sent back to one of the postal workers and I just want to say I was, just so you know Jason, um, what Paul’s referring to is for, for I thought that taxpayer dollars were funding our postal system.

[00:03:01] Jason Mantzoukas: You would think. I would have thought the same because I, I myself started wondering. Why do they keep calling it corporate? Right? So this is the government. Is it not?

[00:03:10] June Diane Raphael: Well, well, yes and no. And I think that’s the tricky, there’s such a gray area to the postal service. And I know we want to bring on our guests, but I just talk for a while.

[00:03:21] I was like, why are, why isn’t universal healthcare, right? And why are we paying in. Like, let UPS and FedEx battle it out. Like, what, what is this? But it is a self funded organization, but it is also a part of the government and paid for by first class stamps. But anyway.

[00:03:41] Paul Scheer: You were saying for a long time defund the postal service.

[00:03:45] June Diane Raphael: And by the way, I still feel that way.

[00:03:47] Paul Scheer: And I will say that you said it so much that we were given an ornament of the United States postal truck as like a June, maybe you should come over.

[00:03:57] June Diane Raphael: I still don’t fully have an understanding to either of you, of how the post office, cause I know they’re in debt.

[00:04:06] Jason Mantzoukas: I, this was, this was the curtain being pulled back for me to see. To see how the sausage is made, and the, and the guy, the boss man, who is, I mean, it’s as if he’s in the most important job in the country for mail service, uh, that he, he’s such a villain. He said they call him a Grinch, but, uh, he seems to think he’s powerfully important, but he’s not.

[00:04:31] Paul Scheer: I got to tell you. Get ready, because later in the show, I’m going to reveal something.

[00:04:36] There is not a lot of information about this movie, but there’s a lot of post office workers who have a lot of opinions about this film. So we will, we will break into that.

[00:04:46] June Diane Raphael: Because, okay. And let’s bring our guests on.

[00:04:48] Paul Scheer: I’m going to.

[00:04:48] June Diane Raphael: I just want to say, I know, but I want to bring her on.

[00:04:53] Jason Mantzoukas: But hang on.

[00:04:54] June Diane Raphael: But hold on. The one thing I just want to say is. You mentioned, you know, unfettered access to a postal facility, but I truly do wonder if the post office, in order to pay for some of its debt, because it’s running at quite a deficit, is trying to you know, rent out spaces.

[00:05:13] Paul Scheer: Well, there is actually, and before we bring out our guests, I know we have to bring out our guests. There was a show I was obsessed with it paid for by the United States postal service, an hour long drama, like a CSI law and order.

[00:05:26] June Diane Raphael: What?

[00:05:27] Jason Mantzoukas: Hold on. Wait, what are you talking about? Sorry. Someone in the chat just said that the post office lost 7 billion last year.

[00:05:34] June Diane Raphael: Yes, that’s what I’m saying!

[00:05:36] Paul Scheer: We need to get our guest out here. Please welcome a holiday staple, a How Did This Get Made all star, our fourth player, if you will. Yeah. You know her as a crone. You also know her as a co host of the Deep Dive.

[00:05:51] June Diane Raphael: So crazy to hear you welcome. My dear friend is a crone. Okay, go ahead.

[00:05:56] Paul Scheer: Jessica St. Clair. Welcome, Jess!

[00:05:58] Jessica St. Claire: Hello!

[00:06:01] June Diane Raphael: Where’s that crone? There she is.

[00:06:02] Jessica St. Claire: A big of that big crone energy! Yeah!

[00:06:06] Jason Mantzoukas: That B C E! B C E! B C

[00:06:10] Jessica St. Claire: Guys, I want to reveal something. something because I feel like I have to disclose this. My grandfather, may he rest in peace, was a postmaster general of Scranton, Pennsylvania. This is not the same side that has the Fabergé eggs. This is the other side.

[00:06:27] Jason Mantzoukas: I was going to say, how could a postmaster general afford all those Faberge eggs?

[00:06:32] Jessica St. Claire: Or maybe they can I, or maybe they can. It was a very influential, it was a very influential position. And let’s just say we had ties in Scranton to the mob. Because of that.

[00:06:43] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh my God, this is, he was outrageous. Outrageous claims.

[00:06:48] Jessica St. Claire: He was friends with the rag man.

[00:06:50] Jason Mantzoukas: No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. You are not connected to the mafia. This is minute one, minute one. And you’re, you’re spinning a whole story.

[00:07:01] Paul Scheer: This is, this is the start of a new podcast, an investigative podcast of a local Scranton postmaster general gets mixed up in the mob.

[00:07:10] Jessica St. Claire: Guys, do you remember the movie where Scorsese made what’s his face young and it was very upsetting?

[00:07:16] Jason Mantzoukas: Yes, yes, the Irishman.

[00:07:17] Jessica St. Claire: The Irishman, okay. And he has an interaction with the rag man who was like the head of the mob, I’m telling you, in Scranton. My grandfather that was his best friend. Okay, and that is why my grandfather even when he should not have been driving and had many car wrecks was allowed to keep driving because of his influence with the rag man.

[00:07:38] Jason Mantzoukas: Okay, you, you have to stop saying the rag man.

[00:07:40] Paul Scheer: The rag man.

[00:07:41] Jason Mantzoukas: I need you, I need you to stop saying the words the rag man.

[00:07:45] June Diane Raphael: Well, I’m surprised because I do think of the United States. States Postal Service, as much as I’ve called for the defunding of, of the entire organization. I do think of them as pretty clean in terms of, you know, the organization, like, what are you paying off? What kind of, what kind of businesses, what kind of cash is being exchanged with the mob and for what?

[00:08:06] Paul Scheer: How do you think those supermarket flyers get in your mailbox? They’re working out deals with Wegmans and Gelsons and Wallbounds.

[00:08:15] Jason Mantzoukas: Hey, forget about it. The rag man’s gonna make it all go away. We’re getting rich off of male shenanigans.

[00:08:22] Paul Scheer: The Bufalino crime family stole all those publishers clearinghouse checks. And now we’re gonna cash them these big ol checks.

[00:08:31] Jason Mantzoukas: Ooh, we’re here in Scranton, the locus of all organized crime. Forget about it, the rag man!

[00:08:38] Jessica St. Claire: It was a very big center of the mob. You know what? Go back and watch the movie. Okay.

[00:08:44] Paul Scheer: The St. Claire’s get all their mail three days before everybody else.

[00:08:49] Jason Mantzoukas: Jessica St. Claire can send a letter direct to Santa. The rag man delivers it.

[00:08:54] Paul Scheer: Um, I do want to, I want, before we get into the movie, I do want to bring up one thing. Cause there’s been a constant, uh, rallying cry online. They say, why are you not doing

[00:09:05] Hot Frosty, the Netflix film that came out this year? And I will say, I like research. So I watched Hot Frosty. It is literally beat for beat the same movie as Snowmance where the girl puts a scarf on a snowman and the snowman comes to life. It’s slightly better than Snowmance in like.

[00:09:28] Jason Mantzoukas: Is that possible?

[00:09:29] Paul Scheer: I mean, that’s all I was gonna say. I didn’t know if there was anything else to say about it. So for those of you wondering Hot and Frosty, it’s it’s we’ve already done it.

[00:09:38] Jason Mantzoukas: Here’s what I’ll say. I’ll say for those people who are upset, we’re not doing some other movie. Get fucked.

[00:09:44] Jessica St. Claire: There’s your t shirt. Get fucked.

[00:09:46] Jason Mantzoukas: This is the movie we’re doing. We did this movie.

[00:09:49] Paul Scheer: I will say this. That this movie Christmas Mail or We’ve Got Christmas Mail, however you want, because that’s different titles. I love this film right out of the gate because they are shooting clearly in Los Angeles or sunny Southern California town and everyone is dressed in winter coats.

[00:10:08] June Diane Raphael: It’s very Pasadena coded or Altadena.

[00:10:11] Jason Mantzoukas: Yes, but like, but they’re wearing like winter caps and like there’s a plot. There’s a plot moment where like the little girl leaves her mitten behind. I was like, why is she wearing a mitten? It’s 80 degrees out.

[00:10:21] Paul Scheer: It looks, it looks decidedly hot and humid. Um, but what I also love about, and whoever makes these movies, I don’t know if this is a lifetime or a Hallmark film.

[00:10:29] June Diane Raphael: Marvista.

[00:10:30] Paul Scheer: But I mean, that’s not a channel, right? Like so Marvista, they’re not paying for extras to say a goddamn thing.

[00:10:39] June Diane Raphael: I thought it was a silent film.

[00:10:41] Paul Scheer: So you basically have people.

[00:10:42] Jason Mantzoukas: There’s no audio. There’s no audio recording. There’s just like a library music.

[00:10:47] Paul Scheer: It is. It is. The kids cannot talk in this movie. Like there’s a lot of extra work throughout this entire film where people really are doing the most without being able to speak or even make sound.

[00:11:00] June Diane Raphael: You know. I have so much to say. I guess let’s just get right on into it. But.

[00:11:04] Jason Mantzoukas: Please.

[00:11:04] June Diane Raphael: I really resent this idea that letters to Santa need responses.

[00:11:13] Paul Scheer: Wow.

[00:11:13] June Diane Raphael: I deeply it offends my Christmas culture.

[00:11:17] Paul Scheer: Wow.

[00:11:17] Jessica St. Claire: I never expected. I never expected a response.

[00:11:21] Paul Scheer: I never got a response.

[00:11:24] Jason Mantzoukas: In this movie, it’s not just a response. It is a correspondence. The child, Emily, is going back and forth with Santa in a way that is misleading, frankly, and dangerous.

[00:11:38] June Diane Raphael: I’m sorry, Jason, she’s not going back and forth with Santa. Those letters are not from Santa.

[00:11:42] Jason Mantzoukas: I’m sorry, she’s going to Christy. I’m sorry, she’s going to Christy is what I mean.

[00:11:45] June Diane Raphael: What I couldn’t get to the bottom of is, who’s Christy signing those letters as?

[00:11:50] Jason Mantzoukas: I believe Santa. That’s it.

[00:11:51] June Diane Raphael: No, she’s not.

[00:11:53] Jason Mantzoukas: She’s not? Okay.

[00:11:54] Jessica St. Claire: She’s the mouthpiece of Santa. And is she only writing letters to just this small community?

[00:12:00] Jason Mantzoukas: Yes, it seems like that. She suggests that there are other people and that she has traveled and lived in other countries.

[00:12:06] Paul Scheer: She went to Hong kong.

[00:12:08] June Diane Raphael: Yep.

[00:12:09] Paul Scheer: She did it in Hong Kong, but she seems not to be in the center of a major city. She seems to be, like you said, June, in Altadena, like a small suburb of a major city. So either Santa has a ton of kids that are all in small suburbs or she’s just really random.

[00:12:24] June Diane Raphael: Here’s what I think we were supposed to understand. I mean, this movie is The Female Elf.

[00:12:30] Jason Mantzoukas: Yes, I believe so.

[00:12:32] June Diane Raphael: When she says she has so many brothers and sisters, I think she’s referring to all of the elves.

[00:12:37] Jason Mantzoukas: Yes, she’s referring to the elves, but she’s saying she herself, though, is not an elf because.

[00:12:42] June Diane Raphael: She’s too big.

[00:12:43] Jason Mantzoukas: She’s too big, she says.

[00:12:44] Jessica St. Claire: But the elves don’t come from Mrs. Claus’s vagina, right?

[00:12:48] Paul Scheer: Hold on, wait.

[00:12:49] Jason Mantzoukas: Where do you think they come from, Jess?

[00:12:51] Jessica St. Claire: I thought they were just a magical race of people. I didn’t think that they were Santa’s kids.

[00:12:57] Paul Scheer: I agree with you. Yes, I agree with you.

[00:13:00] Jessica St. Claire: Santa full grown man who’s actually like quite big. Why is he popping out?

[00:13:05] Paul Scheer: What does that have to do with anything?

[00:13:07] Jessica St. Claire: Well, he’s like a large man.

[00:13:09] June Diane Raphael: Doesn’t look like an elf is what she is saying.

[00:13:11] Jessica St. Claire: Doesn’t look like an elf. There’s nothing elf like about him. He’s a man.

[00:13:15] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah, but I mean, like, is he employing them?

[00:13:17] June Diane Raphael: I think it’s sort of an internship.

[00:13:20] Jessica St. Claire: That’s the whole oompa loompa controversy, you know, being employed or being, being paid? Is there healthcare?

[00:13:25] Paul Scheer: Well, here’s what I’ll say. I saw, I saw Wicked and I was upset when I saw Wicked that the munchkins were normal sized people. And then what I understood it to be was that when they made Wizard of Oz, the film, they made that choice to have, uh, people that were about the same size as Dorothy, but in the book, the original book, they were, uh, they’re just supposed to be like, you know, five foot tall.

[00:13:46] So maybe, maybe elves, we’ve just been, we’ve been fed a bag of bull. Maybe elves are normal sized people. I don’t know.

[00:13:54] Jason Mantzoukas: She seems to say that she has like an uncountable number of siblings. You know, so does that mean in fact that she is Santa Claus’s daughter by, by the, you know, the old fashioned method are the rest of her siblings or are these her, you know, she’s calling them siblings?

[00:14:10] Jessica St. Claire: Fake brothers and sisters.

[00:14:11] Jason Mantzoukas: I’d love to know, I’d love to know how many babies have exited to St. Clair’s Point, Mrs. Claus’s vagina.

[00:14:17] June Diane Raphael: Well, by the way, if she is Santa’s daughter, Santa’s old enough to be her grandfather. So then, and also.

[00:14:26] Jessica St. Claire: Al Pacino, Al Pacino just had a daughter, a baby, he’s 83.

[00:14:31] June Diane Raphael: But so is Mrs. Claus. So is Mrs. Claus, you’re absolutely right.

[00:14:37] Jason Mantzoukas: I would believe you if you told me that these people were all 500 years old. Like, I don’t know what time means to any of these.

[00:14:44] Paul Scheer: The only kid I know for sure that Santa has had is Fred Claus, which is, I think Vince Vaughn. Uh, I believe Fred Claus and his brother, which, oh no, yeah, Fred Claus is the only, the only Santa.

[00:14:57] June Diane Raphael: I think the movie is telling us that Santa in the world of the movie, Santa is Christie’s father, father. Yeah. Mrs. Claus. I’ve read, I told Paul, but I read a really funny tweet the other day saying like, I will know that feminism has been successful when Mrs. Claus gets a first name. And it really made me laugh.

[00:15:22] Jason Mantzoukas: Well, let’s start it. Should we just, can we start trying to, what would we like it to be?

[00:15:26] June Diane Raphael: That’s such a good question.

[00:15:27] Jason Mantzoukas: I mean, like, let’s, let’s, let’s dig in.

[00:15:29] Jessica St. Claire: Sandy. Sandy Claus, Sandy, Sandy,

[00:15:33] Jason Mantzoukas: Sandy and Santa. That’s.

[00:15:35] Paul Scheer: Chrissy. I think Chrissy is good. Chrissy.

[00:15:38] Jason Mantzoukas: Chrissy?

[00:15:38] June Diane Raphael: Chrissy Claus. Santa Claus. I want something more kind of like Nordic, like Santa, like.

[00:15:47] Jessica St. Claire: Guys, do you know about the, do you know about the Santa Claus couple in Los Angeles? I was at, I believe like a cheesecake factory and I saw a couple that looked exactly like Santa. And Mrs. Claus, they were dressed in their outfits and I mean, real beard, the whole thing.

[00:16:02] And so the, the server said to me, of course, I got into it with her small talk, the art of small talk. You can get it on Spotify or wherever. Um, it’s a great book, download audio books. Um, but he’s basically, she said, this couple just happens to look exactly like Santa and Mrs. Claus. And during the Christmas season, they go out to eat as much as they can to act like they’re just, that the kids are seeing Santa in the wild.

[00:16:26] Jason Mantzoukas: Whoa!

[00:16:27] Paul Scheer: Yes. Oh, I love that.

[00:16:29] Jason Mantzoukas: That’s awesome.

[00:16:30] Jessica St. Claire: And it’s like, so for the month of December, they’re just everywhere. But it’s a little strange because he should be at the North Pole.

[00:16:36] Jason Mantzoukas: And they hand out, um, they hand out paperwork for their OnlyFans.

[00:16:40] Jessica St. Claire: Yeah.

[00:16:42] Paul Scheer: I just looked on some Icelandic names here. There’s some good names for women. Sasa, Sasa Claus.

[00:16:48] June Diane Raphael: That’s interesting.

[00:16:49] Jessica St. Claire: In the chat they said Gladys or Olga.

[00:16:54] Jason Mantzoukas: I saw one that was, I liked Martha Claus.

[00:16:56] June Diane Raphael: I like that, too.

[00:16:57] Jason Mantzoukas: Uh, I mean, these all old fashioned. Siri Clause? Oh, brother.

[00:17:04] Paul Scheer: It is, it is a name. Um, we will figure it out. But I did type in before that, did Santa Fuck.

[00:17:09] Jason Mantzoukas: I did. I, uh, wait, what now?

[00:17:12] Paul Scheer: I typed in does Santa fuck because I don’t know.

[00:17:15] Jessica St. Claire: Paul.

[00:17:16] Jason Mantzoukas: Yes, I want to know. I want to know.

[00:17:19] Paul Scheer: There, well, I, what came up was.

[00:17:21] Jessica St. Claire: Paul.

[00:17:21] June Diane Raphael: Paul.

[00:17:23] Jessica St. Claire: Paul.

[00:17:24] June Diane Raphael: Paul!

[00:17:25] Jessica St. Claire: Paul.

[00:17:26] June Diane Raphael: Paul, though.

[00:17:29] Jessica St. Claire: Paul.

[00:17:29] Paul Scheer: There is. Okay.

[00:17:30] June Diane Raphael: Paul.

[00:17:30] Paul Scheer: There Okay.

[00:17:31] Jessica St. Claire: Paul.

[00:17:31] Paul Scheer: There is. There is a Santa fetish, but people are confused because he has no zipper on his pants.

[00:17:38] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, now that’s interesting.

[00:17:39] June Diane Raphael: He’s got suspenders on, so I assume those just come down.

[00:17:43] Jason Mantzoukas: Plus, he’s moving so quickly through such cold air, the zipper would just be too drafty. That makes sense to me.

[00:17:49] June Diane Raphael: That makes sense to me, too.

[00:17:50] Paul Scheer: People argue that Santa is the ultimate daddy dom.

[00:17:53] Jason Mantzoukas: Whoa!

[00:17:54] June Diane Raphael: Stop reading. Is this from the chat? Are you just still online? Stop. Get offline.

[00:18:00] Paul Scheer: He’s kind yet firm. Soft, yet strong capable.

[00:18:05] Jason Mantzoukas: Is a power top.

[00:18:07] Jessica St. Claire: This is ADHD at his best. He can’t stop himself.

[00:18:10] Paul Scheer: Daddy Dom. By the way, maybe the shirt is Santa Claus. It just says Daddy Dom on it.

[00:18:16] Jessica St. Claire: Nobody wants that.

[00:18:19] Jason Mantzoukas: Here’s the thing, but it’s Dominic Toretto’s face.

[00:18:21] Paul Scheer: That’s what I was going to say. Yep, there it is.

[00:18:25] Jessica St. Claire: Disgusting.

[00:18:30] Paul Scheer: I will say this, this movie gave me, and I wrote this down right away, I’m incredibly impressed by the postal service, like watching the mail go through slots. I felt like I was a kid watching like Sesame Street. I was like, wow.

[00:18:43] June Diane Raphael: I was totally, I was. feeling that too. Like if we could spend more time seeing someone, what I would have loved as an opening is really seeing the same letter go through the process.

[00:18:53] Jessica St. Claire: That would have been nice.

[00:18:54] June Diane Raphael: Into that thing. Let’s go down.

[00:18:55] Jason Mantzoukas: And why can’t it be Emily’s letter?

[00:18:57] Jessica St. Claire: Because all they had was B roll. Here’s the question, Paul, this is a question for you. Are they shooting in front of a green screen? Did they have that technology? Because it was very upsetting.

[00:19:09] Paul Scheer: Here’s the thing. I thought that same thing too.

[00:19:11] I believe they’re just backlit because every time I’m like, Oh, that’s a green screen, they would walk backwards into like a full set. Yeah. Yes. So like when they’re in that, when they’re in that. That place, they walk backwards into it. So I think the lighting is just, I think there’s, they’re silhouetted too, weirdly because they also have.

[00:19:29] Jessica St. Claire: Insane.

[00:19:30] Paul Scheer: That green screen effect in his house. There’s no reason to have the green screen in his house.

[00:19:34] June Diane Raphael: We’ll never forget the VFX I really wanna talk about is during the Sprinkles cookie decorating scene.

[00:19:40] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh yeah, yeah.

[00:19:40] June Diane Raphael: When the, I got crinkles. When things get crazy.

[00:19:43] Paul Scheer: Can we play the Sprinkles fight? Let’s play the Sprinkles fight. That’s clip nine.

[00:19:47] Movie Audio: Um, it’s kind of a secret project I’m working on.

[00:19:50] How’s that secret project going?

[00:19:51] Not very well. No one seems to like Uncle Matt very much.

[00:19:55] Oh, no.

[00:19:56] Paul Scheer: Is she? I mean, are there powers at play?

[00:20:00] Movie Audio: I think you would look really cool with some free sparkles on you!

[00:20:04] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, oh boy. Food fight.

[00:20:08] Jessica St. Claire: Is this because they could only do one take? Is my question, is like, they couldn’t clean it up?

[00:20:15] Paul Scheer: I think you’re right. Cause they also, it’s not fun the way they’re dropping sprinkles on people. Like it seems like they’re not throwing it. It’s like, they’re jumping.

[00:20:23] Jason Mantzoukas: They’re smiling and laughing so much. It looks like so much fun.

[00:20:27] Jessica St. Claire: I really think they didn’t have the time in their limited schedule and budget to, to reset the hair. You know, so they were like, we have to just, but why they would choose the one thing they can do practically is that. And why they put it. It’s like.

[00:20:42] Paul Scheer: Cause I bet you it’s not showing up on camera.

[00:20:44] June Diane Raphael: No, but then let’s, then let’s throw icing at each other.

[00:20:48] Jessica St. Claire: Let’s do something else.

[00:20:49] June Diane Raphael: Let’s make little balls of dough and throw it at each other.

[00:20:53] Jason Mantzoukas: They’re really struggling here because they’re also like, they can’t light anything. Every scene has to take place in the middle of the day. Like they don’t have the ability to do anything in service of, making this make sense. I think.

[00:21:06] June Diane Raphael: I could not, first of all, there’s a lot we need to talk about with Matt and Heather. Like why aren’t Matt and Heather together? That’s a question. Put that over there.

[00:21:17] Jason Mantzoukas: Who is Carlos? Who is Carlos?

[00:21:20] Jessica St. Claire: Wait, who’s Carlos? But really, who is Carlos?

[00:21:23] Paul Scheer: Isn’t carlos in the band?

[00:21:24] June Diane Raphael: Carlos is in the band.

[00:21:26] Jason Mantzoukas: I believe Carlos is Heather’s boyfriend and that’s why they keep mentioning him. But boy did I think Carlos was going to arrive at some point because he’s talked about quite a bit.

[00:21:35] June Diane Raphael: Carlos is the one who’s doing scales who’s like la, la, la, la, la.

[00:21:41] Jason Mantzoukas: That band is terrible. The band is terrible.

[00:21:45] Jessica St. Claire: Heather is not in the band, right? She’s like the band’s like spiritual leader.

[00:21:49] Paul Scheer: Does the band have a name?

[00:21:51] June Diane Raphael: She’s in the band.

[00:21:52] Paul Scheer: No, she’s not in the band. She’s the band manager.

[00:21:55] June Diane Raphael: No, she’s in the band.

[00:21:56] Jessica St. Claire: She helps them like relax.

[00:21:59] Paul Scheer: She’s like the Metallica doctor.

[00:22:01] Jessica St. Claire: Yes, that’s exactly what I thought. Some kind of monster. She’s like, yeah, she’s there to help them relax.

[00:22:06] Jason Mantzoukas: It was it. Well, I agree with you, though, June. It was cryptic because I thought she was within the band as well, but she is able to leave so easily. Um, and and it’s this thing where they want you to think to give Christy North a reason to think, Oh no, Mailman Matt might be married, uh, because he’s gotten Heather to come and help him with Emily.

[00:22:28] Paul Scheer: But what a terrible plan, like, cause she gets confused, she’s like, Oh, he asked her to meet her at the park, you wouldn’t ask your wife to also be at the park. It’s like, like,

[00:22:36] Jason Mantzoukas: Also, don’t introduce your daughter to a woman you do not know.

[00:22:41] June Diane Raphael: Well, it’s not his daughter. He makes that very clear.

[00:22:44] Jessica St. Claire: Why don’t you imagine if you had, we’re in charge of a child that you were like, and tonight a woman you just met is going to tuck you in. That’s a fucking horror movie.

[00:22:55] June Diane Raphael: And by the way, I have so many questions.

[00:22:58] Paul Scheer: But that kid wanted to get him laid. She was ready to go out of town.

[00:23:01] Jessica St. Claire: She’d do anything!

[00:23:02] Jason Mantzoukas: I wanted the movie, I wanted the movie to be about Mailman Matt fucking Mrs. Johnson so hard. I wanted, I wanted the triangle to be Christy North, Mrs. Johnson, and Matt.

[00:23:13] Jessica St. Claire: Because she was hot to go. Mrs. Johanson was hot to go. She was Johnson, whatever her name was. She was ready to get fucked.

[00:23:22] Paul Scheer: She was ready for it because it felt like she was in on it. And that wasn’t Matt didn’t know what was up, but she felt like she was like, yeah, fuck this guy.

[00:23:30] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, she was wearing her sexy turtle neck. She was like ready to go. And they put a love to her.

[00:23:37] Paul Scheer: And you know, I thought that this movie robbed us of the awkwardness of the scene. Like they basically put them at the table and then hard cut to him, like washing dishes. And I’m like, give us, something give us a little bit of something, but I felt like they were nervous because they also knew that their audience for this movie are older women. So they didn’t want to like go too hard on.

[00:23:56] June Diane Raphael: They did a number on older and single women on this movie.

[00:24:00] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh yeah.

[00:24:00] June Diane Raphael: I don’t think they held, I don’t think they held back. But here’s my question for Matt, here’s my question for Matt. And I guess a PSA, like if a child who’s lost both parents in a devastating, I guess, car accident, I don’t think it’s ever explicitly said.

[00:24:17] Paul Scheer: I don’t think Matt even knows.

[00:24:19] June Diane Raphael: Some sort of sudden death, this nine year old child, and she asks, if I talk to my parents, can they hear me? The answer is yes. The answer is unequivocally.

[00:24:32] Jessica St. Claire: Agreed.

[00:24:33] June Diane Raphael: Yes.

[00:24:33] Jessica St. Claire: He’s like, that’s a tough one.

[00:24:35] June Diane Raphael: It’s not a tough one. The answer is yes. The fact that it threw him for so it threw him for such a loop that.

[00:24:44] Paul Scheer: You haven’t talked about this?

[00:24:46] Jason Mantzoukas: Like, Oh, he’s a mess.

[00:24:48] Paul Scheer: He’s a, he is a mess.

[00:24:49] Jason Mantzoukas: He’s written to be, he’s old, but he seems written to be like. 19 years old, like truly clueless.

[00:24:57] Paul Scheer: When he talks about the will, he says this thing that shook me to my core because he’s taught. It’s like a dramatic scene. It’s like, you know, when my sister and husband died in their will, they said that was the best uncle ever. And that’s why I have this kid. It’s like, I don’t think they put like best uncle ever in the way. It’s not like a hallmark card. It’s not like they give him a mug Like it’d be like, you know, it’s like, it’s like, it’s, it’s like, it also felt like he was bragging. It’s like, yeah, it was the best uncle ever.

[00:25:25] June Diane Raphael: He just seemed so depressed. So much so. He, he really like, he bummed me out. I will say the actress who played Christy holiday or Noel.

[00:25:36] Jessica St. Claire: She was a breath of fresh.

[00:25:39] Jason Mantzoukas: She’s terrific.

[00:25:40] Jessica St. Claire: Star.

[00:25:41] Paul Scheer: Loved her.

[00:25:42] Jason Mantzoukas: And, and she was great and incredibly watchable playing a character that is not of this, of the world of the movie.

[00:25:50] The rest of the people are trying to be like in the real world. And she is this heightened, magical kind of, um, from a mystical, a magical world kind of person and doing incredible job in and amongst everybody else doing what is bizarre. Just like, uh, yeah.

[00:26:05] June Diane Raphael: I wish they had given her more physical comedy till we could really see what Christine North is made of.

[00:26:10] Paul Scheer: For you, video game nerds out there. She is, uh, the motion capture and voice in the Last of Us, part one and two of Maria Miller.

[00:26:19] June Diane Raphael: So that’s good for her. She’s one to watch.

[00:26:21] Jessica St. Claire: She certainly is. Um, you know, I did think to myself, Jason, that when she let that pigeon land on her, I thought, boy, this is a role that if Jason had been offered and they said, you’re going to do bird work, you’re going to have.

[00:26:36] Jason Mantzoukas: Absolutely not.

[00:26:37] Jessica St. Claire: A couple days with a trained bird. You would have said no, thank you.

[00:26:40] June Diane Raphael: Even if our industry is collapsing, even if there’s nothing on the horizon.

[00:26:45] Jessica St. Claire: You would never do bird work.

[00:26:47] Jason Mantzoukas: I’m not a good enough actor. I’m not a good enough actor because the minute the bird came close to me, I would smash it to the ground. My instincts would take over and I would destroy the bird. I would have to. That’s the only answer. I would grab it. Slam it. Twist

[00:27:04] Jessica St. Claire: Travis Kelsey touchdown.

[00:27:07] Paul Scheer: Wait a second. Wait, hold on, Jess. Hold on. Stop.

[00:27:09] Jason Mantzoukas: Travis. Hold on. Back it up. Back it up.

[00:27:12] Paul Scheer: Travis Kelsey touchdown.

[00:27:14] Jessica St. Claire: He does touchdowns, right?

[00:27:20] Paul Scheer: Yeah, that is a thing.

[00:27:22] Jessica St. Claire: Yeah, so stop fucking laughing.

[00:27:24] June Diane Raphael: Here’s the thing though, Jason, here’s what I agree with you about. If I, if I, if I’m writing a movie and I want, if I want to get across this scene where this, we really get to see how magical she is, that she can speak to humans and creatures and, and.

[00:27:40] Paul Scheer: But yet she can’t speak to a dog.

[00:27:42] June Diane Raphael: That’s interesting. Why isn’t Rudy on a leash?

[00:27:46] Paul Scheer: Oh, this is another, this is another, by the way, this is another trigger for June, but we continue June, yeah, if she’s magical.

[00:27:52] June Diane Raphael: My question is, because I’ve seen this a few times in the times in these types of movies, but when they want to do this type of scene, they’ll put a pigeon on a hand.

[00:28:02] Jessica St. Claire: Give me a bluebird. Isn’t there a trained bluebird?

[00:28:05] June Diane Raphael: We can hear anything.

[00:28:06] Paul Scheer: This is a Marvista production. They’re not getting bluebirds. They’re literally.

[00:28:11] June Diane Raphael: Flying rats. And we all know it. I know. And if a pigeon comes near any of us, we will kill it. Travis, Kelsey touchdown.

[00:28:20] Paul Scheer: Travis, Kelsey touchdown, go birds,

[00:28:23] June Diane Raphael: Fly Eagles.

[00:28:24] Jessica St. Claire: Heather, God bless, who also really did sparkle on the screen. She brings a child over. You think you see a crazy woman with a pigeon on her hand. You’re going to go, Hey, can I, can I let my kid touch your pigeon? That’s like bird flu for everybody.

[00:28:40] June Diane Raphael: Very strange. Heather, I have to say, I thought she’d, the actress did a great job. I couldn’t make heads or tails of what her.

[00:28:51] Paul Scheer: It just seemed like everyone wanted to get, uh, Matt laid and like, cause the guys, cause at one point Heather’s like, she’s like, you don’t have to be a good parent.

[00:29:00] Just play your guitar, go play video games. Don’t worry about this kid. If you’re like, everyone was like, don’t worry about this kid. You’re taking this responsibility too hard.

[00:29:13] June Diane Raphael: She has to worry about this kid. It’s his legal responsibility. Yes. But the decision at the end, which I guess we’re all supposed to be rooting for, is that he does yank her out of school.

[00:29:24] Jessica St. Claire: I really think it’s a mistake.

[00:29:26] June Diane Raphael: He does yank her out of school and he does start her on like a bit of a carny childhood.

[00:29:33] Paul Scheer: I don’t think that the yellow muse, I don’t think the yellow muse is going to have too many tours in their future.

[00:29:38] June Diane Raphael: Is that what the band is called?

[00:29:39] Jason Mantzoukas: That the name of the band?

[00:29:41] Paul Scheer: Oh, yeah, that’s from Chelsea Downey in the chat. She saw that yellow Muse is the only poster on the wall. So the Yellow Muse, uh, I don’t think the yellow.

[00:29:50] June Diane Raphael: Posters, if we’re going to talk about posters and backgrounds, I must spend a little bit of time on when we are with Mr. Fuller, the poster, uh, is a warning poster for mail drivers. And it says something along the lines of like, could this happen to you?

[00:30:11] And it’s a poster of a mail truck. That has fallen into, yeah. Good. Oh yeah. What? fallen into a body of water. But I did pause it right here and looked at that body of water and I was like, is that a pool? Yeah. Is that a

[00:30:27] Jessica St. Claire: In what world could this happen you?

[00:30:29] June Diane Raphael: What could it be? What is that water?

[00:30:31] Paul Scheer: I also paused it and I have a theory on it.

[00:30:34] This is a mailman mail carrier who’s decided I need to deliver the mail. I’m gonna drive through that puddle. It doesn’t look too deep.

[00:30:43] June Diane Raphael: A puddle?

[00:30:44] Paul Scheer: Yes.

[00:30:46] Jessica St. Claire: A puddle. Okay. Here’s what I want to say. That’s more like a sinkhole. Yeah. That’s like a sinkhole scenario.

[00:30:50] Jason Mantzoukas: Here’s what I’ll say about what you’re showing me right here is this image. This image is what a tease because up in the upper right hand corner it says Gilmore the Merrier. Binge a thon, which just tells me that there’s about to be a Gilmore Girls marathon, which I would so much rather be watching than this absolute nightmare.

[00:31:08] Jessica St. Claire: I know. I’m in the middle of season three, by the way, Jason. Rewatch. Rewatch!

[00:31:13] Jason Mantzoukas: I just finished season six. Season six re watch!

[00:31:18] Jessica St. Claire: Why are we not watching it together? Oh, God.

[00:31:22] Jason Mantzoukas: But yes, the guy in this poster died. Drowned. So many mailmen drown.

[00:31:28] June Diane Raphael: But what is he in? Is that like the Bahamas?

[00:31:35] Jason Mantzoukas: That’s like a pond.

[00:31:35] June Diane Raphael: Have you ever seen a pond with that?

[00:31:36] Jason Mantzoukas: It’s very clear. It’s very clear. It’s a bog.

[00:31:39] June Diane Raphael: Awfully clear.

[00:31:40] Paul Scheer: I think he’s driving through a large puddle, but he misjudged it. He’s like, oh, that’s just gonna be a small puddle. You never drive through a puddle with your car.

[00:31:46] June Diane Raphael: But what do you say he turns into? That’s not a puddle.

[00:31:48] Paul Scheer: That’s a puddle.

[00:31:50] June Diane Raphael: Okay. Moving on, Paul. I’m not even going to dignify that. One thing I laughed so hard about was When we first meet Matt, we can see pretty clearly that he’s wearing like a number of bracelets. Yes. And I was like, what’s this all about? Like, what are the, what’s this stacking all about? These beads?

[00:32:09] Paul Scheer: Well, because it’s so interesting because it takes so long for the other character to say, just give us some of that rock and roll. And I was like, wait, what? And then they go back to the bracelets. Yeah, that’s what it was. The bracelets are good.

[00:32:22] Jessica St. Claire: And June, and I thought about you too while watching because of his bangs. They’re so strange. They go up. It’s like a bang should be.

[00:32:32] June Diane Raphael: Really tough time with his hair.

[00:32:34] Jessica St. Claire: It was like someone had stuck a, I don’t know, like a pitchfork just in the front. But that was to show us that he had a bit of rock and roll in him.

[00:32:42] June Diane Raphael: It was, and he had a lot of gel and like a lot of like, this piece is going to go that way. And this one’s going to go, but the troubling thing was his sides were too long. I don’t want to get into it.

[00:32:50] Jason Mantzoukas: I’ll be honest. The real troubling thing when rock and roll became rock and roll, when they start to do the rock and roll performance is the movie just starts drowning in fedoras.

[00:33:01] Everybody on screen is somehow immediately wearing a fedora. Which I was like, no, now I, now I double know this band is terrible because it’s fedora based.

[00:33:13] Paul Scheer: The minute he put on that fedora, I lost all respect for him as a musician and I’m so sorry.

[00:33:19] Jason Mantzoukas: Yellow Muse. They say Yellow Muse is good to get rid of this fedora wearing douche.

[00:33:23] June Diane Raphael: Well.

[00:33:25] Jason Mantzoukas: And child protective services. Let me just get this out. Needs to take Emily away. They need to be called. Heather should be like.

[00:33:32] Paul Scheer: He tells his daughter. His daughter calls him and goes, dad, how do I turn on the gas stove? Like he, the daughter’s basically saying gas is leaking into the house. And then it seems like he takes about 45 minutes to get there. Why don’t you stay on the phone and be like, get out of the house, turn it off.

[00:33:46] June Diane Raphael: Okay. I love when he says when he’s taking that phone call, he’s like, uh, hold on one second. Yeah. Just give me one second. I might. I wanted to scream. Just tell her, like, turn it the fuck off. Turn it off. Whatever’s on. Turn it out of the house or run out.

[00:34:03] Jason Mantzoukas: But she was just messing with him to get him to come home because she was bringing the Mrs. Johnson date on him, right?

[00:34:10] June Diane Raphael: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:34:11] Jason Mantzoukas: It also seemed like, but what’s so strange about that now, put it together timeline wise. He’s at work talking to Christie North, right? He gets a call that says. Oh, I’m starting the stove from Emily. He races home and it’s already dinner time.

[00:34:27] Paul Scheer: Like, well, it’s always dinner time.

[00:34:29] June Diane Raphael: It’s always, it’s always time for dinner and it’s always time for lunch.

[00:34:33] Jessica St. Claire: And it’s always time for him to clean up. If I, there were so many shots of him, of him toweling off a lasagna dish. I swear to God, that’s why his life is so sad. He’s constantly doing dishes.

[00:34:44] Paul Scheer: He’s constantly eating food. He has no sense of time.

[00:34:47] June Diane Raphael: Well, it really was sad, sad dad, sad.

[00:34:52] Jessica St. Claire: Sad dad energy.

[00:34:53] Paul Scheer: Can I show you, uh, this is picture number two. This is his kitchen curtains. I think this is to keep out the light.

[00:35:00] Jessica St. Claire: This look like a sleeper cell. Yeah. No, no, no.

[00:35:03] Jason Mantzoukas: I mean, what, what is that?

[00:35:04] Jessica St. Claire: The set designer needs to be killed.

[00:35:08] Paul Scheer: That’s again, that’s where you put you put somebody in front of that to read a hostage note.

[00:35:12] Jessica St. Claire: That’s what I mean.

[00:35:13] Jason Mantzoukas: You, you, yes, you could send this picture to child protective services. They would take her away.

[00:35:18] Jessica St. Claire: Agreed.

[00:35:19] June Diane Raphael: This thing is like, those aren’t even curtains, like that brown thing, the way it’s billowing out at the bottom. Like, I don’t know what that fabric is.

[00:35:25] Jason Mantzoukas: It’s at the top, it’s just like on some string. It’s on some loose string.

[00:35:29] Jessica St. Claire: What are we hiding? What is on the other side of that window?

[00:35:33] Paul Scheer: Bright, bright daylight.

[00:35:35] Jessica St. Claire: Bright sunlight. Oh God.

[00:35:36] June Diane Raphael: Matt’s game is so sad though. When he, when he’s trying to like get things going with Christy, he first invites her to lunch, which I’m like, okay, and then he says it’s going to be a picnic. I’m like, okay. Okay, and then it’s an indoor post office.

[00:35:52] Jessica St. Claire: That’s fucking weird. And why? All of these things were backed up. It’s like somebody would have an idea. Oh, we want to have this scene at the pit. So we let’s back up the reality of what would he have to do to get her then to go outside? It’s so.

[00:36:07] Jason Mantzoukas: You know, it was crazy to me is he asks her out. Nothing happens. She calls him and leaves him a message that says, you know what I would like to do lunch. She makes an effort. He the next day just shows up in her office and is like, you ready for lunch? He’s not called her back to confirm the plan. He’s not reached out and gotten in touch. This is a movie that exists. It’s 2010. There’s almost never cell phone usage almost at all. He in fact.

[00:36:34] Jessica St. Claire: Except when Santa calls her.

[00:36:35] Jason Mantzoukas: Except when Santa calls her.

[00:36:36] Paul Scheer: And she pops a squat when her dad calls her, she’s walking.

[00:36:39] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh my God.

[00:36:40] Paul Scheer: Well, time for a phone call. Let me put down my suitcase and take a seat. Like she does not even understand the walk and talk of what cell phones are.

[00:36:48] Jason Mantzoukas: I mean, she doesn’t seem to understand the world in a way that seems like Buddy, the elf doesn’t understand the world, but she lives in the world for two months every year.

[00:36:57] Paul Scheer: But she also doesn’t have any of that fun of I don’t know. She has none of that elf quality. Like, Ooh, what’s that?

[00:37:05] June Diane Raphael: And what’s unfortunate is I think she could do that work. They just, she wasn’t really given the opportunity because she had the energy. She had the, and I’m not going to compare it to Will Ferrell, but like.

[00:37:16] Jessica St. Claire: She had a spark.

[00:37:18] June Diane Raphael: Yeah, she had a sparkle to her and I wanted some more.

[00:37:22] Paul Scheer: This is what you get when you do this, when you make these movies where a character who’s too innocent comes down, you can’t have them in a romantic relationship because it feels like you’re taking advantage of them.

[00:37:33] It’s too awkward. Like I watched that hot and frosty or hot frosty. It’s like, this guy is like a sentient snowman and he’s so scared and then like, you’re gonna, they don’t want them to kiss. It’s like, he doesn’t know what’s going on.

[00:37:42] June Diane Raphael: That is so neutered that I could never think for one fucking second that he was taking advantage of her.

[00:37:48] Jessica St. Claire: Yeah, but I’m gonna tell you this, June. When they have their fedora moment, and then it’s so creepy that, like, the music comes on, and like, and then. And here’s what I don’t want a guy ever to say to me, and maybe this is post election, okay?

[00:38:02] June Diane Raphael: Come on.

[00:38:03] Jessica St. Claire: Shhh. Shhh. Close your eyes. Don’t fucking tell me. I don’t know you.

[00:38:08] Don’t you ever tell me. I don’t know you. Don’t you ever tell me. Don’t you say shhh. I’m eyes wide open. And don’t you dare tell me to close my eyes.

[00:38:13] Jason Mantzoukas: Hey jess, shhh. Hey Jess, shhh.

[00:38:15] Jessica St. Claire: Yeah, you want me to burn your fucking house down? Tell me to shhh. Don’t. Okay?

[00:38:20] Jason Mantzoukas: Just for like a weird slow dance.

[00:38:22] June Diane Raphael: Don’t you ever shhh me.

[00:38:23] Jessica St. Claire: If you tell me to close my eyes, I’m assuming I’m gonna wake up, there’s gonna be a bunch of dogs in my face, and I’m gonna have to punch my way out.

[00:38:35] June Diane Raphael: The thing that offended me, honestly, almost more, was the fact that they kept on using pastel colors in a Christmas movie.

[00:38:46] Jessica St. Claire: Oh, wow. I know that’s it’s been a thing for you for a long time.

[00:38:50] June Diane Raphael: What are these Easter colors doing in my Christmas movie? I think I’m seeing greens at one point. I saw, I think, like an antenna with, like, with, with St. Patrick’s Day.

[00:38:59] Paul Scheer: I think they have one warehouse. I mean, I’m also just impressed that the kids in this movie have access to green and red envelopes. Like most kids are sending normal, you know, they’re not getting red and green envelopes.

[00:39:11] Jason Mantzoukas: The other thing is this town is fielding entirely too many letters to Santa. There are too many children in this town, I believe.

[00:39:22] Paul Scheer: She has no friends.

[00:39:23] Jason Mantzoukas: According to me, according to me, a childless man, Matt, the mailman is collecting a volume of letters. that the town simply cannot sustain. Otherwise, or this is a situation where the town is made entirely of children. It’s one of those weird ones.

[00:39:36] Paul Scheer: I am on the, I am on the postmaster general or the, the, the head of the post office side. It is mucking up the works. I mean, like it’s too much, it’s bags and bags of mail. It’s like, uh, BTS moved to town. I mean, like there’s one moment though. I do love when she’s going through the mail. This is the other friend, uh, their name, uh, Sally.

[00:39:55] June Diane Raphael: Oh, Sally.

[00:39:57] Paul Scheer: Sally, who is great. Love Sally.

[00:39:59] Jessica St. Claire: Bless her.

[00:39:59] Paul Scheer: Sally is great. She, like, picks up a package and she’s like, Oh, from France. Oh, bonjour. And I was like, but it’s still in a USPS box. Like, so I was also like, wait, so France, like, like someone got a USPS box and then sent, like, but it’s also like, she’s still enamored with mail, which is.

[00:40:21] Jessica St. Claire: That’s why it’s nice that she gets that promotion. I also felt, I mean, again, I’m coming from a lineage of postal workers. So that’s.

[00:40:29] Paul Scheer: Close your eyes, jess and remember.

[00:40:31] Jessica St. Claire: Don’t you fucking tell me.

[00:40:34] Paul Scheer: I’m going to tell you, so you will not come with me to that haunted house. I go to.

[00:40:39] Jessica St. Claire: Let’s be using that person’s balls as a, as a bag. Okay. But, um, Also, in the very beginning of the movie, he’s struggling. We’ve all seen mail carriers. They’ve got a cart. He’s having to carry all these packages on his own and stumble back to the truck. It’s like, that’s just not how it goes.

[00:40:59] Paul Scheer: He has no truck. He’s just doing, he’s just walking this town.

[00:41:03] Jason Mantzoukas: I’m with St. Claire. The authenticity of the mail service is being challenged in this movie.

[00:41:09] June Diane Raphael: When he puts that letter in his mouth, that’s a crazy moment.

[00:41:12] Jason Mantzoukas: Disgusting. Yeah. She puts it there.

[00:41:14] June Diane Raphael: She puts it there.

[00:41:15] Jason Mantzoukas: By the way.

[00:41:16] June Diane Raphael: But he opens his mouth for it, Jason.

[00:41:17] Jason Mantzoukas: That is the most erotic beat of the movie.

[00:41:20] June Diane Raphael: Absolutely.

[00:41:20] Jason Mantzoukas: That is the most sexual this movie will ever get. .

[00:41:23] June Diane Raphael: Absolutely.

[00:41:24] Jessica St. Claire: Lemme ask you, in terms of sexual innuendos, let me ask you this. When he’s with his boss and she, he says, I’m grooming you, Matt, you’ve been groomed. And I wanna see, I wanna see myself. Self in you. I really couldn’t tell whether that was intended to be an innuendo because no one

[00:41:41] Jason Mantzoukas: No, the word I don’t think so because I don’t think the word grooming was being used that way in 20 I’m sure it was but not the way that.

[00:41:46] Jessica St. Claire: Wow.

[00:41:47] Jason Mantzoukas: So foregrounded now in 2010. I don’t think this movie is smart enough.

[00:41:51] June Diane Raphael: The one question I had for mr. Fuller, you know was If you’re so against Christmas, if you’re so against like all these letters and what it does to your system and how they can’t be opened and opened letters per bag and unopened letters per bag, Why are you wearing a Christmas tie?

[00:42:13] Paul Scheer: No, no, that’s that. I thought that that’s when I realized that’s Postal Service.

[00:42:17] Jessica St. Claire: That’s I’ve never seen red part of the Postal Service Service.

[00:42:21] June Diane Raphael: Palette is blue and white.

[00:42:23] Jason Mantzoukas: Well, he also, he also gives Matt a red tie when he gets the promotion. So I, that seems to be like some sort of like, I I don’t know. I agree, uh, cause he is cast as a, he’s a Grinch, they call him the Grinch.

[00:42:38] Paul Scheer: My favorite moment in this movie. And this goes back to what you were saying. Like, I can see myself inside you. I don’t want to, you won’t see me inside you. They don’t really have like the fun witty banter because at one point when they’re making the cookies, he goes, Oh, I think I’m about to get schooled. And she goes, you are about to get schooled.

[00:42:58] June Diane Raphael: They had no chemistry.

[00:42:59] Paul Scheer: Well, that’s not a, that’s not a, uh, you can’t say that.

[00:43:03] June Diane Raphael: They had zero chemistry.

[00:43:05] Paul Scheer: Just say class is in session.

[00:43:08] Jessica St. Claire: Yeah. Something. You wanted to rewrite this movie, Paul, you almost want to take time away from your paying gigs to rewrite this movie. There was no stakes and no, no sizzle. No sizzle. I thought I’d almost prefer to watch a trashcan fire. That’s how lacking in.

[00:43:25] June Diane Raphael: And you know what my theory is? Yeah. If I may.

[00:43:29] Jessica St. Claire: Please.

[00:43:30] June Diane Raphael: I think that Matt, the actor.

[00:43:33] Jessica St. Claire: Yeah?

[00:43:35] June Diane Raphael: I think he had more chemistry with Heather. Yeah. And I think that he was not comfortable playing a romantic lead opposite a woman who was taller than him.

[00:43:46] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, interesting.

[00:43:46] June Diane Raphael: I’ve seen this dynamic play out a number of times.

[00:43:50] Paul Scheer: Wow.

[00:43:50] June Diane Raphael: Yep.

[00:43:51] Jessica St. Claire: That’s because everybody’s shorter than June and I. And we have to come up with some reason they don’t seem too psyched to make out with us.

[00:43:57] June Diane Raphael: No, it’s, it is, I have seen this a number of times because men do not want to stand on a little apple box.

[00:44:04] Jason Mantzoukas: No, and, and we all have to, you know, I would happily stand on a three quarter apple just to smooch Elizabeth DeBecke.

[00:44:12] Paul Scheer: Get up on that apple box.

[00:44:13] Jason Mantzoukas: I believe is, I believe is 6’2″.

[00:44:15] June Diane Raphael: That’s a real man, Jason. By the way.

[00:44:19] Jason Mantzoukas: Let me, let me stand on that Apple box. I will bring my own Apple box.

[00:44:24] Jessica St. Claire: That’s weird, man.

[00:44:25] Paul Scheer: Really? Men don’t want to get that sweet smoochie?

[00:44:28] June Diane Raphael: Men don’t want to stand on Apple boxes in front of a crew full of teamsters.

[00:44:31] No, they don’t.

[00:44:32] Jason Mantzoukas: I’ve got my own smooch branded Apple box that I bring to all my shoots for a classic smooch smooch.

[00:44:40] Paul Scheer: Getting high on a smooch box.

[00:44:42] Jessica St. Claire: Can I just say one thing? Jason and I wrote a pilot where, where we had to kiss each other. And we didn’t realize that it was going to have to actually do it.

[00:44:52] And right.

[00:44:53] Jason Mantzoukas: We didn’t have to just kiss each other. We had to like passionately make out.

[00:44:56] June Diane Raphael: We wrote this.

[00:44:57] Jessica St. Claire: We wrote it. But then it was like a shock to us that this happened. First of all, we never thought it was making us do it. Right before it happens, Jason goes, I’m going dead inside. Like that. And then he kisses me.

[00:45:10] That’s how he literally was like, I have to, I’m exiting my body right now.

[00:45:14] Jason Mantzoukas: It was, it really was an out of, it was an out of body experience.

[00:45:19] Paul Scheer: Well, kiss and tell Jess, was it a good kiss? Was it a good.

[00:45:23] Jessica St. Claire: I don’t know, because we both had to exit our bodies.

[00:45:27] Jason Mantzoukas: I can tell you that pilot did not get picked up to series.

[00:45:30] Jessica St. Claire: Oh, man, I’m going dead inside.

[00:45:33] Oh, can we talk? Could we just talk about the makeover? That, that she’s given in the bathroom.

[00:45:43] Jason Mantzoukas: In the bathroom, at the post office.

[00:45:45] Jessica St. Claire: So, I clocked, again, this is what I mean, like, They’re obviously like, we have to have a makeover, let’s put her in a crazy outfit. Cause at first I was like, this is one of the weirdest, ugliest outfits I’ve ever seen her wearing.

[00:45:55] It was a rugby shirt, buttoned all the way to the collar, and then a, and then a scarf as a tie, and then a very unattractive, um, jean.

[00:46:03] Paul Scheer: When Jim buttoned her shirt to reveal yet another shirt underneath it. That’s when I was like, Oh, now I feel this is weird. She’s wearing too many.

[00:46:12] Jason Mantzoukas: The other thing that made me feel like the sexual chemistry was a problem for Christy North and Matt and discomforting for him is that she did have no sexual energy or no mature adult energy.

[00:46:26] She seemed such an innocent in the way that buddy, the elf sometimes feels innocent. Um, So that also put me, put me off.

[00:46:34] June Diane Raphael: He was so, he was so asexual to me. And so post sexual.

[00:46:41] Jason Mantzoukas: Even in the fedora?

[00:46:42] June Diane Raphael: He was in, he was in like male menopause. Like I was like, this fucking gone. He’s got no juices running through him anymore.

[00:46:52] Jason Mantzoukas: Male menopause. Is that a thing?

[00:46:54] June Diane Raphael: I don’t know. But if it is, he’s in the throes of it.

[00:46:59] Paul Scheer: I’m going through male menopause right now.

[00:47:00] Jessica St. Claire: You fuckers deserve it. I wish you went through male menopause.

[00:47:04] June Diane Raphael: He’s in it. It’s like things have dried up with Matt. And so that’s why I never felt like uncomfortable because I was like, she’s got more life force and vitality.

[00:47:14] And like, then in her fingertips, Then this guy does. Um, I was just like, I’d rather see her with Mr. Fuller.

[00:47:23] Jason Mantzoukas: Okay. Oh, I would rather she, I want to see her like in a more natural, I want her to be like seeking something better. Yeah. Seeking something wonderful. Like Matt is going.

[00:47:34] Jessica St. Claire: She’s lived in Tokyo. You know what I mean? She’s been all over the world and now she’s going to settle.

[00:47:39] Paul Scheer: She doesn’t want for anything. What does she do for these other 10 months? That seems like she’s a vacant, like she seems like she goes into like a hole for 10 months. She’s not living.

[00:47:46] Jessica St. Claire: She goes back to the NP. She goes back to the NP and has a blast.

[00:47:50] Jason Mantzoukas: Well, it’s like the, it’s like the people that live for summer camp. You know, those two months of summer camp, that’s when they, that’s when they come alive. The rest of the year, they’re just marking time.

[00:48:00] Paul Scheer: All right. Well then let me tell you what the internet, when you type in this movie, the internet, they have a darker reading on the movie.

[00:48:05] Jason Mantzoukas: What is go? Why are you?

[00:48:06] Paul Scheer: This is research.

[00:48:06] Jason Mantzoukas: So much Google.

[00:48:08] Paul Scheer: This is, this is research. Uh, it says in the movie Christmas Mail, the ending sees the main character, Kristy North, finally reconnecting with her estranged father, Tom.

[00:48:18] June Diane Raphael: Tom?

[00:48:18] Paul Scheer: After discovering a series of old letters that he wrote to her mother that were never delivered, revealing his deep love and regret for leaving them.

[00:48:26] This realization prompts Christie to outreach out to him, leading to a heartwarming reunion on Christmas Eve, signifying the power of communication and the importance of family.

[00:48:34] Jessica St. Claire: This is a different movie, Paul.

[00:48:35] Jason Mantzoukas: That’s not this movie.

[00:48:36] Jessica St. Claire: This doesn’t happen.

[00:48:37] Paul Scheer: Well. This is what the AI, this is what this, what the AI is.

[00:48:40] June Diane Raphael: Stop talking about the AI. We just went on strike for fucking eight months, and you can’t stop bringing up AI.

[00:48:46] Paul Scheer: What AI is saying that the movie is up. But I also wanted to bring this up to say, is that, that, that may be a more astute reading.

[00:48:52] Jessica St. Claire: No, there’s nothing about that.

[00:48:54] Paul Scheer: There’s no magical powers. She has no magical powers.

[00:48:58] Jason Mantzoukas: She can talk to birds.

[00:49:00] Paul Scheer: Can she, what did she do? What did she say to that bird?

[00:49:04] June Diane Raphael: She said how.

[00:49:05] Jessica St. Claire: She had a whole conversation. How is your flight? Yeah.

[00:49:08] Paul Scheer: I talked to my dog all the time. Here’s the thing. She can’t talk to her dog, but she can talk to birds. We didn’t get it. She didn’t go, oh, I’ll help you with your nest. We don’t know that.

[00:49:16] She just is a person who plenty people talk to animals. Okay, I have four birds in my house. We talked to him all the time when I was growing up. Four birds.

[00:49:25] Jessica St. Claire: You had a bunch of birds?

[00:49:26] Paul Scheer: Yeah. Where’s that chapter in your book?

[00:49:28] June Diane Raphael: Oh, God.

[00:49:29] Jason Mantzoukas: That’s a reveal.

[00:49:30] Paul Scheer: It’s not even in the book. The birds aren’t even in the book.

[00:49:33] Jessica St. Claire: It was too sad? They cut that chapter because it was too sad?

[00:49:36] Jason Mantzoukas: I wish I didn’t know that. There’s nothing, there’s nothing more heartbreaking than being in a house full of things that deserve to be flying free. What? Trapped. Trapped animals.

[00:49:46] June Diane Raphael: Except once that little, once that little cage is open and those birds do get out, it’s actually quite terrifying and you want them back in their cage.

[00:49:54] So you also don’t want to be in a house where the birds are flying free around the house.

[00:49:59] Paul Scheer: Remember when I brought you home, june, and you got to sit, the guest room was by the bird room.

[00:50:04] June Diane Raphael: Guys. I, when I tell you, it was a bird, like sort of, um.

[00:50:12] Paul Scheer: We used to have a bird room.

[00:50:14] Jason Mantzoukas: I’m sorry. Did you have an, did you have an aviary in your room?

[00:50:17] Paul Scheer: We used to have a whole in our first, uh, in the house I grew up in through high school, it was a specific bird room that played television for birds, uh, that they liked, we had certain VHS tapes for them.

[00:50:30] June Diane Raphael: You know, this bird, the main bird I saw and I knew, talked.

[00:50:35] Paul Scheer: Sugar. Yeah, Sugar Sugar and Gabby talk. Oh yeah, that’s the whole thing.

[00:50:40] Jessica St. Claire: Hey, what did they say?

[00:50:41] Paul Scheer: What is sugar sugar? Sugar want a cracker.

[00:50:43] Jessica St. Claire: No, no.

[00:50:46] Jason Mantzoukas: Single, single Paul, single Paul.

[00:50:48] Paul Scheer: And then and it was like, and then it was, uh, like.

[00:50:50] Oh, you know, is he laughing? And then, uh.

[00:50:56] Jessica St. Claire: That was the only laughter that happened in your house was from a bird.

[00:51:00] Paul Scheer: And they’d also go like this.

[00:51:03] Jessica St. Claire: Yep.

[00:51:04] June Diane Raphael: It was so awful.

[00:51:07] It was awful. And then I would come out. I was brought home to this situation. I was brought to, to stay over this situation. Okay.

[00:51:18] Jessica St. Claire: You didn’t run for the fucking hills.

[00:51:20] June Diane Raphael: And it was also like, not only were there in a cage, but a lot of times there was a towel over them.

[00:51:25] Paul Scheer: Yeah.

[00:51:25] June Diane Raphael: Over the cage to keep them quiet.

[00:51:26] Paul Scheer: And we had to put Tabasco sauce on the wall because they would eat the wall. Um, I’ll tell you this much.

[00:51:32] Jason Mantzoukas: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, eat the wall?

[00:51:35] Jessica St. Claire: T. O.

[00:51:35] Jason Mantzoukas: What do you mean eat the wall?

[00:51:37] Paul Scheer: Kind of like cause they would get their cage closed.

[00:51:38] Jessica St. Claire: T. O.

[00:51:39] Jason Mantzoukas: Yes, Paul, because they wanted to get out. Because they needed to get away.

[00:51:44] What do you mean, it’s not Paul’s birds? They know his name.

[00:51:48] June Diane Raphael: He wasn’t the owner of these birds.

[00:51:50] Paul Scheer: I want to tell you the most disturbing fact about these birds.

[00:51:53] June Diane Raphael: They were like his siblings.

[00:51:54] Jessica St. Claire: Much like much like Christie and those elves. These were the only siblings you had. You were different to Paul. You were different because you didn’t have feathers.

[00:52:03] And a fucking beak. Your siblings had beaks, baby.

[00:52:06] Paul Scheer: When we moved in, and this is before my mom, my mom got married to this gentleman. Uh, before we moved in, I remember the first night there, the birds did imitate sex noises. And that was really disturbing.

[00:52:19] Jason Mantzoukas: What? Wait, that must mean that they had heard the sex noises.

[00:52:22] Paul Scheer: And it was like a, aah, aah, aah, aah. That was really disturbing. upsetting. My whole high school.

[00:52:31] Jason Mantzoukas: Wait, but did they at any point in there? Did they say Paul?

[00:52:35] Paul Scheer: No, that was a separate one. A separate one was Paul.

[00:52:39] June Diane Raphael: Let me tell you, I would, you know, when you’re, when you’re at Your new boyfriend’s house and you’re like, Oh my God, I have to shower and I want to get ready and I want to, you know, they’ve put out some towels and Paul’s like, yeah, just go over to the bathroom.

[00:52:54] But I had knew I had to walk past the birds or bird. It was only sugar. By the time I was there.

[00:53:00] Paul Scheer: We accidentally killed some birds because we left a stove a pot on the stove and.

[00:53:06] June Diane Raphael: Not me. There’s no blood on my hands.

[00:53:08] Jessica St. Claire: And what, the gas killed them?

[00:53:10] Paul Scheer: No, like, sometimes if you keep an empty pot on the stove, like, it heats up the metal, and then the metal creates a fume.

[00:53:15] Jessica St. Claire: This is so disturbing.

[00:53:18] Jason Mantzoukas: How this didn’t make the book is shocking.

[00:53:21] Paul Scheer: I mean, there’s so many things that did not make the book.

[00:53:24] Jason Mantzoukas: There’s sex, there’s sex, there’s murder. There’s, there’s all sorts of.

[00:53:29] Paul Scheer: And they love, they love, love Pee Wee Herman and they would watch Pee Wee Herman. And you have to put on, cause whenever they would hear the word of the day, they would go crazy. And all, all six of them would go, they all go nuts.

[00:53:41] June Diane Raphael: There was six at one point.

[00:53:42] Paul Scheer: Yeah, there were six birds, two biggies. And then four littles. There’s a bgy and there’s.

[00:53:49] June Diane Raphael: Please just please know that you walk into the house and it was, there were also many chihuahuas. It was like, it was like Ace Ventura, you know, Pet Detective, like the noise.

[00:54:01] Paul Scheer: That was, the noise was pretty loud. It was, we get complaints from the neighbors.

[00:54:04] June Diane Raphael: It was constant and at a pitch.

[00:54:08] Paul Scheer: Because they were just, they were screaming.

[00:54:10] June Diane Raphael: Screaming, screaming. Nonstop, unrelenting.

[00:54:13] Paul Scheer: This is one time. My mom took one of the birds out of the cage and, um, he bit her through the ear.

[00:54:19] Jason Mantzoukas: What?

[00:54:21] Jessica St. Claire: I’m done with this. Close the feed. Shut the feed down.

[00:54:26] Jason Mantzoukas: What on earth is happening? Well, how are you? Why is most of this 80 percent of this episode is digesting the true nightmare of you living with six birds?

[00:54:38] Jessica St. Claire: He bit her through the ear!

[00:54:39] Paul Scheer: It’s all to prove my point that.

[00:54:41] June Diane Raphael: He’s an amazing man. He’s an amazing guy.

[00:54:43] Jason Mantzoukas: Birds live a long time!

[00:54:44] Paul Scheer: It’s all to prove my point that a lot of people think they can talk to birds, but the birds aren’t talking back.

[00:54:49] Jessica St. Claire: Okay.

[00:54:50] Paul Scheer: Christy ain’t got no magic.

[00:54:51] Jessica St. Claire: Paul, we’re sorry that this triggered you so deeply. We didn’t realize. We’re sorry. We’ll pay for the therapy, or whatever kind of trauma work you have to do around seeing this movie.

[00:55:01] Paul Scheer: Oh, my Lord. Uh, so, um, so that’s, I just wanted to put out there. So we, we do believe that Christy North is truly Santa’s daughter.

[00:55:12] It is not, she’s not delusional.

[00:55:14] Jessica St. Claire: They have a very special relationship. I did like her relationship with Santa. I loved how readily available he was. I like, I liked it how, how he, she was able to call him with all he has on his plate, especially around Christmas.

[00:55:25] Jason Mantzoukas: He supports her when she says she’s not coming home. He’s supportive and says, have a wonderful Christmas. He’s excited that she’s with Matt.

[00:55:33] Paul Scheer: I mean, I would imagine a certain point he’s like, he’s also like, I’m psyched that you’re not coming over. I need to sleep.

[00:55:39] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah. I would love a remake of Failure to Launch, except it’s Santa Claus’s family.

[00:55:45] June Diane Raphael: They won’t get out.

[00:55:52] Paul Scheer: Aye aye aye.

[00:55:53] June Diane Raphael: They won’t get going. By the way, Paul, what’s the band’s name? Yellow Muse.. Why is, why must they leave to start this tour on Christmas Eve?

[00:56:03] Jessica St. Claire: They got a gig on Christmas day, which is strange time to have a show.

[00:56:08] Paul Scheer: Here’s the thing. It seems like Matt’s been out of that band for a long time.

[00:56:11] And they’re like, Hey, we’re on tour. He’s like, all right, you’ll fit. You’ll slot right back in. It doesn’t seem like they like.

[00:56:16] June Diane Raphael: And also it seems like they fell apart without him, so like, how are they booking this tour?

[00:56:21] Paul Scheer: Yeah.

[00:56:21] Jason Mantzoukas: Has anybody replaced him? Has somebody replaced him? There’s, I would have loved to have gotten deeper into the band dynamic.

[00:56:28] Paul Scheer: Um, obviously we had opinions about this movie. There are people out there with a different opinion. It is now time. For second opinions.

[00:56:35] Listener: I won’t watch a lot this Christmas. I’ll have time for one movie. It won’t be Elf or White Christmas or a Hallmark love story. I’ll be watching Christmas Mail. Hope it’s not a Christmas fail.

[00:56:57] Jessica St. Claire: It is.

[00:56:58] Listener: Let’s not be too harsh. Guess that I’ll just rate it five stars.

[00:57:08] June Diane Raphael: Beautiful.

[00:57:09] Jessica St. Claire: Look at that red lip, June.

[00:57:13] Paul Scheer: Now, earlier in the show, I did promise that you’ll hear from some real, um, mail people. Now, obviously, Jessica, this is going to hit close to you because of, you know, you have these connections.

[00:57:21] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, do you think we’re here?

[00:57:22] Paul, will we hear from the rag man?

[00:57:24] Jessica St. Claire: Probably not. He’s dead.

[00:57:25] Jason Mantzoukas: Asking for a friend.

[00:57:26] Jessica St. Claire: I wouldn’t say that. You know what? They’ll come for you, Jason.

[00:57:30] Jason Mantzoukas: Wait, what do you mean?

[00:57:31] Jessica St. Claire: If I just make a call.

[00:57:33] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, you’re going to make a call.

[00:57:35] Paul Scheer: Rag man Jr. is coming out?

[00:57:41] Jason Mantzoukas: You’re gonna write to Little Rags?

[00:57:43] Paul Scheer: Hey, um, there are 412 total reviews.

[00:57:51] 77 percent of them are five star reviews. Uh, we’ll just jump right in from this review in 2019 from Paul J. Snodicky, who says

[00:58:03] “Current USPS workers, especially retired employees, will find this film very true to the workplace culture at the USPS.”

[00:58:14] Jessica St. Claire: What?!

[00:58:15] Paul Scheer: “Also, anyone watching this feel good Christmas film will enjoy it. Five stars.” And the title “USPS people will find this interesting.”

[00:58:26] Jason Mantzoukas: Wow. Okay. I’m glad. I’m glad to hear that there is a shred of authenticity inside this movie.

[00:58:32] Paul Scheer: We’ll get to more of it in a second. But first, we’re here from Grandma of Nine. Grandma of Nine titles her review, “Great movie for the Christmas holiday.” It’s dated 2014 and she writes,

[00:58:44] “Though most of our family usually keep Santa to the side and go for the original Christmas story, this movie was an exception. There is not the usual materialism involved, but rather character and right choices in a day to day life. It is a great little story, even if you don’t believe in Santa. Five stars!”

[00:59:08] Grandma of Nine does not believe in Santa. Hey grandma, can we go over to your house? Well, we’re not going to talk about Santa. I tell you that much out

[00:59:14] Jessica St. Claire: Keep santa out of it. That’s you want a grandma wants to keep Santa out of it.

[00:59:18] Paul Scheer: I will tell you that’s like when I went over to my aunt’s house and, uh, and my aunt.

[00:59:22] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah, here we go.

[00:59:23] Paul Scheer: My aunt looked right at me and she said, there is no Santa, only Jesus Christ.

[00:59:27] Jason Mantzoukas: But did you write a Christmas letter to Jesus?

[00:59:30] Paul Scheer: I did. He wrote me back. said, send me some, some piggy unbuttoning, a couple buttons in the top there. I was like, all right, I’ll do it.

[00:59:36] Jason Mantzoukas: Whoa, whoa. Jc what’s up?

[00:59:40] Paul Scheer: Um, Tony, uh, wrote this in 2012.

[00:59:43] “This was a Christmas present for my mom. She loves to watch Christmas movies. I haven’t watched any of the movies that I bought off of Amazon for her, but she hasn’t complained. Five stars.”

[00:59:56] All right. Um, and then this one comes from J Alec West and, uh, it was written in 2015. And he writes this.

[01:00:03] “I am a retired postal worker and thoroughly enjoyed this lighthearted Christmas time tale. It’s playing on the TV now. And I just came to Amazon to buy the DVD so I could watch it again and again. By the way, regarding the postal manager featured in the film.”

[01:00:17] June Diane Raphael: Yes.

[01:00:17] Paul Scheer: “You might be surprised to learn that many postal managers in real life are just like that guy. I mean, not all of course, but many. Uh, one suggestion, post office, a novel. That’s for those who want to know what working at the post office is really like. The novel was written in 1971, but in most cases, it’s not dated. Computerization and automation might be new, but the personalities, they’re spot on five stars.”

[01:00:50] June Diane Raphael: Forget, you know, the phrase going postal was about like the post office shootings and workplace shootings that were happening.

[01:00:58] Jessica St. Claire: Way to bring it down.

[01:00:59] Jason Mantzoukas: The postal workers were overwhelmed and undervalued and they would be under terrible and they would, they would come up and shoot up the place.

[01:01:09] Paul Scheer: Well, now let’s talk about the ending of this movie where they write the postmaster general who is, uh, Yeah. Just handwriting letters as well. Hand writes a letter and is able to demote the manager to truck washer. Is that possible?

[01:01:24] June Diane Raphael: Well, Jessica, you’d know as a child of a postmaster general.

[01:01:27] Jessica St. Claire: Well, it was exciting when I saw the postmaster general get, you know, featured.

[01:01:32] Paul Scheer: Did you get tingly? Like it might be your relative?

[01:01:35] Jessica St. Claire: Yeah. Maybe it was like a AI generated version of my grandfather. But, um, first of all, he was in a very, like, Is there a postmaster general of the all, all of the United States? Because where he was very presidential.

[01:01:47] Paul Scheer: The, uh, the PGM is selected and appointed by the board of governors of the postal service, uh, which is appointed by the president.

[01:01:56] Uh, so.

[01:01:57] June Diane Raphael: I just wish someone could give me like another arm of the government, like the post office. So I could try to wrap my mind around. The checks and balances of it all.

[01:02:07] Jason Mantzoukas: What is this? What is this scam that we call the mail?

[01:02:13] June Diane Raphael: What is it? And why are they, aren’t they a functioning business if they are sort of self funded by the stamps and packages?

[01:02:21] Paul Scheer: So here it is. So the United States Postal Service is primarily funded through the revenue generated from selling stamps, products, and services. Meaning it is considered self funded and does not receive direct Taxpayer dollars to cover its operating expenses. Essentially, people pay for postal services to keep the post office running.

[01:02:40] All right. So that is what’s going on.

[01:02:42] Jason Mantzoukas: And, but what if that stopped? What if people stopped? I mean, I’m sure people have stopped mailing. That’s what I’m saying. Yeah. Stamps are people don’t know.

[01:02:50] Paul Scheer: What’s happening is why they’re running into problems is declining mail volume. Uh, and because they have to deliver to remote areas, things become less profitable. But here’s the thing, after the, uh.

[01:03:02] Jessica St. Claire: I’ve fallen asleep, I am asleep.

[01:03:04] Jason Mantzoukas: I love, I love that this is just.

[01:03:05] Jessica St. Claire: I am upright, but I am asleep.

[01:03:07] June Diane Raphael: I couldn’t be. More, I just woke up.

[01:03:09] Jason Mantzoukas: A podcast.

[01:03:09] Jessica St. Claire: I couldn’t be more bored.

[01:03:11] Jason Mantzoukas: A podcast, an explainer podcast about the American Postal service.

[01:03:14] June Diane Raphael: I still have questions though.

[01:03:15] Jessica St. Claire: I don’t.

[01:03:16] Paul Scheer: Here’s what I’ll tell you.

[01:03:17] Jason Mantzoukas: That we’ve barely talked about the movie. We’ve talked exclusively about birds in the post office, and not a second about the movie.

[01:03:24] Jessica St. Claire: We gotta get back to the birds. That was fun.

[01:03:27] Paul Scheer: The United States Postal Service has not covered its expenses and debt for how long?

[01:03:32] June Diane Raphael: I don’t know, 20 years now?

[01:03:34] Jessica St. Claire: Not when my grandfather was in charge.

[01:03:36] Paul Scheer: 15 years.

[01:03:38] Jessica St. Claire: Alright, he was dead by then.

[01:03:39] Paul Scheer: Okay, so it’s 6. 5 billion dollars last year. That was the debt. And they are, uh, that was compared to a net income of 56 billion. They made 56 billion and they were still in a 6. 5 billion debt.

[01:03:54] Jessica St. Claire: Well, someone needs to sharpen their pencils, but I don’t care.

[01:03:57] Paul Scheer: Doge, baby.

[01:03:58] Jessica St. Claire: Please, please, please stop Googling things, paul, I beg of you.

[01:04:04] Jason Mantzoukas: Like you’re, I mean, this show is rapidly just becoming a Google.

[01:04:08] Jessica St. Claire: I just don’t want this.

[01:04:10] Jason Mantzoukas: Series, a series of Google,

[01:04:12] June Diane Raphael: Just asking questions and having Paul google the answer. We are boomers.

[01:04:19] Jason Mantzoukas: It’s embarrassing.

[01:04:20] Jessica St. Claire: It really is.

[01:04:21] Jason Mantzoukas: Embarrassing. ,

[01:04:22] Paul Scheer: Um, by the way, I’m just forgetting you. We’ve been having so much fun talking about the U S post office.

[01:04:26] Jessica St. Claire: I haven’t.

[01:04:27] Jason Mantzoukas: Have we?

[01:04:29] Paul Scheer: Let’s take some questions. I forgot about taking questions. Uh, Molly, is there any questions up there?

[01:04:34] Jessica St. Claire: Put me out of my misery.

[01:04:36] Paul Scheer: Was this movie in fact, uh, funded by the USPS? I mean, this is, I, I agree with that. Like I thought it was, I thought this movie, the fact they got this much access to it, like, I don’t know. I feel like they may have stolen that access or maybe, I don’t know. Can you get cameras in there?

[01:04:49] Jessica St. Claire: Also, it was all those just like, like fake, like, like banners tacked up. You know, on the walls. So I don’t think.

[01:04:56] Jason Mantzoukas: On the outs on the exterior as well. I was wondering this to me. I was wondering, was this a situation where this was like shot in Canada? And that’s a Canadian mail facility or something like it’s clearly a mail facility.

[01:05:07] But like what? Who had the access?

[01:05:09] Paul Scheer: Maybe an abandoned one.

[01:05:11] June Diane Raphael: Well, I will tell you, I will tell you, I was shocked. One of the last times I was at the post office was getting her son’s passport renewed and we had to go back to the like main facility area, the sorting facility for his picture, and I couldn’t believe we were allowed back there.

[01:05:28] Jessica St. Claire: You got access.

[01:05:29] June Diane Raphael: I couldn’t believe it wasn’t like a security issue, but it looked a lot like what the movie depicted. So yeah, they must have just like, I guess what I’m saying is I don’t think it was a factory or something like it.

[01:05:44] Jason Mantzoukas: No, it wasn’t a set. It was a mail facility because there’s also sections that seem to the point of whoever said it was seen stolen in places.

[01:05:55] There are like forklift drivers. There’s, there’s B roll type footage that appears to be just a functioning.

[01:06:01] Jessica St. Claire: How about when he rides up on that tricycle? How fucking weird was that?

[01:06:05] Paul Scheer: Okay, guys, I realized I realized I did not tell you something that’s important.

[01:06:10] Jessica St. Claire: Oh my god. This better not be a Google you do daily.

[01:06:13] June Diane Raphael: You Googling up a storm.

[01:06:14] Paul Scheer: No, no, this is about me.

[01:06:16] Jessica St. Claire: Be present.

[01:06:18] Paul Scheer: I’m not, I’m not Googling.

[01:06:19] I’m just realizing I did it and then I double checked. I responded to letters to Santa Claus from the United States Postal Service.

[01:06:27] Jessica St. Claire: What are you talking about?

[01:06:28] Paul Scheer: So, you can go on the United States Postal Service website, and you can respond to letters from Santa. You can just accept them as, or to Santa. So I looked at my, I looked at my account, and I did definitely respond to letters from kids a while ago.

[01:06:45] Jason Mantzoukas: Wait, wait, what are you talking about?

[01:06:48] Paul Scheer: Okay. So there’s something at all.

[01:06:50] Jason Mantzoukas: I’m having, I’m having a panic attack.

[01:06:51] June Diane Raphael: I don’t like this at all.

[01:06:53] Paul Scheer: So there is something called the USPS Operation Santa, where you go online and you sign up for an account and then you can read and adopt, uh, these letters to Santa.

[01:07:04] Jason Mantzoukas: So you have to adopt to the letters. Letters.

[01:07:05] Paul Scheer: Well, you could, so you, you adopt and you say, I’m gonna respond to this.

[01:07:08] Jason Mantzoukas: So you raise those, you raise those letters for the rest of their life.

[01:07:13] Jessica St. Claire: You send $5 a month to these letters.

[01:07:15] Paul Scheer: No, you, you, you, you, you, and that feeds them the whole year. Um, like this one opened up right here.

[01:07:25] It says, because I went into my account. I’m able to read it right here. It says, I would like a bean bag. One talk for my, it says, dear Santa. I would like, I.

[01:07:33] Jason Mantzoukas: Don’t have access to my netflix. How do you have access to an account for Santa letters? Like so readily available.

[01:07:40] Paul Scheer: Because I was remembering the other day. I was, as we were talking, I was like, Oh, I think I did this. And then, uh, and then.

[01:07:47] Jessica St. Claire: You think Christmas Mail is about you? Like, I feel like this is, like, your true life story.

[01:07:52] Paul Scheer: I mean, I don’t know, I mean, This is Dear Santa, for Christmas, I wish for a shark car wash, hot wheel track, a Nerf gun with extra bullets, remote controlled shark, candy except for nuts, Or peanut butters, not allergy related, minion fart blaster gun, a bath bomb, green or blue, a new robe size, size 7, soft and cozy, maybe with Sonic the Hedgehog, and a Sonic Chia the Pet.

[01:08:15] June Diane Raphael: I love this kid.

[01:08:18] Jessica St. Claire: He sends this list, his parents don’t see it, and you’re allowed to write to this child?

[01:08:24] Paul Scheer: Yeah.

[01:08:25] Jessica St. Claire: That sounds really.

[01:08:27] Jason Mantzoukas: Do you have to do a background check?

[01:08:29] Paul Scheer: Because you’re, you’re signing up, you’re not, you’re not, you know, you’re, you’re like, you’re acknowledging that you got this thing.

[01:08:34] June Diane Raphael: Cut end. Cut end. Abort abort cut. It’s a wrap. It’s a wrap on this conversation. Okay. It is.

[01:08:46] Paul Scheer: I’m not doing anything weird.

[01:08:48] June Diane Raphael: Oh, I don’t know what this all is. I don’t know what all is going on, but this conversation has.

[01:08:56] Paul Scheer: If you’re listening right now, the adoption ends on December 16th.

[01:09:01] Jason Mantzoukas: I also am. I’m sorry. I just remembered. I also am part of a service where I get letters to Santa Daddy, um, and I respond to the letters to Santa.

[01:09:13] June Diane Raphael: I’m just so concerned about what your, like, algorithm is going to be serving up after some of the searches.

[01:09:21] Paul Scheer: Well, I can just say that because I thought it was.

[01:09:23] Jason Mantzoukas: This isn’t a search, this is his email!

[01:09:25] Jessica St. Claire: Or if the police are going to arrive at your door!

[01:09:28] June Diane Raphael: And maybe they should.

[01:09:29] Jessica St. Claire: To look at your searches!

[01:09:30] June Diane Raphael: Next question, Molly.

[01:09:32] What was that about the Red Ties?

[01:09:33] Jason Mantzoukas: Dear Santa, dear Santa Daddy, , I want.

[01:09:35] June Diane Raphael: Budget for red ties.

[01:09:37] Jessica St. Claire: You just sit on my face.

[01:09:38] Paul Scheer: Great job Jacob.

[01:09:39] June Diane Raphael: So many red ties.

[01:09:41] Jason Mantzoukas: So many red ties, so many red ties. And then in every subsequent scene Matt is wearing a different tie shirt color combination, which is also very bizarre. At one point black, he’s wearing like a black shirt.

[01:09:52] He’s wearing shirt, wearing a black shirt. Like I was like, has he done a heel turn?

[01:09:54] Paul Scheer: What do, what’s going on? What? What do you think about his rockstar look at the end when he had his like legs up on the desk and his hair all jelled up. I didn’t think he looked cool at all. Uh.

[01:10:08] Jason Mantzoukas: I loved that the tie was a clip on that made me laugh. I was like, we can’t even, this is what a world these folks, how about this? How about this at the end of the movie? Oh my God. At the end of the movie, when everybody has thought they’ve missed each other and Matt and nobody can get in touch because apparently there are no cell phones, even though we’ve seen them have cell phones.

[01:10:28] So Matt says, to the woman who’s now the head of the post office. He says, if you ever, if she comes back next year, if Kristi North comes back, comes back next year, give her these letters. Okay, great. It doesn’t matter. Same day they are able to find Kristi North, by the way, Matt, the mailman could have done the exact same thing.

[01:10:44] Jessica St. Claire: He doesn’t try very hard. That is something I know.

[01:10:47] Paul Scheer: Right. She doesn’t even leave town. She’s still walking down the street.

[01:10:50] Jason Mantzoukas: She’s still, she’s still walking around Stars Hollow.

[01:10:52] Jessica St. Claire: He’s like, great. I’m going on tour. Bye.

[01:10:54] Jason Mantzoukas: Right. So she shows up and, and, and the woman gives her the letters and his is like a folded up, like written on the back of a receipt.

[01:11:02] And his penmanship is that of an infant.

[01:11:05] June Diane Raphael: Thank you so much for pointing that out, Jason.

[01:11:08] Jessica St. Claire: Big letters, big lettering.

[01:11:09] Jason Mantzoukas: She should look at his letter and be like, Oh, I made a mistake. Toss it in the trash and walk away and never look back.

[01:11:16] Paul Scheer: Well, paul’s handwriting is very simple.

[01:11:19] Jason Mantzoukas: Whoa!

[01:11:21] Paul Scheer: Blew up my spot, that’s why I get the good Santa letters.

[01:11:24] June Diane Raphael: It’s very Paul, it’s, I, I’ve come to know and love it. But it is a very, when I saw it I was like,

[01:11:30] Jessica St. Claire: Childlike, there’s a lot of childlike wonder in it.

[01:11:33] Paul Scheer: People say I have amazing penmanship.

[01:11:35] June Diane Raphael: You do, you do, and that, Penmanship, and that was very clear. It’s just not every day you see it from a grown man. Do you, were you ever taught to write in cursive or?

[01:11:46] Paul Scheer: Yeah, I can write in cursive.

[01:11:48] June Diane Raphael: Do you know how to write your name? I haven’t seen anything else.

[01:11:54] Jason Mantzoukas: I couldn’t tell you the last time I wrote in cursive. If I’m being honest.

[01:11:57] June Diane Raphael: I almost exclusively writing in cursive.

[01:11:59] Paul Scheer: I, that’s what’s so crazy to me is why would you write in cursive?

[01:12:02] Jessica St. Claire: It’s a great intelligence. It’s a sign of great intelligence.

[01:12:04] Paul Scheer: To write in cursive? No, it isn’t.

[01:12:06] June Diane Raphael: Is that right?

[01:12:07] Paul Scheer: No. It’s not a sign. No, it’s not. Not a sign at all.

[01:12:10] June Diane Raphael: It’s so much easier. You don’t have to lift up the pen. It’s just a smooth.

[01:12:13] Jessica St. Claire: Who has time to lift up a pen?

[01:12:15] June Diane Raphael: Not me.

[01:12:16] Jason Mantzoukas: I’m correct. Right. There’s a scene in this movie where Christine North shows her dog, Rudy, a sketch she’s done.

[01:12:23] Jessica St. Claire: Oh, what is that? She does the sketch?

[01:12:26] Jason Mantzoukas: And says, she says he’s cute. Right? Showing the dog, the sketch.

[01:12:30] Paul Scheer: We know that she can’t talk about it.

[01:12:33] Jason Mantzoukas: Like I assume she did it.

[01:12:35] Paul Scheer: No, the kid did it. Emily did it.

[01:12:37] Jessica St. Claire: No, it can’t be from Emily because that looks like the work of like, like someone on the Santa Monica pier would draw like a character.

[01:12:44] Paul Scheer: She’s good.

[01:12:46] Jessica St. Claire: That wasn’t from Emily, was it?

[01:12:48] Paul Scheer: I think it was from Emily.

[01:12:49] Jason Mantzoukas: I don’t, either way, either way, it’s crazy. And it makes absolutely no sense.

[01:12:54] June Diane Raphael: It was nuts. And it’s also like, if Emily’s, if that’s Emily’s work, then he needs to stop performing and get her to some sort of like gifted school for the arts.

[01:13:05] Paul Scheer: Why doesn’t she just make her posters? Make posters, that’s where she belongs. She belongs on the road.

[01:13:09] June Diane Raphael: Making posters?

[01:13:11] Jason Mantzoukas: How fucked up is it that Matt never even finds out, we never even get to see from Matt the realization that this is Santa’s daughter.

[01:13:20] Paul Scheer: Right.

[01:13:20] Jessica St. Claire: No, he doesn’t know any of that.

[01:13:22] Jason Mantzoukas: It’s never revealed.

[01:13:24] Jessica St. Claire: She gives Emily a winkeroo and sometimes family is closer than you think which doesn’t really make any sense.

[01:13:32] Anyway, because I mean Santa’s close at all.

[01:13:34] Paul Scheer: He’s in there seems like a sequel for me. I’m like, I’m excited for that sequel Then you bring Matt there, you know, Matt.

[01:13:40] Jessica St. Claire: Like Meet the Fockers like a Meet the Fockers. But it’s It’s Santa.

[01:13:43] Jason Mantzoukas: The third act of the movie, the third act of the movie should have been on tour with Christy North making the posters.

[01:13:50] We get to see all of the songs because that’s the other thing. We get the scene. We get the karaoke esque scene.

[01:13:56] June Diane Raphael: That was a very upsetting scene.

[01:13:57] Jason Mantzoukas: Where Matt is playing full guitar. It’s the fedora scene, we call it. Matt’s playing full guitar. There is a track that is every other instrument is playing. We have drums. We have bass.

[01:14:07] Jessica St. Claire: I can’t hear anything. I can’t hear the lyrics.

[01:14:11] Jason Mantzoukas: The daughter is singing into, well, this daughter is singing into not a microphone, but a water bottle, which is very strange.

[01:14:20] June Diane Raphael: And she has a terrible voice. Heather has a terrible voice. And Matt has a terrible voice.

[01:14:24] Paul Scheer: Let’s watch scene 10. Let’s end on scene 10.

[01:14:26] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah, let’s watch this.

[01:14:28] Movie Audio: Matt is an excellent guitar player. Voted best epic solo at the Starlight Lounge four years ago.

[01:14:34] Paul Scheer: That doesn’t seem like it’s me bragging about it.

[01:14:40] Jason Mantzoukas: This is a countdown to a marathon of Gilmore. Yeah. Uh uh. Cue fedoras.

[01:14:51] Movie Audio: One, two, three, four.

[01:14:58] Jason Mantzoukas: Who’s playing drums?

[01:15:03] Jessica St. Claire: Are we not supposed to be able to hear them singing?

[01:15:07] Paul Scheer: I think they did the right choice.

[01:15:12] Jason Mantzoukas: They are singing into water bottles. Those are water bottles.

[01:15:16] Jessica St. Claire: Bedazzled water bottles.

[01:15:22] Paul Scheer: She’s wearing, I didn’t realize she wore a fedora too.

[01:15:26] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh yeah. Oh, the fedora budget is off the charts.

[01:15:29] Paul Scheer: She probably just borrowed one of his.

[01:15:31] Jason Mantzoukas: So much, uh, so much leather furniture.

[01:15:33] June Diane Raphael: See, already the chemistry between Matt and Heather is much more like this.

[01:15:39] Jason Mantzoukas: Is off the charts.

[01:15:40] Jessica St. Claire: No, and I actually, it was so good. I thought the movie was going to end with like, oh, Heather and she fall in love. Yeah. Because that’s a family I could put together.

[01:15:48] Jason Mantzoukas: I agree. Cause Heather is, meanwhile, raising this little girl.

[01:15:52] June Diane Raphael: Yep.

[01:15:53] Paul Scheer: Well, Heather just takes a flight to go meet him. I also just want to applaud Christy North in this you, if you’re not watching, if you’re just listening to us, talk about this, her face, her reactions, you know, no one was on set.

[01:16:03] She just gave it her all. I mean, she’s so, oh yeah. So, oh, by the way, that’s one thing I wanted to bring up about this movie. This is a movie, uh, that if you are interested in cups having no beverages in them, this is the rampant with it. Uh, people are drinking out of empty cups throughout this movie so much it’s upsetting to me.

[01:16:20] June Diane Raphael: If that’s your thing.

[01:16:22] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh yeah, this is the, this is the scene where these two sneak off so these guys can have a dance. And then they do one of these.

[01:16:28] Jessica St. Claire: Ew, ew, ew!

[01:16:30] Movie Audio: I’m very clumsy and I have, I have two left feet.

[01:16:33] Then you can’t. Shh, it’s okay.

[01:16:35] Paul Scheer: Dutch camera angle.

[01:16:37] Movie Audio: Just close your eyes.

[01:16:38] Jessica St. Claire: Nope.

[01:16:39] Movie Audio: Close ’em.

[01:16:39] June Diane Raphael: Look at how much taller?

[01:16:40] Jason Mantzoukas: I don’t like this.

[01:16:43] Movie Audio: And just listen to the music. Okay?

[01:16:44] Jessica St. Claire: Nope. That means a song is about to get put on your shoulder.

[01:16:49] Movie Audio: Alone.

[01:16:52] Paul Scheer: Ah, so creepy. And that is the spirit of Christmas right there, making a woman close their eyes and dancing with them. And then.

[01:17:03] Jessica St. Claire: Ew, ew.

[01:17:04] Paul Scheer: Winking to your daughter. Like, I got this one.

[01:17:06] June Diane Raphael: Your niece it’s not his daughter, which he reminds us of many, many times.

[01:17:18] Jason Mantzoukas: It’s so much touching and.

[01:17:21] Jessica St. Claire: Look, she’s towering over him. She has to lower her head just like.

[01:17:25] June Diane Raphael: A dog. Like you lower, they lower their sort of bow to you.

[01:17:30] Paul Scheer: Oh, would you recommend this movie? Jason June, Jessica, what do you think?

[01:17:35] June Diane Raphael: I don’t know.

[01:17:37] I don’t know.

[01:17:39] Jason Mantzoukas: I wish there were sex scenes in it, but absolutely. I recommend it.

[01:17:43] June Diane Raphael: This, you just want to do some research, honestly, if you just want, if you’re interested in the, the USPS, like I am, then yeah, I say watch this movie because it does give you kind of behind the scenes, um, look into what it’s like to work there.

[01:17:57] I also just, by the way, all jokes aside, this isn’t a bit all, all in all seriousness. We sent out our Christmas cards a few days ago, the next day. Okay. And that was through USPS. The next day I got texts from people yes, in LA but then the day after. People on the other coast saying I got the card and I thought, okay.

[01:18:22] Jessica St. Claire: God bless America.

[01:18:23] June Diane Raphael: Okay, post office. Okay. So, I mean, despite the, the fact that the biz, the business of the post office seems to be running itself into the ground, they are able to deliver.

[01:18:39] Jason Mantzoukas: This is an episode that is just about the post office and the birds that Paul lived with. And I did, I did Google it and everybody that was on set the day that the pigeon was there got hepatitis.

[01:18:51] Paul Scheer: I’ll tell you this much, um, the book, The Post Office, a Novel written by a novel, Charles Bukowski.

[01:18:59] June Diane Raphael: Wait, what?

[01:19:00] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, who was a, who was a postal worker?

[01:19:01] Paul Scheer: There he goes.

[01:19:02] June Diane Raphael: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

[01:19:04] Paul Scheer: So that is the book that was recommended in the Amazon five star review. Uh, right here, it’s got a 4. 3 star review, but Charles Bukowski, it’s a classic, uh, book about his, uh, journeys alter ego.

[01:19:16] Um, we want to talk about shirts really briefly, uh, as people vote in the chat, I would just want to bring up that, uh, How Did This Get Made is going on tour. We’re going to be all around the country. We’re going to be in Austin, Denver, Boise, Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, and Los Angeles. We’re also doing a three night residency in LA.

[01:19:31] Uh, in January and we’ll have Dinosaur shows in LA and San Francisco. You can go to HDTGM.Com right now for tickets. If you go on the tour tickets, use the pre sale code, uh, Bonkers. And the, and the, uh, the number one voted shirt is The Rag Man. The Rag Man of Scranton.

[01:19:49] June Diane Raphael: Is that an option?

[01:19:50] Paul Scheer: The rag man, call the rag man.

[01:19:53] Jason Mantzoukas: That’s a real, wait, guys, that’s a real person. We might want to not do that.

[01:19:57] Paul Scheer: I just typed in The Rag Man. The rag man does not pop up with anything huge.

[01:20:01] Jessica St. Claire: I am so worried that I have now unleashed, you know, a lot of, a lot of retribution against my family in Scranton. I’m very worried.

[01:20:11] Paul Scheer: Uh, the Rag Man is, is, there’s multiple people called the Rag Man.

[01:20:14] Um, do we want to just have a picture of our, our lead guy in a fedora?

[01:20:18] Jessica St. Claire: Great idea.

[01:20:21] Paul Scheer: All right. So how about the Rag Man in a fedora called the Rag Man? Uh, and, uh, maybe can we get a memorial shirt to your grandfather? What was his name?

[01:20:29] Jessica St. Claire: Thomas R. Quinn.

[01:20:30] Paul Scheer: All right. Thomas R. Quinn.

[01:20:32] Jessica St. Claire: Grandfather that named his cat after himself, june. That guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Talk about. Yeah. Thomas R. A ballsy move. Thomas R. Yeah, kitty cat is named after himself.

[01:20:42] Paul Scheer: Um, you two did an amazing special on veeps, which we were on right now. Uh, can people still watch it?

[01:20:47] June Diane Raphael: Absolutely. You can still buy tickets to the Deep Dive Christmas Spectacular. It’s a Christmas show. That’s all about all things Christmas that Jessica and I hosted. And it’s a, it was absolutely wonderful. And it is still available to watch on demand. If you go to either veeps or, um, the DeepDiveAcademy.Com tickets are still on sale.

[01:21:07] Jason Mantzoukas: Can, can, whatever the t shirt image is, Yeah, be can in the upper right hand corner, can it have the countdown to the Gilmore BingeOn.

[01:21:18] Can it just have the little text? A box that just says Countdown to Gilmore BingeOn. Seven hours, 40 minutes.

[01:21:24] Paul Scheer: I almost feel like that should be a separate shirt. Just the countdown to Gilmore BingeOn. I think that that’s the great shirt. I would do both of those.

[01:21:31] Jessica St. Claire: By the way. I would, I’d wear that shirt.

[01:21:33] Paul Scheer: I’m gonna I’m gonna I’m gonna make two shirts. Um, Jason, do you have anything you want to plug?

[01:21:37] Jason Mantzoukas: No, just the tour.

[01:21:39] Paul Scheer: Yeah, the tour is going to be great. Also, my book, uh, is out there and you can get an autographed copy of Pod Swag. Uh, but if you want to personalize, it was, uh, Vultures, uh, one of the best books of 2024. Very honored to be on that list. Uh, people are calling us a.

[01:21:54] Jason Mantzoukas: Great, also great audio book.

[01:21:56] Paul Scheer: Oh, thank you. Yes. Uh, we have some people to thank you.

[01:21:59] June Diane Raphael: And speaking of another audio book, Jessica has her audio book, the Art of Small Talk.

[01:22:03] Paul Scheer: She plugged it in the middle of the show. It was a great book.

[01:22:05] Jessica St. Claire: I sure did.

[01:22:06] June Diane Raphael: And maybe we could use another plug.

[01:22:07] Jessica St. Claire: For those holiday parties.

[01:22:10] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, I’ll plug, I’ll plug a great, I’ll plug a great audiobook if you don’t mind, it’s called The Third Gilmore Girl, written by Nellie Bishop.

[01:22:19] Jessica St. Claire: Did you read it already? Did you listen to it already?

[01:22:21] Jason Mantzoukas: I listened to the audiobook because she reads it, and I found out things that I did not know. Did you know she originated the role of Sheila in A Chorus Line based on her, based on her life. And she won a Tony award.

[01:22:36] Jessica St. Claire: Got to have a separate podcast all about that. That’s amazing.

[01:22:41] Paul Scheer: I want to give a shout out to so many people who have put the show together tonight, uh, Matt and Bart over at Veeps. We love them. Uh, Zach McAleese, the ghost of Craig T. Nelson and Kyle Waldron, all that amazing art that you saw when the show was first starting.

[01:22:54] That is because of them. Um, I also want to give a shout out once again to Avaryll Halley, who picks our movies found Christmas Mail. She is the best. We love Avaryll uh, Molly Reynolds really just behind the scenes.

[01:23:07] Jason Mantzoukas: What is Avaryll’s channel?

[01:23:08] Paul Scheer: Movie Bitches.

[01:23:09] You can follow her on Instagram. You can, uh, and you can watch her on YouTube, at Movie Bitches.

[01:23:13] Uh, I also want to give a shout out to, uh, Cody Fischer, uh, Scott Sonne uh, Jess Cisneros and our engineer Casey Holford. Uh, that is our entire crew. Everyone is working their ass off to get this up and out tomorrow afternoon. That’s how quick we’re doing the turnaround here. Um, everybody, thank you so much for watching.

[01:23:33] We appreciate you all buying a ticket for this. Um, supporting the show. We’ve been doing this for 15 years. Jess, thank you so much for being here. Coming out. All the time. We love it. We love having you here. Uh, Deep, uh, Deep Dive. Listen to it. Love it. It’s great. Uh, we’ll talk to you all in the, uh, in the new year.

[01:23:52] Bye for now.

[01:23:53] June Diane Raphael: Bye everyone. Happy Holidays.