June 8, 2023
EP. 320.5 — Last Looks: Fast X
Surprise, Jason’s running the show! In this super-sized episode, Jason & Paul chat with one of their favorite contestants from the survival competition show Alone, Woniya Thibeault. Plus, Jason digs into corrections & omissions from Fast X with the help of podcast crew Scott, Molly, & Alex, shares a bonus scene from last week’s episode, and announces next week’s movie.
HDTGM is going on tour in August! Tix on sale now at hdtgm.com
For more info on Woniya Thibeault’s book and classes go to buckskinrevolution.com
JASON’S PICKS:
Why Does The Earth Give Us People To Love? by Kara Jackson
“50 Song Memoir” by The Magnetic Fields
“69 Love Songs” by The Magnetic Fields
Follow Paul on Letterboxd https://letterboxd.com/paulscheer/
HDTGM Discord: discord.gg/hdtgm
Paul’s Discord: https://discord.gg/paulscheer
Check out Paul and Rob Huebel live on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/friendzone) every Thursday 8-10pm EST
Subscribe to The Deep Dive with Jessica St. Clair and June Diane Raphael here: listen.earwolf.com/deepdive
Subscribe to Unspooled with Paul and Amy Nicholson here: listen.earwolf.com/unspooled
Check out The Jane Club over at www.janeclub.com
Check out new HDTGM merch over at https://www.teepublic.com/stores/hdtgm
Where to Find Jason, June & Paul:
@PaulScheer on Instagram & Twitter
@Junediane on IG and @MsJuneDiane on Twitter
Jason is not on Twitter
Transcript
Jason Mantzoukas [00:00:00] What’s up, jerks? It is Jason Mantzoukas here to host this episode of Last Looks, where we’re going to be talking about your insights into the Fast X and all of the Fast and Furious franchises, including someone who wrote in to tell us the way they watched all nine movies concurrently on nine different screens. That’s insane. We’re also going to spend some time talking to a lone contestant, Woniya Thibeault, who sat down with Paul and I to talk about her new book, to talk about Alone Frozen and basically talk about all things Alone, which I could not have been more excited about. And quite honestly, I’ve got a lot to say about people’s screen usernames. If you want to know about it, get involved. All that and more on today’s How Did This Get Made Last Looks. Play the song. Go.
Music [00:00:50] [Intro Song]
Jason Mantzoukas [00:01:20] Oh, what’s up, jerks? Well, well, well. Here we are. Jason Mantzoukas here, not Paul Scheer. For your Last Looks episode. I’m here with Molly. I’m here with Scott. Alex is here somewhere, but I told him to turn his fucking camera off.
Molly Reynolds [00:01:40] What’s up, Jason? How are we doing, team?
Jason Mantzoukas [00:01:44] You called me in a panic. You said, Jason, you got to get down here. You got to get down here. We need a Last Looks. And I said I’ll be right there.
Molly Reynolds [00:01:54] Thank you, Jason.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:01:54] I got on a bird scooter. I rode 25 miles. I’m right here. I’m ready to rock this. We’re here to do a Last Looks episode. What does that mean? I don’t know, really. They’ve given me a script. I’ve just opened it for the first time. I’m going to cold read this, guys. Let’s see what happens. We have a lot to talk about. We’re going to talk about the Fast X episode that just happened. We’re going to talk about an incredible interview you’re going to hear later on that Paul and I did with a like absolute legend in the game, Woniya Thibeault, from Alone, Alone Frozen and Alone, Season six. Incredible, incredible conversation that we had. I could not have been more excited to talk to anybody in history than Woniya. I see here it tells me I have to give a big all caps shout out. To Rob from Long Island. You know what? Rob from Long Island. Great. Awesome theme song. Well done. Giving me real Magnetic Fields vibes. If you’ve got a song for Last Looks, guys, get it to us as quickly as possible. If you are wanting your music out there, this is a great way to showcase yourself. If you’ve got those theme songs, send them to us at. Wait a second, I’m putting my glasses on. HowDidThisGetMade@Earwolf.com. Interesting. But here’s the deal. Keep them fuckin short. I’m talking 15, 20 seconds. I’m talking about a verse and a chorus. We don’t need a big instrumental intro. Just keep it tight, keep it jam packed and keep it interesting. That’s what we need for these Last Looks theme songs. At some point, I would love it if these were all made available. Wouldn’t that be cool? If there was a Spotify playlist? I’m sure we couldn’t do it on Spotify, but if there was a way. Oh, this brings up an interesting question. I’m going to go fully off script. And here’s this is a question for the team here on the call, but also a larger question to the audience, because I suspect someone is going to have the answer, which is, when I knew I was going to come and do this, I started to put together a spring playlist that I wanted to share with the, share with the listeners, a playlist of all the stuff that I’ve been listening to this spring, going into summer, summer playlist. Come on, great stuff. There’s a lot of great music out. I want to put it out there. What’s the best way or is there a best way to platform agnosticly publish a playlist. I could publish a Spotify. I could. I could log in and create an anonymous. Mostly. I don’t want people to have my, you know, access my Spotify. But also not everybody uses Spotify, you know, not everybody uses Apple Music or all of these all these people are on so much, so many different platforms. Is there a way to create a playlist that I could include in the show notes that boom, everybody could just access it? Oh, audible gasp from Molly.
Molly Reynolds [00:05:09] No, I’m, You’re blowing my mind at the sheer possibility.
Scott Sonne [00:05:13] The first thing that comes to mind is maybe like YouTube playlists because like everyone has access to youtube.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:05:19] Maybe that’s it. And it’s just that’s how you. That’s how I am. But boy, is that how, I’d like to hear from the audience is that when you want to listen to music, how many of you are going to YouTube and hitting play verses, Alex, you?
Alex Gonzales [00:05:34] Yeah, I subscribe to YouTube music. That’s my, my, that’s my jam because you get YouTube premium, YouTube, no ads and YouTube music.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:05:42] This is starting to sound like a lot of an ad for Youtube.
Alex Gonzales [00:05:45] I’m sorry, but is it’s the way to go. It is the way to go.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:05:49] I do want to say that Alex is sitting in a YouTube branded chair wearing a YouTube branded T-shirt. Oh, that’s interesting. I’ve never once engaged with YouTube music. I didn’t frankly, this might be the first time I’ve ever even heard of it.
Molly Reynolds [00:06:04] It’s the first hit that I get when I Google how to publish a playlist so maybe YouTube, YouTube. And if you want one month free on YouTube music, use promo code bonkers.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:06:16] Holy shit. Okay. Okay. Well, that’s interesting. Okay, so that’s this is at least a very good potentially a good first step. But if anybody out there has any other way to do this or any way that’s simple or easy, let us know. I’d be curious because it would be fun. I do. I publish a seasonal playlist every season to my friends, and it would be fun if I could throw something out to people every once in a while just to highlight bands I like or songs that I’m liking. And I feel like, you know, it’s things that have taken off, you know, the things that I’ve really enjoyed sharing with the podcast fans are like, Mannequin Pussies Drunk Too. I feel like people really got into or stuff like that. I’d love to be able to kind of not just shout out artists, but throw up a song or put out something so that people can can click and access it immediately. All right, here we go. The next section just says plugs. Guess what? By now you’ve maybe heard, but perhaps not. We’re going back on tour, baby. We’re coming to New York, Boston, Philly, DC. Right? I did it in the wrong order. But those are the cities. So if you’re in those cities, we’re going to be coming to you and we’d love to see you. Come on out. Get those tickets. You can get them right now if you haven’t already. I’m going to say this. I’m just going to go out on a limb. Even though we’re recording this early, they’re all sold out. Yep. The shows are currently completely sold out. That may be not true. So if you’re wondering go to HDTGM.com for tour dates, purchase information, there’s links there where you can go get tickets. Hopefully, my assumption is we’ve sold out all the shows in a manner that nobody can complain about.
Molly Reynolds [00:08:07] And we’re in every city that people wanted us to be in.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:08:10] Oh yeah, without any disappointments that we’re not coming to cities. I love when people are like, when we announce the cities, when people are like, Why aren’t you coming to… And either they say a city that is less than an hour from one of the cities we are going to. Or they say like, Why aren’t you coming to a place that is on the other side of the country. We’re doing an East Coast tour. Why aren’t you coming to Albuquerque? What? It’s a hard it’s a hard pass, Albuquerque.
Molly Reynolds [00:08:40] I love the like UK tour when? Now? Question Mark.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:08:44] Here’s what I’ll say. I agree. And Molly, thank you. Thank you for bringing that up. I would love to do a UK tour. I’d love to. I want to come and do the Soho Theater. I want to come. I want to go and do Edinburgh and Dublin and I want to fucking go and do the UK. Do you motherfuckers out there think you’ll come? Will you show up? Will enough people buy tickets to warrant us getting on a very long plane ride? So, you know, I’d like to know. Tell us how many tickets you’re going to buy, where you would like us to play in London or in what venues? You know what? You guys do the legwork. You guys. UK fans, why don’t you book the How Did This Get Made Tour? Where should we play. How many people are you going to bring. And also again, don’t forget what’s your deal?
Molly Reynolds [00:09:36] What airport should we fly into?
Jason Mantzoukas [00:09:39] Oh, great question.
Scott Sonne [00:09:42] Heathrow or Gatwick. Ugh, no one wants to go to Gatwick.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:09:47] I mean seems is that I mean it seems like the Newark of London, right?
Scott Sonne [00:09:52] Definitely. That’s a great slogan. Gatwick: the Newark of London.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:09:56] Yeah that’s right. That’s right. Gatwick. We’ve got, we’ve got your number. Oh man. People are going to be so mad at this episode. Wow.
Scott Sonne [00:10:06] I can’t wait for Paul to listen to this and be like, you spent an hour just talking about just yelling at fans in cities we didn’t go to.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:10:16] And so you’re berating fans that we are not even going to that we’re not even touring there.
Alex Gonzales [00:10:22] It’s their fault.
Molly Reynolds [00:10:22] We’re never going to be allowed back on Last Looks. This is it.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:10:27] By the way.
Scott Sonne [00:10:27] Better go out of a blaze of glory.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:10:29] This is this is what Last Looks is now.
Molly Reynolds [00:10:34] Fuck everybody.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:10:34] Burn it. There are no rules. Speaking of, there are no rules. We have two new T-shirts for sale at teepublic.com. Seamless transition. Okay, the first one and I’m just now seeing this. The first one is from a note I made in my notes when I watched. I went and saw Fast Ten, Fast X twice. I’ve been to the movies, as I said in the episode, three times in the last three and a half years, two of them were to see Fast X, and the second time I went I was, let’s say, medium stoned. Stoned enough though, that I wrote in my notes, “Uh-oh-a, Momoa.” And boy did I laugh at myself in my seat when I wrote that. And so much so that I read it. And now look at this. It’s a T-shirt, it’s an Uh-Oh-a Momoa t shirt, although it’s not a picture of Momoa interestingly. I would have put a picture of Momoa in, but it’s a picture of the cellophane taped head of one of the corpses that Momoa is interacting with in that very bizarre scene where he’s doing a puppet show with the two where he’s like, basically, you know, Weekend at Bernie’s, Weekend at Bernie’s style hanging out with two dead henchmen. So it’s a picture of one of those henchman, face all taped up and and a an umbrella, a fancy umbrella drink.
Scott Sonne [00:11:54] If anyone buys this shirt, please send us a photo of you wearing this in public.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:12:01] I’ll go one better. Please send us a picture of you wearing this in public with your face all taped up with cellophane.
Molly Reynolds [00:12:10] Listen, I’ve already got pushback saying that this design is a little too disturbing. And to them I say, Fuck you.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:12:18] What are you guys? Don’t complain about the stuff. Guys, stop whining. Cheese, louise, we also have a brand new. Oh, look at this. I’m just now seeing this. We have a brand new Largo shirt for all of our Los Angeles fans, so that means only people in Los Angeles can buy this shirt.
Scott Sonne [00:12:35] I guess anyone else can buy it as well.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:12:36] Yeah. This is so this is a this is a t shirt image, which is the stage of Largo with the John Bryan piano. Our three seats. The How Did This Get Made logo. The red curtain, the famous twinkly lights up top. The only thing we’re missing is the is the is the carpet. The carpet that we sit on. But this is a great I love this as this feels like this is our home base. I love that. That’s a that’s a great T-shirt design.
Scott Sonne [00:13:07] I love it. And if anyone is upset about the carpet, you can mail Jason your shirts and he’ll put like some felt carpet.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:13:14] Sure I’ll I’ll, I’ll staple some I’ll staple some some carpet samples to your to your shirt. And if you do get this shirt, get a picture of yourself wearing this shirt inside of Largo. Come on guys.
Molly Reynolds [00:13:29] Face all taped up.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:13:31] Your face all taped up. From now on, everything should have tape face guy.
Molly Reynolds [00:13:35] Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:13:37] All right. We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, we’re going to hear your thoughts on Fast X, and then we’re going to do.
Scott Sonne [00:13:46] So we do a thing now where Discord users submit a tagline and we choose one.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:13:50] Jesus Christ.
Molly Reynolds [00:13:52] If you want to take that again.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:13:53] So I’m doing now. I’m not taking it again. Keep all of this in, keep everything in it. It is all in. Think we cut stuff out? Nope. This is the whole deal. All right, so I’m going to read this through. When we come back, we’re going to hear your thoughts on Fast X, a movie that should have had the tagline, quote, The devil wears Scrunchies, unquote. That alt tagline was courtesy of Discord user Arkham Player. So this is what I don’t like. Hey, Arkham Player. Just send us your name. I don’t want to have to credit Arkham Player. That’s ludicrous. And I don’t want to have to be like, Thank you. That tagline was submitted to us by, you know, Nutjob 76. You know, I don’t I don’t like that.
Alex Gonzales [00:14:42] Hey that’s my username.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:14:43] I want to know who submitted it. And I know Arkham Player is who you are, I guess on the Discord. Everybody’s got to be like, We now know you play Arkham, I guess. Anyway, it’s cool if I dress down the person who’s done something nice and submitted something to the show. Right? That’s a cool thing to do. Okay, great. So thank you, Arkham Player. If you want to submit your own tagline, hit up our discord at, Oh boy, Discord.gg, which I can only assume stands for Gilmore Girls. Slash HDTGM, which I do know stands for. How Did This Get Made? So that’s Discord Dot Gilmore Girls slash HDTGM. Oh, and we’ll be right back. Go to the break. Boom.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:15:33] All right, back. We’re back. Let’s get into it. We had questions about Fast X. We might have even missed some stuff. You guys have thoughts. I’m sure. In fact, this whole segment is exactly about that. You and your dumb thoughts. So here we go. Let’s do the theme song for Corrections and Omissions? This is its own theme song?
Music [00:15:56] [Corrections and Omissions Song]
Jason Mantzoukas [00:16:15] Perfect. Perfect. Wow. These so far, home runs. Both songs have been homeruns. Loved that one. Thank you, Bombay Beach Revival. You check them out. You know, I think one of the biggest selling bands, they’re a huge band now. We’ve given them a platform. Huge band. Let’s go to the Discord. All caps, all bold. And once again, I don’t care for the fact that I’m having to read these from the people’s screen names. Okay, So this is from. Get ready for it. TimeBombMan.
Molly Reynolds [00:16:53] Mm hmm.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:16:54] “Paul hypothesizes that the Rock might have only agreed to come back to the franchise if John Cena’s character is killed off. I have a different theory.” This is to be clear, TimeBombMan’s theory, not mine. I am giving voice to someone else’s theory. This is. I do not stand by this. I’ve not read this yet. So I just want to make sure. Me, Jason Mantzoukas. I don’t stand by TimeBombMan. But this is his theory. “I have a different theory. I think the final scene where they revealed Gizelle to be alive makes less sense as the final scene of the movie and more as a post-credits scene. So my theory is that the Rock gave in to come back to the franchise when Black Adam tanked and he got put aside in the DC film’s power struggle. So they filmed a new post-credits scene revealing his return and tacked Gal Gadot’s Scene onto the end of the movie, instead of ending with the cut to the black after the dam explosion.” Okay. TimeBombMan. I think you’re 100% right. Not only do I think you’re 100% right. I think you have been proven true definitively by the tireless reporting of Griffin Newman on the Blank Check podcast. No, I apologize. I take it back fully. It is Griffin Newman, but he’s on High and Mighty. He’s on Jon Gabrus’ High and Mighty podcast, which I heartily recommend to everyone. They, as we have been for many years, going through the Fast and Furious movies with Adam Scott and most recently with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Gabrus and Griffin have been going through them as well. On Gabrus’ podcast, High and Mighty, which is fantastic. Griffin on that episode talked at length about talking to someone who had seen a preview of this movie, Fast X, in which there was no Rock post-credits scene. And indeed, as TimeBombMan Hypothesizes Gal Gadot’s submarine cameo was the post-credits scene. So we can cross that off, You did it TimeBombMan. You nailed it. And also I’m delighted to be able to shout out High and Mighty Gabrus’ hilarious podcast. You know him most recently from his episode of our podcast that he was just at at Largo, which was Torque. Right?
Molly Reynolds [00:19:19] Yeah.
Scott Sonne [00:19:19] Yes. Where he at a spide live on stage. I’ve been meaning to ask you about this, Jason.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:19:26] Oh, really? When Gabrus ate a spider that was descending from the ceiling?
Scott Sonne [00:19:32] I was far away in the theater, so I wanted to get the truth. He. He 100% ate it. Is that correct?
Jason Mantzoukas [00:19:39] Oh, well, let me be absolutely clear. He 100%. So there was a spider descending from the ceiling center stage, you know, a couple of feet in front of June. It wasn’t going to hit any of us or anything like that, but it was descending in a way that the light was hitting it so you could see it. It was very visible at a certain point in its descent. And so I think I said something or Gabrus, so I can’t rember who said something first, but Gabrus jumped up in an effort to take care of it because it was getting to it was getting to head height, and it seemed as though he was going to grab it. You know, it was also a small spider. It wasn’t a big spider. Let’s be clear. It’s not like a tarantula or something. But anyway, it looked like he was just going to grab it and get rid of it. And instead he went up to it. Puckered his lips like he was going to kiss it and sucked in. He sucked in it. He stuck it in like. Like with his breath and just it was gone. And I’ve. I, like, fully short circuited. And I will say a little peek behind the scenes. Gabrus backstage afterwards said when he got up to take care of the spider, he didn’t think he was going to eat it. He just thought he was going to grab it and that he himself was surprised.
Molly Reynolds [00:21:06] Listen.
Scott Sonne [00:21:07] He smelled how delicious it was up close and he just couldn’t resist.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:21:11] Wow.
Molly Reynolds [00:21:11] One thing led to another, and next thing you know, he’s eating the spider.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:21:15] Holy shit.
Molly Reynolds [00:21:16] Is PETA coming after us for this?
Jason Mantzoukas [00:21:18] Jesus. Oh, my God. I hope not.
Scott Sonne [00:21:21] You might not have seen this. You might not have seen this, Jason, because you’re not on social media. But around a month later, Patton Oswalt tweeted a photo from Largo where a spider was also descending upon the stage on his show. So there was some sort of, some sort of nest up there or I don’t know.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:21:40] Can we can we add a spider’s nest or a descending spider to the Largo T-shirt? Because we’re already going back in to put the rug in. So. Great.
Molly Reynolds [00:21:51] Absolutely. And the spider has a taped up face.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:21:54] Oh, I like that. This is great. This is great. See, this is this is the kind this is the kind of Last Looks episode that you guys are having. Rollicking fun. We’re getting shit done. Okay, so this is what I’m talking about. So this next correction in our mission comes from Dr. Guts 1003.
Scott Sonne [00:22:18] Long time submitter.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:22:19] Is it really long time Submitter? Thank you, Dr. Guts, for your continued support of the show. But can that mean that this person. When they tried to submit, there were 1002 doctor gut’s on the discord?
Scott Sonne [00:22:37] It could be.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:22:38] I mean, what? How does that happen? I would love I would love Dr. Guts here. Oh, you know what? Here’s the thing. If you’re not going to put your real name in, because I guess everybody wants to be anonymous on whatever the Internet and so forth. If you don’t want to give your real name because, boy, what I like to say, Doctor, what I like to say, okay, this is coming from so-and-so, your real name. Explain. Why am I calling you Dr. Guts? Well, okay, how about this? As a recurring segment on Last Looks, a peek behind the login name or whatever this is? What’s this called? An avatar? No, that’s not an avatar. That’s a username. What is the.
Scott Sonne [00:23:13] Username.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:23:14] Username. Screen name. Username. Yeah. Okay, great. How about that as a segment? What’s the story behind Dr. Guts 1003? Anyway, who cares? Dr. Guts 1003 writes “When Little B tells Jacob that he doesn’t like to fly. Was that simply meant to be an innocuous comment that a kid his age would say? Or was the movie implying that Little B fully remembers what happened to him on the plane in Fate of the Furious, including his mom, Elaina getting killed and getting carried around by Shaw in the middle of a shootout?” I don’t think that that is Dr. Guts, I don’t think the movie is suggesting that that the baby remembers those events. I think I think it seemed as though the movie was trying to set up this idea of a little boy being a nervous flier so that it would be, that would be heightened when when they take a child to the cargo part of an airplane, put him into a I don’t know, a two seat glider or whatever, that mini airplane is. An airplane that looks like a canoe in a bag. It looks like the John Cena is walking around with a canoe in a bag and or a kayak, rather, in a bag. And instead it is a miniature airplane that barely seats two people. And then the doors open and that plane like just falls into the sky. So no Dr. Guts 1003. I don’t think the movie was implying that little B remembers what happened, especially because if you remember Shaw put noise canceling headphones on the baby during the shoot out action sequence. And then ultimately when they jumped out of an airplane together.
Scott Sonne [00:25:06] I didn’t think about that. That was the second time he’s jumped out of an airplane.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:25:10] Oh, yeah, This kid loves falling out of airplanes. It’s like part of, it’s baked into his thing. Okay, so now in all caps and bold, it says, LET’S GO TO THE PHONES.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:25:22] Zero three. I don’t know why I’m saying zero three.
Scott Sonne [00:25:25] That’s just the Q number. So, ignore the number and just.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:25:29] I’m going to go one better. I’m going to go one better, Tech q Number zero three is from Anonymous. Let’s hear it.
Listener [00:25:37] So back in December, I was part of a test screening for Fast X. And one thing they did remove from the official version is that Reacher and Jason Momoa were brothers. Their dad mentioned work with your brother. Love the show. Bye.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:26:04] Fascinating. Really interesting. This is also a revelation in the high and mighty episode that Gabrus and Griffin Newman talked about. This was also discussed and I think this is super interesting and I’m genuinely curious why they abandoned that, because I like the idea of Momoa and Reacher being brothers. I think that’s a, that’s compelling because it’s family versus family and I like that. And I mean, obviously Momoa is the son of the villain from the from that movie, so it is still an element of family, but it would be cool to have this be family like Hatfields and McCoys. Like, let’s build a true, if this is going to be three movies, why not have it be a family versus family? Why not continue to build out the Momoa-Reacher family into more and more viable bad guys? I would love that instead of just singular bad guys who inevitably end up good guys, you know, that’s the that’s the trajectory most Fast and Furious movies run, which is, you know, Charlize is the bad guy. Now she comes in, she’s helping the good guys. You know, Statham is the bad guy. Then he comes in and is a good guy. So you know, who is on the team. Not a good guy, but on the team, rather. Baked into the family. And even, you know, Reacher has that whole thing where he basically does a full “previously on” Fast and Furious, like a 20 minute, 20 minute “previously on” where he just he just plays clips from the old movies. Like somehow. So think about this. Somehow the agency Reacher has access to the footage of the movies Fast and Furious because he’s not playing surveillance footage, he’s not playing drone footage. He’s not playing any kind of the kind of footage that anybody in that world would be playing. He’s playing like 4K, VFX, like hard close ups of Vin, like driving through the street. He’s playing clips from the movies. I feel like we didn’t talk about this enough on the show. This was next level nonsense when he did the whole breakdown.
Scott Sonne [00:28:26] I love that this movie costs, what did we say like $300, $400 million, one of those two. And they couldn’t afford just like shoot a few little extra, you know, some, have a second unit team go out there and get and get some footage for this.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:28:38] Well, okay, here’s my theory on this, though. And this is this is my theory on the why of it, because I would say arguably the 35% of Act one of Fast X is recycled footage from Fast five. Right? Wait, Fast five is the Brazilian one? Right. Okay. Is just reused footage from Fast five, specifically the bank vault heist. So in my mind I feel like the move they’re trying to pull is they’re they’re they’re using what is inarguably everybody’s most favorite set piece, most favorite movie, most favorite, Fast and Furious practical stunt. And they’re basically putting it in Act One to get us hyped and to be like, Don’t worry, this movie is directly related to your favorite fast movie. And it’s like, I feel like it’s a trick to get us all excited because we love that heist, we love that chase, we love that, that, we love that thing. And so by showing it to us again, it’s like I feel like it’s a it’s a trick to get us to have, it’s getting us on board for this movie before this movie’s even started really. Okay, um, let’s see. Tech Q zero four. Brett from Los Angeles.
Listener [00:30:05] Hey, Paul, I have.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:30:07] Hold on. I’m going to stop you right there. First of all, Brett from Los Angeles, you fucking blew it. You said, Hey, Paul. All right, How, first of all, Brett, from my town, Los Angeles. How dare you? How dare you not anticipate that Paul would be unavailable for this recording and I would have to fill in last minute. How dare you, Brett, You are thin ice, Brett from Los Angeles. Thin ice.
Molly Reynolds [00:30:38] You know what, Jason? I’ve already taking care of them.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:30:40] Oh, really? Nice. Nice. All right, let’s do it.
Listener [00:30:45] Franchise is going to solve all the cliffhangers at the end of Fast X. And I think the secret is in Charlize Theron’s character. She shows up to Dan’s house at the beginning of the movie in a DeLorean, and I think that is the movie, which is a universal project like Back to the Future was is calling its shot. The franchise has gone to space. So what else is there for them to do but break the space time continuum by using fast cars to go back in time and save everyone’s life, possibly even going back to the Brazil set piece from five and stopping Momoa’s dad from being killed. I think that’s how Charlize Theron character, I’m sure she has the technology, and that’s how she brought back Gal Gadot. And yeah, I hope you have a good day. Bye.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:31:35] You know, here’s the thing, Brett from Los Angeles. I wish. I want you to be right. I would love if these movies somehow, like we are, we are truly at the bleeding edge of what these what these movies can now do. We are, they are so far past having now gone to space. Wasn’t the space car also a DeLorean or no? Was it something that was like.
Scott Sonne [00:32:04] An old beat up car.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:32:06] Oh, okay. Yeah. So it’s like they’ve been to space. Vin driving down the dam. Like we really are, have completely gone past believable physics, science, all of this stuff, They. We really are. These people can’t be killed. They are essentially Avengers level superheroes. Now, this is a superhero team. And the the tropes and the plotting and the characters and all of the stuff that they’re using now, especially juxtaposed, as we just recently did to the first movie. The tropes and everything they’re using now are straight out of Marvel DC playbook, like really big giant, huge life or death set pieces that defy all reason and and physical possibility. So why not lean into that? Why not step directly over the line and say, Yeah, great, we’re going to do time travel. Didn’t I read somewhere that somebody was trying to pose, someone was trying to like, get them to do a crossover fast and furious with the Jurassic Park franchises, that those two things should meet up?
Scott Sonne [00:33:15] I don’t know that, but I hope so.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:33:17] I would love that. I would love that. I think that would be great. I’m all for it because to me, we are really pushing the limits here with where these characters and where this franchise can go. It either has to go back to basics and just be about cars and whatever again, or I think some wild choice. Like Brett from Los Angeles’ time travel story. I don’t think the DeLorean is hinting at time travel. I do think it’s a fun Easter egg, though, to be like, Oh, here’s a DeLorean, here’s a famous nostalgic car from our our pop culture past.
Scott Sonne [00:33:54] You actually hit it on the money right there. A little added context I found. So in an interview with Collider, director Louis Leterrier said the idea of the DeLorean started as a joke when fans began speculating about the possibility of time travel on the Tenth Fast Saga film. And they even theorized that Jacob Toretto as Cannon Car could in fact be a time machine. Production got the idea to slip a DeLorean into the movie as a little nod to the fans’ time travel speculation.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:34:22] Great. I love that. And that’s that’s what. That’s fun. I like that. I like that these movies have fun doing stuff like that, because I do think there’s an element to these movies which is very fun to, as we’ve done for years now, speculate, prognosticate, predict, like this with the idea that we years ago said they would go to space. We called it, Helen Mirren was going to come in. We’ve had, there’s so many things that we have said we want and then they’ve done them. Inexplicably, the only thing that we haven’t we’ve said repeatedly that they have not done is put us in these movies. So I will once again say to everybody who’s listening, you got to put us in these goddamn movies. What the fuck is going on? At this point, it’s frankly rude. Tech Q five Josh from Ontario, Canada.
Listener [00:35:11] What’s up, Paul, Jason, June? This is Josh from Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, and I listen to your Fast X podcast. It was fantastic. I just have a question. I was surprised no one actually mentioned this, but yo, the plot twist that Alan Richardson, his character is now, you know, he’s also a bad guy. That means we have two Aquamen because Alan Rickman was Aquaman on Smallville and he played him for quite a bit, arguably longer than Jason Momoa. And he’s, you know, he’s like just as huge as Jason Momoa physically. So couple of things. No one mentioned it. Is this a multiverse thing? Like what if Fast Furious ends up being the Flashpoint movie? We got Hobbs, Dom and Ezra Miller. I don’t know. Anyway, I just want to know what you guys think. Thank you so much. You guys are amazing. I love your show and keep up the good work.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:36:05] Josh from Ontario, thank you so much. Great question or a great observation. I did not know that Reacher had played Aquaman. I did not. I didn’t watch. I’m assuming this is on the Flash TV show or one of the one of them.
Scott Sonne [00:36:20] Smallville.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:36:22] Oh, he said Smallville. I missed that. Sorry. Apologies. Oh, on Smallville. Oh, so even so. Quite a while ago. Okay. Oh, that’s interesting. And I’m. You know, he’ll always be Reacher to me. As Billy Joel once sang, and. And I loved him in the movie. And I like that it’s two Aquamen together, and I think that’s cool. Again, I love the idea that was brought up earlier. Bring us the. Make Them brothers. Why not? I think it I think it only strengthens the villain’s story. Well, a story which I’m already enjoying. I really loved if I wasn’t clear about it. I loved the way they threaded Momoa into the larger Fast and Furious canon. I thought it was. I thought it was like a smart move. And I thought made it really interesting and gave him, like, a real a viable motivation. Revenge. Great. I love it. Give me more revenge.
Molly Reynolds [00:37:20] I have a really good pitch and it’s going to be really bad. But they said it was good. But what if we brought in Vince from Entourage who plays Aquaman in Entourage?
Jason Mantzoukas [00:37:29] Adrian Grenier.
Molly Reynolds [00:37:30] Yes. So then it’s three Aquamen.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:37:32] Whoa, whoa, whoa. This is huge.
Molly Reynolds [00:37:35] Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:37:35] This is some wild stuff right here. I love this idea.
Molly Reynolds [00:37:39] Thank you.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:37:40] Love that. And I’m all for. I will once again say I’m all for any collapsing of Fast and Furious into another franchise flash point style. You know, I don’t think it has to be the DCEU or any of that stuff either. Like I said before, I love the idea of it being Jurassic Park. I love the idea. I love, I used to love the idea. For a while, there was a movie being written that was Men in Black plus 21 Jump Street, which I think is hilarious, but like, why not have the Fast and Furious team become men in black? Why not have them start fighting aliens? Like, why not? Why not?
Scott Sonne [00:38:22] No more. It’s no more ridiculous than what’s already happening.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:38:25] And in fact, would be a better setting for the kind of high jinks, the kind of high stakes high jinks that the Fast Crew are now up to. You know, we can’t do, I don’t think, just races anymore. Street races. It’s a, this isn’t a street level franchise now. It spends so much time in outer space, in mid-air, in water, on ice. Like, this is not the street level anymore, So why not put them on another planet? Why not? Okay, Fast ten or rather Fast 11 or 12, I guess. Now, why not? Here it is. Ready? Portal. There’s a portal. They have to drive through a portal. What’s on the other side? Where does it put them? Boom. That’s what I want to know. They all drive through the portal.
Scott Sonne [00:39:16] Takes them to the moon and we have a Moonfall crossover.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:39:20] Dude.
Molly Reynolds [00:39:21] Or we go Dungeons and Dragons. Michelle Rodriguez. The portal that has the Paul Scheer portrait. That’s how we pivot.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:39:30] I love that. And Letty plays both. Yes, both characters meeting each other.
Molly Reynolds [00:39:35] I love this.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:39:36] I love that. Okay. Anyway, I really like that. Great. Josh from Ontario. Oh, no. Rather. Yeah. Yeah. Great question about Reacher and all the Aquaman stuff. Shout out to Canada. You know what? Here’s my question for you in Canada. What role would you like Jared Caso, Wayne from Letterkenny to play in the Fast and Furious universe? Because that’s who I want in these movies. I’m happy Reacher’s here, but give me give me Jared Keeso in Fast and Furious. Also, give me Jared Keeso as Wolverine in the MCU, you idiots. He’s Canadian. He’s ripped. He’s hilarious. Give me Jared Keeso as Wolverine. All right. Coming up, I’m going to have more of your corrections. More of your omissions. More of your inexplicable theme songs. There’s going to be a bunch of stuff. Including, get ready for it. In a little while, Paul and I’s conversation with Alone Frozen contestant, Woniya Thibeault. We talk all about Alone with her. It is an incredible conversation. Stick around for that. Whether you’re a fan of Alone or not, I think you’ll really enjoy it. We’re going to talk about what next movie, next week’s movie is, rather. And at the very end of this episode, I’m going to share an exclusive deleted scene from our Fast X show. So guess what? Stick around.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:41:01] We’re back, baby. We’re back. I hope you just fast forwarded through some commercials. Probably shouldn’t say that. Tech Q six Adam from upstate New York.
Listener [00:41:13] Hey, Paul and Jason. Adam calling from upstate New York for the Fast X Last Look episode. So before it came out, I knew I needed to rewatch all the movies again, but that would take a very long time. So I threw a party where I got together, some friends, many of whom had never seen it before, and we watched all nine movies simultaneously on one screen with all of them playing their sound at the same time. Absolutely fucking incredible. Even people who hadn’t seen them before loved it. They were blown away. We even had bingo game with questions like Vin on three screens, no engine sounds, and Dom and Letty making out. That one was a little bit hard to get because they don’t actually make out in the movies. So I have two questions for you guys. Number one, with Fast X added to the mix. What’s a great bingo question for the next time simulwatch before Fast 11. And number two, what other franchise could possibly work as well to watch all the movies at the same time? Thanks. Love the show.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:42:10] Huh? Okay. Oh, wow. This seems like, Adam from upstate New York. Thank you for your question. That sounds like a great party. But now you’ve given me homework? I got to come up with your bingo questions. I’ve got to. It seems like you’re giving me a problem here. I’m asking for solutions, guys. You know what’s a big what’s a great bingo question? I don’t know. I mean, what’s a, it’s bingo, and it’s not a drinking game, so it’s just something that has to happen once. Because I was going to say a good a good, good drinking game question would be any time there’s a flashback drink, just because, you know, you’d be wasted in the first 5 minutes.
Molly Reynolds [00:42:48] Walkie talkies.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:42:50] Oh, yeah. You know what we didn’t talk about in the episode that I would like to speak to briefly for a moment now, because I forgot and I’d written it down in my notes and I was frustrated afterwards was so often in the movie, Jason Momoa and it’s primarily Jason Momoa and Vin Diesel’s characters are separated by, I mean, they’re each in different cars, on different roads. They are completely separate from each other, but they are having an active conversation. They are not on comms together, they are not connected to each other, but they are just speaking out loud in their individual cars as if they’ve just heard what the other has said in their car. And it’s fucking nuts. It’s absolutely nuts. There were so many moments that I was like, are they on? Are they linked? Are they on comms together? And they’re not. They’re not at all. So if you watch the movie, just watch how often people are talking out loud in their cars at a conversational level as if someone on a cliff above them can hear them. It’s like when. When Momoa is going to send Dom down the dam you know, Momoa is like out of his car. He’s got a computer set up, he’s on a cliff top and, and, and Dom and little B are in the car on the edge of the dam with two semi-trucks next to them going (engine noises). And. And Momoa and Vin are having a conversation that is like, well, well, we find ourselves here again. I can’t believe, Dom, that you thought you’d get away. And Dom was like, This is your last chance. Let me go. Family. And it’s like, Wait a minute, What? Can they hear each other? And the reality is they cannot. So what the fuck? What a what a magic trick that this movie pulls off by forcing conversations that are completely not happening anyway. Tech Q 07 Jay from Austin, Texas.
Listener [00:44:58] Hey guys, this is Jay from Austin, and I just wanted to share with you the story about how you guys inadvertently got me a raise. I work at a dog Groomers as the bather, and I’m normally in the Back bathing dogs, have my headphones in and listening to HDTGM all day and my coworkers have become used to hearing me just laughing all day while listening to the episode, but recently I ran out of HDTGM episodes so I was listening to audiobooks and stuff and this prompted my employer to pull me aside one day and just be like, Hey man, I just wanna make sure you’re still happy here and that you’re doing okay and if there’s something you need. I’m going to go ahead and bump your pay. And I really believe that this is because they couldn’t hear me laughing at HDTGM episodes. And in all honesty, not listening, that probably did affect my general demeanor. So you guys are good for my mental health. You guys are good for me financially and you, just in general, rock So keep it up. And a real quick omission for the Fast X episode, along with Jason’s theory that Dom is on a Christlike journey, there is actually a song in the official soundtrack in which one of the lyrics are “like, Jesus, I’m walking on water” so maybe not that far off. I think they actually are trying to make that comparison. Keep up the good work. Love everything you do. Thanks y’all.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:46:28] Wow. Jay from Austin, that’s a great, great bit of tidbit of information. I absolutely think this movie I think I think Vin Diesel, inside of his control of these movies is only more and more framing Dom as a Christ-like figure. So much so. Make no mistake, the central Act two, beginning of act two set piece is Dom saves the Vatican. He saves the Pope’s life. He saves the Vatican. This is a religious movie. This is a religious movie. Except the religion is fast and furious. It is. I feel like there is there is a degree of heresy in suggesting that Dom is so holy. I mean, even Christ was able to be killed. Dom survives everything. Let’s be real.
Scott Sonne [00:47:27] Dom doesn’t need to be resurrected. He’s never going to die.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:47:30] It’s so true. He is invincible in a way that is, is Dom God? Wow.
Molly Reynolds [00:47:36] No, Dom is better than God, I think is what you’re saying.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:47:40] Woah. Maybe. I’d be interested. You know, they’ve had so many. You know, so many religious stories have Resurrection as the story. There is a way in which Dom, Christlike is able to raise the dead. Lazarus style as numerous of the people in these movies that will be, if he can, if they can raise Elaina from the dead, that will be incredible because that really that’s a feat. She was point blank assassinated. So, that that’s the real triumph. If they can do it, go ahead.
Scott Sonne [00:48:17] You were talking earlier about, like what other genres of movies could the Fast and Furious merge with and we are talking about bringing Elena back from the dead? Like, what if we had a zombie horror movie?
Jason Mantzoukas [00:48:28] Great. Love it. That’s a great, like what if Fast and Furious, but the threat isn’t a revenge seeking Jason Momoa or a cyber terrorist attack from Charlize. It is The Walking Dead. It is like a, it is like a zombie. It’s a fast zombies. And maybe the zombies can drive?
Scott Sonne [00:48:50] They can definitely drive. And I think it has to be the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians they’ve killed over the course of these movies coming back to get their revenge.
Alex Gonzales [00:49:00] Well, the first one’s got to be Momoa’s henchman, right?
Jason Mantzoukas [00:49:03] Oh, yeah. I see what you’re saying. The face tape, guys? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. That would. See, that would be interesting to me. I would love that. I would love, I really did like the idea that Momoa’s revenge was predicated on something, a death that our team didn’t even think about, you know, I mean, like just the casual murder of. Of Momoa’s dad again, by Hobbs. Like it was, Vinc didn’t even. If Momoa’s target is like, the person who killed my dad. Well, why don’t you first go after the person who literally killed your dad, Hobbs? It makes no sense that he targets Vin first. But Vin is, you know, the most, I think, powerful person on Earth.
Molly Reynolds [00:49:52] Mm hmm.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:49:53] And lives in a small house in Echo Park. What is this? Tech Q8 Alisha. See isn’t this much? You know what I’m not saying? Here’s a call from Dr. Guts 1003. The people on the phone know. You know what I’m calling in. It’s me, Alisha, or hey, it’s me, J. Hey, it’s good to talk to you. It’s Adam from upstate New York. I’m happy to be talking to you guys, but if you’re writing in on the whatever, you’re like, Hey, it’s me. You know, whatever. Captain Jizz 76. Like, I don’t know what this is like.
Scott Sonne [00:50:31] We get a lot of calls from Captain Jizz 76. Okay?
Jason Mantzoukas [00:50:35] I don’t doubt it. Okay. Alicia, go.
Listener [00:50:38] Hi, Paul. My name is Alicia. I have seen all the movies. I watched all the first episodes of How Did This Get Made? And I just wanted to talk about something about the franchise as a whole. I know something you guys go back to a lot is that there is no sexuality between Vin and Letty. It’s very dry, especially starting from the middle and then going back to one and seeing that iconic motor boating scene is very charming, to say the least. So I just want to let you know, I don’t know if it’s been brought up before, but Michelle and Vin were in a budding relationship in the filming of Fast One. It must have been like playing Peter and MJ. So that motor boating was probably a very natural improv from Vin at that time. And then I imagine you break up and now we just have him talking to her womb, just hopeful. Something I thought was fun was that Michelle said something to some magazine at the time, saying what she loved about Vin. What really reeled her in was that deep, gravelly voice. So, that’s all. Thank you.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:51:54] All right. That’s interesting. You know, I think these movies have no, have no real, you know, there’s no real sexuality or chemistry inside of them. I don’t know that they. I don’t know that they’re interested in interrogating that part of life. They seem to be much more focused on family as if to mean family friendly. You know like I think that they this isn’t, these aren’t stories about people who have a lot of sex. These are about people who kill a lot of people.
Scott Sonne [00:52:28] Which is family friendly.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:52:29] Which is family friendly here in America. We love we love our heroes to not really fuck, but definitely murder. As long as it’s the bad guys, As long as it’s the bad guys. Yeah. Oh, that’s interesting. I did not know that. That’s interesting.
Scott Sonne [00:52:46] I love the details she gave that Michelle Rodriguez said it’s that raspy voice that gets you, like, just imagining Vin being like “You had me at hello.”
Jason Mantzoukas [00:53:00] I would love it. I would love it if Vin’s move was to quote Jerry Maguire. Listen, I hope that, I hope that there’s people out there who like a raspy voice. That’s great. That’s good news for me.
Scott Sonne [00:53:19] I also, I found a quote where Vin told Entertainment Weekly one of the biggest blessings of the franchise is my relationship with Michelle, and then referencing their characters from the film, then explained, I’ve been told that the Dom Letty Love story is potentially the biggest love story that we’ve seen in cinema.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:53:39] What? By who? By that, by the same people that come up to Trump with tears in their eyes to tell him what a hero he is. That’s like that’s positively Trumpian. They’re coming to me. They’re saying they’ve got tears in their eyes. They can’t believe it. They said, it’s the greatest love story. Now I’m, just wait. I do a Trump? What is this? I don’t I don’t do a Trump. That was terrible. Anyway, cut that. Just kidding. Keep it in. But that’s that’s preposterous. The idea that the Dom Letty Love story is potentially the biggest love story we’ve ever seen in cinema is absolute insanity. And I love that Vin believes it. I love it. Incredible stuff. That’s that’s a great quote. Great find. All right. Back to the discord. Elaine Smithy writes, “Looking at the scene in Rio where Dom and Dante’s gangs face off with each other. Is Rio, so laid back that walls of people pointing guns at each other nonplused the party goers around them? The drone shot shows both gangs surrounded by crowds, dancing all around them instead of, you know, fleeing.” Yeah, I agree. This is something that’s now come up quite a bit in movies is, you know, huge action movie set piece, driving, gunplay, craziness and unfolds in large group activity, nightclub, street race, city streets, whatever. And everybody seems like, oh come on, I’m just trying to get to work. They seem like unimpressed or unflustered by like nuts level stuff happening around them. So I agree. That was pretty crazy. Elaine, at the end of her thing that I didn’t read, says Zouks. That’s me. “The new Beach Fossils album Bunny is out now and it’s phenomenal.” And Elaine, I agree. The new Beach Fossils record, one of my favorite bands, has a new record. It’s called Bunny and it’s great and it’s abs. There are two songs in that on that album that are on my spring playlist, so Eat Shit. So that’s it for Corrections and Omissions this week. There can only be one that is the best. And this week’s best. Oh, I have to pick a winner?
Scott Sonne [00:55:53] Yeah, it’s in your hands.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:55:55] You know what I’m going to pick. I’m going to pick. Oh, I’m going to shout out Adam from upstate New York simply because I love this. I want other people to replicate the concurrent simultaneous all now ten movie rewatch. So next. Time we do this, I would love Adam. Please write in to remind us of your methodology, which is to show all nine movies on nine different screens concurrently with people there to watch and lose their minds. Because to me, that sounds like how they drive. That sounds like A Clockwork Orange.
Scott Sonne [00:56:34] Absolutely.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:56:36] So, Adam from upstate New York, you’re the winner. I don’t know what you win. I hope it’s nothing because this is not really winning.
Scott Sonne [00:56:42] Win an amazing song.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:56:43] They win an amazing song? Oh, winners, theme. Tech, Tech Q 12. Okay. And it’s once again courtesy of Rob from Long Island, who I previously said sounded like a magnetic field song. Huge compliment, by the way. One of my all time favorite records of all time 101 listens. Or rather. No, take that out, actually edit that 69 love songs. That is the right one. It’s 101. The other one is what’s the what’s.
Molly Reynolds [00:57:10] The 101 Dalmatians.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:57:12] No, the one the other Stephen Merritt record that’s umm. Keep all of this in. Keep all in. Keep my, keep this melt down in. Here we go. I’m going to look it up while this song plays from Rob from Long Island in order to celebrate the other guy from upstate New York, Adam. I think from upstate New York. And a little shout out to Elaine Smithy, who herself shouted out beach Fossils, a terrific jangly rock band. Here we go.
Music [00:57:41] [Winner Song].
Jason Mantzoukas [00:57:41] 50 Song Memoir.
Molly Reynolds [00:57:53] It was on the tip of my tongue. I almost had it.
Jason Mantzoukas [00:57:56] 50 song memoir. Also great, wonderful. But 69 love songs. Wow. Like. Like truly incredible record. Devastating songs. Come back from San Francisco. Makes me cry every time. Really great stuff. Anyway. Here we go. That was the Winners theme. If you want to chime in with your own thoughts about this latest episode or about other stuff in general about this episode that I’ve done, or the Fast X or anything, really. Go to the Discord. Once again, that is Discord.gg/HDTGM or call us right here at 619-PAULASK. That’s 619 Paul Ask. Okay. So you’ve likely noticed here on How Did This Get Made that your feed is picking up on Mondays old episodes of the show that we’re pulling out of the vault and we’re putting them back into rotation. So many of your favorite episodes that perhaps were behind the paywall are now out and going wild. This week’s matinee Monday was Action Jackson with Seth Rogan. Great episode, Very fun. I remember it fondly. Next week’s matinee Monday, though, is holy shit, guys, this is real. So get fuckin ready. Next week’s episode we are rereleasing into the wild, Drop Dead Fred. Now this is some next level nonsense. This episode is for me, I mean, top three episodes of the podcast as a performer as to top three episodes, maybe top one episode, like my favorite episode to have done. To have been onstage at the Wilshire Ebell. Backstage first, hanging out with my friends, having a great time. We walked on stage and proceeded to scream at the top of our lungs at each other for 2 hours straight standing. We barely sat. It was, I mean, one of the most insane experiences in the Podcast’s history. And we’ve been doing this podcast now for 22 years. This is crazy. So that episode is coming out and not for nothing. It’s it’s in it’s a it’s a bit of a preview for our Drop dead Fred vinyl, which is dot, dot, dot on its way. Can I say that?
Molly Reynolds [01:00:16] Yeah, it’s on its way. It’s coming to you.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:00:18] On its way. Some of you might have your grubby little paws on it right now as we speak. I don’t know. You might be, but the guys put it in a put it in it like, put it in, you know, get it, put it, keep it well, put it in a slipcase. Be good to it, you know? So here we are, we’re going to be putting out Drop Dead, Fred. So check it out. It’s a great episode. You can you can hear the moment where Casey Wilson’s vocal chord bursts. She had to go on vocal rest after this episode because it was just too much, too much. Team sanity, weak vocal cords. Okay, on today’s Just Chat, we’re doing something a little different. Occasionally, Paul and I interview guests, usually a friend who’s appeared on How Did This Get Made before. Usually to talk about something they’re excited about or something they have been working on, but not today. Paul June and myself are all super fans of today’s guest and the show that she has appeared on multiple seasons of. You’ve probably heard me talk about Alone for years, Paul and June as well. I mean, truly one of my favorite shows. The show is if you haven’t heard of it or you don’t know it or haven’t heard, we talk about it. Ten people are placed Alone in incredibly difficult wilderness living circumstances, Antarctica, or rather not not Antarctica, the Arctic in northern Canada, Vancouver Island, Argentina, all of these places where they’re put in very difficult conditions and it is a survival game. Who can last the longest wins, sometimes it’s a half a million dollars, sometimes it’s $1,000,000. It’s incredible. They are their own camera crews. They are not, they are not being watched. They are Alone. It is a psychological game where people lose their entire minds. And that’s compelling television. So I was very excited to talk to Woniya. You know, I don’t want to give it away, but we do talk about it on the episode. If you don’t want to know, well, it doesn’t matter. I’m just going to say it. She won Alone Frozen, and we do talk about it in the episode. So spoilers for the end of Alone Frozen. I just spoiled it for you. But guess what? You should have watched it already. I don’t care about spoiling it for you because here’s the beauty of it. The show works even if you know who’s won. Because, guys, the journey is the destination. Kaboom. Nailed it. The journals of Dan Alden. It’s a book. It’s great. That’s the title. I’m really now 2 hours into this, and I am. I have lost my, I don’t know how long this episode is, but I’ve been talking for 2 hours.
Molly Reynolds [01:03:04] I think this is the first seven year episode.
Scott Sonne [01:03:08] This is going to first Last Looks longer than the actual movie episode.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:03:12] Great, great. So we have a just chat theme song from Anton Willin and here it is coming atcha.
Music [01:03:20] [Just Chat Song]
Paul Scheer [01:03:42] So this is a little different than what we normally do on this show. But I really wanted to have you on because, not only am I a fan of Alone, but Jason is a giant fan of Alone.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:03:55] Huge fan. Like, so excited. Could not be more excited that you’re here, frankly.
Paul Scheer [01:04:01] And so for me, I feel like I watched that show and I never get any closure. I don’t know what happened. Like, I don’t know what happens beyond. So I happened to be on vacation with my family. And just by happenstance, you were at the same place doing a lecture about your experiences and promoting your amazing new book, which is coming out. Never Alone. And I loved hearing your story, and I was kind of just blown away by everything that we don’t see. And your entire experience about being there, I just found it to be utterly fascinating. And so, you know, I reached out to say, Can you come on this show where we talk about bad movies, but we’re not good to talk about bad movies. We’re going to talk about. We can talk about your survival journey because you literally you are the first female winner of an Alone, solitary survival challenge. Right? You have you have that. You came in second place on the show as well, like you have. You’ve been out there. You have you have really gone through it. And I just found your story absolutely fascinating. So welcome.
Woniya Thibeault [01:05:14] Well, thank you. I’m really happy to be here. I’m glad to follow up on our brief meeting back in Montana.
Paul Scheer [01:05:19] Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:05:20] Wonderful. Yeah, I this is, as somebody who’s been watching along since the beginning, this is incredibly exciting for me, both because I watched you, like, just crush season six. And then really, I found, like, Alone Frozen has been one of my favorite seasons of Alone, simply because it allowed for me to watch you especially. But all the contestants changed strategies and change tactics and exist in in similar situations, but change how you approached it. And that I thought was really fascinating and really interesting, both on a practical level. And I would love to talk about on a psychological level, you know, because that to me is the game.
Woniya Thibeault [01:06:05] Exactly. Yeah. And 100% agree with you, Jason. I think that Alone is so much more about the psychological journey than it is about the survival adventure. Not that it isn’t absolutely intense, physically, really grueling, Particularly the frozen season was far more challenging than I was prepared for. But I absolutely think that the mental game is what takes the majority of the people out, whether it be their choice not to stay or whether it be them getting freaked out to the point where they’re not firing on all cylinders and they’re making bad decisions that lead to accidents that take them out or they don’t want to be there. And somehow that leads to them doing something that accidentally takes them out. Right. So your degree of being able to control your your mental and your attitude is absolutely huge. And I think that really came through on season six where I was straight up starving, really starving the whole time.
Paul Scheer [01:07:07] You lost one third of your body weight in that time Alone. One third.
Woniya Thibeault [01:07:12] And I’m only 5’4″, so I lost 50lbs. And I mean, it was really scary to look at myself in the mirror afterwards.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:07:21] Yeah, that is like one of the one of the hardest things to watch people. Yeah, because you’re, you’re, we’re talking about a show in which people are, you know, I’ve talked about it on this show quite a bit, but you know, you are out there Alone for months at a time. And I would say like the central struggle is, seems to be from a viewer’s point of view, is getting enough food, specifically getting enough food to sustain yourself, doing the amount of work physically that is necessary to keep yourself afloat.
Paul Scheer [01:07:54] But I mean, doesn’t your hunger affect your mental capabilities too? Like even the most.
Woniya Thibeault [01:08:01] Yes.
Paul Scheer [01:08:01] Solid mental foundation you have. You were there for ten weeks with only handfuls of cranberries. You had ten rabbits and ten squirrels over ten weeks. Like, yeah, I would imagine that that is just I mean, the hunger or just even the lack of food is playing with your mind too. Just by nature.
Woniya Thibeault [01:08:21] Yeah, it completely takes over your brain in ways that you had no idea how to anticipate ahead of time. And I talk about this in my book, The different Hungers, and there’s the deep visceral hunger, but then the psychological hunger, the one that runs your thoughts where you cannot stop thinking about creme brulee or. Or fondue or whatever it happens to be, that is much more frustrating for me. That was much harder than the physical hunger because I felt strong. I actually felt great right up until the very end, where I really started to be aware that my body was tanking. I felt better than I have for most of my life, and that’s a thing that people do fasting for healing or ketogenic diet for healing. So it’s so much more about the mental. And I found something happened that was really interesting and illustrative of this. In about the five week mark, I got given a weight warning. I was told that I was losing too much weight and while I wasn’t at the danger point yet, I was getting close. And that really messed with me mentally. And I was just going about my day thinking, I’m starving, I’m starving, I’m failing, I’m failing out here. And I felt weak and I was really struggling. And then I just had this epiphany where I was like, Hey, you know what? It’s up to me how I consider this. They told me I’m at the danger line, but I feel great. So I’m going to trust people who are looking at statistics or am I going to trust myself in my own body? And hey, don’t people fast for health reasons? Oh, I’m not starving. I’m doing a cleanse, a really deep cleanse, but I’m doing a cranberry cleanse. There you go. And from that moment when I brought my self around mentally, I brought my self around physically, I felt stronger. My knees were no longer wobbling. I was wow, I was good again. And it was just the mental switch.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:10:09] Yeah. And that is like watching the show. You really are. And you know, I’m certain a part of this is editing for the sake of stories and all that and a compelling narrative for everybody. But you really are. I mean, they’re using only the tape that you all are, just so people know in case people don’t watch the show. Alone is a show where in you guys are out there surviving truly Alone. There isn’t a camera crew with you. You are your own camera crew. You are providing the the the all the material, all the footage. You’re providing it yourself. You’re having to shoot it all, frame it all, do all the camera work. And on top of that, it is, is it a weekly health check in? So it is only once a week or so?
Woniya Thibeault [01:10:54] No, it’s not. They don’t do them at all. At first. They don’t start doing the medical checks until you’ve been out there where the starvation actually could be getting to be physically dangerous. And that’s usually around the three week mark. And then they determine how often they check in on you based on how you’re doing when they see you. So on season six, for example, I got my first weight warning on day 40, so just over half of my time out there. And from that point they considered that I was, you know, I was doing a little bit dicey. And so they did medical checks more often. And then towards the end, when they were frankly really quite concerned about me, they increased the frequency. On the frozen season, I was doing great from the beginning. I didn’t ever get a weight warning, and I only had two medical checks in the entire course of those 50 days because they knew I wasn’t in danger.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:11:46] But what was interesting is watching you on Frozen, like it, you were you were in six. You were so strong, coming in so strong. Frozen seemed to rock everybody straight out of the gate.
Woniya Thibeault [01:11:58] Gosh, that was so hard. And all of us went in feeling really confident because most of the folks there had been out almost 50 days, if not 50 days. And Kelly and I had been out way longer than 50 days. So we’re like really further south than we were in the Arctic and a shorter time limit? We got this. And everyone just got their butts kicked. And I think it was really shocking for them and frankly, really shocking for the producers.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:12:25] Oh, I bet. I bet. Because, you know, that season is it’s you know, it’s kind of like an All-Star season or or something like that. Everybody in the season of Frozen has been in one of the previous Alone seasons and has been almost almost everybody did incredibly well in their previous seasons. And so to watch everybody who you’ve seen just Excel, just be so foundationally challenged was absolutely incredible.
Woniya Thibeault [01:12:55] As you say, it really revealed the mental game a lot more because people were dropping like flies in the first week and no one starves to death within a week, you know.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:13:04] It really is just, and it’s so interesting. You watch people start to build a narrative for themselves that allows them eventually to tap out. They start to talk or they start to think a way that starts to feel like they are. They are coming up with a final argument for themselves to give themselves, frankly, permission to leave. And it’s so interesting when you then watch someone start that dialog with themselves and then interrupt it. You have it at one point in Frozen where your shelter is leaking, you, what do you didn’t you pepper sprayed your own sleeping bag. Was that right?
Woniya Thibeault [01:13:48] I did. Yeah. The head of my sleeping, like the inside, the hood of my sleeping bag, which was nestled inside the hood of my parka, which was nestled inside the hood of my rain jacket. So basically, everything that I needed most to keep myself warm, saturated with pepper spray the evening of day six. And the afternoon, the dusk of day six was my lowest point and I was really struggling. And what you don’t see on the show is the fact that at that point I’d been hypothermic for about three days straight because my rain gear was not tough enough to stand up to crawling through thick, scratchy brush. So I made a choice that, hey, it’s not as cold now as it’s going to be later, and I’m going to need this rain gear more later than I do now. So I let myself get soaking wet while I was building my shelter. I think it was a good choice, but it was a choice that made that first week really hard. So I’d been hypothermic for three days, and then the only thing I could eat was mussels, which I was having to pry off of the rocks. And then I had very few trees in my area. So a lot of what I was building with was rock. So I was hauling these huge heavy rocks up and down cliffs. And at the end of day four or so, I was having such intense tendonitis that I could barely use my hands. So hypothermic, unable to use my hands. And then I also had this crazy wound happen on my toe, which I learned what it actually was later is basically like a cold sore on the nail bed of my toe. So it was shooting nerve pain. So I was limping. I didn’t have full use of my hands and I’d been hypothermic for three days solid. And that’s the only time on the Alone show that you ever see me talking about how hard it is and crying about it. And that night is when I sprayed all of my most important gear with pepper spray. And then I woke up the next morning and I said, You know what? That didn’t take me out. So I have freakin got this like that. It’s hard to imagine having been worse than that. So, I’m golden.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:15:44] It’s incredible because any, any single one of those things, the equivalent has happened multiple times to other contestants and they have been knocked out completely. For you to have all of those things happen concurrently is and and not only not only persist, but come back and win is incredible. You know.
Paul Scheer [01:16:07] This is what I want to talk about, too. And you mentioned this when I watched you do your your lecture. You know, we are getting a very small sampling of what you did and where and what you do out there. It’s through somebody else’s eyes. You tape it, but they edit it and you don’t know what they’re going to edit. And you’ve shot so much and you’re out there for, you know, especially in the in season six, the 73 days, you know, And when do you start to see what your narrative is according to Alone versus what your narrative is and what was different about because, I know you talk about this in the book, like what you did that they didn’t show and vice versa.
Woniya Thibeault [01:16:47] Yeah, you know, it’s interesting because my experiences were so different the first time versus the second time, and a lot of it was based around that because the first time I just poured my heart into filming everything as exquisitely as I could. I shifted my routines in ones that weren’t as good for survival so that I could get better footage, like always butchering my animals during the day instead of at night by my fire, which was harder on me because it meant wasting daylight hours to do something I didn’t need daylight hours for. Also, I could get really good footage and then when I watched the season, I was so upset because none of the things that I cared about, none of the story that I carefully crafted because I wanted to show the depth of it and show who I was, came across on television. So I went into the second time really jaded thinking, Why bother? Because they’re not going to tell the story that’s most important to me. And then they totally did, and they didn’t have as much footage to do it with because I was less motivated the second time. I still did my damnedest to give them all the footage, but the weather was so harsh in Labrador that I could barely set up the big camera because the wind knocked the tripod over right away. My cameras were constantly breaking. Even the ones that didn’t break were fogging up so I could barely get footage. So I felt they did way, way better by me the second time. And they had to work hard to do it because they were working with a lot less.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:18:12] Out of curiosity. Like, that’s a little bit of a shift for you in in how you approach the filming, your own filming of it. But I’m curious also, how did you change your approach to the game itself? You know, Frozen is different than a normal season of Alone. In that Alone in a normal season is open ended. It’s it is a last person remaining wins the season. Frozen was 50 days in incredibly difficult situation right? So it is a finite, you know you have an end day. Did that really, and I know sorry we’re asking a lot of very specific Alone questions.
Woniya Thibeault [01:18:56] No it’s great. I love that you really really understood the challenge and you get to ask really good questions. You’re asking much better questions than the average interviewer. I’m loving it.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:19:04] That’s right. Eat shit average interviewer. Like I am curious, what purposefully did you change about how you did this?
Woniya Thibeault [01:19:13] Yeah, the second time was hugely different. It was very much informed by what worked and what didn’t work my first season. One of the biggest things right off the top was I did shift my gear items specifically to bring two items that not having were incredible handicaps the first time around. One was snare wire. So they don’t tell you on season six that I was doing all of that trapping without snare wire. Everybody else who snares on Alone, they have wire that is self-supporting and makes it all possible. I had the fishing line and my own hair, so I had to devise a way to trap using really limited and totally inefficient resources. And that meant that I had to have a power mechanism to bring the rabbits up and off their feet every snare I set. So every snare that I set on season six took took me an hour and the average snare takes 3 minutes. So it was a huge handicap. So what I did for the second season was relied on knitting an enormous sweater and pulling it apart. So I had cordage from the yarn that the sweater sweaters made out of, which meant I didn’t have to take parachute cord, which meant I could take snare wire. Huge advantage.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:20:27] Yeah. For people listening, you are, you are, everybody. Every contestant is given a matching set of items and then you get to choose ten items of your own that you would like to bring. And so in those ten, is that correct, like so?
Woniya Thibeault [01:20:45] We were given a list and we’re choosing our own items that fit the qualifications of that list. So everybody had slightly different snare wire, but it all had to be 20 gauge snare wire, for example.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:20:56] Right. So, but so you watch people one of the ways that people strategize is, you know, sometimes somebody’s like, I’m not going to bring a fire starter because I’m confident in my ability to start a fire using just materials I find there. So that frees up a slot that I can bring something else. And then you watch that person really struggle with starting a fire and maintaining a fire. And so there are. Everybody’s choice of gear kind of informs this strategy of play. So having snare wire is huge. You know.
Woniya Thibeault [01:21:32] It’s huge. I could have stayed out, I think, easily another month on season six had I had snare wire, it made a tremendous difference. That said, I was in a fairly barren location, so I would have decimated the rabbit population because I was on a little peninsula, not on the mainland, where there’s, you know, the whole world is constantly supplying you with more game. I only had the game that was on this little peninsula that said, having to do it all by hand was a huge, huge handicap without sufficient materials.
Paul Scheer [01:22:02] I do want to talk about just the way that you approached the game, in addition to respecting the land as well, because you said you didn’t want to decimate the rabbit population. This is something that you were concerned about, like you weren’t here just to win. You were also wanted to be respectful of this this area that you are in. You know, even even with your book, you are donating a portion of the sales to the native people whose homeland you, this, you know, this whole thing took place in. And so I feel like that is something that at least seems to me a little bit different than the way maybe other people approach it. And also some of the things that you wanted to get on camera that didn’t often get on camera.
Woniya Thibeault [01:22:42] Exactly true. Yeah. And so you asked earlier how the narrative was different on Alone Season six versus Frozen. And part of it was it didn’t show my philosophy and my approach nearly as much on season six and the second time it really did. And that is a huge part of me and part of what sets me apart from a lot of other people in the field of survival. And ironically, I have never referred to myself as a survivalist. That’s a term that I that I take issue with. Frankly, I feel like it’s a very fear based approach. And I’ve never been into this stuff for survival. I’ve been into it because I feel like it’s a beautiful, more connected, more natural way for a human to live. And feeling like you have to wrestle the wilderness into submission is a very western and masculine approach, and it’s the polar opposite of what I believe and what I want to represent. So to my mind, going into a wild place from a place of respect and curiosity and asking and appreciating and just giving back in whatever ways I can was really important to me.
Paul Scheer [01:23:49] And I want to talk to you about this because this blew me away and you talk about it in your book, but the recovery process, because you are out there and it took you your first season, it took you two years to get back to normal. And there’s a great section of the book about when you first kind of get home. You know, going into a pharmacy and kind of being over, it almost felt like I was reading a section about like PTSD, like you, the colors and the sounds and the lights. And it’s like you you’re being pulled from one extreme to the next to the world that we all live in. And then also, on top of all this, I imagine you have all this opportunity, but you can’t even really eat either.
Woniya Thibeault [01:24:31] Right. You go from not having enough food and thinking about nothing but food to being surrounded by opulence and people who are eating full meals, you know, three plus times a day and you can’t have any of it. And that was so much harder than starving in the wilderness. So much harder. But yeah, it was so fascinating. All of the the physiology of going from pure starvation and on frozen, I was eating really well. So honestly, when I entered the re feeding program, my portions were cut back from what I’d been eating on my own in the wild. They were all different. I wasn’t getting enough calories, I wasn’t getting enough fat and I was getting zero carbohydrates. But in terms of volume, I was eating more out there. Granted, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t digesting the seaweed. It came out looking just like it went in. But it was it was filling out my system. Right? My digestion was constantly moving on me. So it was very different recovering from Frozen than it had been on season six, where I was really straight up starving most of the time on season six and my whole digestive system was shut down and shrunken and really took a while to come back online.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:25:44] There has been some seasons where starvation is the main antagonist, if you will, you know.
Woniya Thibeault [01:25:51] Until season six. Every single season was won by the person who is carrying the most weight on their way in. And so seasons one through five were straight up starvation contest season six is the first time anyone got big game and then seasons six, seven and eight. The winners were all the person who got big game. But honestly, they were all starving too, particularly Clay who got, Clay on season eight. He got a deer, but one lean deer is not enough food for a man his size and weight in those circumstances and even a moose and a muscots. And those guys came out a lot skinnier than they went in as well. So I think it’s actually interesting because I offer consulting services for authors and TV shows and movies because any book you ever read that has people in the wild starving, I look at it and I think, Oh my God, so inaccurate, right? Yeah. It’s so much harder to make your way in the world and provide all of your own calories than the average person can wrap their brain around. And Alone is an extreme example because a lot of people have, you know, more survival items. They have a warm shelter or they have bedding or they have more adequate gear. In other ways, just the food is the only issue. But on Alone, it’s all of it.
Paul Scheer [01:27:07] I will say to that if you want to the general, you, not just you, Jason, but if you want to learn some of these skills. BuckskinRevolution.com that’s your website. You teach classes, you go out into the wild, you do a different different series, you know, whether it’s like an Earth skills weekend or survival intensive, you know, plants intensive Buckeye gathering like there’s a lot of different stuff there too. So and I know that you talked about like you will also work with people who are going to be on the show on Alone. Right? Like to get them prepared and and teach them. But like that to me. Like you really, this is a part of your lifestyle. This is not you know, you weren’t in this to become a television star or a reward winner.
Woniya Thibeault [01:27:54] So shocked to end up being a television star. You have no idea.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:27:57] You’re going to be on a CBS sitcom this year, right?
Woniya Thibeault [01:28:02] I did actually just do a promo shoot for Leatherman where there was like a hair and makeup person. I’m like, Oh, wow. I mean, I’ve been on TV, but I’ve never done anything like this, like having my hair touched up in the powder so I wouldn’t shine and all this. It was it was quite a trip. So I was like, okay, this is a good like, dip in my toe in it for when I do some some morning shows as part of the book promo. But yeah, so part of my idea, like part of what drives me isn’t showing the world what I can do. It’s letting people see themselves through me and recognize that we all have the capacity to do the kinds of things we did, that I did on Alone. It’s just most people don’t practice that. And so what I want to do with my work is make everybody feel super capable. Inspire people, but then give them a place to go with that inspiration so that they learn the basic skills and ways to adjust their attitudes. Frankly, a lot of it, as we’ve said, is the mental game. And so I offer how do you, how do you work on your mental game? How do you feel more connected to the world around you so you feel more whole and capable every day of your life? Not. Just if you happen to be dropped into the wilderness to survive.
Paul Scheer [01:29:14] I love this. The book is written, I think in the, it feels like we are we’re alongside you as you talk about this journey. And this is a book that primarily focuses on season six of Alone. And this is it’s just you. I think when you read it, you feel like you’re, you feel like you’re there.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:29:34] You also have a YouTube channel as well that I’ve that I’ve watched quite a bit of where you will go through the the subsequent seasons of Alone. I feel like you’ve done commentaries on the episodes from seasons at least seven and eight that I saw, I think as well. You know.
Woniya Thibeault [01:29:52] I’ve actually only done Seasons six, nine and Frozen.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:29:56] Oh, is that it? Oh, okay. Okay, okay. So then it was that that I watched. Sorry. No, but I feel like that’s really interesting as well to watch you, you know, to watch you talk about seasons and and and the show that you’re not on, you know what I mean? And to watch, to hear you talk about it is really interesting and to have your opinion on it. And then obviously to hear you talk about your own experiences is incredible. But also to hear you talk about the the episodes that are coming out as they’re going, I will always watch your your kind of reaction episodes because I want that that that insight you have like true, incredible insight into this process and what it is and and what the people are dealing with. And that’s really interesting.
Woniya Thibeault [01:30:44] Thank you. Yeah, I agree. I think that a lot of people comment on Alone. Why didn’t they do this? Why shouldn’t they have done that? And I say things like they probably did, but they weren’t successful so it didn’t make the cut or that’s a choice that I would really question or, you know, all of the things that you don’t know when you’ve watched the show, but you don’t actually know the reality of being out there. That’s what I’m trying to give. And same same with the book and why I wrote it in first person present tense to bring people along. The whole idea is to share the experience as deeply as possible so that people understand the depth of it, not just the few little things that they’re seeing on television, because there’s really no way to get across some of the deeper journey of truly reaching the edge of your physical capacity, looking death in the face. That is a completely transcendent experience, that there’s no way it’s going to come across by watching a 40 minute episode split by commercials from your couch with a bowl of popcorn on your lap.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:31:49] Yeah, Yeah, and trying to figure out like, and everybody I know, at least for me at home, I’m like, Well, I would have done this and I would have done that. And bah bah bah bah bah bah. And in reality, I mean, if I tried to do any of this, I could, you know, I could last maybe three days tops.
Woniya Thibeault [01:32:09] You could do more than three days. And I’d give you at least a week minimum.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:32:13] I’ll take it.
Paul Scheer [01:32:15] Jason probably is more prepared than most because you are, you get in, you get you’ve not been out there, but you’ve seen, you’re in it.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:32:23] IIt is embarrassing how much stuff like this I watch has convinced me that I could do stuff. In my mind, in my mind I could build a shelter. I could. Yeah, I’ve. I’m like, oh, I could absolutely catch and skin and dress a rabbit or something like that in it. But let me be clear. No, absolutely no way I could in practicality do that.
Woniya Thibeault [01:32:53] We should go out to the woods together sometime.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:32:56] We’ll do celebrity Alone. They drop. It’s you and me are a team and they can pair Paul up with somebody else. And that’ll be what it is.
Woniya Thibeault [01:33:06] I’m actually talking to some people. I’m not going to lie to you. This can be impossible.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:33:11] Yes, I’ve thought about this a lot. And I am 100% in.
Paul Scheer [01:33:15] You want Jason on your team, he’s going to be a good ally. I’m so excited that we had you here. June 13th is when the book comes out it is called Never Alone: A Solo Arctic Survival Journey. Thank you so much for being here. This has been absolutely amazing. You are the best and I’m so glad that we got to do this.
Woniya Thibeault [01:33:32] Oh, you guys ask great questions. This was awesome.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:33:36] Oh, I’m so glad. Is there anything that we didn’t ask that you would like us? Is there anything that you didn’t get a chance to get out there or or anything that you’d like us to make sure to plug or anything like that?
Woniya Thibeault [01:33:47] Yeah, I just really encourage folks, if they are interested in learning more about what I do and dipping their toes in it themselves. Whether you live in a skyscraper in New York City or deep in the woods in your own bunker in Montana, there are skills that will help you live wilder, more abundant, more fulfilling life. And my passion in the world is helping you find that.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:34:09] Wow. Incredible.
Paul Scheer [01:34:11] I love it. This is so great. Thank you so much.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:34:13] This was really just fantastic. Thank you so much.
Woniya Thibeault [01:34:15] Yeah. My pleasure. Yeah. Thank you, guys.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:34:18] Okay, We did it. Boom. That was the interview. Pretty good, right? I really enjoyed that. Listening to the whole thing again as I just did. If you are interested in Woniya’s book, Never Alone: A Solo Arctic Survival Journey, it is out now. Right? Is it out now? Is this episode coming out after June 13th?
Scott Sonne [01:34:39] No it’ll be out the following.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:34:41] Keep this in. Okay. So it’s not out now. I lied. It comes out June 13th. You can preorder it now at BuckskinRevolution.com. And follow her on Instagram and YouTube @BuckskinRevolution. Now that we’re done talking about Fast X, although let’s be honest will we ever be done talking about Fast X? Of course not.
Alex Gonzales [01:34:58] Never.
Molly Reynolds [01:34:58] Never.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:34:59] We’re going to be talking about it forever. But what we are going to talk about right now is next week’s movie. So next week, we are going to talk about that 1994 Melanie Griffith, Ed Harris movie Milk Money. We have already recorded this episode. We did it at Largo a couple of weeks ago. I had never heard of this movie Milk Money. Had you guys? Had anyone seen this movie prior to the show?
Scott Sonne [01:35:23] Never heard.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:35:25] Wild, absolutely wild stuff in this movie. I cannot recommend it enough. And to connect to this week’s Matinee Monday, Casey Wilson came and joined us for our discussion of Milk Money, who appeared on the Drop Dead Fred episode that I just mentioned is about to come out again. So it’s a Casey Wilson week. Check it out. It was a it was a blast when we did it at Largo. I’m assuming it’s going to be a blast to listen to. So check it out And we will be back here again a week later to hear all your thoughts and your your nonsense, Dr. Guts. Here’s a short breakdown of the plot. Do I really have to give a breakdown of the plot of Milk Money? All right, here we go. Get ready. Someone else wrote this, but I’m going to read it. “Three, 12 year old boys.” Get ready, everybody. “Three, 12 year old boys travel into the city in hopes of paying a woman $100 to see her naked.” Guys, that is the inciting incident of the movie. “There the boys meet a sex worker named Vee, played by Melanie Griffith, who returns with them to the suburbs to live with one of the boys and his awkward single father.” Okay, that is kind of what happens in the movie, but that barely scratches the surface of what is straight bananas about this movie. This movie’s got a little bit of Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild. It’s a little bit of Martin Scorsese’s After Hours. There’s a real, there’s a lot of nuts stuff in here. I really enjoyed it. I had a great time doing the episode, so check it out. Rotten Tomatoes apparently gives it a 12% on their tomato meter. But let’s, I don’t even need to give them and we don’t need to rely on rotten tomatoes. One of the reviews, though, from the Austin Chronicle says, quote, “Sour is not the word for it. The milk obtained from this money is positively rancid.” Okay. Wow. Marjorie Baumgarten from the Austin Chronicle absolutely savaged the movie Milk Money. Oh, and while we’re here, Tech Q 14, if you don’t mind, is the Milk Money trailer.
Trailer Audio [01:37:34] Paramount Pictures Presents. Look, it’s a girl. Unexpected. What do you say? Thank you. Unconventional. She’s funny. She watches cartoons and she likes ice cream. And she likes you, dad. Uninhibited feelings. Why do I have to take off my pants? Because men are better listeners when they’re not wearing pants. Okay. In a story about unconditional love. Melanie Griffith. Ed Harris. Milk Money. Rated PG 13.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:38:01] Okay. Wow. That was crazy. You can stream Milk Money for free on Hoopla. Oh, boy. Is that really one or did we make that up? Is that a fake one?
Scott Sonne [01:38:08] It’s a free streaming service offered by many public libraries.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:38:12] Oh, nice. Oh, I thought that was.
Scott Sonne [01:38:15] There’s kanopy and hoopla.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:38:17] Oh, I didn’t know there was a second one. Okay, great. Oh, awesome. So you can watch it for free on Hoopla, which is a free streaming service offered by many public libraries. Which was the next line you just told me. I could have kept reading and found out that for myself. Or you can rent it on Apple TV, prime video, YouTube, Google Play, etc.. It’s all it’s it’s out there. Okay, So we’re almost at the end of this episode. But before we go, check out this bonus scene from our Fast X show where we discuss the scene where Brie Larson meets Vin in the Italian bar. Ooh, this is a good one. Take a listen.
Paul Scheer [01:38:46] But she goes to that club and I guess like one of the prerequisites to hang out in that Italian club is you got, like, beat the shit out of everybody. Which, you know, Vin Diesel did not do because he’s never had a fight in his life, but I guess he had no casualties. So they respect him for that.
Seth Rogen [01:39:01] Not what I like, ascribe to an Italian club. Yeah. It’s like, you know, Italians. It’s like they’d be like, a pretty girl comes into an Italian bar, they’re not trying to kick her ass. She’s being treated very nicely.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:39:16] Also, the guy, she’s like, I’m looking for someone. She puts money on the bar. She starts fighting everybody. And then the bartender hands her a shotgun.
Seth Rogen [01:39:24] Why did that happened?
Jason Mantzoukas [01:39:26] I’m on your side. Is she tied into the Naples. What?
Seth Rogen [01:39:32] I’m like, I’m straight up missing something here.
Evan Goldberg [01:39:35] Well, the only thing I didn’t get is Scott Eastwood, a.k.a. Little Nobody was the same roles. Like, they both are people who work for the agency who help them.
Paul Scheer [01:39:43] Like, well, also their dad, their dad is Kurt Russell. And they both work.
Seth Rogen [01:39:47] Are they siblings?
Evan Goldberg [01:39:49] No, no, no, no. Russell is his mentor, and her dad.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:39:55] Kurt Russel’s daughter. But yeah, Scott Eastwood is just.
Evan Goldberg [01:39:57] Are they going to get married in the next one?
Jason Mantzoukas [01:39:59] Oh, boy.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:40:00] Okay, so that’s it for the show. I am going to shout out a few things that I want people to watch or check out. And I also have a request. I think I’ve spoken on this podcast a bunch of times about my love for the British TV series on Peacock called We Are Lady Parts. The writer director of that show has a new movie out. Nita Manzoor is her name and the movie is called Polite Society. Here we are talking about fast x. And, you know, Paul and I spend so much time talking about Marvel and DC and Star Wars and all these mega Titanic IP things where we live in a world of gigantic IP based movies. So I want to spend a brief moment highlighting a smaller movie that needs attention that I just thought was absolutely dynamite. I don’t want to give too much away. But if you liked We are lady Parts, you’ll love polite society. It’s about two two sisters, one of whom wants to be an artist, one of whom wants to be a stunt woman in a disapproving, their family’s disapproving and what’s going on in their lives. And it’s just a very funny, very sweet, very heartfelt, incredibly wonderful movie that deserves everybody’s attention. I know, I shouted out Rye Lane a few weeks ago. This is another small British, in this case, a coming of age, not a romcom, a coming of age story that I think is absolutely fantastic that everybody should check out. It’s called Polite Society. Please rent it. I think it’s rentable. Give them your money. Support them. It’s it’s, these are the movies that need our support. We don’t need to be putting billions of dollars into the pockets of gigantic tech companies. Let’s support smaller filmmakers. Come on, Polite Society. Let’s do it. Go. Also, Primo on freevie shouts to Jason Concepcion, who’s a writer on this show. I think this show is hilarious and another sweet coming of age story. It’s on free freevie. It’s fantastic. You’re going to have to watch ads, but it’s a terrific show. The whole season’s up now and it’s dynamite. Primo, watch it now. I have a request. I also just watched the Karen Dalton documentary, I think it’s called In My Own Time, Incredible documentary about the folk musician Karen Dalton that I absolutely loved. There is a documentary about another singer songwriter that I love, Judy Sil, and I can’t find this documentary anywhere. So can somebody figure out how and where I can watch the movie that’s about the documentary that’s about Judy Sil. Okay, that’s it. I’m putting it out there. I feel like one of you nerds is going to be like, Oh, here, it’s here. It lives on this thing. Maybe it’s on hoopla. I don’t know. But I want to, I want to watch that movie, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. So that’s my whole deal. But watch Polite Society, check out Primo. That’s the stuff. Okay. That’s it for the show. Rate and review. I know it’s crazy. Everybody says it, but it helps. So just do it. Just don’t be assholes about it. Just rate and review. And if you listen on Apple Podcasts, make sure you are following us. Visit us on social media @HDTGM. Okay, if you want to listen. How Did This Get Made without commercials, our entire archive is up at Stitcher Premium for a free one month trial use the word BONKERS. Okay. Use the word bonkers and you’re going to get a month and you can have access to everything. Big thanks to our producers, Scott Sonne, Molly Reynolds, Avril Halley, who helps us pick out our movies. Incredible work, as always. Our engineer, Alex Gonzalez. Alex coming in a clutch clutch, helping me with all my tech problems. Our publisher, July Diaz, Jess Cisneros, who makes our amazing social media videos. And I think that’s it. Thank you guys for helping me through this event of an episode.
Alex Gonzales [01:43:56] It’s like a Largo show. This is how long they are as well.
Molly Reynolds [01:43:59] Yeah, I feel like I need a cigarette. That was long.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:44:03] This was long. This was. This was too long, in fact. But I’m committed to cutting nothing out of it.
Scott Sonne [01:44:10] This is just it’s going to air unfiltered and raw. Uploading it right now.
Jason Mantzoukas [01:44:13] Yeah. That’s how we do it. We do it raw. Okay, everybody, we’ll see you next week for Milk Money. Eat shit.
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