There’s a reason the History Channel has produced hundreds of documentaries about Hitler but only a few about Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bad guys (and gals) are eternally fascinating. Behind the Bastards dives in past the Cliffs Notes of the worst humans in history and exposes the bizarre realities of their lives. Listeners will learn about the young adult novels that helped Hitler form his monstrous ideology, the founder of Blackwater’s insane quest to build his own Air Force, the bizarre lives of the sons and daughters of dictators and Saddam Hussein’s side career as a trashy romance novelist.
Tue, 05 Apr 2022 10:00
Robert sits down with David Bell to talk about some fucked up shit that happened in reality shows because, damn, that Kissinger series was hard.
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Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried True crime, and if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams, let's break or handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Wanna say I don't know less? Listen to stuff you should know more. Join host Josh and Chuck on the podcast packed with fascinating discussions about science, history, pop culture and more episodes. Dive into topics like was the lost, city of Atlantis Real? And how does pizza work? Say goodbye to I don't know. Because after listening to stuff you should know you will listen to stuff you should know on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, it's Ebony Monet, your co-host for the San Diego Zoo's Amazing Wildlife podcast. In this special episode, we're speaking with Doctor Jane Goodall about the fascinating journey that led to her impactful behavioral discoveries on chimpanzees. It wasn't until one of the chimpanzees began to lose his fear of me, but I began to really make discoveries that actually shook the scientific world. Listen to amazing wildlife on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Ohh, welcome to behind the ******** the only podcast with the personality of a staph infection. No, no, no. That's just me, Robert. Yeah, we're we're we're reading A1 star review from iTunes. You're just an annoying lip smacker. Who needs to do better? I mean, look who for one thing, is it bad? Is a staph infection bad? There's upsides to staph infections. You get true time off of work. Photographs. You have to, if you die, deal with a lot less ******** on Twitter, you know? So again, staff and infections are a really mixed bag. There's positive sides. It's honestly, it's so ******* funny. And I have no idea what it means that I'm like, not even mad. Like it's extreme. It's yeah, it's clever. It's fun to get roasted like that where you're like, I yeah, that's really very funny. You're like, I'm not quite sure what you mean, but you're you're not wrong, right? It flows. It's like the words flow. And it's just it's like, yeah. I like a good it's like, it's like when you, well, I'm getting into dangerous territory here, but when you read people being, like, super ****** on some level from, like 150 years ago and it's like, well, this is sexist or racist, but man, people could put together sentences back then, like, that's not a that's not a bad sentence, you know? Like, it's it's horrible, but it's not a bad sentence, right? People used to that, yeah. These shitposts swear a lot more. People put a lot more. Work into their shitposts. Yeah, it's like HP Lovecraft racism. Well, it's like, well, this is terrible. But man, quite, quite, quite quite a phrase. Wow. Create an entire lore around your races. Exactly that's that's so much more effort than people put into it these days. David Bell. That's me. That's you. You know. You know. You know, Dave, you know. You know. You know. I don't know. You know. You know, Dave. OK. You know, I think I know. I think Dave is going to love this topic. I hope he does. I hope he loves it. And I hope you hate it. Sophie. OK. I'm. I'm just. I'm just an *******. I'm a bad person. Just biting the hand. That stops me from committing a series of crimes that get us erased and arrested in our podcast shutdown. Dave, hi. How do you feel about reality TV? Ohh. OK, mixed feelings. I don't. Yeah. Yeah, that's the right way to feel. Yeah. I I don't watch. Mostly. I don't find it interesting, but I don't have anything against it. Unless something horrible was done behind the scenes, you know? Yeah. It's like if if everybody if there's consent and everybody's cool, then we're we're good. We're good. Do like I do like the occasional, like British Bake Off. But I wouldn't consider the charity TV. Some might. I mean, it is, it is. It's unscripted. But am I right in saying that reality TV does have the personality of a staph infection? Yes, yes, it does. Yes. Where it's where it's gross and infectious. But also you might get to take some time off of work, which is great. Enjoy it. Yeah. So, you know, I'm not going to do this thing. This is gonna be kind of a loosey Goosey episode. We're doing this right after the Kissinger episodes. Everybody's tired. I'm not going to be one of these smarmy fox who's just, like, ******** on the concept of reality TV to seem smart, right? Reality TV is, broadly speaking, it's junk food. You know, it is not good for you. But that said, I do **** load of things that are bad for me and I would also find that it's not new. Like game shows have always existed and there's always entertainment, junk food like that ******* piece of trash. Mozart, right? Like, he's ****. Everyone knows he's ****. But like, people like to enjoy **** and that's fine. I like The Bloodhound Gang, you know, like, we're not nobody. Nobody in this show is gonna be like, again, there's nothing bad. Or like, you're not dumb because some of the smartest people I know, like, turn off from like getting their PhD or whatever and like watch, you know, a Bake Off show or like Big Brother or some ****. It's fine. Listen, we're we're done here. I will be going online and ordering the the. 4K release of Moonfall I will be doing that and I will watch the special features and Dave, you've watched **** with me. One of my favorite things to put on is people hurting themselves horribly while skiing or base jumping. Yeah, and I have. I have since expanded to wingsuit crashes, some of which the people die in some there's some gnarly wingsuit crash videos if you look. That's the old pink mist. Ohh yeah baby yeah. Have you looked into parkour accident? Parkour accidents are great. If you really want to be harrowed, just type gun fails into YouTube. There's some **** in there. Oh my God, there's this video, LiveLeak, and just Google and like type in gun sales. There's some nasty. There's a dude who like put a bunch of Tannerite, which is this explosive, you shoot it and it blows up on a ******* lawn mower and shot it at close range and the blade cut his leg off. Of course, she so again, I'm saying this all not to celebrate my own crapulence, but like, we all like some stuff that's the entertainment element of, like, junk food, right? So this isn't an episode about, like, trying. I'm not trying to make the case that, like, reality TV is bad and you should feel bad for watching it. This is about the most ****** ** things that have ever happened within the broad umbrella of reality or what you might call unscripted content. There's not a particular thesis here. I just spent a lot of time reading about the worst things that have happened in reality TV and I decided to do a podcast. None of you can stop me, so deal with it. We'll probably do another episode in the future with more of these stories. This is exciting. Yeah. Before we start, I want to share my very favorite reality television story. And this is a. A story about a reality TV show I enjoyed. So when I was in Iraq, this is like the 2nd or the 3rd might have been the 4th time. I forget exactly which time it was, but we're like, you know, when you're hanging out in a place like that, we're like going to refugee camps and like frontline positions. And in order to get to both, you have to spend time and like a bunch of random living rooms because that's where everyone's like posted up leaders of these camps, these like different generals and ****. They're all like hanging out in houses. And so while you're waiting to get approval to go places you just like sitting and like usually an air conditioned living room with the TV. On a bunch of like, guys with their guns and phones out and ****. And one of the times we were out there, this the same reality show kept going on. It came on in like two or three different places. And I don't know what the name of the show is. I have not. Brief Googling has not informed me of it, but the premise was that there was this host who would, like, take a rich guy out to the desert like he would they be like driving a caravan and there would be a contrived accident. And like one of the cases I remember, this guy's like in a little motorcade and they get stuck in quicksand and his vehicle sinks and he has to. Get out and he's like on top of the vehicle. And while that's happening, the host dressed as a Komodo dragon comes out and attacks them. Holy ****. Just ******* insane. Like, I I don't know what was super like. Like, I'm sure there's elements of this that I was not grasping because there were no subtitles and I do not speak Arabic, but it was it was some of the wildest **** I've watched on TV. It was so good. I don't know what's scarier, being attacked by a Comodo dragon or a man dressed like 1. Because they're both very pretty good costume. Yeah. Oh my God, it sounds like it's like Survivor man or man versus wild. I know what the point was supposed to be because they and all of them people just, like, react the way you would if you saw Comodo Dragon, right? Just like, Oh dear *** ****. Like where we America can't talk, but we're like assimilated to our weirdness. But it's kind of the same as when you watch, like, the Japanese pranks shows. Yeah, the silent library. Where it's like that you have to be quiet in a library and they just, like, do ****** ** **** to you and if you make a noise, you lose. And and it's like that, actually. I think got an American adaptation, but like, it's that extra context of not understanding the language or the extra layer that's like, makes it so perfect and bizarre. Yeah, man, I want to watch that so bad. I love that ****. Yeah, I someone will find it now that we've talked about it. And we'll find the clips. Please do. I would love to watch it. Again, please. Anyway, Dave. On January 11th, 1973, PBS began to air the first of 12 hour long episodes of an American family, a television documentary about the Louds an actual family, and this is probably the very first reality show in history now. The Louds were upper middle class and lived in Santa Barbara, and over 300 hours of raw footage of them was shot between May 30th and December 31st, 1971. The initial intent was just to kind of chronicle their daily lives. But during filming, the relationship between spouses Bill and Pat Loud broke down, and the show ends with both parents divorcing. Cameras actually caught Pat asking for a divorce. On camera. She tells Bill, you know there's a problem and he responds, what's your problem? This was picked by TV Guide as one of the top 100 TV moments of all time. And in some ways, viewers have never moved on from the concept of watching unscripted life moments from rich people in California. Right. Like this. This is broadly speaking still the end of reality TV. What do you do you think, and I don't know the answer to this, what they have had that divorce if they weren't on camera, who knows? I I have not watched the 12 hours of the louds you know the double slit theory of like when observed will they divorce like help, right. It can't help. It probably gives people just a more sense of like. Want drama in my life? I'm yeah. I'm being videotaped all the time. Mm-hmm. So, like, you start, like, thinking of your life like a TV show, I imagine. Yeah. It doesn't seem like it could, like, make it easier for a trouble within a Mary, a marriage to get solved. But that said, I don't know anything about this particular couple. But it's worth noting that, like, reality TV does not start far from where it is now, right? Like the yeah, this is this is still the heart of the of the genre, so an American family is hugely successful, and it immediately spawns an imitation by the BBC called just the family. Now an American families particularly notable notable because the loud family's oldest son Lance was probably the world's first openly gay TV star like he's open about being gay in the show in like 1973 which is pretty groundbreaking for the time and he he dies during the AIDS epidemic which is you know there's a whole is an interesting person whose life to study right this this show and he like there's nothing particularly problematic here. It's just an interesting piece of history. I mean it's it's your typical. Reality TV coming from PBS and BBC, as we all know. Yeah, classic, yeah, classic reality TV stations. So in the years that followed, the series went through the normal life cycle of a successful show. There's a handful of parodies, right, like a bunch of different, like, sketch shows do parodies of an American family. There's like jokes and sitcoms of the day about moments that have happened in the show. And then ten years after it airs, there's an attempted reboot. That doesn't do very well, right? Nothing at all. Weird here. This is like, more or less what happens with every successful show. Sure, most folks probably figured that was kind of it for the genre, which had yet to be named. People didn't talk about reality TV as a thing. There's just this one weird show that had existed. But a few perceptive individuals at the time recognize that something special was afoot. Anthropologist Margaret Mead published an essay in TV Guide The New Yorker writes quote. Her contribution, which wasn't mentioned on the cover, appeared in the back of the magazine after the listings, tucked between an advertisement for Virginia. Limbs and a profile of Shelley Winters, Bill and Pat loud and their five children and either actors nor public figures, Mead wrote. Rather, they were the people they portrayed on television, members of a real family. Producers compressed seven months of tedium and turmoil into 12/1 hour segments which constituted in meadview a new kind of art form, an innovation as significant as the invention of drama or the novel. And I think that's true no matter how you like reality TV. Like, of course, it's hit that point of cultural relevance already. It's had that impact. We, we have the Trump presidency because of reality TV, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The biggest shame about reality TV is when it's staged, right? Like, yeah, it's the same opinion documentary. We'll get into that. But yeah, but I think that is interesting. They're just looking at it as like, it's like the birth of the novel, you know? Yeah. It will be with us for a long time. Oh yeah, forever. It it'll it'll be so broad that I think it's like any genre where it sort of mixes with other genres, you know? Yeah, you could argue that just what we're doing, like Tik T.O.K and like the the the youtubes and so on are offshoots of reality TV because we're following people's lives. People are kind of filming genuine moments, stage moments. It's all, it's all part of the same thing. Yeah. And, you know, it's like with them and like with novels, there's this, you know, there's horrible things you can tie to novels. You know, Hitler was very influenced by the novels of Karl May. Right. We we, yeah. Yeah. We probably don't have Hitler. You're novels cost hit there. We probably don't have the Bosnian genocide without the Pelican brief, obviously, right. You know, but also there's good things that novels have brought us too. Probably 1-1 assumes good things. I don't read books, you know? Right. But I do watch Jack Ryan movies. I do watch Jack Ryan movies, which have influenced my life in a number of ways. Yeah. And I've been told there's started as some sort of book. Yeah. The Jack Reacher series really helped me make peace with the fact that I'm incredibly jacked. You know, there's a lot of people. It's really hard to be, like a checked white dude. Exactly. Exactly. Finally, representation. Exactly. It's it's wonderful. Yeah, there's just like the yeah. Anyway, whatever the that this bits gone on long enough so yes, it has. So it's interesting then that it takes like Margaret means right about the how influential this art medium is going to be. And it's interesting that it takes like 20 years from the first reality TV show before it turns into anything. Like we have this idea for a long time before people figure out what to do with it that, I mean, that happened sort of with found footage as well because there were like there was some found footage films and then we kind of went quiet and then the Blair Witch project brought it back. Yeah, finally. Which is, again, one of one of the great works of humanitarian, right? Yeah. The Blair Witch project, without which, I don't know, we wouldn't have make a genocide joke before me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We would have the VHS movies which have solved world hunger. Sure, yeah, we'll go with that. So the first show to take reality TV forward was the real world, which debuted an MTV in 1992. Rather than watching a family live their life and risk the chance that it might be boring, MTV decided to throw a bunch of young adults in a house. And film, what happened? The show was successful, but it also was not like the kind of successful that on its own was going to spawn a world like changing industry. You know? You know, the real world is kind of a proof of concept, but it's not as influential as some later things are going to be. The key to transmuting these particular, these peculiar documentary style shows into the thing that devoured television happened to be held in the head of a Fox executive named Mike Darnell prior to 2000. Mike's background. Have been producing shows like when animals Attack, World's scariest police chases and a variety of other premises now met by random weirdos on YouTube. Right. Like, all this shows he gets started with are like the things I watch on random Youtubers. Collect. Yeah, that's. Oh yeah. I remember America's funniest home videos where it's like, that's YouTube. Yeah. That's the only way you can watch people getting hit in the balls. And it's like, we want that. I I would argue reality TV is better than like, when animals attack because that. Yeah. Like. That was just YouTube. But it was YouTube done in this, like really serious tone. Yeah. I don't know if you like. I I actually would see, you could see people like attack videos on when animals attack, would get reused on like world's funniest animals and they would just cover it in a different tone and like, not mention the injuries, you know? Like because they just it didn't matter. It was just it was so schlocky. At least reality TV had like I don't know people involved a little more drama. Yeah. And I I think like cause also I always felt gross about like America's funniest like a lot of these different videos shows less America, but like a lot of them would have like narration that was like generally kind of mean spirited towards the people. And I think it's much better to just have context free loops of videos of people hurting themselves. That's that's fine. And it was a whole industry that, yeah, YouTube. Pretty much killed. It's it's it is kind of funny the degree to which that used to be the dominant thing on TV, and now it's just random dudes. I one of my favorite Youtubers is the car crash channel, which is just compilations of car accidents, right? Yeah, what else? Like, you don't need a commentary? No, I don't need, I don't need a word from anybody. You just get in bed, put on the car crashes, and go to sleep and go to sleep to the car crashes. I love sleeping to train crashes. There's nothing as soothing as watching a train hit a box truck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just goes ****. Yeah, just yeah, just like your dreams just sends you right, right into the land of dreams. Deeply soothing. So Darnell is also the mind behind a 2 hour special. So you know, this is how he gets to start doing these, like when animals attack. But then near the end of the 1990s he has an idea for a 2 hour TV special with the title who wants to marry a multi millionaire? So this is going to be the show that births all of modern reality TV. Really. It airs on Fox on February 15th, 2000. In her book Reality Bites Back, Jennifer Posner describes it this way. This special, which predated the game changing survivor, was a hybrid of Miss America and a mail order bride parade with executive producer Mike Fleiss of next Entertainment. Darnell brought 50 brides to be to Las Vegas to be auctioned off to a complete stranger. They sashayed in swimsuits. Entered nervously and answered pageant style questions to assess their moral fortitude and sexual prowess in 30 seconds or less. Groom Rick Rockwell was hidden as he and the audience determined who deserved the biggest prize of all, a brand new multi millionaire husband nurse and future Playboy centerfold Darva Conger. Rockwell's eventual choice got her first glimpse of her fiance moments before they were legally wed on air. Nearly 23 million viewers tuned in. It's funny how when read that academically. It really is horrifying. It's a nightmare, right. Like, that's that's like a like an auctioning human beings off to a rich man. Yeah. It's pretty bad. Yeah. It's one of those where he's like, yeah, you had to, you had to be there, I guess. So I think if you were there a lot of people out there, but no. But it was hugely successful. Fine there, too. Yeah, but they were part of. They were watched it. Yeah. Reality TV created, I think, more than most things. They hate watch. Right? Yes. Oh, God, yes. Yes. So the series got a 28 share, which is basically is a big hit in terms people don't use as much anymore to talk about success because in streaming has kind of like, who gives a **** about those old terms? But anyway, it's a big hit. Mike Darnell declared it the best show ever, or Chris Darnell. I think it was Chris. ****. How many darnells we got here? What's Mike? No, it is. I think they're both mics. I think both mics, I think they're mics, they're TV executives at all checks out. Mike Fleiss, who's the producer, later bragged Mike and I knew that the National Organization for Women would hate us, that this would be the most controversial show ever. We thought it was all good, but it got so hot, so crazy red hot. They said it was the most talked about show since roots. It was the lead sketch on Saturday Night Live. Also, since it's maybe your reality show that involves auctioning human beings shouldn't be compared to roots, yeah, no, you might, you might not wanna be drawing attention to that, buddy. Yeah. No, this this also begins this problem, which is the it's it's kind of resonates all the way to the Internet, obviously, which is like, ooh, they're talking about us and it's like, yeah, that doesn't, you know, that's not a good measurement of whether or not something is good or not. I mean, it is for their purposes because it's a measurement of whether or not something can be worth money to advertisers, which is all that matters now, right? Hmm. Speaking of advertisers, Dave, Ohh no, you know what? We can say whatever we want on this show because it gets advertisers. So I can say, for example, Dave, that has an island off the coast of Indonesia where you can make grab a crude weapon spear, you know, a club, you know, like you'd use on a seal, a rock, and you can hunt children in the open. Preserves that they keep on this island and they'll get cooked for you. You don't have to cook the child brisket yourself. Takes care of that. I know, right? It's the opposite, actually. How normally works. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. But that's that's kind of the the appeal there. That's the appeal. Right. Normally sends you the ingredients and you cook it on the child hunting island, you provide the ingredients and cooks the food. Right. Because that's the most fun part of that process of the child hunting process. Right. How much does it cost? What does it go for? Oh, I mean. You know you you have to donate a significant amount to Coke Industries, but but really Dave, can you put a price on hunting children on an island off the coast of Indonesia? I mean, no, but also yes, if you're right, like, well, yes, they they do, they do, they do. But if you sign up for their meal box plan, you'll be entered into a raffle to win a spot on the next yacht over to the child Hunting Island, which is worth quite a bit. So here's, here's our sponsors. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. There's no luring you in with free subscriptions or streaming services that you'll forget to cancel and then be charged full price for none of that. For anyone who hates their phone Bill, Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for just $15.00 a month. Mint Mobile will give you the best rate whether you're buying. Or for a family. And it meant family start at 2 lines. All plans come with unlimited talk and text, plus high speed data delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. 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I always tell people I am so not tech. Took me 5 minutes to get comfortable with spreaker, and when I find a new friend that has an incredible show, I want them to make money. I want them to be able to do what I did. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's break our handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Get paid to talk about the things you love with spreaker. From iheart. Ah, we're back, we're back and we're talking about. The only mattress made entirely. With linen stolen from the graves of dead Egyptian peasants, that's right. Is named because the ghost of dead Egyptian peasants lingers inside each mattress. You know, that's the guarantee. Yeah. I mean, what are they doing with all that linen? Nothing there. Nothing dead. Tons of wasted linen. Yeah, that sounds super sustainable. Yeah. Good environment. Exactly. There's so much carbon wasted by getting linen that doesn't come from Egyptian peasants who were buried in lost desert cities. Steals those corpses and passes the carbon savings on to you. Yeah, it's it's yeah, it's convenient. It's good for the environment. It's great for the environment. Yeah, and it's affordable. Is there a promo code? Can we make it even more affordable? Promo code. ********. And they'll throw in a free ounce of mummy dust, which, if I if my 1890s medical textbooks are anything to go by, is useful in a variety of ailments. Yeah, you can at least snort it. And you got the grip. You've got the the shallots, the shingles. It'll cure them all. Mummy dust. Yep. Sprinkle it on your Mac and cheese. It's delicious. Yeah, that was like 3 1/2 minutes of how we do it. You happy, Sophie? I did. You give what you wanted. I said that ***** get a gold, so you made a worse one. Yeah, it's great. That's that's that's that's what I've been doing since the bit. Sophie. I missed the bit. Well, too bad. So. You probably won't be surprised to learn, Dave, that a show that was premised on basically taking the idea of an arranged marriage and making it television would turn out to have been unethical in some way, right? Yeah, so they do this whole competition, right? Some lady wins this marriage to this ******* multimillionaire Rockwell, but they never consummate their marriage, and for a very good reason. The woman conjure has it annulled because she learns that Rockwell has a long history of violence against women. So you know, good call on on her part. Yeah, it comes out like right as the show comes out that his former girlfriend had filed a restraining order against him for vandalizing her car, breaking into her home, and repeatedly physically assaulting her. Good God, she stated. He said he would find me and kill me. Also, Rockwell's not a multi millionaire, but that's hardly seems like the primary issue here. Who would have thought that a guy who goes on a TV show to look to to like? Essentially, by a woman from an auction. Yeah. Would be a liar and a violent abuser who would have thought. Guess who would guess back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So his his former girl. Yeah. So all this hits the press right after the show comes out. And it's a big problem for Fox because, again, this is 2000, so there was just a little bit of shame left in the world. This was back when we cared. It was, it was like the reservoirs in Southern California. There was still this, like, tiny layer of water. It's not going to be there in a couple of years, you know, just like the water in Southern California. But it was still a little bit there now. Yeah, you could kind of see the boats that didn't really have enough water, but there was at least something, you know, right. Yeah. You could pretend like, oh, this is just a try, try in the rain will come back. It'll be alright. Yeah, it'll be fine. So there's a little bit of shame and it causes a problem for Fox, Darnell tells a reporter. This is the worst day of my life. What a great guy. He gets excoriated by media, who by the way, like all of these journalists yelling at them were a lot of the same people who had been like raving over how groundbreaking the show was and who would, who would go on to celebrate other horrible reality things. So whatever. But in private, like he, he pretends that this is a horrible day for him. In public, in private, he is ecstatic. Fly Slater recalled that his first reaction was, quote, great more publicity. Mike said. We got to get out in front of this. I'm like, absolutely ****. It's a restraining order. Let's get an interview with the girl. We'll put it on as part of the as part of the special. We had a whole plan because that's the way we like it, because that's the way we like it. What an amazing kind of dude. I love it because we had it all as a plan because and then something is the shame center of his brain, like, kicked in and like like, turned it into because that's the way we like it. Because that is just his ego protecting himself from something. He knows it. Like somewhere deep in you shouldn't do this. Yeah, he is a bad person. Yeah, when it when you become aware that on your show where women are auctioned off to the highest bidder, the guy buying the auction was a spousal abuser on a horrific kind of level of abuse and also lying about being rich, you should be like. Well, huh, maybe I should rethink some things about like, not just the show, but my life. You know, here's The thing is that I don't know much about how the biz works, that specifically the reality TV biz. But I imagine that when you're casting reality TV, you're looking for outrageous people who are willing to do whatever on camera. Yes, and I'm not saying they all are. I'm just saying that that type of person tends to have some personal problems. Yeah. Let's say a higher level. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Again, not all of them. Not all. Yeah. It's just that I can see why that would say, attract people who are problematic in a lot of ways. And so, yeah, it's I I imagine that's why you have several stories similar to this of reality TV where it's. Yeah, it comes out that these people have done something horrifying. And it's like, yeah, because you barely vetted them. They're they're not a professional performer. And you stuck them on TV and made him a star. Yeah. It's not the best thing to do. No. It's like, you know, Dave, I don't. I don't have a lot of shame, obviously. Like, I think we both chose entertainment as career. So we probably have a lower shame threshold than a lot of people. Yeah. But like, like, every now, like, on Twitter, I'll just, like, get see a tweet that I think is funny and I'll share it. And then someone will like, inevitably be like, oh, you know, this guy did this horrible thing and I'm like, well, no, I didn't. It was just a random person. Twitter. But then I thought about it for the rest of the day. It's incredible that this guy can be like, oh, we filmed the whole several hour long TV special with like a man who beat the **** out of his girlfriend and has a restraining order against him. Right. There's that. Yeah. Complete lack of shame. Yeah. It's amazing. I envy it. Yeah. Yeah. It would make some things easier, like getting access to a Lamborghini. That's why. Like, getting money, getting money. It makes that a lot easier. Yeah. And then you make YouTube videos about how telling people how to get money and you tell them to buy your book, which also will help them pick up women. That's another kind of guy without much shame. Yeah. Yeah. And also, this does lead to all that because the pickup. Artist culture is heavily related to reality TV show and that show with what was a mystery, what was it called? I assume it was mystery because that's that's one of them guys. Yeah, he got, he definitely was in a bunch of reality ****. So when this all blows up and there's this big backlash against who wants to marry a multi millionaire? Everyone kind of assumes that Darnell is going to get fired. Fox cancels the rebroadcast of the show, and they had been talking about turning it into a series because it was a huge hit and they declined to and they promised never. Fox promises to never be a part of any similar show in the future, which is extremely, extremely funny. Like, yeah, fox. Absolutely, yeah. Wow. So and it's worth noting that even while the heat is on other networks, as soon as Fox is like, well, I guess we weren't turning this into a show. Like, UPN offers to buy it. Like, of course other TV networks are like, well, we'll make it into a show. I don't give a ****. Yeah, I'm UPN. All we have is Voyager reruns right now. Right? Where you UPN? Please help us most. Most actually their motto at the time. Yeah, most of the people listening to this podcast right now are like, I don't know what UPN is. That's because this episode of our podcast will have more viewers than UPN got in its entire time on the air. Yeah, absolutely. But Mike Fleiss turns UPN down. He's like, no, I don't want to give this guy to you. And I got a better idea. So Fleiss who who had produced the show takes a variation of the pitch that he and Darnell had made to ABC. Now they cleaned it up a little for Middle America, right? And they relaunch who wants to be a multi millionaire with some changes as a new series called you're ever this Dave the Bachelor. Yeah baby, yeah, that's where that starts. Yep, yeah. And obviously the Bachelor is a lot less problematic, although not to look there, there's so much lore in all of these shows. I'm sure people will be like, no, there's like, yeah, of course, a bunch of ****** ** **** that happened, right? It's tough. I've never seen a single episode of the Bachelor. No, this is not about the bachelor, but it's funny where it comes from. Yeah, yeah. So Big Brother comes out later in 2000. It's after who wants to be a multi millionaire? And it's actually, this is interesting. Big Brother is an import of a Dutch show that's itself inspired by the real world, which is like this thing that increasingly. Like, up to this day is big. In reality, we're like some foreign country will make a show that's inspired by, like, these other shows. And then, like, we'll steal that idea and then that'll end like, I don't know, it's fine, right? I've noticed that, like, I assume it's all owned by the same people, but it seems like you just have to change, like, a few words. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's not. Honestly, there's not really a meaningful difference between, like, what they did with the office, you know? Like, that's not ****** **. It's just like the way art works. Like, right, I just foreigner painted this thing, like, all things like that. Square yeah. You can legally make a slightly different version of this and it's fine. Yeah. Yeah, and yeah, this is fine. I just bring it up because I find it interesting. Not because it's, like, bad that they imported the idea behind this Dutch show. Like, who gives a ****? So, yeah, the War on Terror starts not long after, you know, this, this whole period of time. And as it gets down to the business of just, like, ******* up a bunch of stuff, reality TV is becoming the biggest thing in U.S. media. The Bachelor is a Titanic hit. Basically, overnight it becomes ABC's top rated show among 18 to 49 year olds, otherwise known as the demographic with money. Well, yeah, that's what we knew it as in 2000, the cool the cool demographic that smoke cigarettes? Yeah, definitely. That was in 2000, especially smoking cigarettes. So despite the promises they've made in the wake of their disaster with Rockwell, Fox committed themselves to reality TV more than any other network, Jennifer Posner writes. By February 2003, Fox was devoting a whopping. 41% in ABC, 33% of their sweeps offerings to reality shows. These percentages increased over the years, limiting the number of quality comedies and dramas available to viewers and reducing opportunities for union represented actors, writers and crew. Instead of firing their previously shamed reality group Guru, Fox promoted Darnell to executive Vice president of alternative programming. So. They it's they they get to bust some unions and give a creeping a good job and that nice. Yeah that's that's the American dream right there. Good for them. It is nice that is, and we will not be getting into it enough. But that is a big part of like why reality is so popular with producers and stuff like high level producers is like, well you can get, you can get away from a lot of union **** with this. That is very true. You have people who work for a lot less and you can cut out the Writers Guild, you know. Yep. Yeah. Yeah is. Real bummer. Hmm. It's very fun. Umm, so with that August title behind him, Darnell helped to bring to life a number of the most noteworthy early reality shows. There was 2001 Temptation Island, in which real life couples were separated and tempted into adultery. Unbelievable premise, Joe Millionaire, in which a bunch of women dated a guy they thought was a millionaire only to realize he wasn't right, isn't the twist. At the end they give him $1,000,000. Get they get they split like it's either a million or half a million between him and the woman who agrees to go out with him after learning he's not rich. Like, if she agrees to still go out with him, then they both get money. I don't know what the moral is there. Yeah. I mean, there's no moral. It's Mike Darnell. This guy doesn't have more rights putting bugs in a jar. Yeah. And just seeing what happens. Yeah. It's just Megan, TV in 2004 is the swan. A bunch of women are given plastic surgery and other risky surgical procedures so they can compete in a beauty pageant. Ohh man, Mike Darnell, baby. He's a ******* he's the Chuck Barris of ******* reality TV is what I'm getting from this. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. He just sat there all day and he just came up with horrible things to do. Yeah, and killed for the government on the side. My favorite show he did was the short lived series Mr Personality in which a woman dates a bunch of men wearing masks that they can't take off until the show ends, so she has to pick the woman she wants to be with. Without saying, without a mask, they have one of those now too. They have like a blind date. But Dave, this one was hosted by Monica Lewinsky. Ohh. I mean, what we know better now. It's like, good for her. I am. Yeah. I'm. I'm not gonna condemn her for like, you gotta like, what other kind of for one thing, what other kind of jobs are open to you as Monica Lewinsky in the early 2000s, right. Not a lot of hiring opportunities after going through that ringer. So, yeah, get get what you can, Monica. Yeah. But it's it's incredible. It's like the opening to this show is extremely funny and we're just gonna play it now, please. Now we're indoors. Beau. Who will go? It's the season finale of Mr Personality. This season on Mr personality Haley Valentine, ARP, a 26 year old Sara career woman from Atlanta, was introduced to 20 eligible men, their faces covered by masks. Everybody looks wrong because he's touched my heart in a different kind of way. They look like men ranged from unemployed to make peacemaker masks. NFL welcome. Hold on, do yourself a favor. Look up the other Fox Show secrets of Magic revealed with the masked magician. I'm almost certain they just reused those masks. I'm not. I mean, I haven't looked in awhile, going by memory, but looks for people for people who aren't watching this, they look like servants at an eyes wide shut ****. They they all have the same masks. They all kind of look like MF Doom, but with a little bit of like, yeah, like the ******* skeletor from the masters of the Universe movie mixed in. I'm shocked that they all have something. It's so funny. Yeah, here's more motivational speaker with a strategy of mind control. And I kept hearing the number 17. Seventeen. 80% of the way we get influence is really unconscious. Haley was forced to send 10 suitors packing. Their masks were removed. I think this totally sucks. The remaining ten were given new colored masks and the competition kicked in. Haley watched as a luau unravelled into boys gone wild. That's what I'm talking about. This is my lovely bedroom. And two men eliminated themselves. Dude, that's what I'm just gonna have to do. I can't do this. So another bit of content. Like most reality TV, this is men wearing tuxes and masks. Yeah, that takes place in what looks like a like upper upper middle class. Like mcmansion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what's amazing about it too is it's like an eyes wide shut **** on a budget. It's. I'm not saying, I'm not saying I have this kind of money obviously, but it's like this is like someone who owns like a tow truck company, like several their house, which again, nothing against that, but I'm just trying to. It's like a nice wide shut party, but all of the food is like from Kirkland, you know? It's like Kirkland. It's like a Kirkland brand rich people **** right? It's not, it's not not wealthy. Like these people have money, but they don't have that much. They gave the next clip. Ohh yeah, yeah, here's I I picked this one because it's got a little bit of that sweet Lewinsky action that I know. Everybody's looking for you, right? She's really is just kind of barely in it, right? That's Monica behind the two talking now. Haley. He had initially said that he took your breath away. And that you could get lost in his green eyes. He also said he seemed a little too smooth and a bit calculating. This is the mind control, motivational speaker and life coach for teenagers is 30 years old in the dark green mask. Meet Chris Berg. Crisper. Very wow. So I love this burg who's into mind control and motivation. Hey, he didn't die in a bar in Florida like 10 years ago. He had died in a bar in dabbed that, or he was part of the CIA's enhanced interrogation program in Iraq. Like one of the two is this guy's background? Yeah, yeah, it's one or the other. Either he is in fact good at what he does, or, yeah, he's been stabbed in the stomach at a bar in Florida. What an incredible show. Holy ****. It's so funny. It's like, it's like junk food because as soon as he was like, I'm gonna take off my mask. Like, here we ******* go. I can't wait to see this. ******* yeah, let's see this weirdo. And then he was just some hunk. He's just some he's just some some hockey. Yeah, he's just some ******* hockey. It's so fun. Such a rip off. I think it got like 5 episodes like this. Which is why Monica Lewinsky is not a staple of reality TV to this day. Which is, uh, huh. Tragic. Just, you can see that he's just like throwing **** at a dartboard. Like, alright, let's put him in masks and let's get who's famous that people wouldn't expect to see in a show. Monica Lewinsky gave her some money, put her in the show. I didn't work. What? They probably had a list. They probably look at one point William Shatner was going to host, you know, like, it's probably just like we have a list of people who we we know we'll do it. Yeah, we know they do it. They need work. 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And then we'll come to the sort of healthy world that I envision as a good future for us. And the rest of life on this planet. Listen to amazing wildlife on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back, so yeah, and it's worth it. It is kind of interesting to me that, like, having just gone through this, the first reality show ever was like pretty complex and intelligent entertainment for its day. And there's some, like, real cultural value there, but it it winds up as this, you know, because reality TV and documentaries could be the same thing, right? Right. Like if you're just documenting something that you find interesting. Yeah, a slice of, you know, life in America like that family. Yeah. Like that makes sense. It's just they realized quickly that's boring. And and yeah, it it's like even you can see in shows that are still around, like the real world. When it debuted in 1992, it dealt with a lot of **** like AIDS and drug addiction and like LGBT issues in a way that was. A lot of folks will argue, at least. I'm not a comprehensive. I don't know much about the real world, but people who are critics of culture will argue was more intelligent than it is today. Cultural critic Latoya Peterson writes that while growth and development were, early on, parts of the real world, in later days it became, quote, specifically cast for racists, ******** and agitators. It's like a formula. Every season has some huge racial altercation. Every season has some kind of woman trying to sleep her way into self esteem. Every season has a guy coping with a breakup angrily, right again. They. Yeah, they saw out people were unstable. Yeah, yeah. And then they gave him money and fame well, and also. As we saw with the very first with like Darnell's first show and and Posner notes that like a big part of this change is that folks follow Darnell's lead in baiting advocacy glue. Groups like the National Organization of Women or the N Double ACP year of GLAD with content that where people were like have controversies which will get these groups to weigh in, which will cause like journalists to write about this controversy, which generates press and views. And that's a big part of it too. Six, yeah, take quick. It's all that hate clicks. It's it's triggering the libs and it's all built upon the same idea, which is that like any reaction is there is a reaction, therefore succeeds, even if the reaction is someone saying that's not funny. They're like, we did it and it's like, did you though? Like it's it's funny to me that that kind of what's happening here is the way bullies work, right? Which is like if you react to them at all, you react to them at all. You're giving them what they want. Right. We have just applied to like all of culture now and reality is kind of how that happens, where it's like, well, I guess the way everything should work is that if you get people to react by being ****** then then the person being ****** wins, right? Exactly. Like if you run a show that's just someone going out in public and taking dumps in the the ground at a mall right now. Dave, I told you that in confidence we have our pitch meeting with VH1 in a week and look, look, baby, you can have multiple versions of that. It's like volcano and deep. In fact, you could never get too much of Mull *******. That's what that's gonna be. Gold and it's spin-off. Who wants to watch a multimillionaire **** in a ******* a Spencer's gifts? Exactly. Oh, that'd be great because people, at first they'd be like something smells like **** but they look and there's all the novelty shirts also fake and they're like, well, there's gifts. Which one is it? Like one of them is. God, I wanna go into a Spencers gift and leave a real dump. That's all the novelty ones. They wouldn't find it for months. Anyway, this is going to be stolen by Fox in like, a week and make somebody $47 million. I mean, that could legitimately be like a *******. It could be. It could be like, yeah, in 2001, VH one launched its celebreality block. The linchpin of this was the surreal life based off the real world, in which people who were only celebrities in the loosest sense of the world, like at this point, Flavor Flav, would live together on camera. Flavor Flav became a lot more famous later, but. He was, you know, this is kind of what like blew him up into being a reality star. It was huge. The production company behind it, 51 Minds Entertainment, started spinning off next from Entertainment Weekly. Quote that's when they found Megan Hauserman, a former Playboy model who appeared on season three. If the WB turned CW reality competition beauty and the geek, she and her partner Alan Scooter Zakheim took home the $250,000 prize. With her bombshell looks and sassy wit, Hauserman became a fan favorite. Rock of love with Bret Michaels. Think the bachelor. But with poisons Michaels as its prize and its spinoffs I love money and Rock of Love Charm School 51 Minds decided to give the model her own show. Megan wants a millionaire. The funny thing about Megan was her stated ambition, which was to marry a millionaire, says Cronin. So we said, what if we filled a house with millionaires and they were competing for you as their trophy wife? Here we go. This is. Yeah, I sort of know what's to come here. Now, this does not sound like a TV show premise to me, Dave. It sounds like a spell to in the world, but a lot of a lot of studio executives were convinced it would be a hit. So VH1 green lights this ************. In the casting notice, they asked for a quote, single men of the highest degree with a net worth of $1,000,000 or more. Now, rather than rely entirely on traditional casting, they sent producers to nightclubs to throw parties where rich guys would audition by just like being at a nightclub. These sound like the worst parties. Imagine that sounds. Yeah, that sounds like a nightmare. Imagine working a service job at one of those parties. What an absolute. That's that's the that you could write a horror movie just about one of these nights. There aren't a lot of ethical reasons to make and deploy a chlorine gas bomb using the cleaning chemicals commonly found in a bar. But this would have been one, right? Oh yeah. I don't think they would have arrested you. Yeah. It would have been self-defense. We all agreed this was self-defense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, they they do this thing. And one of the men they find through this process is Ryan Jenkins, a 32 year old real estate developer from Las Vegas. It sounds like a perfectly rounded individual that I'm sure will have no problems around him now 11, casting producer later recalled of him, Ryan Jenkins had one of the best personalities on this planet. He was intriguing. He knew it. He wasn't the best looking guy in the world. He just had this charisma so all reality shows have a process for vetting candidates. This was clearly necessary after the first millionaire show blew up due to its lead male being an abusive monster with a restraining order against him. Every network and production company though. This in a different way. The most rigorous shows included the kind of like applications included the kind of information you need to get a mortgage. You'd have to fill out every address you'd ever had, every job you'd had. There were psychiatric scheme screeners, ink blot tests, etcetera, Entertainment Weekly continues. The other key component is the criminal background check, which involves in part searching court and arrest records in every county a candidate has ever lived. When it came time to run checks on all of Meghan's potential millionaires, VH1 turned to collective intelligence, a Washington state. This company the network had been working with since 2003, but collective only specialize in US based criminal searches. So for Jenkins, a Canadian citizen, the company subcontracted out the search to another firm, Straight Line International. Ryan Jenkins's record came back clear and he was invited to join the cast. So this is going to go good. This is going to end well. Fine. Yeah, he's a Canadian, you know, they're nice people. Sure, no problems there. Megan wants to marry a millionaire. Launched on August 2nd. 2009 and it is one of the cringiest shows I've ever experienced. Let's watch the introduction, OK? Milk. With a man who takes her. A gentleman. Extraordinary. Megan wants a million. Megan. Megan get. Ohh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What Megan wants, Megan gets. That's that's the good stuff, Dave. So, wait, you already explained who Megan is, right? Yeah. She's a Playboy model whose primary ambition is to marry a millionaire. I still feel like saying who does she think she is? It's just like, my God, alright? I mean, good, good for her, I guess. I mean, you know what I'm saying that definitely not good for her. Good for her for wanting a millionaire and knowing what she wants. And I guess I assume this will end really happy with her getting a millionaire. Yeah. I mean, I think she gets rich eventually. So there you go. So Ryan Jenkins in this episode like the 1st, that it's interminably long. She's just like meeting all of these guys. It's unbelievably awkward. Some of them are like. Creepy old dudes who are like really weird and and it's it's whatever, like, it's, it's it's the they're all creepy in some way. They're all the kind of people who would show up on a show with this premise, so it's horrible. And in his introduction Ryan Jenkins describes himself as quote a little bit of Prince Charming, a little bit of a bad boy. And here's, here's, here's him showing up on screen for the first time, OK. Hello, Megan. Look, we're matching already. We are matching. We met any Canadians before. Never. Well, it's about time, don't you think? Absolutely. They let you in on a little secret. Please deal, Ryan whispers in my ear. You're going to love Canadian bacon. Oh oh ****. **** that was * **** thing, right? I think, yeah, I probably. I just lost a year of my life. Yeah, that that takes a lot out of you. My God, just the facial hair on her own. Ohh. It's horrible. Legal. I mean, this was, you know, the early 2000s. Every doesn't matter, but yeah, no, it can't defend it. I know it was a different time back then, but still, that facial hair you're going to love Canadian bacon with you trying to say is ****** flat because. Yeah. Flat and flat and not not quite cooked, right? Yeah. Yeah. Here's the thing. If he was actually just talking about Canadian bacon, they'd be. That would be delightful, right? If he just wants to, like, cook her some Canadian Dave, he was not. No, no, no, he was not. But that would have made him a winner. He probably could have gotten all the way to the top that way. But no, it's probably, yeah, about his like, tapeworm ****. Like his flat, floppy. His flat, floppy tapeworm. **** is it Canadian bacon like round too? Like, it's like a it's wrong. It's not right. Yeah, it's like poutine. You're not supposed to put it in your body. It just exists because we, you know, because America, the one time we pull our punches, it's with Canada. And look at this nonsense that exists now. Look what we let happen. I'm gonna. I'm going to need Garrison to Fact Check everything you just said. So Ryan advanced to the final round of the show. Hauserman liked him, although she saw some quote UN quote red flags, like the fact that his Rolex was fake and that he only brought a single pair of pants for five weeks of filming. Amazing, all right? I wish I could. What a millionaire. I wish I could act better than him. But I do only own a single pair of pants. Dave, I know this about you having lived with you, but also, you're not a millionaire. That's true. I'm not. You're right. Definitely not. Yeah, I can't. I I can't afford multiple pairs of pants. You're right. That's why. That's why I only have one pair. I'm the victim here. You're right. So, yeah, it's weird. Yeah, it is weird for him. It's weird for him. So she thought he was sweet and she almost picked him as the winner. She looked him up on Facebook one night during shooting and got his phone number and called him privately to tell him she planned to pick him. But then she told the show's producers what she planned to do and they were like, Oh no, absolutely not. They justified this as saying he wasn't likable and was just putting on a show for her, and she eventually agreed to send him home. Quote, he was really upset and I was upset also. That's a shame. She planned to call him. What's filming was over and explained that she just been doing what her producers wanted. The show flopped, but Hauserman remained in contact with Ryan. He told her that after she sent him home, he was so upset. That quote I went to Vegas and I met a girl. As is normally the case on reality shows, producers hired several of the failed contestants of this show for other projects. And so four years later, in 2009, Ryan Jenkins is cast for a show called I Love Money 3, vying for 250. $1000 prize because you know, he's not actually a millionaire and he could really use the cash, Entertainment Weekly continues. He kept calling her on the phone, his wife saying, I'm going to win this and you and I are going to have the life I've always promised Raquel, recalls Mark Cronin, cofounder of 51 Minds Entertainment, the production company behind money, Megan, the surreal life, and the majority of VH1's wildly successful celeb reality shows of that era. Then he would ask her, where were you last night because he's in Mexico shooting the show and she lives in Las Vegas. He was very jealous and very suspicious of her. We were actually making a story of it on the show. We were like, look at this guy. He's obsessed with this model he married, Cronin continues. It was funny until it wasn't funny at all, you know, I guess why it stops being funny. I have an idea. Yeah, it's pretty bad. It's pretty. Yeah, it's not funny. On August 15th, 2009, soon after, I love money, three wrapped Fiore his his wife, strangled and mutilated body was found stuffed in a suitcase talking to a dumpster in Buena Park. California I wonder what happened. Yeah, so Jenkins goes on the run, and as this all gets public, TMZ finds out that he has an extensive criminal record, including an arrest in 2005 for assaulting a girlfriend in Calgary, which VH1 and 51 mind said was not on his background check. Jenkins eventually kills himself in a hotel room in British Columbia in August 23rd. And yeah, it's this whole big story. Big, big, ugly story for the reality TV industry. Yeah, collective intelligence gets most of the blame for this, and they wind up laying off their workforce. The whole nightmare reportedly leads to an increased willingness for production companies and networks to pay for thorough background checks, so that's good. It feels like everybody in America should go to jail for a day. Yeah, it feels like we all gotta go to jail for that one. Yeah, it's it's just like our culture, everything. Everybody should feel hoping for your shift and then you're the guard next because, like, we gotta get through. Everybody's right, and we should all feel ******* ashamed if some new refugee comes into the country. It's like, hey, sorry it's been so tough over in Ethiopia or Ukraine. Grant, glad you're here. You got to go to jail for a day. Now, for today, there was this show, like, 15 years ago. Yeah. No one stopped it from happening. Nobody stopped it. Obvious that this person was. Yeah. Look, we know you're new here, but every American has some collective responsibility for this show, right? I mean, listen, in our defense, he did say he was kind of a bad boy. So this is, this would fall under the kind of a bad boy ages. Yeah. He's like, that's what he actually whispered. He's like in her ear. He's like, I'm a murderer. I am. I am going to be a murderer? Yeah, yeah. Oh my ******* God. Now the good news, Dave, is that sketchy, violent dudes getting through vetting is no longer the main threat faced by reality shows. We're gonna talk about what is in Part 2 of this series, Dave, how you feeling? How you liking reality? Is this my liking reality? And, you know, I'm mixed feelings always on reality. Yeah. So, you know, can't complain. But really, I don't have many compliments for it either. Yeah, I feel the same about reality as I do about reality TV, which is feel like we could do better. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like we could do better, you know? But you know who's doing great, Dave. Is your podcast network, gainfully unemployed, where people can listen to typecasts and hear about what's coming out in in Hollywood. They can listen to Fox Mulder is a maniac and learn how the FBI definitely really functions. Yeah, it's been in. Yeah, it's our own behind the ******** for Fox Mulder and Fox Mulder only. Yeah, yeah. It's so detailed, in fact, that if you listen to every episode of Fox Mulder is a maniac. You are legally an FBI agent and can carry out raids and stings on whoever you want. It's true. Yeah, I mean, you know, the government might say otherwise, but it's like a little wink. Wink. Yeah. What do they know? What do they know? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. They're just ******* with you. Yeah. So, yeah, everybody check that out. Umm. Game. Fully unemployed. Hmm. Gainfully our patreon.com.waiticandoitpatreon.com/gainfully unemployed. Yeah, we're on Twitter as well. Game fully uni think. Yeah. Just Google. Like that. Something like that. Yeah, alright, Google them and then Google yourself. But like in a sexual manner. Your name, please. Just let that happen. OK, cool. Yeah. Google your name. Plus nudes, see what happens. Yeah, you'll get something. It won't be. You won't be happy you got it, but you'll get something. Hmm. Anyway, this has been the podcast. I've been Robert Evans, you've been David Bell, and Sophie has been disappointed in me. Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried True crime, and if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's break your handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's SPREA. Ker.com. If you could completely remove one phrase from your vocabulary, which phrase would you choose? I don't know. Correct answer. No, I meant I don't know which phrase, and the best way to banish I don't know from your life is by cramming your brain full of stuff you should know. 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