Last Looks: Monkeybone w/ Brad Meltzer

Edgar Allen posed family it getting paid the world's most secretive funeral home and I have a nudity flashback That's right everybody all this and more on a brand new episode of how did this get made last looks hit the theme It's a Paul and Jason date What's up all my coma guys and coma gals it's me Paul Sheer your nightmare guide through downtown and welcome to how did this get made last looks We're wait a second. I'm realizing something here downtown. Okay, that that's where Brendan Frazier is trapped in the movie monkey bone And now I didn't give it that much thought downtown. All right, that's where it is. It's like downtown Los Angeles. It's just a way to describe where he's at but I'm looking at it and I'm realizing there's a space between down and town All I'm saying is this downtown is actually a town right it's not downtown. It's downtown So there might even be a downtown downtown. Oh wow now my mind is exploding I love this subtle detail why because it's confusing because Brendan Frazier isn't even down technically his body is up He's out of the coma, but he is trapped in downtown But he is also awake so now I don't even understand why you call it the downtown it should be like I don't know idville or you know I don't know Itville it's what I'm going with Yeah, monkey bone is confusing. Yeah a little bit a little bit no matter how much Griffin Newman explain the plot to us I still didn't like it even though maybe I respected it a little bit more But monkey bone is a film that could be many things one of our users fun facts 47 things that could have been called drop dead Frazier Did I do it right Scott Scott is looking at me. Yes, I did it right Scott was nervous. I was gonna see drop dead Frazier which was the title of my spec comedy pilot Where we team up a world of cheers villains who go out to try to kill Frazier crane kind of like that Bring on the bad guys spider-man thing which I gotta tell you if you're somebody in the industry you never got back to me about that I really wish you would have read drop dead Frazier but again I don't want to associate my spec comedy pitch with fun facts 47s Alt movie tagline which they submitted on the discord which is drop dead Frazier anyway Get back to me if you want to read drop dead Frazier it is available in PDF form only and just hit me on my AOL account Big shout out to the Midwest shakes for that opening theme song. Now remember if you have an alt movie tagline or a theme song you can just submit it via the discord at discord.g Sash HTTGM and these songs are really easy to give us because all you do is go to our website you click on the submit a song button and then that's it Drop it in the drop box and you get the hell out of there. Remember as you put it in there so quick you also should make the song quick to 15 to 20 seconds is best We're not saying that because we don't love you or saying that because we want to protect you that's right no one likes a long song Do what Midwest shakes did so well you nailed it got out some people would say hit it or quit it but I say you nailed it and got out All right coming up on today's episode we're gonna break down so much in monkey bone movie where I believe there's gonna be less of a division between team sanity and team Fred if that was a break down I think there's a team monkey and a team bone no that sounds wrong to Let's just call it team sanity we are going to play a very exclusive well it's not that exclusive but it is an exclusive deleted scene from our monkey bone episode and just a little bit there was so much in there shout out to our producer Molly which did make the episode but we love Molly we love Scott we love our whole team here we also have a very special guest I mean a no messing around special guest I'm talking about a New York Times best selling author a award winning comic book writer this guy has been on the show before and we're gonna break down his brand new book the Viper that's right Brad Meltzer is coming back to the show and just a little bit he's gonna challenge Jason on some comic book trivia but more importantly he's gonna tell us some stuff that blew my mind about the witness protection program and he also was in the most top secret funeral home in the country. Brad is one of the coolest he writes all these amazing books like they're like little biographies the I am books like I am Walt Disney I am Sally ride if you haven't checked these out they are great I remember we got my kid the I am Jackie Robinson and the I am Jane good all and the we are the Beatles and they are addicted to them they are so so good and he's always got great ones coming out I love Brad I can't wait for you to hear what we're talking to him about in just a little bit and of course you know why you're here to hear the reveal of next week's movie that's right we got a good one for you and right now if you're in New York City or you want to travel in New York City you could catch Jason on Broadway in all out all out as a hilarious night of short stories from Simon Rich Simon Rich I love Simon Rich if you've not read one of his books you're missing out Simon Rich I'm gonna I believe wrote the short story that Seth Rogen based an American pickle on which isn't we get really enjoyed, but I love Simon so much. I love his writing and this is a great night because not only is it full of hilarious people like Sarah Silverman, Heidi Gardner, Craig Robinson, but the band Lawrence who I worked with when I did this big fundraiser for everybody when we were out of work during the strikes are also playing along with them every single night and they were just bringing down the house. But here's the thing, you want to see Jason live, you want to see him alongside Sarah Silverman, Heidi Gardner and Craig Robinson, well guess what, we're going to give you a 20% off on tickets. That's right. How did this get made listeners? We'll get an exclusive discount code. Just go to alloutbroadway.com, use the code all out pod to get up to 20% off tickets. That is code all out pod for up to 20% off tickets. You can also find the link and discount code in this episode in the show notes as well. I want to thank everybody for watching my Taylor Swift documentary that I put up on YouTube last week. The comments have been wonderful. They've really blown me away. I've just been so incredibly moved by them. I also just want to plug, I don't know when it's coming out, but I am in FX's beauty. That's right. One shot makes you hot. Do you know about beauty? Get ready for beauty. Beauty I think might blow your mind. Here's a spoiler. Vincent DeNofrio takes a shot. Who does he become? Ashen Kutcher. Tune in people. That's all you need to know. All right. That is all the plugs I got. Let's get into it. Last week we talked at length about monkey bone. Well, we had questions. We might have even missed a few things. Here's your chance to set a straight fact check us, if you will. It is now time for corrections and omissions. Thank you, John Steel for that awesome theme song. Let's go to the discord. Ghost mutt writes in the opening cartoon, young stew has a fetish for his elderly teachers loose underarm skin. In the UK, there's actually a specific derogatory term for this loose skin fat. It's called bingo wings. Yes, that's right. Bingo wings. This comes from the way in bingo halls when a winner waves their arms in the air and inspiration that loose arm flap fat flops around like wings. Pretty awful nickname, but what else would you call them? By the way, I love bingo wings. Bingo wings. I mean, we should have used that. Maybe the movie shouldn't have been called monkey bone. It should have been called bingo wings. I love that. Thank you, Ghost mutt. Dr. Gutz, 1003 writes that there was a lot of discussion about Ben Stiller's possible involvement in the film. But according to Henry Selik on the film's DVD commentary, he said his original plan was to have Nick Cage play the lead character. Whoa! Yes. And have him be a puppeteer instead of a cartoonist. I love this. And then once he was in the coma, the film would be stop motion and Cage would become one of his puppets. I mean, it's wow. Very malk of it, right, being John Malkovich. Unfortunately, producer Chris Columbus insisted that audiences can't relate to an animated character, so the lead would have to be live action the whole time. When Selik couldn't do stop motion, he scrapped the puppeteer idea and we got Brendan Fraser as a cartoonist version instead. Just more proof that Chris Columbus was the true villain of this film. And here is some pre-production storyboard art from the film where they were still thinking about having Nickless Cage as the lead. Now, you can go on this court and check out this art. It looks awesome. And wow, what a cooler idea to do this this way. Wow. Now I like the movie more. I like the movie more if it was all like stop motion, not real people. Anyway, Nick Cage would have been genius and we were robbed. Mitch Kappa, chunk style writes, Griffin gave a valiant defense of this movie, but let see him explain away. Bob Odin Kirk doing organ removal on a clothed corpse. Oh, Mitch Kappa laying it down. Yeah. Look, sometimes you got to make your day. You don't have time to listen to the script. He was in the other hand, oh, we should not be fully clothed. No, you got to shoot the scene. Comedy people, comedy with, okay. That's what I think that scene is all about. Let's go to the phones, Julian from New York. Hey, this is Julian calling about the monkey bone episode, specifically Griffin Newman's Rousing Defense of that city insane movie. So Griffin positive that all of these nightmare inducing figures from history or a till of a hundred or jack a river, they are quote creative guys who didn't have an outlet yet. So under this theory, just like our heroes do, these guys were bad at drawing, they're fallen to a coma, quote, there's a little murderer in there who takes over their body and quote, does a bunch of bad shit. You guys know where I'm going with this. There is one historical figure who was famously a mediocre artist who took a turn into nightmare inducing quote unquote bad shit. Is Griffin suggesting that eight-all fit learners monkey bone over his body is he saying that Hitler's childhood boner is responsible for war war two and the whole cost. And Griffin is a little repologist and do we need the cancel Griffin Newman? Okay, bye. Wow, Julian, I am not touching that. I am not touching that one bit. Wow, honestly, on the verge of maybe we should edit that out, but no, Griffin is not a Hitler apologist. He is not. We are not canceling Griffin at all. Respect Griffin. He hates ice. He is a defender of democracy. He likes Stalin. I know that to be true. All right, let's go back to the phones from Connecticut we have Sarah. Hi Paul, I have to say I was kind of sad to see you guys did monkey bone. It's actually one of my favorite movies. It's just so strange and weird that my watch doesn't know you in times. That being said, it seemed like there was some confusion about downtown and where monkey bone came from. So basically downtown is a collection of all of Earth nightmares. And the reason monkey bone is in downtown is because he is the nightmare of stew. And the only reason he exists is because he used to make horrible scary art from the nightmares that he had before he met his girlfriend and she told him to switch hands drawing and he could monkey bone. And monkey bone was a type of nightmare about, you know, boners I guess. And that's why there's all sorts of different types of monsters and stuff. And they explain the reason that people are having less nightmares is because of studies like Julie is doing in order to help people sleep better and sleep meds and stuff. So they want more nightmares to populate their world. I hope that helped. I have seriously watched this movie a million times, but I appreciate it. If you guys commentary, love you lots and have a good one. There's downtown again. There is downtown again and she made me realize, okay, well got it. Like downtown maybe she'd be called like nightmare town. Oh man. Yeah, downtown should be nightmare town or dream zone. Dream scape I saw dream scape the movie in the theater 3D glasses. That was so sight and I thought like I was a time when I thought like all 3D movies might have nudity in it too. I don't know why I thought that, but I was like hoping that there's like a kissing scene in that movie I remember I was like, oh, maybe I'll see some nudity. No, there's no nudity in that movie. Hold on, let me double check. I want to make sure there's no nudity because I remember being quite titillated at dream scape. Oh my God, there was nudity in dream scape. I think it was like a PG movie. Brief nudity and paranoid politics. Wait a second PG 13. It was PG 13 and you saw nudity. I knew it. I knew it. Holy cow. And I believe the nudity was Kate Capchal. Yeah, I'm right. Wow. Look, I have a mind for remembering nudity. All right, let's go. Look, weird little kid pervert. Let's go back to the phones one more time to hear from the Berkshire. That's right. Jamie from the Berkshire. What do you got? Hi, Paul. I am a long time listener and I finally got to see you guys live last week in New York and it was a great show. So Edgar Allen Poe in the cast of characters in the prison of Monkey Bone was played by Edgar Allen Poe's a four. And now he is calling himself the fourth, even though Edgar Allen Poe never had any children. So I believe he is a great, great, great nephew of Poe. And so if you're a little digging into this man, he's very fascinating. He seems to have made an entire career of doing Poe characters and acting work through the Poe connection. And he eventually had his own, I think it was a one man play called Poe's Nest in 2011 that has some great reviews out there. And an excerpt from one from backstage is, if his family is relatively new, what he was doing with his legacy, he'd probably wall that nephew into a wine cellar or bury him under some floor board. So there is that. And I am just a big fan. I hope you guys have a great weekend. Thank you. Bye. Wow. Love that. Keeping it in the family. Keep it in the family indeed. Guys, I have to tell you, I am still shook by my dreamscape revelation. Anyway, let's go back to the discord. I mean, that Edgar Allen Poe thing was actually pretty great too. Odd, but great. All right. The mighty beard rights. Well, Rose McGallan posted about this movie on Facebook and Instagram back in 2016 and revealed some interesting things. Here is her post. Here I am as Miss Kitty in a film called Monkey Bone. The movie would have been incredible, at least the underworld part. If the man at 20th Century Fox, the suits, hadn't fired the director, a true artist, Henry Selik halfway through filming, a profoundly stupid move. Later Selik went on to direct Coraline and James and James and Giant Peach, both classics, the set design costumes, prosthetics, actors, all at a master level, at least in the underworld part of the film. What Fox turned this film into because of their fear and lack of artistic thinking was a very travesty. They truly robbed us the audience of a possible classic. Also fun fact, Monkey Bone was based on a graphic novel called Dark Town. Why are we calling it Downtown? All right. Oh, we're on. The weenies at Fox changed the name to Downtown because they were scared that African Americans would be upset by a psychedelic underground acid trip of a world with a cat for a waitress named Dark Town. I'm not following that train of thought rose. Anyway, I wonder, oh, now it's getting weirder. I wonder how many African American women directors they've hired in ratio to white male directors. That's what Fox should have been concerned with. Okay, well, you kind of pulled yourself out. I don't, okay, I let it sit. I let it sit because I think there was a, the right energy was there. Anyway, Buster Bluth writes at the live show. How is there not a coma, tea chant? Oh, man, well, Buster, you should have been there. We should have had you. We need a coma, tea, coma, tea. All right. Wow. So many great corrections and omissions this week. Mainly the best one in my opinion is mine about dreamscape. But look, I'm not going to give myself the award, even though I probably deserve it. I'm going to give one of you the award. I love that we heard a little bit from Rosemite Gowon. I also love that we have figured out that Edgar Allan Poe keeps it all in the family. But I think to me, I'm going out on the limb and saying something different. Yes, I know that we've listened to the commentary. Thank you, Dr. Guts. But I got to say, bingo wings. That's a winner. Ghost Mutt, you don't get anything, but you do get this amazing theme song. Hit it. You win, you win, you win, you win, you win, you win, you win, you win, you win, you win, you win, you win, you win, you win, you win, you win, you win, you win, you win. Yes. Thank you, Aaron Webb, for that beautiful winners theme. Remember, chime in with your thoughts on these episodes. Give me a call at 619. The P-A-U-L-A-S-K call at any time is a Google line. You're not going to get anyone to pick up. So call, leave a message, have a fun fact, give me something. Coming up after the break, Jason and I will chat with Brad Meltzer and I will announce our next movie. But first, take a listen to this bonus deleted scene from our Monkey Bone episode where Jason and I discuss our experiences taking the train to the show. While a woman had the loudest cell phone conversation from Washington DC all the way to New York screaming into her cell phone, I was like, I am going to fucking murder this person. I sat next to a very lovely lady who dinged her elbow against the window and we talked about that for about 10 minutes. Wait, you're talking to people on the train? Not willingly. Huge mistake. I put on headphones if anybody tries to talk to me. I'm like, nope. That's not happening. Here's why I think she started talking to me because I did have a Ma-Jong card out in my lap and I was playing online Ma-Jong. I think I was an easy target for an older woman. Yeah, big time. She's like, this person's safe. Wait, I'm sorry. Were you trying to pick up an old woman? Because if not, that is a sure fire way. Like, oh yes, it is the 2025 Ma-Jong card. We bold font and for people who are slightly color blind. Welcome back. By now, I'm sure you've all noticed that every week we re-release an old How To This Get Made episode back into our feed. These Matt Neh episodes now come out every Tuesday to pair with Monkey Bone. This week's Matt Neh was another movie about a cartoonist interacting with his own creations. I'm talking about 1992's Cool World and next week's Matt Neh will learn all about June's hatred of break dancing when we watch Body Rock with guest Alison Breeze. So keep on checking off all of our replays of classic episodes every Tuesday. Now without any further ado, it is time to welcome Jason and a very special guest. That's right. We have Teeth and throughout the show. The one, the only Brad Meltzer whose brand new book Viper is in bookstores right now. And people, you're going to love it. You're going to read it. You're going to read it all up. Now what? Let me have him tell you all about the first. Jungkook and play us in. Brad, so excited to have you back on the show. It's been too long. Yeah, good to see you guys. I told you to have you here, Brad. Brad, one of our most accomplished guests on the show. You are Emmy nominated, a number one New York Times bestselling author. You're writing comic books. You're writing nonfiction books. You're on a book tour, but your new book, The Viper, I am fascinated about this. Jason and I were talking about this before you came on because this is the third book in your Zygendoly series. And this is all about people who are disappearing, right? I mean, like you are in the world or you know a lot about how people disappear, whether it's witness protection program. You're in the world of disappearing people, right? Right. I do know that. You're still Brad. There is, there is a, in my phone, my wife knows if anything happens to me, there is a guy to call that little guy. I said, put in the word kidnap. Wow. And it is Lily. I'm like, you call him and he's going to be the one to find. We're going to need that info, Brad. Yes. Because you need to be found. I mean, but that's the, if you write thrillers for a living, that's what you have to be moving in, right? You have to find, like I found this book. It's a crazy story. I was in a funeral home as one is. Right. And this guy is showing me, you know, he's showing me around the funeral home doing research for one of the thrillers. And he opens up, I see a closet with a padlock. And I'm like, well, that's obviously the most interesting place now, right? So what's in the, what's in the closet? He opens it up and he's got all these old kind of like 90s erasuits and sequin gowns. And it's all the clothes that people pick out that they want to be buried in before they die. Wow. So especially if you have no family, you pick out what you wear. And so, and it's got like, you know, a jets jersey and like a hat that like a guy wants to wear because his ex wife hates that hat and he's like, put me in the hat, you know, like. And so like people are, you know, the, the dick of, but I'm just realizing that that's the layer is like to bury them in the wrong, like, like not their fandom like or like, I mean, is it like, could you? No, he wants to have his like, my wife hates this hat. But I love it. Yeah. I love it. Like, my father is buried in a hat that says best pop. My dad is buried in a baseball cap because he was just like, if everything man, I don't care. He's like, he wants to like wear the baseball cap. Like, my dad took a picture for his driver's license in a baseball cap. My stepfather is buried in a Walt Disney world t-shirt. Fantastic. And so he says like, I'm your Mickey. And, and, and that was it. And, but I will tell you, like, there is something about being in a funeral home because when no one's there, I think I'm used to being there where, you know, there is a, like, there's a pomp and circumstance. You're coming in. People are grieving. There's a lot going on. But in those quiet times and those in between times when they're not selling you on anything or not showing you, like, I imagine that is, you know, a place that's a little bit more unexamined than we probably even realize. Like you're saying, like, there's a closet full of clothes. And not only that, but you get the full attention of the guy walking you around. So I'm like, tell me about everything in here. And I was like, what I realized is, if you, you know, so the book opens and like, I walks into a funeral home, is carrying a blue suit. And it's a suit he wants to be buried in just exactly what I saw that day. But what I realized that day is if you go to a bank and you open up a new bank account, there's a file that's filled out and paperwork that's done. Government wants to track you. They'll find you. You go to the UPS store and open up a PO box. There's paperwork done. If the government needs to find you, they can figure it out and track it out. You know, there's like Wi-Fi cookie jars now. I'll tell you who stole the last chocolate chip, right? But if you take the outfit that you're going to be buried in and you secretly sow something inside that suit and you give it to the local funeral mortician and he puts it in his closet with the padlock on it, you have the ultimate hiding space that no one will ever track. And basically, that's what happens. A guy walks in, hands it over, hides something in it. He goes back to his motel room. They're like, where is it? He's like, I don't know what you're talking about. They shoot him dead. And basically the suit winds up in the hands of no one that you would ever expect. I just ruined chapter one of the Viper for you, but that's chapter one. I mean, I'm already in. That's great. I love that. Now, Zig is a mortician. Like Zig is one of your characters here in the book. And this idea that, I forget if I'm misremembering it, but like, does Zig work at the Dover Air Force Base? Or okay. So the Dover Air Force Base, the most secretive funeral home in the world or the country? In the whole, so I do a lot of work with the USO. They bring over, you know, in the USO, they bring over thriller writers. I mean, they actually, we went the day after the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders and like the MMA fighters. And then it was like a bunch of authors. I went after, I went after football players and models. It's hard. It's hard. It's hard. My friend was like, can you tape the audible sigh when you walked in the room like I asked you how it all just went down? They keep asking me to go with all the models. They keep being like, you're a model, right? 100%. You should, by the way, go. Anyone should go. Like, and so is one of the best experiences I've ever been in because they take care of you. And what I love is they do want to get people pumped about you being there. And when I went, we were there with Rob Riggle, who was on the daily show shooting pieces for the daily show, but Horatio Sands was with us as well. And I guess the only thing they could get their hands on was a movie called Boat Trip, which might be routinely viewed as not the best film. But every serviceman that we met had gotten it from like the, like the store. Everyone knew Boat Trip. Like I was signing Boat Trip DVDs on that tour. Like, whatever they give you, yes. Whatever they give you, you are, it is the best book when you're in the desert. Yes. So you were just everything. It's great. Like I remember that Al Roker's book in the thing and I texted him and I was like, dude, they got your book here and he's like, oh my gosh, they got that book nowhere. You know, but they got it there and you're like, oh, but yeah, so I'm there. And that's where I find that about Dover. And I didn't know what Dover was, but you've seen it. It's where all the, those flag cover coffins when a soldier dies, it comes off the thing and everyone's salutes. But what I figured out and what I realized is Dover is where all our fallen soldiers go, but it's also where all our astronauts go. Like when the space shuttle exploded. It's where all of the 9-11 victims from the Pentagon went there. It's also where all of our spies are double-o-7s around the globe. And they go on a mission and die, their bodies go to Dover, which means Dover is a place that's filled with secrets. And I love secrets. So I went in there and my main character works out at Dover. And it's just, you know, the morticians that will rebuild someone's jaw and smooth it over with clay for 12 hours because some mother wants to see her son in the coffin one last time. Rebuild someone's hand because a mother says, oh, my son's hand one last time. Like, so good luck making a joke at the end of this, you know, this picture. But like, it's just like the best of the best of us working on the best of us. And you go there and you're just humble. And I was like, I need to set thrillers in this world because the morticians here, they know the real name of that fake person they just brought into Dover. They know the person that whose identity they're hiding. Like I talked to a guy there who was like on 9-11. He all of a sudden, all these bodies are coming in. He's putting, literally putting Humpty Dumpty together, putting pieces of people trying to figure who's who. And the FBI comes in and they surround this one body he's working on. He does no idea what's going to, why are you so interested in this one body? And he's like, this is the guy flying the plane. And that's who he realizes he's working on. So these guys have the first hand view to see things like nothing else. And I'm a forever a Quincy fan. So Quincy to me is like, this is a cooler version. I mean, that is, I mean, you couldn't have just said a more genx statement. That you are huge. Have you looked at the three of us lately? I mean, it's a two-ball men and beard. I mean, of course, oh my God. Quincy. Quincy was, I mean, Quincy was a staple in my house. And it was like, Quincy was like CSI before CSI. Of course. Quincy was, Quincy used to be like the word Xerox. You would just be like, what are you Quincy? Right. And I remember like 10 books ago making like a Quincy joke in a book. Like, shut up Quincy or something. And all these genxers, like a course were like going on my Instagram. I'm going to be like, represent baby. Keep it live, Melty. It was just like the cult was alive and well. What I loved about Quincy too is I was so familiar with Jack Kugman from either the Ock-O-Pole. Right. And it was like, oh, actors can do different things. I think that was like my first realization. Like, he's totally different. He's not. On the first set. 100%. I'm like, that guy is two people officially. Yeah. And one is funny. And I, you know, it was mind blowing. I can't believe that we have not done a Quincy remake. I mean, I guess right. I just see a side by the way. I have pitched it. Not only 100%. I pitched like every gen X show over again. Like, I don't even tell them because if they're younger than me, they don't know. And if they're like, unless they're perfectly our age. Right. Most of them, you know how Hollywood is. They don't even know. They don't care. In a world in which we can have an equalizer movie franchise and TV show, how can why wouldn't we have a Quincy? A Quincy show. Well, someone just wrote me when we announced our book tour. Someone wrote to me and said, have you, are you familiar with the show Quincy? I'm like, I've based my life on it. Like, that's not even a simple question to me. Well, I mean, how do you get access here? Because I was thinking about this too. Like, you've been writing for a very long time. And, you know, I talked to you about the biggest fan that I've ever made for you, I believe is I was reading your book. My dad was visiting out of town. He read it. And now my dad is like, text him like, you get this one. My dad is like, the bowler. You text me. I love that. Yeah. And like, I just was home for Thanksgiving. He's like, you gotta read this one now. And I was like, great. And it's like, so, but it's like you, I think you cross this line of, you know, you're incredibly appealing on all these levels, right? You can get the people who love comics. You can get the people who love, you know, real history. And you have this like, amazing voice and characterization to write, you know, dramatic thrillers. But you also get real information and you go deep. How do you get the trust of these people or get into these spots? Because no one else is getting there, right? I mean, like, yeah, like, how do you have that fixer in your phone? Like, where do you have it? Yeah, I mean, the truth is, is I think sometimes it's just no one's as nerdy as I am to ask for these things. Like, right? Like, most people are like, take me to the front line and show me how you kick indoors. And I'm like, right. I'm like, I got a fancy version of yourself. Like, that's part of it. But the other thing is is, some of it is, it's just being nice, right? If someone calls you up and says, Hey, and you know, you've done it for roles like, hey, I'm doing a medical show. Can I just follow you around for like half a day? Like, right. 9.9% of people say yes. The benefit I had is some of the books became popular in DC. And so like I got a letter one day from from President George H.W. Bush. I got a letter from Bill Clinton. And they were like, we read your books. And I'm like, oh, and then I was like, oh, shit. And of course, I thought it was fake. I thought the letter was fake. Because when I used to work in, I was an intern. My first internship ever was in the the Senate Judiciary Committee. And we used to take the pen sign in machines. And I would take the Senate Judiciary Stationery and I'd sign the senator's letter. And I'd write to my friends and tell them they were being deported. Because I'm like, what am I going to do? Like, so I just thought, this is someone playing the joke on me. So I called the office and I'm like, hey, man, I got a, there's someone there in the president's office and they said, because it said, can you send us a sign book? And I'm like, someone wants a sign book. They go, oh, you got the president's letter. Like, oh, this is real? And so I was like, not stupid. I said, I wrote them back and said, hey, I want to do research on presidents. Can I come see what your life is like? And they had left the White House. So I'm like, can I come see you after the White House? And both of them said, yes. Because what are they doing? I'm like, how do you order you that your life is so boring? Now, you're writing to me. And that helped. Because once you have that, then the secret service is like, oh, if the president trusts you, then I'll talk to you. Yeah. And then if the secret service talks to you now that you can get the CIA and the FBI. And so it's just like these people know each other. And that it just starts from people just being genuinely nice. How did this get me? Could you tell us something interesting about the witness protection program? Because I think that that is something that we understand it in a grand scheme of things. And we'll see it in a movie like One Battle After Another. We'll see it in these things. But like, it was such a good movie. I just saw it the way that I loved it. It's so good. I got to see it in Vista Vision out here, which was really fun. But I mean, it seems so kind of made up. I guess in my mind, I always thought mobsters. That's where mobsters go. But it's hard. How do you fit in in that world? It's the college tour episode of sopranos. It's a soprano. There's a soprano's episode. That college tour episode is what I firmly believe is what is informed the witness protection program for the last decade. Right? And I became obsessed with it because we're all obsessed with exactly that because you can't help but ask the question, what if it was me? And we all have this weird fantasy in the back of our heads. Even if you love your life to be like, could I start it all over from nothing? Like, what does that mean? And there's something sexy and tantalizing. So I became obsessed with it. I will tell you, I've done the White House, the Supreme Court. I've done the secret tunnels below the Capitol. I've done the tunnels below Disney World. I don't think anything except for Disney, which was hard to get into. The witness protecting program was one of the hardest places ever to research because people's lives are on the line. Right? It's not just your dumb ass like, oh, I want to go and screw around the White House. And so the thing that blew me away is just the pure history of it. Right? So they said to me, yes, the witness protection program is created for mobsters. We got a mobsters to turn on themselves, protect them so we can go. I'm like, great. I know that. I've seen the Tony soprano episode. But then eventually, guess what happened? They arrested most of the mobsters. So now it's not like crime was done and like that man wins. Guess what happens? New criminals like, I want that turf. So guess who started becoming the number one person in the witness protection program? It was gang members. They started putting gang members away. So all these gang members went out on the witness protection program and then guess what happened? Those started shutting down like they weren't the same. Now the number one group according to my source. There's a new witness protection program are accountants because that's the friggin world we live in now. Wow. And I was just like, I am writing about that. Like this is awesome to me. And just that idea that you can, you know, because I'm like, can you really change someone's face by giving them a nose job? No, you cannot. Like anyone with like, when we were kids, you were like, oh, obviously that's like, right. And it totally works. But the witness protection room is awesome. And these guys are really good at what they do. The problem is all the people that are in it miss something about their lives. And if you miss one thing about your life, same thing is in one battle after another. Like you can't, you can't hide away. Like that, that calling eventually gets to you. And that's what, that's what fucks everybody up. It's not the program. It's the person there just says, I need to see blank. You know, a girlfriend or a wife or someone wants to have sex with someone, but someone's got, you know, that's what screws are. Those tethers. Yeah. Those tethers that keep you connected to your old life, those, you know, and that's the thing is like, because in our lifetime, I'm thinking of people like Henry Hill or Whitey Bulger or those kind of people didn't wait. Was Whitey Bulger in witness protection or was he just hiding? Can I tell you, I've never told this for Whitey Bulger at one point, I got a tip that someone told me they knew where Whitey Bulger was. And I couldn't tell anyone. And I'm like, and I'm like, I'm like, what am I supposed to do with this? And I will tell you in the end, it was totally wrong. It was totally not. But it was a really good source, really good spot. And I was like, but yeah, he wasn't in witness protection. He just ran. He was just hiding himself. Yeah. Yeah. He was good. Yeah. Oh boy, was he good. But that's like what I was going to say is like the, like the world used to be so much bigger and more, you could disappear into it. And so much of the world now is online on camera. We are living in a world which it would be very difficult, I feel like, to disappear. Because everybody is existing constantly, publicly, you know. That's, well, now I'm not going to ruin the plot of the Viper, but that's a key part of it, right? Like witness protection back in the old days was just give someone a new driver's license and someone moved new to your neighborhood and you want no much about them. But as the world changes, anytime someone moves to your neighbor, guess what we all do? We Google them, we check them out. And if there's nothing there, then we're like, oh, that's even more suspicious. So they have to now figure out how to, and they've gotten really good at giving you long historical backgrounds. Because if there is nothing from back then, you're like something's wrong. But we are all of us can go on zillow and know what our neighbors paid for their house and what they bought and where they drive and how much they paid for their car and what their wife makes and we got it all. So good luck hiding in today's world. And the Viper, one of the key parts of it is how do you do it really well? How do you, how do you disappear from the government today? Yeah, I mean, I love this. But I guess the question that I want to ask though is, you know, there's been a lot of interesting stuff going on in the comic book world. We've been talking about this for a while. Are you working on anything in the DC world right now? Uh, kind of. Yes. Kind of. All right. Kind of. Yes. All right. But also, I feel like, but also I feel like you're inside of the Marvel ecosystem as well. So that's, I can say, I can, yeah, I am, I am working on a new Marvel project. Okay. Okay. Okay. Oh, interesting. All right. So I can't, I can tease that. Okay. You can tease that. Can you tease what it is? Thwip, thwip? Wow. So subtle. I can't say no or maybe say Nick or maybe snick. But I go all the special effects. Yeah. Do all the sounds. Yeah. No, I mean, I, I'll say yes to one of those. Yes to one of those. Yes to one of those. I like this. I like. All right. This is exciting. I just want to, by the way, I want to just live the rest of my life with people who understand that if I do snick or I do bam for I do, I was going to say, man, like how far we can take understanding and having a conversation with nothing but the sound effects. I mean, it's what a, what a world to live. Because that's how I just find my friends. Like, yeah, you know, it's like going out and being like, I said to my son, I'm like, if you find someone and this is, you know, who knows a couple of legion of superhero home planets, they're just going to be your friend. Yeah. That's just, you could just find them. And so that like we just have like little quizzes. I would just move through life with that and be very happy. I love this. Brad, well, I'm very excited. We'll be watching anxiously to see what this will be. All right. You can get Viper wherever you're going. But I got what if I can't live away before I go. I got to know what do you read it? I don't know what comics you're reading. What do you read it? Oh, my gosh. You know, this is great. This is a good question right here. I have been very, I've been loving this, the mashups, right? Like the, like, you know, the Deadpool and Batman has been fun. Like I've been, I read them. I just read them this week. There was some, I thought Kevin Smith's, there was, did you read that story? I had on my desk. And did you read Tom Taylor's? That one was great to. Yes. Yes. Tom Taylor. I also loved the mashups that were happening previous, which was Godzilla versus everybody. Oh, man. There was, there was a bunch of good Godzilla versus each of the Marvel teams. Each, it was a very fun predator Marvel one too, which is like a disgate. I was just great. I'm really enjoying fractions, new Batman run with Jorge Menes. I love him. Men as I love the way he does the, like, like how he dials into the stuff on the utility belt. Like that's inspired. That's one of those ideas. Like I always think the best content or anything are the things that you go. It's new, but it should have always been there. And I look at that. I'm like, that should have always been there. That's well, that's like the reveal that in absolute Batman, that the bat symbol is an axe. That, that takes the bad symbol off of his chest and it's an axe is incredible. By the way, do you know how many nerds just got hard on that page when it happened? It was just like, how many friends have told me like, did you see when he took the, I'm like, I know, like love that book is so good. They're killing that book. I'm also reading. I will say there's been, I think a bunch of great stuff. Wait, what was I? Ghost machine. Come on. Ghost machine. Have you guys been reading our stuff? Ghost machine. Great. Ghost machine is so, I have a good, and I'm not saying it just because I'm part of Ghost machine and I do have a book coming out with Jeff John's next, that'll be out later this year. But there's stuff. Red code is so good and Gary Frank's art obviously is so, so good. I love, I mean, all the books I'm, and now I'm going to start naming and feeling like I'm not leaving people out, but every Ghost machine book you should read to there. Great. I love it. I've seen that this is great just time for, I mean, I'm going back to Batman for saying I've also been a big fan of what Scott Snyder has been doing. And they have like absolute Joker. I think it's coming up right now or something like that. I really love just because one of my favorite artists is, uh, Somni. So the Batman and Robin, uh, Mark Wade, Chris Somni, I think you want to my kitchen right now. It's on my island because I want my son. I'm like, this art, I, you know, I said to Wade when I saw him, I'm like, this art is so beautiful. It's incredible. When he does that Robin, that young Robin, it's so, I'm like, it's so creative. It's a fresh air. It is exactly. It reminds me of Michael Turner. When I first saw Turner, it just, it had movement without moving. And I was like, how is he doing? It is incredible. Stop every flip, everything. It's just so good. I can't recommend his book that he did with his wife, the All Ages book called Johnna and the Impossible Hunsters. Oh, I have that first. Yeah. That's a good book. And that's another character whose movement is so beautifully drawn in that book. Incredible. I've been really just trying to get my kids into stuff. So we've, I've been trying to read with them a little bit right now and just trying to find what they're connecting to, which is interesting because I have been having a harder time than I thought I was going to have with my kids. How old are they? They are 9 and 11. They have just gotten in majorly into Marvel. And so I'm like, I'm trying. Can I, I have one? Yeah. I have one just because it's Chris Somney. I'm going to shout out Thor the Mighty Avenger. Well, yeah, that's great. Have they read Highloat? Have they read Highloat by Judd, when Nick? No, these are good. These are good. Give him a highloat for sure. And 9 years old, that's a gimmie. They're going to love highloat. That highloat is a no-brainer. Not Marvel, but Bone is a great bone was good. Highloat again, I'm sure they're reading Dogman. Like that stuff is cool. Yeah, oh Dogman. I mean, Dogman is like non-stop that. Yeah, that's huge. Dogman and Captain Underpants, like Kilke, Dave is one of my dearest friends. Oh, Kilke is like a big, we just got like the boy underpants boy. It's not even Captain Underpants, like a type of boy in an underpants. Yeah, and Dave is a dear friend of mine. He's come to my house because, and my son is like loves Dave Pilkin. It's like Dave Pilke is the greatest writer of all time. And I'm like, you know I'm a writer, right? Like you love to say that. What I do for it, but for that age, that's the perfect jump on point. Yeah, because that's what they are devouring. And so I'm just trying to let them find their little things. Oh, I got one more. Oh, yeah, please. Batman Brave and Bold. That's what my son read when he was younger. He couldn't read like, like now that he's like, when you, once you hit 13, as far as I'm going to say, you're ready for anything. Because you and I, we all three of us read at 13. It was like whether it was dark night or teen Titans or like we were all reading it. But at nine years old, my son read the Batman Brave and Bold series. And just put them in, but it's beautiful. And it's a fun book. And there's like team up, like a Scooby-Doo team up. He loved the team ups. Okay. It wasn't just the Brave mode. It was like the Scooby-Doo team ups with Batman. And they, he loved them. All right. This is good. This is what I'm doing. We are making our plans to go see Avatar to just watch the trailer for the Avengers. Like that's why we're going to see Avatar 3. A movie we have not seen one or two of. I mean, I have, they have not. And there's like, they just want to see this trailer, which I'm also. I'm thrilled that they're into it. Most of the girls now are like, you know, my kids love all those movies. And we'll go to them. But nine year olds now are like, I'm not watching the new ones because I got to watch these other 25 ones. I know. Well, this is a, yeah. So it's been interesting. I've been, I've been enjoying watching them get into it. They met John Cena in costume as the peacemaker, which truly was. By the way, what a set to take them to. Oh, you took them to Comic Con. I was at Comic Con and then he just was wearing the costume and man, oh man. It was the best thing. Yeah, you can't, I mean, that's, yeah, you can't compare. Like, you win. You win that. Of course, took my children or older to meet Eric from the boys. And so like, so, you know, Eric is a dear friend of mine as a show. And so he, I told him like, listen, man, you got to impress my kids. My boys, you know, they watch the show. They love it. So on last scene of the boys, and he was mom in one of the scenes is like, she's literally reading one of my books. And I just sat there. And I just sat there like this. I knew it was coming. He told me it was coming. And I was like, it's amazing how much bullshit as dads, we will pull off to impress our kids. I don't care about anything. I didn't even took my kids, you know, it's the White House or anything like that. You can pull off, but I put it and I just sat there trying to be cool. And my kids both turned to me and I was like, okay, how's that day, Bill? How's that? Yeah. Oh, I love it. All right. This is great, Brad. Book Vipers out now. And I'm sure by the time this is out, it's gonna be another best sell. Oh, yeah, this is what you do. You just, Paul, I'm looking at my calendar right now. It's telling me that the book is already out and is already a huge best sell. This is, that's what I'm saying. This was great. I'm excited about the secret project and always great talk to you. Talk to you soon. You got a brother. Thank you, Brad. I love him. He is the best. And if you want to buy his brand new book, The Viper, just click on the link in the show notes to this episode. Now it is almost the end of the show, which means it is finally time to announce our next movie next week. We'll be saying goodbye to Monkey Bone and returning to No Place I Come. That's right, we were watching 1985's Return to Oz. This was Disney's sort of sequel to The Wizard of Oz that was based on the book, not the original movie. So yeah, a tricky sequel indeed. It stars for Isabalca's Dorothy in her feature film debut. An IMDB describes the plot as Dorothy Save from a psychiatric experiment by a mysterious girl is somehow called Back to Oz when a van witch and the gnome king destroy everything that makes the magical land beautiful. Yikes. Broughton Tomatoes gives this film a 59% score on the tomato meter and Joel Ball-Taki from the Philadelphia Daily News Road. Return to Oz is very much a great film and adventure ahead of its time. I doubt it will be appreciated now. It's a kind of movie whose greatness will be discovered in 10 years. Well guess what, Joel, you're wrong. Let's go to the trailer. Now fly away with Dara in her wonderful new friends, The Gump. Half moose half flying so far. A talking chicken. Well, anyway. Jack and Tiptox, the mechanical soldier, to save the kingdom of Oz from the evil princes and the king with a body of rock in a magical new movie. Return to Oz. You can stream Return to Oz on Disney Plus or you can write it on Apple TV, Amazon Prime video or Fandango at home. And as you know, I am always going to shout out the digital media services offered to you by your local public library like Hoopl on Canopy and Libby, even though Return to Oz is not on these services, they are still great resources to find movies, TV, music, audiobooks, ebooks and comics for free. That is it for last looks. If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, rate and review us. It makes a different leave a comment for us. And if you're following us, make sure you have automatic downloads turned on. It helps the show and we appreciate it. You can visit us on social media at HDTGM and a big thank you to our producer Scott Sonny Molley Reynolds, our engineer Casey Hopeford, our social media manager Zoe Apple Bombman. Of course, we'll forever be grateful to the one and only Avril Halley. If you have not seen it yet, there's a beautiful write up of her, a beautiful celebration of her life. We posted it in the discord. We also have it on the How Did This Get Made Instagram page. We will see you next week when we travel down the decaying remains of the Yellowbrook Road as we return to Oz. How Did This Get Made?