Is Stick Just Par For The Course?

Dave: [0:15] This is the extra extra hot great podcast episode 357 for the june 7th 2025 weekend, i am dinged shed david t cole and i'm here with the new mayor of downtown sarah d bunting How much? And aspiring Helium mogul, Tara Ariano. Tara: [0:38] Don't lecture me about diversification. Welcome to Extra Extra Hot Great for another weekend. Thank you so much for your support. We're delighted that you're here. Tara: [0:53] We are talking about stick. Years ago, Price, Stick, Cahill, played by Owen Wilson, was a wildly successful pro golfer. Then, the combination of a personal tragedy and a poorly timed run-in with the jackass of a rival led Price to have an extremely public mid-tournament meltdown, which ended his career. As we encounter Price, he's cobbling together an inadequate living from a bunch of different jobs, seeming not to have much optimism for the future, until he happens to see Santi, Peter Dagger, going ham at the driving range. Price comes up with a crazy plan to coach Santi into a pro-golfing career of his own. Santi's mother Elena, Maria Trevino, agrees with a huge condition, but surprise, Price meets it, and they all go on the road together with Price's friend and former caddy Mitts, Mark Maron. Self-discovery ensues. The show is created by Jason Keller crossing over to TV for the first time after writing the screenplays for, among other things, Escape Plan. Remember that one, Dave? Dave: [1:51] Yeah, is that the Sylvester Stallone on an oil rig prison? Sarah: [1:54] Oh my god, what? Tara: [1:57] And Ford versus Ferrari, which we also saw. Also Sarah. He was formerly married to Kristen Dettilo, who played the teen mom that Brandon dated in season one of 90210. That lady. Sarah: [2:10] Oh, wow. Tara: [2:10] They are no longer together. Sarah: [2:12] It's all a circle of golf? Tara: [2:14] It's all a circle of something. Anyway, the first three episodes dropped Wednesday, with the remaining seven coming once a week. Let's do the Chen check-in. Sarah, should our listeners watch Stick? Sarah: [2:24] Dick i'm not mad but no dave. Dave: [2:28] This is gonna be a little different for the chen check-in but i'm gonna do it because you know it's the friday show why not yeah okay you can honestly and truly listen to this 15 seconds of the theme song i'm gonna play for you right now and know exactly what the tone of this show is, and that tone is apple safe and apple boring. Tara: [3:04] Oh yeah definitely yeah yep i agree i reviewed it cracked which you can read in the show notes it was never gonna be for me but it's really not for me but wait. Dave: [3:14] Before you before we get into the nitty-gritty let me praise it and say this is the best tragic backstory golf to riches sitcom. Tara: [3:22] I've seen this month. Sarah: [3:26] Can't disagree with that either. Tara: [3:28] I'm glad you're leaving the door open for july to bring more that's right all right let's get into it i'm not gonna sit here and act like ted golfo is the best joke i ever came up with but you can't say it didn't fit this is the most bill lawrence show bill lawrence never made and i mean like the bad the bad version of bill lawrence like shrinking bill lawrence not you know scrubs bill lawrence. Dave: [3:47] Sorry all you shrinking fans out there. Tara: [3:49] They know what they did. Of the three of us, Sarah, I think you've spent the most time with people of golf, people in the golf community. Is this a show you think they would respond to? Sarah: [4:00] I don't know, actually. I didn't really realize this was true until I was watching this, but it's not just the Ted part of Ted Golfo that is the issue, although that's part of it. It's the Golfo part and that golf pop culture generally, being in a room full of people who have seen Caddyshack a gazillion times on purpose is like, this is not my tribe, Tin Cup. It was like, I get it. And this is kind of that same thing. You see what they're doing. It's well cast, but golf is sort of similar to baseball in that the metaphorizing is like baked into the sport and its names for things and it's bled out into the culture for good or ill. But golf people... Dave: [4:51] Mm-hmm. Sarah: [4:52] No, thanks. And like, I am from golf people. Golf people raised me and, you know, they did their best. But it's like, there's just something about the country club milieu that immediately makes it hard to root for anyone who's there on purpose. And then you have the whole Arrested Development Wilson brother of it all that doesn't help, but there's always an Arrested Development class war without really getting into it element to golf properties. That it's like even actual golf is a little more interesting to me than that, which is not saying a whole lot. Dave: [5:30] There's a great George Carlin routine about golf, which really encapsulates why this is hard to get into. It's just such an elitist sport. An elitist sport at odds with the underdog kid story is a weird combo to bring to the table. If it was any other sport, it probably would have worked better. Don't know why particularly it's golf, besides the fact that whoever wrote this probably knows golf. But that part of it is just sort of like inherently a tough nut to crack. It's no Happy Gilmore. Tara: [5:59] No. Dave: [6:00] Which, by the way, let me get in my soapbox for a sec. If Happy Gilmore is an eight, let's say, then Billy Madison is a 17. Billy Madison is so much better than anything else that he's ever done. There is such a giant gap between Billy Madison and everything he did after. And this is a hill I will die on. Tara: [6:23] It's important that you got that out. Sarah: [6:24] Yeah, I forgot that one. Tara: [6:25] Yep. You know, there's a sequel to Happy Gilmore coming to Netflix this year. Dave: [6:30] Looks bad. Sarah: [6:30] Happier Gilmore? Dave: [6:31] It's weirdly called Happy Gilmore-er, which they lost it. Tara: [6:38] Wow. Sarah: [6:39] Yeah. Tara: [6:40] I'm not in the Gulf subculture, of course. I did want to speak up for people who stay at Doubletrees, though. That is my community because they don't look like that first place we see everyone staying in the second episode. That's a motel. That's not what Doubletrees look like. Doubletrees are like three star and up. Just saying. Is this a more compelling show? Hypothetically, if Price is like kind of a scumbag who's here to exploit Santi and maybe like working with him is what causes his heart to grocery sizes or whatever, because they go so hard in the premiere being like, he's broke, but he's a really good guy and he's sad about his son. Like, front loads it so much that I feel like he doesn't really have that much growth to go through. And I'm saying that as the, I realize the only person on this panel who watched all 10 episodes. Dave: [7:24] Well, yes. And then on the other side, Santi is like a golf savant from the get-go. It was weird the way they portrayed him, I thought, because the first time we see him, he's at the driving range and he's just smacking things. He can like shoot a womp rat within one meter. Like he's the Luke Skywalker of this show. And then a few lessons later, he has some anger issues. And that sort of like plays out on the course. But yeah, they went from like zero to 100, both these characters in the space of about 10 minutes of the pilot. And you're right, it didn't ramp up properly. So you see it. So I think if that character, Stick, a.k.a. Club, could be a little bit of a jerk because he sees himself as a failure, right? Like he used to be golf's wonder kid, and now he is teaching at the pro club at his local golf course. Tara: [8:22] Right. Dave: [8:23] If they started out there and then got to pilot Stick in episode three or four, that would have made more sense and have been more compelling. Tara: [8:31] I forget if they show him in the first three episodes, but the rival golfer, I don't think this is much of a spoiler, is played by Timothy Oliphant. Sorry, Timothy off of his pants. So he's like this jackass and we see more of him toward the end of the season. But like he kind of creeps toward this function where once he meets Santi and like finds out how good he is, he's sort of like, I'm to my golf academy. You know, look at all these perks and swag I can give you. Like, I'm really offering you the whole package. And it's like, it's sort of, to me, that's a more interesting version of the show. You start with the guy that has bad intentions and you have to figure your way out. Dave: [9:05] It's the guy who built his company in the garage versus the giant corporation. Right. But in golf. Yeah. Tara: [9:13] Yeah. Sarah: [9:13] Well, or have a club, AKA stick, AKA Owen Wilson. Tara: [9:19] Yep. Sarah: [9:19] Being less Owen Wilson. Like he can't disappear into a role. Nobody with that nose can disappear into anything. Yeah. Bless his heart. I think it's kind of foxy. Dave: [9:31] But- Except Hansel. Tara: [9:32] Yep. Sarah: [9:33] As you said in your review, both he and Marin and basically everybody are just on autopilot. There's nothing wrong with that. And I don't have an issue with anybody getting paid to do what they're literally expected to do and written to do. But in that first episode, he's watching this video of his child and not doing a lot. It goes on too long and they keep cutting back to him, but he's not doing a lot. And it's like, why don't you just tell this story as though it weren't written for Owen Wilson and then have Owen Wilson do it? I think he's perfectly capable of just playing it straight down the fairway, as it were. So why not ask him to do that? That's so much more interesting that it's like, this is what happens to a former pro who had a meltdown. Like, I mean, we already know IRL what happens. He's John Daly. And then he gets a 30 for 30 made about him. But tweak it a little so that it's not so predictable. Like, there's a number of scenes with him and Marc Maron, who, again, love that guy. Happy that he's getting paid. But given that we know what characters played by these guys do, this scene could be a third the length. Sarah: [10:46] Like, get on with it. If you're not going to do anything new, do what you're doing faster. But it just occurs to me like, Owen Wilson is now in his late 50s. Like, let him try to do something else and get him a haircut. That was another note from your review. That's like, you're too wise now to have this floppy hair situation. Tara: [11:08] Right. Sarah: [11:08] Still. I mean, this is just lazy shit. I don't know. Dave: [11:11] Especially when the whole soundtrack beyond the theme you heard, the actually in-show soundtrack, is all like boomer midlife crisis soundtrack to a T. You figure the character would sort of fit in better with that sort of tone but yeah he's very Owen Wilson-y. Tara: [11:27] It's crazy to think that Loki was like the most we were ever going to see him stretch. But I think that is the case. Sarah: [11:34] He was very good in that, though. I agree. But like, okay. Like, if you don't care to do that at work, I guess we can't make you. But then I'm not going to watch any more of the show either. Tara: [11:46] I feel like the show's on the right side of history in its portrayal of Zero, who is a non-binary love interest for Santi, who's introduced in the third episode. But when Lily Kay had to go, she, they, there's only one reason this ever happens on a TV show. And it's to make someone else look like a fuddy-duddy. I know you guys haven't watched ahead, but that's what happens. We absolutely get a whole monologue from Myths, like, whining about how much of a hassle this is. And it's like, I understand that, you know, shows want to normalize people of different gender expression and all that. But it's like, it's so, again, so predictable what's going to happen with this character. And it's so unfair to like put this on someone who is other than the kid who plays Santi, like one of the least known performers in the thing. It's been years of this. It's so it's so dull every way they express it. Dave: [12:33] Pronouns.org. Am I right? Tara: [12:35] Yeah, exactly. Sarah: [12:37] I mean, truly just have him fucking it up, being corrected and then finally figuring it out and not being corrected a couple episodes later without comment. Like stop performing this. this it's not fair to anyone in the project and it's not fair to the viewer either really. Tara: [12:56] Honestly all right can i spoil the end since i know you guys aren't gonna watch oh. Dave: [12:59] Wait this is this is like a mega spoiler so hang on one second. Tara: [13:09] Spoilers ahoy, so santi's terrible dad who they keep alluding to at the beginning the person who was so awful to him that he quit golf out of spite he shows up at the end once santi like gets into this big tournament and then he's like oh i love you now basically he's played by mackenzie astin like the most sweet-faced little boy mac mac that. Dave: [13:35] Guy mac mac mac. Tara: [13:36] Mackenzie yes this should be like a rob wriggle in his most psycho i mean i guess part of that is like to subvert expectations at least in this respect because like he looks like such a sweetie you can't imagine him doing this but yeah wouldn't. Dave: [13:50] Have known who that was except on listen to sassy. Tara: [13:52] We were talking. Dave: [13:53] About his teen idol send away for his videotape production or whatever that was. Tara: [13:58] Yes with. Dave: [13:59] His own themes like back back back mack mackenzie it's. Sarah: [14:03] No teen steam. Tara: [14:04] But no it wasn't anyway i just thought you would enjoy knowing that fascinating mm-hmm. Sarah: [14:13] It is time to ask some stuff. It is time to ask some questions. It is time to ask some stuff. Dave: [14:24] It's time for EHG. Ask some questions. Ask some stuff. Ask some questions. Sarah: [14:40] Questions i enjoyed. Dave: [14:44] That tara has taken off her headphones for our new ask ehg theme yes how you know it's successful. Sarah: [14:55] Yep it it sure is questions questions we will get to your questions shortly but first we have some answers to dispense with from last week's ask ask ehg that came from l triple b, Hey, fellow drivers, let's come up with a name for this time of year when the sun is shining and it feels warm, but the air is still cold and crisp. You know the kind. You're constantly adjusting the windows, AC, and heat while driving. What should we call this season of temperature tug of war? There was a lot of overlap in our answers this week, but I believe Dave has a contribution as well. Dave? Dave: [15:31] I found this term in exactly one place on the internet, and I couldn't tell you why I was there, but it was like a white paper in a science journal about some sort of like genetic tracing or something like that through a population over time, blah, blah, blah. And they're talking about fluctuations in this and why they don't build up in a certain way. And they called it Goldilocks Drift. And I thought that was a good thing for this. It's too hot. It's too cold. It goes in between and never settles. It's Goldilocks Drift. Sarah: [16:04] Okay. Tara: [16:04] Yeah, that makes sense to me. Sarah: [16:05] Yeah. I like that one. I would have gone with something like statistician climate point. You know that old saw about how a statistician will have one foot in a fire and one on a block of ice and be like, well, on average, it's moderate temperature. Dave: [16:20] Yeah. Like Schrodinger's weather. Sarah: [16:24] Kind of. Yes. We did have a whole bunch of listeners, including Leslie say, we call that spring, which true. Cara Sandra contributed wrong coat season. Love that. Meredith said San Francisco, which I also thought was funny. And then Simmering Knitter's perimenopause was also extremely popular. But today, stickers will go to George, who called it layer time sadness. George lives in a climate where it can go from snowing to 75 degrees and a little humid in like an hour and a half. So yeah, layer time sadness. It just had a musical quality to it that I enjoyed. So George, thank you for layer time sadness. That can apply to a bunch of things like when you're trying to make a cake and it doesn't work out. Please contact Dave on Discord via DM for your sticker. Dave: [17:20] Good answer. Tara: [17:21] Good answer. Good answer. Sarah: [17:22] Good answer. Good answer. Dave: [17:24] All right. Here comes your questions for us this week. First one is from Squid Eye, aka Elon. What other big media franchise should follow Andor's lead and make their new show a big old political wake up call? So Tara, that's directive. What show are you making do that? Tara: [17:41] This is a franchise I'm not familiar with, but I'm going to assume that they touch on some of these issues. Sometimes I think 90 Day Fiancé has a great opportunity with its captive audience to make some big points about how immigration actually works. Sarah. Sarah: [17:56] The Murphy Falchuk system of content already does this to a fairly broad extent. But specifically, I think American sports story could justify its existence a bit better with a more political wake up call forward mandate. Dave. Dave: [18:11] I think the Smurfs would actually write itself. you have oppression smurf antifa smurf trans wizard smurf and you got it all it writes itself it'd be like south park you can bang these out in a week, Next one comes from Tara Arellano. Tara Arellano, would you like to read it? Tara: [18:27] Sure. This is stolen from past and future guest Catherine Van Arendonk. She moderated a panel last week at the ATX TV Festival. It was about Andor with Tony Gilroy and Boyle Willimon. Her question for them was, would you rather double date with Cassian and Bix or Cyril and Dedra? And before I go to our answers, for the record, Tony Gilroy said definitely Cassian and Bix. Earlier, we'd seen the clip where, from the latest season, Cyril first comes to Deidre's apartment. She tells him that she had him followed and he sort of seems titillated by it. And then she tells him to turn the lights off and it's, you know, that's their vibe. But Willimon said he wanted to see more of what that dynamic is like up close. Anyway, go ahead, Dave. Dave: [19:10] Yeah, that's my answer, too. I mean, Cyril and Deidre, obviously, that is a fascinating night, I believe. Like, anthropologically, I want to be involved with that. Tara: [19:19] Yep. Dave: [19:20] Bix and Cassian are domestic downers. You know, they've had a lot of bad shit happen to them. They're not living high in the hog like all these Imperials. And their apartment sucks. I don't want to go there. Tara: [19:32] I thought their apartment was cute. Dave: [19:34] Wait. Tara: [19:34] Wait, the one in Coruscant? Dave: [19:36] Yeah. Tara: [19:36] Or the one on... Dave: [19:37] No, no, no, no. Tara: [19:37] The one in Coruscant. Dave: [19:38] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, what are you going to do on a double date on Yavin? Nothing. Tara: [19:41] I don't know. Dave: [19:41] You got to be in Coruscant, you know, with the nightlife and whatnot. Tara: [19:44] Go watch the Jedi healer do her thing. Dave: [19:47] All right. Tara: [19:48] I'm with you. As long as it did not obligate me to future hangouts, I would say Cyril and Deidre just for the discussion about their vibe on the car ride home. Car ride home. Dave: [19:58] Exactly. Car talk. Tara: [19:59] Yep. Dave: [20:00] All right. L triple B has our next question. If you're singing happy birthday to a family member with too many aliases, grandma, Ellen, mother, et cetera. Tara: [20:12] Oh, okay. I see. Dave: [20:13] Do you just mumble really loud and hope nobody notices? Sarah. Sarah: [20:19] No. I just hold the note until I've crammed them all in there. L-triple-B, a.k.a. L-trips, a.k.a. Tara: [20:24] L-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b- Uh, no. Dave: [20:52] Okay, great. Good answer. Good answer. Tara: [20:55] It's the truth. Dave: [20:56] Jovial Gent. If you had to appear on a competitive cooking show with a TV character partner, who would you choose? You can't pick a TV chef character like Carmi from The Bear or Monica from Friends. Note that I changed this a bit from his question. Sorry, Jovial Gent, but I needed to make it a little more relatable to the listener. Okay, Tara, that is your question. What is your answer? Tara: [21:19] Hannibal Lecter, Dave. Dave: [21:20] Fuck Hannibal Lecter. Sarah. Sarah: [21:23] Bill, from the long, long time episode of The Last of Us, total recency bias, but he has demonstrated skill. He knows how to elevate foraged ingredients. He is a post-apocalyptic asthete, so he will easily handle needlessly complex, contrived challenges like you always get on these shows, and other competitors would find him intimidating. Dave: [21:43] Can we just take a moment to appreciate the fact that Sarah was the one who didn't do Hannibal, and Sarah was the one that for it to brought a genre show to the table. Tara: [21:52] Yeah. Dave: [21:53] I think we're doing a lot of firsts here on this week's episode. Erica, what is your go-to comfort episode that you've watched over and over again? Sarah. Sarah: [22:03] Law & Order, season seven, episodes 14 through 16. That's the LA Troika, but especially that last one, Showtime. It's just very satisfying. I think a lot of other people hate these episodes. I think they're musical. Tara. Tara: [22:17] I don't think I really have one, But when I needed to put friends on Macs on my laptop to fall asleep in a hotel room last weekend, as opposed to because the hotel did not have Nickelodeon, which is what I normally watch it on. Commercial breaks are a key part of putting me to sleep. I went straight to season one, episode 18, the one with all the poker. I was out like a light. So good job. Dave: [22:39] Yeah, I mean, I guess following up on that, I don't really watch TV that way. I don't tend to like pluck an individual episode out for viewing. It would be like a rewatch of a whole show or a whole season of a show at the least. Originally, the tag on her question was to escape from these times. So I think before I remove that from what I just told you, I wrote that I enjoyed the mirror-y directness of watching Andor recently, but I don't think I would like return to it in order to escape from current news. It's just the opposite. So I don't really have a good answer for you. Wishful writing. My parents lived near the Mustard Museum, the best condiment-focused museum in the United States. What is your favorite instance of a performer putting the right amount of extra mustard into a performance? Feel free to think of this as an acting question or a condiment question. I think that question was just like an excuse to brag about living near the Mustard Museum. if you ask me, but let's answer it anyways. My answer is a literal answer. It is Liz Lemon who buys all the hot dogs from the street vendor out of spite in the 30 Rock pilot. I think that's one of the most economical introductions we've ever had to the true nature of a character on a sitcom. Tara: [23:53] Sarah. Sarah: [23:54] As much as I love both Mustard and the museum, I used to get their catalog until I moved house the last time and they lost track of me. I am addressing this from an acting standpoint and asserting that in addition to lighting my fire physically, Mr. Jack Wagner has always understood his assignment as an actor in soaps, daytime, and primetime. This might actually be more of a corn or ham rubric, but whatever the case, soap acting isn't rocket science. The proper seasoning, though, is critical. Honorable mention to my husband for the same reason in his delivery of sweet cheeks, but Mr. Wagner's rock bottom. Perfect. Tara? Tara: [24:37] I've watched too much TV to pick an absolute favorite, but Walton Goggins' Uncle Baby Billy leapt to mine for its recency, never not doing the most and then a little bit more. But also for recency in my life and also another soap actor, Carolyn Hennessey is Mrs. Valentine on Dawson's Creek. I'd forgotten how perfectly cast she is in that role. We'll be talking about those episodes where she appears very soon on again with this. Dave: [25:02] Speaking about mustard, let me tell you about something that's brought a lot of joy into my life recently. That is, with all the 2024-25 being the years of the dill pickle flavor variant for everything, you know, Cheetos, Velastic makes pickleball, corn puffs now, etc., etc. Sarah: [25:21] Flavored condoms, sure. Dave: [25:23] There was a type of mustard from a company called silver springs you can usually find their products in like a regular grocery store stout little mustard bottles they used to have dill mustard it was discontinued about six or seven years ago but they brought it back because everybody's dill pickle crazy now and it is some good shit you put a string of that on your hot dog you put a string of hind 57 on your hot dog mmm delicious very happy about that and that's my food tip of the week i wish i had a little stinger for that portland orc the first comes in with our next question who are you currently feuding with and why tara i'm. Tara: [26:04] Not going to name names uh it is someone on mayfield it is completely one-sided and that's truly all i can say i was going to give another detail and i can't they don't know but. Dave: [26:14] I do sarah. Sarah: [26:15] The Albanian coffee clatch down the street at the bakery. Chuvak, stop absolutely carpeting the tree wells with chunks of bread products. The pigeons on this block do not need the help. There is an event space across the street, and my carb stalker dog is supposed to be on a diet because you holes. Can't stop doing this, and he eats half a pound of stale bagel every day. God damn it. Also ants, but it's not a feud if they don't give a shit and just have a biological directive. Dave. Dave: [26:44] I'm not sure whether to call out america or the collection agency that i'm dealing with currently yeah this but i just had a medical bill that just never arrived and it went to collections like three years later and now i'm dealing with it because america's health care system is fucked up and i had to like go down a rabbit hole and learn about texas consumer laws about all this and like if i never got a bill i don't have to pay it now because it's been over a year and nobody can provide proof of that bill, but yet it hasn't been closed out. And I'm worried that it's going to be like whatever, although it apparently is under the threshold that they can report it as a credit or something like that. But it's so many hoops to jump through and everybody you talk to at the either end of the deal, talking with the original medical provider or talking with the people that bought the debt, they're all so dumb and they're all reading from a script that never helps you, so I'm feuding with the collections agency and at a larger scale with America itself. I'm a one-man army. Milsnack, what is your favorite Dolly Parton song, Sarah? Sarah: [27:53] I'd like to change my previous answer. Now I am feuding with Milsnack for making me pick. So many to choose from, and if I'm being real, 9 to 5 is probably the Desert Island song, but I do want to put in a word for I'm Gone from the Halos and Horns album. I've provided a clip. Woo! That should give you the idea. It's actually a little Ted Golfo-ish now that I'm thinking about it. But yeah, it's a good album. Check it out. Dave. Dave: [28:41] Yeah, not to be basic, but 9 to 5. Tara. Tara: [28:44] Light of a clear blue morning. Dave: [28:46] All right. Joe Valgent is back. I just realized there's an ESPN 8 that shows dodgeball for real. So what's on ESPN 100? They have two things on ESPN 100. They have Magic the Gathering, and they have Little League cheese rolling. Sorry. Tara: [29:05] Olympic tetherball. Sarah. Sarah: [29:07] With the qualification that I would absolutely watch this, ESPN 100 is devoted entirely to competitive gameplay of the absolute worst TV show board game adaptations. I have compared the experience of playing the Knight Rider board game to being a prisoner of war in the past, so I do not predict this lightly, but it does deserve professional level attention. Dave: [29:29] I feel all right Seekin has our last question it is just for me is the Carvel ice cream clip you sometimes play legit or did you juice it with the music let's find out shall we, looking for something festive. Dave: [30:24] Thank you and have a happy holiday. Absolutely the original. All right, that's it for us. Now we're going to turn the tables. Here is your Ask Ask ESG question. Answer on our Discord. It comes from David T. Cole. That's me. Wiener, bun, toppings. Tell me about your ideal hot dog. Once again, go to the channel on our Discord. It's the Ask Ask ESG channel. Put your answer there. We'll be back next week with a judgment and we'll award that beautiful cake sticker everybody's talking about. Dave: [30:59] It is time for the extra, extra hot, great Tiny Cannon presenting this week. It's Tara. Tara: [31:06] Hello. So celebrities who are bad at comedy cameos will go all the way over the top with them. Look what a great sport they are. Look how great they are at laughing at themselves. That's why I've gotten so sick of TV comedies where celebrities play themselves, air quotes, in a way that has a very intentional agenda behind it. But celebrities who are good at comedy cameos will just throw it away, as in this fantasy from Barry, season one, episode four. The episode is titled Commit to You. Having enrolled in acting classes with Gene Cousineau, Henry Winkler, the titular Barry, Bill Hader, is letting himself imagine a life different from the one that his manager Fuchs, Stephen Root, manipulated him into. What if Barry didn't continue working as a hitman? What if, instead, he put all that focus, drive, and determination behind making it as an actor? Well, then, maybe he'd have a huge house with five gas baths and a giant grill where he'd throw parties and invite his famous friends. Let's hear that clip. Dave: [32:15] House. Tara: [32:19] Barry is dark. There's gaslighting, stalking, and of course, point blank assassinations. It's a show about a sociopath, so no one can really be surprised to see him doing sociopathic things. And amid all the horrors, this little cameo is yet somehow one of the moments I remember most clearly because Jon Hamm nails it so beautifully. Jon Hamm, you can take a shit in my bathroom anytime you like. And by that, I mean cameo as yourself in a sitcom I enjoy. Dave: [32:44] All right. Thank you, Tara. Sarah, you want to take a first crack at this one? Sarah: [32:49] Sure. Just the turn. I'm really proud of you. Can I take a shit in your house? That is a pro. And the writing of it is so smart, too, that he's just grilling and then there's some random exchange about jewelry. And then this is what a friend would ask you, but filtered through the cheesecloth of this weird fantasy where everyone is around the pool doing around the pool sitcom fantasy sequence things. And then there's Jon Hamm asking a fairly intimate, like, found family-level friend question. And you really have to sort of sit with it for a second and let it, like, unfold for you as to why it's good. It just has this egg-like perfection that you just have to sort of let it present itself to you. Hopefully not, like, a shit on the rug. Like, hopefully he meant a bathroom. Dave: [33:45] You say unfold. I say unspool. Sarah: [33:50] Yes or uh open the petals of its beautiful whatever so uh yeah i mean it's just really it's really well done across the board and john ham is smart enough about the perception of him but also the sort of meta perception of the perception of him so i think this is really well done could i take a shit in your house just like the way he corners on that is so good Yeah. Dave: [34:15] The comic timing is really great. The one thing I will add to the exchange is that the choice of Beryllium as a conversation opener contrasted with shit about three seconds later, for some reason really got me. I thought that was a great scripting choice. And the capper actually is a great reality snapback where there's two beats where he's still in his fantasy while he's back in reality driving his car. And there's like another little line after that that I thought was great and sort of like, you know, brings you back, but also it was funny in its own right. So, yeah, great cameo, great comic delivery, and just a great scene overall. Shall we put this to the vote? Tara: [35:01] Yes. Dave: [35:01] Sarah D. Bunting. What do you say here? Sarah: [35:04] Hey, buddy. Yes. Yes for me. Dave: [35:06] Me too. So... Barry's Ham Fantasy from Barry, you're hereby inducted into the extra hot great tiny cameo canon. Dave: [35:29] It is time for the Not Quite Winners and Losers of the Week. I am first with our Not Quite Winner. It's me for picking the following item. The Lincoln lawyer is adding Colby Smulders for season four of that show. End item. And the winner is Dave. And our loser, the homophobe who edited a Parks and Recreation clip to make Ron Swanson seem like a bigot, and getting the following response from Nick Offerman, dumb fuck. Tara: [36:06] Yeah. Dave: [36:08] That's it. I mean, what else do you have to say in that scenario? I think he nailed it there. So good on Nick Offerman. Sarah: [36:15] Sir my not quite winner is jason priestly he is executive producing a west coast spinoff of his detective dramedy private eyes which given what tara and i do on again with this and again with again with. Sarah: [36:29] This we've had surprisingly little contact with but i guess it's a thing and it's doing well enough to get a spinoff and good for him brandon wash what, My not quite loser is the current cast of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Andy Cohen has finally confirmed something, namely that Bravo is, quote, actively casting the next season, which will be season, I guess, 15. You know, Gorga and Judice won't appear in scenes together. That's ballgame. The fact that they are not getting rid of Melissa Gorga only is, I think, a small victory for the culture that it's like, all right, Teresa Giudice, good luck to you without the aegis of the Real Housewives to protect you. I'm interested to see who else they come up with. Tara: [37:23] I mean, countdown clock for her going on OnlyFans, probably just saying over to me. I had a late night topic on the main show, and it's an all late night, not quite winners and losers here as well. Winner is Late Night with Seth Meyers, which is booking Conan O'Brien for the first time ever. It's coming up. Got bad blood with NBC. He hasn't been on the show. And yet it's gone in the other way many times. Seth Meyers has done his podcast. He appeared on Conan's TBS talk show a bunch. So there's you know no bad blood between the two of them and it makes me happy to know my parasocial friends are friends with each other good for them no outside of this duo jimmy fallon is my not quite loser of the week for giving an interview in which he whined that people want you to fail when you're on saturday night live and that dealing with hate is the absolute worst you can't make everyone like you no one wants to hear this from wealthy celebrities especially not him And when he has 700 jobs at NBC right now, he's hosting so many different like game shows and shit. He's writing his fake kids books. Like buddy, you could buy and sell all of us. If he want to hate you, that's their right. Just don't look and fucking never talk about it. Dave: [38:36] How have you lived on earth this long and not learned the lesson? Don't read the comments. Tara: [38:41] Don't read the comments. Sarah: [38:42] No. And also like you were the one who was notorious for breaking on SNL, normalizing donald trump by ruffling his hair allegedly being altered in public on numerous occasions yes. Tara: [38:56] Implicated in sex crimes as well allegedly. Sarah: [38:59] You're getting away with it eyes on your own fucking paper fuck. Dave: [39:10] Welcome in, grandpas. It is time for extra credit. But of course, if you up your pledge to the $5 level, we can provide you with the 40 minutes of show before this, in which we talked about a lot of shit. Tara: [39:23] So much. Including shit. Dave: [39:25] Thank you. Tara: [39:26] Okay, sorry. Dave: [39:27] Pin! Today's extra credit is called We're a Good Match Game. It comes from D3F42, Graventy, and myself. It is a tweak scenario from Ask ESG questions from both those listeners who asked, who do you want to team up with on a doubles game show like Password or Pyramid? So I'm tweaking that. I'm expanding the playing field with the following version of that question. Stack the deck in your favor for your appearance on 70s style match game. You're going to pick six TV characters, no TV personalities. They have to be characters from TV history that you think would generate the most points for you on that show by getting you the most fill in the blank matches to 70s era match game scenarios. So if you're not familiar, here would be the sort of things that would happen on match game. Horrible Hank is so horrible. Horrible Hank is so horrible. Sarah: [40:29] How horrible is he? Dave: [40:31] Thank you. Whenever he goes swimming in the lake, the fish blank. And then all the celebrities would fill in the blank and you would try to match as many celebrities as you can. That sort of thing. Tara: [40:42] Yeah. Dave: [40:42] Then after you pick your six celebrities to help you achieve that, you're going to cinch the win by picking a TV character to play against who would get less matches than you from the same panel. We all understand now, yes? Tara: [40:55] Yes. Dave: [40:55] All right. Who wants to go first for We're a Good Match game? Serity Bunting. Sarah: [40:59] I will do it. The idea here, which I'm not sure I can really explain effectively, but here's an effort, is to get a range of characters, some garden variety smarty pantses, but some with the same knowledge and interests that I have, so that they might answer in the same way that I might. If that makes sense, the specific information we might ven on doesn't really matter. It's that their brains might go the same routes that mine would. So we'll begin with Jerry Seinfeld. who is a New Yorker, a Met fan, fairly snarky and focused on minutiae. Then we have Patrick Jane from The Mentalist, who is good at cold reading people and solving puzzles. Crime forward, used to be a, quote, psychic and can read people in that way, which is useful, I feel. St. Dorothy Zbornak, similar attitude to mine, irritated with a wide streak of corny sincerity as well. And she is a history teacher. Sarah: [42:02] Danielle Melnick of Law & Order. This is kind of a wild card, but attorneys have a particular intellectual workflow that I think is useful for match game. It's like a practical trying of every door handle way of thinking in which they're sort of rifling through thousands of pages of case law mentally looking for a good fit and off the cuff. Often they have to do this, so I think that's handy for this scenario. Also, she is a defense attorney, so she really wants to win. Very competitive and zealous. Morgan Guillory from High Potential. Yeah, a lot of that is information and retention, but also the ability to synthesize a lot of information quickly and gauge odds. And we have a similar miniskirt boot pairing way. So I feel like she would be a good ally on the panel. Finally, and I have no real explanation for this one, but once it occurred to me, I couldn't get it out of my head. Ken Cosgrove of Mad Men. I just get the feeling that we share a self-satisfaction, a dumb wordplay that would be salutary in this situation. So that is my panel. Dave: [43:10] All right. Now, who is the person you're playing against that's going to get less matches? Sarah: [43:14] Oh, yeah. Woody Boyd of Cheers, because he's not really going to match with any panelist who is not coach. Dave: [43:20] Yeah honestly. Sarah: [43:21] So yeah that seems safe but i mean he you never know. Dave: [43:26] All right good answers good answer good answer i also developed a strategy it's not the same as yours what i was thinking is i'm going to find characters that i think have a very high chance of answering mom mama or mother to any given question therefore my answer will always be mother okay here is my First up is Muscle Man from regular show. Tara: [43:53] If you say that. Dave: [43:57] Mom, get out! It was worth it! He's always going to say, my mom, to anything that you bring up on the match game. Character number two, Buster Bluth from Arrested Development, the mother boy of that show, says mother about four times an episode. So chances are mother's going to be an answer for him. Perhaps just because he's scared and he writes mother on the card just out of fear. Number three from bates motel it's norman bates number four eric cartman with all his yo mama jokes from south park number five is colonel potter from mash who talks about his wife all the time has got that mike spence calling his wife mother thing going on mike spence pence but yes pence mike pence yeah which is super creepy Yeah. No matter who does it. And finally, I'm going with Roman Roy from Succession for having all the mummy issues. So I think they all stand a very good chance. A high probability of answering mother for any particular question that match game brings up. Sarah: [45:08] Interesting. Tara: [45:08] Nice. And who's your opponent? Dave: [45:10] All right. My opponent for talking about your mom a lot is Tony Soprano, who doesn't want to talk about his mom a lot. Tara: [45:17] You're right. Sarah: [45:18] Fascinating. Dave: [45:19] All right. Tara. Tara: [45:21] Went the same route as Sarah. I was trying to find characters that I feel like I would vibe with on a temperament level. And in some cases who have similar references to me. So I tried to map them on to like the sort of types of person that they put in particular spots. It's kind of fell apart. But first up, we're going to have Dave Nelson from Newsradio. He is also a secret Canadian trying to pass in America, very even tempered straight man, but with a undercurrent of rage that can be triggered at any time. For the Brett Summers spot, I'm also going to Succession, but it's going to be Jerry, the mommy that Roman has issues with, one of them. Tara: [46:00] For the Charles Nelson Reilly spot, I'm going with Ron, the Seth Rogen character from Undeclared, another Canadian passing in America, just very sardonic and dry. On the bottom row, we're going to have Monica Kegeler from Friends. I don't like to admit it, but it is true. We have a lot in common. In the center, we're going to go Janitor from Scrubs. He's, you know, another one with a high degree of spite, good plans for revenge. Very elaborate. And finally, you've been waiting for me to say it. Here she is, Liz Lemon from 30 Rock, of course. And for my opponent, I'm going with Mark S., the Adam Scott character from Severance, because he is a baby brain. He's not going to get any answers right because he does not understand how culture or this game or anything works. He can still measure his age and hours. He doesn't know anything, so he will be handily dispensed with. Dave: [46:56] And that's also it for this episode of Extra, Extra Hot Great. We discuss whether the Owen Wilson golf sitcom stick was a hole-in-one or stuck in the rough golf terms before answering your burning Ask EHG questions like who's cooking and who's going on a double date. Tara hammed it up for the tiny cameo cannon. We celebrated those who weren't quite the best and worst of the week and wrapped it all up with our strategic TV character lineups for the match game panel. Next up is the summer TV preview on EHG Prime. Remember, we're listening. I am David T. Cole, and on behalf of Tara Arellano. Tara: [47:41] Are you on mushrooms right now? Dave: [47:43] And Sarah D. Bundy. Sarah: [47:45] Bye-bye, birdie. Golf term. Dave: [47:48] Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time right here on Extra, Extra Hot Great. Can I take a shit in your house?