Staying Up For The Late Shift

Clip: [00:00] How could a television show be worth this much embarrassment? Dave: [00:09] This is the Extra Extra Hot Gray Podcast, episode 376 for the week of February 19th, 1996. I am eavesdropper David T. Cole, and I'm here with fucking fossil Sarah D. Bunting. Sarah: [00:28] Fine, I'll retire, Jesus. Dave: [00:30] Doritos guy, Tara Ariano, and gargantuan car phone Adam Sternbergh Welcome back, Adam. Tara: [00:32] Crunch all you want, we'll make more. Adam: [00:37] Hello? I'm losing you. I'm losing you. Tara: [00:43] Welcome to an extra, extra, extra hot grate. It is time for our special once-a-year bonus episode. It is the This Week in TV History Extravaganza. We're putting the extra extra in extravaganza. We are covering February 21st to the 27th, 1996, since that was Wednesday to Tuesday in the style of weeks on extra hot grade as we do them based on our drop date And everything we're going to talk about is from that week of T V. And it was a pretty packed week because it was sweeps, and that used to really mean something. Some of the things that we could have done if we had found them. A T V movie about Heidi Fleis's dad. Two different movies where grandmas get into big trouble. One with Ann Margaret where she has an affair with a student. Kills her kid. And one with Kate Jackson from Charlie's Angels, where she gets a a kid gets kidnapped, I think. There's also that with a Shannon Dougherty movie that Sarah and I already talked about on Again With Again with This Called Gone in the Night. Actually, not even a TV movie, it was a mini-series. But we're not talking about any of that. We'll get to our lead topic in a moment. So enjoy this trip down memory lane. And now, our guest. He's a writer, editor, and novelist. You've heard with us many times before. It's Adam Sternbergh. Welcome, Adam. Sarah: [02:03] Adam. Adam: [02:05] Hello. Thank you for having me and bringing me in for the Nostalgia packed 90s episode, the last time I felt fully alive. Tara: [02:15] Can relate. And if that's you, you should also check out our sister podcast, Listen to Sassy. But we're not here to talk about that now. We're here to talk about the late shift. In the early 90s, NBC was the only game in town for late-night comedy shows with Johnny Carson's Tonight Show at 11:30 and Late Night with David Letterman at 12. 30. But as Johnny got old, his permanent guest host Jay Leno and David Letterman both started jockeying to replace him. How did Carson end up retiring? How did Leno replace him? How did Letterman end up establishing CBS's late-night beachhead? And how might it all have gone differently? This fictionalized takes Starring Daniel Roebuck as Leno, John Michael Higgins as Letterman, a bizarre-looking Rich Little as Johnny Carson, and Kathy Bates as Leno's manager. Helen Kushnick takes you through it all. The film was based on Bill Carter's nonfiction book of the same title, co-written by Carter and George Armitage. It was directed by Betty Thomas between Get This, the Brady Bunch movie and Private Parts, the Howard Stern movie. Let's do the Chen check-in, Adam, should our listeners watch the late shift. Adam: [03:21] I think you should absolutely watch this movie. And I have to say, I'd never watched it the first time around. I'd never read the book. This was my first time watching it. And I kind of went into it with a lot of trepidation because I thought it was going to be. Sort of dated, anachronistic. We can talk about why, but I kind of loved it, and I'll talk about that too. But I thought it was great and fun, and it was sitting there on HBO Max. I would absolutely recommend it. Sarah: [03:46] If you are firmly a TV reads books to me person. This is definitely for you. I had seen it before. I liked it, but the book is better. That's my only caveat. Short version, yes. Go ahead and watch it. Dave: [03:59] I'm with Adam. I had not seen it before, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was surprised by how cartoony it was, and I loved that aspect of it. So, a hearty recommendation from me. Tara: [04:12] Yes, for me as well, but I agree with Sarah, the book is better. Yes, I read it, Bragg. When I was thinking about it this week, I remembered that I bought it from the Book of the Month Club. Which I was a member of in college. Sarah: [04:22] Wow. Dave: [04:22] Wow, nerd. Tara: [04:23] Yep, let's drill down. Adam, even if you didn't read the book or watch the movie before, it feels like a story you would have been following at the time while it was going on in the earlier 90s. the late night wars. How many of the beats did you still remember before they came up in the movie? Adam: [04:38] Well, I absolutely remember the story. I remember what a huge story it was at the time and i remember what a big scoop it was for bill carter at the times when they published a story about leno hiding in the closet like it was this Incredible detail that you almost never get in entertainment reporting. Tara: [04:49] Yeah. Adam: [04:53] It's hard to imagine what a huge deal it was now. And that's part of the reason I actually wasn't looking forward to revisiting it because it just seems like from such another era, this idea of like, Leno and Letterman fighting over the tonight show, not to mention all the stuff that came later with Conan and like this whole, and the fact that we had talked about doing this before this happened, but the fact that we were watching it, or I was watching it for the first time in the context of the late show getting canceled And just thinking, like, what a different era it is, right? And it's sort of hard to imagine why anyone cared about all of this stuff and why it was such a big deal. But I do remember what a big deal it was at the time. And I did follow the story as much as anyone, you know, sort of in the news. I was not like a huge late-night aficionado, but I. You know, like most right-thinking people, I was like, Letterman, not Leno. But I'd never watched The Tonight Show, really. The part I didn't know about, and the thing I enjoyed the most in the movie Is Helen Kushnick and Kathy Bates in her second best career performance? Tara: [05:54] After Matlock, of course, yes. Adam: [05:56] As this, like, insane manager who becomes the executive producer of the tonight show, who was Leno's manager. I didn't know anything about that story. I didn't know anything about her or her role in all of it. As I was watching the movie, I vaguely remembered like, oh yeah, I think Kathy Bass was nominated for an Emmy. And there was talk about this performance being really good. It was one of the great like Hollywood asshole performances up there with like Kevin Spacey and Swimming with Sharks and stuff. She's so good. So, that part of the movie I really enjoyed and I didn't know anything about. And, you know, the rest of it I thought was actually good. I remember the buzz around the movie at the time was so much focused on like who looks like who, and how much latex did they have to use to make Daniel Roebuck have a chin like Lennon. And I actually thought the performances were pretty credible. I didn't realize the other thing when the movie started, I was like, oh, we're like halfway to a Christopher Guest movie here. It's Ed Begley Jr. Tara: [06:53] Right. Adam: [06:54] It's Bob Balaban playing Warren Littlefield, which he essentially did on Seinfeld. Tara: [06:55] Mhm. Adam: [06:59] Also, it's John Higgins, Clark, Michael Jones. Tara: [06:59] Yep. John Michael Higgins, yeah. Adam: [07:05] As Letterman. Like, I thought the cast was really good. I thought that it was well directed. I really thoroughly enjoyed it. And The part that I thought I would like the least, which was like the time machine relique part of it, actually I appreciated because I was like, oh, it's interesting to think about this moment. Why, you know, the fact that this happened. And then reading that review in the Times that you guys shared with, that Dick Cavott wrote Which was contemporaneous to the movie, and he's sort of being like, All this for a TV show? Tara: [07:27] Yeah, we'll link it in the show notes. Adam: [07:32] And you're like, Well, that's how it feels watching it now, you know, even more so. Tara: [07:35] Yeah. Mhm. Adam: [07:37] But the movie itself I found totally charming and engaging, and it was a crisp ninety minutes. Tara: [07:42] Mhm. Adam: [07:43] I I liked it. Tara: [07:44] Yeah. Dave: [07:44] The thing about Kathy Bay's performance in this is that Yeah, she's tough as nails business broad at the start, but she does sort of travel into misery territory at the end, which sort of makes it like the perfect little note. I really enjoyed that performance as well. Another thing about this is that speaking to the oh, it used to be that wayness of it all, is that All the important information about the industry and everybody's discovery of it is transmitted through newspaper. And you're like, oh, I remember newspapers. I remember getting information from newspapers. And so it's like, it's such. Tara: [08:21] Yeah. Dave: [08:22] A uh time tunnel. Tara: [08:24] Yeah, including when Carson's retirement is reported in page six, or the it's rumored, which ends up being having been floated by Helen Kushnik herself to Advance Jay Leno. Dave: [08:29] Mm-hmm. Tara: [08:35] The way Letterman finds out about it is that like Robert Morton, his executive producer, picks up a post on the way in And like Letterman's already been at work and not heard it. It's like, this isn't nothing of no part of this could ever happen now. Dave: [08:47] Yeah. Tara: [08:47] But there's, yeah. Dave: [08:49] Yeah, news travels fast, but it will travel faster soon. Tara: [08:52] Yep. Dave: [08:52] Yeah. Adam: [08:53] The scene where Carson announces his retirement at the upfronts. Even that scene, I was like, oh, yeah, the upfronts. Tara: [08:59] Up fronts, they still happen. Adam: [09:01] What a big deal they were. Tara: [09:02] Yeah. Adam: [09:02] And did you catch in that upfront? I'm going to go back and re-watch this about 40 times because I'm obsessed with it. But there was a moment where Bob Balaban is like saying, Thanks to the stars of NBC. That's our primetime lineup. And they turn, and there's a guy there who's supposed to look like Jerry Seinfeld. Tara: [09:17] I know. Adam: [09:18] And I'm like, did they just cast that guy for this one second? Or was there like a other scene that was cut where like a different actor was playing Jerry Seinfeld? Tara: [09:25] Mm-hmm. Adam: [09:26] I'm like, I can't believe this. Sarah: [09:26] He doesn't even speak English. It's like an Italian tourist they happen to see at like 30 Rock. Tara: [09:31] Mm-hmm. Sarah: [09:32] Amazing. Tara: [09:33] The weird thing about that scene though, too, is that you see the full schedule on a giant, you know, poster behind him or whatever. Dave: [09:33] Yeah. Mhm. Tara: [09:40] And all of the times are off. Like they have a time they have a movie time slot starting at 10. That would never happen. It's at 9. All of all of them are off by an hour. Like, I don't know. Dave: [09:49] Local programming started at 8 p. m. The grid started at seven, but for some reason local started at eight and it threw the whole grid off one hour. Tara: [09:58] Yeah, it's weird. Dave: [09:59] I also noticed that. Yeah. Tara: [10:00] I know I never watched Leno. I never really watched Carson either. And the kind of wild thing about this movie is how firmly both hosts' personas were fixed In the public mind, back when they were the only two guys who had this job on networks, like I feel like the average person, even someone who wasn't really like Following entertainment news that much knew, like, okay, yeah, Leno is the one who's a hack, and Lennarman's the one who's too smart for the room. Sarah, do you remember this era too? And by the way, sorry to Pat Sajak and Arsenio Hall if they were in the mix too, I suppose. Sarah: [10:34] I mean, but the movie makes it plain that, like, that's not considered serious. Like, serious people don't count that. I had a summer internship, summer of 93, at the same intersection, like where Broadway sort of is crossing, like in the 50s. It was like A third of a block from the Letterman Theater that used to be the Ed Sullivan Theater. They were just like building it out for Letterman after all the shit had gone down. And that's like part of how I got interested in it. Because in 1993, like you, whatever, go out for lunch or to get your boss a salad or whatever. And like stuff would be Kind of on the wire in New York City, like OJ stuff the next couple of summers was like that, that you would just like get things from the air before you really had internet to do that For you, trending topics was shit you would hear at chalk full of nuts. And that's sort of how I got into That story because the whole neighborhood at like 53rd and Broadway was like, Oh, scandal, and traffic rerouted for the construction and stuff like that. But it also was like, you know, this was just a monoculture thing that whether you watched it or not, you had a basic understanding of the players in any given pop culture drama. Because everyone did. Like, my mother had an opinion, even though she was, like, an ABC late movie guy and didn't care about late night. Like, my opinion of it Was derived from Patty Chase on my so-called life being like, I miss Johnny. Like, well, you know, you're not alone. Tara: [12:16] Yeah. Sarah: [12:17] But yeah, it was like a huge deal. And the book, everyone is like so much worse in the book. And the impressive, one of the impressive things about this movie is that you really get a sense of like The tiny shifts and the back and forths and subterfuge that was involved in this negotiation, and it's very processy in that way without being boring. Tara: [12:44] Mm-hmm. Sarah: [12:44] Because everyone involved is a dick. Tara: [12:46] Yeah. Sarah: [12:47] I will also say, remember when Mike Ovitz was on the cover of Vanity Fair like every month This is the era that you're talking about. It's impossible to explain to somebody who is 30. Tara: [12:55] Yeah. Mm-hmm. Sarah: [13:00] Different world, literally. Tara: [13:01] Yeah, you're right. The movie really does keep you engaged, especially considering that ultimately it is just a bunch of conversations in rooms. Mostly between men and Helen Koshnik. Like it does get its hooks in you because it just feels so propulsive. And also, the tension at NBC is so palpable because you forget This is a time before, like Seinfeld, the back of his head, was anything at NBC. They make a point of saying in this dialogue Like, late night is the only part of NBC's schedule that is successful at the point when these all of these events are happening. This is before Friends, it's before ER, like it's before the sort of musty TV renaissance. Of NBC. What a time capsule. And speaking of which, Adam already touched on this, but we're recording this one week to the day after CBS canceled the late show with Letterman's going to be only successor, Stephen Colbert. And it was so strange revisiting this seeming boom time in late night in a week where we were told that Colbert's late show had been losing $40 million a year. Like when I watch an old movie or show. I'm always aware of depictions of jobs that don't exist anymore. Usually it's something like the person who types the labels for pill bottles at the pharmacy, not network late night host, you know. So, Adam, you brought it up. Talk about that too. Adam: [14:23] There's two parallel things that I always think of as like that are hard to communicate, as Sarah said to someone, like what a big deal they were. And one was the late night wars, and one You know, conversely is like the early morning show, like back when there was things about like who's gonna Matt Lauer and Katie Couric and who's replacing this person, and which also was like a huge news story at the time. And it's hard to remember why people cared. With the late night stuff, it's a little bit easier because Letterman really was like a sort of pioneer in comedy and he was a kind of force in TV history, I think. You know, and in sort of the culture at large. But there was a way in this, as much as I enjoyed the movie, and I, you know, I, like I said, it was like 90 minutes, it carries you through. I agree with you that, like. Or a movie that's essentially about like which of these two multi-million dollar offers is this guy going to take? Tara: [15:08] Hmm. Adam: [15:08] And we already know because they show it in the very first scene, plus, it's based on real life. Tara: [15:13] Yes. Adam: [15:13] It does manage to like hook you, and it does a good job of like parsing the story out in a way. But at the same time, it's just hard. I think for a new viewer now, the thing that would be hardest to understand is like. What Johnny Carson represented, like as a person and as a figure in the culture, and how the whole movie revolves around this moment where he calls Letterman and sort of tells him what to do. Like God, basically. And he's like, okay, yes, I will do it, Johnny Carson. And I just, I can't even really remember why. Like, why? I mean, I know that Karst was on TV forever. And I actually think, in the context of this late show news, it was interesting for me to watch the movie and think: okay This thing that's being canceled is really, in the grand scheme of things, it's the new kid on the block. Like, this show has only existed for 30 years and has only had two hosts. What is NBC going to do with the tonight show? Because clearly, if the late show is not working, tonight show is not, you know, is behind it in the ratings. Presumably, it's also losing money. Do you cancel that? Like, are all of these shows going to sort of go away? But at the same time, it's like, would it matter? I can't imagine why any person under the age of like 100 would watch a late-night show basically at this point. And certainly none of the kids. And the one thing I will say about that, you mentioned Arsinio and how he's sort of an afterthought, but it was interesting to be reminded of like. How at that moment, the arrival of Marsinio did sort of like stir everything up. There was this idea that, like, he was getting the kids, syndication, it was fun and funky. And it's true when you look at a landscape that was essentially Carson, who'd been on the air for. A lifetime, a generation. Letterman, who was on after him, who was like the weird college, you know, humor guy. And then Arsinio, like, it wasn't hard to shake up a landscape that was literally two people. Tara: [16:57] Right. Adam: [16:57] And Ted Coppel. Tara: [16:58] Mhm. Adam: [16:59] So, yeah, it was really for me, having lived through it once, it was a very interesting thing. I'd be so curious to like show it to a 20-year-old and just be like, what do you make of this? Tara: [17:09] Yeah. Adam: [17:09] I think it's an entertaining movie from beginning to end, and you could enjoy it. But it's similar in a way to trying to explain to people this is happening now in the magazine world because they named a new editor to Vanity Fair. And you're like, wow, once upon a time, this would have been like the biggest story. Sarah: [17:24] Yeah. Adam: [17:24] in the world, and now the story is how big of a story it isn't. And that's kind of like how this movie feels, too. Tara: [17:32] Dave, you brought this up that uh the danger with a movie like this is The casting is sort of going to become the whole story, and you're just going to be watching how closely people resemble the people they're playing that you know, and that it's going to just come off as an SNL sketch gone long. For you, did they avoid that here? Dave: [17:51] I don't think entirely, and I think that's part of its charm. I was saying in my Chen Check-in that it felt a little cartoony to me, perhaps a little SNL sketchy to me might have been a better way to phrase it. It does have a certain laziness to it, let's say, or our willingness just to like make these people seem like doofuses, like buffoons sometimes. Like, I really enjoyed how Jay Leto comes off in this movie, which is not well. He seems like a real weasel. Like He's not evil. He, I mean, the basis according to this movie is that he is conflict adverse and he does really can't make decisions. He makes life complicated for himself and then sort of spirals and he finds himself hiding in the closet next to a conference call and that sort of stuff. So I actually enjoyed that aspect of it. And you combine that with like the production of the time. If you haven't watched it, but you watched LA Law, it's the exact same lighting and camera work and sets, you know, like they're in the same building shooting out to the freeway in the background. Tara: [18:56] Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah. Dave: [19:04] The whole package. So, I actually really enjoyed the trappings of it. And I thought the way that everybody is presented, that really the story boils down to who's going to grab that brass ring. And this is a competition between multi-billionaires, but yet you still care because you hate one of them and you like the other one. Tara: [19:24] Yeah, it's true. Dave: [19:26] Really sucks you in, and it's not complicated, but it's really effective. Sarah: [19:26] Uh-huh. Dave: [19:31] And I really like it at the end of it, I was like, that was thoroughly enjoyable. Tara: [19:35] Mm-hmm. Dave: [19:35] I wish it was a series somehow. Tara: [19:37] Yeah. Adam: [19:38] I'm kind of curious how all of you feel about this. I actually thought Jay Leno came off much better in this movie than I expected him to. Tara: [19:44] Oh, wow. Hmm. Adam: [19:46] In part because I feel like he comes off better. Like, if you made a sequel to this movie that was like the late shift 2, that was about Leno and Conan, right He would be much more like the villain. Whereas I felt like in this, like Dave was saying, he sort of seems like a kind of a puppy dog. He's overly loyal to his incredibly insane A toxic manager, but he doesn't want to lie to Carson. Like he seems like sort of genuinely a kind of sweet, ambitious guy who's in over his head a little bit. And I feel like the way history sort of remembers him in all of this, partly because of what followed with Conan and everything, he's much, you know, he is much more a kind of a villain. Definitely, the movie presents him as like the kind of Doofacy hack and Letterman as the like the smart guy kind of darling who like won't campaign for it, but really wants it, who understands TV history. But I actually expected him to come off worse. And I remember when this Story broke, and that whole story about him in the closet, it seems somehow like in the movie, it actually comes off better than I remember it in life because the It seemed like so weaselly and weird and desperate and sad that he would like to sneak into a closet. Sarah: [20:50] Yeah. Adam: [20:55] I also always thought until I saw this movie that he was in the literal room with the people who were talk Like he was Kyle McLaughlin in blue velvet, like peeking out between the closet doors. So when I saw this, I was like, okay, so he's basically like in an adjacent room listening in on a conference. Tara: [21:10] Mm-hmm. Adam: [21:10] Who among us hasn't Listened to it on a conference call. And they actually sort of posit it in the film as like a canny move by him because he then can like repeat everything back to Warren Littlefield. Tara: [21:22] Well, it does make the difference, yeah. Adam: [21:23] And I thought Daniel Roebuck actually, like for all of his latex and chin and everything, he did a good job. I agree with Dave. The characters were cartoony. Each person had like one quality. But I felt like I expected his quality to be like, you know, devious, villain, backstabber. And he actually was just sort of like sad, eager, puppy dog with a terrible master. Tara: [21:41] Yeah. Sarah: [21:44] I think there was a lot of chatter at the time. about like the Letterman wig is too red and the latex is very obvious. But I think they sort of started with people that they knew could Get, yes, these are cartoony portrayals, but they could get the two sort of like strokes of the portrait correct. Tara: [22:04] Right. Sarah: [22:06] Like Higgins, sort of like grimacing and the way that Letterman sort of lurches around a set. I think he. Did a good job with that. I think Roebuck was probably cast because he could do a passable Leno and is tall and has the body type, but he ate. I mean, he was believable. That sort of like slushy, am I right, delivery? He got it like it was close enough. And The story is really about the machinations of networks and conversations in which literally nobody is saying what they actually think or want ever. So if the portrayals are cartoony, that's okay, because really it's like a I don't know, not a cautionary tale, but kind of about Hollywood and the monsters that it creates. So if the wig is a little red, like, I mean, we all know that's not actually David actual Letterman. So maybe Iris out and focus on the storytelling. But yeah, that didn't that didn't really bother me. I mean, any nineties product where it's like you're talking about almost uniformly, fabulously rich people, all of whose suits look like they were forty bucks. Except treat Williams as Ovitz. And that was another sort of funny meta thing that was like, you're sort of in between his like Corrupt, kind of like rapey villain period, and his twinkly Andy Brown period. And he's playing this super agent who, like, the uh way Ovets dominated Hollywood Meta commentary culture at this time does not translate at all and didn't translate much longer back then. But he's perfect, so it's sort of like, oh, like Trait Williams was perfect for this role that no, you can't really explain to anybody who is now alive. Tara: [24:03] Yeah. Mhm. I agree. Sarah: [24:07] And the book is a real page turner. If you can find it, it'll be on eBay for like a buck 99. So grab it. I read it poolside and I finished it in like a day. I still remember that. Adam: [24:16] It definitely made me want to read the book, and the fact that you're both saying that the book is better than the movie makes me want to To read it because I imagine the things a lot of what I liked about the movie is probably even more so in the book, like the backstage, you know, machinations and all the dealing and everything. Sarah: [24:31] I mean, Helen is so much worse, like, on the granular level in this book. Like, the extra quote runtime is all her just being max shitty. So. Enjoy! Clip: [24:49] Got a lot of shows. It's a great time for shows. Dave: [24:53] It's time to go around the dial. Our first stop back here in 1996 is Tar. Tara: [24:59] Indeed. So the February twenty fourth, nineteen ninety six TV guide that inspired this podcast episode wrote up a stunt. Jeers to CBS, remember cheers and jeers, for playing publicist to Elizabeth Taylor, the fragrance hyping actress somehow corralled the BlackRock. Brass into turning an entire Monday night's worth of sitcoms into an ad for her soon-to-be-launched Black Pearls Perfume. Well said, unbylined writer. They did this on all four sitcoms on CBS's Monday Night This is like the NBC blackout night in 1994, except Seinfeld, who that was like, we're not doing that corny shit. They had to just go around them in the time in the lineup. Anyway. The plot kicks off on The Nanny, where Elizabeth Taylor is coming over so that Mista Sheffield can try to get her in one of his plays and everyone fawns over her. She asks Fran to call a bonded courier to send the black pearl necklace she has on her. Ahead to the studio where she's going to be wearing them in a promotional photo shoot for the perfume. And Fran's mother convinces Fran she can't trust a courier, she should just take them herself in the cab. Driven by Cosette, played by Rosie O'Donnell. They get in an accident. Fran bumps her head on the divider and gets temporary amnesia, so she doesn't even realize she left the pearls in the cab. On to Can't Hurry Love, getting toward the end of its only season. This was a Hangout rom-com built around Get This Nancy McKeon. She plays Annie. Her friend Didi, a young Marishka Hargate, find the pearls in the back of Cosette's cab and take them, assuming they're fake. Annie wears them to the policeman's ball and dances so vigorously they fall off her neck. And a burglar played by Simon Templeman, he was in the Guarnieri violin episode of Northern Exposure. He's that guy. Finds them, takes off with them, despite the fact that they are at the policeman's ball. None of the cops find the pearls under a table like two feet from the dance floor, even though everyone is looking for them. Good, good job, NYPD. But. Andy and Dee Deer talking about the pearls later at a department store when Elizabeth Taylor, who is on site for an in-store promotion for the perfume, and at one point like pulls off one of those little like the cardboard things with a little sampler in it of black pearls on camera. Sarah: [27:15] Maha? Oh, yeah. Tara: [27:17] She overhears them. Murphy Brown, amazingly still on in 1996. Elizabeth Taylor shows up for a segment appealing to the public to help recover the pearl Then the cops call with a lead, she leaves, not before accusing Murphy of having had her eye on them at a dinner party earlier and finding a bell that Murphy did steal from that dinner party in her office. And the rest of the episode isn't about Elizabeth Taylor. Finally, another one season wonder: the abfab knockoff, high society starring Get This Jean Smart and Get This Mary McDonnell. As a successful romance novelist and her publisher, they get robbed by that burglar that we saw in Can't Hurry Love. Then the episode is about the Jean Smart character deciding she wants to have a baby, blah, blah, blah. Then the cops come back with their jewelry, including the black pearls. So the end of the Jeers blurb is the prospect of the newly single Liz. Her marriages come up in every episode too. Recommencing her TV career warms us, but we hope CVS will divorce itself from this kind of overt promotion, even if it does get a superstar to lower herself to high society. But At the end of that episode, we hear Elizabeth Taylor let herself in at Ellie's, the Gene Smart character, demand the pearls back, and then someone sticks their arm in the frame to take them back. It's not Elizabeth Taylor. She is not on camera at all. So she did not lower herself to high society, which is just as well because her not being there ended up being the last thing that happened in the high society series finale with its stars. Sarah: [28:34] Wow Oh, wow. Tara: [28:44] There is a coda. where we go back to the nanny and see Mr. Sheffield tell Fran the pearls were found and she suggests someone could have switched them for fakes before the burglar got them and then we see Cosette kept them and is retiring from driving a cab. A few things that carbon date these episodes. References to John John in the nanny and can't hurry love. Discussion about the Republican primary, including that Lamar Alexander is known for wearing plaid shirts all the time. Sarah: [29:03] Yeah. Well, yeah, Lamar exclamation point. Tara: [29:12] One of his campaign staffers, played by Jessica Tuck from the O. J. Simpson story, says she started the rumor that Pat Buchanan's staff are Klansmen Patrick Fabian for Better Call Sol as Didi's date to the policeman's ball with a German shepherd he's training. And in High Society, Ellie says she's looking for a man. With the sex drive of Bob Packwood in a secretarial pool. Remember that scandal? Sarah: [29:35] Oh, Jesus. Tara: [29:35] I barely do So after getting sold so hard, I'd love to buy Black Pearls perfume. Just kidding. Also, I can't. It's old. They don't make it anymore. I'm not. Spending $45 to buy on an eBay. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a shame that you can't do something like this specific stunt anymore. Because of how TV works or doesn't in the streaming era, but I do miss sweep stunts. And this was like such a weird thing. But you, again, another thing you couldn't explain to a 30-year-old. No, you would have to watch all four of them back to back to back to back. Sarah: [30:06] Yeah. Tara: [30:08] You can't even track a crossover if you're binge watching a show now. So anyway, that was that. For my plugs, we'll point you to our discussion of the series premiere of the nanny on our sister podcast, again with again with this, because Nicole Tom was on 90210. That's the tie-in. And I also last year wrote a piece for Cracked about 10 forgotten 90s sitcoms that still work today. Can't Hurry Love and High Society were two that I screened for that piece and decided did not still work today, but you can read about the ones that did. Dave: [30:42] All right, Adam, what have you been watching recently in 1996, the current time period we are in? Adam: [30:48] Well, as soon as I knew we were doing nineteen ninety six, I immediately had to look at the Thursday night must see TV lineup in that moment because one of my obsessions has long been The graveyard of spaghetti that was thrown against the wall by NBC in an effort to build a must-see TV block That actually worked. And so, as a little backstory, like for me, the first Must C T V lineup, which I think was before it was called Must C T V. That I always remember, even as a kid, thinking like, holy smokes, what a juggernaut was the Cosby Show Family Ties, Cheers, Night Court, LA Law And it was just incredible. Tara: [31:23] Yep. Mm-hmm. Adam: [31:25] You'd sit down with your family, you just watch the whole thing, and it was so good. And in the 90s, in 96, I said, What was going on in 96? So at eight o'clock, you have friends. Nine o'clock you have Seinfeld, and then 10 o'clock you have ER, right? So three of the like rating juggernauts of the whole decade. And then at 8. 30 and 9. 30, NBC is just trying out Every dumb idea under the sun. Sarah: [31:51] Oh, my God. Adam: [31:52] So, does anyone want to try to guess which two dumb ideas were on the week of the late shift on Thursday night between friends Seinfeld and ER? Tara: [32:02] I mean, I know it wasn't bad about you because that was there at some point, but then they decided it was successful enough they could do it on Tuesdays, I think. Dave: [32:10] I have only a vague idea of the other beige shows that they plugged into this, so this is probably years off. But I'm going to guess Veronica's Closet. Tara: [32:20] Oh, that's a good guess. Adam: [32:21] That was a few years later. It was actually two shows that I remember really well. And honestly, in the sort of pantheon of like musty TV failures, these are two of the more successful ones. It was Jonathan Silverman and The Single Guy. At eight thirty, which was basically just like friends-ish. Tara: [32:36] Uh-huh. Adam: [32:39] And then at nine thirty, it was Carolyn in the City Which was basically like the single guy-ish. Sarah: [32:44] Oh, God. Adam: [32:46] So I started to look at what some of the other shows were that had been put into these slots over the years. I put together a list. I'm just going to go through it really quickly. This is not an exhaustive list. And I may have accidentally included some that came after 96, but these are not all the shows. But see if you even remember any of these. There was the single guy, Carolyn in the City, Boston Common, not to be confused with Union Square. Or Suddenly Susan, which was a sort of ish, hittish. Sarah: [33:14] Yeah, it went on for a while, alas. Tara: [33:15] Hope and gloria. Adam: [33:17] Just shoot me, madman of the people, nothing in common. Tara: [33:18] Mhm. Sarah: [33:20] Hm. Dave: [33:21] You know who is in that menu to the people, Adam? Adam: [33:24] Who? Dave: [33:25] Dabby Coldman. Adam: [33:26] Oh, that's right, yes. Tara: [33:26] Mm-hmm. Dave: [33:27] And you know why they put him in there? Adam: [33:29] Because he's a madman of the people. Dave: [33:31] A little dabble, do you? Adam: [33:36] And then there was Dear John, which I do remember, Wings, which also was probably one of the more hittish on And probably got actually, I think, got moved off onto its own night because it was somewhat popular. Tara: [33:38] Oh, sure, yeah. Sarah: [33:38] Me too. Tara: [33:39] Mhm. Yes. Adam: [33:46] A show called Grand, which I do not remember at all. Tara: [33:49] I just remember it as a trivia as trivia, because I think David Hyde Pierce was in it before Fraser. Adam: [33:55] Here's two that I have completely memory hold, or which were never put into the memory hole to begin with. The Naked Truth Starring Teia Leone as a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who goes to work at a tabloid, and her boss is George Wendt. Dave: [34:03] All right. Sarah: [34:04] I remember that one. Adam: [34:07] One of the things that started happening on Thursday nights is that they would take stars of previous successful shows and try to seed them through like Veronica's Closet. And the premise of the show is that she's fancy, but she works at a tabloid, so she's forced to do demeaning things like, for example, this is one of the plots. She finds herself in demeaning situations such as stealing Anna Nicole Smith's urine. So I don't know why that was not a hit. Tara: [34:30] Wow. Adam: [34:32] And then there was a show that lasted for one season, which I have no recollection of whatsoever, called Rhythm and Blues. Tara: [34:38] Nope No And they just never did. Adam: [34:38] And the description is Rhythm in Blue stars Roger Cabler as Bobby Soule, a white man who gets hired on a black radio station after being initially mistaken to be a black man. Dave: [34:45] Come on. Oh, boy. Sarah: [34:48] Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Adam: [34:50] Reboot! Dave: [34:52] Oh, man. Oh. Adam: [34:56] Of those shows, the only ones I vaguely remember sort of watching were Carolyn and the City. Suddenly, Susan, just shoot me, sadly. But I always like to think whenever I have, you know, if I'm having trouble with a problem or I feel like I just can't come to a solution. I think about the way that NBC spent 10 years trying to figure out how to get people not to turn the channel after friends. Dave: [35:19] Yeah. Adam: [35:20] And they burned through all of these different shows. Dave: [35:24] I think, though, we need to give props to Rhythm and Blues for being in the writer's room and saying, all right, so is this guy named Jonathan Rhythm or is it like Todd blues, or whatever. And somebody's like, wait a second, what if we just like take a step to the side in the last day of his soul? And they're like, oh, that's the stuff, six seasons minimum. Adam: [35:50] And for my plug, I recently crowdsourced to the Intern My question about what I should watch next because I had watched a whole bunch of shows that I really enjoyed, including Department Q and Black Doves and stuff like that. And weirdly, The number one answer that came back was Tokyo Vice, a show I had never watched. It premiered in their sort of depths of the pandemic. Tara: [36:12] Mm-hmm. Adam: [36:12] I knew My understanding of it, I knew it had Ansel Elgort and Ken Watnabe, and I thought in my adult way that it was a show about like an American cop who's partnered with a Japanese cop, like sort of Black Rain style or one of those, and it didn't sound that good. It's not about that. Ansel Elgort plays an American journalist who lives in Tokyo and actually can speak passable Japanese. And it's based on a true story. And it features like what I assume are every kind of iconic Japanese character actor who's currently living playing Yakuza. And it's two seasons. It just got canceled not too long ago. But the two seasons are very it's a very sort of discrete package. It almost feels like a kind of 20 episode mini series. And I thought it was completely enjoyable So that is my plug to anyone like me who's looking for something to watch right now. I fully enjoyed Tokyo Vice. Dave: [37:10] Sarah D. Bunting, it is 1996. It is the month of February. You are watching What? Sarah: [37:16] I took the anchor of Mussy T V and did the final sweeps episode of Ur. Again, it was when sweeps was still observed as a television high holy ritual. The episode that aired in this catchment period was season two, episode sixteen, The Healers. And that is 100% a sweeps episode. This is the one in which Ron Eldertz Shapp and his partner, Carlos Gomez's Raul head into a late night meth explosion fire and save a bunch of children, but Raoul is severely and spoiler fatally injured and burned in a floor collapse and ends up dying, which touches off complex grief and trauma for Shep, who then spirals out of his relationship with Carol, Juliana Margulies. This episode also features the return of Chloe, Kathleen Wilhoyt, just as it looks like Susan, Sherry Stringfield, is going to breeze through her adoption of little Susie. Chloe, if you recall, had ditched Susan with the baby in the first season finale. Cloonies Doug Ross is confronting his Flawlessly cast father Ray, James Ferentino, after Ray stands him up at a Bulls game. That scene features Clooney actually acting instead of indicating with head tilts Apologies to Clooney fans, but in my opinion, his acting really did not come up to the show's writing or Clooney's native charisma until a little later on. This is where it starts. Just my opinion. Scene's a good one for him. Ellen Crawford and Lily Maury, as nurses Lydia and Lily, also have some nicely observed moments in response to Raoul's impending demise. So does Michael Kudlitz, once in future 90210 and Southland Star, he's making the most of his Guest shot as a firefighter. And this is Peak, Hathaway, and Carter as audience surrogates. Time. The episode does that thing that all the great/slash canon-inducted episodes of ER do that creates a slight gap. Between what the audience already knows or fears is coming and what the characters have not quite gotten to yet. You do see that in the Sabriki episodes. You see it in the episode with the Benzene spill, Love's Labor Lost to some extent, and this episode is another one directed by the great Mimi later, so that's no surprise I don't know if this would get into the canon. It's well made and classic ER, but some of the paralleling of the plots is a little on the nose To us here in 2025, it feels a little self-consciously sweepsy. And as much as I love B some LD, and you know that I do. This moment might have been a little too big for him given how much crying he had to do. I still love him, but you know. For my plug, listen to our ER draft episode. We will link it in the show notes, but it was fun as hell. Really made us think about the whole Brett. A VR, most of which was still ahead of the show at this time. And I think that if you have not heard it yet, you will really enjoy it. It's on the free feed. Check it out. Dave: [40:23] Do you remember a network called UPN? Tara: [40:25] Yeah. Dave: [40:26] UPN, with their, I believe, one night of programming at this point in time, or maybe two, was putting on a show called Nowhere Man. Sarah: [40:26] Oh, yeah. Dave: [40:34] Has anybody here ever heard of the show Nowhere Man before? Tara: [40:36] I know it is a title, but I couldn't say who's in it. Also, you're really setting up critics with a title like that, but go on. Sarah: [40:40] No, yeah, mm-hmm. Dave: [40:42] You certainly are. Yes. UPN, it's 1996. I watched season one, episode 18, called Hidden Agenda. That's the episode that aired this week. I would have put like serious money that this show was both A Canadian and B syndicated. Tara: [40:59] Oh, dear. Dave: [40:59] So you already have a picture of what we're talking about, right? Tara: [41:02] Mhm. Babylon's four. Dave: [41:04] It stars Canada's own Bruce Greenwood, slumming it up on T V back in 96, and like The X-Files. Tara: [41:07] Mhm. Sure. Mhm. Dave: [41:13] It features the lush ferny forests of the Northwest doing some dubious double duty for some real life reaches like Nicaragua and Chile in this episode. But it's actually American, and it was shot in the Pacific Northwest in America. So close, but no cigar. There are scenes where there is snow on the ground in that sort of early spring, late winter way. Tara: [41:39] Mm-hmm. Dave: [41:39] That is supposed to be Nicaragua, where it does not snow at all at any elevation in Nicaragua. Tara: [41:42] Sure. Dave: [41:46] So that's the kind of quality we're dealing with with this show The show itself is like a mishmash of conspiratorially minded stuff we already know about. Obviously, the X-Files was a major Influence. This is, I think, three years after the debut of the X-Files. So UPN's like, fingers crossed, this is the one for us. This is our X-Files. Sarah: [42:08] Mm-hmm. Dave: [42:08] It's not. It's like a reverse. The prisoner meets the fugitive. But instead of being a guy trapped on an island stripped of his identity, Nowhere Man puts this photo journalist, his name is Thomas Vail that's Greenwood In the regular world, where one day everyone just doesn't know who he is, and all his ID stuff doesn't work, or is gone. He visits his home. His wife has no idea who he is. She's living with her husband. Her husband's not him anymore. All that sort of stuff. So suddenly, he's nowhere, man. And he believes it has something to do with this photo he took in South America of U. S. soldiers hanging some people. So this week's episode is Hidden Agenda and it's a flashback episode and this book ended by this meeting with his contact in this organization that is at the heart of the conspiracy, the board of shadowy figures, the star chamber, or however you want to phrase that. And I'm not glossing over much when I say the contact, whose name is Alexander, is being coerced into getting Thomas to spill the beans on the photo. And to ensure in compliance, they do two things to him. One, They put a camera behind his eye so they can watch what he does. Tara: [43:31] Great. Dave: [43:31] And then they also put like a brain bomb in him. So it like shocks him and stuff. Tara: [43:34] Great. Dave: [43:35] So it's like one of those, right? Sarah: [43:35] Oh, neat. Dave: [43:36] So he meets with Greenwood, with Thomas Vail, and I'm not shitting you. Sarah: [43:37] Cool. Dave: [43:41] His strategy is this: oh, I know all about the photo But why don't you tell me all about the photo and your part of the story? And Greenwood's like, yeah, sure, okay. Tara: [43:50] Okay. Dave: [43:51] And he's videotaping all this shit. The shadowy. Board is watching. Greenwood is just like spilling the beans. This is the 18th episode. He spent 18 episodes running from his life. Trying not to get killed from this organization that seems to know everything. And he's like, Yeah, all right, here's my here's a story. Tara: [44:06] Seems legit. Mhm. Dave: [44:08] So the flashback is that story he tells, and it's pretty boring. He goes to Central and South America. Meets up with an old colleague played by Dwight Mad Dog Barclay Schultz. They run into a bunch of different factions. Some bullets are shot, take some pictures, all this stuff. And then we're at the wrap-up bookend of the series. Alexander gets his head zapped to death because of the shadowy board. We can't have any Witnesses, and that's the end. It was so poorly made. It looked so cheap It was a big cult hit, or rather, you know, a strong cult hit, let's say. You know, the candle burned bright, but not for very long. It is to the X-Files as like shows like Fast Forward were to loss. Tara: [44:54] Mm-hmm. Dave: [44:54] It was just like, we can do it. Nobody quite knows what the secret sauce is, but We'll put in stuff like you like conspiracies, right? You know, you like when the film flashes to negative for no reason, all that sort of stuff. Sarah: [45:08] The difference is, it's a redhead. What okay, Desmond Pfeiffer. Dave: [45:13] Yep. I mean, Greenwood here does what he can, but this show is a snooze. Tara: [45:19] Wow. Dave: [45:19] So you want to skip the finale and discover the mystery? Tara: [45:22] Sure. Dave: [45:22] Because that's what I did. Tara: [45:24] Yes. Dave: [45:24] Any guesses? Guesses? Tara: [45:26] Um, he's in a coma, and this is all a dream. Sarah: [45:29] Brain injury Jacob's ladder Wow. Dave: [45:30] Mhm. Okay, Adam, guesses? Adam: [45:33] Part of like an elab it's like the village. He's part of some elaborate experiment where are they all actors, or he's in some sort of like strange reenactment. Dave: [45:41] You've all hit on part of it. If we combine them all, we'd have a clearer picture. Tara: [45:46] Okay. Dave: [45:46] So the photo was never real. The whole thing was a setup. And he's an MK Ultra subject who never actually knew his wife at all. Tara: [45:52] Ah hand it to me. Sarah: [45:53] Oh oh, wow. Dave: [45:55] That was all implanted memories. So, nowhere man never was anywhere. Adam: [45:58] Implanted memories. Tara: [46:01] Wow, amazing. Dave: [46:02] The end. Yeah. And for my plug, you go treat yourself to something nice. Wait, for my plug, fruitopia? Tara: [46:14] Yeah, frutopia. Sarah: [46:15] Oh, there you go. Tara: [46:15] Mm-hmm. Sarah: [46:16] Okay. Clip: [46:20] Welcome, welcome, welcome to an evening of exciting quarter-mile action, action, action. Our first race is a benefit for daredevil Lance Murdoch! Murdoch! Murdoch! Who's hospitalized with cirrhosis of the liver! Liver! Liver! Yay! Yay! Dave: [46:37] I am here today to pitch for the Canon The Simpsons season seven, episode seventeen, Homer the Smithers. This story, written by Simpson's legend, John Schwarzwelder, is this. Here is the plot: Smithers, Mr. Burns' personal assistant, fails to stop an employee from menacing his boss with a cheery thumbs up. and therefore has a crisis of confidence breakdown. Burns orders him to take a vacation, and Smither hires the person he thinks is least likely to succeed in his absence. Homer Simpson. Homer is truly terrible at the job and the object of mister Burns' constant ridicule until Homer snaps and decks mister Burns. The punch sets Burns on a fear-fueled journey of self-reliance, which he thanks and hugs Homer for just as Smither returns. Homer gets the validation Smithers always wanted, so they fight. Burns falls out of a third-story window during the fight, and Smithers is needed again to nurse him back to health. The end That is the episode. I'm going to give you four sections of why this is Canonworthy. Section number one, the top nine things from this episode still in my auditory and visual lexicon. Tara: [47:50] Mm-hmm. Dave: [47:50] Number one. Clip: [47:51] Third, at last, Smithers fetch the bioculars. Dave: [47:55] Fetch the bioculars. Number two. Lenny's turning around thumbs up motion to the limousine window with the I do that a lot. Tara: [48:10] He really does. Can confirm. Dave: [48:12] Number three Pretzeled bread is something I say a lot. Clip: [48:13] You should have seen the murderous glint in his eyes, Smithies, and his breath reeked of beer and pretzeled bread. Sarah: [48:21] So good. Dave: [48:24] Number four. Clip: [48:25] I'll have my lunch now. A single pillow of shredded wheat, some steamed toast. And a dodo egg. But I think the dodo went extinct. Get going and answer those phones, install a computer system, and rotate my office so the window faces the hills. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Okay. Um, can you repeat the part of the stuff where you said all about the things? Uh the things? Dave: [48:50] The things. It's a great way to trail off when you don't know what you're doing in the house. What was I? I was doing the things. The things? And then the oh, yeah, dishes. Number five Number six I do that in a car a lot. Clip: [49:03] Donuts? I told you I don't like ethnic food Beep beep! Out of my way! I'm a motorist! Dave: [49:15] Number seven. Clip: [49:17] Son, this is Mrs. Bird. I just called to say I don't love you. You are a bad son, Montell I'm totally self-reliant now. Dave: [49:27] You are a bad son, Montelle, is something that me and Tara say to each other a lot when we do things that mildly displease the other one. Number eight. Clip: [49:40] What I would like, though, is a Spanish peanut skin It's a remarkable thing. In the short time you were gone, I learned to be completely self-relying and mister Burns can't stand talking to his mother. Dave: [49:57] Completely self-rely ent is the language you make when one of you gets the snack for the other, and then you come back and you give them the snack, and then you do the Reliant role-playing to say thank you for bringing a snack to your mouth. Tara: [50:12] Not to make this entire canon presentation about our household more. But this is one that comes up a lot because Dave once cut his hand on an apple slicer and now he's scared of them. Mr. Burnstyle. Dave: [50:22] That's true. Tara: [50:23] Uh-huh. So if he wants a sliced apple, I have to do it. Dave: [50:23] Yep. Number two, it paints a great picture of Mr. Burns. So here's the things he does in the episode. Mr. Burns makes a drag car race slow down to five miles an hour so he can watch properly. He makes Smithers trade in a giant novelty number one fam foam finger for a less ostentatious one. As you heard, he thinks donuts are too ethnic Some days he chooses to wear the dentures with the fangs. He uses great terms like incompetent boobery And when he's done with a phone call he doesn't like, he puts the receiver in his desk drawer and closes the desk drawer on it. Thing number three, Homer is still lovably dumb in this point in The Simpsons and oblivious, but not yet dangerously stupid and sometimes with a mean streak. So, examples of this is: he's wearing his giant foam cowboy hat from the Whacking Day episode in this one. I absolutely love that detail. He loves, and who among us doesn't? A little bit of gossip. Clip: [51:30] He never forgave her for having that affair with President Taft. Taft, you old dog What'd you get that for? Dave: [51:38] He gets confused by lists of things, especially work lists. Everything he makes Mr. Burns for breakfast bursts into flames, whether it's his brekkie kebabs featuring skewered raw eggs over the stove. Or again, when he tries to put him in the microwave, he just smashed the door of, or even the bowl of corn flakes with milk explodes in the flame. He is confidently terrible at role playing anybody over 100, and he can stop caring about work as soon as he gets home. Clip: [52:09] For knocking Mr. Burns out of a third-story window? Makes sense to me. Did he die? What am I, a doctor? Dave: [52:16] And thing number four, after all that. There's still great bits in need of mentioning. The fact that me and Homer share a similar understanding of the stock market. Clip: [52:26] Tell me how I stuck, Steve, yesterday. Dave: [52:33] Homer's research usefulness is at a chat GPT level. Clip: [52:38] Did you get that report on the accounting department? Yes, sir, I did. The accounting department is located on the third floor. Its hours are 9 a. to 5 p. m. The head of this department is a mister Johnson or John Stone. Dave: [52:54] There is the story of Mr. Burns' car with the most brilliant button of the episode. Clip: [52:59] Here are your messages. You have thirty minutes to move your car. You have ten minutes. Your car has been impounded. Your car has been crushed into a cube. You have thirty minutes to move your cube. Hello, Mr. Burns' office. Is it about my cube? Dave: [53:16] The Simpsons kids, Homer is overworked and very tired. They take advantage of this. Clip: [53:22] Look alive, Simpson. I'm not paying you to gold brick. Yes, sir. Now get cracking on my long division and don't forget to show your work, Simpson. I'll have it on your desk in the morning, sir. Bart, leave Simpson alone. Simpson, I need a ride to the library. Kids, stop exploiting your father. Homie, why don't you lie down and relax? That's why March, I think Mr. Burns wants me to do some long division. Dave: [53:45] And finally, Homer doesn't know what Marge does. Clip: [53:49] Cheer up, homie I just feel terrible about getting Mr. Smithers fired. That job was all he had. Imagine how you'd feel, Marge, if you got fired from the Those things that you do. Quick, Mom, whip up the cake before Dad fires you. Dave: [54:06] And for those 16 auditory and many other descriptive reasons why this episode is great, I now finalize my Canon submission and pass it on to you. Tara: [54:19] Thank you, Dave. Adam, start us off. What are your thoughts? Adam: [54:23] Well, I will say I think it's sort of unfair and a little bit of a cheat to do a canon submission that's eighty percent just quotes from Simpson's episod Because obviously, it's hard to sit through the whole thing and just be like, oh, yeah, like laughing at every single one, and then be like, nah, I don't take it cuts. However, you'll see that I am likely to support this episode because I'm a fan of this era of The Simpsons and I'm a huge fan. Of Mr. Burns, who's probably my favorite Simpsons character and the one that I quote the most. I'm leaning cannon. I don't want to reveal my cards too early. Dave: [55:01] Okay. Adam: [55:02] Do I reveal my cards early? Dave: [55:03] No, we'll put it to a vote at the end, so you keep this big mystery to yourself. Adam: [55:07] I will keep this big mystery to myself, but I will say that a sort of golden era Simpsons That focuses on Mr. Dave: [55:10] Okay. Adam: [55:16] Burns is a strong canon contender from me. Also, as a side note, all the lines that you quoted and/or we heard were funny, but the one that I actually was like, oh, I remember this from the episode is Homer pretending to be Mr. Burns on the telephone. I was like, oh, yes, this episode, I remember it. And I probably haven't watched it since it originally aired. But I do want to watch it again. Sarah: [55:45] I did not realize that this was the episode that created the monster that is my brother. Treating ahoy hoy like it's aloha, and like beginning and ending like text threads with it, phone calls with it So that happened. But it was also sort of a delightful discovery. I have a lot of notes here that eventually, like as you do with Simpsons episode for the canon, you just stop writing things down because it's like Do we need a transcript of the episode? If you do, I basically have one. There are a couple of little like Smithers throwaway moments. When the entire like pyramid of water skiers collapses on the back of his boat, the delivery of where are you throwing me is brilliant. But I do think that this is peak Simpsons, first of all, like Dave said, that Homer is like still on the more credible side of Dumb and oblivious, but not mean and not like you think he couldn't function in society. Like, I know it's a cartoon, but it is possible to go too far, which they started doing in a couple seasons after this. And the joy with which, A, Mr. Burns is a gazillion years old and has like a medieval mace, like the spiked kind, in his limo and with which the writers just throw every single like the velocitator, the deceleratrix. And a dodo egg. Like just the crispness. Like everybody is having a ball writing this guy who fucking knew McKinley personally. And there is something to that that it's like, what if even more? Like, I will take a Spanish peanut. Like, it just keeps going. You think they'll run out of stuff, they never do. And it's just so much fun not just to marinate in like that turn of the century patent office way that he is, but in how much fun his creators are having making him that. The outrage delivery of you call that post-em was also very funny. There is something to be said for canon entries where Obviously, not that they know they're going to get into the canon or not, but that like the sheer joy that's being taken in the skill of the The entire production by the production itself, there's something to be said for that as a value add to the watching experience, I would say. Tara. Tara: [58:21] You know, you can't clip the whole thing. You got close. But I'll just touch on a couple of that you didn't a couple of things you didn't mention. One is the meta moments in the episode, like when Smithers is trying to find the right person to replace him when he's on vacation and goes through all the files and like just keeps drilling down and it keeps getting the results of like, everyone who works here is incompetent and monstrously ugly, et cetera. And then he says, I'll just pick Omer Simpsons. Pretending that it's not going to be home or for show, I guess. Funny. Also saying when he's Letting Mr. Burns know who's going to replace him. It's Homer Simpson. All the recent events of your life have around have revolved around him in some way. Great line and true. We also get, I think, more than we had seen before of Smithers being gay, other than just gay for Mr. Burns. Like he goes to a gay resort. As Sarah said, there's a pyramid of water skiers that falls over. There's a conga line. Mr. Burns is like, I can't wait to see the pictures. And Smithers is like, Uh, it's not allowed to take pictures here. So that was a progression of his character. And then after Mr. Burns fires him because he's now completely self-reliant, we see the other jobs he goes out for. We think A, T, and T turns out to be neat and tidy piano movers where he gets so injured he's going to have to have a steel rod put in place of his spine. and then gets a job as the Dragway announcer and is like Sarah, this is what Sarah said, where are you throwing me? This is when he's getting thrown out because he is not the vibe that they want and questions whether he has to keep hyping people up when they're already here. I want to also mention how great the foley is on the peanut skin when Pinches it off. I loved the detail of when Mr. Burns makes the race cars go slow, the parachutes just sort of farting out the back. Dave: [1:00:15] Yes, yes. Tara: [1:00:16] Totally not inflated at all. Dave: [1:00:18] Yeah. Tara: [1:00:19] And of course, you can't clip this because it's a visual joke when Lenny, completely drunk after the race car event, leans on Mr. Burns' window. Mr. Burns puts it up and like Lenny's face gets stuck to it and his lip gets yanked up. It's very good. So, yeah, great pick, Dave. I can't believe it aired in this very week that we are happening to be discussing. Dave: [1:00:41] Yeah. All right, so let's put this to the official vote where all waiting for Adam's decision. Let's find out whether it is Adam Sternberg cannonworthy or not O Seredibunting All right, so that means The Simpsons, Season 7, Episode 17, Homer the Smithers. Adam: [1:00:51] Absolutely, yes. Tara: [1:00:53] Yay! Sarah: [1:00:55] The ahoy hoy that means yes. Tara: [1:01:00] See that he gets what's coming to him. My vote. Dave: [1:01:14] You are hereby inducted into the Extra Hawk, right? Cannon. Clip: [1:01:23] Americans love a winner. Yep, and we'll not tolerate a loser. Nope. Dave: [1:01:28] It is time to discover the winner and loser of the week. Tara has this week's winner. Tara: [1:01:33] I do. It is also from the Cheers and Jeers page of that T V guide. Issue I mentioned earlier, the winner here is Kev. The Kevin Kilner Nancy Travis sitcom, almost perfect They just announced is getting an initial two episodes ordered after a successful temporary run on CBS's Monday lineup. Can't imagine which of Can't Hurry, Love, or High Society it replaced, but definitely one of those. This show, I am certain no one here remembers, was co-created by ex-Fraser writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs, and future Gross Point executive producer and Romey and Michelle's high school reunion screenwriter Robin Schiff. Writers on staff included Carol Leafer, Jenny Bix, who would go on to Sex in the City, Victor Fresco, who would go on to Andy Richter Controls the Universe, and Ken Eston, who had written on Taxi. It ended up getting renewed for a second season, but got killed four episodes into season two, leaving six unaired. And obviously, it's not remembered in our era. But for now, in this week of February 21st and 22nd and 7th, 1996. Almost perfect winner of the week. Dave: [1:02:39] And loser of the week is Star Trek fans. As a study has found, they spend four figures on memorabilia. And this is my favorite little quote here Can even show symptoms of irritability and withdrawal when insufficient Star Trek activities are encountered. Tara: [1:02:59] Yep, that's also per TV guide. Dave: [1:03:01] Well, speaking about being sad about things and getting antsy, do you know what time it is? Tara: [1:03:06] Is game done? Dave: [1:03:21] Welcome back to Game Time. Because we are in the distant past, this will be a non-regulation game, and we are playing 19 questions. The 1995-96 Season Edition with the help of the Find People at Discord. In 19 Questions, to remind you, you'll be given a subject like object or character. And you ask me a yes or no question about it. If you get a yes, you can ask another question. If you get a no, play moves on to the next person in line. We repeat that until someone guesses the actual T V thing and gets the point. All the things come from shows that aired in the ninety five ninety six season, but the thing could be from any part of that show's run. So if we were talking about friends, it could be something from the finale of friends, which is obviously much later. Everybody understand? All right, let's throw it to the person in control choosing initiative or picky to see who's going first. Clip: [1:04:25] We will start with Sarah. Dave: [1:04:27] All right, so our order is going to be Sarah, then Adam, then Tara. Remember who you're after so you can be ready. With your question, are we ready to play 19 Questions 1995-96 TV Season Edition? Sarah: [1:04:43] Yeah. Adam: [1:04:44] Yes. Dave: [1:04:44] All right, we're starting with Sarah. The category is a T V object from that T V season. Clip: [1:04:50] It's a big up to the book. Dave: [1:04:51] So it is an object. It is something inanimate. What is your first question for me? Clip: [1:04:58] It's a big up to the boat. Sarah: [1:04:59] My first question for you is, is it smaller than a bread box? Clip: [1:05:04] I want to get a rock and mad. Dave: [1:05:04] It is not smaller than a bread box. All right, to Adam. Adam: [1:05:10] Is it an object that a human being would touch? Dave: [1:05:13] You would touch this object. Clip: [1:05:14] Cut them up, and the ball is a little bit more. Dave: [1:05:15] Yes, it is an object you definitely need to touch. So, yes. Tara: [1:05:19] Need to touch, okay. Dave: [1:05:20] Yeah. Ask another question, please. Adam: [1:05:23] Is it an object related to the performance of a profession? Clip: [1:05:26] I want to get a rock to make a motion. Dave: [1:05:29] Yes. Adam: [1:05:32] Is it an object that is used for transportation of people or other things? Dave: [1:05:40] It is not. I will let you know conveyance is its own category in this game this time around. Tara: [1:05:41] Uh okay. Dave: [1:05:47] Objects and conveyances will be separate things for this game. Tara: [1:05:50] Well, I won't say what I thought it was going to be because it still might come up. Dave: [1:05:50] So, all right, so to tar. Clip: [1:05:50] Is a weak old killer. Tara: [1:05:55] Okay. Is it from a sitcom? Clip: [1:05:58] It's a week of Don't come up, I'm the bar. Dave: [1:05:58] It is not from a sitcom to Sarah It is not from a medical drama to Adam It is not from a legal drama. Tara: [1:05:59] Okay. Sarah: [1:06:01] Is it from a medical drama? Adam: [1:06:07] Is it from a legal drama? Dave: [1:06:11] Back to Tara. Tara: [1:06:12] Is it from any kind of drama? Dave: [1:06:14] It is from a drama. Tara: [1:06:15] Okay. Um, was this a network show? Dave: [1:06:19] It was a network show. Tara: [1:06:20] Okay, was the network NBC? Dave: [1:06:23] The network was not NBC. Clip: [1:06:25] Don't believe it's a weak and weak. Sarah: [1:06:27] Uh was this object a one-off? Dave: [1:06:32] It was not in just one episode. Adam: [1:06:36] Is it a from a CBS show? Dave: [1:06:38] It is from a CBS show, correct? It's an object. It's bigger than a bread box. You're going to want to touch it. It's used in a profession. It is from a CBS drama. Clip: [1:06:50] There's a big I'm coming up. Adam: [1:06:51] I never watched CBS. Is it a s object is it an object that a human being could ingest? Clip: [1:06:57] There's a big I'm coming up. I won't be like I won't go back in the way It's a big old man, it's a woman. Dave: [1:07:02] I love that question. I mean, you could theoretically ingest anything, but you don't want to ingest this, would be my recommendation. Tara: [1:07:11] Is this an object that is commonly found in well, it's used in a professional context. Is it something that you could buy? Dave: [1:07:22] Yeah, you can buy it. Tara: [1:07:24] Like I could buy it if I wanted one? Dave: [1:07:25] Yep. Mm-hmm. Tara: [1:07:26] Okay. Okay, that would probably help if I could think of any CBS dramas. I was thinking CBS. I was like, it's the paper from early edition, but that's smaller than a bread box. Maybe. Maybe not when you unfold it. Is it the paper from early edition? Dave: [1:07:40] That is not sir. Tara: [1:07:41] Okay. Sarah: [1:07:44] Uh is it worn like a uniform? Dave: [1:07:46] It is not Warren, Adam. Adam: [1:07:48] Is the object central to the premise of the T V show on which it appeared? Is it very important to the show? Dave: [1:07:55] I would say it's heavily connected to the premise of the show, and I'll give you a yes on that one. Clip: [1:07:57] It's a big old ticket. Dave: [1:08:00] I don't usually like giving information. I usually like to saying yes or no. But for the interest of getting on with our lives, I'll give you that piece of information. So ask another question. Adam: [1:08:10] Is the object from Walker, Texas Ranger? Clip: [1:08:12] In the way you don't kill me, I'm not going to be a little bit more. Dave: [1:08:13] It is not. Just throwing it out there. Tara: [1:08:17] Is it from MacGyver? Dave: [1:08:18] It is not from MacGyver. Tara: [1:08:19] I think that was ABC anyway. Dave: [1:08:20] That was ABC, yes. Sir. Sarah: [1:08:22] Um is it a piece of furniture? Dave: [1:08:27] It is not a piece of furniture to Adam. Adam: [1:08:30] Is the object I'm just going to guess shows is the object on JAG? Dave: [1:08:36] It's not on the Jag Tatara. If Tara doesn't get this, I'm going to give you a big clue to continue. Tara: [1:08:39] Yeah. Is does the object have any kind of supernatural powers? Dave: [1:08:44] It does not. Tara: [1:08:45] Okay. Dave: [1:08:45] We're going to continue with Sarah. I'm going to give you another clue, and that is this. It is featured in the credits of the show very heavily It's an object. It is bigger than their bridebox. It is used in a profession to carry out the duties of that profession. It is from a CBS drama from the 1995-96 season, featured in the credits of this show. Clip: [1:09:04] Cause I'm back on the cold. Sarah: [1:09:11] Uh is it um Jessica Fletcher's typewriter? Clip: [1:09:12] Cause I'm back on Yeah, I want to just go to the camera. Dave: [1:09:15] It is Jessica Fleischer's typewriter. Tara: [1:09:16] Sarah Sarah Is it suddenly Susan? Dave: [1:09:16] You are correct. One point for Sarah. All right. That's how you do it. Let's go on to our second object. It is a show title. It's just the show title. That's all there is to it. So, Sarah, you're going first in this round? Sarah: [1:09:34] Is the title a single word? Dave: [1:09:36] This title is not a single word to Adam. Yes, it is. Adam: [1:09:45] Is it a network sitcoms? Dave: [1:09:48] Yes, it is. Adam: [1:09:49] Is it an NBC sitcom? Clip: [1:09:52] I am a sick of a cup, cause I'm like Cause I make a lot of money. Dave: [1:09:53] Yes, it is. Adam: [1:09:58] Is it a proper name or does it involve a proper name? Dave: [1:10:02] Yes, it does. Adam: [1:10:04] Is it a sitcom that an average person on the street would remember if you mentioned it to them? Dave: [1:10:11] Well, that's a tricky one. You're asking me to make a judgment call rather than answer empirically. Adam: [1:10:16] All right, let me rephrase the question. Is it a sitcom that ran for more than five seasons? Clip: [1:10:19] Cause I make a Can you get away from the bottom? Dave: [1:10:22] No to Tara It is not to Sarah These are all good guesses, guys. Sarah: [1:10:31] I don't remember how long it was on, but why not? Is it Carolina the City? Tara: [1:10:39] Okay, so we're we're circling it. Dave: [1:10:40] Adam. Adam: [1:10:43] Is it the John Larrakette Show? Dave: [1:10:44] It is the John Larriquette show. Adam: [1:10:46] Yes. Dave: [1:10:46] You are correct. Clip: [1:10:47] I'm a candle, cut up Cut a book, I won't let out Make up colour, I bought a book and ball It's a major boat. Tara: [1:10:47] Think that was CBS, but still we got there. Sarah: [1:10:48] Adam Brilliant. Dave: [1:10:49] No, it says NBC. It's NBC. Tara: [1:10:52] Okay. Dave: [1:10:52] You want to complain to the Wikipedia people? Tara: [1:10:54] No. Dave: [1:10:55] Okay. All right. Our next one is conveyance. It is the conveyance category. Tara: [1:11:01] There we go. Adam: [1:11:02] This is where I shine. Dave: [1:11:03] All right, Adam, you are first. Conveyance. Adam: [1:11:05] Is it a conveyance? Around which the show in which it was featured was premised. Is it a four-wheeled conveyance? Dave: [1:11:19] It is not. Tara: [1:11:20] Is it super train? Dave: [1:11:23] Sarah, I mean, I like how you're thinking, but I think Super Train was earlier. Tara: [1:11:28] Okay. Sarah: [1:11:29] Um is it a m military conveyance? Dave: [1:11:36] Ooh, I'm gonna say not really, but a little bit. So I'll give you the yes on that one so you can ask another question. It's a bit of a gray zone. Technically, I would say no, but practically, perhaps. Sarah: [1:11:52] Is the is the show on which this conveyance appears based in Space? Clip: [1:11:56] It's a member to the boat. Dave: [1:11:58] Yes. Clip: [1:12:01] I want to see a rack on care. Dave: [1:12:02] Oh, no, it's not in the transporter to Adam. Adam: [1:12:06] Is the show on which it's featured take place in the Star Trek universe? Dave: [1:12:10] It does. Adam: [1:12:12] 96 has to be next generation. Still the Enterprise, right? Is it the USS Enterprise? Dave: [1:12:18] It is not. Tara: [1:12:19] Is it Voyager? Dave: [1:12:21] It is the USS Voyager from Star Trek Voyager, aka the USS Shovel. Tara: [1:12:27] I really thought it was going to be the boat from the Night Boat show that I always forget its name. Dave: [1:12:32] There's always a fjord. Tara: [1:12:33] Thunder. What is it called? Dave: [1:12:35] Uh uh something in thunder. Tara: [1:12:35] Pacific Thunder? Dave: [1:12:39] Yo, what was it called? Tara: [1:12:39] Yeah. Sarah: [1:12:39] Night Boat Is it from a medical drama? Adam: [1:12:40] I thought wh when you said the military, I thought it was going to be a helicopter show, but those were all too early. Dave: [1:12:44] Uh yeah. Well, I mean, okay, it's a Starfleet ship, so it's not technically the military, but you know, come on. Adam: [1:12:46] Your Airwolves. Clip: [1:12:48] Cause I make home to the bow and ball. Tara: [1:12:48] Yeah. Adam: [1:12:49] Yes. Tara: [1:12:50] Mhm. Yeah, yeah, we got there. Dave: [1:12:52] All right. Object. A TV object, another object. Clip: [1:12:55] Cause I make home to the bow and all Don't do that, I want to get away from my land. Dave: [1:12:56] And we're starting with Tara. Everybody has one point. It's very exciting. Tara: [1:12:59] Okay, is it bigger than a bread box? Dave: [1:13:00] It is bigger than a bird box. Tara: [1:13:02] Is it from a sitcom? Dave: [1:13:04] It is not from a sitcom, Sarah D. Bunting. No Adam. Adam: [1:13:13] Is it an object used in a professional capacity? Dave: [1:13:17] Uh no, no, not really. Tara: [1:13:22] Is it from a drama of any kind? Dave: [1:13:24] Uh no. Tara: [1:13:27] Mm, interesting. Sarah: [1:13:29] Is it from a scripted oh no. Is it from an unscripted show? Dave: [1:13:35] It is, yes. Sarah: [1:13:37] Is it Letterman's top ten list? Dave: [1:13:39] It is not. You mean like the pit the cards? Sarah: [1:13:43] The cards, yeah. Dave: [1:13:44] Yeah, no. Tara: [1:13:44] It's bigger than a bread box. Adam: [1:13:46] I want to say something from Sixty Minutes, but their huge clock, I guess, is not technically is it the huge clock from Sixty Minutes? Dave: [1:13:54] Okay, wait, it's not, and I don't think we're going to get there, but I'm just letting you know that was one of the last overflow ones was the stopwatch from 60 Minutes. Tara: [1:14:00] Oh, amazing. Dave: [1:14:02] From Eric. Oh, I forgot to say the Tarp Raider was from Lindsay and John Larrakesha was mine, as was Voyager. Tara: [1:14:06] Nice. Great. Dave: [1:14:09] Okay, back to Tara. Tara: [1:14:09] Okay. Unscripted shows and from a game show. Dave: [1:14:13] No, Sarah. Tara: [1:14:13] Not okay. Sarah: [1:14:16] Is it from a late night show? Dave: [1:14:19] No, Adam. Sarah: [1:14:20] Wow. Adam: [1:14:21] Is it from cops? Dave: [1:14:25] No, but you're getting closer. Tara: [1:14:27] Okay, so it's something in like the candid reality genre? Okay. Sarah: [1:14:35] Uh is it from a morning show? Dave: [1:14:39] It is not Adam. Adam: [1:14:42] Is it from a network shouse? Dave: [1:14:44] Yes. Adam: [1:14:47] Is it from a prime time shows? Dave: [1:14:50] Yes. Adam: [1:14:53] Is it from a sports show? Dave: [1:14:56] It is not Tatara. Tara: [1:14:59] Is it from uh some kind of informational show? Okay. Um is it from Is it from something like a well, let's figure out the network. Is it from NBC? Dave: [1:15:16] At this time it was contemporary to our game I'll give you that. Tara: [1:15:18] Oh no. Clip: [1:15:19] Can't go out of the wall. Tara: [1:15:20] Okay, it moved. An informational show that was on NBC in prime time, but then it moved. Is it still on the show? Fuck. Is it still on a network, a different network? Clip: [1:15:39] I want to make a couple of things I want because I'm very Come on, come on. Tara: [1:15:42] Okay, is it uns is it from Unsolved Mysteries? Is it Robert Stack's coat? Dave: [1:15:50] You are correct. It is Robert Stack's trench coat from Unsolved Mysteries. Sarah: [1:15:52] Stacky Oh, boy. Dave: [1:15:54] Thanks to Erica for that one. Adam: [1:15:55] Oh my god, that was an unsolved mystery worthy of Robert Stack. Dave: [1:16:01] Our next category is location. After this, we'll do a score break, see where we are on time. Tara, you are leading with two points. Everybody else is one. You will start off the guesses for this T V location. Tara: [1:16:12] Location. Is it a real location on Earth? Okay. Dave: [1:16:17] It is not Tissera. Sarah: [1:16:20] Wait, is it a real? We know it's not a real location, but did you get the on earth part? Dave: [1:16:25] It's not a real location on Earth. I took to mean, is it a real place on Earth? Tara: [1:16:30] So, it could be a real place in space. Dave: [1:16:32] Is it real or fictitious? Is the way I chose to interpret that I am not talking whether it is on or out of Earth in my answer. Tara: [1:16:34] Okay, okay. Sarah: [1:16:35] Gotcha. Um Gotcha. Tara: [1:16:40] I see. Sarah: [1:16:41] All right. Is it on Earth? Dave: [1:16:44] It is. Sarah: [1:16:46] Great. Is it in the United States? Dave: [1:16:49] Yes. Sarah: [1:16:51] Is it a place from a sitcom? Clip: [1:16:52] I want to see a rock, I want to see a rock Can you book Cause I'm made more out of my baby. Dave: [1:16:55] It is not to Adam. Adam: [1:16:57] Is the show on which it appears a science fiction show? Dave: [1:17:05] Maybe marginally, and I don't want to get letters, so I'm going to let you ask another question. Adam: [1:17:11] All right. Is it a location featured on the X files? Tara: [1:17:19] Okay. Um is it scripted? Dave: [1:17:24] It is scripted. Tara: [1:17:25] Is it a drama? Dave: [1:17:28] Kinda. So that's another question. Not strictly drama. Tara: [1:17:32] Okay. Dave: [1:17:32] Not strictly drama, not strictly science fiction. Tara: [1:17:34] Got it. Okay. Um, is it on NBC? Dave: [1:17:38] It is not on NBC, Sarah. Tara: [1:17:39] Okay. Sarah: [1:17:42] Is it in the central time zone? Dave: [1:17:44] Oh boy. No way of answering that. Tara: [1:17:47] Okay. Dave: [1:17:48] Yeah. Sarah: [1:17:48] Okay. Dave: [1:17:49] I'm going to guess probably not, but I think I couldn't say definitively. Sarah: [1:17:49] Do you want me to ask? Tara: [1:17:53] But add something else, basically. Yeah. Sarah: [1:17:55] Okay. Is it a building? Dave: [1:17:58] It is a building. Sarah: [1:18:00] It's not exactly sci-fi science. Uh, is it a hospital? Dave: [1:18:04] Not a hospital, though, Adam. Adam: [1:18:07] Is it a place of business? Dave: [1:18:09] It is a place of business. Adam: [1:18:12] Is the name of the location referenced in the title of the show? Dave: [1:18:17] It is not. Tara: [1:18:19] Is it on A B C But it's not in the title. Clip: [1:18:20] I don't know what I'm talking about. Dave: [1:18:21] It is on A B C. Clip: [1:18:24] Cause I'm made on breakdown out of my baby. Tara: [1:18:25] Um this it's definitely not still on if it is scripted Is it a store? Clip: [1:18:28] I'm on, like, I want to rock. I'm on the light, I want to rock Is a big coming to the big company. Dave: [1:18:36] From the Castle Ah A store it is not a store to Sarah It is a building, it is a newsroom, it is a place of business, it is from a fictitious, it is a fictitious thing. Tara: [1:18:39] Is it a store? Okay. Sarah: [1:18:45] It's not a store. It's not a is it a newsroom? From oh my god. Okay, uh, is it the Is it that um fuck oh no, it's on ABC, so it can't be the Condor. I don't I don't know. Is it the is it the CU T V station? I know this is wrong, but okay. Dave: [1:19:22] It is not, Adam. Adam: [1:19:24] Is it the daily planet? Dave: [1:19:26] It is the Daily Planet from Lois and Clark, The New Adventures of Superman. Tara: [1:19:27] Adam Adam Linda Holmes Dam Okay, Sarah has one. Sarah: [1:19:28] Nice. Oh, yeah. Clip: [1:19:31] Cause I make a cold, cause I make them come. Sarah: [1:19:32] Okay. Dave: [1:19:32] All right, for a bonus day point, who submitted that one? Sarah: [1:19:33] Good job. Dave: [1:19:36] No, that's a good guess, but no, no, that was Dan Casito. Sarah: [1:19:37] Caroline Secant. Dave: [1:19:42] All right, let's get the scores, please. Tara: [1:19:47] Adam and I are tied with two apiece. Dave: [1:19:49] I love it. All right, let's do a couple more here unless anybody has to go super soon. We're all good on time. Okay. Our next one is an action. An action. And this will be our penultimate category: action. Adam Sterberg, you're first. Adam: [1:20:06] Action. Clip: [1:20:06] Yeah, I want to take a look, cause I'm mad. Dave: [1:20:06] Yeah. Adam: [1:20:06] Is it an action that's typically performed by human beings? Clip: [1:20:11] I'm not gonna go to get a rock, cause I'm a little bit more than a hundred. Dave: [1:20:12] It is. Adam: [1:20:13] That narrows it down. Dave: [1:20:14] Mhm. Adam: [1:20:16] Is it an action that is central to the premise of the show on which it's featured? Tara: [1:20:26] Is it from uh a late night talk show? Dave: [1:20:30] It is not, Sarah. Sarah: [1:20:32] Is it from a sitcom? Dave: [1:20:33] It is from a sitcom. Sarah: [1:20:37] Is it a is the sitcom on ABC? Clip: [1:20:38] It's a member to the book. Dave: [1:20:42] It is not Oh, that would have been a good one. Adam: [1:20:44] I'm sad that it's a sitcom because I was going to ask if the action was being touched by an angel. Clip: [1:20:46] It's a member to the book. Adam: [1:20:50] Um is it on NBC sitcom? Clip: [1:20:50] I'm not going to let you get away with this. Dave: [1:20:54] Yes, it is. Adam: [1:20:56] Is The action making is the is the action described in the theme song of Fraser? Clip: [1:21:01] Is a weird thing. Tara: [1:21:06] Is it making tossed salads and scrambled eggs? Clip: [1:21:08] It's a weird free Is on me coming to the mouth of the world. Tara: [1:21:09] Is it from friends? Okay. Sarah: [1:21:12] Ah shit. Tara: [1:21:13] I really thought I knew it. Sarah: [1:21:17] Okay. Action. Dave: [1:21:19] It is well known, it's nothing obscure. Sarah: [1:21:22] Is it from is it from Seinfeld? Dave: [1:21:26] Nope, Adam. Adam: [1:21:29] Is it from Mad about You? Tara: [1:21:34] Is it from cheers? Sarah: [1:21:37] Is it from Caroline in the City? Adam: [1:21:42] It's an action from a sitcom that's a well-known action from an NBC sitcom. Dave: [1:21:45] Yeah. Yeah. Adam: [1:21:47] Is it from Fraser? Sarah: [1:21:50] O CBS Oh, yeah, okay. Dave: [1:21:51] Oh, Fraser's NBC. Tara: [1:21:53] It's just on Paramount Plus because uh right. Oh, God, what other sitcoms did they even have in this era? Dave: [1:22:07] I'm going to let you know, as soon as you get the show, you're going to get the answer. Clip: [1:22:08] It's a meeting to the boat. Tara: [1:22:10] Yeah, I'm just trying to okay. Did Adam mention it earlier in Around the Dial that you recall? Dave: [1:22:16] No, Sir Yes. Tara: [1:22:17] Okay. So it's not a Thursday show. Sarah: [1:22:21] Does the action take place indoors? Does the action involve eating or meals? Dave: [1:22:33] No. All right, back to Adam. Adam: [1:22:37] Is it an action from Third Rock from the Sun? Dave: [1:22:41] Nope. Tara: [1:22:41] Fuck, that's what I was gonna guess. Dave: [1:22:44] All right. If Tari doesn't get this, I'll try to figure out a hint that doesn't give out the whole thing. All right, go ahead. Tara: [1:22:49] Yeah. Goddamn. What other shows does it still have? A ninety six and ninety five. Is it from news radio? Fuck. Dave: [1:23:04] All right. To Sarah, I'm going to say a really famous theme song to this NBC sitcom as well. Sarah: [1:23:14] Really famous theme song. Dave: [1:23:15] Yeah. Clip: [1:23:16] Be comfortable. Dave: [1:23:16] It's a show that aired in the season that we're discussing, 95, 96. Sarah: [1:23:17] Um Is it the singing of Shalala? Tara: [1:23:21] All right, so it wouldn't be cheers, duh. Dave: [1:23:23] It's an action performed by humans indoors. Sarah: [1:23:30] I know it was off the air by then, but I got nothing. Dave: [1:23:32] All right, Adam, guesses. Adam: [1:23:35] Is it something from the freshprints of Bel Air? Dave: [1:23:38] It is It's an action from the fresh prince of Bel Air performed by a human indoors It it's it's it's not a it's it's it's a you know, it's a movement, it's an action. Clip: [1:23:46] Cool, and the barracks are made up of cutable and the ball. Adam: [1:23:46] Is it I was going to say is it moving to Los Angeles, but that's outdoors. I don't It's a movement. Dave: [1:23:58] Yeah. Adam: [1:24:00] Is it getting is it I don't know it. Clip: [1:24:00] Cause I'm back on the back. Sarah: [1:24:00] I think I know what it is now. Dave: [1:24:02] If you don't get this, Tara is going to get it, I guarantee it. Sarah: [1:24:05] Yeah. Adam: [1:24:07] Is it getting is it uh is it uh doing the worm? Clip: [1:24:07] Cause I'm back on Can you book out Cause I'm back on the back, cause I'm on the bottom. Tara: [1:24:12] Is it Uncle Phil throwing the DJ Jazzy Jeff out of the house? Dave: [1:24:18] It is not Sarah. Tara: [1:24:18] No! Oh my God. Sarah: [1:24:21] So it's not the Carlton dance? Dave: [1:24:23] It is the Carlton dance. Yeah, nobody guessed that. Adam said the worm. Tara said getting thrown out the door. And so Carlton's dance was the correct one. That came from Lindsay. All right. So what's the scores right now? Tara: [1:24:36] We're all tied up with two each. Dave: [1:24:38] Well, all tied up. One more to go. Tara: [1:24:39] Okay, great. Dave: [1:24:40] So, this one will take it. What am I going to pick? Oh, it's not the stopwatch from 60 minutes. All right, let's do this one. Our last one is body part. Tara: [1:24:54] Pie part. Dave: [1:24:54] Body part. And Sarah, you start us off with body part questions. Tara: [1:24:58] Okay. Sarah: [1:25:02] Uh is it above the waist? Adam: [1:25:07] The amount of time Dave had to think about that is very compelling. Sarah: [1:25:10] Yeah, oh God. Adam: [1:25:15] Is it the body part of a central character to a T V show? Clip: [1:25:22] Cause I'm back on Couldn't bring all my own bring on the Cause I make a move. Adam: [1:25:23] Is it a body part that is central to the premise of the show? Tara: [1:25:30] Is it a human body part? Is it Lenny Briscoe's eyes slash Jerry Borbach's eyes? Dave: [1:25:38] No, they're still out there, but no. Clip: [1:25:39] I'm gonna go back to the book. Tara: [1:25:40] I know. Dave: [1:25:41] All right, sir. Sarah: [1:25:41] No, okay, not Lenny's eyes. Clip: [1:25:44] Is it make up to the book? Sarah: [1:25:45] Uh, is it from a sitcom? Tara: [1:25:48] Oh, it's it's not about the ways. Dave: [1:25:51] It is not from a sitcom. Tara: [1:25:51] Okay. Adam: [1:25:53] It's a body part. Is it from a scripted show? Dave: [1:25:55] It is from a scripted show. Adam: [1:25:58] Is it a network show? Dave: [1:26:01] Yes, scripted network show is resplendent with body parts. Tara: [1:26:05] They're famous for them. Adam: [1:26:07] Somebody's is it the short-lived My Left Foot adaptation that they did on CBS in the nineties? Clip: [1:26:12] Like I want to rock, I want to rock Cause they come to the book we are I want to let you go back and make a moment. Tara: [1:26:13] That was a sitcom, weirdly? No. Dave: [1:26:17] Oh, Lefty? You're talking about Lefty. Tara: [1:26:19] It's not a sitcom. Adam: [1:26:22] Is it a workplace drama? Dave: [1:26:26] Mm mm, you gotta say no to that. I mean technically, but not not in the not in the way that you would consider wordplace in T V terms. Tara: [1:26:36] Okay, NBC. Dave: [1:26:39] Nope. Sarah. I think Adam has an idea what it is. He was doing a little knowledge dance after I buzzed him on the last one. Clip: [1:26:44] Cause I make a clear. Adam: [1:26:46] But maybe I yeah. Dave: [1:26:48] All right, Sarah, question for me. Sarah: [1:26:49] Um is okay. Is it on CBS? Dave: [1:26:57] It is not on CBS nor NBC. We've established that. To Adam. Adam: [1:27:02] Oh, so it's not David Caruso's, but damn it. So it's not NBC. Is it on ABC? Dave: [1:27:11] It is on A B C That was their tagline for a while. Tara: [1:27:13] That is where David Crusoe's butt was, by the way. Adam: [1:27:16] And we oh, yeah, okay. Dave: [1:27:19] Home of David Caruso's butt. Adam: [1:27:19] Wait, is it a is it a human butt? Is it David Caruso's butt? Tara: [1:27:29] Oh, is it Dennis Franz's butt? Yay! Dave: [1:27:32] You are correct. Sarah: [1:27:33] Hey Beverly Hills butts butts Oh, my God. Dave: [1:27:33] Sipowis' butt from NYPD Blue is our last item. Tara: [1:27:38] Woo! Dave: [1:27:38] Thank you for that one, Diana. And let's get the final scores, please. Tara: [1:27:44] We all played strong in that one. Sarah: [1:27:45] What a way to go. Dave: [1:27:45] Yep, that was good. Tara: [1:27:46] Sarah and Adam were tied with two each. I had three. Dave: [1:27:49] All right, nicely done. Sarah: [1:27:50] Well done. Dave: [1:27:51] So today, Tara takes 19 questions. Adam: [1:27:55] One by a butt. Clip: [1:27:59] Tara Tara We're listening. Tara: [1:28:00] Like they always say. Dave: [1:28:01] All right, guys, that is it for another episode of Extra. Extra hot great. We tuned in for the late shift before going around the dial with stops at CBS's Elizabeth Taylor Night, the Mussy TV Graveyard, ER and Nowhere Man. Dave made the successful case for Homer, the Smithers, for the Canon. We crowned winners and losers of that week. And Tara was the winner of this week's 19 Questions Game Time. Next up, it's something good from the present day. Remember, I am David T/ Cole, and on behalf of Tara Ariano. Tara: [1:28:42] Fuck him and his bruised ego. Dave: [1:28:44] Sarah D. Bunting and Adam Sternbergh. Sarah: [1:28:47] Incompetent boopery Adam: [1:28:51] You want a pencil? You bought 'em. Dave: [1:28:53] Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time right here on Extra Extra Autray. Clip: [1:29:04] Get ready for exciting quarter-mile action at the Springfield drag strip. Get ready for motorized mayhem, mayhem, mayhem. We need all those mayhems. We Alright, fair enough. I suppose you know your business. Get ready for fun, fun, fun! People are already here. We don't. Need to keep hustling them like this, do we? You let go of me. Where are you throwing me?