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#152. The Substandard on Stan Lee, The Good Place, and Fanta
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Dudes Chatting — Stan Lee, The Good Place, and Nazi soda: Sonny returns from two weeks of paternity leave. The episode opens with JVL revealing that Fanta was invented by the Nazi-era German Coca-Cola bottlers cut off from American supplies — to Vic's horror, since he has long been an enthusiastic fan of European Fanta. The main blocks are a tribute to Stan Lee (who died Monday at 95) and a group discussion of The Good Place. On Lee: JVL brings in his signed copy of Fantastic Four #49 (first full Galactus appearance) and argues that Lee is simply "too big to judge" — all the legitimate grievances about Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko's uncredited contributions get swept aside because the Marvel universe doesn't happen without him. Sonny argues Lee's most lasting legacy is the Bullpen Bulletin: the idea that comic book fans form a community. Vic fondly recalls tracing the cover of Fantastic Four #185 as a four-year-old. On The Good Place: JVL was recruited by Kristen Soltis Anderson, who pitched it ("22-minute episodes, only 13 per season, Kristen Bell stars — okay, sold"). Sonny, on paternity leave with a baby on his lap, binge-watched all available seasons in ten days. All three praise the show's use of a "Lost-style mystery box" structure within a sitcom format (Sonny's key observation), its explicit rejection of the Seinfeld "no one learns anything" model (per creator Michael Schur), and its use of deontology and the trolley problem as genuine comedic material. JVL defends the lack of theology from a Catholic standpoint — moral truths are knowable by reason alone. Vic is charmed by Jason Mendoza as an extremely specific Florida-man Filipino stereotype. The group worries about the show overstaying its welcome past four seasons.
Box Office: The Grinch (2018 animated) opened at number one with $66 million; Bohemian Rhapsody second with $30 million; Overlord third with $10 million.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00In the afterlife, there's a good place and there's a bad place. You're in the good place. I'm not supposed to be here. Somebody royally forked up. Why can't I say fork? If you're trying to curse, you can't hear. That's bull-shirt. You condescending bench! Mother forker! You know I'm trying to say ash-hole and not ash-hole, right? I got that.
Vic00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another edition of The Substandard, sponsored by Quip Electric Toothbrush and ExpressVPN. I'm Victor Matus along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. I'd like to remind you The Substandard is available on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. Just look at a podcast and search for "substandard." You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and like. And leave a review. Gentlemen, how are we? Sonny Bunch, welcome back! Welcome back!
Sonny00:01:08Congratulations! I had two weeks. It was too far. Look at the bags. Look at the bags under his eyes. I should put my glasses back on.
Vic00:01:18I thought it was two months you were gone on paternity leave.
JVL00:01:22No, no, just two weeks.
Sonny00:01:24How is everybody doing? Well, Vic, I know you have had more to edit these past few weeks. Six pieces a day.
JVL00:01:32Averaging somewhere between 6 and 11. I'm great.
Sonny00:01:36I'm great. I'm sleeping a solid 10 hours a day. Your lovely wife? She's doing fantastic. She's sleeping 12 hours a day.
JVL00:01:44Your bouncing baby boy is? How many pounds? This is what people want to know.
Sonny00:01:50We're not going to give them a name, but you can tell them how many pounds. Really? Do people want to know that?
JVL00:01:54Everybody wants to know that. It's like the first question is always like, "What's his name? How much did he weigh?" Why do people care about that? I've never asked that. Because it's a tell about what your near-term life is going to look like. Because if you say, "Oh, five and three quarters pounds,"
Sonny00:02:08that means no sleep for you.
JVL00:02:10But if you say, "Oh, eight and three quarters pounds," they say, "Oh, you might get two hours at a time."
Vic00:02:16Is that why people care?
JVL00:02:18I always ask because I'm just trying to picture
Vic00:02:20the baby coming out and the size of the baby. Anyway, do tell us. Now you can tell us.
Sonny00:02:28Eight pounds, four ounces. That's a healthy baby. He, at this point, is sleeping... When he goes down to sleep, and he actually gets into the whole sleep thing, he'll go for a solid three and a half, four hours. You know what? Which is not terrible. You know what you ought to try, just once, when your wife isn't around? Sleeping him on his stomach.
JVL00:02:52Oh, yeah. Just once, to see if he blows up. Because I've been led to believe by the Pediatric Association of America that if you put your child or your infant to sleep on their stomachs,
Vic00:03:02they will actually combust. You can't do it. Remember, they used to tell the mothers, "Make sure they sleep on their stomach. You don't want them on their backs." And then later on, "They gotta sleep on their backs! Oh my god, you can't have them on their stomachs."
Sonny00:03:16He switched back and forth. When Beth is out of town, I will put him in a bassinet with also a pillow. He can sleep on his stomach on top of a pillow. With a bunch of blankets. With stuffed animals. Razor blades.
Vic00:03:30Shurikens. Whatever you do, remove the bumper.
Sonny00:03:34You gotta remove the bumper. My understanding is that all these things are good.
JVL00:03:38Question. Has your daughter attempted to smother him yet? Only with love.
Vic00:03:44For now.
JVL00:03:46JVL, how are you? I am okay. I have a question for you. Oh, for me? For you. Okay, shoot. Do you like
Vic00:03:56Fanta? Oh, right. You asked, you texted me this earlier. And my answer is a qualified yes, I like European Fanta.
JVL00:04:04That is so interesting. Because... Do you know where Fanta comes from? Because I was listening to The Weekly Standard... The Weekly Substandard Expanded Universe podcast and I learned something from our friend Thomas from Denmark. Dr. Lassie. Herr Dr. Lassie. I don't know if you say Herr up there, but go ahead. And that is the roots of Fanta. Oh. Do you know where Fanta comes from? I thought it was Spain. No. No. Italy?
Vic00:04:34No, it's German. Oh, yeah. No, no, no. I knew this. Would you like to know the origins of it?
JVL00:04:38Yes, I do. Sonny, let me tell you where Fanta comes from. You see, at the beginning of hostilities between the United States and the Germans in the early 1940s, the German Coca-Cola bottling plants were cut off from their supplies from the motherland, so they had to create their own special Nazi soda. And the Nazi soda they created was Fanta. Wow. And Vic, by total coincidence, just loves it. Loves the Nazi soda.
Vic00:05:08Not the American Fanta, the European
Sonny00:05:10Fanta. No, you were very specific about this on the text. I was. I said European Fanta. European Fanta is so much better. The American
Vic00:05:16one was too sweet. Yeah, the European one, I said, was superior. Oh, my gosh. Yes. You're saying it's the Uber Soda? It's the Uber Soda. The Uber Soda.
Sonny00:05:26The Unter Soda. The Unter Soda.
Vic00:05:30Versus the Uber Sodas. Yes. I think that's what it is. And, but now that I know about it, now that I know about it, I guess I won't be drinking Fanta. But I will stick to other companies that have nothing to do with the Nazi past. Braun. Your Braun coffee maker. Porsche. Bavarian Motorworks. Yeah, Porsche. And Hugo Boss. Hugo Boss.
Sonny00:05:50Hugo Boss. You're not getting rid of any of your Hugo Boss suits. Love those collars. The trench. The trench that you come into the office and clicking your heels the whole way.
Vic00:05:58My Krups coffee maker. Okay. Good. How are you?
JVL00:06:02Victorino. Well, it's funny
Vic00:06:04you should ask. Today, or I guess I should say two days ago, was my wedding anniversary. If you can believe it. I forgot it this year. I'm so sorry. Two days. That's okay.
JVL00:06:14Happy anniversary. Thank you very much. Fourteen
Vic00:06:16years ago. How did she put up with you? I don't know. Drugs. Drugs.
JVL00:06:20Fourteen years ago, if you remember. You've used a fourteen year Rohypnol on her. Yes.
Vic00:06:24But you know, it's sort of like you stretch it out. Rohypnol. Extended release. Extended release, you know, every morning, just put it in the coffee. It's like an IUD.
Sonny00:06:32You just slip it in there. Not easy. For seven years. Seven years.
Vic00:06:38The trick is
Sonny00:06:40knocking her out once every seven years
Vic00:06:42to get the new one in there. What was that? Okay, nothing.
Sonny00:06:44Nothing. Slight discomfort. You had way too much to drink last night. Slight discomfort.
Vic00:06:48Yeah, so fourteen years.
Sonny00:06:50Really good episode so far. Nazi jokes.
Vic00:06:52Pseudo-rape jokes. Pseudo-rape, yeah, Rohypnol jokes. Do you remember, by the way, speaking of which, I thought this was going to be a funny question because, you know, that's really all I'm good for. When we had the drug czar in our office, John Walters, after he became drug czar, he came to the office. The great John Walters.
JVL00:07:08With Tom Riley. Crush. Yes.
Vic00:07:12As we refer to him. His code name was Crush. That was Crush. And do you remember, do you remember Walters? Tracer? Yes. Yes. It was Tracer. And so we had an editorial meeting and talking about the situation of drugs in America, which is different than now, but nevertheless. And people were asking questions. And then finally, you know, I raised my hand. And then, and so they said, "You have a question?" I said, "Yes." I said, "When are you going to make Rehypnol legal?" I said, "When are you going to make Rehypnol legal?" And do you remember that? It was about a four second delay. As they were trying to process what I just said. And it wasn't illegal. And Riley just shook his head.
Sonny00:07:48Because it's an on-the-record lunch, wasn't it? It was a different time,
Vic00:07:54Sonny. It was a different time. Walters, even on the recorder, you don't hear it because he just, he turned, he blushed, he turned red and he smiled. Yes, that's it. So anyway, yes, so 14 years ago. And I was thinking about it, and it was funny because you were at the wedding, and Paul Ryan was at the wedding too. That's right. But nobody cared, he was just a Wisconsin congressman. Nobody had
JVL00:08:20any idea who he was. Nobody had any idea.
Vic00:08:22And he looks like a staffer. Yeah, he looks like a kid.
JVL00:08:24Well, at that point he had only
Sonny00:08:26been a congressman 98, so 2004.
Vic00:08:30Three terms. I guess he'd been around for a while. But he was, I don't know, 34, you know, and but the Filipino, what I remember is the Filipino community was very excited to see Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes. They couldn't believe there was an actual member of the Beltway Boys.
JVL00:08:48Who isn't excited to see Bill Kristol
Vic00:08:50and Fred Barnes? Very, very excited. It was very nice of them to stay. I believe Bill said he was just hanging around for the cock fight, he figured. Remember, that's what he said. That's a Filipino joke.
JVL00:09:02Your wedding was lovely. Well, thank you. Your wedding was absolutely lovely. As was yours, Sonny. I don't want you to get wedding invitations.
Vic00:09:10And yours, JVL.
Sonny00:09:12I didn't get invited to either of yours.
Vic00:09:14You were in college. You must have been in college.
Sonny00:09:16You were in middle school when I got married, Sonny.
Guest00:09:18That's correct. You were
Vic00:09:20married longer. Question for you guys, because I've already noticed this by the way. Even before Halloween, I started hearing the Christmas music. Before Halloween. October 30. That's messed up. It's messed up. And of course, now it's full on. Christmas creep. It's full on. The Hershey Kisses commercial with the bells. I hate it. I hate that commercial. But the question is there are worse commercials. Are you, do you try to do your Christmas shopping in advance or are you sort of last minute?
JVL00:09:48JVL. I am in between. My wife has a compulsion about Christmas shopping where if she has not finished everybody's Christmas shopping the week before Thanksgiving, JVL. Oh, come on.
Sonny00:10:02JVL. She's like, what are we gonna do?
JVL00:10:06And I don't, that's insane.
Sonny00:10:08JVL. She misses out on all the Black Friday specials.
JVL00:10:10JVL. The Black Friday specials are a scam. Nobody actually gets the Black Friday specials.
Sonny00:10:14JVL. I'll tell you, the only things I ever get on the Black Friday specials are things for myself. If I see like a copy of, like if I see Dunkirk on sale for like five bucks, I'm 100% gonna
JVL00:10:24JVL. We have a 75 inch plasma television for two dollars and then there's an asterisk next to it. JVL. We have four of these. Do quantities apply?
Sonny00:10:32JVL. No, no, no. I'm not talking about like the, like I'm not saying she, I'm not surprised that your wife isn't like lining up at Best Buy at two in the morning, you know, to get like the door buster deals. But like, there's still, you know, there's still sales. JVL. There's still sales and there's still time. JVL. Lord Bezos has not abandoned us on Black Friday.
Vic00:10:50JVL. I think that's changed everything. Do you do almost, I'm gonna bet you, JVL, probably both of you do 99.9% of your shopping online? JVL. Yup. Who would go into a store
JVL00:11:00with other people like a sucker?
Sonny00:11:02JVL. I do, I actually do less of my gift buying online than I do all of my other shopping online. JVL. Huh. Like if I wanna buy some jewelry or something, I'm not gonna like go to Amazon. You go to Macy's?
Vic00:11:12JVL. Oh, you go directly to Kay.
Sonny00:11:14JVL. No, you go to Blue Nile. You go directly to Kay Jewelers. JVL. No, I'm not gonna go directly to Kay, I don't, God. Where do you go? JVL. Tiny Jewel Box? No, what's, what's the, oh, Mervis, Ronnie Mervis.
Vic00:11:22JVL. Oh, you are a Ronnie Mervis. JVL. You have always been, we should get them as a sponsor. JVL. My great-grandfather.
Sonny00:11:28JVL. My great-grandfather, the diamond mines of South Africa. JVL. In the diamonds, and you hear, and you hear
Vic00:11:32JVL. In the background. JVL. You know what it is? It's not Indiana Jones, but it's that other, JVL. It's the knock-off one.
JVL00:11:38JVL. Alan Quartermain. Richard Chamberlain's JVL. Alan Quartermain. King Solomon's Mines. JVL. As my grandfather was hobbling JVL. workers in the mines of South Africa. JVL. You hear like in the background JVL. all the different sound effects. JVL. That's very good. What I tried to do, and I tried to do this... JVL. Outside of the DC area, who've never heard Mervis as... JVL. Oh, come on. This is going to be totally awesome. JVL. Anybody inside the Beltway, JVL. this segment's going to kill. They're doubled over right now.
Sonny00:12:00JVL. I've told you guys before that like... Pull over. They're pulling over. JVL. The advertising campaign JVL. of the Mervis Diamond Empire has been like JVL. the single most important JVL. advertising campaign that I've ever been exposed to. JVL. It's like when I was going out to JVL. buy an engagement ring, I was like 100... I'm going to JVL. I'm going to Mervis. That's where I'm going. JVL. Man, I remember. I was like going to Mervis. JVL. Nobody pays retail anymore. Why should you?
Vic00:12:20JVL. Nobody pays retail anymore. Why should you? JVL. I'm glad... Wow. Look at that. And it's stuck. JVL. I'm glad you didn't go to Jared. JVL. Or Kay. Yeah. JVL. That's the other one. What I JVL. try to do is JVL. December 26th of the... JVL. right after Christmas, I always make a... You do all JVL. of your shopping then. JVL. I make a mental note. The after Christmas sales. No, no, no. JVL. I make a mental note. Has this been returned? JVL. Most of the packaging's
JVL00:12:44JVL. still there. I'll take this, please. It's a little
Vic00:12:46JVL. late for... No. I make JVL. mental notes. I put them on my... Well, it's not JVL. mental. I put them on my phone. I try to remember JVL. anytime, like, "Oh, JVL. hey, I'd like this, and I don't want to buy it for myself." JVL. I put it down. Or for somebody else. JVL. "Oh, this would be a great gift." And that begins JVL. December 26th, right up to the following Christmas. JVL. I looked at my... I have two things on the JVL. list. What do you got? I'm not sure. I haven't JVL. checked. But I'm pretty sure there are two things on there for JVL. somebody, but I don't know who. Maybe some books. JVL. Oh, a t-shirt! There was a t-shirt. JVL. These are things for yourself, or things that you want to buy JVL. for other people? For other people. For other people.
JVL00:13:16JVL. Why don't you just buy them and put them away? And for myself. JVL. I'd get to it later on.
Vic00:13:20JVL. I'll get to it December 20. But, uh...
JVL00:13:22JVL. So you're a last-minute guy. JVL. A little bit. You go to Macy's. JVL. Yeah, I was at... No. JVL. In December 21st. I don't live in
Sonny00:13:30JVL. Jersey anymore, so I don't go to Macy's.
Vic00:13:32JVL. But I was going to mention JVL. also, like your JVL. wife, Erin Dwyer, my JVL. sister-in-law, she is a fanatical early JVL. Christmas shopper. I'm pretty sure JVL. she is before December 1. JVL. But you're talking even before that. Oh, yeah.
JVL00:13:46JVL. Oh, yeah. It's ridiculous. In JVL. July, there's a lot of, "Oh, gotta JVL. start locking this stuff down. Have we started JVL. our list yet for the kids? Have we got to put everything JVL. together that we forget?" I'm like, "Honey, we're at the beach." JVL. Yeah. But she's
Vic00:13:58JVL. very on the ball. She really wants to get ahead JVL. of Christmas. Speaking of getting ahead JVL. over Christmas, over the weekend, JVL. The Grinch took the top spot at the box office JVL. with $66 million. JVL. And in third place was Overlord JVL. with $10 million. And sandwiched in between JVL. was Bohemian Rhapsody with JVL. $30 million. Right where JVL. it likes to be. Right next to JVL. Overlord. Okay.
Sonny00:14:20JVL. Sorry. This is one of these wacky episodes. I haven't seen any of those movies. This is the problem with being on paternity leave. I'm very, very out of it, which will get to in a moment. Yes.
Vic00:14:32Of course. I was going to say, if you had box office thoughts. I don't really have any
Sonny00:14:36box office thoughts, but I did see something incredibly aggravating the other day. Somebody described the Jim Carey Grinch movie as a cult classic. There's literally no This follows the movie Jennifer's Body being described as a cult classic, which again is a no, but at least I can kind of understand because it was a box office misfire. It was it didn't get very good reviews and people like it now, so it is kind of I can at least understand a world in which that constitutes a cult classic, but the idea that the Jim Carey Grinch movie, which grossed like almost $300 million domestically, I think, and has been on TV in constant rotation and was I think relatively well received is insane. It's insane. The term means nothing. We've done a whole episode on this haven't we? How you can't really have cult classics anymore because I feel like somebody who actually pays attention to the things that we say will let us know, I'm sure. But like, I'm pretty sure we've done this before but it drives me totally bonkers when people misuse this term. Words
Vic00:15:46have meanings. I also, I just don't understand the need to do another Grinch movie. What is the argument? Because Jim Carey was lucky. $66 million as a box office, that's the need. That's sad. JVL
JVL00:16:00Thoughts? No thoughts. I loathe that Jim Carey Grinch. Same. Like, I can't even tell you. I thought
Sonny00:16:08your, I thought your
JVL00:16:10your complaint was not about like, hey, it was super popular. I mistook it as being nobody actually liked this movie. And I believe that that is true. I don't know that there is anybody who likes that movie, even ironically. I don't even think anybody does the "so bad it's good" thing with it. No, it's just so bad. It's just
Vic00:16:30bad. Do you like it? No, I don't like it. Nobody likes that movie. I'll take the cartoon any day. Just give me the original. Boris
JVL00:16:38Maximoff-Geldof and Nemetov, Nastronov,
Vic00:16:44Yeah, and Boris Karloff. Yes, of course. So, it's one of those offbeat weeks where we didn't want to see the Grinch, and I don't think our listeners do anyway, and we talked about Bohemian Rhapsody last week, so instead what happened was on Monday, we learned that the great legend Stan Lee had died at the ripe old age of 95. The maker of, you know, Spider-Man and Incredible Hulk and the Fantastic Four and so many others, and he meant obviously a lot to us and our listeners. First of all, yes, we talked about him a lot, but he was 95, so I think we get a pass on that.
Sonny00:17:22Well, you're the one who brings death, so I don't need a... Sonny over here doesn't need a pass.
Vic00:17:28Two, you both wrote very lovely obituaries. I was going to add a... Sonny did a pre-bituary. He did a... Did you then do an obituary? He did an editor's block.
Sonny00:17:38Yeah, I wrote that piece for The Weekly Standard a year ago that was like... Right, Stan Lee... Right, which was a pre-bituary. And did you write something for The Beacon yesterday? Yeah, I wrote something for The Beacon yesterday.
Vic00:17:46I didn't see it. And then yours was more... I'm sorry, I'll have to go. Yours was extensive. I saw Pod mention your piece.
JVL00:17:52900 words in 75 minutes.
Vic00:17:54Bam! It was very intense.
JVL00:17:56That's what professional writers do. Very intense.
Sonny00:17:58You like that? I was going to... I wrote my 600 words in about 45 minutes, so...
Vic00:18:04I'm very proud of myself. I would probably do 45 words in 600 minutes, I think. But what I would say is, my obituary, if I could add to yours, would be like, you know, Stan Lee was a legend. I love the cameos. Rest in peace, Stan Lee. Six hours to write that. That would be six hours. Six hours later. So, you have thoughts. I brought in a show and tell. Oh, okay, good, good. I brought in... I tweeted out this...
JVL00:18:30JVL. I brought in my favorite piece of Stan Lee memorabilia. Oh, look at that. Fantastic Four number 49. Fantastic Four number 49 is the first full appearance of Galactus, the second appearance of the Silver Surfer, and the first Silver Surfer and Galactus cover, and it is signed by Stan Lee.
Sonny00:18:52I can't believe you brought it here. Check this out. And in a very, very respectable 6.5 grade. Question. Question. Yes. Does the signature impact the BBC grade? How do they handle that? Because technically, it is writing
Vic00:19:04on the cover. It has to be.
JVL00:19:06You don't have to tell me about that. So do you see the yellow tab up top, right? So that means it is a certified signature, which means that a representative from the company witnessed the signature. If you just bring in a comic book that Stan Lee has signed for you on the street, you get instead a green tag, which says, "This says it's signed by somebody named Stan Lee, so we cannot vouch for that."
Sonny00:19:32Question. So does CGC do signings, where people send things to CGC, and then CGC has Stan Lee there, for instance? Yes. Oh, okay. That's cool.
JVL00:19:46I didn't know that. And they pay Stan Lee something like a hundred bucks per...
Sonny00:19:52And they, I assume, pass that on to you plus. Plus. Plus something. Another fifty.
JVL00:19:56Plus another. I would say the markup when I bought this... How many can you sign in one day? That's a question. An extra... It was an extra one fifty in general for a book like this that is not like Amazing Spider-Man #1 or, you know, Tales of Suspense 19 or something like that. A normalish book like this, the markup is about a hundred fifty above what you would be normally paying.
Sonny00:20:20And what does it cost to get a CGC grading that's, what, like
JVL00:20:24forty bucks? Well, it's dependent
Sonny00:20:26on the value of the book. Oh, really?
JVL00:20:28So, yeah. The more value valuable your book is, the more money they charge you. Question. Question. Yes?
Sonny00:20:34Because this seems like a real conflict of interest
JVL00:20:36that would only inflate the price of the comic books. Uh-huh. This is a scam. Is the CGC a questionable business? That's a... Uh-huh.
Sonny00:20:46That's ridiculous. That's insane. A little bit. Wait, wait, wait. I... This is actually... I actually find this to be shocking and, I mean, I, like... I'm slightly checked out of the comic book
JVL00:20:56industry. The things are... I would say that the troughs are pretty wide. Uh-huh. So it's like anything under $500 is one price. Anything from $500 to $1500 I think is another price. How do they justify...
Sonny00:21:06How do they justify it? How do they justify saying, like, we're gonna charge more for... Uh, my
JVL00:21:12guess is that the just... I have never asked them. Boy, this is scintillating stuff. Uh, I believe that it is probably that they take much more care in the handling of a $2,000 book
Sonny00:21:24than they do with a $20 book. But they don't know if it's gonna be $20 or $2,000 until...
JVL00:21:30Until they actually take a look at it.
Sonny00:21:32No. Well, I mean, if this is a one point... If this was a 1.0 Fantastic Four 49, you know, that's like a $50 book.
JVL00:21:42Sure, in the broadest possible context. However, if it is an Amazing Spider-Man number one, you understand roughly what the range is going to be. Just by visual inspection you can know roughly what the grade is going to be. You can guesstimate these things. It's not rocket science. Okay. I find this very offensive.
Vic00:22:02Isn't this nice, though? You know what I love? I love the back ad.
JVL00:22:06Sonny, you should take a picture of this and tweet it out when we do the episode. I love the back ad, by the way. What is the back ad again?
Vic00:22:12Is that Charles Atlas?
JVL00:22:14My secret Dynaflex method. Mike Marvel. Oh, Mike Marvel, of course. Boys, men, can you build a magnificent body? He-Man muscle body in just 10 minutes a day?
Sonny00:22:26I love
Vic00:22:28I love those ads and sometimes those ads would have the wimp on the beach getting kicked out of by the big guy. And I wasn't sure what the message was. The message is that one day you'll be able to beat up that guy, or become that guy. You should be the guy. You want to be that guy.
JVL00:22:46And there's always the girl, too. You want to be the kicky, not the kicked. There's always the girl in the bikini next to the guy getting kicked. The hint of it is you're going to get to bang this chick if you come and do Charles Atlas.
Vic00:23:00I love those ads.
JVL00:23:02Because you won't be getting sand in your face. I love that ad, and I also love the Sea Monkeys ad. We should talk about Stanley.
Vic00:23:08Yeah, please.
JVL00:23:10Do you know what? Actually, Stanley is just overrated. Oh, here we go. It hasn't happened. Are you as shocked as I am?
Sonny00:23:18Oh, I saw a bunch of people. You tweeted it out?
JVL00:23:22No, it was just random people on Twitter who said it.
Sonny00:23:24Did Slate do their "actually"? There were definitely some obits that were like, "Stanley's place in the comic book history is very complicated because actually it was Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko who deserve all the credit, and Stanley was an attention hog, and Steve Ditko was writing Ayn Rand comics by the end of his career, and he's the one we should all be in love with." I'm... I have a lot of sympathy for that line of argument, because the Marvel way, the Marvel method was a weird factory line process where Stanley was kind of throwing out ideas and basic plots and Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko were the ones who were doing all the actual work, the drawing, and even a lot of the actual, like, dialoguing and the script writing. So I, like, I have some sympathy for that, but at the same time, Stanley's impact cannot be denied because he is the one who created this whole process. And the fact that he is a... the fact that he was able to kind of capitalize on it the most successfully, I don't think should be held against
JVL00:24:36him. I would say, and I'm not entirely sure I want to advance this argument, but I'm gonna try it out anyway, that there are some people who are simply too big to judge. Their impact on their arena and their sphere is so enormous that you simply can't imagine it without them. And so you wind up in a place where you just actually can't say, "Oh, well, but he should have done this better, or this part of him was not as good." It's beyond judgment.
Sonny00:25:08And I think Lee is probably like
JVL00:25:10that. You could sort of grant all the "Yes, Kirby should have gotten more credit. Yes, Stan was too much of an attention hog. Yes, Stan was very cute with the credit stop." I mean, he sort of, he both took as much credit as he could get and then declaimed, "I was never the one taking the credit. People were just giving the credit, to me." And at the same time, sort of in totality, you just can't judge him. All that stuff gets swept aside because none of this happens without him. This industry doesn't happen without him. This is like saying that, like, "Oh, well, Vince McMahon is bad for wrestling because he pushed steroids." Like, there isn't professional wrestling without Vince McMahon. Right, right, right.
Vic00:25:48Like, you just can't judge him. As you mentioned in your piece. Yeah. I mean, do you have thoughts, Victorino? No, um, did you
JVL00:25:54ever... This is not a conservative argument, by the way. No, it's not. I realize as I'm saying it.
Vic00:25:58No, it's not. Um, no, I have my only thoughts where, I mean, I knew Stan Lee, uh, who he was when I was a kid. One of... The earliest comic book I can remember having was a Fantastic Four, and I found it online. It was number 185, because there were gargoyles on it. Hold on, I'm gonna effort that while you talk. Yeah, number 185, Fantastic Four, from 1977. So, when my mother or whoever bought that for me, I was four, and I... You know what I remember? I traced the cover. It was so good. Hm. And my drawing was so good. But I traced it. You traced it. It's a trace, but you know, it's okay. But then, in the 80s, that's the one. Wait, which one is it? There you go.
JVL00:26:38Those are the garbage years. It's crazy. That's 30 Cent Fantastic Four. That is, man. That's when things were not good.
Vic00:26:44You could afford, yeah, 1977. Um, but that's what I remember. And then, did you watch JVL? Uh, yeah, 'cause the artists... Do you know why you loved
Sonny00:26:52it? 'Cause Sue Storm was really busty
Vic00:26:54on this cover. Sinnott was one of the artists, I think. Anyway...
Sonny00:26:58Jolt and Joe Sinnott? No, I'm not even kidding. Look at our super busty Sue Storm. She was big.
JVL00:27:04Sue Storm as Power Girl. Right, exactly.
Vic00:27:06Did you, now JVL, did you watch uh, in the 80s, the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends show on NBC on Saturday mornings?
JVL00:27:14100%. I know you did. Yes.
Vic00:27:18And... ELECTRO! Yes, okay, so, um, but there were no other superhero... I was thinking about this. So there's Iceman and Firestorm? Firestorm. Not Firestorm. He's the starter, 'cause that's Stephen King. Yeah. So, isn't that odd? And, like, there was no other crossover. Like, they didn't bring in, you didn't see... Incredible Hulk was a separate show. It came right after, and I didn't like that at all, but...
Sonny00:27:42Well, all of this was rights management.
JVL00:27:44Right, right. All of this was intellectual property fights and bargaining over, "Well, I want this character, but I'm only going to pay this much money."
Sonny00:27:50I mean, it's, it's, you mentioned Stanley uh, in your, in your obit, uh, JVL, in, in the role he played in managing the Marvel IP. And, like, I think it is worth acknowledging that he had the right idea and was terrible at it. Kind of. Right? I mean, like, the problem, the problem with the Marvel IP for so long is that it was He was terrible at it at first. It was farmed out to a bunch of different people who had no idea what to do with it, and they put together shoddy, shoddy, shoddy stuff. But there was nothing better. I mean, there was no better way to do it at the time,
JVL00:28:22I don't think. There were no distribution channels that could have done any better. Uh, I mean, he was inventing a mode of IP mining. So it was messy and low impact.
Sonny00:28:32This is a very modest critique, because it is, you know, I mean, like, people didn't really get good at this until I think it's fair to say Warner Brothers bought DC. Because I think Warner Brothers uh, kind of looked at what, or was it Time Warner? Did Time Warner buy DC? Time Warner. Time Warner bought DC. And looked at what they had there, and they're like, okay, we can do things with this, and this is why you have, you know, the Batman logo on literally everything. Uh, and the Batman and Superman movies, and, you know, kind of how, how good those were. Um... I... My, my one, my one real, uh, Stanley thought is that he... The thing he did that is most important, I think, in addition to all this, was the, the, uh, the kind of creation of this idea of comic book fans as a community. The Bullpen Bulletin, I think, is his actual real lasting legacy, uh, in the the world of superheroes and comic books. I mean, granted, the, the, I, I think even more important than any individual character was this idea that you, you were giving people a glimpse into the world of the comic books and saying, like, "Here are the guys who make it, you know, we're all friends and we're having a good time and it's fun." And it's cool to like comics, you know, you can have a community, you can have friends, you can, we can, we, we can, we can be the real winners and the heroes here. Uh, and it took a while, but I, I don't think that you can look at the universe in which we live now and not say, "Yeah, that was right. This can be a thing that brings people together." And... Did you guys read the Brian Michael Bendis, uh, comic obituary? No. In the New York Times? It was, it was great. I saw the, I saw the, the, the, the, like, two panels that you, that you tweeted. Oh, wow! He did, he did his obituary,
JVL00:30:20no, but he did it as a comic. Yeah, that's great. And it was like the three times he met Stan Lee. And, uh, he said that the last time he met him, he asked Stan Lee if he, what he thought of the Marvel movies, and Lee said, you know, "I haven't seen them in years." Uh, because my, I just can't see anything. You know, he said, you know, "I'm sitting here across the table from you at lunch." They, Stan Lee asked Bendis to go to lunch. Mm-hmm. And he asked to meet him at the Cheesecake Factory. How great is that? Where did Stan Lee want to go to lunch? Case closed!
Vic00:30:50I want to go to the Cheesecake Factory.
JVL00:30:52Case closed. Uh, and he said, you know, "Sitting across from me, you look like a pink blob with blue." Yeah, just, you know, just couldn't see. I would say the, the last years are not, by all reports, what you would have hoped for, for a guy like Stan Lee. There was a lot of Well, there was a lot of fighting over family drama. money and family drama and business partner drama. Elder abuse allegations. Yeah. Well, Stan Lee also,
Sonny00:31:14Stan Lee, he deserved better. He, he did. I mean, he did, he did spend the last 20 years of his life getting into bed with various hucksters. Mm-hmm. Like, internet companies trying to do digital comics and Pamela Anderson and, you know. Yes.
JVL00:31:28But on the other hand, 20 years ago, he was 75. No, I know, I know, I know, I know. I mean, think about, like, oh my god, 20 years ago he was old as dirt, and now you're like, no, he lived for another 20 years? Is that
Vic00:31:38I mean, I was thinking about this when he did his cameo in Mallrats. Like, I was thinking, how old was Stan Lee? He was in his 70s. Yeah. You know what I mean? I mean, he must
Sonny00:31:46have been, he must have been 71 or 72. Yeah. 'Cause I was 94, so. Yeah.
Vic00:31:50And he looked very spry. Yeah. That's the funny thing. He was still out and about. Uh, well, uh, I guess, uh, Did you guys feel like
JVL00:31:58the, the pain of, like, a like an actual sort of emotional pain at him dying? No, I, well, I It made me feel super old, like, to live in a world where Stan Lee is dead. He's gone. I just thought, like, you know, just one of the things is that he's been a fixture in my life, dating to my earliest memories of the world around me. Well. 'Cause my first comic book memories are, like, age five. Yeah. Yeah.
Vic00:32:18But I kind of felt like, you know, 'cause I knew he was 95, so I'm sort of aware that at any moment this is gonna happen, and obviously a lot of people have those obits ready to go at any moment. They have to update that. But I did tell my kids, 'cause my kids knew Stan Lee, you know, from watching them. Well, they knew he was the creator of these comics, and of course they'd seen Marvel movies, and they can recognize him, 'cause he's
JVL00:32:36the old man. I said, "He's in every, every
Vic00:32:38one of those Marvel movies." Basically.
Sonny00:32:40Almost every one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was definitely, I mean, I was sad. I was sad in the way that I, you know, am rarely sad when a celebrity of some sort. Did it give dust in there? No. A little bit of high pollen count?
Guest00:32:52I don't think it, no, it didn't. I would say,
Sonny00:32:54I mean, the ones that hit harder are the ones that you don't expect. Like, when Philip Seymour Hoffman died. Like that, that was like a real gut punch, 'cause it was like, holy crap, he was like five years older than I am. I guess he was like ten years older. But you
Vic00:33:08accomplished as much as he has. Yeah, sure. So, you know.
Sonny00:33:10Well, I mean, this is the thing to remember with Stan Lee. Stan Lee didn't invent the Fantastic Four until he was like 39, I think, or 40 or 41. It's very heartening. There are some stories like that. I still have years, I have years to go. You guys are done. You do.
Vic00:33:22We're done. You're both finished. There's the Mozart argument, and then there's like the Stan Lee argument, and some of these other guys who didn't write their
JVL00:33:28classics until their 40s or 50s. Question. Yes, JVL. Was Philip Seymour Hoffman a Rotten Tomatoes accredited film critic? No, he wasn't. No, he wasn't. No, he wasn't. Loser. So, there. Okay. Philip Seymour Hoffman. You are fine, Sonny. Don't you change. Thank you.
Vic00:33:44I'm gonna go do some heroin. Anyway, but all this talk about Marvel, just, you know. I have to go back and sort of to my old comic books. I'm curious if there's anything. My sister had a lot of comic books up in Jersey, and they're still in boxes in my parents' house. I'll have to go through them and brush up on my Marvel, speaking of which. Speaking of brushing up. One of the most important things. Transitioning to yourself is very hard. It's very hard. One of the most important things we do for our health every day is brushing our teeth, yet most of us don't do it properly. Quip is a better electric toothbrush created by dentists and designers. Quip was designed to make brushing your teeth more simple, affordable, and even enjoyable. Quip features sensitive sonic vibrations, gentle on your sensitive gums. Why? Because many people brush too hard and some electric toothbrushes are too abrasive. Quip's built-in two-minute timer pulses every 30 seconds to remind you when to switch sides, helping guide a full and even clean. Up to 90% of us don't brush for a full two minutes or don't clean evenly. A multi-use cover mounts to your mirror and unmounts to slide over your bristles for on-the-go brushing. It declutters your sink or cabinet and makes traveling with an electric toothbrush easier. Quip doesn't require a clunky charger and runs for three months on one charge. Brush heads are automatically delivered on a dentist recommended schedule every three months for just $5. Three out of four of us use bristles that are old, worn out, and ineffective. Quip is one of the first electric toothbrushes accepted by the American Dental Association and has thousands of verified five-star reviews. I think of users like Paul Crookston in our office and Keisha Ajayabalan out in Rome and so many other listeners to The Substandard who use Quip and swear by it. I love Quip. They're backed by over 80,000 dental professionals. Quip starts at just $25 and if you go to getquip.com/substandard right now, you get your first refill pack for free with a Quip electric toothbrush. That's your first refill pack free at getquip.com/substandard. getquip.com/substandard. JVL, you were talking about the last years of Stan Lee.
JVL00:35:56He was not in a good place. Oh! Speaking
Vic00:36:02of which. See, you don't have to do it yourself. Like
JVL00:36:08Nick Van Exel, I just toss it up there.
Vic00:36:10I'm glad you knew where I was going. But we wanted to talk about a show called The Good Place. If you haven't guessed by now, we're talking about The Good Place where Stan Lee is. JVL, this is very rare for us to talk about a TV network sitcom.
Sonny00:36:24Something on NBC. Very rare for us to talk about TV at all. And this is literally, this is Sonny speaking, not JVL, thank you. Yes, Sonny. I just jumped in there. I don't want people to get confused. I know that this is a problem. People get confused. With our listeners. I don't understand why they say that we sound the same, but whatever. Anyway, The Good Place is a network TV sitcom, and I literally do not think that I have watched a network TV sitcom since The Office went off the air. Yes. I know what you mean. Is that post date risk development? Yes. Parks and Rec? Are you a Parks and Rec guy? A community guy? Parks and Rec, I guess I did watch. They're all Michael Schur.
Vic00:37:06They're all Michael Schur, which is very funny. I did not watch Arrested...
Sonny00:37:10I did watch Arrested Development, but that was done after, by like 2005. Right. So this is
Vic00:37:16something that's new for us, and next week I believe we're going to discuss The Big Bang Theory.
Sonny00:37:20Yes, next week we're going to talk about Friends. There's this great show on NBC, Thursday nights,
Vic00:37:28called Friends. I feel like there's a sexual tension between Rachel and Ross. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what's going on there. So JVL, you were the first person to start watching The Good Place. The question is... How ironic is that? Yes. Yes, I know. And was it because, "Oh, I like Kristen Bell, I'm going to watch this," or what? What made you... Because it takes a lot of energy to say, "I'm going to watch
JVL00:37:48this show on network TV." Our buddy, Kristen Soltis Anderson, flagged me down at the offices of The Weekly Standard. She was sitting in our cafeteria for some reason, and I walked by, and I was like, "Kristen! KSA! What's up?" And we were
Sonny00:38:04talking, and she said... Literally like that. Literally like that. That's actually... We had a tape of it. Well, it's a sort of... It's a Florida Gator
JVL00:38:10thing. That's how she recognizes it. Okay. Anyway, and she said, "You have to watch The Good Place." And I said, "What?" And she said... She gave me the elevator pitch. It's KSA. KSA. So KSA gave me the elevator pitch. And the elevator pitch for it, which is a girl wakes up in a nice office, Ted Hansen is there, and he says to her, "Don't worry. Everything's fine. You're dead, but you're in The Good Place." And then later in the pilot, you discover, as an audience member, that actually she's not belonging in The Good Place. She's there from a clerical error, and the rest of the series is her trying to, like, keep hidden and not get kicked out and sent to hell. So, first of all, the premise was great. Thank you. That was not enough to make me watch the show. I said, "That sounds great, but I can't do that." And she said, "It's a sitcom. They're 22 minutes each." I said, "Okay. A little closer." But I can't commit to -- I don't watch television. We do not do television of any sort. And she said, "Only 13 episodes a season." I said, "Oh, okay. Well, now we're getting pretty close. I don't know that I'm ready to close the deal." And then she said, "Kristen Bell is the star." And I was like, "Okay. Sold." And I went home, and we watched, I think, the first nine episodes that night. And then you
Vic00:39:26started off with something. But that took. I mean, it took all of that to get me to watch this show. I wouldn't know if -- and I knew -- I understood. Everyone loves it. Everyone was talking about it. And I still didn't make the effort to until --
Sonny00:39:36Well, the reason I started watching is because I just had a kid. So I have a lot of sitting around time with my wife, where we -- you know, our daughter is at daycare. Beth and I are sitting around. We've got a new child. And we need something to do for, like, two, three hours out of whack. And as JVL so succinctly put it, I mean, it is a 22-minute show on Netflix without the advertisement. Uh, that is only 13 episodes per season. So you can get through a whole season in about six hours? Less than that. I mean, it's like, it -- it is uh, it is just the perfect -- Try the math again. Is it seven hours? Four hours. No. No, 22 times 13 is -- So there are three episodes in an hour, roughly. Ah. But a little more than that. It's like -- anyway. Five hours. Five hours. Ish. Please. But you gotta, like, pause
JVL00:40:34and stuff. I don't know. Um,
Sonny00:40:36I've totally lost now. A season is like watching --
JVL00:40:38I've totally lost now. A full season is like watching a very long movie.
Sonny00:40:42Yeah. That's little. A very -- a very long movie. Um, but we -- we got through all -- we got -- we -- we are up to date on the series as of, you know, this -- this -- this moment. Uh, and it took us, like, ten days. Which was fantastic. Great. And it's very funny. I mean, it is -- it is very -- I have -- I have some thoughts on the show as -- as -- as a, like, uh, the way it's structured and stuff. That, too. Um, if we
JVL00:41:04wanna -- How did you come to it, Victorino? Well, because
Vic00:41:06the two of you were, uh, watching it. And Sonny was
JVL00:41:08really -- 'Cause you'll watch anything.
Vic00:41:10That's not true. Uh, and, uh, and Sonny was urging me, saying that you -- I knew you were watching it. And he says, "It's really good. I should watch it." And I said, "Well, I mean, we can do this as an episode." Because we had nothing else to talk about. And we actually don't have anything to talk about, even in this episode. So, I said, "Okay, I'll watch it." And I told Kate about it. And it was better than some of the other -- we -- we gave the Romanovs a try.
Sonny00:41:32One episode is -- That looks dreadful. One episode's an hour and a half. I just couldn't -- It's like -- it's the opposite of The Good Place. It's like six -- it's a six-episode series, I think. I guess. I don't know. I only saw one episode. It's either six or eight episodes, but each one is the length of a feature film. And it's like, "Why? Why are we doing this?" And we saw --
Vic00:41:48And we saw the first season of GLOW, you know, but just didn't have the energy for the second season.
Sonny00:41:52GLOW is good, but GLOW has the problem that a lot of these Netflix shows have, which is that they want to do, like, a 30-minute sitcom. And it's -- I'm sorry, that's just -- Like, the sitcom works very well at 22 minutes. That's the number.
JVL00:42:06It works very, very -- There's a reason they do it
Sonny00:42:08at 22 minutes. Network TV has, like, really kind of drilled the sitcom down to its core and gotten out what makes it good. And you can get away with it sometimes. Like, the HBO -- Some of the HBO sitcoms are, you know, 30 minutes. But they have to be really, really good, like Veep or Silicon Valley. How long is Curb Your Enthusiasm? Curb Your Enthusiasm is 30 minutes. And, like, half of those episodes are, like, 10 minutes too long. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So, anyway, The Good Place is just very, very well. So, here's what I like about it. I like that it has taken the Lost formula and perfected it by moving it from a drama to a sitcom. I mean, if you watch each episode, it's basically structured like an episode of Lost, where you have your heroes who are doing whatever weird things in this wacky place, punctuated by flashbacks to their life, and the before time, and the long, long ago, and the lessons that they're learning. But it is also wrapped up in this mystery box format. Like, we don't know exactly what's happening. We don't know where each episode is going, and each one ends on a cliffhanger that takes us to the next episode. And the reason this works... They do that well. The reason this works for The Good Place in a way that it doesn't quite work for Lost, and it doesn't quite work for Fringe and some of these other shows, is because it is a sitcom. It is less serious. It is inherently designed to be taken less seriously than a drama. We don't actually worry too much about the human drama of what is happening to these people. And we don't expect it to be realistic. I mean, like, when the polar bears show up on the tropical island of Lost, you're supposed to be like, "Whoa! What is this crazy world?" But they're in an actual magical place, so crazy things can happen, and it doesn't really matter. Anyway, so this is my big thought on The Good Place, and the reason why I think it works in a way that a lot of other things of this variety don't, is because it has taken the mystery puzzle box idea and perfected it by just throwing it into a sitcom. Which I don't know why it took so long to figure that out. JVL?
JVL00:44:16Interesting. Not having watched Lost, I really can't comment on that connection to it. I I mean, there are a whole bunch of things to talk about about it. I was, so I went to read up on this, and you would think that Lost lends itself to really, really interesting essays. Lost. You'd think The Good Place lends itself to very interesting essays about The Good Place, and it does not. I was stunned by how bad most of the stuff, Emily Nussbaum, the New Yorker, writes this thing about The Good Place, and she can't, you know, she keeps herself away from Trump until the second paragraph, and then the third paragraph gets to Hillary Clinton.
Vic00:44:58Yeah.
JVL00:45:00Yeah. But there's one really good profile of the show in The New York Times, which had all sorts of interesting stuff in it. The most interesting of which being that Schur thinks of this show as an explicit rejection of Seinfeld. Mm-hmm. Michael
Vic00:45:18Schur, who was also the creator, who was a writer on SNL and then The Office and Parks and Rec.
JVL00:45:22President of the Harvard Lampoon. I mean, he's exactly what you would think. The Harvard Comedy Mafia. It really is. And he is talking back to Seinfeld through this. Which is interesting. So, I mean, Seinfeld is the sitcom that killed the sitcom and this is his response to that, in a lot of ways, because it's all learning. I mean, all the characters. It is a show literally about learning and growing. Listen,
Sonny00:45:42Seinfeld was famously described by its creators as a show in which no one ever learns anything. Right. In which it's not just a show about nothing. It is a show in which the characters do not have the big hug at the end, where they've all learned their lesson. No. So, yeah. So, like, The Good Place is explicitly Yeah, and it's a place where all the comics
JVL00:46:00and comedy comes from the learning. And so this is, I mean, the genius of it is that it is a show about learning, but that never gives you the schmaltz, because the comedy comes from the learning, which is a very interesting trick, I think. Well, and also,
Sonny00:46:14it also feels like almost a parody of a show that a bunch of Harvard dorks would create, where you have a bunch of people sitting around talking about Kant and Plato and Aristotle and, you know, various modes. This is the word "deontology."
JVL00:46:30Yeah, right. I mean, when's the last time any program on network television could have deontology? I mean, you can just imagine that, you know, fifteen years ago, the studio would have come in and said, "You can't use that word. Nobody knows what it means." Well, it doesn't, and it has a whole episode
Sonny00:46:44about the trolley problem. Right. Yeah. I mean, like, literally a whole episode about the trolley problem. The... I'm sorry, what were you going to say? No,
Vic00:46:54the trolley problem, I mean, it's things I took, you know, at Georgetown, we had a minimum requirement of two semesters of philosophy, ethics, and I hated them, right? And, yeah, I mean, I just hate them. No surprise there. And, you know, I mean, because I'm just not... You didn't get into the Heidegger? No. Oh, hmm. The Dasein? Nein. Heidegger's Dasein. You know, I'm the kind of person, you know, they give you these books to read. Every book I read, I'll be like, you know, Gorgias or whatever, "Oh, this is really interesting. I can see that. I see this point of view." Great. And then the next, you know, assignment is to argue against it. "This guy knows more than I do. I think I agree with him." Until you read the next book by David Hume. "Ugh." Or Jeremy Bentham. "Ugh." You know?
JVL00:47:40It's the philosophical version of "name a song you don't like, Vic."
Vic00:47:44Yes, right. You ask me the question, I can tell you all the philosophers I don't like on these ethicists. So, anyway, I got through that with, like, a B average. Just getting... I just had to get through it. And it's funny, though, but it comes up.
JVL00:47:56You got through it with a B average. I'm not going to make Sonny bleep it because he's so
Vic00:48:02tired. There was a... But I do remember the "push your mother into the subway tracks to save the other..." I mean, it's the same. So these classic things, and if anyone who's gone through colors, they can, you know, they can familiarize themselves with it. And other people, it's very relatable, though. You don't have to have... I mean, for me, it's a bad memory, but for other people, it's interesting. And so, as far as sitcoms go, it's thought-provoking, you know? I mean, it's not just "blah." And it is
Sonny00:48:28in another way a rejection of the kind of format of the sitcom, which is... Totally. You know, in theory, television is supposed to be about people who never change. And films are about people who
JVL00:48:44experience a change. This is, like, kind of shorthand that people use to describe the two different
Sonny00:48:50medium. Media. Media. And I think that this show is trying to kind of position itself as a show about changing. About, you know, here are these characters who are changing. I don't know that it has been entirely successful at that. Right? Because it is still a show about people who are trying to change, and they're just trying to change. And they've been trying to change for three years now. Yeah. And I do wonder what the natural lifespan on a show like this is. Well, one hopes that the lifespan is very finite. Well, one hopes that... Right? I mean, I don't
JVL00:49:26want to look at this show and get 70 episodes. Right. It's an 80 episode of the chapter. Season 10. We're now at, like, chapter 32. Right. I will be very unhappy if this is not over by, like, chapter 45. I want it to be a story that we tell.
Vic00:49:38Remember NBC's The Office was supposed to be a documentary that went on for how many years?
Sonny00:49:42Yeah, like... Or, like, 50 episodes. I mean, I think you could do four seasons, right? Which is basically four seasons. One, they think they're in the good place. At the end, it turns out they're in the bad place. Second season is... Spoiler, Sonny. Well, we're... I mean, these are all spoiler. Spoiler heavy episodes. Then second season is they know they're in the bad place, and Ted Danson changes and realizes that they all belong in the good place. And then the third season is they're on Earth trying to earn their place. Right. In the good place. And then the fourth season would have to be in the good place, right? That would be the last season. Like, what would it actually mean to be in the good place? And how miserable would they be? And then they have to go to hell. Question. We know... Thank you. We know for sure
JVL00:50:24there's gonna be another season, yes? We assume? No. We don't know for sure. I don't know.
Vic00:50:28I don't believe we know for sure. Are we still mid-season three? right now? Yes. Okay, it's like up to seven
Sonny00:50:32episodes, right? Yep. I think I'm up to... Season...
Vic00:50:34Yeah. Yeah, we're season three, episode seven. We don't know. We don't know what happens. No, we have no idea. It was interesting because when I first started watching the first season, it seemed to me, okay, this is a very, sort of a basic arc, you know, they don't belong there. How do they stay there? And then they flipped it. And then it turns out they're in a bad place. But then at the same time, they do the trek, the rebooting. And that gives you a whole new season of basically new characters. And their whole relationship with the arc, 99.9% of it is gone. I mean, there's some feeling there. I don't know why I feel this way about certain people, but then you can just start all over and have a new season. And that's the danger, is if at the end of every season, if they want to keep this thing going, they'll have to snap their fingers at it. See, I thought
JVL00:51:16they handled that with as much dexterity as Chris McQuarrie handles it in the day after... Edge of Tomorrow. Edge of Tomorrow. Not the day after tomorrow. The Edge of Tomorrow. They never went to that well to all that many times, and they gave you just the right amount of rebootings that you weren't bored, and I thought that was very nicely handled. I kind of hope we get season four in the bad place, because I want more bad Janet. Man, bad Janet is the best. She's great. The actress is
Vic00:51:44fantastic. It reminded me... And Trevor. And Trevor. More bad Janet and Trevor is what I want. But I mean, there's definitely all these different hints of, like, Heaven Can Wait, which is obviously it's a mistake that I'm here, I'm not supposed to be here, and also at the end of Heaven Can Wait, memory loss. We're wiping your memory. Groundhog's Day: Edge of Tomorrow, and also Always. Do you remember it now? I mean, season three is Always, which is the Richard Dreyfuss, Steven Spielberg movie, which is based on a guy named Joe, which is afterlife, but trying to help other people. And that's what they're happening, that's what's happening right now. So I find it very interesting, but do you find it weird, JVL, as a Roman Catholic, that there's all this discussion of ethics and morality, but no discussion of theology? There's philosophy, but not theology.
Sonny00:52:30I was actually going to ask about this too, JVL, because I remember thinking about midway through the first season, like, this is basically the mushiest, millennialiest idea of what heaven would be like, just be a good person, without any actual commitment to some sort of higher power. And I was a little bit surprised that you, as a practicing and committed Catholic, are
Vic00:53:00He's definitely committed.
Sonny00:53:02are kind of okay with that basically karma idea of heaven.
JVL00:53:10The position of the Catholic Church, which is one of the things I like about the Church, is that all of the truths about morality can be known by reason alone. Fides ad ratio. The two of these things work together. You do not have to believe in God, let alone Christ. You don't have to believe in either of these things. To be able to get to what how one is supposed to live life. And is one of, I think, the attractions of the Church, and is a mark in its favor. That you don't to get to all the stuff that turns out to be right, you don't have to sign on with zombie Jesus or whatever. Right? I mean, this is Yes, although I know what you're saying.
Vic00:53:52It doesn't bug me at all. I just think, you know, Chidi is a very, Chidi, who is one of the characters, it was one of the main characters. Chidi Anaganyay. Anaganyay.
JVL00:54:00Anaganyay is so funny. Yeah.
Vic00:54:02Where does he come from? I don't know where he comes from. Is he from a comedy background? He must.
JVL00:54:06He's really good. Because, man, that guy's chops are awesome.
Vic00:54:08And he, but he has a huge reading selection for his ethics course. But you would think somewhere in the mix would be, I don't know, The Letters of Saint Paul. Or maybe, I don't know, Orthodoxy, or City of God. Nothing?
JVL00:54:20This is so, you know. You know what I mean. I do. This is very, very funny. They have on their show, they have a consulting philosopher listed in the credits. Ah. The one I'm looking for now, I don't see it. Who is a philosophy professor at UCLA, and her thesis advisor is T.M.
Sonny00:54:42God, what's the philosopher's name?
JVL00:54:44Ah, forgetting his name. The guy who wrote The Things We Owe to Each Other, or What We Owe to Each Other. And this is, this is the book that is there throughout. And this is Schur's, Schur opens from Oh, right. So Schur himself T.M. Scanlon. T.M. Scanlon, thank you. He opens from his priors, I have a philosophical discussion, are that he opens from a place of his personal belief is along the Scanlon line of The Things We Owe to Each Other. Now the the big thing, it's a big book, but the big thing about it, the big first central idea is that there is an assumption that there are things that we owe to each other. The question isn't like do we owe anything to each other, it's what do we owe to each other. And all of that is what he is trying to untangle. His story, Schur's story for how he got the idea for his, do you guys know about this? No, I don't. So his wife got into a fender bender and the guy who either bumped her or got bumped by her wanted $836 for bumper damage and Schur thought that this was stupid and unnecessary and so he sent this guy a note and said, if you drop your claim, I'll give $836 to Hurricane Relief for Hurricane Katrina. And this, you know, his Facebook post about this, I think it was Facebook, blew up and raised a lot of money and he felt really good about it until like two months later when he realized I was just grandstanding. Like, this thing which I did, which wound up actually raising $30,000 for Hurricane Katrina relief and which made him look and feel like a puffed up moral good guy that made him the Tahani. The actual roots of it were him trying to, like, belittle this other guy and feel morally superior. And what he started thinking about was, so wait a minute. So, what's the right answer here? Is what I did actually good or not good? And that began the whole unraveling process of
Vic00:56:50thinking through and leading us to the good place. Trying to do good or trying now to help others do good. That's their only recourse at the moment. What I really love, can I just say what I really, really love about the good place is Jason Mendoza, played by Manny Jacinto. Not enough Filipino actors, and this is a great one he really represents. And he's also not playing a nerd. He's playing sort of this idiot, but
Sonny00:57:16He's playing Florida man.
Vic00:57:18He is playing Florida man. He's amazing. He reminds me of Chrissy from Three's Company. You know, I mean, everything is, you know, with every now and then there's the occasional glimmer of, there's a very funny scene, I think, in season two. Where they go through all the reboots, and one of them is where Jason figures out this is the bad place. And I think Ted Danson goes Michael is just like, "You?" But it's very great, it's very funny to see him. Yes, Florida man. People say in Jacksonville that there are a lot of people who are like that, but I like it. I mean, I could really I know people, that's a very specific Filipino stereotype, and I know a guy who I grew up with I'm not going to say his name, but it's basically his name. Whose name is Eve Sustaris. No, definitely not. Definitely not Steve Gibson's, but he knows, we both know who this guy is and his brothers, and they are straight out of that. I mean, it's like Pillboy and and Jason Mendoza. And so, it's and what's his name? Junkyard, what's his father's name?
Sonny00:58:18Dougie Dave versus David, I can't remember yet.
Vic00:58:22Really awful. And so, I see that. Donkey Dug? Donkey Dug. And it's spot on. It's just spot on. And so, I appreciate the authenticity of that particular stereotype. And so, it reminded me of Pod explaining in Don't Mess with the Zohan that Adam Sandler's character is a very specific Israeli stereotype, sort of an Israeli guido type that exists and hangs out on the beach. It's the same exact thing with Jason Mendoza. I think it's great. So,
JVL00:58:54he, which leads us to the question of the casting, which I am sort of blown away by the ensemble on this. Because you have, on the one hand, Ted Danson who has put together this incredible late career resurgence beginning, I think, with Damages? Was Damages the beginning
Sonny00:59:12of this? Well, beginning, I would say Curb Your Enthusiasm. That post-dates
JVL00:59:18Curb Your Enthusiasm, I believe. I could be wrong. And he was in that
Vic00:59:22CBS show. He had a show. Becker.
JVL00:59:24Thank you! Thank you. I would not count that as the resurgence.
Vic00:59:28But he's sort of, you're working all through the season.
Sonny00:59:30He's really good in this.
JVL00:59:32Wow. Your worst opinion. Kristen Bell, who is just, you know, the best. She is the natural in all this stuff. But then the other... who is it? The other three, right? Chidi... Not four. Chidi, Janet, Manny, and what's her name? Jameel Jalil. Tahani. Jameel Jalil. Jameel Jalil are essentially... they have like a comedian, which... a dancer, and I don't know what the other... and a DJ. I think she is... Jameel Jalil is like literally a DJ.
Vic01:00:12Mendoza is an actual dancer
JVL01:00:14and he's really good. And they are so good. They are fantastic together.
Vic01:00:20And all the little nuances in each of the reboots. Like, you know, they have no idea of their past history from season
JVL01:00:26one, which... It's just a great ensemble. It's very good. And I can't really even imagine the casting process which comes up with those people as a group. Like, it's a weird thing.
Vic01:00:38I will just say, I will watch... Like you, I'll watch anything with Kristen Bell. I love Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Still one of my favorite comedies of all time. And she's great in The Good Place. I still think she's the best in The Lifeguard. Have you seen it? You know what I'm talking about? JVL, you don't even have to see the whole movie. There's only about seven good minutes and you could probably see it somewhere on the internet. I wouldn't do it because I'm afraid of getting malware. There's only a way.
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Vic01:03:34It's very funny. The names of the
JVL01:03:38various stores in the Good... Oh yeah, those are always, those are great.
Vic01:03:42In the last episode I saw with Eleanor visiting her mother and she goes for the PTA, the meeting where she's running for PTA president. The school is the MGM Casino Resort High School. But there was a, I put it on pause, they have a, their slogan is always bet, always bet on red, but R-E-A-D. Always bet on red.
JVL01:04:08See? Because it's a school.
Vic01:04:10Okay, well, I think that's all the time we are giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us @Victorino Matus, @SonnyBunch, @JVLast. The other one, that guy over there. That one, thank you, thank you JVL. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. Just type in Substandard on our podcasts. We're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Until next time.
JVL01:04:42I did
Sonny01:04:44have one, I have one outtake. One outtake. Good! You know, it's rare. You know, the big news this week is that JVL's Oscar draft took a huge hit. Oh, no. Took a huge, viral, huge hit. That was a consequence.
JVL01:05:00That was a viral marketing
Sonny01:05:02We can't even talk about it. Huge hit. Viggo Mortensen dropping the n-bomb at a post
JVL01:05:08screening. I'm sorry. Viggo Mortensen is of a persuasion that makes him absolutely immune. Nope. Nope.
Vic01:05:14And I know your evidence. It's because he brought a dude to an art gallery show, and that was what you showed me twenty-something years ago. He said, "Look at this." He's there with this guy at an art gallery show. Case closed.
JVL01:05:24I am pretty certain that Viggo Mortensen is above
Sonny01:05:28reproach. Nope. Nope. Had to apologize. Was denounced
JVL01:05:32by his co-star. Big hit. That trailer killed.
Sonny01:05:36That movie is gonna do great. You are screwed, my friend.
JVL01:05:40Bohemian Rhapsody
Sonny01:05:42has been coming home for me. I'm just gonna throw this out there. I'm gonna throw this out there. I think I might get more points than both of you two combined. Well, sure, because Vic's gonna get zero. I think I might get all the points. Rome is gonna clean up unless they stop talking about the caravan.
Vic01:05:58I'm sure it'll be fine.
?01:06:00Subtitles by the Amara.org community
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