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Jason Mantzoukas
Foreign.
Mallory Rubin
And welcome to House of R. A Ringer Verse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin. She's Joanna Robinson. And Friend of the Pod Month would not have been complete without Jason fucking Mantzoukas.
Jason Mantzoukas
Let's go. I'm setting the tone. We're getting this done. SH Style.
Mallory Rubin
SH reference. Right away. I love it.
Joanna Robinson
Would you say he's the friend of the pod? This is our last Friend of the Pod Month episode.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, am I the last. Oh, wow. What an honor.
Mallory Rubin
Last guest in the history of the podcast. Unless something goes really wrong today, which, like, I rule it out.
Jason Mantzoukas
Inaugural Friend of the Pod Month.
Mallory Rubin
You are.
Jason Mantzoukas
I'm honored to crowning achievement. To please be batting cleanup.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
To do a sports reference.
Mallory Rubin
We both made a baseball reference.
Jason Mantzoukas
Did I do it right?
Mallory Rubin
Well, I went with closer, which I think is slightly more appropriate.
Jason Mantzoukas
It is. Okay.
Mallory Rubin
But it's also acceptable. What?
Joanna Robinson
The promise is that you don't care for sports.
Jason Mantzoukas
I hate sports.
Joanna Robinson
Great.
Jason Mantzoukas
You know what I mean? Here's my deal. Where's my kid?
Mallory Rubin
Right there.
Jason Mantzoukas
Right there. I hate sports.
Mallory Rubin
They're all yours.
Jason Mantzoukas
Not interested. Ringer.com.
Mallory Rubin
yeah, well, you've mentioned a hockey show and you've made a batting cleanup reference.
Jason Mantzoukas
God damn it. I fucked it up already.
Mallory Rubin
I can't wait to see how you incorporate the NBA Finals into the discussion today.
Jason Mantzoukas
Are they happening right now? And I don't know. I couldn't tell you which teams are in the NBA Finals if it's happening.
Mallory Rubin
You guys have enough Knicks fans in your life.
Jason Mantzoukas
The Knicks. Oh, I know. The Knicks are a thing.
Joanna Robinson
Oklahoma Is City Thunder.
Mallory Rubin
That's right.
Jason Mantzoukas
Wow.
Mallory Rubin
What do you do?
Jason Mantzoukas
They're doing. Don't. Don't. Joanna. Don't.
Mallory Rubin
I know you're a Spurs.
Jason Mantzoukas
Do not become because of Wemb.
Mallory Rubin
Because Wemby is a fantasy literature nerd. So the spurs are a part of your life because of Wemby.
Joanna Robinson
I do know that Wemby showed up to a game wearing a garment last night.
Mallory Rubin
He did.
Joanna Robinson
That's all I know.
Mallory Rubin
He sits down in the locker room. He reads like Brandon Brando. Sando. Brandon Sanderson.
Jason Mantzoukas
Wow.
Mallory Rubin
We're going to talk about all that. We're going to talk about season one of Spider Noir. We're going to talk a little frieren. You're going to recommend some other anime to us that you think we should check out? Honestly, I don't really know what we're going to talk about today.
Jason Mantzoukas
Come up.
Mallory Rubin
Anyway.
Jason Mantzoukas
I'm a 53 year old man with a Crunchyroll subscription. I have no children and things are going great.
Mallory Rubin
You're home. This is where you belong.
Jason Mantzoukas
I'm thrilled to be here.
Mallory Rubin
I can't wait to get into it. We will do that right after this.
Jason Mantzoukas
Do do do do Doogey doogie doo doo doo.
Mallory Rubin
This episode of House of R is presented to you by Target. Call it all trainers. The Pokemon in target collection celebrating 30 years of Pokemon is almost here and the lineup is kind of incredible.
Joanna Robinson
A few are sure to be fan faves, Pokemon starter jackets, mystery water type Pokemon bottles, and even caboodles.
Mallory Rubin
Which feels perfect because Pokemon has always been about sharing the adventure. And Target is bringing fans together to celebrate that spirit.
Joanna Robinson
The first drop is in store May 2 online May 3 with the second drop June 6. Explore now@target.com this episode is brought to you by Weathertech.
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Everyone knows winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need Weathertech floor liners in the summer. Unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways. Ketchup goes rogue. Ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those Weathertech seat protectors. So, just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need Weathertech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today.
Mallory Rubin
Programming remote reminders. Yeah, quick ones. What's coming next week? 2026 Summer Hype Meter, which, let's just say it quickly, take people behind the curtain here. I'm going to be in Sweden next week. I will not be in the country. We thus recorded the 2026 Summer Hype Meter. Not a day early, not half a day early.
Joanna Robinson
Days ago.
Mallory Rubin
A full week early. Multiple trailers have been released since we recorded it, which we know it is already quite stale. There are illusions on the podcast like, hey, they're probably going to drop a House of the Dragon Season 3 trailer, aren't they? Hey, we'll probably lear About X Men 97 Season 2, won't we?
Joanna Robinson
Guess what?
Mallory Rubin
All of that happened.
Joanna Robinson
Don't worry about it.
Mallory Rubin
I think the order remains the same.
Joanna Robinson
Our innocence is preserved in amber.
Mallory Rubin
There you go.
Jason Mantzoukas
Was there any kind of. Well, Mal, I'll just ask. How well behaved were you in the hype draft?
Mallory Rubin
You know, I'd say that I've mellowed in my old age. Oh, I think, Yeah, I think that I, you know, I.
Jason Mantzoukas
You didn't go after anybody or take it personally.
Joanna Robinson
Well, this is the meter.
Mallory Rubin
The meter is Calm in the hype draft. I think I was pretty well behaved this year. On the big pick Star wars draft recently, I was well behaved for, I'd say, 80% of it.
Joanna Robinson
And then when I was at any of the clips, I was. When I was not allowed at the
Jason Mantzoukas
end to select, I was not allowed at the end is a real issue,
Mallory Rubin
which is, like, ludicrous. And then it really.
Jason Mantzoukas
Rapio is not a sky. Wait, of course he is. What?
Mallory Rubin
Of course he is.
Jason Mantzoukas
What are we talking about? You tried to draft 3PO, R2D2. Absolutely.
Mallory Rubin
Well, I tried to do R2 and 3PO both, and then I tried to make the case for both. Then I tried to do Midi Chlorians as Anakin's father. And. And then I actually had to take shmee. It was a whole thing.
Jason Mantzoukas
You took Shmee?
Joanna Robinson
I had no choice.
Mallory Rubin
I had waited till the last round. Oh, God, let me throw this one nugget at you.
Joanna Robinson
How many of our podcasts are we gonna spend relitigating all of them?
Jason Mantzoukas
Did anybody get Cobb Vanth?
Mallory Rubin
Uh, well, it's funny you should mention that, because then Joanna and Damon Lindelof and I did on our Mando Grogu primer, a mini draft, a duo Star wars duo's draft. And three PO and R2 were just waiting for me in the fourth round, but I didn't take them, I think because of ptsd.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, that's.
Mallory Rubin
And then ended up at the very drafter got them. I don't know.
Joanna Robinson
Something happened.
Mallory Rubin
TikTok Band and Cad Bane, which it
Joanna Robinson
really all went to. And C3PO and then won the vote.
Mallory Rubin
I had won four drafts in a row across podcast.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, but you're not keeping track.
Mallory Rubin
But I lost a couple in a row, and I think it's good. It's good for.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, you think it's good to be humbled.
Mallory Rubin
It's good for me to, you know, to stay.
Joanna Robinson
Stay in tune with my limitations. You were very cool about me winning that.
Mallory Rubin
I think you crushed it. You crushed it. You crushed it. It's easier to lose by, like, 70%, which is what happened, than what I have a hard time with is if I lose by like, 2% and I then. Actually, though, I did tell you I couldn't sleep for two nights after the draft, which was true.
Jason Mantzoukas
Why?
Joanna Robinson
She's doing fine. She's doing fine.
Jason Mantzoukas
What were you. What were you. Because of the 3PO?
Joanna Robinson
Because I took R2 and C3PO out.
Mallory Rubin
I had taken Heron and Kenan as my love interest, which I Had to pick. I love that you were not going to do that.
Joanna Robinson
I was not going to do that.
Mallory Rubin
And so they would have made it back to me on the tournament.
Jason Mantzoukas
Wait a minute. You took them as your love pick instead of the Duchess Satine and Obi Wan?
Mallory Rubin
Obi was off the board because I had taken him and Anakin and it was all. But just. It had all gotten away from me.
Joanna Robinson
I got Han and Leia in the first round and then it was just
Mallory Rubin
kind of over for me.
Jason Mantzoukas
That's pretty good. Honestly, that's pretty good. But I do think Kanan and Hera is dynamite. No.
Mallory Rubin
Great.
Joanna Robinson
It's a great, thrilling.
Mallory Rubin
They would have been there for me at the end. Instead I had to pick Cad being
Jason Mantzoukas
a comeback at the end as a romantic couple. By the way, we all want it.
Joanna Robinson
We're shipping that Vance with anything, honestly.
Jason Mantzoukas
You know, their. Their first meeting was very flirtatious.
Mallory Rubin
There's some crackling energy.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh yeah. I think it's electric.
Joanna Robinson
Who, who doesn't love a slow saunter out of the distance?
Mallory Rubin
A healing fuck in the bacta tank. Why not?
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, yeah. When Cadbain, and I'm going to say
Joanna Robinson
this like fucking in a hot tub, but it's bad.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's bad for you. You get a bunch of chlorine up in there.
Mallory Rubin
You're going to.
Jason Mantzoukas
You're definitely going to need antibiotics afterwards.
Mallory Rubin
But you're in a bacta tank. So it's all healing in real time. It's almost like getting stabbed by a lightsaber. It's cauterizing, you know, the damage and the healing all at once.
Joanna Robinson
When Ken's review is getting fucked in the back to tank, why not?
Mallory Rubin
I would try it.
Joanna Robinson
I would try the light to have the lightsaber.
Jason Mantzoukas
I would try it.
Mallory Rubin
Anything. Once.
Jason Mantzoukas
I would try it at least once. I'm so glad you're on the record. Yeah, that's the pull quote. Would try it fucking in the back to tank at least once.
Joanna Robinson
If the bacta tank is rocking, don't come and knock it. Or sloshing.
Jason Mantzoukas
When Cobb Vanth showed up in that episode. Not rather. Rather when Cad Bane showed up in that episode to gunsling with Cobb Vanth. When Kevin was walking down in live action, I stood up and started screaming.
Mallory Rubin
You clapped. You cried?
Jason Mantzoukas
I cried. I was like, it's Kevin. It's Kevin again. I'm at that point a 50 year old man alone in my house screaming, I'm doing great. Yeah, boy. I wish we could have been on to talk about Maul. I Loved the pods about Mal. I loved Maul.
Mallory Rubin
It was so good.
Jason Mantzoukas
It was great. It was so great to be back with him. I loved all the cast of characters around it. I know we're not here to talk about male, we're here to talk about spider New. But I fucking loved Maul because all I want is smaller, self contained stories inside this world.
Joanna Robinson
Get the Skywalkers out of there, man.
Jason Mantzoukas
Get these fuckers out of here.
Mallory Rubin
Get them out of the canon and out of the drafts.
Jason Mantzoukas
The Skywalkers. Here's my larger hit us. The Skywalkers are the baby boomers. It's time to go.
Mallory Rubin
Time to die.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's time to go. It's over. You had your moment. We're done with you.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
Okay.
Jason Mantzoukas
Move on.
Mallory Rubin
Are you going to Gen X? Are you going to like, is it Gen Alpha's time in Star Wars?
Joanna Robinson
Gen X simply does not want to be involved.
Jason Mantzoukas
Nope. As a proud member of Gen X, I'm shocked I'm even here.
Mallory Rubin
We'll have you back for mall season two.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, but I would love it. Please.
Mallory Rubin
We can't wait for that show.
Jason Mantzoukas
I would love nothing more.
Mallory Rubin
Do you think that Spy Bot lives on in the clouds?
Joanna Robinson
Yes. Yeah, okay. That was Sam Weber kind of told us as much.
Jason Mantzoukas
Doesn't Spy Bot remind you of the assassin who wore the hat that looked like Spy Bot?
Mallory Rubin
What was that guy's name in Justin? Mando Grogu. Yeah, Embold with the shank looks like his hat looks like a shield.
Jason Mantzoukas
And that guy was going to show up as Spybot's like operator or some version of that.
Joanna Robinson
You haven't seen Mandalorian and Grogu yet?
Jason Mantzoukas
I have not seen Mandalorian and Grogu yet.
Mallory Rubin
So you claim.
Jason Mantzoukas
No, and I am being honest. I would tell you I anticipate not liking it in all honesty. Or I anticipate having something that you
Mallory Rubin
like and you'll have notes.
Jason Mantzoukas
I anticipate having a struggle with it, but I also don't think it's for me. Here's the thing. The stuff that I don't like about Star wars and I love all Star wars, boy, am I so happy we're still in these stories. It's not for me. But what I love, I love and when it fails me and Mal's for you. Mal. Dynamite. Loved every goddamn minute of it.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah, fantastic. Same, same. Can't wait for season two. I love Star wars animation.
Joanna Robinson
What else is coming up?
Mallory Rubin
Hype meter is Tuesday, I think. And then you will be doing at the end of the Week. A Lestat primer with some friends.
Joanna Robinson
Fictional bands. Fictional bands.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yep. Love this.
Joanna Robinson
Rishi Hirway, Jess McKenna are coming to talk about fictional bands.
Jason Mantzoukas
I love this because that's. And I'm gonna have a callback for that in a little bit.
Mallory Rubin
Oh, look at you. Are you an interview with the Vampire Watcher?
Jason Mantzoukas
I am not an interview with the Vampire Watcher, but you have gotten me so close so many times that I do feel like there's gonna come a moment when I don't have something that's one of my shows and I'm gonna be like, oh, yeah, this. And I'm gonna be obsessed with. I can. The way you talk about it. I know I'm gonna like it. You know, I just gotta get into it.
Mallory Rubin
I watched the first two seasons for Jo for Gift Swaps and made her watch Landman and Fire and Ash in exchange.
Joanna Robinson
And Avatar.
Jason Mantzoukas
Welcome. Welcome to. I'm out on Avatar. But boy, I'm all in on Landman
Joanna Robinson
even after season two.
Jason Mantzoukas
Especially because of season two.
Mallory Rubin
Did you watch season two? Are you aware that Billy Bob's character fucks an omelet at one point?
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah. Are you? And are you aware.
Mallory Rubin
Very noise.
Joanna Robinson
How literally are we talking about?
Mallory Rubin
Well, sticks a stick in an hour.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah. It is pretty clear.
Mallory Rubin
I don't like to completion.
Jason Mantzoukas
No. Yeah. And we don't watch him.
Joanna Robinson
Pleasure.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah. No. Kind of to make a point.
Joanna Robinson
To make a point to, like, stunt on someone. Like, I put my dick in your omelet.
Mallory Rubin
It was his omelet.
Jason Mantzoukas
It was his omelet. Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
Landman.
Joanna Robinson
Landman.
Jason Mantzoukas
To even try and explain it, you're like, wow, they really did it. They really did a thing. And I would say if Landman season three doesn't feature Billy Bob in the car, rolling calls more, I'll be furious.
Mallory Rubin
And they all have.
Jason Mantzoukas
Because that's what 80% of season two is.
Joanna Robinson
Did we go to Michael's this season? Drunkenly go to Michael's, which is my favorite part, as you know of season one, when Ally Larder got drunk on
Mallory Rubin
Margarita and went to get Michael's product placement for Michaels.
Jason Mantzoukas
No, they didn't. But where did they go? They did go someplace to do something with the old people. Again.
Mallory Rubin
Was it because strip club was also seasonal?
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah. They love the old people's storyline. And Landman is so nuts.
Mallory Rubin
A lot of the old people person focus of Landman, though, it shifted not only to the home front.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah, yeah.
Mallory Rubin
But to the pool in the backyard.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yes. Sam Elliott getting like aqua therapy held by cradled. Yes. Cradled by a woman in the pool
Mallory Rubin
who Billy Bob had found.
Joanna Robinson
I regret to inform you I'm back in.
Jason Mantzoukas
You're back in at night club.
Mallory Rubin
Welcome.
Jason Mantzoukas
And the pool water is warm.
Joanna Robinson
Mustache, look in the Great.
Mallory Rubin
Oh, my God. Resplendent. And he spends most of the season watching the sun.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yes.
Joanna Robinson
The worst mistake they made in Justified is when Sam Elliott showed up without the mustache. And you're like, what's the point?
Mallory Rubin
I quite agree. But you can't shave the mustache.
Joanna Robinson
You can.
Mallory Rubin
So you're going to do the Lestat pad. Then we are going to have a disclosure day pod, and then it's just basically House of the Dragon time. After that, we'll have a couple other things. But we are not Lestat premiere. Of course, we're not far away from Hot D, season three. You excited?
Jason Mantzoukas
Not really.
Mallory Rubin
Oh, boy.
Joanna Robinson
That's what we're hearing. That's the word on the street. On the street.
Mallory Rubin
All right. Did you watch the trailer today?
Jason Mantzoukas
I did not.
Mallory Rubin
Okay. I'm wondering if there will be an uptick in hype from today's trailer.
Joanna Robinson
Did Night of the Seven Kingdoms make you more hype or less hype?
Jason Mantzoukas
Less hype because I enjoyed it so much for the simplicity of its storytelling. That, again, kind of like what I'm talking about with Star wars inside of. And I'm not a Game of Thrones reader, to be clear, so I am. I exclusively understand it through the shows. And Night of the Seven Kingdoms just crushed it. And then I went and listened to the audiobook of all of the novellas, which were dynamite and made me so excited for the rest of it. House of the Dragon is so sprawling and so big, and it just hasn't hooked me in the same way. I'll watch it. I'll get around to watching it, but I will not be like, oh, it's on good. Boom every Sunday night, or whatever. You know, Like, I'm. I don't think it's going to be dominant.
Mallory Rubin
Damn it.
Joanna Robinson
We'll see.
Mallory Rubin
I'm holding on.
Jason Mantzoukas
I feel the same about Lord of the Rings.
Joanna Robinson
Rings of Power.
Jason Mantzoukas
Rings of Power, rather. Both of them have just lost me enough that it isn't like, week to week. I'm kept up. In other words, you know, I'll do it, but it's. They're not like, ooh, I got to. I got to go.
Mallory Rubin
We have to start potting about Landman so that Manzukas keeps listening to.
Joanna Robinson
You're not going to listen to us, by the way.
Jason Mantzoukas
I still listen. I'm listening to you guys talk about. You guys are spoiling shows that I'm then watching weeks later. But I don't care.
Mallory Rubin
I love it.
Jason Mantzoukas
I also don't care about spoilers.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
I mean it must be hard in your.
Joanna Robinson
Your.
Jason Mantzoukas
I'm not a. It's not. I don't.
Mallory Rubin
You're an actor.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah. What's the point in the industry, it's. What do we. We're allowed to hear. Part of the reason I used to like watching stuff was because I would hear people describe it or I would read a review that described it or whatever. Like I should be allowed to know what happens in these things.
Joanna Robinson
I just don't understand. Like for those of us who love to like read the book and then watch the thing that's based on the book that's essentially like it. It doesn't change it for me.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah.
Joanna Robinson
Oh no.
Mallory Rubin
I mean me neither. I think a lot of listeners feel differently about it.
Joanna Robinson
So I'm always.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh yeah. They're cautious babies.
Joanna Robinson
Spoiler warning.
Mallory Rubin
Spoiler warning for today. All of Spider Noir season one because this dropped as a binge on MGM and then Amazon. So this is on Prime Video on Amazon.
Joanna Robinson
The whole first season is on a real platform that exists.
Jason Mantzoukas
Mgm.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, mgm.
Jason Mantzoukas
I've got it. Don't worry.
Mallory Rubin
Two days before.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah, don't worry. I've got it for Sas. Rogue heroes.
Joanna Robinson
Yes.
Jason Mantzoukas
One of my all time favorite Stephen Knight shows.
Mallory Rubin
You guys in CR love Rogue Heroes. I know that about all three of them have not seen the show.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, the best.
Mallory Rubin
I've not seen the show.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's.
Mallory Rubin
Oh, he was in the binge miss movie that I watched to do a Binge miss.
Joanna Robinson
Jody. Tom. Glen Carney. Your guy.
Mallory Rubin
That's right.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's a good grill.
Joanna Robinson
It's really good.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah. It's a great cast and it. The show is a blast.
Mallory Rubin
Maybe there will be rogue hero spoilers today. There will definitely be Spider noir spoilers because the entire season is fair game for our discussion today. Later today we're going to talk about frieren.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
So like I think that that because we have not finished the spoilers will be a little lighter there. Oh sure. Will be more like premise.
Joanna Robinson
Here's what I'll say. And this is just true of anime.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Joanna Robinson
They tell you the whole thing in the opening song.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah.
Joanna Robinson
Opening credits song is always like here's the story we're about to tell you.
Mallory Rubin
It's banger that opening credits.
Jason Mantzoukas
Always. And every season it changes.
Mallory Rubin
Incredible.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's great.
Mallory Rubin
Incredible. So we're going to Talk about all of that today. What else might we spoil? What do you think?
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, I suspect we'll talk about the Spider Verse movies.
Mallory Rubin
Yes.
Jason Mantzoukas
So those will. I'm sure, all of Spider Man's. All of Spider man comics.
Mallory Rubin
Canon.
Jason Mantzoukas
Comics. Canon. Although I looked into Spider man or Spider Noir comics, there weren't a ton, and I didn't dig too deep. Me neither, if I'm being honest.
Joanna Robinson
So no Spider Noir comics.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah, you don't have to worry about
Mallory Rubin
any comics kind of things.
Jason Mantzoukas
Sadly, I would have loved something that had a heavier comics lift to just to talk comics, but. But I didn't find much that was super compelling.
Mallory Rubin
Okay, let's get to it. Let's swing into Spider Noir season one. What is your history with this character? Jason, let's start with you.
Jason Mantzoukas
So it is simply from the Spider Verse movies. Truly, this was my introduction, as I suspect it was for all of us, you know, or for most. And loved it. Loved the. What a great character establishment in that first movie to all of the characters to be introduced to that group of characters and then have one of them be not just a noir black and white, all the archetypes and tropes of a noir story, but have it be voiced by Nic Cage, who is maybe for me, pound for pound, one of the most interesting, most bizarre, most captivating actors that we have. You know. You know, I do a podcast called how did this get made? And for 15 years, we've been covering terrible movies that are so bad you have to watch them. And when I tell you we've done probably 20 Nicolas Cage movies, there was
Joanna Robinson
that run of time where he was trying to pay off his massive debt, where he did like five VOD movies
Jason Mantzoukas
a year, and we covered a lot of them. Season of the Witch, we're talking the Wicker man, although that's not exactly just for money, but, you know, there's a ton of.
Joanna Robinson
There's a ton you've never heard of that Nic Cage did. Um, speaking of, can I. Can I tell my origin story with. With Jason, of course.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, yes. We've never potted before.
Mallory Rubin
That's never potted before. The three of us have potted before.
Joanna Robinson
I was working at Vanity Fair, and I got a pitch to talk to Jason Manzoukas, who is one of my favorite podcasters. Cause I was an absolute. How did this get made? Obsessive and. But, like, you're trying to be a professional journalist, right? So Jason gets on the line, and I'm just interviewing him about the project that he was working On. And I didn't say anything about being a fan of yours. Cause I was trying to be, like, cool and professional. Meanwhile, I'm like, internally freaking out. And then right towards the end, Jason's like, I just want to let you know, Joanne, I listened to your podcast and I was like, I listened to your podcast and he was like, too late. I said it first. Now it just sounds like you're saying it because I said it. And I was like, God damn it. Anyway, so that's the first time I talked to you.
Jason Mantzoukas
And that was your. The first time, I think I heard you was the Dave Chen cast of Kings podcast that I listened to all the time. Yeah. During that era.
Joanna Robinson
Years ago.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, yeah.
Joanna Robinson
Many years ago. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
And then I think. And then we met at ATX Festival
Joanna Robinson
because I was moderating that league panel. Yeah, yeah. And then you're like, can I hug you? And I was like, yes. Anyway.
Jason Mantzoukas
Really great.
Mallory Rubin
Really, you are.
Jason Mantzoukas
And here we are podcasting together.
Joanna Robinson
It only about spider noir.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yes. It only took another 12 years, probably.
Mallory Rubin
Thanks.
Jason Mantzoukas
To get us here.
Mallory Rubin
Thanks.
Jason Mantzoukas
Thank you.
Joanna Robinson
Thank you.
Jason Mantzoukas
Nicolas Cage.
Mallory Rubin
What can't that man do?
Jason Mantzoukas
Uh, I mean, quite a bit, actually.
Mallory Rubin
Matt lighting him up today.
Jason Mantzoukas
And I think we found some of the limitations maybe.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, we might have. Do you feel like in the scene inside of the show, when he is in the movie theater eating a hot dog watching James Cagney. Do you. And, like, just muttering the lines back, which we later find out is how he learned how to be human again after being bitten by man spider or whatever it was.
Mallory Rubin
Yep.
Joanna Robinson
Do you feel like that's just documentary footage of Nic Cage of the movie.
Mallory Rubin
Entire film.
Jason Mantzoukas
I'm certain he made them do the whole. Made him make sure we're watching this scene. He is. So there's a great. It might be Vanity Fair. It might be one of the magazines that does the. You know, an actor breaks down their roles.
Mallory Rubin
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
And he did one. This is some years ago. But. And he's going through. And what's wonderful about Nicholas Cage is like, he's such a chaotic and crazy and unpredictable actor in all of the best ways and frankly, all of the worst ways. But to hear him talk about his process for so many of these bananas characters, you are like, oh, there is not just a method to his madness, but there is madness to his method. You know, like, it is fascinating to watch. I very much think people should watch it just to get insights into the fact that he's talking about, like, you know, whatever movie crazy Dumb, you know, gone in 60 seconds or con Air. But he's like, talking about Brett.
Mallory Rubin
Couple classics, you know what I mean?
Joanna Robinson
It could happen to you. And he's like, well, it's like, what
Mallory Rubin
was the quote he had that was making its way around about. About this? I think it was from the Esquire feature. And he was like, 70. It's 70% Humphrey Bogart, 30% Bugs Bunny.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yes. That's great.
Mallory Rubin
I believe was.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, it's in there.
Mallory Rubin
Absolutely not.
Joanna Robinson
Not to say, like, cite multiple interviews I did when I worked at vf, But I one time I did interview Nicolas Cage about some terrible VOD movie that he made that no one saw. And I was asked, because I'm me. I was asking him about comic books, but I think he thought because he was talking to someone at Vanity Fair that I was, like, making fun of him for comic books, which of course I would never. I was genuinely curious to talk to him about comic books. And he's like, I'm not. I'm not just sitting here with my tray of lemon cookies and my glass of milk reading comic books all the time. And I was just like, first of all, I am.
Mallory Rubin
That sounds great.
Joanna Robinson
I was like, that's so specific. So you certainly are. Like, you definitely are. But also, that was not an insult to ask you about comic book.
Mallory Rubin
What an astronaut.
Joanna Robinson
Kal El, Like, I know this about you, and I think it's cool and weird, but, like, yeah. He was like, I'm not sitting here with my tray of lemon cookies. And I was like, well, we should all be sitting here with our trays.
Jason Mantzoukas
I mean, I wish there was a tray of lemon cookies right now.
Mallory Rubin
I agree. He's a lemon cookies guy. Sansa's a lemon cakes girl. It's amazing how much lemon based zesty baked goods come up here on this podcast. Two, twice. Can you think of any others?
Jason Mantzoukas
We'll put one in here.
Mallory Rubin
We'll think of one by the end of the day.
Joanna Robinson
I think the comedy rule of three.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yes.
Mallory Rubin
Joe, same for you. Spider Verse. Any other history with spider noir as a character? Spider Verse movies. Yeah, same. And I think we all like. It was such a. I mean, the Spider Verse films in general, obviously, just wonderful. We adore the two that we've gotten so far. Can't wait for the third. I think that even by the standard of loving the first movie, spider noir like, really popped for people.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, I feel like, yeah, especially. I mean, it's so fun to play with those tropes. It's so fun to Be inside of when he's not in like in the. We'll talk about it in this show, but especially in that movie, in those two movies, it's a blast to have like a hard boiled, you know, detective roaming around and he's perfect for it.
Mallory Rubin
Yes. And the idea in the Spider verse films of like this mashup of fully realized, utterly specific, unapologetic comics energy where you get this like tapestry of all these different figures who are there to be for 30 seconds, 75 seconds, whatever it is, the most diluted, distilled version of that comics character. And then it's like, well, that was super fun. What will it be like over eight episodes of a standalone series built around this character? Right. That's the question. So I remember when this was announced, I was like very hyped, Genuinely very hyped.
Joanna Robinson
Lot of questions.
Mallory Rubin
Which I think was where we all were for a little while. Opening snapshot. Overall take here. How did you actually find season one of Spider Noir boy?
Jason Mantzoukas
So speaking of Bugs Bunny, I found it. It's a tough one for me because there's a lot of stuff that I really liked and really enjoyed. For me, I will say it's a little bit of. There is simultaneously somehow I made a note in here. Too much going on and also not enough for me to do eight one hour episodes. You know, I mean like, I think
Joanna Robinson
it should have been a great movie.
Jason Mantzoukas
It should have been a movie and. Or a series of episodes that added up to movie length.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
You know what I mean? Like it should have been shorter and told a1.1 thrust of a story.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
There was too much going on, too many things. And it was also not enough of an understanding of what story I was being told. So I was getting lost and. And then I didn't get back into it and enjoy it. And there was, I think, great set pieces. There was a lot of incredibly fun stuff, great performances. I really enjoyed it. But it wore out its welcome a little bit. And I'd say the second half I found myself checking my phone a little bit or not as invested, I'll say. And I watched it, I should say as a binge. I watched it all at once within 48 hours. Yeah, you know, I watched the whole thing.
Joanna Robinson
I. I did the same and I feel like it was like perhaps the back half wouldn't have felt so tedious to me to a certain degree if it had felt fresher. And I wasn't like four hours into my experience already. I think the cast is incredible. Like to get Brennan Gleeson here, just, like, doubling it up. Like, incredible. I was spoilers, right? I was excited and then sad because I was like, lucas Haas finally gets to do something so cool. And then he was gone. Jack Houston is addicted to us. Not seeing his beautiful face all the time. Boardwalk Empire surprised me. I know.
Jason Mantzoukas
Very similar, kind of, you know, or an external for the role.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Joanna Robinson
Lee Jun Lee has been like, loved. Loved her in Babylon. Loved her in Sinners. Like, she's on a real role in terms of stuff. So, like, look at, like, Amy Aquino here. Like, absolute stage legend here for an episode or two to play the doctor. So, like, just an incredible Morris.
Jason Mantzoukas
I mean, like,
Joanna Robinson
Lamorne is the show for me.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's great. Oh, yeah. Well, that's the show I kind of am more curious about, you know?
Joanna Robinson
Yeah. Lamort, like, however tired I got at the end, I was always invested in what Lamorne's character, like, what Joe. Robbie Robertson was doing. And also Janet Ruiz.
Jason Mantzoukas
Terrific.
Joanna Robinson
Robbie and Janet, like, kind of were the show for me. Nick Cage is so fun. And then I feel like, towards the back half, or I was just a little tired, it felt like any leash came off of him. Do you know what I mean?
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, yeah.
Joanna Robinson
And I feel like he needs that leash on him in order for us to enjoy.
Mallory Rubin
That's the thing I love, because I
Jason Mantzoukas
will say if he. Without those moments of true bananas. Nick.
Joanna Robinson
No, no, no, no.
Jason Mantzoukas
I think I might have liked it even less.
Mallory Rubin
No, no, no.
Joanna Robinson
I mean, I think the physical, like, when he's, like, doing his spider shit, it's incredible. When he's doing his spider shit, I loved that.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, my God. It feels. That's. You know what? And I wonder what you guys think about this. I kept being like, ooh, Especially in those moments or in the moment where he, in the flashback when he's, like, finds out the webbing is coming from his body and all that body horror stuff, I was like, ooh, I wish this. I wish they'd given Sam Raimi this. I wish Sam Raimi had been in charge of this property and this Spider man, because, boy, would that be interesting. Because I think Raimi especially, too, loves this era of filmmaking. Loves. This is. This is Sam Raimi. Like, when he's with the Coen brothers era, Sam Raimi, you know what I mean? There's a lot of this movie that has Miller's Crossing mapped onto it, where Brendan Gleeson is the Albert Finney character and Cage is the Gabriel Byrne character.
Joanna Robinson
Well, he did Darkman, which is essentially perfect.
Jason Mantzoukas
Great. Exactly. And That I was like, ooh, I would love a Sam Raimi noir. Working with Nic Cage. That would be very interesting to me because that, I think would have made it feel a little bit more layered or deeper or something. A little bit. It felt broad strokes at times. Like, just noir. Broad strokes.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I had a lot of fun with it. I watched it over a couple days, so I was able to space out the episodes a little bit, which I think maybe helped me avoid the feeling at the very end. Like, I was like, boy, I have to, like, get through this. Because actually, I think the back half of the season I actually enjoyed more than the front of the season. Like, I think once we got some of the flashback clarity. And then mostly when. Because I loved Robbie and Janet so much, I think mostly when the three of them all got to really interact in the primary story together, that was just, like, such a treat and such a thrill. And particularly when Nic Cage just went nuts in episode seven and eight. That was when I was having the best time and laughing the most. And I was in the beginning of the season having a good time and enjoying it, but not laughing at the oddity and specificity of the performance. Performance as much as I had anticipated. And so when some more of those, like, deliberate affectations started to surface, I was just like, I feel like I am watching the show that I thought I was gonna be watching the whole time. So I really enjoyed it. I had a good time. I think what you guys said about what you were saying about just the pace and the flow over the season and, like, that's. I, I, I, I agree, Jason, with the, the observation that simultaneously there was, like, a lot going on in terms of moving pieces and parts, but then you have a little bit of those, like, ubiquity of all of the fights are gonna end up being on, like, a street, you know, in the old timey city. And, like, just the. I think the Silvermane part of it was a touch less interesting to me than some of the other strands of the story. So when it all kind of, like, oriented around that at the end, even though I liked those episodes quite a bit, it felt a little small. I think some of it also is just the kind of 2026. We are all watching comic book adaptations for the millionth time. And, like, the, you know, you are like, okay, we're Tombstone. We've been talking about Tombstone coming in a movie this summer, and here's Tombstone, Sandman again, et cetera. But that's just part of It.
Joanna Robinson
I didn't mind how small. I like. I kind of liked it. It felt small and, like, contained and, like, felt like it was shot on a studio backlot. Like, I. I kind of liked, to your point about mall. Like, I just kind of liked that we were in this, like, very little world in this one mayoral race and this one, you know, like, all this sort of stuff is contained. I think what was really tough for me in the back, I think here's what it was. Nick Cage having the leash off, as you point out, is always an exciting time. This guy that got with love and respect to play Megawatt was so aggravating to me.
Jason Mantzoukas
But why did you feel like he made big choices that couldn't be back?
Joanna Robinson
That I felt like you could not put both of those energies in the same stretch of episodes. And for me to vibe with him,
Jason Mantzoukas
everybody needs to be back or everybody else needs to be. To match them. Because they are very vividly in comic book. You know, they are in, you know, not just comic book, but also the rat. A tat. Tat. 30s, 40s noir. Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
I had a hard time with him in his first couple episodes when he started to, like, be more fully incorporated into the main plot.
Joanna Robinson
I was like, oh, we're sticking with this.
Mallory Rubin
But I kind of. I kind of loved it by the end, actually, because. I don't know, there was just something so amusing about him. Like the Goodnight, sweet Prince Hamlet quote at the end. I'm like, this is.
Joanna Robinson
He was just Shakespeare.
Jason Mantzoukas
He was everywhere.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Joanna Robinson
Fumbling Shakespeare. The whole. Maybe that's what bothered me. He was misquoting Shakespeare, and it was bothering me.
Mallory Rubin
But it's, like, amusing because he's a dipshit who thinks he's like, you know, finally got the literal.
Joanna Robinson
I mean, I get the doll around him.
Mallory Rubin
It just was. I thought it was amusing. And I like that he actually said to the other. To like, to. To Flint, why are we listening to this guy? Which felt like actually a necessary story. Beat for one of the guys with powers to say, like, why I love Jack Houston.
Joanna Robinson
But tracking Flint's, like, loyalty motif versus the love story with Kat versus the story.
Jason Mantzoukas
This is what I mean by, like, there's so much going on, but I'm not really invested in any of it. Nor do I understand, nor am I clear. Who. What they want me. What do they want me to feel like? Who do they want me?
Mallory Rubin
Are we supposed to root for Kat?
Jason Mantzoukas
Rooting for Kat and Flint or Kat and Ben or Cat and Silvermane or Cat on Her own or what? You know, like. And I was like. And I kept being like, is this cat gonna be. Is this Kat Hardy gonna be Felicia Hardy? Is this person gonna be Black Cat? Is that what they're setting up here? I'm not sure. Like, there's a lot that I was, like, bringing comics lore to it and trying to figure out, oh, are they trying to assemble the Sinister 6 with all these guys? Okay. No, not really. And then all the flashbacks for me were hurting, not helping. Same in a lot of ways.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
Especially because it just became putting them all together as if they fought at the same time in the same war. Really put into stark contrast just how much the age difference is between these guys. You know, I mean, like, Jack Houston and that crew are however old. They are mid to late 30s. And Cage is, like, mid-60s.
Joanna Robinson
He's, like, 62. So his, like, sort of floppy forelock flashback wig wasn't doing all the work.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, you think that was a wig?
Joanna Robinson
Yeah. You think so?
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, no. That's interesting.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
I hadn't thought of that.
Joanna Robinson
Had you considered it, perhaps that. That's not his hairline.
Jason Mantzoukas
I think that's a wig.
Joanna Robinson
Huh. Interesting.
Jason Mantzoukas
You think Cage is wigging it up on this? That's interesting.
Joanna Robinson
Every day of his life, perhaps every time he leaves the house.
Jason Mantzoukas
The wigs were nuts.
Mallory Rubin
Particularly so in the. What did they call it? The true hue.
Joanna Robinson
Tru.
Mallory Rubin
Hue. Color. Oh, unbelievable. And the true human.
Jason Mantzoukas
That's a good question.
Joanna Robinson
So much better in black and white.
Jason Mantzoukas
Did you guys watch black and white or color?
Joanna Robinson
Yes, I watched black and white, and then Mal and I talked about it. I went back in and watched the last episode, a little bit of it in color, just to, like, see what it looked like.
Jason Mantzoukas
I did the reverse. I watched a little bit of the first episode in color.
Mallory Rubin
Okay.
Jason Mantzoukas
Just because that's what it booted up initially. And while I was trying to figure
Mallory Rubin
out how to, like, dear God, make it stop.
Jason Mantzoukas
How to watch it in black and white. So I watched probably the first 10 minutes in color and went to black and white and was glad I did, because I felt like black and white really covered for a lot of stuff that I think I would have been
Joanna Robinson
even more aggravated by, like, the design on the henches. You know, like your. Your tombstones, your megawatts looked so good in black and white. I thought they looked incredible.
Mallory Rubin
I think that's part of why I liked the show so much, is the black and white was just such a specific and immersive, like, visual choice, and it Obviously helps heighten not only the comic book palette. Like, this book has been drawn in the specific way with this artist's intention, but also, obviously, the. Like. This is a 30s noir story. This is a crime story. This is a gritty pop your collar on your trench coat, and we're going to go solve a crime into. Your point, Joe. Like, this neighborhood that feels like it has a sense of place, and this is the club we go to. I thought that the black and white really heightened all of that effectively. And, like, even stuff like, you know, he's got the darker webs. The way that. That looked in the black and white. The way that the. The war goggles.
Jason Mantzoukas
The goggles was such a good effect in black and white.
Joanna Robinson
Like the glow.
Jason Mantzoukas
Really simple stuff. Like, I thought played great in black and white. Awesome. And helped, I guess, you know, plaster over some of the stuff that I think would have been just not as good or a little bit feeling like herky jerky.
Joanna Robinson
I wish they hadn't released it in Colorado.
Mallory Rubin
Well, why do you think that's what I was just gonna ask is, like, why do you think they did give people the choice? They just think people weren't gonna want
Jason Mantzoukas
to watch a black and white show. I think there's a generational cutoff that not watch black and white movies. They won't, because they didn't ever. And so those movies are old, you know, or what? Like, old old. Not like, you know, sort of old. Like, imagine you're born in the year 2000. Like a movie from the 40s. Like, to watch His Girl Friday or to watch Maltese Falcon or something is a crazy. I mean, these are the best movies ever made, but, like, a crazy thing to a kid. So I think they want those kids watching this thing, so they got to put it in color, which is preposterous.
Joanna Robinson
Bummer.
Jason Mantzoukas
Like, it is against the entire ethos of the character.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah. And I think especially because the show is really trying to say, this is gonna be its own thing. This, like, actually is. This, like, wouldn't belong in the mcu. Right. And we're not shying away from that. We're actually trying to, like, amplify and heighten that so that it feels like its own thing and its own distinct flavor and energy. Lean into that. Just say to people, if you wanna watch it, you gotta watch it in black and white. That's how it's supposed to look. It looks amazing. The color. I watched the. I did the same. I did the end of the season in color. And the true hue at the end, and it was just. Was like, not only not as gripping, it, like, looked kind of bad, I
Joanna Robinson
assume it looked like way cheaper.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Joanna Robinson
Very strong.
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
And it would, you know, the. I don't think it's successful as a movie necessarily, but Sin City, to me, was the movie that I kept thinking of, both the comics and then the movie adaptation. Because of that playing with the black and white like that, with this kind of noir y storyline. I really. I was like, ooh, I wish this had a little bit more of the grittiness that Sin City had. Sin City just had, like. I just wish there had been more. It felt very clean.
Mallory Rubin
Oh, yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
You know, in a way that I was like, oh, where's the grime? Where's the grit? I wanted a little bit more of that.
Mallory Rubin
Do you think on the grime grit front that you could get a syringe to go right through the soft spot of somebody's eye?
Jason Mantzoukas
I thought that was. I loved that moment and I wanted more. That's a great example of a beat that I wanted more. And I loved specifically that Robbie did it.
Mallory Rubin
Yes.
Jason Mantzoukas
That it wasn't during a fight that Ben thought to do it. I loved that consistently throughout. Ben is bad at being Spider man, you know, and that was satisfying, I think, and was a smart move.
Joanna Robinson
And I love, like, so when you're watching his spider fight and fumble around or whatever, that's its own. You know, there's all this meta commentary of, like, does he still have it? He's still got it. Like, all this sort of stuff like that. But when you're watching Nick Cage fight, I was like, I like how believably, like, sort of shambling and effortful it was for him. Like, I really liked that hit.
Mallory Rubin
The sweet spot of enhancing where this character is and the fact that he's been struggling with who he wants to be. The loss, the pain, the age, all of it. The, like, the fact that he's embrace, you know, inverting and embracing with. With no power comes no responsibility. That's the thing. He's championing without running a foul. It never tipped into De Niro and the Irishman, where you're like, wait, no, this just actually doesn't look like a thing to me.
Joanna Robinson
Oh, boy.
Jason Mantzoukas
No, I agree, I agree.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah, it was great. On the Nic Cage front, what else do we want to say about Nic Cage's Ben Reilly, the spider?
Joanna Robinson
I want to say this, one of my favorite things that happened throughout, like, and I love this in any sort of private eye show, this Is like a classic Veronica Mars setup, is I have to weasel my way into something, so I'm just going to, like, pretend to be this, that or the other thing. I just thought all of those sequences were really fun. And then he.
Jason Mantzoukas
Well, I. Because. And it's so funny you said Veronica Mars, because I wrote it in my. As a Gen X, I wrote it in mine.
Joanna Robinson
Is.
Jason Mantzoukas
Is this Nicolas Cage's Fletch?
Mallory Rubin
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
Because I was like, every time he has to get in to knock on a door or do something, he's not doing it inexplicably. He could be Ben Reilly for all these interactions. These people don't matter to the story. But he's still like, I gotta get into your apartment. I guess I'm the plumber. And I was like, this is. And you know that this is Nic Cage showing up and being like, I'm doing this one. Like this. This is a great story about him getting cast in Green Hornet, the Seth Rogen Green Hornet movie, and insists to play the villain that eventually Christoph Waltz plays. But Nic Cage said, I will only do it if I can do it with dreadlocks and a Jamaican accent.
Joanna Robinson
And Robert Pattinson is like, I'm gonna bring this energy to a lot of things that I do. He's like, I saw what Gary Oldman did in True Romance, and that's gotta be me.
Jason Mantzoukas
I think Pattinson is cribbing off Gary oldman and Nick ca. 100%. Absolutely.
Mallory Rubin
I mean, what a beautiful. What a beautiful stuff.
Jason Mantzoukas
What a Venn diagram of madness.
Mallory Rubin
I love it.
Joanna Robinson
The accent, like, the whatever our Pats is doing, whatever accent, whatever new voice he's doing in every project is so exciting. Specifically, he shows up. I forget which one it is, but he shows up and he does the Bette Davis. What a dump. And it made me laugh so hard. And I was just like. I feel like Nick Cage is just like, I'm gonna cite this. I'm gonna do this 1949 Bette Davis movie line right now. And I was just like, he does it throughout.
Jason Mantzoukas
He references stuff throughout. When he says. When he references. Wait, what movie does he reference? And say it's still in the. It's still playing right now. Maltese Falcon. I can't remember what movie he says, it's actually in theaters right now. And I was like, he is just. It's that improv rule of play to the height of your intelligence. Everything Nic Cage knows, Ben Reilly knows, which is like, he has complete film history.
Joanna Robinson
All the Turner Classic Mov. Do you Think they should give Nic Cage his own TCM show.
Jason Mantzoukas
One million percent. I would watch that. I mean, that's the move. Like, I want Nic Cage to have a movie podcast, a movie show, anything where he curates. And all I want is for Ben Mankiewicz to try and corral Nic Cage.
Joanna Robinson
That's what I was gonna say in talking about it's gotta be together. Absolutely. And Ben just, like, sweating and, like, pulling his collar open as he's trying
Jason Mantzoukas
to wrangle it, as they're trying to introduce Asphalt Jungle.
Joanna Robinson
It's like when I forget, what was the name of the movie he did with Petter Pascal. The like, yes.
Jason Mantzoukas
Not Dream scenario. Work of staggering genius.
Joanna Robinson
Unbearable weight of massive talent. When they're talking about the cabinet of Dr. Caligari and he's just, like, monologuing about it, I'm like, this is just Nick Cave talking about a movie that he loves.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, I love it.
Joanna Robinson
You know, and it's just. I would watch that Turner Classic Movie show every day, happily.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, a million percent. That would be a blast. Because he is so smart and so interested and interesting that all I want to do is watch Nick Cage be curious about a thing and then execute on it. And that's what this. At the best, that's what this has all over it is when he's doing Nic Cage stuff, when they let him loose. It's electric and it's nonsense. A lot of the times, the crazy,
Joanna Robinson
oh, I'm a spider.
Jason Mantzoukas
Like, leg spider. Crickety Crackity. Crickety Crackity was every work for me, every single time. And I was like, oh, I wish there was 30% more weird David Lynchy stuff going on. Like, I kept being like, ooh, I wish Werner Herzog or Lars Von Trier directed this. I wish this was weirder is what I kept wanting. I kept wanting it to be actually as weird as Nicolas Cage, rather than Nicolas Cage seeming like the weird thing. The weird thing in this slick noir pastiche.
Mallory Rubin
That's why I wound up talking myself into more megawatts. Actually. Everyone is.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, if everyone is megawatts, everyone is in the right movie.
Mallory Rubin
But, yeah, when he's like, you know, getting drunk, getting plastered, the bar fight was incredible. I love that he's describing. Their appendages are rather like straws. Veritable party whistles, you know, like, this is cocaine. This is amazing.
Joanna Robinson
The director of the last two episodes, Greg Ytanis, who did some House of the Dragon, Presumed Innocent, and I really, that he brought a lot. He did a lot of, like, comic book, you Know, painting of. Of the action. And then that fight, that bar fight is for a lot of it, a oner. And it's like, a lot of oners. I'm like, all right, we get it. But I thought that one was really good.
Jason Mantzoukas
Well, I thought it was really good. I agree. And not all the fight choreography worked for me, but this one did. And especially because it had the. It's just the entry, the entrance of him being in the bar, and these guys come in, they, blah, blah, blah. And then him just following him out. And then he puts the thing on, then he walks back in. It's clearly him still. It's obvious to everybody that this is the guy who was just in it. And then the fight unfolds. And just that little setup of him being, like, knowing he's gotta put the mask on, but he's got a drunk that was dynamite and all. Nic Cage being drunk. Acting, I'll watch forever. Or being on drugs. Acting, I'll watch forever.
Joanna Robinson
Oh, Mandy. Every time.
Mallory Rubin
And of the, like, he has to enter a place and do something very audacious, kind of for no reason. I think my favorite example of that was. Cause, you know, he goes, he needs to get into his own apartment to get his suitcase. So he's like. He grabs the mop, and he does it an extra degree. But, like, he does have to pretend he's there with maintenance to infiltrate. Okay. When Dr. Faber catches him looking through the files in her office. And so he has to pretend he's a patient. Now, he does need a cover story for why he is behind her desk in the office. But the voice.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
The specific story, the number of times. He's like, floor two down on floor two. I gotta make sure Google map it for me. Like, it was just so. It dialed up to a thousand.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's so crazy. And what's so weird about it is that's Nic Cage. Humphrey Bogart would never do this. James Bunny would never do this. This is Bugs Bunny. This is the Bugs Bunny. You're right.
Mallory Rubin
But my favorite.
Joanna Robinson
I mean, I'm hopping. But La' More Morris, who, again, like, every single second. So good when he gets to do not just, like, a Nick Cage impression, but a Jimmy Cagney as Nick Cage impression. So funny. Like, I hope he had the best time of his life doing that.
Jason Mantzoukas
Some of my favorite scenes were Nic Cage and the little kid Frankie.
Mallory Rubin
Oh, Frankie. Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
Frankie is executing, like, straight up Little Rascals energy throughout. And I was like, give me more of this. Give me more of the, like, Little kid. Street urchin geometrics. Yeah, that was killing me.
Mallory Rubin
Frankie and Janet. I would also watch a Frankie Janet spin off just with their lives.
Joanna Robinson
Just some tutoring.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah, incredible. Let's talk more about Janet, and let's talk more about Robbie and Frankie. If you like, the supporting characters, the supporting heroes, because we're gonna hit villains separately. Yeah, this was definitely the highlight.
Jason Mantzoukas
Boy, wouldn't it have been great if the office with them was the hub, was the center of the story.
Joanna Robinson
Hope for season two, like, because we end with Riley and Ruiz. I'm like, you know, And I'm like, okay, Robbie's got a paper to run, and that's a. That's a large job, so I hope his paper goes well.
Jason Mantzoukas
Not in today's. Not in today's world.
Joanna Robinson
But I was like, I just want the three I was thinking a lot about. I've been bringing up Perry Mason a lot on podcasts for some reasons, but Perry Mason, It's Perry Mason, Della street, his Girl Friday, essentially, and then Paul Drake, his investigator. And it's the three of them. And I was just like, that's the setup here. It's just like you've got your investigative journalist and you've got your. His Girl Friday, who also, like, knows how to sashay into a police station and get everyone to do what she wants to do. And, like, I just. I love the three of them.
Jason Mantzoukas
And if you're gonna do it this way, if you want one hour episodes or whatever, and you want eight of them, don't make it one storyline.
Joanna Robinson
Case of the week.
Jason Mantzoukas
Make it either case of the week or every two episodes is a case.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
You know, the Silvermane stuff. Even though I love all those performers, that was where I started to feel Silvermane isn't.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, you know what?
Mallory Rubin
It is.
Jason Mantzoukas
And I wrote this down, too. It is. I had similar problems with this that I had with Daredevil, which was, what is the story we're telling? Is it these small pieces or is it this big piece? It felt, again, both too much and not enough for me to understand what the story was, how to receive it in terms of, like.
Mallory Rubin
For Joe, the Daredevil story was Bullseye feeds a cat. And it worked.
Joanna Robinson
And it worked for me. No, but this is the problem with the eight to ten episode seasons because, you know, we've been rewatching Buffy, or if you talk about Veronica Mars.
Jason Mantzoukas
Love Buffy.
Joanna Robinson
Both of those shows have mastered in the 2224 episode season. Your case of the week for Veronica Mars or your Monster of the week for Buffy. But then you've got an overarching big bad storyline that is just seeded throughout. Exactly. You know, and then. Or like, you know, Beaver Casablancas or like whatever is happening in the background is just sort of like dropped here. Dropped here. You would get Silvermane like seated throughout. But he wouldn't. You wouldn't need to like spend so much time with him in every episode. Now listen. I could listen to Brennan Glenn Gleason, who. Who has the best accent in the world. And I am obsessed with the fact that Donald Gleason sounds exactly like him, you know, despite not coming from a working class background at all. I just think they sound delightful. But it was. The balance was off. Way off.
Mallory Rubin
The fighting is the point. It's what gives the whiskey its taste though.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
All time line.
Joanna Robinson
It was a really good line.
Jason Mantzoukas
He had great stuff. It just was. He wasn't. It wasn't a compelling enough story to maintain a singular villain for a one hour episode who didn't himself have a story of his own. You know, even the kingpin has a more substantial storyline.
Joanna Robinson
Vanessa.
Mallory Rubin
Vanessa. Especially because of the grip on power in the city. That is a really interesting comp. Because like, I of course cared about the mayoral race.
Joanna Robinson
You were thinking about Spencer. I cared about his unwell.
Mallory Rubin
Unfortunately. We all are. I was, you know, of course invested in how Ben was going to navigate Silvermane and how Cat was going to. But I didn't give a shit about the. The mayoral.
Jason Mantzoukas
I'm not tracking it at all.
Mallory Rubin
Money in the back room and all that stuff.
Jason Mantzoukas
I don't even know who he's running against.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah. I mean. Right. And there are the illusions at the end. He's named at the end,
Joanna Robinson
Michael Kostroff, who's the. From the Wire. Like, I love him and I thought he did a great job with his like wire room glasses and his. And his vest and is like, I'm your mayor. Like I loved all that. But yeah, the whole story is.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's not. It's not. It's not relevant to us enjoying this at all. And. And in fact could all go away. And the streamlined version of this street level Spider man story would be so much more satisfying. Spider man shouldn't be concerned with the mayoral race in a lot of instances.
Joanna Robinson
You know, for the most part.
Jason Mantzoukas
I mean, truly.
Joanna Robinson
What I will say though is that I was worried because, you know, when we meet Ben Reilly and we find out about. Welcome to the Dead Wives Club. Ruby.
Mallory Rubin
Yes.
Joanna Robinson
And he has like hung up the mask. He's not doing it anymore. I was worried about the whole Surf Dracula question. Right. You know about the Surf Dracula thing, right? Which is that tweet of someone wrote about how you make a show called Surf Dracula and then you spend 10 episodes before we finally get to see Dracula surfing. And it's like, I was like, how long are we gonna have to wait to see him, Spider Man? And we did not have to wait that long. And for that I was really grateful. But because he's hung up the mask, we don't get a lot of those. This is the foe I'm fighting this week. You know what I mean? Because he's not in that mode. But in season two, we could. He could.
Jason Mantzoukas
It suffers a little bit from. There's like a rule in improv, which is we're improvising a scene together. So don't play someone who doesn't want to be here. Don't be one of. It's just a surefire way to have a hard scene. If the person's like, I gotta go actually, or I don't want to be on this date, or, you know what I mean? Whatever. Whatever it is, want to be there, choose to be there. And part of it is he doesn't want to be Spider man. And all we want is for him to be Spider Man. And so it's a bit of a tough lift for him to spend the whole season trying to get rid of this in a way that I'm like, no, I want you to want this. I understand what's happened. But we haven't been privy to the story of Ruby and we don't know his origin story really, except for the broad strokes, which I'm fine with. But I want him to want to be Spider man because I want to feel as though that case of the week that, oh, that person's being robbed because Spider man is street level, friendly, neighborhood Spider Man. That's his deal. It's not big, gigantic concerns. It is small neighborhood concerns. And that's what I love about also a noir, a detective that is local. It is street level, you know, and that's great. Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
The thing about his struggle with the Spider identity and the Ruby remorse and all of that, that I quite liked over the course of the season and when it kind of like culminated, it brings us back to Janet and Robbie and those relationships. Because, like that scene on the bench between Ben and Robbie, like, when he. When Ben is like, you know, I used to like it. Cause, like, it felt good and now it doesn't. That Was really interesting. And I thought that felt like a very, you know, kind of relatable and human note. Have all of that been bitten by a man spider while rescuing POWs and then became Pete Peter? I'm no longer Peter. I'm Ben Reilly. I haven't had the opportunity yet to be bitten.
Jason Mantzoukas
Ben Reilly is the name of the Spider man clone in the comics, which I was like, oh, are they trying to be that Ben Reilly? But no, they're just.
Mallory Rubin
No. Here is like a new. I've taken on a new identity.
Joanna Robinson
The wig is not blonde.
Jason Mantzoukas
I did love. I will say. And I know we're jumping around and I apologize. I'm part of the problem in that. But I loved the moment. So, so much is going on that I feel like the story that I really enjoyed the most. And I know I said I didn't like the flashbacks, which I didn't like, but the moment where you realize Nicolas Cage is just out of frame of the picture of all of them taken in the war. All of these guys who have superpowers were captured and liberated, and we find out, oh, Nicolas Cage was right there, just off to the side. That I thought was a great moment in a way that I was like, I wish that I guess more of his struggle had been this ptsd. All of his powers are related to the war. Their powers are related to the war. The war is not over. They've brought the war home. What is that? How does that impact and influence whether or not he wants to be Spider Man? Because part of being Spider man is always connecting to this central trauma of what is new. Modern monstrous warfare. You know, that was interesting to me. Less so than even Silvermane or other things. But it was, again, so mushy with all the other stuff.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah, I think too, because the gang of villains, you know, Silvermane's henches, they're like. One of the things we learned in the season is that they're on this clock. Right. So their powers manifested much later. This is recently have come to the fore for them. And that means they're gonna die. And that's why they need the antidote that Faber tries to make from his liver.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
Is this where your liver is, by the way? Because he was bleeding from, like, I don't think. I don't think that's where the liver is. But I don't know, maybe that's how you access it.
Jason Mantzoukas
If you're an evil.
Joanna Robinson
I'm not internous. In.
Jason Mantzoukas
In the 66 universe, that's where everybody's Liver.
Joanna Robinson
Is that.
Jason Mantzoukas
Is that what this one is? I can't remember what. What number universally, everybody's organs are all jumbled up.
Mallory Rubin
I mean, certainly the man spider, I mean, it's God. It's everywhere.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, yeah, big time.
Joanna Robinson
But, yeah.
Mallory Rubin
And so the fact that this thing that he, like, has come to really resent, you know, he has these powers, but they weren't enough to save his love, and so he doesn't want to use them at all. He doesn't want to help people anymore. It just brings them despair. That's the thing that's going to maybe spare these other guys from their feet. Those are really thematically rich strands of the story that I agree. I wish we had spent, like, a little bit more time there. The thing about the flashback that I think is just difficult in 2026, like, modern superhero TV movie life to not do when you're watching it is like, you kind. I don't know, I'm like, you can't not think about, like, Bucky and Hydra and just the similarities of the. Like, you were a pow. We took you, we experimented on you, we turned you into this thing.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
And so then, like, I don't know. I think most of the show felt so completely and utterly unique that the parts on the origin story beat that feel a little bit more reminiscent of another thing I wrote in my notes.
Joanna Robinson
Like, three episodes in, I was like, they're not doing Origins story at all. How refreshing. And then they're like, jk, we're doing it as a flashback.
Mallory Rubin
It's so hard to resist the pull. But I feel like most of the times when somebody resists the pull, it works out.
Joanna Robinson
You know, we know with Spider Man, I mean, that was the whole joke of spider verse. They're like, yada, yada, yada. This is what happened to me. And it was like, it's played for laughs. Then here we have, like, a dramatic, surreal flashback.
Mallory Rubin
I mean, even in Homecoming, we never, you know, we get the illusions to it. Like, when you can do what I can and you don't, and the bad things happen, they happen because of you. But we never see it all, for we get it.
Joanna Robinson
A spider, a man spider, bit you. We get it.
Mallory Rubin
Would you rather be bitten by a radioactive spider?
Joanna Robinson
Yes.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
Or man spider.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yes, a radioactive spider.
Mallory Rubin
The spider for sure.
Joanna Robinson
A little spider that I can then crunch.
Jason Mantzoukas
The man spider was terrifying, Terrifying.
Mallory Rubin
Absolutely.
Jason Mantzoukas
Which I really enjoyed. And I also felt like there wasn't enough. There wasn't enough, like, weight given to, like, what the fuck? Like, everybody should have been very upsetting. What's going on? And everybody's like, okay, so this guy who's half Spider and half man.
Joanna Robinson
Well, they do, like, burn it. Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's a lot.
Mallory Rubin
One of the things I loved about Janet was just how competent she was. That was so, so wonderful. And like, you mentioned the, you know, the cultivating the relationships, you know, bringing the lunch to the cops to get the information. And then the way that. That actually, like, doesn't just feel like it's there simply to tell us. Janet can do her own thing. It pays off. She gets the call later. It's like, stitched throughout the story. And because Ben, who is, like, often falling so short throughout the story, kind of finds himself actually out loud saying a few times, like, it's like, you guys forget that I do this for a living. You know, about. About the PI work.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
To then have him say at the end, like, you're. You're better at this than I am. And we know that that is true. Very smart.
Joanna Robinson
When he, like, tells her that he's Spider. Spider man.
Mallory Rubin
That was my.
Joanna Robinson
Just like. Yeah, I know.
Mallory Rubin
That's.
Jason Mantzoukas
I love that as a gag. That was my message where he's drunkenly revealed to her.
Mallory Rubin
And the fact that he has retained none of that and has done it multiple times. That was so, so, so funny.
Jason Mantzoukas
I loved it.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
I thought he was so.
Mallory Rubin
Spider's busy. Janet.
Jason Mantzoukas
He's so good. He was so good at being goofy, which I was so happy because I was a little afraid that it was going to be. He was going to try and really do Humphrey Bogart throughout. So the silliness was very refreshing and I thought was very welcome. And he crush it.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah. And then we have the heart from Janet and Robbie in those relationships. So that was really great. On the villain front, who was your favorite? Either Silvermane or any of his. It could be Lucas Haas. It could be Winston Tombstone. Sandman. We know it's not Megawatt for Joe.
Joanna Robinson
I don't know. I think the design on Megawatt was so cool in the black and white. I thought that looked incredible.
Jason Mantzoukas
I liked Tombstone just. Cause I thought that he had the most interesting story. You know, he had an arc. You know, Sandman was fine. I wanted Cat to have more depth. I wanted that character to have another layer because she was super interesting and is captivating to watch and was electric on screen. So I was like, ooh. I just wanted. That's why I kept being like, is she black Cat? Is this A. Is she casing this? Is she going to steal what's going on here?
Joanna Robinson
I think they were just using the name eventually. You know what I mean? No, I really agree with you. I think that like the Flint. Felicia, the Flint cat thing was the. Was the mushiest part of the whole thing was just sort of like theirs is the love story we're supposed to believe in. He ultimately makes a decision at the end of the day, because of her, he gets to get the antidote essentially so that they can run off to like Santorini or wherever they're going to be, live happily ever after. But then like, why are we meant to buy into the, the Ben cat thing at all, honestly?
Jason Mantzoukas
And when we are, when we're excited about it, when he's like saying to Janet like, I'm so excited we're leaving tomorrow. Like, I was like, do you believe this?
Mallory Rubin
That's what I was like.
Jason Mantzoukas
Does he believe you're a 62 year old man? Get it together guy.
Joanna Robinson
She was packing. Like, I feel like she was gonna go.
Mallory Rubin
And then she said to him at the end, like, if not for Flynn, I would have gone. I liked his retort. I liked his like, you know, it's one thing to like fuck around with the guy, but then to like sail away and keep him on the hook. And she. And it's like, oh no. I mean, it was like he deserved to say it.
Joanna Robinson
I did have a. I did Google at one point how old the actress was who's playing Felicia Cat Hardy. Because I was like wondering about the age difference and it popped up immediately in the Google search, which means a lot of people were wondering about that age difference. She's in her early 40s, which is just like older than I thought she was. And there are comments throughout that, that Silvermane's like a younger model and like stuff like that. I mean she looks incredible, you know, young 40s, young 60s. Still an age gap. But I was just like, it's not as gross as I thought it was.
Jason Mantzoukas
But I also, I didn't believe for an instant that there was an actual vibe love connection.
Joanna Robinson
No, no, no, not at all. But like she was going to go with him. Like the plot is, I guess was
Jason Mantzoukas
in that was that simply because it was the only. The path of least resistance to extricate. Extricate herself from the situation. You know what I mean?
Joanna Robinson
I think because she thought Flint was gone and so she's like the next guy.
Mallory Rubin
I tried to burn down Silvermane's place. It didn't Work out. I wanted to be with Flint. It didn't work out. So, like, I guess this Ben Reilly seems like a good enough guy when
Joanna Robinson
she throws herself out of the window, which I quite liked because, like, women in spider stories always get thrown off the roof. So the fact that she threw herself out the window, I was like, that's great. She gives him this, like, the look she gives him as she's being sort of reeled back in is very much like, oh, it's the spider.
Mallory Rubin
Hello. You know, once, you know, he's the spider.
Jason Mantzoukas
Well, and it's also that it's, you know, like, in Noir Tour, if she is our femme fatale, like, her interest can't be trusted.
Joanna Robinson
Well, she should have been like, that's a story I would have preferred, is that she's playing him the whole time. But I feel like it was trying to have it both ways.
Jason Mantzoukas
I think it was. I think it very much was.
Mallory Rubin
We have the big betrayal. But then she's trying to come back to him earnestly at the end. Even when she goes to Janet, she's like, I didn't. I'm here to, like, make sure he's okay. It's like, dean, right? I didn't want anything.
Jason Mantzoukas
She's a villain. I think. I think she should be a villain. Not a villain, like, with malice.
Mallory Rubin
I should be.
Joanna Robinson
She should be looking out for herself.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah, that's all. That's all. I mean, you know, but in a way that is absolutely negative for him and that she is remorseless, I think should be part of it, you know,
Joanna Robinson
And I still think she should get her guy and still go to Santorini, by the way.
Jason Mantzoukas
Great.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
You know, Absolutely. But it just. It made it, again, mushy enough that I was like, who am I supposed to. Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? What is this? What is the story is what I kept having trouble with. And then as it would start to come into view, there would be, like, an entire episode that is just Nicholas Cage in a mental institution. And I was like, okay, so we're doing one of these. We're doing, like, a bottle episode for him where he's just in a mental institution. I was like, this is. I've heard that it was crazy. It was so crazy. I loved it because it gave us all this madness. But I was also like, we don't have time for this, man. Like, I'm not interested in. And stopping down to tell this part of it now.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah, I think Flint didn't totally land. I agree And I think what you're mentioning Boardwalk Empire and Jack Huston earlier. I do like the casting on the we're back in a prohibition era story and you associate Richard with that time. But he is so handsome and he's
Joanna Robinson
like, put some shit on my face and there they'll take me seriously.
Mallory Rubin
It's like a bizarre version of like, you know, Tom Hardy can never show his face or something. I don't understand what's going on with that. But I didn't think that this flint marker was like, particularly charismatic or interesting. Yeah, no, but.
Joanna Robinson
No, but I thought his design was very cool. Yeah, I thought all like the tombstone megawatt Sandman designs were like the way that the sand moved around his face, at least in black and white, looked quite good.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah, I didn't think Megawatt looked as good in the true hue because then it's like the kind of like orangey neon creep up the face versus.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah, I didn't see anything.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah, but in black and white. I agree.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah, I thought, and I thought it was good that they didn't try and do too much for those three guys. You know, they didn't try and full sandman him, you know, only at the
Joanna Robinson
end you get the like the hand out of the pile of sand moment.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah, I did. Like when he got smushed between the cars and just exploded like a dune
Joanna Robinson
blowing in the wind.
Mallory Rubin
That was very fun. On the Megawatt front, in case he doesn't come up again, just want to share this quote. You ever shut up? No. Why would I deny the world a moment of my grandior? Who has ever said grandeur that way in their life? Grand Dior. That killed me. I was cracking up. What a bizarre, truly bizarre performance from that.
Joanna Robinson
When I looked up that like, okay, with love and respect to that guy. When I looked up and found out that he was like a Nickelodeon kid, I'm like, yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, funny.
Mallory Rubin
I love it. Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
But that's the thing where I'm like, oh, this is where I wish Sam Raimi had done it. Or if you want to see, to me the perfect execution of director and this version of Nicolas Cage. I urge everyone at home to please take a moment tonight to put on Bad Lieutenant, Port of Call New Orleans. This is Werner Herzog directing Nicolas Cage in one of the most unhinged, delightfully so performances in modern cinema. There are multiple points of. There are multiple shots where you are looking at the existing action through the point of view of a lizard that is also there. So it is some Nuts level stuff. I cannot recommend it enough. And it is this Nicolas Cage just
Joanna Robinson
totally unhinged double feature with Mandy or.
Jason Mantzoukas
Great, okay, great.
Joanna Robinson
Take your preferred substance of choice.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh my God.
Mallory Rubin
Do you think anyone told Werner Herzog to move the lizard and he said, no, you're a coward. Just like when they tried to replace the puppet Grogu was using.
Joanna Robinson
Mallory's gonna make this one a Herzog moment about Grogu.
Mallory Rubin
Either that or the video where you see him actually get shot by.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, yeah, yeah. By Klaus Kinsky.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah, just one of the Gruyzzi.
Jason Mantzoukas
And the short where he eats his boot. All of it. All of it. All of Fitzcarraldo. All of us. Absolutely fucking nuts.
Mallory Rubin
What a guy.
Jason Mantzoukas
A true every. Just do yourself a favor also and watch the Werner Herzog directed commercial for salt. For his friend's salt.
Joanna Robinson
I've never seen this salt.
Mallory Rubin
The thing you bought.
Jason Mantzoukas
I got the salt. It worked. I bought the salt.
Joanna Robinson
Where is it?
Mallory Rubin
What?
Joanna Robinson
Where does it.
Jason Mantzoukas
I'm sure it's on YouTube on the.
Joanna Robinson
Like Orson Welles, like.
Jason Mantzoukas
No, it's just. No, it's a real commercial.
Joanna Robinson
Well, the Orson Welles one is too.
Jason Mantzoukas
No, I know, but I mean, it's like.
Joanna Robinson
But it's just like an actual finished commercial that went to there.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yes, okay. Correct. It's. And it's so Werner Herzog. It's amazing.
Joanna Robinson
Exciting.
Jason Mantzoukas
All the lizard shots on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Werner Herzog. They're talking about that movie and she's talking about all these shots that are from the point of view of the lizard. And he says that it's Herzogian. He calls it Herzogian. And I was like, I love this guy so much.
Mallory Rubin
Incredible. What's Benzo? Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
Who knows? That's not for me to decide.
Mallory Rubin
Well, it was for Werner to decide.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah, I wouldn't claim to have that.
Mallory Rubin
You can't give yourself a nickname.
Jason Mantzoukas
I can't have that gravitas the way that he does. Does.
Mallory Rubin
All right, well, we'll figure out.
Jason Mantzoukas
He also claims to not dream. I love it. Silence.
Mallory Rubin
He says he doesn't remember his dreams.
Jason Mantzoukas
He says he doesn't dream.
Mallory Rubin
Does not dream. Like his mood conscious is not active while he's asleep. That doesn't seem possible. I don't think that's true.
Joanna Robinson
Have I ever told you my favorite joke from the league?
Jason Mantzoukas
No. What is it?
Joanna Robinson
It's when your character says Gattaca instead of Attica.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, yeah.
Joanna Robinson
Was that an improv or was that in the script?
Mallory Rubin
Just take.
Joanna Robinson
Just claim it. And if you claim it I'm gonna say it's Mr. Ganderkin.
Jason Mantzoukas
I think it might have been in the script. Cause we didn't have scripts, we just had outlines. And so Jeff would usually like have some. If he had a bit or a joke, he would give us that. And I think Gattaca might have been a Jeff pitch. I don't remember though. It's absolutely something I would have improvised.
Joanna Robinson
Let's call it Manzoukian.
Mallory Rubin
Positively, positively Manzukian. Any other funny scenes or moments that you guys want to highlight that we haven't talked about already? We talked about the I already know you're Spider. You're the Spider montage with Janet, which was my pick for this. I also enjoyed when she said he was yellow and he's like a coward, like a banana.
Jason Mantzoukas
Really funny. I loved all that stuff. We talked about this scene where he's doing the stretching and all this. There's a couple, but there's one in particular that genuine and it's especially if you really. I'd love for somebody to clip it and meme it or whatever because he comes in with the suitcase with his costume in it and it looks like just. That scene looks like a version of Death of a Salesman directed by Guy Madden. It's like true, insane, next level otherworld stuff.
Joanna Robinson
I love when you see it before you quite understand what it is and you're like, what's okay?
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah, whatever it is.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
Those were the moments that I felt like really engaged by the show. When it was weird, you know, because when it's trying to do the story, it's not weird at all. And it's very on rails. Unsuccessfully.
Mallory Rubin
I would say I love too in his like when he's doing the physical comedy of the shriveled up spider and all of that, you know, because Spider man, so many of the comics, the origin of Peter Parker, of this is so rooted in the like young person goes through puberty and comes to terms with like, I've got a tingle and then I'm slinging white stuff out of my body. What's happening? Yeah, the idea of like old washed Ben Reilly spider noir being like, guys, I'm. I'm in the refractory period. I'm going to need a minute. No more web sleep.
Jason Mantzoukas
Really funny.
Mallory Rubin
Like that was really.
Jason Mantzoukas
That was really funny.
Mallory Rubin
Just great.
Jason Mantzoukas
I also loved. I wrote when he. Him playing Happy Ben Reilly.
Mallory Rubin
Oh yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
When he sings I love Cheesecake in the morning with you. I was like, what is he up to? I guarantee that's an improv. There's absolutely no way that was in the script. He's just riffing in a way that I recognize as the insufferable riffing that I do on sets. That people are like, will this guy just please stop?
Mallory Rubin
How manzukian.
Jason Mantzoukas
But boy, are they finding out. Absolutely wonderful stuff I love having. Eating cheesecake in the. I love cheesecake in the morning with you really got me. The whole happy performance I really loved. I'm just trying to go through all the stuff that I flagged as I have.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah. What about just. The bottle is just labeled antidote.
Mallory Rubin
Oh, my God. Incredible. Very, very, very good.
Jason Mantzoukas
And the people keep looking at it and being like, what is this? Yeah, well, I got news for you. It's the antidote.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
I also loved when Robbie.
Joanna Robinson
I described on the label. Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
When Robbie. Robbie comes in and then Janet is found. And the whole bit about, like. Well, it seemed, like, seemed dumb to bring it in. And he's like, yeah, this is, like, so much better. That was great. I loved that. I also enjoyed when he called Cat Lady Judas. That just made me laugh.
Jason Mantzoukas
Also, everybody knows he's the Spider.
Mallory Rubin
Too many people know.
Jason Mantzoukas
He's so bad at keeping the secret.
Mallory Rubin
Too many people know.
Jason Mantzoukas
You know what I mean? That I was like, be better at this.
Joanna Robinson
It felt very like Mandalorian. I was like, does he have to kill every single person?
Mallory Rubin
Must go bathe in the living water so. So that he can be redeemed. Violation. Like that rando fucking bartender knows.
Joanna Robinson
Oh, that bartender definitely knows for sure. Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
I was like, now what's the. I mean, I guess he's drunk. I couldn't figure that out. I was like, spider man really protects his secret identity.
Mallory Rubin
He had that amazing Janet montage where he's hammered or plastered as he likes and then has no. Is not able to retain the fact that he has, like, revealed his own identity. Yeah, he's not going to know that. That bartender knows. So that's a liability.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's Todd Fields, Freaks, that he says is still in theaters, which is still playing in theaters. I was like, oh, God bless you. You know, he's like, what year is it exactly? What time. What year I want.
Joanna Robinson
What year is it exactly? When he made a reference to a 19. I know we're in a different world. When he made a reference to a 1949 Bette Davis movie, I'm like, are we in 1949?
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah.
Joanna Robinson
Are we in. Are we. Have we traveled into the 1950s?
Jason Mantzoukas
Freaks is much earlier. Freaks is the 30s, I think.
Joanna Robinson
How much after World War II. Are we meant to be?
Jason Mantzoukas
You know, I don't know. And that's a great question. And. And the movie doesn't want you to ask these questions.
Joanna Robinson
Where is the liver inside of your body?
Jason Mantzoukas
Yep. Yes.
Joanna Robinson
Don't ask these questions.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah, this is. Don't interrogate. Don't, don't, don't.
Mallory Rubin
Was Prohibition the exact same time in this continuity?
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, yeah, exactly.
Mallory Rubin
I mean, that's the best time because,
Joanna Robinson
I mean, are they supposed to be World War I?
Jason Mantzoukas
It's World War II. It's World War I. That. That is true. But.
Joanna Robinson
But then, like, then it's.
Mallory Rubin
Is it then the movie?
Jason Mantzoukas
So then for him to be quoting that 1949 movies makes no sense at all.
Joanna Robinson
Right.
Mallory Rubin
As long as you could still wax poetic about really wanting a hot dog, I'm willing to accept that.
Jason Mantzoukas
Loved all the hot dog stuff.
Mallory Rubin
So much hot dog stuff and the glass.
Jason Mantzoukas
So much voice work. He's doing so much business. I mean, and the wigs are doing. The wigs are positively, like, truly like nuts. Level. The tight one in modern, in contemporary time. But then the floppy one in the flashbacks was really getting.
Joanna Robinson
Also. This is my matinee idol moment with
Jason Mantzoukas
his white vest and shirt on, like, gauzy. Those flashbacks were trouble.
Mallory Rubin
Do you think it was his decision to say that he only had one clean glass and then he found another glass and it was dirty, but he would drink from the dirty one and then not just turn on the sink and rinse it? Do you think that was his choice? Because he definitely could have just turned on the sink.
Jason Mantzoukas
I mean, like, there's a million.
Joanna Robinson
I feel like when she. Because I feel like in that moment she goes, ben. But I really feel like she wanted to be like, nick, stop.
Mallory Rubin
Nick, you can just rinse the glass.
Jason Mantzoukas
Nick, we're already over.
Joanna Robinson
What about the emotion?
Mallory Rubin
Did any of the emotional moments hit you? I mentioned I really liked the bench scene between Robbie and Ben at the end. I quite enjoyed that. I thought that was like a.
Jason Mantzoukas
There was some good stuff. But yeah, there was nothing. There was no emotional storyline that I felt particularly connected to, which is, I think why I wanted more from the detective story.
Mallory Rubin
Yes. Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
Why I wanted more shoe leather because I wasn't like, oh, but at least I'm having fun inside of this emotional storyline. No, it was kind of neither nor
Mallory Rubin
true leather for Werner Herzog to meet.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yes. Yes. Chomp, chomp.
Joanna Robinson
With love and respect to the poor drowned Ruby. None of that stuff worked for me. No, truly agree.
Mallory Rubin
Poor, poor drowned Ruby.
Joanna Robinson
Just zero percent Work for me.
Mallory Rubin
It does also seem. We don't know all the particulars. He should have been able to get to her. I think he's the Spider.
Jason Mantzoukas
When he told the story, it's just
Joanna Robinson
like I was drunk at the time.
Jason Mantzoukas
And then they cut back to him like, oh, wait a minute. So he was an asshole.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
He was like, I was supposed to meet her, but I was a good time Johnny.
Mallory Rubin
I was out of the eyes.
Jason Mantzoukas
And his like his outfit, he's wearing like a patterned, you know, jacket. And he's like, ah, a big nick case. I was like, I fucking love this.
Joanna Robinson
And he's like, she died. Cause I was a piece of shit.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oops. Yeah, I don't. It didn't work for me either. For that reason. I was like, I don't understand. Cause it's also like he's doing Sam Spade. He's doing classic noir Humphrey Bogart. But then when he's not, he's really not. He's broad in every single way. In that Bugs Bunny way, in a way that I was like, well then I don't believe if you were then a bad guy, a Sam Spade, a callous. A Parker, you know, like a callous remorseless person. Then be that still as the Spider, you know, be murderous, be.
Joanna Robinson
But the drum they bang so many times is like, the spider will save people. He's a good guy. He will interven.
Mallory Rubin
Right.
Joanna Robinson
And I really wish that, like, I wish that it. Not that I wish for another like Gwen Stacy moment, but I wish it had been more like a Gwen Stacy moment where it's like I even I, the Spider man couldn't get her. Not. I was drunk somewhere in a bar and then I stopped to put my spider suit on and then just kind of floated uselessly in the water.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah. By the time I got into the leak, I definitely still could have saved her for sure.
Jason Mantzoukas
He was so close.
Joanna Robinson
No, but he was drunk a couple.
Mallory Rubin
Couple whiskey tumblers deep at that point. I think I. It's interesting because like, what you guys are saying, the, the. The selfish, callous, like not a great guy thing he's done is decide to stop being the Spider for five years. Right. And so then when like Robbie and his friends have to talk him into like, you know, when Robbie says, like, well, you. You have the choice to like help these people now.
Joanna Robinson
It's.
Mallory Rubin
But the I. I think to your point, like the part where he is. Because the Cat and Ruby stuff doesn't really work.
Joanna Robinson
I agree.
Mallory Rubin
The place that the Lady Judith stuff stuff sends Ben to actually still did work for me, particularly because he's being so goofy. He's not. He's like, mining the depths of his feelings. He's doing it in a kind of like, really exaggerated way. So when he's in the. The fight with the guys at the bar, these strangers who. He feels like the need to defend himself too, even though they, like, they are not. They're nobody of consequence to him. And he's like, you know, maybe the spider's a guy just like anyone else. You ever think about that? You ever wonder what his problems were? He's swinging around, burning buildings, saving people. You ever think he feels the heat or. Or get sad or tired or lonely? I was thinking, like, even dragons get lonely from Hot D with Viserys.
Joanna Robinson
But did you have that under your most emotional moment, Mallory?
Mallory Rubin
Yes, that was my tears because I didn't have a lot of other contenders. So I think the Bender, like, that's
Jason Mantzoukas
an example of something that I like and love. And all of it works with the exception of there's a dissonance to it coming out of the mouth of someone. So see, for a 60 something to be saying words that make more sense from a young person. For a young person to be strung. This is Peter Parker's struggle. Peter Parker's struggle is how do I maintain my life and give myself wholly to others? You know, like, what is this? And to love someone is to put them in danger. And all of these component things that he is in his 60s and still lamenting.
Joanna Robinson
So he went to war when he was in his 50s.
Jason Mantzoukas
Got it. And that again, it's that thing which is like, oh, I'm so glad it's Nick Cage. And of course. But do you think they even had a conversation that's like, we gotta get a younger actor. If it is in fact live action. You know, Nic Cage is perfect for the voice of animated Ben Reilly or animated spider noir.
Mallory Rubin
Well, I like that he was washed.
Joanna Robinson
I just don't think you can give him this soldier backstory.
Jason Mantzoukas
I don't think so.
Mallory Rubin
Don't make him contemporary.
Jason Mantzoukas
Not with these guys. Not with these other guys who. Unless you make them all old, you know. And it is the 40s dude.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
And it was from the teens.
Mallory Rubin
Megawatt. 60 is. He's like, I'm a stop.
Joanna Robinson
But he's all wrinkly and look at me, Ma. Top of the world. That would be great.
Mallory Rubin
Which. Which effect did you guys like? The best of the just styling and like, which again, I think the.
Joanna Robinson
The henchman face Stuff looked really good.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Joanna Robinson
I thought.
Jason Mantzoukas
I think. And this is not truly. This is not an effect, but I think, in a way, the black and white version of it is the effect that I got the most out of. Like, it helped immerse me in this world that it was referencing and always referencing all of the kind of classic cinema. Cinemagraphic. What's the word I want?
Joanna Robinson
Cinematography.
Jason Mantzoukas
Cinema. Yeah, Cine.
Joanna Robinson
Cinematographic.
Jason Mantzoukas
Like. Right. I'm trying to find the same word, but you know what I'm saying? Like, all those visual cues, all the cinematic cues, but specifically camera. Like, all this stuff, the canted angles,
Joanna Robinson
a lot of up angles, a lot
Jason Mantzoukas
of the people, the blinds, and the stark contrast between light and dark, and all this stuff that's, like, all the pieces of noir. I really enjoyed and really helped me, because I think if that hadn't been. If I'd watched the color version, I think I would have liked it quite a bit less. It helped put me in the mindset of. Of those movies that I love and those. That kind of storytelling.
Mallory Rubin
You know, I was most curious to see how the effect of Sandman translated. I think just because, like, the Sandman looks so horrible in Spider Man 3. It was interesting to see a different design on Sandman, and it was just refreshing to have it be anything but
Joanna Robinson
just his, like, little fist.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah.
Joanna Robinson
And the shape and stuff. Yeah, but.
Mallory Rubin
And I was like, what's it gonna look like? Is it golden? And it kind of wasn't. Almost like, more like gravel than sand. And then when he went. It's like the sand has turned to glass from Megawatt's heat. It's like a kind of ocean blue. It looks a little different.
Joanna Robinson
I had such an Avatar Bender moment, like, when Megawatt was fighting Sandman. And I was like, what happens when lightning hits sand? Glass, bitches. There you go. She had said that.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
I mean, but how would he have said lightning?
Jason Mantzoukas
Glass.
Joanna Robinson
Glass, bitches.
Mallory Rubin
I did, like, when Megawatt got thrown in front of the train during the final battle. That was fun.
Joanna Robinson
I enjoyed that. Conductor.
Mallory Rubin
We also did, like, a full John Wick 2 Hall of Mirrors.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yes.
Mallory Rubin
Cat Silvermane.
Joanna Robinson
Horrible.
Mallory Rubin
You know, that was strange.
Jason Mantzoukas
I didn't get that either. Again, I. I was really waiting, eager
Joanna Robinson
for the show to be done at that point.
Jason Mantzoukas
Same. And especially, I was like. Especially because I felt like the Silvermane. The crime storyline for me ended around episode five or six. And then seven and eight just felt interminably long because seven was mostly the mental hospital. Amy Aquino digging his Liver out and making like them her young son who's an old man. Like, I was like, what is going on?
Joanna Robinson
Good old Freckles.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah, Freckles. Not nearly enough freckles on his face to have the nickname Freckles. But anyway, just throwing that out there.
Joanna Robinson
Then he died right away, man.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, yeah, he died straight away. Both of them. Both of them straight to death.
Mallory Rubin
We didn't see a lot of blood. And then the building explodes, so now they're dead.
Jason Mantzoukas
Anything if you were. If Cat for Kat.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
Cat goes to the doctor and is like, are you telling me if you know who the spider is, then you can create an antidote? She should go to Ben and be like, hey, go to the doctor. She can create an antidote from your whatever genetic makeup or whatever liver, and
Joanna Robinson
instead it's seven pints of your blood.
Jason Mantzoukas
So then we were weirdly like, oh, they have to kidnap it. I was like, I don't understand any of them this, like, why they did it like this, you know, that didn't make sense to me.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah. And then that element, like you said already, of are we supposed to really resent her for that? Are we still supposed to be rooting for her even though she's done this? Not just bad thing, but needless.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yes. Ultimately it felt like he might want to find a cure as well.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
So why. Why have to do this against his will versus, I think if someone approached him and said, we might be able to cure you.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
You don't have to be the spider anymore. And he could be. Be like, great, right?
Mallory Rubin
Crazy doctor trying to. Decades age down her, like, trying to, like, force a Benjamin Buttoning of her son in her secret lab full of
Joanna Robinson
basically the thing from the Prestige.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
I was gonna say, like, alien resurrection vibes in there for sure. Fallouts of Vault 4, you know, with all the. The mashups of the. The animals and the people. Very strange. Very strange concept. And I really enjoy. What else have we not hit for Spider noir that anybody wants to touch on?
Joanna Robinson
I will just say in terms of the bad effects, you know, the Digital Double, the Swinging Spider Man Digital Double looked pretty bad most of the time, like, especially in the landing sort of moments. But I think the spider suit was so cool looking.
Jason Mantzoukas
I love it.
Joanna Robinson
And I just think, like, in the fight, like, even with the hat on, like, it just looked really cool.
Jason Mantzoukas
The texture of it is cool. The goggles are great. And the goggles are really good at, especially in the black and white, obviously, at giving you context for where he is in Dark environments, which I loved that as a. Just like a visual cue. It was, it was terrific.
Mallory Rubin
I also liked when he was like. Because the Silverman phone call thing, like he, like this guy with a sock on his head, like he can't understand
Joanna Robinson
a word he says.
Mallory Rubin
He's like pretty annoying actually.
Joanna Robinson
That was just.
Mallory Rubin
That was. That was very good. Why did you think the double looked bad? Like because of the. That convincingly Nic Cage or like he's too. Is it. Cause he.
Joanna Robinson
No, just the physics were off on like the land. The landing. It just looked like too light and too like Gumby as it, as it landed just.
Jason Mantzoukas
I agree.
Mallory Rubin
It should have been more like hobbling from.
Jason Mantzoukas
It looked like animation from the Sam Raimi movies. It looked like old, you know, it just wasn't. It had that problem, which I think is probably endemic with all of their shows. They just don't have the money.
Joanna Robinson
Exactly.
Jason Mantzoukas
To do it as well as it can be done for eight episodes of a TV show.
Joanna Robinson
It makes you appreciate like how good of a job they do with Tom Holland's digital double and stuff like that on those.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's incredible.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
I mean, maybe it's not too late to get Nic Cage into Billy Elliot before season two of Spider Noir and then have him become like an expert dancer and do his own stunts.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, wow.
Joanna Robinson
It is too late to get Nick Cage into it.
Jason Mantzoukas
Billy Elliot is the middle.
Mallory Rubin
If he's trying to replicate Todd Holland's grace and limberness. Yeah. I mean he could do something else. Will he be able to do like a Rihanna?
Jason Mantzoukas
Wait, was Holland Billy Elliot on the stage? On the stage.
Joanna Robinson
Jamie Bell on the screen.
Jason Mantzoukas
So both Billy Elliots have became superheroes.
Joanna Robinson
Body horror superheroes. Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
Isn't that interesting?
Mallory Rubin
Yeah, sure is.
Jason Mantzoukas
What does that say about the world we're living in? We'll be right back with more Hustle bars.
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Mallory Rubin
This podcast is brought to you by Carvana. Selling your car should feel like one less thing on your list. Not one more. With Carvana, it is. Just go to Carvana.com, enter your license plate or VIN and get a real offer. Down to the penny. No back and forth, no surprises. Just an experience you can trust. Like your offer. Accept it, schedule pickup and we'll come to you with a check in hand. Your car, your timeline, your terms. Visit Carvana.com to sell your car today. Carvana pickup fees may apply. All right, it's time for a favorite tradition across the ringer podcast network, Man Zoukas recommends.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, okay, here we go. All right, so I want. I'm here to talk about anime. This is very new to me. I'm a very new to anime person. Like I said, I'm a 53 year old man who has a Crunchyroll subscription and no children, which is a lie. I checked.
Joanna Robinson
You looked it up.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's cool.
Joanna Robinson
In California only or nationwide, by the way.
Jason Mantzoukas
Good question. It is. They're locking it down in some states. I read an article about this show, Free RIN Beyond Journey's End. I don't know whenever it was airing season one. So a couple years ago that made it sound so interesting and right up my alley that I sought it out. I subscribed to Crunchyroll and I watched it and became obsessed with it. And this show I've watched in its entirety at least six or seven times. I've watched it constantly. It's like. It is. It's a real balm. It's been a real balm in my life, I'd say, in the years since it came into my life. And it is incredible storytelling. On. Wait. Correct. Have you guys watched. How much have you guys watched?
Joanna Robinson
I watched like five episodes.
Mallory Rubin
I want to say I'm through episode 10, season one.
Jason Mantzoukas
And so I've watched all of it. There's just two seasons and season. It's like 36 episodes total or something like that? I believe so.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah, okay, but. And it's based on a manga that I have not read and purposefully will not read because I don't want to be spoiled as to what's going on in this context because I'm so enjoying this interpretation of it.
Joanna Robinson
Sometimes spoilers matter sometimes.
Jason Mantzoukas
If you told me that something happened in it, I wouldn't be mad at you, but I'm enjoying receiving the story like this. So I Don't want to first do it this way and then receive the entirety of the story. And just. So I'll break it down for people. Cause I think your show in specific is. This show is for your demo. Yeah, this is a show that is about. It's called Beyond Journey's End. And so at the very beginning of this story is the very end of the story that has been before, which is a party of heroes. Adventurers managed to defeat the Demon King, who's been just a absolute brutal, terrible figure in this world for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, if not thousands of years. A big bad. And the party of heroes is a warrior, Himmel the warrior. Rather, Himmel the hero. A warrior Eisen, the kind of priest Heider, and the mage who is Frieren, who's the in. And the show is about an elf, Frieren, who is. Because she's an elf immortal. And you are watching a show that is about people fighting dragons and being on an adventure. And it is for shows like this, it is a found family show. It is a Lord of the Rings. It is a fellowship show. It is people in pursuit of a task that is so big, but along the way, they are doing things. They're helping other people with their needs and engaging in smaller acts of service throughout the land. And you're watching it from the point of view of a character, Freegren, who's essentially immortal, who becomes consumed with and heartbroken by this idea that she does not know how to have human relationships with people because their lifespans are so short. To her, they're on this adventure that for the group of heroes, is so totemic for them because it's a decade of their lives. And she's like, that's nothing. And she's like, I'll see you in 50 years. We'll meet again to see the meteor storm again in 50 years. And when she sees them, they're all old and dying, and she hasn't aged a beat. And they are all. It sends her into this kind of existential crisis. And she then takes on an apprentice, starts to assemble a new group that she. So the show is bouncing between her and her apprentice, Fearne, who is maybe one of my favorite characters in all of stories. Now they're young warriors, Stark. And they are now walking the path that she walked in her former fellowship, in her former group. They are walking the same path, encountering some of the same townspeople, encountering some of the same bad guys. But really, it's about learning how to connect with people. And learning how to be a friend and a human being and how to really connect with people. And that, to me, I think, is. What I think is wonderful about the show is I watch a lot of shows, anime shows that are about people fighting demons and people fighting dragons. Jujutsu Kaisen and demon slayer and all these shows that are. That are sentenced to being a hero. These are great shows that are a blast. But Frieren, to me is those things happen throughout the. But really it's about the slice of life, moment to moment, episodic nature of their group of friends getting to be closer with each other. And it is so satisfying and so sweet. And I think that's why I keep coming back to it. It scratches that itch to me that, like, great British bake off does like. It feels wonderfully cozy to be in Frieren's world with her. I'm curious what you guys have thought so far, knowing that you've only watched a lot, little bit of it.
Joanna Robinson
I'm immediately kind of obsessed with it. And I should say thank you so much. Like, you're the impetus for me watching it. But our listeners have been trying to get us to watch it for a while. They were right. You're right. The premise, and I think this is okay to say because it is the premise of the show is that, you know, the death of Himmel, the hero, which is what starts everything starts her introspection and her emotional sort of awakening, that idea. And we flashback constantly to them. As you know, I check it off your bingo card. I have to talk about Westworld season one. Westworld season one. She's walking that same path that she walked before and remembering what it was like. There's this will they, won't they? Between Frieren and Himmel. But we, the viewer, know they never will because he's died. And it is so much pain to watch. It's a comfort. It is a bomb. It's a cozy show. It's a cup of tea, it's a quilt. But it's also like that very conceit, that very premise of he's so in love with her and she's so oblivious and, you know, she's never going to figure it out before he dies because we already watched him die. And so I'm just going to watch him, like, pine for her and then her regret, not understanding what he meant to her.
Jason Mantzoukas
Well, when she goes back and finds him 50 years later and he turns around and he says, frieren. And she says, hill, you're so Old. And she's. The wonderful thing about Frieren is she's blunt, she's tactless. She is so just forthright, cold, removed. She does not connect emotionally with people. And you're right, it is. It's the death of Himmel, the hero that sets this whole thing in motion. And she starts to sob and she's basically like, I didn't. I thought I had more time to get to know him. I thought the sentiment of I thought I had more time is so central to what she's going through. And again, she's immortal. But the time she's now aware of is our time is the human's time, the humans that are around her, you know, and then her making more of an effort to connect with Aizen, to connect with Heiter and try and find them and, and make sure that she is of service to them in their later years because she knows that they are also dying. And that that's how when she comes to Heiter and she's, you know, coming to him to be like, this is the end of your life. Is there anything I can do? He says, will you take this girl on Fearne as an apprentice? And then there's this great episode that is, you know, a ruse. Yeah, a ruse that takes place over many years. That's the other thing that's great about the show is the show is. Is constantly expanding and collapsing time. You know, like when they arrive in a village, you know, Frieren will be like, we could stay here a little while. And Fearne will be like, what's a little while? And Frieren will be like two or three years. It'll take us two or three years to clear this beach or whatever. And so you're just really very kind. Maybe it's because I am middle aged and thinking about time so much and time seems to be to me, speeding up in a way that is really unsettling. The way that Frieren talks about having time and the way that everybody else talks about not having time is so potent and so heartbreaking. You know, there's just. It is a show that is so light and fun, but then about such real heavy, like existential issues. It's absolute dynamite.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Joanna Robinson
It made me think a lot about Avatar the Last Airbender, you know. Yeah. Like that sort of found family. Yes. There are these big adventures we have, but it's about the relationships that we build, the friends we made along the way.
Mallory Rubin
Isn't it always?
Jason Mantzoukas
And it is like episode to episode them going into towns and having to tackle small problems. The small problems though, that connect them to the people around them and that that's what's. And the younger Fearne and Stark are constantly saying, why are we doing this? Why are we wasting time helping these people clear the beach? And she's like. Or why. Why does Himmel have statues everywhere?
Mallory Rubin
Yeah, I love the statues.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's this idea of like, make people's lives better, make people's lives easier and they will remember you. You know, like that is your legacy is to have helped these people, not to have slain the dragon or whatever. That's great. But you know, like, it's just, oh boy, do I love this.
Mallory Rubin
And also like to learn that you can slay the dragon by yourself. You know, in Stark's case, I get a real kick out of Stark. I love him. Yeah, I'm absolutely loving it and Adam's loving it. It's like we're, we're. I think the first season's 28 episodes, so like we've barely, you know, barely begun our journey. But just the first 10 especially because where we are through right now is the, these demon confrontations, the multi arc stretch that is like really intense in terms of thinking about like morality and what you get to decide about like
Jason Mantzoukas
what is good, who is good and who is bad.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah, it's getting quite, really complex. Yeah. And very complex.
Jason Mantzoukas
And what's really interesting. And neither of you have gotten there yet, and this is not a spoiler, I don't think, but the second half of season one is in its entirety a test. It is. They are being. They have to achieve a certain grade of witchcraft, of mastery over magic, which Frieren has above and beyond. But. And so what you're doing is like they're just building out the world and then giving you really all these unique and fun puzzles to get them involved.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah. Like you said, existential. There is something deeply philosophical. Philosophical and existential about it. It's quite poignant and moving. It's like very smart and deft. I, I have found it like very entertaining and compelling, but also deeply moving. I mean the log line of like Limberg, Ben Limberg. Our colleague Ben Limberg was the first person who pitched it to me actually. And he pitched it as like, much like I think many of the Bhad Bhabies have. It's basically like Lord of the Rings ends and then.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yes.
Mallory Rubin
Right. Which was obviously.
Jason Mantzoukas
Well, it's like George R.R. martin being like, what's Aragon's tax policy? You know what I Mean or whatever.
Mallory Rubin
They're a little crazy. The baby orcs and the little cradles.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah. What happens after Robert's Rebellion?
Jason Mantzoukas
And that's what this is. Like, this Beyond Journey's End is the title of the show. Like, once that big, once the big story's over, what next?
Mallory Rubin
Exactly. And, like, to use the familiar archetypes that if you are a fan of Lord of the Rings, you're gonna like. Okay, so we have art that's all really great and really fun, but when Lindbergh pitched it to me and he was describing it about grief, I was like, I don't know if this is the right time. And then when you pitched it to me, when I saw you and Halo had just died, you were like. I think that's why you would love it because. Sorry.
Joanna Robinson
It's like, why are you apologizing?
Mallory Rubin
I think, like, it is very much about, like, missing people, but it's about. The way you put it to me was like. It's about, like, learning to feel the gift of those memories.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah. Keeping them in your mind.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Mallory Rubin
So, like, that's been really lovely. And, like, it's sad to. To think about loss as I'm watching. I think that's why we've been going very slowly through it.
Jason Mantzoukas
But
Mallory Rubin
it has been very cathartic, too, to just think about, I don't know, how the new experiences that you have in your life and the new bonds that you form allow you to think back with grief and sorrow and longing, but also just with so much gratitude and that so much of life is a journey toward gratitude and appreciation. So I really loved that part of it. And I think, like, you know, this was early.
Joanna Robinson
It's like this.
Mallory Rubin
God, it might be, like, the second episode, but, like, the blue flowers, like, looking to put the. Yeah, the blue flowers on Himmel's statue.
Jason Mantzoukas
And just, like, I loved Himmel and taking the time. Taking the time.
Mallory Rubin
Taking the time to find them and just, like, do something that also is fleeting because those flowers will die and they won't be there next time, but means something. It's like the, like, shit's paying attention to things. It's how we show love. You know, it's the Bill and Frank, Last of Us idea. And, like, that's just been really nice. And then, yeah, we're always talking about, you know, time. Now I have the Buffy angel version of that, which has been really fun. And I always like to think about, like, you know, Loki and Thor and Jane and, like, say goodbye. And, like, it made me think Too. Of like Durin and Elrond and in Rings of Power. And when Elrond shows up and it's been 20 years and his friend is like, you just like, forgot about me. What are you talking about?
Jason Mantzoukas
Totally. Oh, yeah.
Mallory Rubin
And that idea of perspective and the way that Frieren is just learning to appreciate the people and like, that's been cool when they go to these different towns and communities, the statues and the way that these heroes and like, for us in story, in the world of story and culture, like these. These archetypes, right, that like, that has sustained these villages. Like this thing that happened there. And the idea that it is worth remembering and worth remarking up. And like, the promises, you know, the promises that someone will return to help them again. And then Frieren, a person who had not. Or a mage, an elf who had not thought about that then being in the position to be the one to ensure that that, like, prophecy can be fulfilled.
Jason Mantzoukas
And she is largely forgotten.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
Like, it is Himmel the hero who. The statues are all of Himmel.
Mallory Rubin
Yes.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's very rare. Is it that there's a statue of all four of them. It happens, but very rare. But it's Himmel the hero all. And then every once in a while, someone will be like, he traveled with an Elven mage. Do you know her? You know, and I don't know if
Mallory Rubin
this will be a recurring through line. I assume so. But the way that there are different kind of legends around her, like, it's like Frieren the Slayer is where I am now.
Jason Mantzoukas
I'm like, well, and you also get to meet. This is also a world that. She is one of very few elves left alive. Like tremendously few. So in those instances in the future where you do meet another elves, it's very impactful. Or there's. Without just giving too many things away. There are also a couple of instances where they find statues of people they don't recognize. It's not a statue of Himmel the hero. It's a statue of. Let's just say, the hero of the south, who I will name but not say anything else about. That's season two. And absolutely my favorite episode of season two is about the hero of the South. It is electric storytelling. I think I've watched it all, like I said, so many times. I had spinal fusion surgery last year and was in bed for about six weeks and watched it over and over and over. It is the most satisfying watch. It is so each. It is so rewarding to keep digging into it. It Is like a perfect storybook. You know, there's just something. And what they're doing in season two. Super interested. That's the other thing is. Is, like, you think it's going. You think you understand what it's doing. And like I said, the back half of season one is this large exam that they all are taking. Sort of, you know, this kind of. It's in this different architecture.
Joanna Robinson
The trial.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
And then in season two, back to kind of itinerant, moving towards Aureole, kind of on our path towards Mount Doom or, you know, whatever, and all of the kind of little adventures there are.
Mallory Rubin
It's.
Jason Mantzoukas
Guys, come on.
Mallory Rubin
We're loving it now. Can I get you recommendation?
Joanna Robinson
One other thing I want to say is, like, that structure that I find that love story structure really profound as it relates to what you were saying about grief. Because there's this. The way in which you're watching. I'm only five episodes in, but the way in which it seems to me that, like, Himmel was in love with her, and she is sort of realizing that she was. Was in love with him. And she is falling in love with him to a certain degree via her memories of him. And as she revisits and understands him better and thinks about it more and views him from a different perspective, like, she's like, oh, this person was so much more important to me than I appreciated at the time. And then I realized. And so I think that is such a huge part of what grief is or can be, is just this sort of like, even deepening of a bond. You already, you know, he was already a good friend of her, but in the loss of him and then in the memory of him and in this journey that physically takes her from memory to memory to memory, she falls in love with him in a way that is just so. I mean, human and so us.
Jason Mantzoukas
Well, yeah. And it really is so very much about her having to force herself to think about a tiny fraction of her life. These 10 years that she spent with this party of heroes is just a. She is, again, thousands of years old for her. So she's excavating it because it was. She's realizing how impactful and important it was. And in fact, those relationships and the relationships now with Fern and Stark are, as the show goes on, foundationally changing her in an incredible way.
Joanna Robinson
And how it change. Yeah, to your point, how it changes how she can connect to people now.
Jason Mantzoukas
Okay, so I'm obsessed with this show, and another friend of mine also obsessed with this show. Rishikeshirway.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
Who is, you know, a friend of mine. And we're talking about it, blah, blah, blah. And have you watched Freerancy? Oh, we're watching it. I watched amazing. Blah, blah, blah. We're going back and forth. And so. And I was saying, I'm just gonna. I, I, I clipped this because I was like, oh, I want. My other recommendation is a recommendation from Rishi. And this was the text back and forth. He says, apothecary Diaries, question mark. And I say, haven't watched. I loved Delicious in Dungeon. That was one of my recommendations, which is also fantastic. But he says, apothecary Diaries is great. And then this is what made me immediately. I'm not kidding. Immediately. Press play. On episode one of Apothecary Diaries. He says, an upstairs, downstairs house MD set in feudal China. Jane Austen.
Joanna Robinson
Y.
Jason Mantzoukas
Will they, won't they? But also a medical mystery procedural. And I was like, go, go, go, go, go, go.
Joanna Robinson
I can tell you my experience with Rishi is that, like, nobody gives a specific recommendation better than he does.
Jason Mantzoukas
He's the greatest. It is the Apothecary Diaries. There's only two seasons of it. So again, another. Because one of my things with anime is a lot of these shows have massive catalogs of episodes. Can't do it. I'm not gonna do it. But this, I was like, there was only one season, I think, when he recommended it. So I was like, yes. And I got this. Do you have either of you?
Mallory Rubin
I watched the first one last night.
Jason Mantzoukas
Okay, great. What'd you think?
Mallory Rubin
I will be watching it as soon as I get home tonight.
Jason Mantzoukas
It is.
Mallory Rubin
I thought it was incredible.
Jason Mantzoukas
So what? Do you know the setup at all? Okay, so I think Rishi's description is very good. It is in the opening moments of episode one. It's about a younger who is the daughter to an apothecary. It's feudal China. She works in the pleasure district, creating salves and balms and medicines for the sex workers in a brothel. She is kidnapped and sold into essentially slavery in the rear palace where all the emperor's courtesans live. Courtesans or concubines. Concubines, sorry. Where the emperor's concubines live. And she is meant to be just like a servant there. But then they slowly realize that she has an apothecary skill set. And so they start to put her to work solving the mysteries of the palace. So it is palace intrigue. It is also a will they, won't they? Between her and the guy that runs the Rear Palace Master Jinshi, who is. Well, I won't say anything more about.
Mallory Rubin
They're all eunuchs. So there's a little bit of a. For Thrones fans, a little missy and the worm energy here, which I'm enjoying only one episode in.
Jason Mantzoukas
And so it really becomes this story where she is trying. She's. She just exists now in this new world and is. Maomao is her name and she is one of my all time favorite characters in stories. Now I'm obsessed with this character because she is, it is. It's like it is a medical. It's a mystery procedural, but it's always building out these character relationships and these character dynamics that she has with the other ladies in waiting with the staff of the Rear Palace. All this intrigue, all of these assassination attempts. There's so much going on. And her cursory knowledge of and ability to. She's also obsessed with poisons.
Mallory Rubin
Yes.
Jason Mantzoukas
Not just that they exist, but she wants to drink them all. She wants to drink all poisons to see what they do learn on the job. She's like really into like getting poisonous, being poisoned. She becomes a taster and she's. And there's a great moment where she's like, she's just like being a taster and she's like, oh, it's good. Everything's good. And then she's like, this is poison and it's awesome and it's just, it's Glee. It's absolutely. This show is fantastic. And then similarly to Frieren, they make big moves in later storylines that aren't so that it doesn't just feel like, you know, like case of the week because it does feel like a little bit of what we were saying we wished for. Spider Noir. It does feel in season one like kind of case of the Wiki while it establishes all these relationships, which I think is really smart. And then season two kind of cracks it open into those relationship flipping it so that those relationships become the focus and the case of the week kind of fades a little bit. Really fantastic.
Mallory Rubin
I was wondering about that because I just, I watched the first episode before bed last night. Loved it, excited to watch more. But I wasn't sure what that. Because it does have the likes. The setup of. Okay. And then she'll, she'll. They now know that she has this skill. Also I love just the little detail of like she's the only serving girl who can read. So like she kind of outs herself as like the one who left this clue because he write it's that was like. Those little details were really.
Jason Mantzoukas
There's a character you're going to love coming up.
Mallory Rubin
I'm. I'm excited.
Jason Mantzoukas
The other MAU MAU, they're also very excited for you.
Mallory Rubin
It's a lot. A lot of hot people in the show. A lot of hot cartoons. You know, I love a hot cartoon cartoon. But I was curious about the balance of case of the week versus bigger story because I've got hot D brain. But it had a little bit of a House of the Dragon like in the first episode. But maybe that's just that case is the emperor's difference and their different kids.
Jason Mantzoukas
Certainly that's a component of it, but it's not. Every case is about that.
Joanna Robinson
How long are the episodes?
Jason Mantzoukas
22 minutes.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah.
Joanna Robinson
So much story in the.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh yeah.
Mallory Rubin
It was like an incredible.
Jason Mantzoukas
And you barely have scratched the surface. There's. And that's the thing they do very well is it just keeps revealing. A much larger story is at play. A much larger. All of these people are actually connected by these three storylines. And it takes her so long to figure a lot of this out. It's dynamite. And it's also this and Frieren, I also think in particular are beautiful. They're not just great shows. Great stories, immersive storytelling, artistically beautifully rendered.
Joanna Robinson
Can I ask you a really important question?
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah.
Joanna Robinson
Are you a sub guy or a dub guy?
Jason Mantzoukas
Okay, great question. So for Frieren, I watch it the first time through subtitles. I watch it in Japanese. And then all my subsequent rewatches are in English. And the actors are great. For Apothecary Diaries, I did the same thing for the shows like Jujutsu Kaisen. For the more just fighty, actiony shows, I just listened to the English dub. Cause I'm there mostly for the spectacle and less the immersive storytelling.
Joanna Robinson
Got it.
Jason Mantzoukas
And so. But these shows I watch first time through. Cause I've watched both of them a lot. Cause there's only two seasons of both of these shows. So it is. You can do it over and over again. But the. The people they have doing the English dub are terrific. Free Ren especially. And MAU MAU is. Is. Whoever's doing that voice is great in.
Mallory Rubin
In Apothecary Diaries, I'm doing the subs subtitles so far. First time. Which is, I think, a good way to do it. It obviously just, you know, practically. It can't be like looking down at like a sandwich or something.
Joanna Robinson
You love to look at your sandwich.
Mallory Rubin
Well, as you guys both know, we do like to like sit at our TV trades and like us can gotta be like locked in for the subs. But it's been really fun to maybe
Jason Mantzoukas
not to jump back to spider Noir, but remember the scene where Nicolas Cage is eating the sandwich in front of the telephone booth, waiting for the phone call?
Mallory Rubin
Yes. That was incredible.
Jason Mantzoukas
He's eating this scene like he's eating this sandwich. It is just chomp, chomp, chomp.
Joanna Robinson
That was great. That was good. Wonderful.
Jason Mantzoukas
Both of these shows I think are 10 out of 10. Like master. I think Frieren is a master masterpiece.
Joanna Robinson
Crunchyroll is the watch.
Jason Mantzoukas
Crunchyroll.
Mallory Rubin
They're both on Netflix right now though. They are both on Netflix.
Jason Mantzoukas
I did not know.
Joanna Robinson
I just wanted to support Crunchyroll because Tyler from Crunchyroll has been emailing me
Mallory Rubin
for a little while. Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
Shout out Tyler.
Mallory Rubin
Shout out, Tyler.
Jason Mantzoukas
So I'll just throw a delicious. And dungeon. Incredible show.
Mallory Rubin
What a ton of it.
Jason Mantzoukas
It is. Characters, similarly, adventurers. They're not heroes, they're adventurers. They're exploring a dungeon that appears to have no bottom. They are traveling into elements and areas that have never been been traveled before. They're looking for treasure, they're looking for this, they're looking for that. But what this show is unique is they are constantly coming across monsters and flora and fauna that are trying to attack them and kill them and all this stuff. And when they do and they win, one of their warrior sets up and cooks it all. So the show starts down for meal prep and eating. I've seen a clip from this wonderful. Cause he's like, you know, and I just take this, the scorpion and I cut the tip off and it does all the film language of like Master Chef. Not one of those kind of like a cooking show. It becomes all of the film language of those shows. And it's awesome.
Mallory Rubin
Top Chef, delicious dungeon.
Jason Mantzoukas
There's a show called that I'm now 10 episodes in into that I feel like you guys would like which is called Ascendance of a Bookworm.
Mallory Rubin
Oh my God. Well, you have us from the title alone, obviously.
Jason Mantzoukas
It is about a woman who is like. I'm gonna say like a 20 year old woman. Something like that. I think she's college or just out of college librarian, obsessed with books. Love it dies. Oh, is this is the opening moments of the show is reborn into a world without books. And the show is about her?
Mallory Rubin
Oh no.
Jason Mantzoukas
She's also a child. She's like 5 or 6 years old or something like that. But she still has the knowledge Of a. And she's in. The world is kind of like medieval almost. You know what I mean? And there are no books or there are so few books and nobody knows how to read. She knows how to read. She can count. She knows numbers. So she's like a six year old who's like. Immediately like. People are like, what's your deal, man? And she's just obsessed with making books and all about books and reading and stories and. And it's terrific.
Joanna Robinson
So this is like Himesh Patel telling everyone about the Beatles.
Jason Mantzoukas
That's very similar. Yes, very similar. I mentioned a bunch of other stuff. I'm going to mention a couple of more things. Genndi Tartakovsky's Primal is maybe the single best masterpiece of visual storytelling because there is no dialogue. It is just a caveman befriends a dinosaur as if it's his pet. And they. And it is just visually a masterpiece. You cannot believe what an incredible bit of visual storytelling the TV show Primal is. I'm gonna go away from animation for a brief moment here.
Joanna Robinson
Okay.
Jason Mantzoukas
Just because I think you guys will like this if you don't know it yet. Are you familiar with the Mark Gaddis show Bookish?
Joanna Robinson
Yes, yes, yes.
Mallory Rubin
I've not seen it.
Jason Mantzoukas
What do you think, Johanna Robinson, about Bookish?
Joanna Robinson
I love it. I'm obsessed with it. Yeah, Yeah. I love. I think he's so funny.
Jason Mantzoukas
Same, same. I think it's great. It's worth seeking out. It is a Sherlock Holmesian post World War II detective show set in like a very post World War II London. And Mark Gaddis working with the police to help solve mysteries. Great, great, great stuff. And last but not least, I will ask you, Joanna Robinson, specifically, how do you feel about season 21 of Taskmaster?
Mallory Rubin
Is it seriously season 21?
Jason Mantzoukas
It is. Currently season 21 is airing.
Joanna Robinson
Ah, we call it Kumail season.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's the Kumail Nanjiani season. Oh, yeah, Kumail,
Joanna Robinson
your season of Taskmaster,
Jason Mantzoukas
season 19 was one of the most
Joanna Robinson
important things that's ever happened in my life because you are a real crossover breakout into the US Market of Taskmaster big time. And I had friends that I was trying to get watch Taskmaster for literally like eight years.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, yeah.
Joanna Robinson
And finally they watched it because A, it's a bit more accessible on YouTube now, and B, they're like, oh, Jason Benzookis is on. I'll watch.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, I. That's how I got friends to watch it who I couldn't get to watch on. I had to be on it.
Mallory Rubin
This Season is Mansookian. When.
Joanna Robinson
When we ran into each other at Matteo and you were like, hi, Joanna Robinson. We're meeting each other face to face the first time. And I was like, I would like to now grill you about your experience on Taskmaster. It hadn't even premiered yet. And I was like, well, tell me, does this happen on Taskmaster? And does this happen on Taskmaster? This season is. Is really good. It's funny watching Kumail, I feel like he's kind of trying to do what you did, but your energy is so distinct. And his energy is so distinct that, like, it's reading completely different.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, yeah. Well, I think. I don't know that he's trying to. Well, he had. I will say this. He had not seen mine when he did it.
Joanna Robinson
Okay.
Jason Mantzoukas
So because of when mine aired and when he shot.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
He is doing what he chose to do.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
Which I love. Because I think. And I do. And I don't think I'm wrong. I think Camille would say this. I think Camille wants to.
Joanna Robinson
Oh, yes.
Jason Mantzoukas
I did not.
Joanna Robinson
Oh, no. You just wanted to cause chaos.
Jason Mantzoukas
My whole thing was, if I'm winning, I can't be doing my thing. Yes. And I said as much to Alex. I said, listen, you cannot let me win because I then can't. I have to be able to operate from behind. My whole bit only works if I'm losing.
Joanna Robinson
As a Taskmaster veteran, a veteran of
Jason Mantzoukas
the Taskmaster wars, maybe that is, like the greatest. The greatest reference of my. I like it. It was the greatest experience. Work wise. Yeah. Go ahead.
Joanna Robinson
How do you feel about the egg bit in season 20?
Jason Mantzoukas
I'm loving it.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
I'm loving it.
Joanna Robinson
So, okay. The premise of Taskmaster, right, Is that they assemble a panel of comedians, and they have previously. How long ago do you tape the tasks?
Jason Mantzoukas
It depends. Season to season. But, you know, like, within. Within the previous six months, you've probably come for a couple of instances to shoot.
Joanna Robinson
You've been filmed to complete all of the. And then the show is the comedians assemble in studio, and each episode, they break up the tasks into, like, let's say, five, four or five tasks at a time. And there's interstitial of the comedians in the studio. But once you get in the studio and this has happened a couple times, some contestants will find out that there was a task that was only assigned to them and to no one else. And one of the panelists this season, this is the worst it's ever been. Cause usually it's just, like, one task. Oh, I had to, like, count all these P's or whatever. And nobody else had to. And this season, he has been given an egg that he has to keep on his person at all times and not break it. So it's, like, hooked to him in this little, like, harness that he's in a protective case.
Jason Mantzoukas
But in the tasks, he's got it built into his head.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah. And it has to. When a signal is given, he has to be able to present his egg at any given moment within 30 seconds. But he's the only person in the entire show.
Mallory Rubin
What happens?
Jason Mantzoukas
But he doesn't know that.
Mallory Rubin
What happens if he breaks it? What happens? What if he drops it?
Jason Mantzoukas
Who knows?
Mallory Rubin
Who knows? He's not broken the egg.
Jason Mantzoukas
Here's the thing about Taskmaster. It's a big. Who cares?
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's. He's not benefiting from it. He's not losing anything from it. But you feel like, I gotta do this task. I gotta do this.
Joanna Robinson
Alex tells me I have to do it, so I have to do it. So, like, it's such an elaborate. He had to have an unbroken egg on him, the same egg at allegedly at all times. And none of the rest of the contestants had to do it.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, it's so funny. And they. It's this guy. It couldn't have been a better person. Joel is. Is. He has the childlike wonder of a person. He's delighted to be there. He's having the best time. It's working. But I think it would have been. If anybody else had gotten it, it would have been a much different story.
Mallory Rubin
One of my favorite.
Joanna Robinson
I agree. Cause they would have been like, people speak. Some people can be.
Mallory Rubin
So what was your specific task?
Jason Mantzoukas
I didn't get one. So my season didn't have a one person gets singled out task. It only happens every once in a while. There was one Mark had to eat text them every day. And he did it for, like, a year.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
And then they were like, it wasn't
Joanna Robinson
a real task in the studio.
Jason Mantzoukas
That was just a prank.
Joanna Robinson
You don't understand how much of my life has been spent doing this. It's so funny. I also love Joanna Paige, who's on this season, who I know from Gavin and Stacy, but, like, she's one of the welshest people you'll ever meet. And there's just this, like, energy of a certain contest contestant where it's just like, mom energy.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's like Rosie Ramsey in my season.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah. Kooky mom energy. And they're just like, just the blend of comedians that they get is so incredible.
Jason Mantzoukas
She does a thing that I love on a Taskmaster season that happens only every once in a while. And I think because she is. They are really letting her run with it or they're including her because she's so good. And also she does a thing where she just starts telling a story. She just starts telling a story about her life. And it's all about, like, the time she clogged the toilet at her in law's house and they had to get a plunger and this and that. So that gets her into. And that's why I've brought a plunger here today, you know, and her stories are so fantastic and she's so funny. And I don't know Gavin and Stacey. So one of the things that I love about Taskmaster is it is, for me, an introduction to so many people that I previously either did not know or have only a cursory understanding of. Like, I know what Gavin and Stacy is. Never seen it.
Joanna Robinson
I would say 90% of British comedians that I know, I know from. And they're like some of my favorite, you know, like, oh, yeah. So like. But Armando Inucci is like one of the panelists this season, and.
Jason Mantzoukas
And watching him do the goofiest stuff is so satisfying.
Joanna Robinson
My discovery from your season was Fatiha,
Jason Mantzoukas
who was like, incredible.
Joanna Robinson
So funny. But similarly, like, she could just start telling a story, and you just let her tell her story about her Batman bedroom or whatever, let her cook.
Jason Mantzoukas
Because you shoot for like, we would shoot for like three and a half, four hours to be cut down into like 45 minutes. And a lot of it was just Fatiha telling stories that were so fucking funny that they would just let her go because it was like we were enjoying it so much. Yeah, great, Great.
Joanna Robinson
I also feel that, like. Cause the UK SNL that just launched, they have like, a couple former Taskmaster games.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah. They have Anya, they have Emma. CD is on there.
Joanna Robinson
And I'm just sort of like, I feel slightly ahead because I'm like, I know you from Taskmaster.
Jason Mantzoukas
I love it. This season is great. I'll say. If you're not a Taskmaster fan, start with season 19, of course. Obviously, then my other favorite seasons would be 5, 7. Sam Campbell.
Joanna Robinson
What are my numbers? Like, what are the Sam Campbell seasons?
Jason Mantzoukas
5 is Aisling Bee and Nish Kumar and the legend Bob Mortimer.
Joanna Robinson
Oh, my God.
Jason Mantzoukas
Incredible seven is James Acaster, Rod Gilbert and that crew. Absolutely. Sam Campbell is 15 or 13. No, I can't remember. Somewhere in those that run is Sam Australian comedian Sam Campbell, who is one of the most unique comedic voices I've heard in a decade, cannot break him.
Joanna Robinson
Never been broken.
Jason Mantzoukas
Have you seen last one Laughing?
Joanna Robinson
Yes. Last one Laughing is so him and
Jason Mantzoukas
David Mitchell going head to head as and like, screaming in each other's faces. Not laughing is some of the most bananas stuff I've ever seen.
Joanna Robinson
They broke the show. They broke the show.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah. Season one of the last one, Laughing. Laughing had my favorite duo, which is Bob Mortimer, who is a full genius, and Richard Aoadi, who I think is the funniest person alive. And those two trying to break people and trying to team up and break other people or break each other.
Joanna Robinson
Well, like watching Richard break, which never happens, but broke on that show. Joe Wilkinson's one of my favorite of all time. Who? Taskmaster, of course.
Jason Mantzoukas
The potato.
Joanna Robinson
Laughing like, oh, my God, the potato.
Jason Mantzoukas
The potato.
Joanna Robinson
That's. That's my favorite. That might be my favorite.
Jason Mantzoukas
That's a great one. I mean, what. And that's two. What is that? That's like. Yeah. This season, I think, is a great ensemble. I'm very into it. I was just back in London and had lunch with my whole cast. We had the best time. The lunch lasted nine hours. It was crazy.
Joanna Robinson
Can I just tell you, maybe to, like, get you into Jason's season of his. His lure is not enough for you. One of his co panelists, Matthew Bainton, is where the shortest shorts that have ever existed.
Mallory Rubin
You pick one outfit, like, like Paul Mescal shorts, shorter.
Jason Mantzoukas
Did you watch British Ghosts?
Joanna Robinson
No.
Jason Mantzoukas
Okay.
Joanna Robinson
He's so funny. And, like, other than you. He was the other person I was most familiar with on YouTube.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yes. Well, he is like a superstar.
Joanna Robinson
Super famous.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah.
Joanna Robinson
But he's wearing. You pick like, an outfit, and sometimes it's like a super weird outfit. You know, like, Noel Fielding is, you know, like, wearing that yellow boiler suit sort of thing.
Jason Mantzoukas
Phil Wang's wearing, like, the jumpsuit, the Kill Bill jumpsuit or the Bruce Lee jumpsuit. Know, you.
Joanna Robinson
You pick, like, one thing to wear for all your tasks for, like, continuity reasons and stuff like that. Matthew picks the shortest shorts known to men. And some of these tasks make you, like, crawl around on the ground and all this stuff. And they just had to, like, blur out his.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, his nuts are falling out constantly. And he's the most embarrassed man. He is like, he's mortified, but it's happening constantly.
Mallory Rubin
Those are short shards.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, boy, it's so funny.
Mallory Rubin
Oh, they're a little too loose around.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, yeah. They're like runners Short.
Joanna Robinson
That's why the nuts are just, like, constantly flopping out.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's so funny. He was. He made me laugh so hard.
Mallory Rubin
I'm.
Joanna Robinson
I'm so sorry. I could talk about Task.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's a great season. It's a. My season is probably the best season that's ever been. But. But. But no, please. Everybody should watch Taskmaster. Start right now or. And it's. The beauty of the show is all of it. And in its entirety, every episode is on YouTube for free.
Joanna Robinson
Yes.
Jason Mantzoukas
So you can access it immediately.
Joanna Robinson
You get caught up at any time.
Jason Mantzoukas
It's great. I want to thank you for the recommendation on this show of lovesick or scrotal recall, as I heard it was called. I didn't know. Fantastic.
Joanna Robinson
Oh, my God, it's so good.
Jason Mantzoukas
Obsessed. I want. I. Desperately. I think that me and Daniel Ng or Inge Ings.
Joanna Robinson
There's an S on the end.
Jason Mantzoukas
O is. Oh, okay. I think he and I need to be in something together being absolute lunatics.
Joanna Robinson
Do you feel like he kind of stole your look? Your swag?
Jason Mantzoukas
Not at all. I mean, he looks great. It's not my look. I thought he looked great, though.
Mallory Rubin
He would have been a great laughing
Jason Mantzoukas
storm if I could pull off a British accent. You know, I was asked to audition for the Lord of the Rings. Not the Lord of the Rings. Of Power. Rings of Power. Asked to audition for Rings of Power. Power. With a very specific British accent. I was told with this British accent. I was like, okay, great. So I hired a dialect coach. I did two sessions with the dialect coach, like, two hours each session. And at the end of the second one, she was like, I don't think you got it. And I was like, I agree with you.
Joanna Robinson
Can we hear it?
Jason Mantzoukas
Not even remotely. You can't? No, because I can't do it at all. And I literally called my agent, and I was like, yeah, you can turn it down. I'm not. There's just no way. We're not gonna get there. And truthfully, I was like, I'm underwater with that. I couldn't wrap my head around it now.
Joanna Robinson
I'm just devastated that we don't have you on Rings of Power.
Jason Mantzoukas
I know, right? Wouldn't that be funny?
Mallory Rubin
What if you had gone in and just made a completely different choice? You could have been the megawatt.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, boy. Yeah. If I'd done it as, like, a
Joanna Robinson
rattata tat on top of the world.
Jason Mantzoukas
Exactly.
Joanna Robinson
I'm a star. Oh, wow.
Jason Mantzoukas
The grandior. The grandior. Go of Middle Earth.
Mallory Rubin
Hey, is Gadriel here. Yeah. Were you going to be Halbrand?
Joanna Robinson
Were you guys and Dolls? I could do this.
Mallory Rubin
Oh, man, what a. What a treat this was.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, my God. Come on.
Mallory Rubin
Come back.
Jason Mantzoukas
Well, come back whenever you want me. Whenever you want me. I mean, there's so many things to talk about.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah, we don't want to. I mean, we want you back for Shadow Lord Season 2, but we don't want to wait.
Jason Mantzoukas
We can do it before that. Yeah, we've got stuff on the horizon. I mean, you bring me in whenever you want.
Mallory Rubin
What are you most excited for the
Joanna Robinson
rest of this year in the nerd summer hype?
Mallory Rubin
That's a good question.
Jason Mantzoukas
What's in the hype right now?
Mallory Rubin
We've got the Odyssey coming. We've got a Spider man movie. Hot D, which you already said, eat
Jason Mantzoukas
shit, hot D. I'm super excited for the Odyssey.
Mallory Rubin
Lanterns.
Jason Mantzoukas
Lanterns. I'm genuinely curious about. Lanterns is one that, for me, I'm like, it could go great, or it could be kind of just a whatever, you know, if it's a whatever, that's disappointing. But if it works and it. But it. I'm a little nervous. I will say I'm a little nervous, but I have high hopes. Star wars is. I'm always looking for more Star wars, but, boy, it's tough. It's tough out here now that Andor is over. It's tough out here to be looking forward to Star wars stories right now. I still wish we would get the daemon's original script, the Lakeith Stansfield Protestant
Joanna Robinson
Reformation inside of Force.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah, there's a lot that I want Star wars to do that I just don't think. I mean, I'm still waiting for Dark Disciple. I'm still waiting for a Quinlan Vos appearance. There's people and stuff that I'm interested in, but nothing right now that I'm like, ah, I can't wait for them to do this, you know, because it doesn't seem like they want to do this.
Mallory Rubin
Where are you in the other D.C. stuff? You excited for Supergirl? Clayface.
Joanna Robinson
Clayface. Supergirl.
Jason Mantzoukas
I'm super excited for. I loved that. I thought that book was incredible. So I'm very excited for that. Just conceptually, I think if that. If they do a good job adapting that book, I think it's great. I'm excited. I'm very much enjoying James Gunn's dc, so from Creature Commandos to Superman TV film, I think so far, I'm very satisfied. Marvel, yeah.
Mallory Rubin
Where's your doomsday hype? Do you Check the countdown clock every single day.
Jason Mantzoukas
I don't. I don't know jack about doomsday. I'm like out. It's not that I'm out.
Joanna Robinson
What about the Vision show? I'm very excited about that.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah. Super curious. Of course. I'm super curious about what that'll be because I think they are what I. Oh and let me be clear. I loved Wonder Man. I felt Wonder man was terrific in a way that I was like do this. Just don't worry about the larger story or the multiverse or the this or the of that. Just tell me a story about characters. Give me a slice of life. And I mean I really appreciated also that it was like out of work struggling actors in Hollywood. Like so much of it rang true. Trying to do a self tape. Oh my God, it was so good. And. And I think he's dynamite malls that
Mallory Rubin
they were going to.
Joanna Robinson
I was like incredible. A new LA resident. Joey.
Mallory Rubin
Joey Pants's house.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah. Oh my God. So funny. And I thought he was so good. Yehia or Yahya.
Joanna Robinson
Yay.
Jason Mantzoukas
Yaya. Thank you. I thought he was so good. And then flip. I'm watching him now in the man on Fire series which is. He's incredible in that. In a completely different lane. I thought he was fantastic in ambulance. I think he's great. But like the one two punch in this year of Wonder man and man on Fire are incredible. This guy is fantastic because Wonder man is so.
Joanna Robinson
He was so stealthily like funny and you know, like.
Jason Mantzoukas
And insecure.
Joanna Robinson
How seriously he took himself was so funny. And then I imagine man on Fire is not a laugh a minute.
Jason Mantzoukas
Not at all. It's just a action shoot em up. You know it's based on the movie. It's. You know, it's a prequel for the Denzel character in that movie. And it's fantastic in that way that like all of the uncle shows that I watch. Your Bosches. You're justified. You know all those shows that I. You're. I will shout out the best show on television that nobody watching or talking about. I don't think you guys would cover it. But I'm still shocked that the watch isn't covering it. Is Dark Wind is the Tony Hillerman books is unreal. I think this show is. Zahn McClarnon is unbelievable. That single episode of Westworld, I was like what the fuck?
Joanna Robinson
A Kichita. Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
All of his stuff in Fargo, unreal. And this show. He is exceptional and should be winning every award if awards matter, which they don't. But he is electric to watch in this show. And the show is phenomenal.
Joanna Robinson
Which season was Robert Redford showed up for?
Jason Mantzoukas
Like him and George R.R. martin are in a prison cell in season three at the beginning of season three. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's great. That show I think is a absolutely phenomenal watch and a world that is just every season they are excavating more and more of these stories and more and more of these characters. And it is. And servicing a procedural kind of, you know, who done it every time. And it's awesome.
Joanna Robinson
Excellent.
Mallory Rubin
Make Chris and Andy talk about it.
Jason Mantzoukas
These idiots.
Mallory Rubin
I thought they.
Joanna Robinson
They started with that.
Jason Mantzoukas
Did they?
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas
I don't know.
Joanna Robinson
I don't know if they kept kept up with it, but I know they started okay.
Jason Mantzoukas
They better.
Mallory Rubin
I would feel worse if they hadn't started or they had and they hadn't told you.
Jason Mantzoukas
By the way, the ladder lad. Cuz it took me a couple of years to get Chris to watch Shoresy. I recommended it so many times because of sports. I was like I think you'd like this. It's sports.
Joanna Robinson
Have you heard of sports? This show does it. But Canadian sports. Jason, thank you so much.
Mallory Rubin
This was such a treat, such a pleasure.
Jason Mantzoukas
This is one of my absolute favorite shows. I listen to you guys. I spend so many hours a week with you both in my ears. It is truly absolutely wonderful to be here. Thank you for.
Joanna Robinson
Here's my last question for all of us. Lamour Morris, Emmy winner. Morris, yes.
Jason Mantzoukas
For Fargo, right?
Joanna Robinson
Uh huh. Fantastic in this. Jake Johnson, incredible in the spider verse movies. What is Max Greenfield's to round out?
Mallory Rubin
Oh, great question.
Joanna Robinson
The new girl.
Mallory Rubin
Which should he be?
Joanna Robinson
Which spider project is for him?
Jason Mantzoukas
That's a great question.
Joanna Robinson
Boy hobbits and dragonsmail.com. yeah, Sony, are you listening? Put Max Greenfield in a spider joke.
Jason Mantzoukas
Let's figure it out.
Mallory Rubin
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joanna Robinson
He's deserves.
Mallory Rubin
He'd be great.
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, he would.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh yeah.
Mallory Rubin
Thank you Jason, you're the best. Come back soon. And thank you not only to Jason obviously for being such a wonderful guest today. What a treat this was. Thank you to the rest of the crew. Carlos, Scott, Jacob ct, Arjuna Jomi, the whole gang helping us out as always. We will be back next week for an already out of date but still sincerely enthusiastic, 2026 summer hype meter. Joe will have a Lestat primer and a fictional musical bands episode.
Joanna Robinson
It's more of like like a fictional bands episode. Less le primer, more a very musical
Mallory Rubin
house of priming you for the mood of watching Sam Reed as leat.
Joanna Robinson
Correct.
Mallory Rubin
Sing while covered in scars on stage.
Joanna Robinson
Correct.
Mallory Rubin
And we'll be talking about.
Jason Mantzoukas
Did you go to the concert?
Joanna Robinson
It's. No, Next week. Right next to me. Oh.
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh. It hasn't happened yet. Okay. Okay.
Mallory Rubin
She'll be there in spirit.
Joanna Robinson
I will.
Mallory Rubin
She'll be there in spirit. All right. Come back soon.
Jason Mantzoukas
Can't wait.
Mallory Rubin
It's. It's too big to hold with one hand.
Joanna Robinson
That's what.
Mallory Rubin
You know what this is exactly? It's the people who do the memes about, like, they read a line from Romantasy, and it's like, it was so big, I couldn't hold it in one hand. And then they're holding, like, a jar of pickles, and it's like, that can't. That's not a thing. That's what this water bottle is like. And then the straw is not soft and supple. It's, like, really hard.
Jason Mantzoukas
Okay, now it's trending back to Romantasy.
Mallory Rubin
Isn't it always?
Jason Mantzoukas
Soft, supple straw. That's how it should be. I wrap my lips around this soft, supple straw.
Mallory Rubin
It's rock hard and not in a good way,
Jason Mantzoukas
but by the way. Oh. What?
Mallory Rubin
Karma?
Jason Mantzoukas
Not karma. I think. I think. I think Joanna's water ball just came for us all. Joanna's water bottle is so horny. From your water bottle. Wow. This is what House of R is all about.
Joanna Robinson
Can someone come help, please?
Jason Mantzoukas
This is in the show, right? This better all be in the show.
Mallory Rubin
This can be the stinger.
Podcast: House of R (The Ringer)
Date: May 30, 2026
Hosts: Mallory Rubin, Joanna Robinson
Guest: Jason Mantzoukas
This episode welcomes acclaimed comedic actor and podcaster Jason Mantzoukas for the last installment of "Friend of the Pod Month." The main focus is a deep-dive review of Spider-Noir Season 1, with a spirited, candid critique of the series’ strengths, challenges, and standout moments. Jason also brings a round of anime and TV recommendations—anchored by his deep affection for Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End. The crew also touches on fandom, spoilers, the art of performance, and the ongoing evolution of the fantasy/sci-fi landscape.
On Spider-Noir’s tonal whiplash:
“If everyone is Megawatt, everyone is in the right movie.” — Joanna (43:06)
On the endless Skywalker saga:
“The Skywalkers are the baby boomers. It’s time to go. Time to die. It’s over. You had your moment.” — Jason (09:07)
On spoilers:
“Oh yeah. They're cautious babies.” — Jason (15:25)
On Cage:
“All I want is for Ben Mankiewicz to try and corral Nic Cage [on TCM].” — Jason (41:07)
On anime’s emotional power:
“So much of life is a journey toward gratitude and appreciation.” — Mallory (98:25)