The Bizarro Sporting Class: How to Buy a Hollywood Studio

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: Pablo Torre Finds Out

Episode: "The Bizarro Sporting Class: How to Buy a Hollywood Studio"

Date: December 12, 2025
Host: Pablo Torre
Guests: Mike Schur (Showrunner, WGA Negotiating Committee Member), Joe Mande (Writer, Actor, Comedian)

---

Overview

This episode plunges into the bizarre, high-stakes world of Hollywood mergers and the possible sale of Warner Brothers. With trademark wit, host Pablo Torre, along with guests Mike Schur and Joe Mande, unpack what it means when legendary studios like Warner Brothers are passed between tech titans, investment groups, and disruptor platforms like Netflix. The episode juxtaposes sports capitalism with Hollywood’s current existential anxiety—especially for creators—amid industry consolidation, AI threats, and the quest for cultural dominance by a handful of vast companies and personalities.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: The Absurdity of Hollywood Power Games

• [02:53] Joe Mande and Mike Schur, both insider veterans of the entertainment business, return for a tongue-in-cheek, behind-the-scenes look at who truly pulls the strings in Hollywood today: "Should we say more beyond that? We're going to make Mike guess what is stitched into it." (Pablo Torre)
• The opening banter draws a comedic analogy between sports-business podcasts and their intent to provide a “bizarro” perspective on Hollywood’s ownership saga.

2. The State of the Industry: Mergers, AI & Labor

• [06:25] Mike Schur describes serving on the WGA Negotiating Committee during the pivotal 2023 strikes. He details the existential threat AI poses to creative labor:
  • “We had to step in and declare ... that writers are human beings. That's actually part of the MBA [contract] now, which is an incredible thing to have to actually legislate." [07:45]
• [09:26] Joe Mande on the cyclical stupidity of relying on AI to pitch shows and summarize creative presentations: "At some point, it's just computers talking to each other. I don't know. It's a dumb time."
• The group discusses the massive contraction of Peak TV and the increasing obsession of studios with cost-cutting and "efficiency," often at the creative class’s expense.

3. Who Wants to Buy Warner Brothers? The Billionaire Sweepstakes

• [14:21] Joe Mande gives a satirical explanation of Warner Brothers' legacy ("three siblings that live in a water tower"), as the conversation segues to the real-life power contest over the studio.
• [15:23] Mike Schur introduces Larry Ellison (Oracle billionaire, serial buyer of Hawaiian islands) and his son David Ellison (succession-style Hollywood aspirant) as key movers in the current bidding.
  • "He owns, among other things, Hawaii … He bought Lanai, which … is a good one." [15:48–15:51]
  • Surreal details emerge: Larry’s $160M superyacht boasts a basketball court and a man hired solely to retrieve lost balls. [16:41]
• [18:22] The conversation veers into geopolitics with references to the Saudi and Qatari Sovereign Wealth Funds, and even Jared Kushner and Donald Trump’s facilitating roles, painting an outlandishly corrupt, monarchy-like corporate court.

4. Enter Netflix: Disruption on a Global Scale

• [21:08] Mike Schur draws analogies between Amazon’s and Netflix’s disruption: both started with narrow focuses (books, DVD rentals) before pursuing planet-wide dominance and establishing themselves as “the only store … the only entertainment company that exists in the world.”
• [24:31] The Downside of Mergers — For Everyone
  • “When companies at this level in this industry merge, it is bad for everyone, and I literally mean everyone… less stuff will get made and ... [what does] get made will be the same as all the other stuff.” (Mike Schur) [24:31–26:02]
  • "It is terrible for consumers ..." A clear warning that variety and creativity suffer as media monopolies grow.

5. Satirical, Yet Ominous Predictions for Audiences

• [28:54] Joe Mande delivers withering, surreal humor on the possible future of content mergers:
  • “Imagine if Fred Flintstone was also a character in the Red Notice cinematic universe.”
  • “There will be a function where we could watch House of Cards, but Fred Flintstone instead of Kevin Spacey.” [29:07–29:17]

6. The Food Chain of Hollywood: Netflix as Apex Predator

• [41:39] Discussion crystallizes around what artists lose:
  • “If you have Joe’s job or my job, you know, you have an idea for a TV show or a movie, there’s what, half a dozen places that can buy it, and when two of them merge, that means there’s only five places ... Now there’s 16% less opportunity …” (Mike Schur)

7. A Love/Hate Relationship with Hollywood’s Real Powers

• [32:10] Mike Schur discusses the paradoxical affection many billionaires and tech CEOs genuinely feel for Hollywood’s glamour and creativity, even as their methods threaten its essence.
• The group points out that, historically, human programming and a willingness to take creative risks (e.g., with shows like "Hacks" or "The Wire") have produced the industry's greatest work—a process now imperiled by mergers and algorithms.

8. The Case Study of HBO

• [42:42] What future for HBO under new owners?
  • “What happens if Netflix buys this? Does HBO disappear forever? … Do they get to keep Casey Bloys and all the folks at that company who have been responsible for some of your favorite shows?” (Mike Schur)
• The very processes that make work like "The Wire" or "I May Destroy You" possible—a greenlight from human judgment—are at risk when everything must pass through algorithmic or overly business-driven filters.

9. The Sporting Parable: What Sports Can Teach Hollywood

• [45:34] Pablo Torre invokes Lina Khan’s regulatory emphasis: competition is the lifeblood of a functioning market, in sports and in entertainment alike.
  • “Competition is the thing that we have forgotten as this priority for what it means to have even a vaguely functioning capitalist system.”

10. Coda: Humor, Hope, & One-of-a-Kind Art

• [53:54] The promised “big reveal”: Joe Mande unveils an embroidered Minnesota Timberwolves hat with the word "Chemtrails" stitched into it, offering satirical commentary on the intersection of art and commerce.
  • “The word is chemtrails. So you were kind of off because I ...” (Joe Mande) [56:11]
  • The hat is auctioned for charity, rebuking algorithmic culture with something undeniably handmade and singular—a metaphor for the conversation’s core message.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• The AI labor crisis:
  • “We had to step in and declare ... that writers are human beings. That's actually part of the MBA now, which is an incredible thing to have to actually legislate." (Mike Schur, 07:45)
• On mergers and creativity:
  • "When companies at this level, in this industry, merge, it is bad for everyone, and I literally mean everyone." (Mike Schur, 24:31)
• Satire of the future:
  • “Imagine if Fred Flintstone was also a character in the Red Notice cinematic universe.” (Joe Mande, 29:01)
• On Hollywood's love affair with itself:
  • “This class of person... genuinely, at some level, love Hollywood.” (Mike Schur, 33:14)
• The problem with consolidation:
  • “If we lose the ecosystem that allows both the Big Bang Theory and I May Destroy You to exist … then we're losing Hollywood and we're losing storytelling.” (Mike Schur, 50:23)
• Plea for human creativity:
  • “That's a good lesson for whoever wins the merger—think about the artist and let the artist do their thing.” (Mike Schur, 56:30)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:53] Guest introductions & show’s “bizarro” angle
• [06:25] Mike Schur on WGA strikes, AI, and labor threats
• [15:23] Who are Larry and David Ellison? Succession, yachts, and basketballs
• [18:22] Foreign money, geopolitics, Trump’s overt involvement
• [21:08] The rise of Netflix and the “apex predator” analogy
• [24:31] Why mergers hurt everyone (especially creators and audiences)
• [28:54] Satirical visions: “Red Notice” x “Flintstones” and AI mishaps
• [32:10] The paradox: Billionaires genuinely love movies—so why are they killing them?
• [42:42] The HBO dilemma: Can quality survive tech consolidation?
• [45:34] Lina Khan, anti-trust, and Hollywood’s need for competition
• [53:54] Joe Mande’s “Chemtrails” hat: handmade art vs. algorithmic culture

---

Final Takeaways

This episode is a wide-ranging, humor-drenched, yet deeply sobering meditation on how the machinery of late capitalism, tech monopolism, and algorithmic thinking endanger the human core of Hollywood creativity. Both guests lament how consolidation shrinks opportunity and originality in entertainment, warning that while rulers may love the culture they’re buying, their methods risk destroying its magic.

Action:
The episode ends on a note of hope—auctioning a one-of-a-kind art object for charity—reminding listeners: the irreplaceable stuff of culture is made by real people and can’t be mass produced or replaced by code.

---

For more, visit ptfo.betterworld.org to support St. Jude and check out the one-of-a-kind “Chemtrails” Timberwolves hat.

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're going to find out what this sound is.

[Mike Sher]

It's bad for writers, bad for actors, bad for directors, and bad for consumers.

[Pablo Torre]

Right after this ad.

[Verizon Ad Voice]

This holiday, Verizon is giving you incredible gifts and savings you'll enjoy all year. When you Switch, you'll get four new iPhone 17 Pros. No trade in needed. That's right, get four lines for just 25 a line. And the amazing iPhone 17 Pro for everyone. Save big this holiday. Visit Verizon today.

[Verizon Terms Voice]

$20 monthly promo credits applied to a count over 35 months with a new line on unlimited welcome. In times of congestion, unlimited 5G and 4G LTE may be temporarily slower than other traffic. Domestic Data roaming at 2G speeds. Additional terms apply for phone offer. See verizon.com for details.

[American Red Cross Ad Voice]

This holiday season, millions of families will pack their bags, load up the car and head off for a family vacation. But not every trip is going to be somewhere fun. The American Red Cross responds to about 7,000 emergencies during the holiday season alone. From home fires to natural disaster, providing families a safe place to go when the unthinkable happens. But they can't do it without your support.

[Blue Apron Ad Voice]

Please [e-mail] so here's the thing with homemade meals. Eating them is great, but all the chopping and measuring and cleanup, not so much. With new one pan assemble and bake meals from Blue Apron. You get all the flavor of homemade meals with a fraction of the work. Just assemble the pre chopped ingredients, bake in the oven and enjoy. Shop, assemble and [e-mail] get 50% off your first two orders with code apron50. Terms and conditions apply. Visit blueapron.com terms for more.

[Pablo Torre]

Did you send the link to Mike?

[Joe Mandy]

No, I sent a fake link to a. A Tik Tok Cortez.

[Pablo Torre]

Could you give me the link in sl? I gotta just text it to Mike. Are we rolling? Okay, perfect. Thank you guys. Yeah, there he is. So I, I gotta. I gotta own what's happened, which is that I thought that Joe had sent you a zoom link to join Mike.

[Mike Sher]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And it turns out that it wasn't a zoom link.

[Mike Sher]

Here's the thing. I've worked with Joe for, I don't know, 15 years now. If you ask him for something and he responds, the first thing that you should always think is whatever I wanted. This is not what I have gotten.

[Joe Mandy]

Well, you didn't ask specifically for a zoom link. You just asked for a link.

[Pablo Torre]

You all link.

[Mike Sher]

Yeah, I just wrote link, question mark. And then we got what we got.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. Which is to be very clear. What? Joe.

[Joe Mandy]

It's a tick tock of a man somewhere in South America wearing Joker makeup. And juggling tennis balls while he and a woman nearby sing a Lincoln park song.

[Mike Sher]

Joe, I can't wake up. No, wait, it's not Lincoln Park. It's Evanescence.

[Joe Mandy]

Right, Whatever. I don't. Yeah, Evanescence.

[Pablo Torre]

Wow.

[Joe Mandy]

What? I thought that was the good part. Wake me up inside.

[Mike Sher]

No, that's Evanescence, buddy.

[Pablo Torre]

You and this joker's culture is not. Yeah, yeah. It's not your costume.

[Joe Mandy]

Why so knowledgeable about Evanescence?

[Pablo Torre]

At the end of this episode, we're going to reveal the thing we promised at the end of the last episode we did together. Joe, Mandy, Mike Sher. Thank you for coming back on the show in this format together.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah, I love it.

[Mike Sher]

Our pleasure.

[Pablo Torre]

So there will be the reveal of that. Should we say more beyond that? We're going to make Mike guess what is stitched into it. Yes.

[Joe Mandy]

There's a. I, I, I on ebay. Found the hat I was thinking of, which is Minnesota Timberwolves hat with their MT logo from the 90s. So you have some time to think.

[Pablo Torre]

What word I have like, I have.

[Mike Sher]

55 minutes to try to figure out what MT means.

[Pablo Torre]

Time that is otherwise being spent, I think, on. Yeah. The story that I want to talk to you guys about, because I was reading all of the news about this that I could about what's happening to Warner Brothers, and we do a show here on Pablo. Tori finds out Joe sometimes called the Sporting Class.

[Joe Mandy]

Okay.

[Pablo Torre]

And it's about sports business from the perspective of these executives, John Skipper and David Sampson.

[Joe Mandy]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

And this is kind of like the opposite of that, but for Hollywood is what I want to try to do here. Because you are your labor.

[Joe Mandy]

Yes. I'm a peasant. I'm a surf.

[Pablo Torre]

You are a surf. And what is Mike, in your estimation?

[Joe Mandy]

I think Mike is a. That would make you a. A vassal, right? Like a, A lord? Yeah, you're more of a.

[Mike Sher]

Not quite a. Not quite like a feudal lord, but like a who. Who is in charge of the. Of like making sure the serfs did all of the daily labor and then reported up to the. To the lord.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Barry Weiss, I think.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah, yeah, she's a lord.

[Mike Sher]

She's in charge of all of it.

[Pablo Torre]

I did just Google who was Surf's boss and the lord of the manor.

[Joe Mandy]

Okay.

[Pablo Torre]

What the AI overview that is increasingly at the heart of this story has indicated to Me. But in all seriousness, Mike, you had to get clearance to talk about this because your role in this is not merely as a lord of some manner, as a showrunner who's made many, many very good and successful shows.

[Joe Mandy]

You're a night. Mike's a knight.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, yeah. Okay. That's good. I'll take it as a knight of the wga. Can you explain what your sort of life has been like as we've been seeing? Who is going to buy Warner Brothers? Will it be Netflix? Will it be Paramount and the Ellisons? What the has your life been like?

[Joe Mandy]

Tell us, sir. Sure.

[Pablo Torre]

Yay.

[Mike Sher]

Verily. So I was a member of the WGA negotiating committee in 2023 when the WGA and then SAG both strike WGA for five months, SAG for a little bit longer. And the issues that we were facing then, which we're still facing now, are, you know, a massive industry contraction is the main one, what has now been called Peak TV kind of hit around 2018, 2019, something like that. And since then, you know, long before COVID and the results of that, you know, work stoppage on the industry, everything was contracting. The companies were cutting back dramatically on the number of shows they made, number of movies they made. Covet sort of accelerated that. And the strikes were in response to that contraction. And the. The companies that make stuff are no different from any other company. They're obsessed with efficiency. They're obsessed with cost cutting and saving. And that means that they were looking constantly for ways to do more with less, as the Wire Season 5 would have said. So we saw which way the wind was blowing, the unions did, and we said, look, we got to put in a floor here. Especially in television, we have to put in a floor for the minimum, you know, requirements for labor to make these shows. Because, you know, AI was starting to poke its ugly head into the. Into the mix here. And we were imagining a world in which they would say, like, all right, you know, TV shows are written by one person and chatgpt. And so we had to step in and declare a. That writers are human beings. That's actually part of the NBA now, which is an incredible thing to have to have to actually legislate in a contract is that a writer is defined as a human being.

[Pablo Torre]

How hard was that to get agreed upon that specific language?

[Mike Sher]

That's a sort of. The AI stuff is sort of almost a separate category. It's certainly related to the larger picture here, but it's a little bit of a separate category because, again, AI was. Is one tool that we fear these companies are going to use in order to try to get out of essentially, you know, paying labor for their work. So the, you know, the AI language that was written to the contract and into SAG's contract is, is. It was its own category of negotiation. And it was a lot of lawyers going back and forth about how to define things and, and how to declare things. And we did have to eventually say, like, you have to say that a writer is a person.

[Pablo Torre]

It's sort of like a bizarro Mitt Romney corporations are people kind of deal.

[Mike Sher]

Yeah. Yes, that's, that's. We actually talked about that. It's funny. It's like we're trying to essentially invert the, the, the argument made by certain folks that, like, companies are people. We were like, well, also, people are people at some level.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[Joe Mandy]

Fundamentally, I think the creative process has been so condensed with like, AI. You can just tell it like, I, I have an idea for a TV show right at. It seems like a lot of people now when you present decks to executives for, like a TV show, that it would be very easy just to use AI to present your idea. And then I'm sure the executives use chat GBT to summarize the AI summarization. So it's just, at some point, it's just computers talking to each other. I don't know. It's. It's a dumb time.

[Mike Sher]

I will say that there is a lot of resistance from the companies about any language regarding AI, and partly because when we say AI, it's a little bit like it's too General A category. AI is 50,000 different things right now, right? We think of it as chat GPT. But when people refer to, like the algorithm that Netflix, for example, uses to determine what shows it's going to push to you, that is AI. That's machine learning, right? You have entered certain data into your Netflix account. You have watched certain things. They've tracked how many minutes of those things you have watched and to what degree you've completed those things when you start watching them. And then they use that to filter through their library and push you other things that suddenly they think you might like. And that's partly why they're so successful, is because, remember a couple years ago when all of a sudden Suits was like the biggest show on Netflix, like it was a, you know, a USA kind of light drama from, I don't know, eight years earlier, and suddenly every single person in America was watching Suits. And it's because their algorithm successfully predicted that that show at that moment would be watched and enjoyed by a large number of people. And so they pushed it out to people through their homepages and they were right. And it was watched for billions of minutes to the point where NBC actually got a new version of it going. Like they, they did. Suits la and then Suits LA didn't work on NBC because they didn't. They don't have the same reach and they don't have the same algorithmic possibilities in terms of making people watch what.

[Pablo Torre]

They want to watch.

[Mike Sher]

So AI is about training their computers to do certain things. It's about, you know, responding to things, learning, giving notes. It's a lot of different things. And so the only thing that the Writers Guild can really, for example, can really try to protect for is a. The boots on the ground labor of writing a TV show. And then we've tried and actually we're not successful in saying if you use our material to train your AI, you have to pay us. That's the fight that everyone is having right now. There's all those lawsuits about folks who have written novels and books and, you know, historical accounts of different events.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, media companies, Mike, newspapers, you know, like, what is the New York Times gonna do to protect its own work?

[Mike Sher]

Everything that was written. Yes. Things that were written by humans have been used to train these computers. And our argument was, you have to compensate us for that if you're using it to train your machines. And they would not agree at that moment to that language. We did reserve our right to go back and negotiate in future years, possible compensation for the training. But that is. That's still on the table. That is yet to be settled. So they were very resistant to language regarding AI because it's nascent and because they were using it for a billion different things. And so all we could do, which we insisted on and which was a major sticking point that was worth striking over, was to say writers are people. And the SAG said actors are people. And it's pretty wild. Two pretty powerful unions. Like, that's as far as we could get with these companies, is to declare that writers and actors are people.

[Pablo Torre]

I was going to say congratulations on the victory.

[Mike Sher]

Thank you.

[Pablo Torre]

But at the same time, like, it's so funny when that is a win. Yeah. And so the thing that Joe, I want, I wanted to sort of like wonder about with you was what it feels like to be a writer in Hollywood and an. And an actor.

[Joe Mandy]

Oh. But yeah, I'm known as a multi hyphenate.

[Pablo Torre]

That's right.

[Mike Sher]

Actor first I would say, I would say that.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

What does it feel like to just realize, oh, I'm working for tech companies, like explicitly. I am now basically working for Silicon Valley.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah. Not the TV show, the just. Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

I. A very different premise.

[Joe Mandy]

I'm, I'm just gonna, I'm going to take the position that I think this is all cool. I love it, I love it. I think it's very cool.

[Pablo Torre]

What's the coolest part about it?

[Joe Mandy]

Just the uncertainty and fear and just general anxiety. I, I love it. And I love knowing at, at a certain point I, I will work for one of three men and it's just which one is going to be my guy.

[Pablo Torre]

I want to introduce the men because the story of who is buying. I guess I should explain Warner Brothers. Joe, can you explain Warner Brothers? The people who are like, what, what are we really talking about here?

[Joe Mandy]

So there are three, I think siblings that live in a water tower and they sort of control a, they love geography. Yeah. Warner Brothers is a, a studio and they.

[Pablo Torre]

One of the proudest studios.

[Joe Mandy]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

One of the greatest institutions in entertainment. I'm saying that like sarcastically, but it also very sincerely intended as a fact.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah, it is a fact. And there's a bidding war essentially for the studio and their media library. And it's, it's a. Between two awesome companies that are, are in the mix. Am I right? That's, that's, that's about it.

[Pablo Torre]

That's the WGA's official position, is that these guys are awesome. We love this. Mike, can you introduce Larry Ellison as a character and David Ellison, his son, into the proceedings?

[Mike Sher]

So Larry Ellison is the, depending on what is happening literally right now in the stock market, the first, second or third richest man in the world, net worth somewhere around 260 billion. I think the last time I checked. He owns, among other things, Hawaii. Like he bought one of the islands of Hawaii, which is an amazing thing to say. He bought Lanai, which is, was a.

[Pablo Torre]

That's one of the good ones. Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one.

[Mike Sher]

And he just bought it a while ago and has sort of, you know, made it his house. He lives there now. He has actually owns and lives in Hawaii.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah, he surfs with his serves. Yeah.

[Mike Sher]

So his, his son, David Ellison is, I think 42 or so, is a sort of like succession style heir to the throne who has, I don't know what he's done in his life.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, can I tell you one of the things he's done in his Life, please. Yeah, so apparently he was gifted. And I'll get this correct. Fortune magazine. This is the headline quote. When David Ellison was 13, his billionaire father, Larry bought him a plane. He competed in air shows before leaving it to become a Hollywood executive.

[Mike Sher]

Okay, good.

[Pablo Torre]

It's one of those planes that apparently can do aerial acrobatics and professional air shows.

[Mike Sher]

Was he flying it?

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Mike Sher]

That right there qualifies you to run a Hollywood studio.

[Pablo Torre]

And Larry, by the way, I just think the texture of like, what kind of rich people the Ellison are. Like Larry Ellison, who tried to buy the warriors and didn't, which is very funny in retrospect because he is the richest man on the planet. Couldn't do it. Joe Laka bought it. They won all these championships. Larry Elson never did. But what he did have instead. And this is one of the great headlines that I also need to just make sure I get factually correct because he is very wealthy, and this is a very delicate subject. Larry Ellison employs a man who follows his $160 million super yacht in a speedboat. And his job is to retrieve the basketballs that go overboard because he has basketball courts on his super yachts.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah, you gotta save those balls.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, he's a. He's an environmentalist. Yes.

[Mike Sher]

David, his son is. Was the guy who essentially backed by his dad and others, bought Paramount Studios through. And Skydance is the other sort of entity. And very quickly after that acquisition, Paramount had declined significantly in value. And so he sort of scooped that up and took on a ton of debt. And now he's trying to roll that into buying Warner Brothers under the Paramount Skydance banner. And in order to accomplish that, he has assembled a true just legion of doom of financial backers, including, I believe, the Saudi Royal Wealth Fund, the Qatari Royal Wealth Fund, maybe the folks from Abu Dhabi, and also, very importantly, Jared Kushner, son in law of current.

[Joe Mandy]

My guy.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Mike Sher]

Yeah, That's Joe's guy. Yeah. Joe loves Jared, who is very clearly part of this bid because they believe that part of their advantage here is an inside track to President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, who has announced boldly and publicly that he intends to essentially decide how this all plays out. It's not a job typically undertaken by the sitting President of the United States to just. To just rub his hands together in glee and say, who's who wants my approval here for a deal like this? But he's made it clear that that is the case. And so they. That group believes that they have the inside Track through, among other things, Jared Kushner and his side door access to the Oval Office.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. It may be Bears, I guess, just stating aloud as often as possible that Donald Trump is truly just operating in a transparently corrupt manner in which.

[Joe Mandy]

Well, he's the king. He's king. Barry Weiss is. Yeah, she's queen.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. There's an org chart. There's an org chart for all of this. But by the way, like, speaking to what happened. So the shock, given that pretext is that the Ellisons, at first blush at least, did not get Warner Brothers. Instead, it was a scrappy upstart. Yeah, yeah. And I forget the name of this company. How do you pronounce that?

[Mike Sher]

Yeah. Nay, Flea. I think it's a French company.

[Pablo Torre]

And in the reporting around this very obscure startup, it was, it was made clear that of course, Ted Sarandos, the leader of said company, had also met personally with Donald Trump in an attempt to woo him and sort of set the stage. Because this is again, transactionally what you do. Because spoiler alert, at least for now, it works.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Did you have a thought, Joe, when you saw, like, Netflix. Oh, Netflix is. Because they came kind of out of.

[Joe Mandy]

Nowhere, I was like, this is so cool. I love this. I. Yeah, that's. That's all I can say is that I thought the, I thought the Ellison thing was cool, but then I was like, this is even cooler.

[Mike Sher]

Yeah. That's your official position on all this stuff.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah. I want, I want my remote control to have three buttons and I hope to work for, you know, one of those three buttons.

[Pablo Torre]

I would like both of you guys to give a sense of just like, what for people who aren't fluent in just like the ecosystem, the food chain of Hollywood. What is Netflix relative to everything else now? Just to give a sense of just like where they are in the hierarchy of who is running things right now in entertainment.

[Mike Sher]

I want to draw an analogy if I can, because this has happened twice now in the. In recent past with companies where that are like disruptors, Capital D disruptors. I don't know if you remember this, but 20 something years ago, the big question was whether Amazon was ever going to be profitable.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[Mike Sher]

They were like an Internet bookstore and it was cool. And you could buy books from Amazon and, and they would show up at your house and everyone's like, oh, this is so neat. And they were, you know, you had a massive accelerated launch and, and it was sort of Internet 1.0 and there was a quarter where they were going to announce their, their, you Know, profit statement or whatever. And for the first time ever, like, they turned a profit. They turned like, a $3 million profit. And the stock, like, shot up in the air. And I believe in the same announcement, they were like, we are now going to take on, like, $8 billion in debt and, like, expand like maniacs. And people were like, what are you doing? You just became profitable. Like, this is the. This is it. You made it, like, what are you doing? Like, taking on all this debt and expanding. And what no one realized was they didn't want to be the Internet's biggest bookstore. They wanted to be the only store that existed for any product anywhere in the world. And no one except Jeff Bezos and the people on the inside of the company truly understood that. And everyone thought it was a terrible idea. And jump, 25 years later, it's the only store that exists on earth, right? Every. Every single product for every. In every single facet of your life, you. You go to Amazon. Netflix did a similar thing. Netflix sent you movies with. In red envelopes, and you could hold them as long as you wanted and send them back. And it was like, wow, they're going to destroy Blockbuster. But internally, they were like, no, we're going to take over entertainment. We are going to replace the concept of television. You kids in the future, they were thinking, will no longer say what's on tv. They will say, what is on Netflix? Netflix is input one on everyone's home system. And no one understood that except them. Every time they would release a statement that said, like, we turned a profit of $400 million last year. They would also announce, and we're investing $12 billion in content. And then they would be like, this year we made $1.2 billion. We're investing 20 billion. And like, they just had ambition that was far beyond anything that anyone could understand. They were satisfied only when they are the only company. And so this acquisition of the library of Warner Brothers and all of the IP that it controls and all of the movies they release and all the TV shows and all the franchises, Harry Potter and the Flintstones and Batman and everything else that is part of this, that is the latest move in their quest to essentially be the only entertainment company that exists in the world.

[Joe Mandy]

And that's cool. Imagine watching Batman on Netflix. That's so. That's so dope.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, the thing that I think about all of the time is whether this is any good for people who want to consume or watch or enjoy anything.

[Mike Sher]

Okay, so this is my next point, and I'm Sorry to ramble so much, but this is top of mind for me and pretty much everyone else out here. This is the thing that everyone needs to understand. And this is true whether the winner of this is eventually Paramount, Skydance or Netflix or anything else. When companies at this level, in this industry merge, it is bad for everyone, and I literally mean everyone. It is bad for writers and actors and directors and crew members who work on shows and movies. It is bad for the executives who work in these companies because many of them are about to lose their jobs one way or the other. Like these are the right sizing, efficiency, redundancy kind of buzzwords that you always hear there. There's a person who's the executive VP of development at Warner Brothers, there's an equivalent person at Netflix or Skydance, Paramount, and when the companies merge, someone gets fired. It is also, and this is really key to understand, it is terrible for consumers, people who just like to watch things, people who watch TV shows and movies. It is terrible for you because A, less stuff will get made and B, the stuff that does get made will be the same as all the other stuff. Like these places have playbooks that they run and they have things that work for them on their service or platform and everything gets kind of squished to the middle.

[Pablo Torre]

Shopping for a car should be exciting and not exhausting. But between misleading prices, hidden fees and bad pictures, it almost feels like the system is designed to make you second guess yourself. Luckily, that's where Cargurus comes in. They rank the best deals, verify dealers, and make sure you never pay more than you should. Your big deal just became a great deal. Cargurus will connect you with trusted dealerships when you're ready, ensuring a transparent and hassle free buying process. And with over 4 million listings, CarGurus has more car listings than any other major online automotive marketplace in the United States. So you can find the best deal. It's no wonder that similar web estimated traffic data shows Cargurus is the number one most visited shopping site. So buy or sell your next car today with CarGurus. At CarGurus.com Go to CarGurus.com to make sure your big deal is the best deal that C A R g u r us.com cargurus.com if you could stop somebody from breaking in before they got inside, why wouldn't you? Most old school systems go off after someone's already in your place and that is obviously too late. Simplisafe, though, is different. It's proactive, with a double layer of defense that stops crime before it starts. First, AI powered cameras spot potential threats outside and then live agents step in talking to the person through the camera, letting them know they're on video and that police will be dispatched if they don't leave. They can even trigger a loud siren or spotlight. That is how you stop a crime before it starts. And Personally, I trust SimpliSafe to protect what matters at my home. From my daughter to my wife to, you know, 3,000 or so pages of documents that I gotta keep safe. Simplisafe's double layer protection allows me to fall asleep with no worries. Plus, there are no contracts and SimpliSafe was just named the best home security of 2025 by US News and World Report. So you know you're getting great protection with no commitment. It is also the best time to buy because SimpliSafe's Last Chance Black Friday sale, 50% off any new system [e-mail] Pablo that's simplisafe.com Pablo there's no safe like SimpliSafe.

[Verizon Ad Voice]

This holiday, Verizon is giving you incredible gifts and savings you'll enjoy all year. When you Switch, you'll get four new iPhone 17 Pros. No trade in needed. That's right, get four lines for just $25 a line. And the amazing iPhone 17 Pro for everyone. Save big this holiday. Visit Verizon today.

[Verizon Terms Voice]

20 monthly promo credits applied to account over 35 months with a new line on unlimited welcome. In times of congestion, unlimited 5G and 4G LTE may be temporarily slower than other traffic. Domestic data roaming at 2G speeds. Additional terms of high for phone offer. See verizon.com for details.

[Joe Mandy]

But imagine seeing bright in theaters instead of on your TV or red notice.

[Pablo Torre]

Imagine if Fred Flintstone was also a character in the red notice cinematic universe.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah, imagine there's a possibility when this happens, there will be a function where we could watch House of Cars, but Fred Flintstone instead of Kevin Spacey.

[Mike Sher]

Yeah, that's definitely possible.

[Joe Mandy]

And for that I say we do it well.

[Mike Sher]

You think it's cool?

[Joe Mandy]

I think it's cool. And you're naming all these things that it's bad for, but it's good for Israel if Allison gets it, this is great for Israel.

[Pablo Torre]

I do want to bring it back to David Ellison and the Ellisons, by the way, on that note, because one of the funny things that these again, literal richest people in the world are being reduced to because they thirst for content, which is a synonym not to be so grandiose about it, but for our culture, right. Is that David Ellison is texting David Zaslav, who is another big character in this story. He's the guy running Warner Brothers Discovery, which contains many things, including cnn, which is also floating in the geopolitical stew that Joe is describing, as well as hbo. David Zaslav, who you may recall from the time he clearly bought a Knicks cap and wore it courtside, having never worn seemingly a cap before in his life. What David Ellison texted David Zaslav was, quote, have you guys seen this text exchange?

[Joe Mandy]

No.

[Mike Sher]

No.

[Pablo Torre]

This is going to the Financial Times. And the first word is David, because it's D A I V D. He immediately misspells David.

[Joe Mandy]

Dude, all these people who are so powerful cannot spell, like the Epstein emails that.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, it's a big takeaway, honestly. I mean, this. It's a big takeaway. How. How these people are communicating in real life is insulting to anybody who takes the second.

[Joe Mandy]

Use your AI to spell correctly. Idiots.

[Pablo Torre]

Dev, I appreciate your underwater today, so I wanted to send you a quick text. No. Despite the noise of the last 24 hours, I have nothing but respect and admiration for you and the company. This is the last stitch personal appeal that he made. Continuing on, it would be the honor of a lifetime. And honor is spelled the British way. An oh again, owing to the feudal system.

[Joe Mandy]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

I didn't realize that David Elson had that in him, but he does. It would be the honor, honor of a lifetime to be your partner and to be the owner of these iconic assets. If we have the privilege to work together, you will see that my father and I are the people you had dinner with. End quote. That's how the sausage is made.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Is that. You had dinner with your dad, and now you are appealing to this guy in a way that indicates you will do anything except for spell his name correctly in the first word of the message.

[Mike Sher]

You know what's interesting about his own name?

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, it's also his own name. Yeah, I. Let me say there's a certain poetry in that now that I just want to sit with it for a second. Mike. Yeah, go ahead.

[Mike Sher]

There is something about these folks that if you want to be sort of, I don't know, benefit of the dowdy or glass half fully or something, like David Zaslav, who, you know, took over this iconic company. Like, he, like, bought Jack Warner's old desk and he sat and he moved that into his office and he met with folks. Joe and I both work on hacks. Joe's been writing for hacks from the beginning. It's a show I produce. It's really run by our friends Jen, Paul and Lucia. And he asked to meet with them early on, and he was incredibly complimentary about the show and talked about how much he loved the show and how great he thought it was and said.

[Joe Mandy]

His favorite character was Ray, the hotel.

[Mike Sher]

Clerk, which I. Joe's character. Yeah, the. Who worked at the hotel. There is an aspect of this where this. This class of person, they do genuinely, I think, at some level, love Hollywood. Yes, they love it.

[Pablo Torre]

It's like.

[Mike Sher]

Because Hollywood's, like, fun and it's glamorous and it's exciting and there's. And making movies is fun. And TV shows and actors and, like, parties on rooftop bars in Hollywood like this.

[Pablo Torre]

It is.

[Mike Sher]

There isn't. They're not. They don't think of it necessarily in the coldest possible terms. I think they genuinely. A lot of them have a genuine affection for Hollywood. I think it's probably the only reason Hollywood still exists at some level is because they.

[Pablo Torre]

The.

[Mike Sher]

These folks still think that it's cool. And, you know, that is that. It seems like a wild thing to say, but, like, it is a prerequisite of owning one of these companies. You have to like it. You have to think that movies and tv. TV shows are cool and want to genuinely keep making them. What gets in the way is their, like, sort of ruthless business sense of, like, how can we make everything as efficient as it can possibly be? And, you know, Hollywood is by definition an inefficient business. You're trying a bunch of stuff and you're throwing a bunch of ideas at the wall. You never really know what is going to stick. And the. The whole world of that we're in now of algorithms and predictive AI and all that stuff is their attempt to apply a sort of tech ethos to an industry that is fundamentally not receptive to that ethos, because no one can predict how, like, when the Sopranos came out or Breaking Bad or Mad Men or any of those shows that we now consider to be classics, Seinfeld or Cheers or any of those things. Like, no one watched them at first, and then slowly the creative teams behind them turn them into these wonderful, beloved things. That's the kind of thing that, like, ruthlessness and efficiency and AI will drum out of Hollywood because it'll be like, well, the completion rate for the first four episodes of Cheers or Seinfeld or Breaking Bad was very low, and we're going to cancel it and move on. And Try to find something that has a higher completion rate. That's the fear that we all have.

[Joe Mandy]

Everything will be reverse engineered. They'll see Suits is doing really well and people like Avatar. So can we make a show like Suits but underwater or whatever? You know, it's like.

[Mike Sher]

Yeah, yeah, that's the fear. And that's why, that's my personal fear about the world that we're in, is because they are, as you put it, like sort of retro engineering. They're going out to the audience and they're gaining data about the audience's viewing habits. And they are then making things that they think will comport with what they have said they already like. And the whole point of Hollywood in its history and storytelling in general is that people push the envelope outwards. And if everything is retro engineered from what has already been approved, you don't get that. And that necessarily, like sands off the edges of what is possible and what is creatively exciting.

[Joe Mandy]

Wait, but I did just think of a show idea called Wet Suits. And it's just Suits underwater, but it's.

[Mike Sher]

A legal, illegal drama that takes place underwater.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah, Wetsuit.

[Pablo Torre]

Mike, you care about the University of Michigan, right?

[Mike Sher]

I do, yeah. I was born in Ann Arbor.

[Pablo Torre]

So you're familiar with Larry Ellison's role in the Nil budgeting for.

[Mike Sher]

Not sure. Well, I, I, I know about, like, Bryce Underwood, current.

[Pablo Torre]

That's what I'm referring to.

[Mike Sher]

Michigan.

[Pablo Torre]

That's what I'm referring to. Can you help tell the story? Because what I know at the highest level is that no one. So Larry Elson has. And this is not a judgment, it is merely a statement of fact that sets up what we're about to talk about. Six marriages, zero known prenups. Cool.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah, that rocks.

[Pablo Torre]

Amazing. He was not known to have been in the relationship. That came to the fore when it was announced that Larry Ellison had called up Dave Portnoy, the proprietor of Barstool Sports, to get involved in the recruiting of Bryce Underwood, who was a top quarterback prospect. And he was doing it at the behest and the encouragement of his partner, who is a woman who no one knew existed, it seems, but was revealed, Mike, in the course of their funding of, OH, Larry Ellison's now underwriting University of Michigan's football team. And it was a thing that I don't totally understand except to say that it seems to have worked.

[Mike Sher]

Yeah, he play, he plays for Michigan, so I think, I guess it worked. I don't, I didn't follow it very closely. I will say, though, that of all of the things that we want our billionaires spending money on. This is by far the best, in my opinion.

[Joe Mandy]

Right.

[Mike Sher]

It's like the college athletes in general being conscripted labor for organizations and groups that have made billions and billions and billions of dollars and have never gotten anything. No health care, no salary, nothing. The NIL era has at least made it so that they are of part profiting from their own work. And when I read this, I was like, yes, Larry Ellison, focus on this. Focus on the University of Michigan quarterbacks problem and then go.

[Pablo Torre]

While you're at it, go pick up.

[Mike Sher]

A few offensive linemen, go see if there's a running back who. Who needs some money. And I fully support it.

[Pablo Torre]

I want to just give you the last paragraph of this Fortune story, because I think it's a time capsule. We should. We should consider for a bit. For Michigan landing, Underwood was also about proving they could compete with the financial firepower of SEC programs in the new NIL landscape. As Portnoy said on his podcast, quote, when Larry Ellison targets someone, it's essentially a foregone conclusion. End quote, end of story. Footnote. For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with initial draft.

[Joe Mandy]

Great.

[Pablo Torre]

An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing. Period.

[Mike Sher]

Oh, God.

[Pablo Torre]

Nice.

[Joe Mandy]

Love that. Oh, that rocks.

[Pablo Torre]

This is good. Exactly. It's exactly how I want information.

[Joe Mandy]

Also so sinister to be like when he targets you with his fleet of drones, his private drone army.

[Pablo Torre]

He'll find you, except for Warner Brothers, potentially. Mike, I wonder if you have a rooting interest, like, who do you want to win this contest? Who would you rather own? Warner Brothers and all of its assorted assets as a raid across news and entertainment?

[Mike Sher]

I would rather Warner Brothers. Own Warner Brothers. Frankly, that doesn't seem possible. It was bought by Zaslav and Discovery and saddled with, I think, $45 billion in debt, which meant it was only a matter of time until he, you know, stripped away and sold off the copper wiring and then flipped it to someone else. I believe he also paid himself $250 million as, like, a bonus finder's fee when he bought the company, which is pretty amazing. The report I read a couple days ago is that by the time this is over, he will be a billionaire, which is probably all that he really ever wanted at some level. Time Warner and Warner Brothers are, you know, old venerable entertainment companies. They. And they have. It has been passed around like a stinky plate of hors d' oeuvres at a. At a crummy billionaire cocktail party for 30 years now. AOL bought it, you know, with fake money in the late 90s, early 2000s, and then it kind of chugged along and then Discovery bought it and saddled it with debt and stripped it for parts and buried a bunch of movies. The Batgirl movie famously was just thrown in the garbage. Other TV shows and movies were made and then thrown in the garbage as tax write offs. And now it's being flipped to someone else. And the crazy thing is, is that this whole time, what is the single best brand in television? Hbo. HBO has managed through all of this stuff to just plug along and make great TV shows and great movies and great miniseries and great documentaries against all odds, while the while their parent company was just absolutely buffeted by various billionaire wins. And to that extent, the answer is, I don't want this to happen. I hope that somehow it doesn't happen. If you have Joe's job or my job, you know, you have an idea for a TV show or a movie, there's what, half a dozen places that can buy it, and when two of them merge, that means there's only five places who can buy it. Now there's 16% less opportunity to sell an idea you have.

[Joe Mandy]

Like, again, where do we take Wetsuits?

[Mike Sher]

We Wetsuits is. Has a very slim chance of being bought now because of this murder. And so I don't want anyone to buy it. I will say, though, that, you know, at the very least, I guess you would say Netflix, it just makes stuff. They make a ton of stuff. They might make too much stuff, but they do make stuff and they have a platform, a global platform to actually distribute it. And I think on balance, the best of two bad outcomes would be that Netflix gets this to work in their favor. But again, I can't emphasize this enough. Either way, it's not good. It is bad for writers, bad for actors, bad for directors, and bad for consumers.

[Pablo Torre]

It is farcical that, like, Warner Brothers can't exist on its own. I mean, the question of, like, well, think about this.

[Mike Sher]

Like, this is the thing that you have to think about, right Again, hbo, HBO and HBO Max. Like, that brand means so much to people our age and to people of most ages. HBO Max is the same thing as Netflix. It's an Internet streaming platform for content. What happens if Netflix buys this? Does HBO disappear forever? Is that it? Is it like a tile within Netflix? Do they get to keep Casey Bloys and all the folks at that company who have been responsible for some of your favorite shows and movies? And miniseries and documentaries or are they announced as redundant and shuffled off to Buffalo? Like there are people whose job it is to still, even in this era of AI and of predictive viewing and all that stuff, whose job it is to program places, to figure out what are the stories we want to tell that are good and how can we get them to people. And those people are in danger, just like writers and actors and directors and crew members are. Those people, the executives who program things are in danger by mergers like this. I'll raise it one more time as an example. Hacks exists because Jen Paul Naccia had this idea and they worked on it for five years and we went out and we pitched it everywhere. We pitched it to Netflix and we pitched it to Hulu. When we pitched it to hbo, it was a tough sell because it was a show about a 70 year old woman who lives in Las Vegas and who is a stand up comedian who takes on A. A 25 year old apprentice to write jokes for a stand up routine. It was not the kind of idea that AI would suggest had a big chance for success. Right.

[Joe Mandy]

It's on, it's on land. The whole show takes place on land.

[Mike Sher]

Yeah. Not a single, not a single underwater legal drama.

[Pablo Torre]

Dry as hell.

[Mike Sher]

Dry as hell. And the, the woman, there was a woman named Susanna Makos who worked at HBO Max, who just got it. A group of humans use their human mouths to communicate an idea for a TV show. And another human person heard that idea and understood why it was good and said, yes, I want to do this. The more we get into this merger world and this AI world and this kind of collapsing universe where everything is predictive based on previous viewing habits, the less chance there is for a show like Hacks to ever exist again. And that, that is sad. The reason Hollywood is fun, the reason that those billionaires want to buy it and hang out and live in this world is because it's glamorous and exciting and fun. And this, it's like the essence of what it means to be a human being is right. Is telling stories. And the fewer places there are to tell stories and the less chance there are for those human stories to be told again. For the millionth time, I'll say, the worse off everyone is.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. The term I think of when it comes to like what should the slogan politically be? And I think about this because Lina Khan's been a guest on our show a couple times and she has been the most effective both political figure as the former chair of the ftc, but also I think one of the most effective communicators, because her whole thing, the reason why she is very bizarrely really liked by, like, Steve Bannon and people who claim at the very least, populism as well as quote, unquote, you know, whatever the left the libs is. Because competition is the thing that we have forgotten as this priority for what it means to have even a vaguely functioning capitalist system. The question of what happens when there are two buyers or one buyer? Like, the prices will go up. They will have to care less about the product they're delivering to you because you don't have the alternatives.

[Joe Mandy]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

And so what is the lesson from sports that can be applied to entertainment? Again, it's that more competition is probably a virtue when it comes to what anything resembling a marketplace is like. And then to answer the question Mike posed, Joe, Ted Sarandos was speaking, answering the question of, like, what about hbo? What about the brand that earns the things, awards that I can't just buy? He's speaking at the UBS Global Media.

[Joe Mandy]

Communications Conference and he says, oh, I missed that. I was gonna go, yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

What Ted Serrando said was, quote, this is a prestige television brand that people really love. I would say that they have been doing gymnastics to make themselves into a general entertainment brand. And I think under this transaction, they don't have to do that anymore. We're already a very well established general entertainment brand and we want HBO to double down on the things that people have loved for 50 years about HBO, end quote.

[Mike Sher]

To put a fine point on this, no matter who buys it, like, HBO is in the business of making a small number, a relatively small number of very expensive TV shows and movies. Very expensive, like, you know, things that are extremely high quality, that take a long time to shoot, and that are. When you watch them, you're just like, man, that. Look how good that looks. The level of filmmaking of an HBO product is incredibly high. And that is the kind of thing that no matter who buys them, you have to just say, okay, keep doing that. It is not the most tech efficient, streamlined kind of production, but it is worth doing because it's artistic and it's, you know, the imprimatur of HBO means a lot to viewers and to the world of, of Hollywood. And so right now anyone can say, yes, we're going to let HBO keep doing what they've been doing. After four years, when they've had a couple shows or expensive projects that didn't work out so well, will they still maintain that? Well, the tech guys who Run those companies still say, you know what? I don't care that we're losing money or that we're not making as much money as we could. Keep going HBO because you're great and we love you. They've had that protection for years, decades even, because they win awards and because they, that brand means something. If they're bought by a tech company, any tech company. If, if, if Amazon bought them, would they still maintain that? I don't know. And that's, that's the scary thing. Like, the landscape of TV used to have a lot of different outlets that meant a lot of different things. And different shows could go to different places for different reasons. And they all had brands and, you know, you wanted to make a fun, you know, down the middle of the road, multicam comedy. You put it on cbs. You want to make a super high end like you want to make I may destroy you. You go to hbo and at some point when these companies all merge and they all became the same people and they're run by algorithms and they have massive, you know, institutional shareholders who demand a certain profit level, do they still allow places like HBO to make I May destroy you? And the Wire that nobody watched ever. No one ever watched the Wire. And the Wires may be the most important TV show of the last 50 years. That's my fear as a writer and as a producer, is that the mergers and the consolidation ultimately just drives everything to the middle. And you don't get the kinds of shows that make a lasting impression on us as a, as a human species that we lose the, the far edges of creativity and everything just gets crunched into like. That's why they call it content.

[Pablo Torre]

Right?

[Mike Sher]

It's not shows, it's not movies. It's just, it's just slabs of the, of a gelatinous substance. It's like the stuff that they eat in Snowpiercer. It's just like a gelatinous cube and they cut off a chunk of content and they give it to you and it's all just the same stuff. And if we lose the ecosystem that allows both the Big Bang theory and I May destroy you to exist and be successful at the same moment in time, then we're losing Hollywood and we're losing storytelling.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah, but like, and I love the Wire, you know, I love the Wire, but imagine if Omar was Fred Flintstone. That's what like, like you have to the, the viewing pleasure of that content.

[Mike Sher]

Oh, instead of walking down the street and whistling the farmer in the Dell, he's scrambling in a car by running his feet on the ground through the hole in the car. And there's a giant and there's a Bronto burger in the back.

[Pablo Torre]

What if instead of wearing a wire, someone had to carry around a big.

[Joe Mandy]

Bird with a cord attached to it? Oh yeah.

[Mike Sher]

That's who then looked at the camera and said, it's a living.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah. I mean, I see like, I see a silver lining here.

[Mike Sher]

You really do. That's what I love about you, Joe, is you're so optimistic.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah.

[Verizon Ad Voice]

This holiday, Verizon is giving you incredible gifts and savings you'll enjoy all year. When you Switch, you'll get four new iPhone 17 Pros. No trade in needed. That's right, get four lines for just $25 a line and the amazing iPhone 17 Pro for everyone. Save big this holiday. Visit Verizon today.

[Verizon Terms Voice]

$20 monthly promo credits applied to account over 35 months with a new line on unlimited welcome. In times of congestion, unlimited 5G and 4G LTE may be temporarily slower than other traffic. Domestic Data roaming at 2G speeds. Additional terms of high for phone offer. See verizon.com for details.

[Blue Apron Ad Voice]

Maybe you like cooking, maybe you don't. Either way, the new Blue Apron is for you because along with our classic meal kits, we're offering new pre made and one pan meals to help you get dinner on the table fast. And now there is no subscription needed so you can just order and enjoy. Do delicious food your way. Shop 100/[e-mail] Get 50% off your first two orders with code APRON50. Terms and conditions apply. Visit blueapron.com terms for more.

[Xero Ad Voice]

Take control of the numbers and supercharge your small business with Xero. That's X E R O. With our easy to use accounting software with automation and reporting features, you'll spend less time on manual tasks and more time understanding how your business is doing. 87% of surveyed US customers agree Xero helps improve financial visibility. Search Xero with an x or visit xero.comacast to start your 30 day free trial. Conditions apply.

[Mike Sher]

It's third down.

[Instacart Ad Voice]

Did you see the game last night? Of course you did. Because you used Instacart to do your grocery restock. Plus you got snacks for the game, all without missing a single play. And that's on multitasking. So we're not saying that Instacart is a hack for game day, but it might be the ultimate play this football season. Enjoy. $0 delivery fees on your first 3 orders. Service fees apply for 3 orders in 14 days. Excludes restaurants. Instacart. We're.

[Pablo Torre]

So at the end here. We promised.

[Joe Mandy]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

A big reveal that as we talk about what rich people want to buy that they can't quite get and have to elbow each other out for, we explained that you are, yourself, a very human craftsman.

[Joe Mandy]

Right? I'm. Well, actor. First. Actor, writer, embroiderer.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. And we'll throw on the screen again a gallery of the works that you made during the Pandemic. If you didn't watch the first episode we did, you should get a tour of Joe Mandy's personal psychology. Yeah. What was your favorite one of the previous batch? Do you have a favorite of the Joe hats that he had embroidered?

[Mike Sher]

The Dershowitz one is hard to beat. It was it Detroit Tigers?

[Pablo Torre]

Who was it?

[Joe Mandy]

Detroit Tigers. Yeah. And gothic.

[Mike Sher]

So for those of you who didn't see it, it was just. He would take. Buy baseball hats that had the letter usually of the team or the logo, and then embroider in that font a word using that letter.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah.

[Mike Sher]

Usually nonsensical. Just the first thing that kind of popped into your head.

[Joe Mandy]

Just flow state. Yeah, exactly.

[Pablo Torre]

My favorite hat, for the record, was the. Was the New York giants. Coney.

[Joe Mandy]

Coney 2012.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Mike Sher]

2020. Yeah. That was a good one. Can I get. So this is an MT we're about to.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, yeah. Let me, let me, let me.

[Mike Sher]

All right, well, don't show me yet because. No, not yet.

[Pablo Torre]

Never. Never. Joe, if you could just.

[Joe Mandy]

I'll hold it.

[Pablo Torre]

You could. You could show the back.

[Joe Mandy]

NBA.

[Mike Sher]

Okay, here I have. I have four guests.

[Pablo Torre]

Five guesses.

[Joe Mandy]

Okay. I'm so excited.

[Mike Sher]

Madame Tussauds.

[Joe Mandy]

No.

[Mike Sher]

Okay. Meatball time.

[Joe Mandy]

Interesting. I will. Okay.

[Mike Sher]

More tickling. Magic turkey.

[Joe Mandy]

Okay.

[Mike Sher]

And mini taquitos. There's a food theme.

[Joe Mandy]

Yeah. There. I will say you were kind of off the mark.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, I should clarify that we are going to do something that we have not done on the show before, thanks to Joe's actual generosity, which is auction this hat off for a good cause. St. Jude's David Sampson. Mike, you're a frenemy. His daughter is waging a very valiant war against a thing that in her own very minimal way, want to help the fight towards.

[Joe Mandy]

So this hat will be auctioned off for. For. To St. Jude and, Mike, the word is chemtrails. So you were kind of off because I.

[Pablo Torre]

How did I. You know what?

[Mike Sher]

This is a hundred percent on me.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Mike Sher]

I did not think about the artist. I should have. This is a. It's a good lesson for whoever wins the merger, think about the artist and let the artist do their thing.

[Pablo Torre]

And as for where you can actually bid on this truly handmade piece of art, Joe Mandy's Chemtrails Minnesota Timberwolves cap this actual one of one item, something that no large language model could ever imagine. We have a new website for you to visit ptfo.betterworld.org again that is ptfo.betterworld.org all proceeds really will go to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in honor of our good friend David Sampson and his daughter and every other family fighting cancer. So Pablo Torre finds out duly thanks you for your bidding and we are produced by Walter Averoma, Maxwell Carney, Ryan Cortez, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, neely Loman, Rob McRae, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor and Chris Tominiello RStudio Engineering by RG Systems Sound Design by Andrew Burcic and NGW Post Theme Song as always by John Bravo and we will talk to you. Foreign.

[Verizon Ad Voice]

This holiday, Verizon is giving you incredible gifts and savings you'll enjoy all year. When you Switch, you'll get four new iPhone 17 Pros. No trade in needed. That's right, get four lines for just 25 a line and the amazing iPhone 17 Pro for everyone. Save big this holiday. Visit Verizon today.

[Verizon Terms Voice]

20 monthly promo credits apply to account over 35 months with a new line on Unlimited welcome. In times of congestion, unlimited 5G and 4G LTE may be temporarily slower than other traffic domestic data roaming at 2G speeds. Additional terms apply for phone offer. See verizon.com for details.

[Pablo Torre]

When you're a forward thinker, you don't.

[Mike Sher]

Just bring your A game, you bring your AI game.

[Pablo Torre]

Workday is the AI platform that transforms.

[Mike Sher]

The way you manage your people, money and agents so you can transform tomorrow.

[Pablo Torre]

Workday, moving business forever forward.

[American Red Cross Ad Voice]

This holiday season, millions of families will pack their bags, load up the car and head off for a family vacation. But not every trip is going to be somewhere fun. The American Red Cross responds to about 7,000 emergencies during the holiday season alone, from home fires to natural disasters, providing families a safe place to go when the unthinkable happens. But they can't do it without your support. Please [e-mail] this is the table, the.

[Chase Sapphire Reserve Ad Voice]

One with the view. This is how you reserve exclusive tables with Chase Sapphire Reserve. This is your name on the list. This is the chef sending you something he didn't put on the menu. This is 3 times points on dining with Chase Sapphire reserve and a $300 dining credit that covered the citrus pavlova and drinks and the thing you didn't think you liked until you tasted it. Chase Sapphire Reserve now even more rewarding.

[Mike Sher]

Learn [e-mail] Sapphire Reserv cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank NA member FDIC subject to credit approval.