← SNAFU with Ed Helms
SNAFU with Ed Helms
Behind the SNAFU Book – plus, your chance to meet Ed on tour (or virtually)!
00:19:16
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- [00:00]
Ed Helms
You're listening to an IHEART podcast.
- [00:05]
Ryan
It is Ryan here and I have a question for you. What do you do when you win? Like, are you a fist pumper?
- [00:12]
Carl Nellis
A Woo hooer?
- [00:13]
Ryan
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- [00:30]
Ed Helms
Purchase necessary VGW Group void where prohibited by law. 21/ Terms and Conditions apply.
- [00:35]
Adam
Does this podcast make you happy? Of course it does. That's why you're here. But it only comes out once a week. For happiness, every night. You need Adam and Eve. Yes. I'm talking about sex toys. It's cool, it's cool. You have earbuds in, right? Adam and Eve, America's most trusted source for adult products, has been making people very happy for over 50 years with thousands of toys for both men and women. Just go to AdamAndEve.com now and enter code IHEART for 50% off. Almost any one item, plus free discreet shipping. That's AdamAndEve.com code IHEART for 50% OFF.
- [01:20]
Ed Helms
Hey everyone, this is SNAFU, the podcast about history's greatest screw ups. I am your host, Ed Helms. And and today, before we wrap up season three next Wednesday, I thought I'd insert a little special bonus episode here. I'm really excited to take you behind the scenes of SNAFU a little bit and also share with you a bit more about my Snafu book coming out very soon, which I'm so, so excited about. So to do that, I have roped in one of our incredible, brilliant, unbelievable, talented, hilarious, and did I say brilliant? I think I did. SNAFU producers Carl Nellis. Carl, thanks for joining us today.
- [02:07]
Carl Nellis
Hey, thanks for bringing me onto the mic. It's a little wild to be here.
- [02:12]
Ed Helms
You're on camera. You're in the hot seat today, Carl.
- [02:15]
Carl Nellis
I'm feeling it. Feel the heat.
- [02:16]
Ed Helms
Yeah, you feel the heat. Because whenever we're recording a SNAFU episode, Carl is here. Carl is with me. He's helping me with the spontaneous rewrite edits, he's reflecting with me. And he's just one of the great sort of guideposts in this whole process. And also just a genuine history fiend like myself, which is why it's so fun to collaborate with you, Carl. Here's Another little Easter egg for you. Carl is in season three. Also, Carl voices some of the characters throughout the season. Do you want to fill us in on any of those?
- [02:56]
Carl Nellis
Well, I would never tell who it is, but yeah, it's such a joy to do that. And many of the other producers at Gilded Audio, Film Nation Team Season 3 was so fun because there were those little chances to voice a bit here and there.
- [03:12]
Ed Helms
Yeah, we roped in the whole gang in lots of little pieces here and there, which always makes it fun. Let's talk a little bit about where these snafus come from. Like you mentioned, we have a great team between Gilded Audio and Film Nation and my company, Pacific Electric. We just have a lot of really smart, wonderful people contributing to the show. And let's talk a little bit about how we find these snafus.
- [03:37]
Carl Nellis
Carl. Yeah, so we often think of it like a treasure hunt. There's so many great stories across time and place. We know they're out there. And so we get together, we set the vision and we go looking and we just come back with so many incredible, sometimes small, sometimes big, you know, amazing stories of great screw ups to cover and consider. Take lessons from sometimes. Laugh at, laugh with. It's so fun that we're all doing it together and then we come and bring them to each other, discuss, pick the best ones, chuckle.
- [04:12]
Ed Helms
And let's be honest, there are too many. There are too many snafus to choose from. We do dumb things. We've done dumb things throughout history. It is one of the great consistencies of human behavior throughout the centuries. We're just very, very dumb. And so there's so much to choose from. And as we dig through everything and decide what to put on the podcast, we have stumbled on such a treasure trove that this is what fueled the book. So I'm gonna turn the tables on you, Carl. I'm usually the one interviewing on this show. I want you to interview me a little bit about the book so I can help listeners understand what to expect and why this book is gonna be so fun and cool.
- [05:00]
Carl Nellis
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and let's start right there with the foundational idea. Why? Why go from audio to book? And what excites you about turning these snafu stories into a book?
- [05:12]
Ed Helms
Great question. Well, I love the audio medium because there are so many opportunities to be playful and it's obviously very adjacent to the film and television mediums I'm so used to. But there were a lot of snafus that didn't have the depth that we require to dive into them on this show. And so it started to gel that maybe these are like, maybe these would just make good book chapters. A book allows you to be visual, right? With illustrations and historical documents and so forth. We brought in an amazing illustrator, Mark Harris, and had him sort of interpret some of these snafus into his particular form of artistic expression, which is these really cool kind of collage style pieces. And they're peppered throughout the book. That's something you can't do in a podcast, right? You can't rope in a Mark Harris to throw in some jazzy visuals in so doing, I feel like we've, like, we got this really cool collection of art. Like, I want to hang this stuff in my house. It's a new and different kind of collaboration for the team and one that's been really, really fun.
- [06:25]
Carl Nellis
You're right. It's so gorgeous. And some of the ways that he manipulates historical photographs, like you're seeing the real photograph of the real thing. But then he's really put it into his style and his idiom. It's so, so fun to see. For my part, I was a book editor before audio, so I went book editor, audio. Now back to book again. I'm just feeling right at home. I'm so, so glad to be doing this project.
- [06:46]
Ed Helms
Amen.
- [06:47]
Carl Nellis
What are you feeling about this being your first book coming out? Do you have particular book feelings with this book about the about to launch?
- [06:56]
Ed Helms
Great question. Book feelings, like you said, never written a book before. I usually only look at books with pictures, cartoon books. I'm scared of long stretches of text. No, I will say that it's such a different approach and the process is so much more isolating and kind of individual that there's some beauty to that. I think it just hit me like, how much work it is to make a book. And there's just so many steps to the process, editing, the revising the notes, and getting so much incredible feedback from the team. It's a lot.
- [07:40]
Carl Nellis
And then on the publisher side, editors, their team, they're also putting in work when you hand it off to them. So maybe we think of books as individual projects, but like you said, there are these pieces, different people getting it ready to go out where people can actually pick up a chunk of paper and read the ink off it. There's a lot of steps along the way from your desk to there. It's fun to see it all come together as we head toward launch.
- [08:04]
Ed Helms
Yeah, very, very proud. I'm also proud of the comedic tone That I think we, as a team on the podcast have worked so hard to dial in over these three seasons, and that I can tell you just it's informed so much of the book as well. It's always echoing in my head, like, how would we say this in the podcast? What's the funny thing? Or what's the appropriate joke here versus what's the easy joke? Or the maybe this joke is too crude. Maybe this is not a place for a joke. It's a constant analysis, but really, really a fun part of the process and something I'm really proud of.
- [08:41]
Carl Nellis
And speaking of what the stories are about, how they shape the tone or invite certain kinds of, like you said, jokes, pathos, et cetera. Let's head into the book a little bit. Can you take us inside? How is it set up? What are readers gonna find in there when they crack open the COVID The.
- [08:54]
Ed Helms
Book is structured in six parts, which are roughly decades, starting in the 50s and through to the present. And within each of those chunks is a bunch of, like, a handful of snafus. It's really, I think, instructive and meaningful to group these snafus by decade because it gives us a little bit of a cultural lens for context, and it's a fun way to look at things. We all have associations with the 60s. We have associations with the 70s and the 80s and so on. And so we bring those associations to these stories that happen in these time periods, but also, like, they're meaningful. Like, the things that are happening culturally are really affecting even what we think of as a snafu. Right?
- [09:40]
Carl Nellis
Like, yes, yes. It helps us in thinking about it. And like, oh, this was my grandpa's snafu. This is the one that had him, like, white knuckling his armchair and, oh, this was my dad's snafu. And then, like you said, we come up to the present and there are stories where I'm like, yeah, I remember that. I remember how I felt reading that in the news. And then the story that we get in the book kind of peels back that headline layer and takes us into, with each story, some of the intricacies behind it. And that's a fascinating process, even for the stuff that is in the present, where I'm like, yeah, that's my snafu. That's my present day snafu. I'm like, wow, there's some new nuggets here. Even for me who remembers that present day event. You're right. Like, each of them has a different flavor, the different decade.
- [10:18]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [10:38]
Adam
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- [11:27]
Unknown
Asking the right questions can greatly impact your future, especially when it comes to your finances. So if you're looking for a financial advisor you can trust, certified financial planner professionals are committed to acting in your best interest. That's why it's gotta be a CFP. Find your CFP professional@letsmakeaplan.org.
- [11:49]
Carl Nellis
So speaking of those stories, what are some of your favorites from the book? Now that you've put this book together, like, what's sticking with you?
- [11:57]
Ed Helms
Honestly, they're all my babies, so it's hard to pick. But there are a few that jump to mind. One I love cause it has a little bit of Hollywood razzmatazz to it. There was a CIA operation called Project Azorian and basically a Soviet sub sank in the Pacific Ocean. The Soviets didn't know where it was, but we did. We knew exactly where it was. And not only that, we wanted it for, you know, serious intel. Right? It would have lots of technology in it. It's a nuclear sub. It would have all this Soviet technology that we were trying to decipher and code breaking manuals and all kinds of stuff. So we wanted this sub. But it's like two miles deep in the middle of the North Pacific. You can't just like go and get that without causing a huge hubbub. So the CIA approaches Howard Hughes, the reclusive billionaire Hollywood producer and weird businessman who's like, literally living in a penthouse of a Las Vegas casino at this point, and they say, hey, Howard, will you pretend like you're going to get into deep sea mineral mining and that you're going to build this ship, that. That for your mining operations? But actually it's our plan to build a ship to lower a claw down into the ocean to grab this nuclear sub. But we're going to. The COVID story is that you are doing deep sea mining. And Howard Hughes, of course, who's insane, is like, yeah, sure, that sounds awesome.
- [13:31]
Carl Nellis
I love to lie about deep sea mining.
- [13:33]
Ed Helms
Yeah, exactly. So they do this. They build this. This crazy ship with a giant claw, just like the arcade claw games, and they head out into the middle of the Pacific. They lower the claw, it's two miles deep, and they get the sub. But of course, it takes forever. It takes two days just to winch it back up. And then once they get to the top, it breaks. It's just a wild, hilarious, and insane story. And I love how much hubris is baked into it. But then also, it's weirdly successful. It's a funny thing to include as a snafu because a lot of CIA people were saying, I know that we didn't get all the intel we wanted, but we still pulled off this insane thing. So it's still like, we want to call it a success, but at the end of the day, it hardly justified the hundreds of millions of dollars it cost to do what they did. So I think it rests firmly in the snafu category. But it's just an awesome and wild, wild story. What's one of your favorites from the book?
- [14:43]
Carl Nellis
Well, and just from that story, there's also a phrase that the CIA used to cover their tracks about that secret operation that has entered the public lexicon. And if you want to know what it is, gotta read that chapter of the book.
- [14:59]
Ryan Reynolds
Thank you.
- [14:59]
Carl Nellis
Yeah, for me, there's one from the 1950s where there was a Canadian nuclear reactor that melts down, and the Canadians need immediate emergency help to contain the disaster that's happening. And so they reach out to the nearest experts, and it's some US nuclear sub guys in New York State. They head up over the border, they work out a wild plan to save this melting down nuclear reactor. And the thing that's so cool about this story is that the person leading that team trying to save the melting down nuclear reactor is Future President Jimmy Carter.
- [15:40]
Ed Helms
And he's what, 22, I think.
- [15:42]
Carl Nellis
Yeah. In his 20s?
- [15:43]
Ed Helms
No, he's very, very young at this point.
- [15:45]
Carl Nellis
And there's also a little connection in this chapter to the Allman Brothers that I love. It's one of those really funny moments that I'm glad is in the book.
- [15:52]
Ed Helms
Well, Jimmy was buds with the Allman Brothers, which is a great detail. He's from Jimmy's. From what? Americus, Georgia. And the Allman Brothers are from Macon, Georgia. It's just. It's Georgia. We all love Peanuts. I'm from Atlanta. It's like we just. We all stick together. Georgia, Georgia. Folks, you know, we have each other's back.
- [16:13]
Carl Nellis
How about one more from you, Ed? Is there another chapter that you'd like to talk about?
- [16:17]
Ed Helms
We get into the fabulous Suez Canal disaster, which most people know, and because it was so recent, the giant tanker or container ship that just got wedged in the Suez Canal and suddenly made the world realize how dependent we are on this teeny, tiny little stretch of water that is actually a corridor for the biggest supply chains in the world, for everything. And they wind up dredging and digging and digging and digging. But the great detail is that it's actually this full moon occurrence that allows the tide to rise high enough to just barely nudge it off the bank and get it free. But it's just a wild story and there's so many fun details in terms.
- [17:13]
Carl Nellis
Of the book coming out. I mean, we're talking about this because we're getting close. What's it like gearing up for a book launch? Does it feel similar to you? I mean, you've had so many incredible projects come out over the years, including some great podcasts, I might say. How does gearing up for a book launch feel compared to promoting a new movie or TV show?
- [17:34]
Ed Helms
It's very similar. Honestly, the book tour will feel similar to like a movie promotional tour in that I'll be doing talk shows and I'll be doing appearances and all kinds of stuff. The big difference is that I expect to be having much more in depth conversations with interviewers on the book tour, talking more about the content of the book. Typically, on a movie tour, you're just kind of staying pretty superficial about how fun it was to make the movie and what's in the movie. In this case. I'm excited to really kind of like play a bit of more intellectual ping pong with people and just get into some of the ideas and ramifications of these snafus and how they've resonated or what meaning they've had throughout history.
- [18:21]
Carl Nellis
You're going to get to talk history. You're going to go around the country talking history with folks like this.
- [18:25]
Ed Helms
I get to nerd out.
- [18:26]
Carl Nellis
So exciting.
- [18:27]
Ed Helms
I get to nerd out in such a fun way. And I truly can't wait.
- [18:34]
Adam
Does this podcast make you happy? Of course it does. That's why you're here. But it only comes out once a week for happiness, every night. You need Adam and Eve. Yes. I'm talking about sex toys. It's cool. It's cool. You have earbuds in, right? Adam and Eve, America's most trusted source for adult products, has been making people very happy for over 50 years with thousands of toys for both men and women. Just go to AdamAndEve.com now and enter code IHEART for 50% off. Almost any one item, plus free discreet shipping. That's AdamAndEve.com code IHEART for 50% OFF.
- [19:10]
Unknown
Asking the right questions can greatly impact your future, especially when it comes to your finances. So if you're looking for a financial advisor you can trust, certified financial planner professionals are committed to acting in your best interest. That's why it's gotta be a CFP. Find your CFP professional at letsmakeaplan.org.
- [19:33]
Oh, tasty high note.
- [19:35]
Ed Helms
Oh, hi.
- [19:36]
Unknown
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- [19:55]
Carl Nellis
The official rules@paypal.com TheGreatPayPalCheckout terms Participating merchants only must use PayPal Checkout online coverage of up to $100 in eligible purchases per cart. So if people want to see you on this, on this book tour that you're doing to support the launch of the book, where can they go? Where are you going to be?
- [20:09]
Ed Helms
Fabulous question. Well, I'm also doing live in person appearances in lots and lots of cities all around. Just off the top of my head, I'm going to probably forget some but New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. atlanta, Georgia, my hometown, where I grew up, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. My current hometown, where I live now. And ding, ding, ding, ding.
- [20:37]
Carl Nellis
You got it you nailed all of them. Yeah.
- [20:38]
Ed Helms
Yeah. So I'll be having events in all those cities where people can buy tickets and come see. Go to snafu-book.com for all the details about where you can both pre order the book and there's links to buy tickets to these events in all the different cities.
- [20:55]
Carl Nellis
Fantastic. If you were going to cast yourself in one of these SNAFU stories from the book, is there someone you would want to play? Obviously these are snafus, so we're talking about screw ups. But if you had to be in one of these screw ups, who you want to be?
- [21:11]
Ed Helms
I mean, listen, I've made a career of playing people screwing up on camera, so I could really probably slot into any of these. But I think that. I think actually it would be pretty cool to play Jimmy Carter where he's basically saving the planet. It's the first nuclear reactor meltdown in history, and that's the snafu. But Jimmy Carter's the hero. Like, he comes in and saves the day, so that would be a cool one. Of course, I'm not in my 20s anymore, so that might be a little bit of a stretch. The other one that I think would actually be really funny to do is to be like a crew member or the captain of the ever. Given the ship that was lodged in the Suez Canal, I feel like that's a very Armando Iannucci, kind of like Veep or even like the Office. Like, if you imagine the wheelhouse of this giant container ship is kind of like Dunder Mifflin with just people, like, milling about doing their mundane jobs, and then all of a sudden, the biggest disaster in logistics history is upon you. That feels like a ton of fun.
- [22:19]
Carl Nellis
That's great.
- [22:21]
Ed Helms
All right, I'm going to retake control of this interview. Carl, you did a stupendous job and I gotta watch my back here. You're gonna, like, take my job. You're a great interviewer.
- [22:34]
Carl Nellis
No danger. No danger of that.
- [22:36]
Ed Helms
But thank you so much, Carl, for picking my brain and just having a fun little breakdown. Both of our podcast process and a little bit of backstory on this book, which I'm so proud of. Enjoy the rest of season three formula six and check out snafu-book.com and come see me live in person. Let's talk snafu. I'll sign your books. It's going to be great.
- [23:03]
Carl Nellis
Hear, hear. Don't miss.
- [23:23]
Adam
Does this podcast make you happy? Of course it does. That's why you're here. But it only comes out once a week for happiness every night. You need Adam and Eve. Yes. I'm talking about sex toys. It's cool. It's cool. You have earbuds in, right? Adam and Eve, America's most trusted source for adult products, has been making people very happy for over 50 years with thousands of toys for both men and women. Just go to AdamAndEve.com now and enter code IHEART for 50% off. Almost any one item, plus free discreet shipping. That's AdamAndEve.com, code IHEART for 50% OFF.
- [24:00]
Unknown
Asking the right questions can greatly impact your future, especially when it comes to your finances. So if you're looking for a financial advisor you can trust, certified financial planner professionals are committed to acting in your best interest. That's why it's got to be a CFP. Find your CFP professional at LetsMakeaPlan. Org.