Flipped Out!

Summary

Snap Judgment Podcast Summary: "Flipped Out!"

Podcast Information

• Title: Snap Judgment
• Host/Author: Snap Judgment and PRX
• Description: Snap Judgment blends real-life stories with compelling beats to create a cinematic radio experience. Their raw, musical storytelling invites listeners to view the world from diverse perspectives—storytelling with a beat.
• Episode: Flipped Out!
• Release Date: October 15, 2024

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Introduction: Setting the Stage

In the "Flipped Out!" episode of Snap Judgment, host Chris Gethard invites listeners into the intimate and unpredictable world of his experimental improv class, known as "Parenthesis." The episode delves deep into a pivotal night when one student's bold attempt at a backflip transforms the evening into a gripping narrative about ambition, community, and resilience.

Chris Gethard introduces the episode by recalling his tenure teaching at the UCB Theater in New York back in 2010. He sets the scene for an unconventional improv performance:

[00:03] Chris Gethard: "Snap Judgment is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash?... From Snap Judgment, you're about to be flipped out."

This playful introduction primes the audience for the dramatic unfolding of events.

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Meet the Characters: Murph Meyer and Matt Mayer

At the heart of the story is Murph Meyer, a dedicated student of Gethard's Parenthesis class. Murph's unique persona is vividly described:

[01:31] Murph Meyer: "I tell the audience, I'm going to try a standing backflip... I'm not going to fall into your bad habits again."

Murph isn't just an improv enthusiast; he's a man battling personal demons. Recovering from heroin addiction and grappling with hepatitis C, Murph employs his distinctive attire—a cowboy mustache paired with a samurai ponytail and Reservoir Dogs-style outfit—as a daily ritual to reinforce his sobriety. This meticulous preparation symbolizes his commitment to change:

[02:31] Unnamed Narrator: "Murph's outfit... had a real purpose behind it... button that shirt, and tell himself, you are not going to do heroin today."

Matt Mayer, another pivotal figure, provides insight into the class dynamics and supports Murph's journey:

[04:26] Matt Mayer: "I think I was the only person in the group that had ever done a freestanding backflip... but I think the safest way is for you to think he can do it and try to get him to be able to do it."

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The Backflip Challenge: Ambition Meets Reality

During a live performance in a modest black box theater beneath a Manhattan supermarket, Murph makes an audacious declaration:

[02:15] Murph Meyer: "I'm going to try a standing backflip. I always thought a backflip was like a standing backflip was a cool thing that looked fun."

This statement ignites a mixture of excitement and apprehension among the audience and fellow students. The absence of traditional improv games and audience suggestions underscores the experimental nature of the show.

As the tension builds, Murph begins his preparation, stretching and psyching himself up:

[06:35] Matt Mayer: "Just, you know, a brief run of calisthenics there... The adrenaline will carry me over."

Despite Matt Mayer's attempts to caution and guide him, Murph remains resolute:

[07:58] Unnamed Narrator: "He waves it off. It's just spotlight on Murph on the stage. And it becomes clear he's going for it."

Murph's determination is palpable as he commits to his goal:

[08:12] Murph Meyer: "I'm thinking, I'm going to pull this off 100%."

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The Attempt and Its Aftermath: A Moment of Crisis

Murph's backflip attempt is both thrilling and terrifying. As he squirms into motion, the room holds its breath:

[08:20] Murph Meyer: "I'm in the air. I'm flip. I'm moving my vision... I'm upside down."

However, the backflip doesn't go as planned. Murph lands harshly, crashing onto the ground:

[08:44] Murph Meyer: "It’s a crash and burn scenario."

The immediate aftermath is a mix of chaos and concern. The audience gasps, and murmurs ripple through the room:

[09:29] Matt Mayer: "At first, I wasn't even sure how bad it had failed or what had happened... It felt like that just getting your bell rung."

Chris Gethard, observing from the tech booth, is torn between his role as a facilitator and his instinct to protect:

[09:54] Unnamed Narrator: "Most of the room thought they witnessed something medically really bad happened... I was just silent."

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Rising from the Fall: Community and Support

In a surprising turn, Murph doesn't let the fall end the show. Instead of halting the performance or calling for help, the class rallies to support him:

[10:22] Unnamed Participant: "Instead of stopping the show and being like, call an ambulance. We continue the show."

Murph, initially sidelined with his peers checking on him, eventually accepts their assistance:

[10:49] Murph Meyer: "Each person grabbed a limb and then... we just needed the physical act of me completing a rotation and coming down on my feet."

This collaborative effort emphasizes the strength of the community within the improv class. Murph's realization of the importance of accepting help marks a pivotal moment in his personal journey:

[11:10] Unnamed Narrator: "Him trying to do the backflip and waving off everybody who wanted to be a spotter was him going, I'm walking my own path... he was just honestly concussed, but we did get to see him finally accept the help of the community."

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Reflections and Lessons Learned

The episode wraps up with reflections on the night's events and the lessons gleaned from Murph's attempt:

[11:54] Matt Mayer: "So it was wonderful to find your tribe, find your people, as, as they say, a lot in there."

[12:00] Murph Meyer: "Although the next day, I am very sore."

Chris Gethard concludes with a blend of humor and gratitude, acknowledging the bravery of Murph and the supportive nature of the class:

[12:15] Chris Gethard: "Snappers do not try that at home. Thank you to Murph Mayer for not dying, to Matt Mayer for being our backflipping guru, and to Chris Gethard for letting this whole sorry mess happen in the first place."

The narrative not only highlights the unpredictability of live performances but also underscores the profound impact of community support and personal courage.

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Conclusion: A Story of Resilience and Community

"Flipped Out!" masterfully intertwines humor, tension, and heartfelt moments to depict a night where ambition meets adversity. Through Murph Meyer's daring attempt and the ensuing support from his peers, the episode celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the essential role of community in overcoming personal challenges. This story serves as a poignant reminder that while individual effort is crucial, accepting and offering help can lead to transformative outcomes.

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Production Credits

• Original Score: Renzo Gorio
• Story Producer: Zach Rosen
• Additional Help: John Fasille

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This summary encapsulates the essence of the "Flipped Out!" episode, providing a comprehensive overview for those unfamiliar with the original podcast episode.

Transcript

[Chris Gethard]

Snap Studios. Snap Judgment is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Today on Snap Judgment, I get to hand you off to comedy mastermind Chris Gethard. Chris. He's been on the Office in Broad City. But back in 2010, Chris taught at the UCB Theater in New York, and he called his class Parenthesis. And in addition to the class, his students would perform live shows for audiences. So tuck your knees, feel that low center of gravity, because from Snap Judgment, you're about to be flipped out.

[Unnamed Narrator]

There are some improv nerds in the world who still ask me about this parentheses class. A lot of it is because of this one night where this one thing happened, and it probably should never have happened.

[Chris Gethard]

Okay, close your eyes and imagine you're in a small black box theater underneath a supermarket in downtown Manhattan. You and the rest of the audience have just paid a few bucks for a ticket and maybe a cup of wine to see an experimental improv show. No games, no scenes, no rules, no suggestions from the audience. Anything goes.

[Unnamed Narrator]

Pretty early into it, Murph kind of calmly takes the stage, and he's got a lot of stage presence. He really commanded the energy, and he just kind of plainly puts it out there.

[Murph Meyer]

I tell the audience, I'm going to try a standing backflip. I always thought a backflip was like a standing backflip was a cool thing that looked fun.

[Matt Mayer]

Hi, I'm Murph Meyer. I was a student in Gethard's parentheses.

[Unnamed Narrator]

Class, and the catchphrase about Murph became, he's got the mustache of a cowboy and the haircut of a samurai. He had, like a samurai ponytail, a big mustache, and then dressed like one of the Reservoir Dogs. White shirt, black tie, black pants. Murph's outfit, which seemed crazy when I first saw it, had a real purpose behind it. The white shirt, the black tie. Tucking it into the black pants was a ritual he had developed for himself, where every day he would wake up, button that shirt, and tell himself, you are not going to do heroin today. Tuck the shirt into his pants and say, you are not going to go find opiates today. Tie the tie, and say, you're not going to fall into your bad habits again.

[Murph Meyer]

Listen, I was coming off of, like, you know, I had no money. Like, I Said I'd just been getting off heroin, Got off my hepatitis C medication because I got hep C from sharing needles when I was on heroin. So I was in a space where I was like, fuck it. I got nothing to lose. Let me take this class. This is. This will be fun. I don't know any of these people, or I don't know much about improv, you know, technically, but this seems like a classic. Might be for me.

[Unnamed Narrator]

One of the things that we talked so much about in this class was the goal is not to have anarchy. The goal is to start with anarchy and be selective about what rules. Help us tonight.

[Murph Meyer]

I've never tried to backflip a lot of great people. Growing up, I've seen do a backflip. Old friends of mine, some of my. I grew up with some wrestlers, high school wrestlers, not WWE stars. These are guys who could do backflips that I grew up with. Yeah. And I was like, oh, man, that looks, like, really cool. But I just never tried it even. I never even attempted it. So I thought, you know, well, maybe. Maybe now's a good time. It's like, how hard could it be? It might not look, you know, perfect. I wouldn't get scored at the Olympics well on this, but it's something I could do, I thought.

[Unnamed Narrator]

And he just threw down the gauntlet in a clear way. I think tonight's the night that I nail my first standing back flip.

[Murph Meyer]

The reaction from everyone is. Is concern, which I. I. I'm not expecting.

[Unnamed Participant]

I think I was the only person in the group that had ever done a freestanding backflip, and I had just the tiniest amount of training. My name is Matt Mayer. I was a member of the parentheses class. And, yeah, Murph just boldly walked out on stage and said that pretty quickly. You had 26 people getting up and going toward him like, they're gonna flip him over with, like, pick him up and flip them over, because that'll be easy. And he, like, was like, no, no, you don't do that. He's there going, I'm gonna. No, I'm serious. I want to do this on my own. My thoughts on the chances that he would pull it off, at first thought, no way. And then was like, that's a thought you can't have, because then he won't think he can do it. And I think the safest way is for you to think he can do it and try to get him to be able to do it.

[Unnamed Narrator]

I was in the tech booth watching this as Murph was leading up to that backflip. I've never had an experience where, as the teacher of the class, I'm sitting there going, yes, this is a crystallized moment of everything we said that this could be. Yes, yes, yes. As a human being with empathy who doesn't want to witness tragedy, I was going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And both of those voices were really loud in my head at the same exact time. The room gets tense. Some of that tension is the tension of, oh, this could end poorly. And some of the tension is this sort of immediate electricity, this immediate excitement of, how cool would it be? How cool would it be to hear someone say, I always wanted to do a backflip. I've never tried, and I'm gonna nail it tonight if it works. How cool is. So Murph starts kind of like stretching.

[Matt Mayer]

Just, you know, a brief run of calisthenics there. Just, you know, let's stretch the hammies out a little. It's, you know, I was doing a little bit of that, probably a little bit of the pumping myself up to try to really, you know, get that adrenaline. It's like, if I only need. I might only need one more inch here, so I'm gonna just. The adrenaline will carry me over. So I was getting. Pumping myself up a little bit.

[Unnamed Narrator]

Matthew Mayer takes the stage with Murph and goes, I need to talk to you for a second.

[Unnamed Participant]

I'm saying stuff like, you know, you don't want to go backwards. You want to land where your feet were. So you got to remember to jump high and then rotate. A lot of people dump their back, and they're going to. Then you just land on your head.

[Unnamed Narrator]

And Matthew Mayer says to Murph, so the thing about doing a backflip is that your body does not want to be heading in that direction.

[Unnamed Participant]

I think it's like an instinctual reaction that your brain is like, don't do this, and then just sort of stops.

[Unnamed Narrator]

And that's where you get in trouble when you go halfway. So when you do a standing backflip, you go all the way or you don't go. And it was chilling to be in that room. The whole crowd is feeling it. It is not too long after that intervention by Matt Mayer that the stage clears. It's just Murph no spotter, because he.

[Unnamed Participant]

Doesn'T want a spotter. He doesn't want one.

[Unnamed Narrator]

He waves it off.

[Unnamed Participant]

Waves it off. It would be my instinct to do it, and it's not. I'm not Allowed.

[Unnamed Narrator]

Nobody standing by. It's just spotlight on Murph on the stage. And it becomes clear he's going for it.

[Murph Meyer]

I'm thinking, I'm going to pull this off 100%.

[Unnamed Narrator]

He squats down.

[Unnamed Participant]

Murph goes up.

[Unnamed Narrator]

He gets height.

[Murph Meyer]

I'm in the air. I'm flip. I'm moving my vision. You know, I'm seeing a little bit of the. Like, the wheels turning there. So I'm like, all right, here we go. And I'm thinking when I'm in that moment in midair, I'm doing it because, you know, I committed from my perspective. I think I made it like a full halfway around, so I was upside down.

[Unnamed Participant]

And then he comes down.

[Murph Meyer]

Everything blurs. And then I'm. It's a crash. It's a crash and burn scenario.

[Unnamed Participant]

Just slams on the ground from three feet in the air.

[Murph Meyer]

Kind of landed on my head and my neck.

[Unnamed Narrator]

The ground. There is a very thin layer of plywood with cement under it. It's a basement theater, and it's this, like, big thud. The room is not silent. Certainly not laughing or clapping or cheering. Almost a buzz of people talking, whispering to each other. Gasps and then quiet. I am in the tech booth, and I am pretty convinced that I just taught an improv class where someone paid money and I watched them paralyze themselves. As part of the improv class, I am just silent.

[Matt Mayer]

There's that sense. At first, I wasn't even sure how bad it had failed or what had happened. I would only be able to liken it from my own experience to, like, a car accident. I went not all the way through the windshield once, but I got in a terrible accident where I kind of went through the windshield. It felt like that just getting your bell rung, where it's like, blackout for a second. Let me get my bearings. Let me get, you know, everything's like, okay. And so that's kind of what it felt like then. So, yeah, I think the adrenaline probably helped.

[Unnamed Narrator]

And it was one of the most tense experiences I've ever had in a live performance. Most of the room thought they witnessed something medically really bad happened. Most of the room thought they saw someone get severely hurt, if not beyond that. You do that once, and then I think you shut the door on that as a performance style. But Murph got up.

[Unnamed Participant]

I don't know what it is, but some strange instinct. Instead of stopping the show and being like, call an ambulance. We continue the show.

[Murph Meyer]

I just remember kind of sitting off to the side on the sidelines a little bit while people were kind of, you know, rubbing my shoulders a little, looking me in the eye, being like, are you okay?

[Unnamed Narrator]

At some point, it did end with the rest of the group lifting Murph up and physically putting him through the motion of a backflip so that he could feel the upside down nature and successfully do it.

[Murph Meyer]

Like, each person grabbed a limb and then I think Matt Mayer maybe guided the torso, the trunk around, and it was a slow mo. We weren't. We were in no rush to get this done. We just needed the physical act of me completing a rotation and coming down on my feet.

[Unnamed Narrator]

And I think you can make an argument that him trying to do the backflip and waving off everybody who wanted to be a spotter was him going, I'm walking my own path. And then him finally letting them flip him over was them going, dude, you don't have to. You don't have to, like, doggedly insist on being alone in this anymore. Like, we will help you. And then I don't know if it's because he actually accepted the help or if he was just honestly concussed, but we did get to see him finally accept the help of the community that he was, you know, he had shown up wanting to be a part of.

[Matt Mayer]

So it was wonderful to find. Find your tribe, find your people, as, as they say, a lot in there.

[Murph Meyer]

Although the next day, I am. I am very sore.

[Chris Gethard]

Snappers do not try that at home. Thank you to Murph Mayer for not dying, to Matt Mayer for being our backflipping guru, and to Chris Gethard for letting this whole sorry mess happen in the first place. We thank you. You can listen to Chris Gethard's beautiful Anonymous and New Jersey is the World wherever you get your podcast. The original score for this piece was by Renzo Gorio. The story was produced by Zach Rosen with help from John Fasille.

[Unnamed Narrator]

Snap.