#4751 You Better Chex Yourself

Summary

TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live

Episode #4751: "You Better Chex Yourself"

Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh
Date: June 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this lively, meandering episode of TBTL, Luke and Andrew do what they do best: take delight in the minutiae of daily life and riff their way through tangents on breakfast cereals, vintage Tupperware, corporate rebranding, and the quirks of radio workplaces. From Andrew’s deeply satisfying domestic Chex-Rice-Crispex mashup to a deep-dive analysis of Burger King's new self-critical ad campaign, the hosts wrap their signature humor and nostalgia around observations big and small. They also touch on comedy fandom, the challenges of old workplace hierarchies, and the peculiar joys and pains of public radio culture—all delivered in their well-loved "inside baseball" tone.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Public Restrooms & Field Reporting

• Luke calls in from a newly cleaned state park public restroom near Dayton, Ohio ("bathroom floor is so clean you could eat off of them. And did I? We'll never know." — 00:06)
• Sets the stage for the classic TBTL embrace of trivial but oddly compelling topics.

2. The Cereal Aisle Adventure ([03:55]–[14:38])

Andrew's Quest for the Perfect Cereal Mix

• Andrew details his grocery journey—intending to buy Cheerios, tempted by Crispex, but then distracted by Chex options in the cereal aisle.
• Expresses a wish for a “combo box” of Corn and Rice Chex and marvels at why no such product exists.
• Luke: "You've already got a million dollar idea you might have just had, right?" (06:39)
• Andrew’s solution: buy both Corn and Rice Chex, then mix them at home—finding joy in cereal variety and domestic rituals.
• Eventually, he uses a vintage Tupperware cylinder to pre-mix them, feeling deep satisfaction at repurposing retro kitchenware.
• Andrew: "It was so nice to have a use for Tupperware that I love and can't part with. And it was...I'm so glad I held onto it." (13:01)

Tupperware Nostalgia & Storage Habits

• Luke digresses into the recognizable, distinctive scent of aged Tupperware.
• "Does any of that infuse? …It's just there is a very distinct smell of Tupperware from that era in my mind. Does any of that get into the cereal?" (14:00)

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3. Cereal Culture & Snack Mixes ([14:55]–[21:37])

• Luke uncovers a 3-in-1 Chex Mix (rice, corn, wheat) at BJ’s Wholesale, but notes it’s marketed for party mixes, not breakfast.
• Discussion: Chex Mix probably eclipses Chex-as-cereal in cultural prominence.
• Lukewarm revelations from the Chex box: "They're like, we'll sell you this Chex. What you do with it after that is between you and your God." (19:42)

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4. Ranch Dressing vs. Ranch Dip ([21:37]–[23:29])

• Luke explains the origins of Hidden Valley Ranch, revealing it began as a mail order powder—not the salad-dressing bottles sold today.
• Amusing distinctions between ranch dip powder (mixed with sour cream) and bottled ranch dressing.

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5. Parody Newspapers, Classic Jokes & Comedy Memory ([23:29]–[39:06])

The Weekly Week & The Onion

• Andrew reminisces about his cultish devotion to The Weekly Week, a pre-Onion Boston satire paper.
• Quote: "...the semicolon said he will pause but not stop." (15:47 & 35:33)
• Discussion on classic parody articles, and how early joke structures stuck with Andrew for decades.
• Luke connects these formative comedy experiences to discovering "The Onion" and, later, "I Think You Should Leave."

Comedy Fandom & Sharing Sketches

• Luke describes the perils of sharing beloved Tim Robinson/Tim Heidecker sketches with Becca ("She sat there, did not at any moment crack a smile...I guess I just have to know when I'm beat..." — 27:36)
• Andrew reflects: "There's too much pressure. She knows how important it is to you...just let it go." (29:00)
• They marvel at the ineffable, personal thrill of comedy discoveries.

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6. Relationships, Late Bloomers & TBTL Backstories ([31:41]–[34:33])

• Andrew candidly discusses being a romantic "late bloomer"—Genevieve is his first (and lasting) long-term relationship.
• Luke observes: "I don't think weird is the right way to describe it, but I would say maybe atypical." (33:32)
• The two reflect on timing, circumstance, and the uniqueness of their respective life paths.

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7. Burger King’s Brand Pivot – A Deep Dive ([39:06]–[57:22])

Analyzing the “We’ve Sucked” Ad

• Andrew introduces the new Burger King campaign—a confessional, retro-tinged ad in which the chain apologizes for losing its way and literally "fires" the King mascot.

Commercial Playback & Analysis ([43:23]–[47:50])

• Andrew plays audio: "So we fired the King and crowned you...when we say you rule, we mean it. And we're just getting started because there's a new king and it's you." (47:16)
• Luke and Andrew dissect the ad’s sincerity, its risky strategy (publicly admitting decline), and mixed consequences for brand loyalty.
• Andrew: "This makes me feel bad for liking Burger King. Burger King is still my go-to fast food restaurant...But this commercial literally made me feel bad about a brand that I had a good feeling towards. That is not how commercials should make you feel." (47:50)

Mascot Afterlife & Marketing Theatrics

• The hosts riff on past mascot “retirements” (Mr. Peanut, Ronald McDonald), and the weird finality of “firing” the King.
• Luke: "Can we take a moment? Can we play taps? Can we pour some out for this King?" (42:17)
• They debate whether this tactic will resurrect Burger King's fortunes or further alienate loyal customers.

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8. Commercial Tropes: Full Body Casts [57:22–62:52]

• Andrew previews his recent "After These Messages" podcast episode built around commercials with people in full body casts.
• Describes an Energizer ad where a man stuck on a porn channel (with a priest about to enter the room) can't change the TV due to dead remote batteries.
• Mini game of "spot the voiceover": Harry Shearer did the Energizer tag ("should have used Energizer"). (62:03)
• Luke & Andrew reminisce on Harry Shearer’s radio show “Le Show” and the joys of unvarnished old-school public radio.

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9. Public Radio Offices & The Joy/Pain of Big Institutions ([63:26]–[80:37])

Office Nostalgia & The Reality of Corporate Red Tape

• Luke describes the unique energy and nostalgia of being in a public radio newsroom.
• Luke’s reflection: "There's just a certain design to a public radio studio that was built out in the early 2000s, you know, and just the overall vibe...I love it so much and I really miss it." (63:26)
• The hosts contrast the communal vibe and flexibility of TBTL/independent production with the bureaucracy at larger organizations. Amusing anecdote: Andrew failing to secure a spare desk at KUOW due to overcautious policies, even as he personally knows everyone in the food chain.
• Luke wonders if his own ancient workplace beefs may have indirectly contributed to Andrew’s desk denial. Andrew assures him, "That's centering yourself pretty far into this..." (77:01)
• Reflection on how legacy media rules—once useful—become outmoded and stifle creative collaborations.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Andrew on Cereal Variety: "This is about Andrew trying new things, but then retrofitting it into an old thing...I go to my cupboard, I get both boxes out, I mix them in the bowl, I put some strawberries and some blueberries in there, add a little bit of almond milk...and I went to town. It was great." (08:09)

• Luke on the Evolution of Kitchen Gear: "That stuff that's like, it's sort of in an uncanny valley of is this multi use or not? It feels like it should be, but it's not as durable as the stuff our moms were forced to buy at Tupperware parties..." (17:41)

• Quote from The Weekly Week (Semicolon piece):
  "When asked what his plans for the future were, semicolon stated, 'I plan to pause but not stop completely.'” — 35:33 (original joke from 1998, as revered by Andrew).

• Andrew on Burger King's Campaign: "This commercial literally made me feel bad about a brand that I had a good feeling towards. That is not how commercials should make you feel." (48:23)

• Luke on Public Radio Studios: "There's just a certain design...that I love so much and I really miss it when I'm around it." (63:26)

• Andrew, on radio station bureaucracy: "The answer was no...We can't condone another non-KUOW product being made within these hallowed walls. You gotta be effing me." (78:00)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:06 — Luke’s bathroom field report (public restroom cleanliness)
• 03:55–14:38 — Cereal aisle odyssey, Chex innovation, vintage Tupperware
• 19:42 — Chex Mix vs. cereal, packaging oddities
• 21:37–23:29 — Ranch dip vs. ranch dressing and its mail-order history
• 23:29–39:06 — Parody newspapers, The Weekly Week, comedy formation
• 39:06–57:22 — In-depth breakdown of new Burger King ad & mascot retirements
• 57:22–62:52 — Commercials with people in full body casts, Harry Shearer’s Energizer VO
• 63:26–80:37 — Public radio offices, nostalgia, and “the pain of red tape”
• 77:01 — Andrew and Luke debate TBTL’s influence (or blame) for company policy
• 80:37–end — The Wild podcast shout out, the decline of “bullshit podcasts,” pie chart inside jokes, episode wrap-up

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Tone & Language

• The episode captures TBTL’s signature blend of "micro-analysis of trivial things" with genuine warmth, listener in-jokes, gentle nostalgia, and affectionate satire.
• Dialogue is peppered with tangents, meta-commentary, and “we’re all in this together” winks to devoted listeners.

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Summary

In classic TBTL fashion, “You Better Chex Yourself” turns the mundane into the marvelous: cereal choices ignite innovation; a vintage Tupperware find becomes an emotional victory; and a fast-food ad prompts existential marketing angst. Through it all, Luke and Andrew’s affection for life’s overlooked rituals and their irreverent nostalgia elevate what could be throwaway topics into hour-plus radio theater—all spiced with their deep well of personal and pop culture references. Whether you’re in it for public radio lore, ad-world rants, or just want to know how to keep your cereal fresh, this episode delivers the familiar, unpredictable TBTL comfort (bowl) food.

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Power out.

Transcript

[Andrew Walsh]

Hello. No one is available to take your call. Please leave a message after the tone.

[Luke Burbank]

I submit for your consideration as a top tier morning clean, first use public restroom, a public park restroom that's just been cleaned. I'm at a state park within one hour driving distance of Dayton, Ohio. I'm not going to give away my spot, but the groundskeepers have just been through. It's 9:15 on a Tuesday morning and bathroom floor is so clean you could eat off of them. And did I? We'll never know.

[Andrew Walsh]

TBTL. Jake, what are you looking forward to

[Luke Burbank]

most about this film?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I think I'm looking forward to cracking up. I hope I can like, you know, totally crack up. So I haven't like totally cracked up in a long time.

[Genevieve]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

I've got a funny guy for a partner. But seriously, you have to monitor your foot health. I'm gonna send you a pedomet app that I use.

[Luke Burbank]

You're gonna love it.

[Andrew Walsh]

It has robust social features.

[Luke Burbank]

We can give each other foot vibes.

[Genevieve]

Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that.

[Luke Burbank]

Go for counseling.

[Andrew Walsh]

If you both feel that this relationship

[Luke Burbank]

is worth keeping, if it's worth salvaging,

[Andrew Walsh]

then you need outside help.

[Genevieve]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, I just came here to hit dingers and have a good time.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's about it.

[Genevieve]

Well, all right.

[Luke Burbank]

Hello, good morning and welcome everyone to a Wednesday edition of TBT all. The show that just too beautiful to live.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's a kind of magic.

[Luke Burbank]

My name's Luke Burbank.

[Andrew Walsh]

I am your host.

[Luke Burbank]

I happen to know a guy who's at his limit, coming to you from New York City. Hi, from New York. Manhattan to be specific. It's a gorgeous Wednesday here, possibly going to rain in the afternoon, but so far that has held off and we are just absolutely loving life as we roll into episode 4752 in a collector

[Andrew Walsh]

series, Let the fun begin.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm in the Knickerbocker Hotel. And because CBS television does not authorize me to spend the big bucks on these hotel rooms, I am in the interior facing wing of the hotel, which means basically that, like, I'm looking at a brick wall. Although it's not just a brick wall, it's a brick wall with a window in it. In fact, many windows, because it's some sort of office building and there are people sitting in their cubicles and working at their desks and just occasionally looking over here to see me in this room podcasting. And I guess in 2026, that's not that weird. That's probably. I'm probably the third podcaster to be working from this hotel room maybe in the last couple of weeks. So anyway, shout out to those people over there doing whatever they're doing. What I'm doing here is trying to bring you the show in which we will be discussing or during which we will be discussing recent events in Arizona where Alice Cooper, you know, the. The heavy metal, shock rocker, glam rock guy.

[Andrew Walsh]

The heavy metal definitely rules. Twisted Sister, Juice Priest talking Ozzy Scorpions, they all rule.

[Genevieve]

He.

[Luke Burbank]

He had something happen involving a gas station and a normal civilian that was kind of interesting and then had me asking a bunch of questions and then also spending a significant portion of my morning here in New York City reading in on the history of Alice Cooper for some reason. Is this a thing people care about?

[Genevieve]

No.

[Luke Burbank]

So we'll talk about that. Oh, and we'll talk to this guy. He's the longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. Speaking of music, he has not given up on his dreams of launching his musical career, even at this late date.

[Andrew Walsh]

Bye, Brendan.

[Luke Burbank]

He's Andrew Walsh and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning, Luke. I had a moment of pure domestic, I don't know, bliss this morning. I felt like a little, like a. Like a retro, like 1970s or 80s era homemaker. Can I tell you about it? It was just.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

It just sparked a little bit of joy in me. Oh, it also. Well, it goes back to something that I learned in the grocery store the other day. So I was in the cereal aisle. I had Cheerios on my shopping list. I've been eating a lot of Cheerios in the morning lately. And I was like, well, maybe it's time to shake it up a little bit. I'm having this thought, I'm going rogue in the grocery store. I'm like, maybe I should get some Crispex. That was my other go to cereal.

[Luke Burbank]

It's crispy times two.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's crispy times two. It's like a. It's like the shape of a. Is it a stop sign? Would that be an octagon or a hexagon? They're a little hexagonal. I want to say little, little cereal bites. And they're. They're a lot like Chex, but they're corn on one side and rice on the other. That's their right. That's their whole claim to fame.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. And we know about your love of, as you mentioned, with the. What are those double cream cookies? The Other day. You like a little variety? People think that you're, you know, too locked in to your ways, but no, no, you're all about variety.

[Andrew Walsh]

In fact, that's what this is all about. This is about Andrew trying new things, but then retrofitting it into an old thing. Because I grew up eating Crispex, I still will buy a box from time to time now when I'm tired of my Cheerios, and I was about to do that, but then I saw boxes of checks. Just plain old Chex cereal. And there's a whole bunch of options, like there's Corn Chex and there's Rice Chex, but then there's like blueberry flavored Chex and maybe strawberry. I think there's chocolate. Like there's all kinds of flavors. Well, I don't want to mess around with the flavors at all. I'm like, I just want the classic Chex with corn and Rice Chex all mixed up in a box together. Basically like Crispex, only it's not corn on one side, rice on the other.

[Luke Burbank]

I didn't even know that was an option. So there was a Chex that they made or that they still make. That's a combo. One Chex square will be corn and one Chex square will be rice. And they're all in the same cereal box.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, they don't do that. You're absolutely right. I just assumed they did. And I'm standing there in the aisle forever, and I'm looking at the rice box and the corn box. I'm like, where is the box where they're combined into one? Who wouldn't want that? Also, as you said, these food manufacturers, they're always coming up with new innovations because they have to constantly roll out some sort of new product in order to. They're like a shark, right? They got to keep moving in order to survive. So why wouldn't they do that? That seems like a pretty simple thing.

[Luke Burbank]

You've already got a million dollar idea you might have just had, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

So what do you think I did?

[Luke Burbank]

You bought you a box of Rice Chex and a box of Corn Chex and you went home and drew the curtains, and then hours later, you combined the cereal and ate those.

[Andrew Walsh]

I had to cleanse myself. I. I did. I bought two boxes of cereal because I was like, I can't make up my mind. And then I literally went for the Crispex box. I'm like, well, I guess this is why I'm a Crispex man. But then, you know what? They only had the family size and obviously I'm gonna eventually eat the entire box of cereal. It doesn't go bad that quickly, does it, though?

[Luke Burbank]

Because that is a. Of all the things that I have experienced of them getting stale, you know, sort of before I could consume all of them, I would say cereal is on that list potentially, maybe.

[Andrew Walsh]

I've been eating a lot of. It's like, for me, I get in the mode. And when I get in the mode, I can usually probably finish a box of cereal, you know, after I don't know how many sittings. But what.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, we have no idea how your body processes cereal.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. But also, I'm pretty, as you would guess, vigilant about keeping that bag sealed up in there. Like, I have all kinds of chip clips and binder clips and stuff. I have a staple gun, a hot glue gun. I use thermal a gun for some reason, and I just really seal that son of a gun up. So my. My food tends to stay fresh in the little cabinet. But.

[Luke Burbank]

So I'm like, you decided no on the family side.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I. But there's something, Luke, that I hate about a giant single container of things. I can't explain it. I'm sure we've talked about on the show before, but, like, it just sort of galls me that they didn't have a regular size box of crisp. I was like, I don't want this family size. I don't want the extra 3 inches on the top that are like painted yellow with big red letters that say family size or double scoop or extra whatever. I was just like, no, I just want a regular box. So I do something that is totally counterintuitive to that. I buy two boxes of checks, one of rice, one of corn, and then I bring them home and I draw the shades, as you said, the next morning or two mornings later, whatever. It's Monday morning and it's time for me to have cereal and I'm excited about this. So what do I do? I go to my cupboard, I get both boxes out, I mix them in the bowl. I put some strawberries and some blueberries in there, add a little bit of almond milk. I know it's bad for the environment. I'm sorry. And. And I went to town. It was great.

[Luke Burbank]

Hold on. Let me ask ChatGPT if almond milk is bad for the environment.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let me ask this almond. If ChatGPT is bad for the environment.

[Luke Burbank]

I only use the large language models that run on almonds.

[Genevieve]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my God. Exactly. Anyway, so I'm sorry, I'm getting frantic emails Here from a contractor who was. I have some cabinetry being unloaded or that's going to be delivered today, which is both exciting, but also. Whatever. It's a little bit distracting. That's the sound of cabinetry arriving at my house. So for the first couple of days that I enjoy my mix of corn and rice checks, I actually do sincerely apologize for how long this is going. I mix. I mixed them.

[Luke Burbank]

But hold on a second. Spare, no detail. So when you actually did this combo, this home brew, it was like.

[Genevieve]

It.

[Luke Burbank]

It paid off. It was. It was, like, as delicious as you hoped it would be. So that was the. For my first question.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, it was good. And. And there was. There is something different about the texture. It's a small difference, but, like, the. The squares of a Chex are a little bit more structurally sound than the slightly bigger Crispex. I like them both. Crispex, if you're listening. No disrespect, but, you know, variety is the spice of life, and nobody exhibits that more than your pal Andrew Walsh over here.

[Luke Burbank]

No crisp respect.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can I make crisp respect?

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know. Keep going, please.

[Andrew Walsh]

So anyway, for the first couple of mornings, what I do, I take down both boxes of cereals, and I mix them in the bowl, and then I add the accoutrement, and then I eat. And then today, I'm pulling down both boxes of cereal, and I think to myself, what am I doing? Why don't you mix them in the box so that you have two boxes of the same product? And then I'm like, yeah, but how do I do that? I got to first pour them both out completely into a big, giant bowl, which I do have one, and mix them up in there and then pour them back into their boxes. And so I have two boxes of the same thing. I'm like, that pouring back into the box thing doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. Then I start thinking, well, what kind of containers do I have that could hold like. Like a box of cereal? And I'm thinking, I'm like, well, really,

[Luke Burbank]

like a box and a half.

[Andrew Walsh]

Really? A box and a half? Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

If you've eaten, let's say, 25% of each box. This is why I scored a 12 on the SAT math component. And that's not good, by the way. Yeah, you're probably looking at about 150% of one box of cereal still, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, exactly. At least. Yeah. It's closer to two boxes, honestly, at this point, than a, you know, one. So I have this thought, well, Boy, this is where you want those old Tupperwares of yesteryear because they actually made one that was specifically for cereal. I'd forgotten about this. And I think, I think we had that and that. Boy, that solves your problem, right? Of cereal going bad too quickly. You get home, you pour the cereal directly in the Tupperware thing. You recycle the box, or if this is the 80s, you set the box on fire with your cigarette and throw it out the window. And then you pour it out, get

[Luke Burbank]

a couple kids in the car, roll up all the windows and burn down the cereal box while driving around.

[Andrew Walsh]

Kick your dog. Anyway, so then I'm thinking, wait a second, I don't have that specific cereal Tupperware thing, but I cast my eyes upwards at this set of Tupperware, like cylinder containers that we bought at a yard sale years ago that I love and can't part with but have very little use for in my lifetime. Like, it's just, they're too tall. Like you wouldn't put left noodles or something. And then they're too tall and cylindrical. But there's. It's a set of three or four of these things, each one a little bit wider than the next. No, they're white, although you can probably picture them in like orange or olive green. That's the classic colors.

[Luke Burbank]

Does the lid have little ridges on it?

[Andrew Walsh]

That's exactly what I was going to say. You have little ridges on the lid that spy. Not spiral, but radiate outwards from the center, if you can picture that. And so it's those things and they're tall cylinders. Right. So I take the biggest one of that. The, the biggest one of these things is prob. Never been used in our house before. And again, we've had these for years. And I. This is big enough for two boxes of cereal. So I open, I take a box in each hand. Luke. I'm right handed, but I can get some stuff done with my left hand. So I take a box in each hand and I shake them together into that vintage or retro? No, vintage. Right. Because it's actually from the day Tupperware and mixed it up in there and then took it out of there and poured it into my cereal bowl, sealed the lid, put the Tupperware back in the cereal cabinet. And I just felt it was so nice to have a use for this Tupperware that I love and can't part with. And it was. I'm so glad I held onto it.

[Luke Burbank]

That is so satisfying. Now, the one thing is I Feel like. And maybe this was just our dishwasher not working great or us not being great at washing dishes when I was a kid because we had a dishwasher that was so lousy that you had to pre wash the dishes and. Or sometimes you just washed all the dishes. But I feel like I can see. Smell that Tupperware. It's not a bad smell. It's just the smell of that Tupperware container. And my question is, does any of that infuse? And again, it's not about it being unhygienic or whatever. It's just there is a very distinct smell of Tupperware from that era in my mind. Does any of that get into the cereal?

[Andrew Walsh]

No. I kind of know what you're talking about, but if you were using one of these containers. And I'm struggling here because I'm also trying to remember a really funny. I don't know if it was like the Onion or Reductress or one of those parody sites that.

[Luke Burbank]

The Babylon Bee, probably the Bible.

[Andrew Walsh]

I know.

[Luke Burbank]

You're a big Babylon Bee guy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. The very first one of those, by the way. I'm pretty sure, like, the first one that kind of got some traction even before the Onion was the Weekly week and it was out of Boston. And when I was.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't think I've ever even heard of that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And I was obsessed with it in college. I was obsessed with it because the Internet was newer at the time. But I do remember, like, the Weekly Week having it, like, bookmarked. And that's the one where there was an article about a semicolon who was going to step out of the punctuation game for a while because I think nobody really knew how to use it properly. And the last line of the article. I'm going to look this up. The last line of the article was, when asked about his future plans, the semicolon said he will pause but not stop.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, that was, you know, that the entire thing was in service of that final line.

[Andrew Walsh]

Luke, I swear to God, that was a joke written in a parody newspaper that no longer exists, probably in 1997, and that. I think about that all the time. It will pause.

[Luke Burbank]

How cool for the person who wrote that article. And that joke that this is, you know, this is still something that, that you consider and now it's been passed on to tens of listeners by way of this show.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, I'm looking at Weekly week semicolon, but to your point, I can't remember the joke that I'm Trying to quote here from one of those types of outlets. But there is something about like, especially with the modern day like kind of plastic storage units, like if you put like, I don't know, a spaghetti kind of meal in there, you know, something of marinara or whatever, it'll like become like red stained and it'll kind of maybe capture some of the smell of garlic or like that. The ones that are sold in the store these days are a little bit more disposable. So when they get like that you can toss them. But yeah, if Tupperware gets like that, I don't know. You know, I'll be honest with you. I just think my mom was really meticulous or told, I believe very meticulous. So we, I think we just didn't really have that in our Tupperware.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And we had, you know, as you might imagine hearing about my childhood, it was, everything was mismatched, everything was like, I mean when stuff even went into Tupperware was a real open question. There's probably some Tupperware that just had foil over the top because nobody could find a lid that fit with that particular thing now. And nowadays, by the way, you know, Becca had me, I had. I don't even know if it was real Tupperware or that sort of Gladwear, which is what I think you're talking about. That, that stuff that's like, it's sort of in an uncanny valley of is this multi use or not? It feels like it should be, but it's not as durable as the stuff that our moms were forced to buy at Tupperware parties and or were sometimes forcing on other people. But, but I got rid of. I have all glass stuff now because you know.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh yeah, that's nice.

[Luke Burbank]

Microplastics and the like. Now Andrew, I gotta throw one quick thing at you regarding checks which you've talked about your. And in fact now that you have your whole system, I don't think you need this. But it looks like at least at some place called BJ's Wholesale Club I am seeing Chex cereal. And get a load of this. It's rice, it's corn and it's wheat. It is three, man. All three styles of Chex Chex Rice, Chex Corn and Chex Wheat in the same box. But it says perfect for making party mix. Because this is the thing about Chex. I would argue that it is possible that Chex is consumed more as a party mix than it is as a cereal these days. Because the party mix is so Popular.

[Andrew Walsh]

I would totally agree with that. Totally. In fact, I noted on the front of one of these boxes, they show the Chex being eaten as a cereal. Like, just. It was when I was standing in the store being like, how do they not sell a combo of these things?

[Luke Burbank]

This was at sars, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

This was at the QFC in Holman Road, which will also potentially be where I get my pneumonia shot. At some point, if I ever have the gumption to go back there and do that, that. But just avoid my step over my bad phlebotomist who is in the pasta aisle, get to the back of the store and say, somebody shoot me up. That's my plan. But I'm standing there in the aisle and I'm looking and I'm like, where's the other. Where's the combo box? I learned there isn't. But because of that, I'm staring at the box fronts for a while, and I noticed that half of the box art features it as a serial and the other half features it as a checks mix with all of the pretzel bits and whatever in there. But they had to put a note for legal reasons that it said something like, only the Chex cereal contained within or something like that, because they didn't want you to think that you were buying the mix that is prominently displayed on the front, if that makes sense.

[Luke Burbank]

They're like, we'll sell you this Chex. What you do with it after that is between you and your God. I don't care if you eat it like cereal. If you make it into a mix, that's a personal decision. You know what, that, what this is related, but unrelated. And I would say more on the unrelated side is, is ranch dressing versus the ranch dip. I didn't grow up in a family where we had a lot of ranch dip. We did have some ranch dressing around in the refrigerator. And I guess I always just thought that when you had ranch dip somewhere, you were just having ranch dressing. But, oh, no, the ranch dip is a powder and you mix it with some kind of other stuff, I think, and it's really good. It wasn't until I was in my. My second marriage, my most recent marriage, where Carrie would, you know, whip up crudite or do things, and I would be like, this ranch dressing is incredible. She'd go, because it's not ranch dressing,

[Andrew Walsh]

it's the ranch dip I don't eat.

[Luke Burbank]

I know that's way outside of your comfort zone.

[Andrew Walsh]

And what is the difference?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I think you mix the ranch powder. Okay. You mix that with, I want to say, sour cream of some kind. So it is obviously a different consistency than the ranch dressing that is in the bottle. But, like, I think what happened really was one time we were doing something, and I was tasked with getting stuff at the store, and I bought ranch dressing. I was like, well, this is the. Here we go. This is the dip for the carrots. And she was like, oh, oh, no, no, no, no. Ranch dip. You can't just buy ranch dip. Or at least it's the way that most people do it is you buy a packet of powder that is made not to be ranch dressing, but is a ranch dip powder, and you mix that with some sour cream. I think that's what it is that you've already bought or you've bought separately. You mix those together, and that's your ranch dip. It is not the same as the thing that's in the bottle. And the interesting part about that, Andrew. And yes, there is something interesting about that.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was wondering.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Just, you know, let me come back to the cereal aisle over here.

[Luke Burbank]

I once did. I did a story many years ago about ranch dressing for tv. And I actually went to the location of the quote unquote, Hidden Valley Ranch outside of Santa Barbara. And it is not a ranch. It's not on a valley, either. It's kind of hidden because you got to go down a long driveway. But it is nothing like what's on the bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch, if you've ever looked at the bottle. And again, I know you're not a big, creamy sauces guy, but, you know, that ranch dressing was credited. The guy who was credited with inventing it was a dude who was a plumber in Alaska, and he liked to experiment with stuff. And he started making this kind of dressing thing, this whatever it was, that was what we now call ranch dressing. And people really seemed to like it. And eventually he sold his plumbing business and he moved to California to open this hotel. He'd always dreamed of having a hotel called the Hidden Valley Ranch. So he bought this place, and it wasn't very successful as a hotel, but what was very popular was him mailing out packets of this dry powder through the back of magazines for his ranch dressing or ranch dip. And so in the original days of this whole thing, it was just the powder. And then at some point, they started bottling. He sold it off to Clorox, literally, or a company that then eventually sold to Clorox. And then they started putting it in bottles, and you could just buy it bottle. But the origin of the thing is, I feel like it was in the back of the New Yorker, this powder you could buy. And it was right next to the guy who sold berets in the back of the New Yorker.

[Andrew Walsh]

Are they still selling berets in the back of the New Yorker?

[Luke Burbank]

I don't think there is a back of the New Yorker in the way that we think about it, although I've got a whole lot of them at my house. I could double check that. But I think the days of the sort of like, you know, language lessons and buying the beret with that one guy who was the model for the berets in the back of the New Yorker, I think those days are over.

[Andrew Walsh]

I did find an archive, by the way, of the Weekly Week, but it's very, very bare bones. And I know in here somewh is the semicolon and I'm trying to find it, but I did find another good first of all, the last two articles that were written, it looks like the headline in October 22, 1998, all caps headline, Snakes are Everywhere. And then it looks like their final issue, November 5, 1998, is an apology to our readers, Snakes not Everywhere. There was another one in here that I was just looking at that said something like, legislators pass or lawmakers pass legislation to simplify tax code comma jazz. Pretty good. I'm telling you, there was a time, and this sounds so like the oh, I, you know, I don't like your indie band because I'm into my indie band that was doing it first or whatever. But I swear there was a time in the mid to late 90s where I was saying, I don't like this young thing called the Onion. I'm into the Weekly Week. Like, I really remember thinking, well, the Weekly Week is the og. The Weekly Week is going to be what stays here forever. It has lasting power. Those kids at the Onion, sure, they're funny too, in their own little way. And of course, the Weekly Week is

[Luke Burbank]

Friendster, which will never die. Add into this Facebook.

[Andrew Walsh]

I literally was probably sharing Weekly Week stuff on Friendster. You're not even wrong.

[Luke Burbank]

That's really funny. In fact, this was something I was talking to Tim Heidecker about last week when we were interviewing about the fact that the Onion is going to be taking over infowars.com and I was just asking him about kind of, you know, the impact of the Onion on, you know, his comedy sensibility. And he was saying, you know, it was kind of everything to him. And I was telling him about, you know, picking up the first before it was even a website or at least before I had access to the web. I remember I was probably either in Pagliacci's Pizza on the Ave. Or, you know, some other, some other kind of like slightly alternative space where they would also have a little kind of free newspapers and whatever and just picking something up called the Onion and like taking it back to my dorm room or whatever, my apartment and just reading and just tears. You know what it reminds me of? Like when I watched I Think youk Should Leave. And I. My memory of it is it was actually weirdly in the morning and I was in a hotel and I was just sending you and Chris Hayes clips or at least saying, oh my God, have you guys watched this yet? Like, it was like a revelatory experience with me and the kind of comedy that I like.

[Andrew Walsh]

I remember sitting in the airport in, I want to say Adelaide.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that watching Bill Mars New Rules and be like, have you seen this guy?

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. No, with you in Australia, I just. When you talk about I think you should leave. I remember you telling me about it on the show, but it might have even been Luke before we knew it was called that. It might have been that Netflix, Netflix showcase the characters, the characters that showcase various comedians and sort of acted as a pilot for various things. And I remember you told me about on the show. And then I think this is what. Okay, here's what I think maybe the truth is here. I think you told me about his features that were on the character show and like, I don't know, a few weeks before that. And then it became the show. I think you should leave. And you might have been watching that either as you were getting ready to go to the Australia trip or on the Australia trip or something like that. Because then you were telling me about more sketches as we were sitting there. I mean, as blear. We were already in Australia. We had traveled for 13 hours but still had another five hour flight. And I think you.

[Luke Burbank]

Nobody told me that about Australia, by the way, that just getting there, you could still be five hours from somewhere else in Australia by airplane.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, right. And I remember like you had just eaten your hungry Jack, I believe, and you're telling me about this show and I'm like, okay, okay, okay, I'll watch it. Stop. Stop telling me everything. I'll watch it, I'll watch it, I'll watch it. And I did.

[Luke Burbank]

And it really paid off. Although still batting. I'm still putting up Rob Refschneider. Numbers with getting Becca to embrace it. I just tried to sneak a little of the Tim Heidecker charades sketch in on her, because, you know, because obviously I interviewed him last week, as I've already mentioned, and I've been talking about him a lot with you, and also just with. With people in my life, including Becca. So I was like, oh. And she was like, is he part of the, like, whatever that Tim Robinson thing is? I was like, no, but he's on there a lot. He's not like, you know, one of the writers, but there's a lot of crossover. And I was like, including this one where he's like, this guy who's way too old for his girlfriend, and they're doing charades, and then I'm showing it to her just like. And she's very, like, yes, and. And very supportive of me. And generally, you know, if I'm like, oh, you'll love this book or this song, she's pretty receptive. She was. She sat there, did not at any moment crack a smile. And I was like, I guess I just have to know when I'm beat. There's no getting her to get into the Tim Robinson universe, especially with.

[Andrew Walsh]

Especially going into it with that kind of energy. And I'm not. I'm not blaming you, necessarily. Well, I guess I'm blaming you.

[Luke Burbank]

Is there. Is there a gateway sketch that would be better? Because every time I show her a sketch, I think, oh, that was the wrong sketch. But then I've had that experience, like, 15 times. Is there a right sketch?

[Andrew Walsh]

I just feel like at this point, there's. I just feel like you can't turn back the clock at this point. You know what I mean? Like, there's too much pressure. There's too much pressure. She knows how important it is to you. Like, just let it go. And that's the type of show that I do think that one of the reasons. I mean, listen, they're imprinted on you and a lot of people, because it's hilarious. But also, it is the kind of thing that it feels a little personal when you first discover it. And that sense of discovery is part of the appeal of it, even though it's widely popular, obviously, at this point.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, also, I had. What I'm remembering now is I was trying to explain where Tim Heidecker's humor and why I love it so much. So I didn't start with that sketch from I think you should leave. I started with the Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim sketch where they're selling prices.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, God, yeah, I forgot about that one.

[Luke Burbank]

It's so, so funny.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's like me of it.

[Luke Burbank]

It's like, you know, imagine just like a really cheap local mattress commercial where it's like, come on down. We have. We have Vasili. We have Posturepedic for 99.99. We have whatever. Except what? It starts with Tim Heidecker saying, you know, come on down to Tim's discount prices. I got every price. I got 29.99. What they're selling are the prices. I got. I got 15.99. I got. I got 2172. And then right when you think that's the joke, it's just that he sells prices. Then Eric Wareheim somehow pushes his commercial off of the screen and says, like, lay an egg. Forget Tim's prices. They're overpriced. Come to Eric's premium prices. And then he's doing an ad for his competing price store that also sells prices but different prices. But then the commercials start to overlap where they're making increasingly crazy allegations about each other. Like, at one point, Eric Wareheim is, like, fishing out a price out of a river. He goes, look at one of these Tim's prices. I'm not gonna feed my family with that. It's tiny.

[Andrew Walsh]

Throw it back.

[Genevieve]

They just.

[Luke Burbank]

And then it's like. It just gets into, like, all of this insanity. And then, of course, because it's Tim and Eric, it's like, at one point, I think it's. Eric has, like, chopped Tim's head off. And then blood is flying everywhere. I'm sure Vic Berger probably edited this one. Like, what I realized upon trying to show this to Becca was like, this is not a good audition. This is not a good entry point into Tim Heidecker's humor, because it's just yelling. There is at least one reference of compulsive masturbation. Someone's getting their head chopped off. It's insanity. I love it, but it's pure insanity.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Yeah. And you gotta be in the right mindset. And there's just something about somebody being like, you gotta watch this. You're gonna love it. And if you're already a little bit

[Luke Burbank]

and they're sitting there while you watch it.

[Genevieve]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like Genevieve. At first, that's what she was like when I had her read my diary. You know, I would say when we were first dating, I would, like, sort of sit next to her. I'd be like, well, I've been writing a lot about you. You know, I'm joking about that. But you know that one of my early paramours did that to me in college. I don't have a lot of. You can probably tell by the lack of stories about previous girlfriends or whatever that I didn't really have a lot. In fact, I don't know if you know this about me. I assume you did at some point. Like literally. Genevieve is my first long term relationship and so far, you know, I never

[Luke Burbank]

wanted to pay, but like, I figured based on context clues. But also I just, you know, I felt like you would share it with me when you were ready. And apparently that's today, June 17, 2026. Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I mean, it is, it is a little bit strange, right? Because I had. There were there. I, you know, I was, you would say I was a late bloomer. I don't think that's fair to blooms because I think I had bloomed. I just wasn't getting the opportunities or in some cases, I now realize, identifying and acting upon some opportunities. Little of column A, little of column B. Yeah, exactly. So I didn't even kiss a girl until I was in college. And then I had like, I don't know, two or three about month long liaisons, but like maybe three tops. I would say I spent a lot of time pining after some unrequited stuff and had little adventures here and there. But as far as relationships were concerned, I really didn't have even like, okay, we are exclusive. I might have done that with two or three women or girls. And you would really expect then if Genevieve was my first actual relationship, we shouldn't have lasted this long. That's kind of, isn't that kind of weird?

[Luke Burbank]

I don't think weird is the right way to describe it, but I would say maybe atypical.

[Andrew Walsh]

Atypical. You'd think the first one would be like me, well, okay, I dated for a year or two and then like I'd never have been in a relationship that's like a year or even like six months.

[Luke Burbank]

No, but the reason I think what you had going for yourself was that you were out of college, even if only very briefly. I think what the reason that usually first kind of very serious relationships don't go the distance is because the people are in high school or college and there's an immense amount of growing and changing that goes on for the people. And it's pretty unusual to meet someone at 17 or meet someone even at 20. And then as you go through all those life changes as a person, for that relationship to somehow survive all of that. That's the challenge. But you were out of college, so that was a plus. That was a pro, I think, for you, too.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, and I'm just a very patient person. And I put up with all of Genevieve's absolutely peccadillos.

[Luke Burbank]

Wait till she sees what you're doing with the family Tupperware. Has she signed off on this?

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, Luke, guess what I just found. October weekly week, October 22nd. The reason I was having so much trouble finding this was it was just included in a local news brief. So I've been over here, like, clicking into all of these links just looking for it. This is a local news brief from October 22, 1998. Let's see here. Earth, wind and fire ants Cut smoke and groove in local man's backyard. Okay, I'll go with it. That was the first MIT mathematician proves six of one, half dozen of the other are indeed equal. That's coming out of Cambridge again. This is a very Boston centric publication. And then here, semicolon quits in disgust. Now I'm reading this. Kind of cold here. And we'll see how close I am on that last line. This is kind of long and the print is small and it's definitely not funny, so I have to Is this a thing people care about?

[Genevieve]

No.

[Andrew Walsh]

Here it is. The semicolon shocked the punctuation community yesterday by abruptly resigning in what he called, quote, complete and utter disgust. Quote, I'm beat to death with centuries of abuse, misuse and misunderstanding. I've suffered endless taunts from the other punctuation. I'm called a weak period, colon and comma's love child. Both comma and colon refused to comment on the semicolons lineage. This on top of what can only be termed as complete and unparalleled humiliation at the hands of gastroenterology humorists everywhere. Continued the semicolon. I don't need this grief. You people are so damn smart. Find your own way to separate an independent clause and phrases when followed by a conjunctive adverb without using a conjunction. Go ahead. When asked for comment, the exclamation point shouted, it's jealousy, plain and simple. Let me skip ahead here. I'm just going to skip that one because I don't feel like yelling so much. And then the final sentences. When asked what his plans for the future were, semicolon stated, quote, I plan to pause but not stop completely from 1998. I think I said 1995 before.

[Genevieve]

That's pretty good.

[Andrew Walsh]

Still stuck in my brain. It doesn't say there's no writing credit.

[Luke Burbank]

That does feel like comedy. That would have either been received very well via the Capitol steps or a guy standing at a piano or a

[Andrew Walsh]

guy standing on the capitol steps.

[Luke Burbank]

Or like, they used to do the. You know, the Prayer Home Companion had the All Jokes show.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, I used to love the All Jokes show. I lived for it. I waited for it all year.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it's so funny because. So to speak, because I always say that, like, I didn't grow up in a public radio household at all. Like, you know, we. That wasn't necessarily the energy. But I do have these weird memories. Maybe it was like, college and I was just back home visiting or something. I have a memory of listening to the joke show with, like, my family. My mom and dad, like, were in the kitchen and listening, and they're laughing. And I thought it was cool that, like. Like my dad thought this was funny too. Like, I. I remember experiencing that with my parents, which would mean that maybe we were listening to some amount of public radio in the house. I mean, I. I did. What I know is that when I interviewed for a work study position at kuow, I remember waking up on the morning of my interview with, I believe it was Steve Sher and Marcy Sillman and Caitlin Duffy may have been there as well. And not knowing what the frequency was or not, you know, trying to find the frequency to listen to the show that I was gonna go interview to be the work study student on, so I would have some context. And the weirdest thing is the show was called Weekday. I remember turning my little clock radio in my bedroom to the station, and they were, of all people, they were interviewing, I think Rick Riz. It was either Rick Riz or Dave Niehaus. Like this, you know, very local affairs public radio station was, for whatever reason, talking to one of the Mariners broadcasters. So I thought, well, this will be just fine. Like, this is. This is my cup of tea. But all that is to say, like, I. I don't have a. I don't remember our family at all being a public radio fan, but I do remember listening to that joke show and loving it. I do think that that semicolon joke, if compacted down.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Could have worked very well.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was a little long. Are you saying that I should have maybe considered compacting it down for.

[Luke Burbank]

No, not at all.

[Andrew Walsh]

As well, because. No.

[Luke Burbank]

If anything, we want to take the long way here, Andrew. And I really do mean that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Not unlike that new Burger King commercial that claims we've sucked for the past several decades. We're listening. We heard you. And we're changing. And that's how I am with future Weekly Week articles that I read to you, Luke. I will.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, do you want to. Should I do want me to activate the Top Story sound effect so we can just get into that Burger King ad and talk about Alice Cooper tomorrow?

[Andrew Walsh]

Do you know about the ad I'm talking about?

[Luke Burbank]

I sure do.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my.

[Luke Burbank]

During the NBA finals and things I. Hold on, please. Please hold.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

It's the one where they say that they fired the King, right? And he's like leaving the building like a person who. Does he even have a box with his stuff in it?

[Andrew Walsh]

He does now, which made me feel bad for. Who's your director friend? I was just bringing him up the other day. The guy Ruben Fleischer. Ruben Fleischer believe directed those first commercials with the kind of uncanny Burger King King odd rictus face throwing directly under the bus in this new ad campaign. But now I was unfamiliar with this. I have not seen this commercial in the wild, as Genevieve says. But I was doing. I'm trying to think somebody sent it to me or I stumbled on it and doing some research on something else. And the one I saw was like a full 90 second commercial. I don't know if the one that's airing, usually they make the long ones, but then they ch it up for different purposes. So tell me about the commercial you saw. Is it like a long, almost like mini documentary that goes back to like the 70s and how happy people were eating Burger King, but they're not anymore. And they show a sad guy looking sadly at his burger in a Burger King.

[Luke Burbank]

It was much shorter than that because it was broadcast television. And honestly, the only thing I remember again, I think this was during like the NBA finals I was seeing this. I don't think they've been playing them during Mariners broadcast, but I was watching some, you know, sort of network television type of dealio. And what I just remember was like seeing them say something like, you know, we heard you. And something about, you know, the. It's almost like. Could almost be a no Kings protest. Is there a tie in there?

[Andrew Walsh]

That would be funny. What if. What if the whole thing was a misunderstanding?

[Luke Burbank]

What if no Kings was just a. A serious psyop from Burger King? That would be incredible.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, Weekly week, are you listening to this? This is an opportunity. Boot it back up.

[Luke Burbank]

But Burger.

[Andrew Walsh]

Burger King CEO massively misunderstands no Kings protest movement.

[Luke Burbank]

Because what I'm seeing. I'm kind of half paying attention to the. To the commercial, but then it's like, what I realize is, oh, they're not. It's not even a joke about getting rid of the King. It's like. Like, it's like they're saying that they lost their way and that they got too into the king ruling everything. And then the guy's leaving. The king character is leaving the building. Like, the way when a person has been told they're fired and their key card doesn't work anymore. And I was like, oh, I mean, it is a bit. Because this is all a bit. Life is a bit, Andrew. But what I mean is, I was like, oh, no. They're really. They're really kind of staking their new claim to, like, we're getting rid of the King and we're putting you in charge. And weirdly, like, for me, it was like, I almost had, like, can we take a moment? Can we play taps? Can we pour. Pour some out for this king? Because that's been. It's not quite on the level of. If McDonald's just said, we're getting rid of Ronald McDonald because, honestly, we find him creepy. Like, it's almost. It's not quite that level. But I was like, wow, they're really. They're committing to this idea that, like, they're getting rid of that guy now. Anyway, that was the only thing that stuck. The thing that stuck to my brain was like. Like, oh, oh, wow. They have. They've clearly, after, I'm sure, a lot of meetings, because part of the whole deal with advertising, the work of it, the hard part, is creating a brand and a brand identity and a vibe. And once you've done that and established it, it's really hard to steer that aircraft carrier of that thing. Like, you're making a big decision to, like, revoke the king's key card and send him out of the building. And like you said. But it's also just kind of like it's them in a way, saying, like, we've really screwed up and we've seen the error of our ways, which is also not a thing that corporate America does until they feel like it's the only option.

[Andrew Walsh]

I have so much to say on this, obviously, but. So the first thing I'm gonna do, I think, is maybe play this commercial. Okay. This is the full version of the commercial and begins with a man sitting in. What. I guess you don't. Oh, yeah, you do see Burger King branding on his cup. So he's clearly he's the only man in this Burger King. It's actually cleaner and nicer than the Burger King near my. But it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be drab and dreary. It's a little bit blue. You know, they can't make it a total.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that Burger King? When you say buy your house, is it across from Sprouts?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that one. I would.

[Luke Burbank]

That's the Burger King that. I think I peed my pants.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh yeah, that came up recently. Yes, exactly. That's the one that came up recently on the show. Okay, here, listen.

[Genevieve]

This.

[Andrew Walsh]

The voice. The voice over will do a lot of the work here, but you're also going to be seeing a lot of like retro images. And by the way, this is a smart thing they're doing is Burger King is. Is reinvesting in some of their more retro campaigns. Like even that song that they brought back a couple of summers ago, that was kind of a bop. That was a reworking of their original song back in the 70s. And that classic logo of theirs. When I went into that Burger King where you pissed your pants, I stopped very quickly and I what's it gonna

[Luke Burbank]

take to get me a plaque?

[Andrew Walsh]

I read the plaque in that booth. I paid tribute and then I ordered my double Whopper. But the kid behind the counter was wearing a pretty bomb ass Burger King shir. It's like plain brown with like the logo just like very simply in the middle of it. I even asked him about it. I'm like, is there a chance I could get one of those? And the answer was not yes, but anyway. So I do think they're smart to lean back into some of their retro look. And this commercial does show a lot of like smiling faces of like 1970s fast food workers who look like mods and stuff.

[Genevieve]

What happened? There was a time Burger King used to to be king.

[Andrew Walsh]

This guy is literally shaking his head at his burger. He's elbows on the table, burger clenched his hands in front of him and then he's just like shaking his head. This is a Burger King customer just being like, what am I doing? What am I doing eating this thing?

[Genevieve]

What happened? There was a time Burger King used to be king. Flame grilled burgers served by folks only happy when you had it your way. No matter where or when or who. Every meal felt special.

[Andrew Walsh]

Spotted at a Burger King couch because you felt special.

[Genevieve]

Wow. It was great.

[Andrew Walsh]

Take me to Burger King.

[Genevieve]

But somehow somewhere fast food just fell off, us included.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now we're about halfway through this commercial, and they're gonna show like a deflating crown on top of a Burger King building. Go ahead.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm trying to place. What is this song?

[Andrew Walsh]

It's the who.

[Luke Burbank]

That's the who?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Is it Baba O'Reilly, I believe, is the name of that song. Yeah, I think it's Baba O'Reilly. Anyway, I do think of Ross Reynolds when I hear it because of the theme song.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, he was. I believe he was eminent. Decay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, decay we've gotten into this. Decay was how he labeled it in the system because he had a fade out. Because it's just called Eminence.

[Luke Burbank]

Called Eminence.

[Andrew Walsh]

I believe the name of the song is Eminence or something like that. But anyway, a big part of this campaign is clearly Burger King was like, well, let's find out what people are saying on social media and like, let's start our own, like, little, like, information gathering campaign. And so this is the part of the commercial where you're going to hear, like, clip of people talking into their phones being like, burger King has lost its way.

[Genevieve]

And that's not good. So we started listening. I even gave my number out. Hi, I'm Tom, the president. And this is what you called us out on. Old restaurants, slow service, simple mistakes.

[Luke Burbank]

What is this?

[Genevieve]

And this thing is just pitiful.

[Luke Burbank]

How am I supposed to eat like a king when you're feeding me like a peasant?

[Genevieve]

And that. This guy definitely wasn't helping any of the kings, which. Fair point. So. So we fired the king and crowned you. Reinvesting nationwide. One restaurant, one team, one burger at a time. And the iconic Whopper. It's never tasted better thanks to you. Plain grilled sty tie and never smashed in the bag. After all, when we say you rule, we mean it. And we're just getting started because there's a new king and it's you.

[Andrew Walsh]

At the end, we see the guy in a new Burger King building and he's holding the hamburger in the same way, but he's smiling at it and nodding. And let me tell you what I told Genevieve on the show. And this is. This is not a bit. This is actually a true story about this commercial. This makes me feel bad for liking Burger King. Burger King is still my go to fast food restaurant of choice. Like, maybe Wendy's would be a. Maybe Wendy's would beat it out if there was a closer one. But it's head and shoulders above McDonald's for me. I never crave McDonald's, but if I am craving McDonald, McDonald's.

[Luke Burbank]

What's your favorite shampoo?

[Andrew Walsh]

My favorite shampoo. Why do you shoulders. Anyway, I got done watching this and I was like, I guess I'm a sucker. I guess I've been eating shit. This commercial literally made me feel bad about a brand that I had a good feeling towards. That is not how commercials should make you feel.

[Luke Burbank]

And that's because you feel like they are throwing the towel in so hard on everything they've been doing for the last 15 years.

[Andrew Walsh]

I've been eating Burger King for the last 15 years. I have not noticed a decline in the quality of the burgers. I actually do think I have in McDonald's a little bit. Maybe it's just my taste has changed. McDonald's feels like if you eat a burger at McDonald's, it sort of feels like there's more like, I don't know, non meat filler in there or something. I don't know what it is. And I could be totally wrong about that.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's run that to 100% and I can go back, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. But like Burger King was doing well. They were the ones who really championed. Speaking of like kind of the meatless Whopper a while there and people were talking about it. It's good. And like, I think that you can taste sort of the flame broiled flavor that they advertise. Whatever. Like, I like Burger King. I have liked Burger King this whole time. And like an idiot. And Burger King is now saying like, you're an idiot, Andrew, because we've sucked. We have been so shitty for so long. Look at this sad version of Andrew sitting in a Burger King like a chump, enjoying one of our crappy burgers.

[Luke Burbank]

Burger King, where his friend Luke once peed his pants and no one even noticed. Nobody is actually, no. Those were the good days of Burger King. See, we want to go back to the era when Luke was peeing his pants constantly in this restaurant.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, let me make one more, one more point about the marketing on this though, because I thought you mentioned something interesting about like how McDonald's is not coming out and saying we're going to to fire Ronald McDonald or whatever, because you don't have to.

[Luke Burbank]

He is being investigated by the doj. Although that's the one malicious prosecution, that's the one lawfare I think I can get behind.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't even want to bring this up, but I'm pretty sure he's in the files. I swear there was so much information going around about those Epstein files, but I'm pretty sure that there's some connection There.

[Luke Burbank]

But he was seeing if Jeff could get Grimace into Dartmouth.

[Andrew Walsh]

Listen, Griffiths just wanted a new plane, a new private jet, okay? And Ronald said, I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna pull some strings and ask some favors. I didn't get into anything. Listen, brands can go one of two ways. When they want to retire a campaign or even a character, they can just, like, kind of stop doing it. And you can easily do that because people aren't watching so closely. Even me, Luke. People aren't watching so closely that they're like. Like, why wasn't the brawny man in that brawny commercial? I saw. I saw a mom, two kids, a school teacher and a garbage truck driver. No brawny man. What is going on over a brawny. Nobody's saying that. They're just like, I don't know, this a brawny commercial, but so brawny. If they wanted to move away from the. From a giant selling their. Their product, they can just sort of shelve that, quietly move on to some other things and quietly bring it back when they want a retro campaign or whatever. And it can be fine, or brands can make big deal of it and release a press release like that. We talked about Mr. Clean. Oh, Mr. Clean is retiring. Or we fired media, or they killed the Mr. Peanut boy. Mr. Clean and Mr. Peanut, but both looking for work slash life these days. But you know what I mean? And so they can do that. And so I think that that's part of this, too. It's like, we fired the King. Oh, now you can put out a press release about it, but really, I really appreciate more the McDonald's way of doing things like. Like, we probably don't need Ronald McDonald right now. He's a little bit creepy. But hey, you know what? Don't make a big deal of it. Put a cartoon version of him in some sort of cartoon commercial for kids and you still, you know, have the ip. You can roll it out when you need to.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, you can never, ever have the King back now.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, you know you can. And then you make a big deal about that, too.

[Luke Burbank]

What he went to. He went to therapy.

[Andrew Walsh]

We hired the King back.

[Luke Burbank]

When you see the King walking out of the Burger King HQ with a box of his stuff with a key card that is no longer functional, I don't think you come back from that. I don't know what's the framing when

[Andrew Walsh]

they let him back already? I mean, they didn't.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, but he was never even killed. That was all a Super Bowl BS and what they never said was Mr. Peanut was an abject failure and that's why we're killing him. They've framed the King as incompetent, domineering, not good at flame broiling things.

[Andrew Walsh]

By the way, there's a really sad shot of him sitting on a hotel bed hanging up the phone as he gets the news. I don't know if that made the cut of the version that's, that's airing. But it's also my understanding I could be wrong about this. But it's my understanding that he and Mike Vrabel are both in the same sort of program and are getting the treatment that they need and, you know, maybe can both make a great comeback.

[Luke Burbank]

It was a complete and total coincidence that The King and Mr. Peanut were at that spa in Sedona. They were both there with other mascots.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is a friendly hug.

[Luke Burbank]

Other corporate mascots and they just happened to be holding hands, looking at the sunset a couple of times.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like friends do somebody make that and don't use AI.

[Luke Burbank]

I wanted to see that if Tom Curtis is a real person. The CEO of Burger King, who I guess is doing the VO for that because I thought it sounded like. I think the guy is maybe named Jake Johnson. I think he was on New Girl. I don't know. I mix up. There's just like, there's these two or three comedians who are all kind of. They look a little similar and they're from shows that I never watched. And so I'm always kind of mixing them up in my mind a little bit. Anyway, I wanted to see if that was a real guy, Tom Curtis. And then I went to LinkedIn and. Or I googled Tom Burger King. And there's a guy, his name is Tom Curtis, President U.S. and Canada of Burger King. And what's funny is if you click on the LinkedIn like link for him, it just says like, message me directly. You can Skip all this LinkedIn stuff. Like, he is very. I mean, who knows if he would respond, but it's obviously like there, this is a, like a truth and reconciliation commission being launched by Burger King to be like, if you are having a bad experience, you can talk to Tom right now. Like, you don't even have to go through LinkedIn. You can just DM him. And well, he said in this ad,

[Andrew Walsh]

like, I gave out my number. But you know that's bullshit because that number is like, that's a Google voice number. That other. You know what I mean? It's like the CEO did not give out his number.

[Luke Burbank]

Of course not. But what they're trying to do is also just like create this sense, like me, a random podcaster, going to his LinkedIn page on my phone so I don't disconnect our Internet here. And it's just going like, you don't even have to use LinkedIn. You can just like message me right now. That's how available I am to you. Which is all just completely, you know, it's all sort of an act to try to give an impression. But I mean, this is just. To me, it's interesting because they obviously did a million focus groups to try to ask people, so it would appear that their sales must be down or plateaued or something. There's something with their sales that had them concerned. And then they went about trying to figure out, well, why are the sales down or why are things not trending in the right direction or whatever. And they somehow decided it was because people did not find the idea of a Burger King appealing in some way. And I mean, the irony is that they've always, I mean, isn't it, you rule? Isn't that. That's been their tagline for a while. I thought that actually had sort of effectively like they'd made the king kind of this like weird merry prankster. Again with that Rick. I'm very proud I used Rictus correctly, by the way. Like, that's exactly what is on the face of that king. I looked at the up, but like he. I thought they actually did an okay job of him just being this kind of chaos muppet. But that you rule and putting that in the songs and stuff and that little catchy, you rule, like that sticks in your head. And that to me made me feel like, you know, this is a benevolent fiefdom. If anything, like, yes, the king is technically in charge, but I actually rule.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

On a day to day basis. So I thought they did an okay job with that. But anyway, they obviously decided that like that was what was holding them back. And also that they're. Yeah, that they felt like their quality of their stuff had kind of gone to shit and that they needed to really like just air it out. Because the alternative is like you said, to just low key the king and start talking about these tasty burgers or something. Just put some new stuff out there and you don't have to make this big announcement. But I mean, I guess the interesting thing will be if it's successful or not, if this drives, you know, more business to admit to say, like, yeah, you know, we really lost our way, but now we're back because you rule. I don't know. It's. It seems like a roll of the dice because like you said, your feeling as a. As a customer is like, was I an idiot for going there? Like, are you more or less likely to go to Burger King last time you're in the mood?

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm actually less. Like, I mean, slightly. Slightly like, I don't think that on the occasion that I'm going to go to Burger King, it's so few and far between the instances are. And also, if I'm in that mindset, I'm not really thinking, like, well, I'm not thinking straight. You know, it's like I'm. I'm just Pavlovian Lee finding myself there in the parking lot on Aurora. But anyway, I wanted to switch gears here for a second because while we're on the topic, and I appreciate you obliging me like this, I know I'm sort of taking over the show with after these messages, content, but I did record an episode with Genevieve yesterday, as we do on Tuesday night nights. And the theme of yesterday's show was commercials featuring people in full body casts. And, my God, never has it been easier for me to produce a show. I have no idea why the idea popped in my head. We were on deadline. I was getting a very late start in prepping the show, and I was like, I don't know. Sometimes you see that in commercials. I type in TV commercial, full body cast. And it was like the old idiom, shooting fish in a barrel.

[Luke Burbank]

Barrel.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sorry, Wes. It's like feeding fish in a barrel as we're supposed to be, I think. And I just found commercial after commercial after commercial of the trope of somebody being in a full body cast, often not being able to reach the thing they need or something like that. But there were some other. There were. I was.

[Luke Burbank]

There's gotta be a. Got milk.

[Andrew Walsh]

Speaking of, gotten a very famous one. Yep. There's an iconic one where a guy is fed a cookie by the daughter of his roommate in the hospital. His roommate's doing better, but the girl puts a cookie in his mouth. He enjoys it.

[Luke Burbank]

But we're being honest, though. Like, which came first, that commercial or the one where the guy's in hell because somebody should have been like, we've already done a version of this.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's what I said to Veeves on the show yesterday. I was just like that. Apparently, a huge chunk of this campaign was people eating cookies and not being able to access milk. You should have seen the shots of milk Too. It's like they're in this guy's family and they're the ones who are drinking the milk. And the milk is over, overflowing. It's almost like that sexy gas station scene in Zoolander. I don't know if you notice.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, right when they're spraying the gas.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. It's like milk is just like delicious milk is going all over the place as this family while the other guy is parch mouthed in this all body cast. Okay, the cast thing is just what we were talking about. And there was an Energizer commercial that fit into this theme as well. In fact, it was a little bit blue. Luke, I'll just describe it to you. I don't have to play the whole thing. But there is a guy, he's got casts on his arms and legs or whatever, but he. He's convalescing at home in his living room. His wife says, I'll be back in a little bit. He's like, okay. He picks up the remote control. He's actually got some functionality. And he turns on the TV and switches to what seems to be a porn channel. Which is weird because he's clicking through the channels and it's like children's programming, news. And then the next one is the porn channel. And you hear the chicka chicka wow, wow music. And you're just like, man, they just put that right next to the news, huh? On your cable package.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, if you pay enough, you got

[Andrew Walsh]

kids in the house. Like, what's going on? But then the joke is, as soon as he lands on that channel, the wife yells from the other room, hey, Father o' Malley is here to check in on you. Like, I guess priests just drop by unannounced to check on invalids. And now his batteries are dead in his remote control. And it's for Energizer, and it's for Energizer. And he cannot click away as this stern priest is coming in to check on him. And he's going to be caught. And his wife is very upset when she comes back and she sees that he's watching porn. She looks very, very. She's giving the Cheryl look. The look that Cheryl gives David or Larry David on Curb youb Enthusiasm. But all of that is to say, at the very end of the commercial, there's a little voiceover. And it's very short, but I immediately recognized it. And I was wondering, is this one of those things where I. Because I was bragging to you the other day, I was like, oh, I

[Luke Burbank]

Asked you what is a thing you track?

[Andrew Walsh]

And I heard it, like, really, like, what is just one thing that you know? Just give me one fact.

[Luke Burbank]

Just say one word.

[Andrew Walsh]

Just say one word with conviction. Just one goddamn thing is what I believe you said to me. I can go back to the. So I'm just going to go to the very end of this commercial and tell me, you might already just know that this guy did this campaign. But I don't. And I noticed.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't even. I don't remember this commercial. I've been watching it muted on my phone while you were describing it, but I didn't. I haven't heard anything. So this will be brand new to me.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mentioned the spicy content. You're like, I got to get eyes on this, don't I? All right.

[Luke Burbank]

I bookmarked it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Should have used Energizer.

[Andrew Walsh]

They keep going. Yes. Okay. Okay. I mean, I don't know why I'm so excited for you, but Genevieve. I played it for Genevieve a million times. She's like, no, I have no idea. And then I said, once I told her Harry Shearer, she's like, oh, I guess I hear it a little bit. I would have never. I would have never gotten it. And like, I said, her like you, I got it immediately. I'm like, oh, well. The only problem is, I think in my head, I said, hank is area, because I get those guys confused. But I knew who I was.

[Luke Burbank]

The last mile problem for you.

[Andrew Walsh]

I knew what I was talking about. I knew that it was, like, the Reverend Lovejoy or whatever.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Harry Shearer. What a time to be Harry Shearer.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

In the 1990s, it's like, you know, the Simpsons is the juggernaut that it. That it was. You know, Les show is carried on multiple public radio stations.

[Andrew Walsh]

Le show still has a little bit of a heartbeat. The same heartbeat that it began with.

[Luke Burbank]

I think Le Show. This is not going to descend into another Le Show Les Chat. But I do think last time we talked about it, I was googling it, and it's still. I think it's still happening to some degree, and I am very happy about that, for the record.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. In fact, I dialed it up after we talked about it on the show. I dialed it up and listened to it that night when I was playing darts, and it's exactly the same. It's a little bit meandering, and he just sort of fumbles his way. It begins with him fumbling his way through press releases and news articles sort of. And I. I really do like the fact that it's not very polished and it has not changed a bit.

[Luke Burbank]

Speaking of old timey radio. And then we maybe should wrap her up because we've also got a business boy meeting today. But, like, I did go to the New York offices of Marketplace yesterday, and it was very fun to get to. We were there kind of late in the day, so it wasn't exactly bustling, but like being in a. Like a public radio kind of newsroom, slash studios, slash just a certain kind of. Even office furniture, you know, kind of. I actually took a video of it I was gonna send you just to be like, I miss being in these spaces, you know. And in fact, I think almost everybody there. I was talking to Erica, who is one of the producers of the Splendid Table, who said that for her show. Anyway, you know, they just. Nobody has to come into Manhattan anymore, like, post pandemic, a lot of that. If you were already working at a satellite location, you know, you don't have to go in a lot for these studios, but they're just. There's just a certain design to a public radio studio that was built out in the early 2000s, you know, between 2000 and 2010. And the kind of office furniture that came with that and just the overall vibe of a place like that, I think just I love it so much and I really miss it when I'm around it. You know, if I had to get up and commute into Manhattan every day from Brooklyn or whatever, I probably treasure the opportunity to stay home. But just being in that space was. It was very nostalgic for me. But also it was interesting because, you know, last week when we were trying to find a place to film in New York, just because I was interviewing Francis Lamb from the Splendid Table about this TV story I'm doing, and I was trying to kind of show off and be a big man to our producer, our TV producer, by flexing that. I still have connections at apm, which it turns out I really don't, because almost everyone that we worked with has sort of moved on to one thing or another or whatever. So after saying, yeah, I'll ask about the studio, I then just completely started war dialing people. By that, I mean just like spraying emails around to the producers of the Splendid Table to somebody at the media department of American Public Media, basically saying, hey, this is good earned media for Splendid Table. You know, the idea being maybe the PR folks would be interested in helping facilitate this because they like the Splendid Table getting mentioned on CBS Sunday Morning. I was trying to work this from every single angle. And you know, within an afternoon this had been locked in. And the folks from Splendid were super helpful. We all got our passes and we're ready to go. So that was let's say last Thursday. Okay, so cut to yesterday Tuesday. And at about 11 in the morning or something on Tuesday, I get an email from somebody at APM at facilities who's like, hey, well let me see what I can help on this. Okay. It's $117 an hour for studio. Like it was a whole list of what the studio rental like things were and stuff. And it was, it was, it was not written in any kind of a terse or officious way, but it was so reminded me of what it is also to work at a big company or be at a big company which is like, oh, we already have our badges to get in. This has been a thoroughly worked out between a small group of people and is happening. And there's a camera crew. The camera crew may have literally already been there setting up their lights. And then there's somebody else who's the right hand to the left hand. We've already got it worked out with the left hand and the right hand is going. Well, here are our studio rates. Just that feeling of being like that can never happen at TBTL because there's only three of us and one of us, me is checked out so well.

[Andrew Walsh]

You're just handing the keys over to everybody. You're like, yeah, just anybody. You need a studio, just go to Andrew's house anytime, day or night and he will.

[Luke Burbank]

Andrew has an open door policy with his home studio, I'd like to tell you. But it was, it was, it was, it was funny to. And I'm not even saying that like it was some big, you know, transgression or dropping of the ball. But I miss, there are days when I miss us having like a cool building. I mean we never even really had that with tbtl. But even Cairo, just, just going somewhere and being around other people who are making radio, that's something that I, I always enjoy. But then also remembering that yeah, with big companies there's also just like somebody who's going like, okay, well here are the studio rates. It's like, well, we've already figured this out.

[Andrew Walsh]

Actually, let me first of all echo both sides of that because that's exactly why I like going into Kuow on the occasions that they invite me over there to like be one of their, one of their.

[Luke Burbank]

They're talking heads.

[Andrew Walsh]

Call it what it Is. I was going to say talking pundits. I was going to say talking fools, but that implies that the other people are as foolish as I am. But, you know, I'll go over there sometimes to be on the podcast or even the Friday show with our pal Bill Radke, and I love it. I vibe off that energy, I would guess maybe even a little bit more than you. I'm a little bit more of a company man and I love being around people talking into microphones and having that. As much as I do enjoy the. The flexibility and everything that goes along with this job and having a studio in my home. I'm really glad that I have like every three months or so an excuse to go over to KOW and like, you know, stop over at Phyllis's cubicle and chat with her a little bit. You know what I mean? Like, there's something nice about that.

[Luke Burbank]

Having said here that she's word on the street is that she's been kind of slacking at that job because she's mostly getting Gus shout outs on on local radio.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh yeah. Did Gus get a shout out?

[Luke Burbank]

You obviously didn't click on the video link that we both received this morning.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I haven't. Is. It's funny you should say that. My text tab is open on my computer right now and I see I've missed a whole bunch of stuff between you and Chris and me that I need to catch up on after the show. You didn't even listen.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I forgot. I'm three hours ahead of you. So that explains a little bit. Yeah, I've been having multiple important. No philosophers. Phyllis got, I don't know, the station in Seattle, I think plays. Jackie and Bender gave Gus a graduation shout out today.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, no kidding. Oh, that's great.

[Luke Burbank]

So that was the nature of my joke saying that she's been spending all her time getting Gus shout out.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, this is great. Well, congratulations to. To Gus and to Phyllis.

[Luke Burbank]

Don't give him another one.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh,

[Luke Burbank]

kids gonna honestly have an inflated ego.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'll be back. You'll just hear beep Gus. But let me tell you, I'm just going to tell the listeners a story that I told you. I'll redact a couple of names, but this is also what it's like to work with or for a company like KUOW is. You know, I'm like I said, I'm over there at least once every three months, probably more than that between the radio show and the podcast and of course I used to work there. And I really like I'm friends with so many of the people that work there. I guess there's a younger generation now. There's more and more people I don't know. But, you know, like, I'm personal friends with a lot of the people who work there still, including some of the people who would make some managerial style decisions. And what was going on in my home. I think they had to cut power in my house for this, for this renovation thing we're doing in the basement several months ago or years ago or however long this has been going on. And for one or possibly two days, I just needed a place where I could set up a microphone and my computer and record with you. It didn't even have to be a radio station. Like, I have my own microphone. I had my own little mixing board. I had a computer. I just needed Internet and electricity. And I thought. Did I say Trizity? I think I did. Electricity, as you say it, Luke, properly on CBS on ZBS News.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, you know, the funny part is I think you've got Chris Hayes saying Trizity now.

[Andrew Walsh]

I heard him, I heard him say it too. And I felt that talking about AI

[Luke Burbank]

during the series he recently did. And I caught a trisy in there. And I thought, Andrew, you've put your evil inside one of the last, one of the last smart people in the media.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let's, let's, you know, like I, he either called that out to us or something because that rings a bell. Like, somebody pointed out that Chris says it too. And it might have been Chris pointing out that he says it too. Anyway, my point is, I was just looking for a place and I asked Genevieve too. I'm like, maybe I could come into your work if there's an, you know, there's a lot of open desks at workplaces these days because of the work from home policy. You would think that somebody would be happy to like, like, share some space. And I did say, you know, I will be talking into a microphone. I'm going to be doing the podcast. So I need a door that I can close. I don't want to be like in the middle of the newsroom at a cubicle doing tbt. Obviously that wouldn't work for a million different reasons, but all I was asking for was a little bit of desk space somewhere. And I asked my buddy at KoW, and this is somebody who's not really in a managerial position, a producer over there, somebody very close to us. You know who I'm talking about? And I said, hey, could you. Do you think you could find me some space maybe to do my show there for a day or two. Just thinking would be fun, you know, like, it's radio. They're doing radio. And he. And I will say he did what I probably would do and you would never do in this situation, and rightfully so. He said, yeah, of course. Let me ask so and so and so and so. And basically he's going to ask his boss. I would like to point out his boss, or maybe this is his boss's boss or whatever. Another close personal friend of mine, like, I know who he asked. He said, let me me ask. And then a couple of days go by, and then he gets back to me, is like, oh, man, I'm really sorry. You know, I asked so and so. And then he had to ask his boss. And then his boss said, no. I'm also personal friends with his boss's boss's boss. Like, I know these dudes. And he said, no, they can't do it because, you know, you're not working on a KUOW project, and they just don't. It was like one of those corporate things of, like, we don't want to be associated with whatever you say into your own microphone, into your own computer, down the line to Luke using our electricity and WI fi, it was just like one of those things. Whereas I asked Genevieve and she said, yeah, you know what? So and so is out. We'll just put you in his office. And then when I was there, I saw Genevieve's boss and I said, oh, I'm here to do a podcast. He's like, oh, okay, no problem. And she didn't run it up a chain. She didn't give an opportunity for a bunch of people to say no. And I'm not blaming my friend who asked his boss. Boss, I would have done the same thing because I'm a company man. But it's exactly what you're talking about. It's just kind of like, what, you have some sort of policy about me, your friend, coming in at an empty desk that you're probably worried about filling since the pandemic. It was just such a perfect example of that. Well, we have policies in place.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, you know what else? I hadn't even thought about this, because I think you and I had maybe talked about this off air, but I wonder also if it happens if the no was because my name got associated with it, because there is definitely at least one person still there who we've never. We haven't talked ever directly about the person on the show. It's not any of our friends, you know, who sometimes get mentions on here who work at that station. But there's somebody in particular who I think absolutely loathes me to the end of the earth.

[Andrew Walsh]

Would you say that he's got. He's almost burning with his hatred of. Is he a man?

[Luke Burbank]

I'd say I, I'd say it's definitely almost like a man who's burning with, with anger and resentment towards me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Some of it, okay.

[Luke Burbank]

I would say some of it completely legitimate.

[Andrew Walsh]

I know I've been there.

[Luke Burbank]

Some of it not. And some of it, yes, I would. What I would say is it started out illegitimate and that made me mad and then I made it legitimate through some of my actions. But this person, there is a person there who. And also, by the way, that person has a certain amount of responsibility for, let's just say, facilities.

[Andrew Walsh]

That is true. I don't think it, I don't think it got to the Burning man, but it might have. I think I know who it got to and that's what galls me even more. I think it's somebody who I help once move a mattress into their house, to be honest.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, now that's getting more and more specific.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think it was a mattress or maybe it was a, maybe it was a chest of drawers.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like every time over the course, you know, when I was like a 22 year old, very, very, very newly starting out, full employee at that radio station, I just didn't, I wasn't. Well, I wasn't good then and I remained not great now at going through the proper channels for things. I think I, actually, in this day and age, I think I have more, a little bit more respect for an understanding of the channels. I really do. Like, you know, I would, I think I would have. Nowadays I'd be more receptive to why certain things can't be done or you know, why we're not going to do that. I would just now chalk it up to, well, that's just life at a big institution or a big corporation or whatever you want to call it. Back then I was so like, well, why can't we?

[Genevieve]

Or what?

[Luke Burbank]

That makes no sense. And I was, I think I was pretty petulant about stuff. And I also had like no cred. I was like the former work study student who then had gone and worked in conservative talk radio and then come back to KUOW and was like kind of not taking no for an answer on a lot of things. And so that person. And then it must just have Been and remain salt in the wound that this person who I had some really big conflicts with, who still works there all these years later, that now it's like I have a show on that station at noon every Saturday. There was a long time where I would come back to do weekend review and I'd be going around high fiving in glad handing. And I'm not saying everyone there has some great particular opinion of me, but it's just like over the course of 20 years to have that snot nosed intern just getting to continue to be on the station in a variety of things. And you have nothing to say about it. You can't do anything about it. But there's one thing you could do, which is if the guy that he co hosts the podcast with wants to post up in a studio, you might be able to kill that one. And boy, that would feel that'd be some kind of satisfaction. It might not have been.

[Andrew Walsh]

I gotta say, like, no offense, that's centering yourself pretty far into this. I don't think that it was exactly

[Luke Burbank]

what that guy would say.

[Andrew Walsh]

I do not think it was any connection to you. I really do. Because again, so you, you screwed this

[Luke Burbank]

up all on your own. Yeah, even in my bad reputation.

[Andrew Walsh]

But that's the thing with anything like this. If you're asking, the answer is always going to be no. I mean, that's one of the things I've learned from you. And that's kind of why I brought up Genevieve's thing. Like, she was like, no, I'll just give you the desk. And you know, if anybody is bothered by this, like, I can apologize, but I just don't think that there's any going to be any need to. And I ran into Genevieve's boss and guess what? We're also friends outside of work and nobody cared. And there was a door. Like, as long as I wasn't disturbing anybody, I wasn't. You know what I mean? My usage of the Internet was not hurting anybody else's usage of the Internet. My being in an empty. I mean, I guess literally everything we

[Luke Burbank]

said on that episode, Andrew is co. Signed by the University of Washington.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. And that was the. At least that was the thing. It wasn't even like, you know what?

[Luke Burbank]

What?

[Andrew Walsh]

We just don't have the space right now. Like if they had an. Honestly, if the answer had been we don't have the space right now, it's just a little bit chaotic right now. Like, absolutely. I say that to people when they want to spend the night at my house. Like out of town, open door policy, things are a little. Andrew has an open door policy, things are chaotic.

[Luke Burbank]

Except when it's closed.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's always chaotic here. So like, I honestly, like, I don't think that to be very clear. In fact, I'm glad to follow up with this. I don't think that I have a God given right or a Luke given right or a burning man given right right to do the show at kow. Like I honestly think that the saying we just don't have the space for that, it might just be a distraction. Anything like that would almost be fine. The distraction maybe not so much, but you could just say no, it's not going to work for us, that's fine. The fact that the answer sort of came with that, well, we ran it up the chain and it ran up the chain and the answer was no. Having some like non Kow branded content being made within these hallowed walls, I mean that was the answer. It had some not, not in those words. But the answer was no. Like that is, we can't kind of condone another non Kow product was like, you gotta be effing me.

[Luke Burbank]

Will be. Not to mention the fact that in these fractured media times, you know, the, the thing that legacy and sort of terrestrial radio stations are always dealing with is like how do we expand into other ways of doing this content and how do we, we, you know, like I'm not saying that our show is the biggest hit of all time, but like if anything there should be ways to try to do a collab. Like hey, there's this thing that's been going on for almost 20 years that's got some number of listeners and it's got three full time employees and like there's a, you know, I'm not saying that that ask by you for studio space should have led to some sort of, you know, huge collaboration, but just like the idea that the first thought is what's the liability there? And or no. Versus oh, we have this kind of cool thing that's happening in our backyard, made by our friends and who, you know, what are the ways that we could actually all kind of have fun and benefit from this? Versus Well, I don't know what the legal on that is. It's just it, it is not. It doesn't make me feel super duper hopeful for the, some of the long term implications of how our, how we get our media is changing. You know what it, as it, as it pertains to some of these bigger companies and places that just have A kind of a way of doing stuff that was really useful for a long time, but is kind of becoming more and more outmoded, I guess I'm just

[Andrew Walsh]

going to say the name. I think it was Chris Morgan, host of the KOW podcast, the Wild. Into the Wild. Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

The Wild. Andrew, please.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's not into the Wild.

[Luke Burbank]

No, I think that's the Krakauer book. I think it's just called the Wild.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, can we start a show? Yeah, you're right. Can I start a show?

[Luke Burbank]

I only know that because I still hear ads for it. And I'm always happy because, you know, Carrie was gonna be a producer on that show back in the day. She helped do some video stuff with that guy, and they were launching something, and I remember they started doing. Well, she was gonna. Not with the KUOW part of it, but his kind of overall brand of doing, like, outdoor content and wildlife content. And I remember when they launched that show at kuow, I thought, well, this is really cool. We'll see how long it goes. And that was years ago and I still hear ads for it, so.

[Andrew Walsh]

So, yeah, that is true.

[Luke Burbank]

The Wild.

[Andrew Walsh]

I actually don't know for whatever. Obviously I'm joking. I don't know. Chris Morgan. I was just trying to think of one of their podcast hosts and, you

[Luke Burbank]

know, who doesn't have any more podcasts that I can tell. Well, that's not true. But none of the ones like we did is apm. It's just APM Reports. So it's just the documentary side of things. What I mean is they don't have any more bullshit podcasts like we used to do. Which fun part?

[Andrew Walsh]

Right, right, right.

[Luke Burbank]

No room for bullshit anymore.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, no. I proposed that as a guiding principle on tbtl, and it was weirdly, John, who was against it. He's like, no, we are here for.

[Luke Burbank]

Without the bullshit, we don't have a lot going for.

[Andrew Walsh]

He just sort of pointed to a stack of papers. I don't even know what it meant.

[Luke Burbank]

Pointed to a pie chart.

[Andrew Walsh]

Actually, I was thinking that. Don't think I wasn't thinking that.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you see the look on my face when he pointed to that pie chart?

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, let's keep on talking in code and block the listeners out. John's going to point at that pie chart even harder.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, that's enough. Way inside baseball that only you and I and John would possibly enjoy. And probably not John, but anyway, let's go ahead and wrap things up for today. But guess what? We're gonna be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for all of you. I will still be here in New York for one more day, so hopefully I'll have more adventures to share from my time here and other such things. In the meantime, hope you all have a great rest of your Wednesday and you take care of yourselves. Go Mariners. And please remember, no mountain too tall

[Andrew Walsh]

and good luck to all. Power out.