PTFO: Share & Halftime & Tell with Wyatt Cenac and Sarah Spain

Summary

Podcast Summary: PTFO: Share & Halftime & Tell with Wyatt Cenac and Sarah Spain

Episode Details

• Title: PTFO: Share & Halftime & Tell with Wyatt Cenac and Sarah Spain
• Hosts: Dan Le Batard, Stugotz
• Guests: Wyatt Cenac, Sarah Spain
• Release Date: January 31, 2025

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1. Revisiting the Super Bowl Halftime Show Evolution

Discussion Overview: Wyatt Cenac and Sarah Spain delve into the transformation of the Super Bowl halftime show from a mere filler segment to a significant cultural event. They explore the pivotal role that the sketch comedy show In Living Color played in elevating the halftime performance's prestige and entertainment value.

Key Points:

• Historical Context: Initially, the halftime show featured high school marching bands and was considered low-stakes entertainment.
• Fox's Disruption: In 1992, Fox attempted to steal the halftime audience by introducing In Living Color sketches alongside a musical performance by MC Hammer. This move was groundbreaking as it challenged the traditional CBS-dominated halftime programming.
• Shift to Spectaculars: After initial experiments, Fox pivoted to featuring major pop stars like Michael Jackson, setting a new standard for future halftime shows.

Notable Quotes:

• "This was the moment that changed the halftime show from background noise to a main event." – Wyatt Cenac [04:16]
• "In Living Color threatened the status quo, forcing networks to up their game." – Guest [05:28]

Timestamps:

• Introduction of In Living Color: [03:34] - [05:08]
• Transition to Michael Jackson: [17:57] - [19:35]

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2. The Curious Case of Tech Mogul Brian Johnson

Discussion Overview: The hosts discuss the controversial figure Brian Johnson, highlighting his obsession with reversing aging and his unconventional methods, including publicly sharing intimate biometric data comparing his nighttime erections to his son's.

Key Points:

• Brian Johnson's Endeavors: Johnson spends approximately $2 million annually on his body, surpassing even high-profile athletes like LeBron James.
• Public Sharing of Data: His tweets comparing his nocturnal erections with his son's raise ethical and privacy concerns.
• Project Baby Face: An initiative aimed at extending human lifespan, involving plasma donations between generations.
• Concerns: The conversation touches on the potential psychological and societal impacts of Johnson's pursuits.

Notable Quotes:

• "Brian Johnson is trying to push the boundaries of what's possible in human longevity, but at what cost?" – Pablo Torre [25:15]
• "His obsession with eternal youth is both fascinating and deeply troubling." – Guest [28:11]

Timestamps:

• Introduction to Brian Johnson: [22:46] - [25:15]
• Ethical Implications: [29:27] - [31:46]

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3. National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) CBA and the Abolition of the Draft

Discussion Overview: Wyatt Cenac leads a conversation on the NWSL's new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), emphasizing the league's decision to eliminate drafts. The discussion contrasts this move with traditional American sports leagues and European football structures.

Key Points:

• Draft Abolition: The NWSL has removed the college and expansion drafts, granting players complete freedom to choose their teams.
• Global Alignment: By adopting practices similar to FIFA and European leagues, the NWSL enhances its competitiveness and appeal on a global scale.
• Player Empowerment: Players now have unrestricted movement, increasing their bargaining power and personal agency.
• Innovation in Sports Management: Women's leagues, including the NWSL and PWHL, are pioneering changes that address longstanding issues like player rights and league competitiveness.
• Impact on Major Leagues: The conversation speculates on whether major men's leagues like the NFL or NBA might adopt similar practices in the future.

Notable Quotes:

• "The NWSL is setting a precedent that could redefine player-league dynamics across all sports." – Wyatt Cenac [36:30]
• "Women's sports are leading the way in innovating systems that prioritize player rights and league health." – Guest [39:37]

Timestamps:

• NWSL CBA Changes: [34:26] - [46:49]
• Comparison with European Leagues: [36:20] - [41:59]

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4. Innovations in Women's Professional Sports

Discussion Overview: The hosts explore how women's professional sports leagues are implementing innovative changes that challenge traditional structures, focusing on the NWSL and PWHL as primary examples.

Key Points:

• Alternative Structures: The NWSL's abolition of the draft and the PWHL's point-based draft order system demonstrate a shift towards more player-centric models.
• Entertainment and Engagement: Women's leagues are experimenting with new forms of game endings, such as "target scores" to ensure decisive outcomes, contrasting with some men's leagues' extended play formats.
• Enhanced Player Experience: By removing restrictive elements like drafts, players can pursue contracts that better align with their personal and professional aspirations.
• Future Prospects: These innovations may influence how other leagues, including men's, structure their operations and player agreements.

Notable Quotes:

• "Women's leagues are not bound by tradition and are free to innovate in ways that enhance both player autonomy and fan engagement." – Wyatt Cenac [43:00]
• "The professional women's hockey league is a prime example of how alternative systems can lead to more dynamic and fair competition." – Guest [42:23]

Timestamps:

• Draft Abolition Impact: [36:52] - [44:31]
• System and Fairness Discussions: [44:18] - [46:49]

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5. Closing Remarks and Final Banter

Discussion Overview: As the episode wraps up, the hosts engage in light-hearted banter, reflecting on the topics discussed and teasing future content.

Key Points:

• Humorous Exchanges: The conversation includes playful teasing about the topics covered, such as boner data and the implications of extreme wealth.
• Future Episodes: Hints are dropped about potential future discussions, including documentaries and deeper dives into topics like In Living Color.

Notable Quotes:

• "We've only scratched the surface on these fascinating topics. Can't wait to explore more in future episodes." – Wyatt Cenac [46:26]
• "This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. We'll see you next time." – Guest [46:49]

Timestamps:

• Final Banter and Teasers: [46:13] - [47:35]

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Concluding Insights

This episode of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz offers a multifaceted exploration of both historical and contemporary issues in sports and pop culture. From the transformative impact of In Living Color on the Super Bowl halftime show to the groundbreaking changes in the NWSL's player agreements, hosts Wyatt Cenac and Sarah Spain provide insightful commentary enriched with humor and critical analysis. Additionally, the discussion surrounding Brian Johnson's controversial pursuits adds a thought-provoking layer on the complexities of wealth and human longevity.

Listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of how innovation and player empowerment are reshaping sports entertainment, while also being entertained by the hosts' engaging dialogue and timely humor.

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. Today's episode is brought to you by DraftKings. DraftKings. The Crown is yours. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Just real quick, back to the boners.

[Pablo Torre]

Right after this ad.

[Wyatt Cenac]

You're listening to Giraffe Kings.

[Sarah Spain]

This episode is brought to you by Allstate.

[Pablo Torre]

Some people just know they could save.

[Sarah Spain]

Hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate First.

[Pablo Torre]

Like, you know, to check the date.

[Sarah Spain]

Of the big game first before you accidentally buy tickets on your 20th wedding anniversary and have to spend the next 20 years of your marriage making up for it. Yeah, checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote.

[Pablo Torre]

That could save you hundreds.

[Sarah Spain]

You're in good hands with Allstate Savings.

[Pablo Torre]

Vary terms apply.

[Sarah Spain]

Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois.

[Wyatt Cenac]

By the way, nice to meet you, Wyatt.

[Unknown Guest]

It's very nice to meet you.

[Pablo Torre]

I'm not a good host. I'm not introduced.

[Wyatt Cenac]

I'm a very big fan of yours, and my husband and I really loved your show Problem Areas, because I thought the vibe was just excellent.

[Unknown Guest]

Thank you so much. That. That really means a lot. I know. I. I'm a fan of yours as well. I was wondering if we had met before, but. Yeah. I've always been a big fan of you, and I. I miss seeing you on around the Horn because you were so much fun on that show.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

I was going to say.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Yeah, Pablo was never fun on that show. Except for as the whipping boy.

[Pablo Torre]

I was going to say I'm also. And I'm here, too, on the show.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah. You're fine on it.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Yeah. You're okay.

[Pablo Torre]

I'm getting. I'm getting a vibe that I did not ask for actually here.

[Unknown Guest]

This show is just what you find out. It's not about what you ask for.

[Pablo Torre]

What I found out is that you guys are already better friends with each other than you are with me, which is a hard thing to learn three seconds into a program.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah, we've already started three different text threads.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Yeah, we actually started some group chats with multiple other people too, but didn't invite you.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Sarah, it's good to see you.

[Wyatt Cenac]

You too.

[Pablo Torre]

The last time you were on the show, you were super horny for mascots, and I presume that's still the case.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Still am.

[Unknown Guest]

When I was in college, I auditioned to be the mascot, and I didn't get it.

[Pablo Torre]

At Carolina.

[Unknown Guest]

At North Carolina.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. What's the Rams name?

[Unknown Guest]

Ramses. They put a lot of thought into it.

[Pablo Torre]

What was that audition like?

[Unknown Guest]

They put you in the costume, and then you got to, like, dance around and do stuff. And I didn't really know what to do. I just thought it would be fun. And so I put it on. And I think I just did a bunch of, like, hip thrusts and crotch grabs, and they were like, that's enough. And told me I had done things in that costume that had never been done before and should never be done again.

[Pablo Torre]

Somehow you were too horny for the Rams.

[Wyatt Cenac]

I was gonna say. I feel like we view mascots the same then.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah. Yeah, they are.

[Wyatt Cenac]

The immediate urge was the crotch crab.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah. Those mascots are here for our sexual pleasure.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Clearly. Have you seen Benny the Bull?

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah. Huh. He's. He's a smoke show.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Yep. He can get it.

[Pablo Torre]

Wyatt, what did you bring us today on this edition of Sharon Tell?

[Unknown Guest]

So today I brought. We do have a Super bowl coming up. There's a lot of talk about not familiar. Oh, well, there's a Super Bowl. There's a sport called futsball. Are you aware of that?

[Pablo Torre]

Go on.

[Unknown Guest]

You. It's different from the English futsball, but it's still with people, not with feet. But super bowl halftime show. Kendrick Lamar is performing. A lot of big conversation around that. Now that Taylor Swift will be in attendance at the super bowl, maybe Taylor Swift will be leaving the skybox to make a surprise appearance. Who knows?

[Wyatt Cenac]

They do have a tune together.

[Unknown Guest]

Yep, they do.

[Pablo Torre]

That's relevant.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah, exactly. Or maybe Taylor Swift just sings it from the skybox. They just hand her a microphone and she slides the glass open and is like, I'll do my part. Sure. Blah, blah, blah.

[Wyatt Cenac]

And then she could tom Cruise it and, like, fly down on a wire from the suite to the field like.

[Pablo Torre]

He did at the Olympics, Burj Khalifa style. Just rappel down the side of the building. I like that. We've already checked off all of the SEO bait for the episode in the.

[Unknown Guest]

Beginning of this topic, the biggest show on turf, and it wasn't always recognized as that, but there was a time when the halftime show, it would be, like, up with people or a high school marching band, and it was just kind of filler while everyone went to the bathroom and no one really saw it.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Smoked a couple cigs in the locker room.

[Unknown Guest]

Exactly. Yeah. Oh, those were the good old days. You just smoke in the locker room.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Drugs that made your body still function but completely unfeeling.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah. Get drunk a little bit. So just in thinking about that, that's what the Halftime show was. And then something had to change it.

[Pablo Torre]

Right?

[Unknown Guest]

There was some moment that was that sort of catalyst moment that said, your tube is not good enough. And the thing that changed it was the sketch show In Living Color.

[Pablo Torre]

So I didn't know anything about this.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Neither did I.

[Pablo Torre]

And I've thought a lot about the halftime show as a cultural institution before. I didn't know about this until you brought it to us and we actually looked into it.

[Unknown Guest]

Right? Yeah. You didn't believe me at first when I just told you this.

[Pablo Torre]

I did not.

[Unknown Guest]

And then you said we had to look into it.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, it actually does, like demand a further explanation because it does not make sense, the sentence that you have said.

[Unknown Guest]

I don't know. It makes pretty good sense to me. Roll the credits. Show's over. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production.

[Pablo Torre]

All right. We don't need to do just a straight up impersonation parody of me.

[Unknown Guest]

I don't know that that was. That wasn't a good impression of you.

[Pablo Torre]

Mildly disrespectful.

[Unknown Guest]

No, this is my impression. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media production. And we'll see you next time.

[Pablo Torre]

Why, Wyatt, did you even discover that In Living Color was involved at all in this?

[Unknown Guest]

I grew up watching In Living Color. It's a show that I enjoyed as a kid. It was one that inspired me to do what I do. But then also a few years ago, I had been having some preliminary conversations to make a documentary about In Living Color.

[Wyatt Cenac]

No way are you still doing that. I would love to watch that.

[Unknown Guest]

Unfortunately, it fell through there, I think were just too many things, one of which being Disney owns the IP and so there's a lot of stuff there to navigate. And then with all the cast, they are all giant megastars and so.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, to remind people, right. This is. I mean, I don't want to lead with Jim Carrey, but Jim Carrey was on In Living Color.

[Unknown Guest]

Sure. You had Damon Wayans, you had Jim Carrey, you had Career, Jennifer Lopez. Yeah. Rosie Perez was the choreographer.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. This was a sketch comedy show on Fox.

[Unknown Guest]

It ran for five seasons. And in that time, in that short amount of time has done so much as far as like given us so much entertainment, both the show itself, but then the people who came from that show, that there is no real story about it. Like I remember when the show had had like its 10 year anniversary and its 15 year anniversary and nobody would write about it. Like there was never like the Vulture article That was, hey, here's a oral history of the.

[Wyatt Cenac]

That we've seen for so many other things.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah. And so in doing the research for it to kind of pitch the idea, one of the things that I got really into was at the time that CBS at that moment had the super bowl, that Fox, as this kind of upstart network, had decided, we want to do something outrageous. What if we could steal some of the super bowl audience?

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Unknown Guest]

And what could we do to do that? And initially they said, what if we got MC Hammer to perform and then we could get, like, In Living Color is our big show. What if we got them to do some live sketches?

[Pablo Torre]

Right. This is 1992.

[Wyatt Cenac]

And to your point, they were not winning halftime. It was dead. Time to go get your snacks, or you'd turn away and watch something else. So they were trying to keep people around in a way that you never have to do anymore. Cause it's part of the show.

[Unknown Guest]

And every network at that time had just ceded that to the NFL. That, like, whatever network it was on, if it was on cbs, then we're never even thinking that, like, halftime could be a thing or even counter programming against the Super Bowl.

[Pablo Torre]

It's the least thinkable thing now to go head to head against the super bowl halftime show.

[Unknown Guest]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

But at this point in 1992, Fox seizes opportunity when CBS has a Super bowl, and they say, let's create a distraction that's gonna steal audience and bring it over to us just for the period of halftime, Right?

[Unknown Guest]

Yes. And so that's what they started talking about. And they said, yeah, what if we get MC Hammer? And then we'll have the In Living Color folks just do a couple sketches. And then what was. When it was presented to Kenan and the folks at In Living Color, they said that, what if we do a show and MC Hammer can be our musical guest? And so the network was like, all right. They started going for it. They got some corporate sponsors. It was taking too long. MC Hammer eventually dropped out and was replaced by. If you can't get MC Hammer, who do you get? You get Color Me Bad.

[Wyatt Cenac]

So they got Color Me Bad to close things out, I presume. I want to sex you up.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah. I mean, when you got mascots, what else are you going to do? That's the theme song for every mascot. As I learned it, that was the music I asked to play when I auditioned for Ramses as Ramses, I was like, I brought my own music here. Here you go.

[Wyatt Cenac]

And now we have wet. The times have Changed.

[Unknown Guest]

So, yeah, they get Color Me Bad, and they do this. Hey, I know what you guys are thinking.

[Wyatt Cenac]

You were thinking, hey, are these bozos gonna make us miss any part of the second half?

[Pablo Torre]

That's where this comes in our super bowl countdown clock. It'll be coming on later in the show to let you know when to switch back to the second half. You won't miss any of the senseless brutality.

[Unknown Guest]

But check this out.

[Pablo Torre]

The bad boys of comedy got a lot of action for you right here.

[Unknown Guest]

Fire Marshal Bill Men on and calling me bad.

[Pablo Torre]

Performing here live. I love Wyatt. They have a clock in the bottom left corner. They're like. They're very clear about what they are trying to do.

[Unknown Guest]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

Like, they're playing a prank on cbs.

[Unknown Guest]

Specifically because CBS had planned their super bowl halftime show would be a promo for the upcoming Winter Olympics, which would be a salute to the Winter Olympics that would feature two small ice rinks.

[Pablo Torre]

I just like the idea of on one channel is the In Living Color super bowl halftime party. And then in the Metro Dome in Minneapolis is what is being hailed as.

[Unknown Guest]

This proudly presents the 1992 Super Bowl 26 halftime spectacular.

[Pablo Torre]

Winter magic.

[Sarah Spain]

Hi, everybody.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Come on and feel the cold.

[Sarah Spain]

Come to Minnesota, where hot winter is the hottest time of the year.

[Pablo Torre]

It's winter magic.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Who.

[Unknown Guest]

Who says feel the cold?

[Pablo Torre]

It's winter magic. Wyatt.

[Wyatt Cenac]

You know, I'm not gonna lie. Brian Boitano was big in our family. Brian Boitano and Dorothy Hamill getting excited for some winter Olympic figure skating we would have been in.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, were you a big enough fan to continue watching this.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Winter patches? No.

[Unknown Guest]

Nope.

[Pablo Torre]

Like, the visuals on this. There are umbrellas with snowflakes painted on.

[Wyatt Cenac]

It does sort of. I mean, in a way, though, it does resemble super bowl halftimes in the sense of, you know, taking over the field with all these dancers and. And visual elements, it's just so, like, corny.

[Pablo Torre]

They go on to do, like, Christmas songs, right?

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

It's February. It's a Super Bowl. They're, like, doing.

[Sarah Spain]

It's.

[Pablo Torre]

It's kind of mind blowing. It's like, again, Brian Boitano, Dorothy Hamill, the 1980 U.S. olympic hockey team shows up at one point.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah, they also have jet skis, but the jet skis are on wheels, so they're being held up on wheels so they can drive around.

[Pablo Torre]

They do the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy at one point. And meanwhile, over on Fox, this is happening. Jewelry, jewelry, jewelry.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Check it out.

[Unknown Guest]

Super bowl rings and things.

[Pablo Torre]

Now, I know some of y'all sitting out there saying, homie, boys, these rings a little big for me. That's why with every purchase, we going to give you absolutely free this job. NFL vitamins. That's right.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Within six months, you'll be wearing these.

[Pablo Torre]

Bad boys like pinky rings.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Oh, so good. I can't believe I've never seen that before.

[Pablo Torre]

Holding a giant plastic, like, cheese ball jug just full of steroids.

[Unknown Guest]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

They were like poking and all of the eyes available to them.

[Unknown Guest]

All the bears were getting poked that day. Yeah. And the whole show, I mean, everything was just all over football. And people loved it. They drew a huge portion of the audience away and even kept some of it. And so the gambit worked and it was successful. And after that, the decision was made, we have to do something different and we can't. There became a fear that now this is like, we have shown a weakness. We have to come back with the most strength possible.

[Wyatt Cenac]

What's also fascinating, and for the youngsters watching, they might not realize this, but Fox Network did not launch until 1986. So this is four years after the network launched. And if you remember, the beginning of the network was all about being disruptive to the traditional abc, NBC, cbs. It was Tracy Ullman, the Simpsons, in Living Color, Married With Children. It was all these things that were a little bit edgier and the idea that Fox now couldn't do those sketches because they want the rights and own the rights. Like, everyone's in bed with the NFL now, where everyone feels like they have a chance to be in bed because you can even have games as Netflix and streaming services. Back then, Fox was like the little kid, the little brother that was never going to win rights to have the games. So they felt perfectly comfortable skewering them. Like, you just don't see that these days from major networks because they all have to be playing nice just in case they have a deal with them. The same way like ESPN had to stop running that playmaker show and. And the NFL was like, yeah, sorry, you can't do that. They have so much power now that to watch that is something to think about here, where it's like, oh, you could just do that then. Because they didn't think they had a shot. And now, of course, Fox is, is in bed with the giant.

[Unknown Guest]

Well, and also what's wild too, is thinking about just how, how cautious those networks get because at that time, so they had two sponsors that were interested in being the corporate sponsor for the In Living Color halftime show. One was Frito Lay and the other was Pepsi. And at the time, Pepsi was really excited about this idea. And they started talking about, hey, if this works, then maybe we could also take the characters from In Living Color and put them in the Pepsi Challenge. And so we'll take like Homie the clown and do some Pepsi Challenge spots with Homie the clown and we'll take, you know, the Menon guys and put them in some Pepsi Challenge things. Which now is a thing that you see more commonly where you do see like sketch characters from SNL being used in commercials. This was the proto of that. But the live In Living Color, they were so disruptive and so like push.

[Pablo Torre]

It's insane to watch it.

[Unknown Guest]

They pushed the boundaries so far, one of which making a joke about Richard Gere that there was there at the time had. There. There had been a.

[Pablo Torre]

We all grew up with the Geral story. We all knew the Geral story.

[Unknown Guest]

Sure. Yes. But there. There might be younger audience members who are not familiar with this, but there was a time where it had been intimated that Richard Gear had gotten intimate with a gerbil.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, the Geral had gotten into Richard.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Gear, I think into. Yeah, yeah. Just to be more specific, to put a finer point on it, Richard Gere allegedly put a gerbil in his.

[Unknown Guest]

Yes. Yeah. As. As. As one might.

[Pablo Torre]

Allegedly.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah. And so they make a joke about that, which they got past the censors. They made a second joke that got past the censors. And both of those things were the bridge too far for Pepsi, where they then said, ah, you know what? Never mind. We're gonna cancel this deal.

[Pablo Torre]

And so the NFL and rather the networks that have the rights to the most important piece of cultural date that we have now, they decide to change gears.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah. To sort of silence tiny little fox at the time. And they went and they got Michael Jackson, the biggest pop star of the moment.

[Pablo Torre]

And this, now, this Michael Jackson halftime show is the thing that all of us know.

[Unknown Guest]

Yes. And it sets the precedent.

[Pablo Torre]

Literally. American culture was never the same because In Living Color threatened those dancing children in the Metrodome.

[Wyatt Cenac]

To your point about, you know, going hard once you pull out your Michael Jackson, so to speak, no one's really gonna lay what they've got on the table to try to compete. So once you've established that this is what the halftime show looks like from here on out.

[Pablo Torre]

Exactly.

[Wyatt Cenac]

It's no longer about trying to counter program. It's about understanding that it's. It's, you know, you're not winning.

[Pablo Torre]

The war was over.

[Unknown Guest]

Yes.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

Nuclear deterrence had prevailed, right?

[Wyatt Cenac]

Yes.

[Unknown Guest]

But it also then set the precedent and set the standard for the NFL that, well, we got to do this every year now. And so then every year it became, all right, who's a giant sponsor we can get so Pepsi, even though they initially were going to be in bed with Foxen and Living Color, they were like, ah, we're good. Oh, Michael Jackson. Yeah, the Super Bowl. Yeah, you can have our money. There's nothing controversial about this.

[Wyatt Cenac]

We want nothing to do with controversy. So we're backing Michael Jackson.

[Pablo Torre]

In no way will this age poorly to be laughed at later by podcasters revisiting the history of this program, but.

[Unknown Guest]

Also age poorly seven months later because the first Michael Jackson child abuse allegations came out that summer. Oh, so that Super Bowl Michael Jackson performs, and not just performs, does a whole section about kids and wanting to love and protect the kids.

[Pablo Torre]

They do We Are the World with a children's choir and then does a.

[Unknown Guest]

Thing where the audience participation is holding up little stick figures of children while he goes and stands among children and picks them up and is like doing a whole thing. That summer is when those allegations come out.

[Pablo Torre]

Luckily, though, this year there is thankfully zero subtext when it comes to such a topic with the current performer we're about to watch together.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Yeah, nothing to do with minors whatsoever.

[Sarah Spain]

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[Pablo Torre]

I did Want to talk about the curious case of tech mogul Brian Johnson? Brian Johnson is a guy who may have come to your attention recently because he posted a tweet about his. His boner as it compares to his son's boner. And in case you are wondering why am I using these words? This feels gross. Here's the tweet quote, nighttime erection data from my 19 year old son at Talmadge, Johnson and me. His duration is two minutes longer than mine. Raise children to stand tall, be firm and be upright, followed by all of these biometric boner charts. So you know, this is the guy, in case you weren't familiar, also in the documentary Don't Die, he's the guy. You guys, I mean, hold on before I go any further, you guys had heard of Brian Johnson before? I said, we gotta learn about the boner data.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah.

[Wyatt Cenac]

I had only remembered seeing the photo of him where he got a bunch of fat injected in his face and he looked like that lady who got more and more progressively like a cat due to her plastic.

[Unknown Guest]

Jocelyn Wildenstein.

[Wyatt Cenac]

That's the only reference point I have.

[Pablo Torre]

Name.

[Wyatt Cenac]

I can't believe you know the cat lady's name.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah, Jocelyn Wildenstein lives rent free in my brain. Also rest in peace, Jocelyn. She just passed away.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Wow.

[Unknown Guest]

She. We lost her in 2024.

[Wyatt Cenac]

I guess I should say Meow.

[Unknown Guest]

Catnap in peace. So. So you sweet, sweet Sheba.

[Pablo Torre]

This is what Brian Johnson looks like in the photo Sarah was alluding to as he was engaged in Project Baby Face. So Brian Johnson, Sarah, is the guy who is basically on a mission to reverse aging. And he has done this in a way that has been startling and has a sports context. LeBron James famously has been spending $1 million a year on his body, but Brian Johnson in Comparison spends about $2 million a year on his body. And so that's according to reporting from Ashley Vance, formerly of Bloomberg, who chronicled this, was involved with the documentary, is now running a great publication called Core Memory in which he talked about interviewing Brian Johnson. This is a very rich tech guy who's like, I'm going to be the face and the leader of a movement in which I'm going to basically discover where people have been too afraid to go when it comes to living forever. And in case you were wondering, wanted to find out how does one measure such boner data? You do it this way.

[Unknown Guest]

Oh yeah. And what is this other contraption that you.

[Pablo Torre]

That is how you can measure your night.

[Unknown Guest]

I mean, where am I going to put that?

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. So you. You put it on your shaft and just gently. There you go. Gently pull that. And so you put. There you go.

[Unknown Guest]

I'm sorry. I just go to sleep hard and I wake up hard.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Don't have to get ready if you stay ready. You know what I mean?

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah, yeah. Brian, you need to work on. You need to work on that endurance, my man.

[Pablo Torre]

Get your numbers up. Brian.

[Unknown Guest]

His phallus. Turgid.

[Pablo Torre]

Turgid's a great.

[Wyatt Cenac]

What a good word.

[Pablo Torre]

When. When else is turgid used if not for sort of like fashion description?

[Wyatt Cenac]

You can't say flaccid without thinking of a dick.

[Unknown Guest]

Exactly.

[Pablo Torre]

Flaccid and turgid are the yin and yang of boner adjectives.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Yeah, that would be a good rap duo. Then. Who ends up with flaccid?

[Pablo Torre]

I guess a real goofus and gallon situation. Turgid and Flaccid.

[Unknown Guest]

The highlights magazine of. Of sexual health.

[Pablo Torre]

What. What Brian Johnson is trying to say, though, about his erection and his son's erection is that they are.

[Unknown Guest]

They're nighttime erections. Just clarifying. They're nighttime erections.

[Pablo Torre]

Nocturnal. His nocturnal.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Together.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, separate and unequal, it turns out, is what he's making the case. His son, Brian Johnson, is trying to assert that his nighttime nocturnal turgidity is. Is to be reckoned with. And Sarah, I just want to explain who Brian Johnson is because he is the star of this doc called Don't Die on Netflix. I want to just give a clip from the trailer just to give a sense for people to catch up real quick on what kind of an archetype we're dealing with. I do worry about him.

[Wyatt Cenac]

I've never felt more understood by anyone than with you.

[Pablo Torre]

I really want to have multiple lifetimes with my son. 100 years is not going to be enough. What if you donate your plasma to me? I will. To dad. It'll be this multi generational thing.

[Wyatt Cenac]

You guys look awesome.

[Unknown Guest]

You don't, though.

[Pablo Torre]

So it stops on a clip of them in a photo shoot. It's Brian, his dad and Brian's son, who is the aforementioned.

[Unknown Guest]

Talmage.

[Pablo Torre]

Talmage. Turgid. Talmage. They basically made a sort of just. Yeah, they. They gave plasma to each other. Youngest to next oldest. In. In a way that feels like exactly what we were joking that Peter Thiel was doing with his blood boy in Silicon Valley. Brian Johnson is saying this is part of his very detailed and now public plan for how you can live forever.

[Unknown Guest]

Right. Yeah.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Vampire your children and then test each other's boners. I'm starting to try, I'm trying to piece together how we went from getting plasma to boner data.

[Unknown Guest]

Well, I mean, you get, you get three to five guys in a room and there's nothing on tv. It's. At some point, I think just naturally the conversation is going to wind its way to boner data.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

It's.

[Wyatt Cenac]

What's that? What's that? You know, you talk long enough and Hitler comes up. It's that for men with.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's however many monkeys in a room eventually typing out boner data. Yeah, I believe is how that, yeah, that old saying goes. Brian Johnson, by the way, it's just interesting how, like I mentioned Peter Thiel, who is again from the PayPal mafia, famously with Elon and David Sachs and all these gargoyles that we know now. But Brian Johnson, he had built an online payment processing company himself called Braintree, which bought Venmo and then he sold Braintree, it turns out, to PayPal in 2013 for $800 million, which is say that somehow like online payment processing is a real through line in the dystopian future we have entered.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Just real quick, back to the boners. His name is Johnson. It's a little on the nose or I guess on the D. But the point is he's testing his boners next to his sons in order to prove that that part of the aging process that isn't affecting him is sexual virility.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, what he's saying is that one of the indicators of the way in which he has slowed the rate of aging is nighttime erections. And so Brian Johnson, at age 47 is on par with his 19 year old.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Couldn't you compare it to other 47 year olds instead? Or couldn't you compare it to anonymous data from many people in their early 20s instead of weirdly posting about your son's boners, tagging him in those posts and then saying, raise your kids to stand firm and upright. This part to me is like a departure from the already weird obsession with not dying. Is also this desire to be connected to his son both in terms of like injecting his plasma into him, but then also having boner offs. Like, is this weird to you guys or am I just a woman?

[Unknown Guest]

No, that's. I mean, there's a very weird part.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Of like just skimming over it.

[Unknown Guest]

Well, even as you said it, it.

[Pablo Torre]

Is like when you put it like.

[Unknown Guest]

That, I mean, he is, he's sharing his son's medical data, like, which Also feels like a violation. And everything about it, what you've shown me, what I've read about it, what I see in that dynamic with the sun, if there's anyone I am horribly worried for, it is Talmad Johnson. Because at some point Brian is gonna realize maybe there's science where I could just put my brain in Talmadge's body. Like he's saying, oh, I want us all to live forever or clone him.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Or, you know, any number of weird sci fi rich person, weird things to take the next step.

[Unknown Guest]

Like he wants to get out his own son.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Yeah, yeah.

[Unknown Guest]

Or Talmage might already be in the Sunken Place.

[Wyatt Cenac]

He's in the culture.

[Pablo Torre]

He did quote, tweet the tweet from his dad saying, quote, I'm grateful for the way my dad has raised me, period.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Yeah, he's already. That sounds like something you'd write with a gun to your head.

[Pablo Torre]

He's in the turgid place.

[Wyatt Cenac]

He's in the turgid place. He can't think straight. He's constantly erect. His dad won't let him stop getting boners. Also not the point of the clip. But isn't he rich enough to get a more believable hair dye that doesn't occur in nature. Like, if the point is to look younger, Like a real easy, just boxed hair dye is not going to cost you much, and it's going to do wonders for selling people on your age.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. I do feel like for all the sincerity and for all of the pills and for all of the, you know, 4:30am wake ups, he has, like, it must suck when someone's like, it kind of looked like you're in your mid-40s.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

You guys are familiar with ESPN announcer Mark Jones?

[Wyatt Cenac]

Yeah. Mark Jones is on the substance.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, I. I just want to know what program Mark Jones is on. Mark Jones is 63 years old.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Mark Jones looks younger than Brian Johnson. And it's not close.

[Unknown Guest]

I'm 85. Are you talking about. Yeah, it's called melanin, my friend.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Yeah.

[Unknown Guest]

Get you some. Yeah, he doesn't. He doesn't need 130 pills. Just get some melanin.

[Pablo Torre]

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[Sarah Spain]

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[Pablo Torre]

DKNG Co audio.

[Wyatt Cenac]

I don't want to bring the party to a flaccid point, but I brought a sports topic. I forgot what show I was on, I guess, but I did want to bring it because I think you're both brilliant dudes and I'm kind of interested to see where your brain takes what could happen next. So I don't know how familiar you are with the NWSL having a new CBA that they signed a couple and part of it that we're now seeing manifest is they got rid of the draft altogether. They got rid of the college draft, they got rid of the expansion draft. There's no restrictions on movement for players at all. If you're out of a contract, you get to decide where you go. If you want to get traded, you have to agree to it. A team cannot trade you anywhere without you agreeing to it, and free agents can sign whenever they want. There's not even restricted free agency where the team that originally had their rights has a chance to match. It is entirely players rights now. And this is in part because the NWSL was having trouble competing with World Soccer and FIFA that operated an entirely different way. Right? So if a global team was trying to get you to play for them, you might choose them purely because you don't want to get drafted to somewhere that you have no choice. And you know that was a disadvantage to the nwsl. So this is the first real off season where we're seeing not only collegiate and younger players just sign with whatever team they choose, but also seeing all these free agents potentially choose NWSL wsl, which is The European Women's League in England. Naomi Girma, who's a superstar for the US national team and was playing for the San Diego Wave, just left and went to Chelsea out in England, had the biggest transfer fee of over a million dollars for a female player ever and signed a four year deal with them. And because of the way they restructured their rules, that was able to happen during a transfer window.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, that's right. Naomi Girma is a Chelsea player, which means Naomi Germa is now the world's most expensive player.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Naomi, welcome to Chelsea.

[Pablo Torre]

How does it feel to be here?

[Wyatt Cenac]

It doesn't feel real.

[Pablo Torre]

I'm just so excited to be here in person. Now is. Yeah, it doesn't feel real. I actually just want to jump in to say that, like, it's amazing that the nwsl, the National Women's Soccer League, did the thing that every think PC analyst in sports has been musing about, which is abolish the draft.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

No league in America has done that of this stature. And so the experiment which I have been. I'm one of those people in that choir, by the way, of just like, look, there are two levels, Wyatt. Like one is the level of fairness, obviously. Like it's, it's insane always that in this industry, in sports you have zero control despite having all of this value.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Over what you are and where you are going to actually use your talents to mis. Paraphrase LeBron James. But then the second level is like, well, doesn't that also, as much as I love the draft, raise new opportunities for like what to do in replacement of it. The television show of the draft, you abolish that too. And that's always John Skipper says it all the time. Like the reason he would never want to do it is because the TV show. But now you're actually forced to be creative about the entertainment of a world that is more fair and now again, far more open in terms of like how you're going to go around both making decisions and then portraying them to your audience.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Yeah, I mean there's the spectacle and the entertainment side of it, but then there's also how it serves a league. So for instance, in the past there was a Supreme Court ruling. This Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in Brown vs Football 1996. Clubs that make up a professional sports league are not completely independent economic competitors as they depend on a degree of cooperation for economic survival. So in the past, basically antitrust laws and things that people felt like a draft were in violation of were able to be saved around the idea that each individual part of a professional league is really just one company, sort of. And in the nwsl, that argument really wouldn't have worked because it didn't help the health of the league to have a draft when the rest of global football didn't.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[Wyatt Cenac]

So it benefits the health of the NWSL to operate in the same system as FIFA football and global football. The NFL would have different rules. The NBA would have different rules. So, yes, it's very interesting to think about, for player rights purposes, how you might replace the draft and do something else. But also it would be harder to get rid of it in the professional men's leagues in the US because of the fact that they aren't really operating in a global system the same way the NWSL wants to.

[Unknown Guest]

With the NWSL and the things that they've put forward, is that also something that exists in the European league? Or are. Yeah. Are there. Are there things that the NWSL are doing that aren't just the same as what you're seeing in the European league, but maybe even a step further?

[Wyatt Cenac]

No, this is a very essentially American thing to take away an individual's rights and put them instead with a league or a team in global football with, like, let's say, Naomi Girma and transfer fees. Naomi Girma is headed to Chelsea because she wanted to go there and they wanted her. She was under contract with the San Diego Wave of the NWSL through the end of 2026. So first, San Diego and Chelsea have to agree on a transfer fee, which is the amount of money Chelsea is gonna pay San Diego to have the rights to Naomi Girma. That's over a million dollars. And then they also have to convince Naomi Girma to go there and sign there. Even if they agreed on the trade and the transfer fee, she would not have to go there unless she agreed to it. So at every turn, there is both a negotiation between clubs on a transfer fee and a negotiation between player and club. An interesting element that is potentially going to come up and is already being discussed in MLS is should a player get a percentage of that transfer fee? Cause ultimately it's their value that's dictating how is being paid and why. So soccer is basically operating now in terms of global rules because we're behind, America is the one catching up, whereas all the other leagues, we're sort of setting the precedent. And so I think it'd be harder to unravel. But if I were a men's professional athlete in the U.S. looking over at the NWSL, would I have a lot of thoughts about how much better it would be to be able to pick where I got to go instead of getting sent to fill in the blank where allegedly, parody is what's driving things. But you know that it's a bad team that's poorly run, with bad facilities, bad owners, everything else, and you have no choice. You're stuck there.

[Pablo Torre]

It's an amazing thing, right? Like, the argument for the draft is inescapably socialist. And we have all of these capitalists who are saying we must have this because that is parody, right? Like, otherwise, small markets will lose out to big markets. The most marquee teams will always get the best players because why would they want to go to fill in the blank, you know, Cincinnati, slash, whatever, like, just right also ran market.

[Unknown Guest]

But it's corporate socialism, which capitalists have never had a problem with. Corporate socialism. It's not socialism for the individual, the player, the collective. In that way. Capitalists love corporate socialism.

[Pablo Torre]

And again, I'm somebody who like, my whole thing on tanking, right, is that the problem with taking is that it works. It makes sense to do it because you're following incentives. Like, it's an amazing thing to have the number one overall pick because you suck, right? But in a world in which there is no draft, how have these decisions been made? Like, what's happening, I guess, is my question now that the experiment for the first time is finally being run in America.

[Wyatt Cenac]

You just made me think of something that I want to add, which is another way that women's leagues are saying what we've always done doesn't have to be the way we keep doing it. The professional women's hockey league, the pwhl, uses a draft order point system so that the team with the most points after they've been eliminated gets a better pick. Oh, so once you know you're not making it, you have to try hard. You have to try hard instead of getting worse. So there's a lot of ways that I think women's professional sports are trying to look at what we've complained about for decades. On the men's side, Unrivaled, for instance, uses an Elam ending for the fourth quarter of every single game if people.

[Pablo Torre]

Aren'T familiar with a target score.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Yeah, target score. You've got a game winner every single game. Instead of, let's have 8,000 free throws and drag out the finish. So women's sports are looking at the things that aren't working in men's and trying out new things because they're not beholden to nostalgia and tradition and people who will be mad about, you know, mixing things up. As far as the NWSL goes, we are right in the midst of seeing the first handful of college players getting signed to teams. It's missing a bit of the pageantry in terms of draft day night, but I had the executive director of the nwslpa, Megan Burke on and the Players association president, Tori Huster on my podcast Good Game with Sarah Spain Plug there to talk about this right after the CBA went through. And one of the things that is that was an artificial pageantry. The real moment where you feel like a pro is when you sign your contract, not when you put the hat on. So can you make that my pro moment? Can you find a way to put some pageantry behind the contract signing and that decision? Or in high school, for instance, we've got the people who line up the hats on the table and then, you know, tell you where they're going on decision day. You could do that sort of thing the same way for players that are getting to decide their team as opposed to being drafted.

[Pablo Torre]

Make it so that instead of the employer having all of these suitors, you flip, turn the tables.

[Wyatt Cenac]

The dating game. The dating game, you've got the player and then behind the wall, you've got four teams.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Saying, here's our facilities, here's our record of winning. Here's where you'll live if you live here. Here's our tax situation.

[Pablo Torre]

Exactly.

[Wyatt Cenac]

The thing is, like, there are some legitimate questions about this in terms of how do you make sure teams are able to keep up, especially smaller markets. How do you ensure that there is a little bit of parity and it's not super lopsided? How do you keep fans interested in an also ran team if they don't have the hope of a draft, the hope of that savior that's coming in? On the other hand, you force every team to have better resources and investment and good coaches and a plan to win because they can't get by on luck and the idea that if they fail, they're still going to get a shot at a star. There's loyalty and respect going both ways where a player wants to be there and you want to have them that might result in better relationships and conversations when you have to choose where you want to go and stay there. If you want to stay there. I mean, I think there's a lot of doomsday scenarios to keep a system in place, the same way that we had doomsday scenarios about nil and paying players in college solely so that we could keep the billionaires rich and keep the player without any rights. You know what's smart? Enjoying a fresh gourmet meal at home that you didn't have to cook. Meat loophole in the laws of mealtime. Chef crafted meals delivered with a tap, ready in just two minutes. You know what's even smarter? Treating yourself without cheating your goals. Factor is dietitian approved, Chef prepared and you plated. Pretty smart, huh? Refresh your routine and eat smart with factor. Learn more@Factor Meals.com.

[Unknown Guest]

At the end of.

[Pablo Torre]

Every episode of Pablo Torre Finds out, we talk about what we found out today on a show about finding out stuff. And I found out just now that Sarah Spain has been holding a banana as a as not a prop, but actual food and has been restraining herself.

[Wyatt Cenac]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

From using it as a metaphor made real, which I must applaud.

[Unknown Guest]

Pablo, I found out that you need to do an episode where you take 130 vitamins a day and find out what happens to you. Will you. Will you get younger? Will you become more virile?

[Wyatt Cenac]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

At this rate, I don't think I want anybody to ever see the data that is inside of me. I don't think that only is going to go well.

[Wyatt Cenac]

I found out that I really want to see a Wyatt Cenac documentary about In Living Color. So I want that to happen somehow, some way. I also found out that being a billionaire is not as fun as it looks. For the millionth time, I don't know how many stories we need to hear about miserable billionaire men before we finally stop in any way idolizing that lifestyle or them, but this is just like the latest in a long, long list of just deeply upsetting results of being too rich.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah, I feel like it's a health crisis. We need to perhaps look at it as a health crisis, that we need to save these men from themselves and tax them fairly. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media production and we'll see you next time.