Transcript
Rubrik AI Agent Announcer (0:00)
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Max Kerman (0:31)
For sending this voice note. I never send voice notes. But I felt compelled to send you this idea. Feel free to use it if you want. Okay. You could put this at the top of the show. It'd go like this. Hey. Hello listeners. This is Max Kerman from the band R. Kells. We're a Canadian band and I'm coming to you today because I'm a listener of the Gist. I listen every day and every day if I accidentally click on the normal feed, I listen to Mike promoting the Gist list and and Pesca plus. And to be honest, I'm both sick of it and inspired to make a pitch because frankly, I'm embarrassed for your listeners. If you're listening to this show, you know that you're getting world class journalism. And more importantly, I also know how you spend your money. You spend your money on all kinds of stupid stuff. It's almost a crime that you're getting this show for free. So the least you can do is pay Mike for what he provides every single day. It's really the least you can do. The show is not only nourishing for our minds, but it's also wildly entertaining. I hosted the Gist once. It's impossibly hard to do that and the Gist list in pescoplus five days a week. I'm both in awe, but I'm also annoyed. The least you can do is sign up for Pesca plus, because if you listen to Pesca plus, you stop getting ads for Pesca plus, put it into your yearly budget and you won't even notice it. And you also do this thing where text 777 or you give them the website. You don't need to baby your crowd by giving them instructions. They they can Google Pesca plus and be a part of the program in 30 seconds.
Mike Pesca (2:02)
It's Friday, Dec. 26, 2025, from Peach Fish Productions. It's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. Some wonderful guests this week and today I bring you Alex Edelman, who won a special Tony, which doesn't have to join the other Tonys in a shorter bus than the regular Tonys. It's a full. I asked him. It's a full height. Tony for past performances. He's also. Since we did this interview, he's been on the show the Paper, which was the Office, or a version of the Office, the team from the Office, but bringing their faux documentary magic to the setting of a newspaper in. Was it an Akron. Was it in Toledo? I'm going to say Toledo. I'm looking this up as we talk. And by we, I mean I talk, you listen. I have to say, and this is not a critique of Alex Edelman or his acting skills. He's one of the best comedians and you'll. You'll hear me effusively praise him as a deep and challenging and just really, really interesting comic. And he's a good actor and his stage presence was awesome and he deserved the Tony. But a critique I have with the paper and shows of that ilk is. I think I might be just over the mockumentary. When it came out with the Office, it was kind of fun. And they never defined who was making the mockumentary. And I love Spinal Tap and I love the Ruddles, if you remember that. So it's a pretty fresh form, and they could get a lot out of it. And then more and more shows were done in mockumentary form to the point where you were like, is there even an internal logic here? Does there have to be? It became a little de facto. And at this point, a lot of the shows, especially on NBC or in the Peacock universe, where you can find the Paper, where you could find this other show called Stumble, I just think the mockumentary stuff gets in the way. There are a lot of jokes that wouldn't play if it weren't in a mockumentary. Like, I'll give you a Stumble joke. It's about cheerleaders. And one of the best cheerleaders on the team, we follow his name, Christina who? And then they go to the rival team and the coach there, whose name is funny and would be funny if it weren't a mockumentary played by Christina Chenoweth or Christine Chenoweth, says dismissively, christina who? And then it cuts to a cheerleader on her team and the Kyron says, christina Hugh. She's a very small Asian cheerleader and her name is Christina who. I think with. Without the mockumentary form, maybe you couldn't have that joke. You'd have to kill that, darling. But maybe a good writer actually could. What you gain is maybe one joke. What you lose is just Are you like me? The sheer tonnage of this, what should be an exceptional, that is the exception to the rule format has become stultifying and a little stale. And so I think if Stumble didn't exist within that form, it might be a better show. Now, I have to say, I tweeted out sentiments aligned with this point, and one of the stars of Stumble said, I hope you keep watching. I love doing the show. And I felt so bad. I said to him, I'll stumble for you. This guy looked familiar. I looked up his career, and this guy was on Soul Plane. And this guy's been in a lot of things. I mean, not only Soul Plane, but Ryan Pinkston, who's really good. He's really good in the show. He was not only a regular in Young Rock, which is a show about the rock when he was young. I understand it's not geological by any means. He was also in, in the beginning of his career, movies like, as I said, Soul Plane, Foreign Exchange, Extreme Movie, the Hannah Montana TV series, Breakdance Academy. Sometimes you hear these shows, you're like, oh, I know this show. And then sometimes you don't. You're like, how did this get made? The answer is Ryan Pinkston, an extremely affable guy, will seek out online critics and somewhat guilt them into not destroying his career. So I totally apologize to Ryan. He deserves a flourishing career. I wish Stumble were not in any way recast actor wise, but just not done as a mockumentary. All right, long way around, we got a full interview with Alex Edelman. How does he relate to all of this? Is he was also in a Peacock Co production which was a mockumentary. None of this is his fault. He is an innocent in all of this. Alex Edelman. Up next.