Last Looks: Champagne & Bullets [Jason Edition] w/ Suzi Barrett

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32:56to know what has happened in the intervening period of time. Nothing. We haven't written a word. We haven't talked about it. I'd say the only time the word in undercover has been brought up again has been on podcast episodes like this one where someone from the audience brought it up. Again, a lot of times after episodes, we are effectively hit with the men in black machine. We revert to zero, okay? I always feel bad. Lovely fans always come up and ask such wonderful, specific questions based on their profound fandom of the show, and I always feel so terrible saying, I do not remember that episode.

33:41That episode that meant so much to you, that line, that joke, that thing, I've forgotten it somehow. But yet I remember so many of those moments from Doughboys episodes. I'm the one saying to Doughboys, hey, remember when this happened? And they are like, we don't. So I get it. We're all fans. So for next week's matinee, we will be revisiting an oldie. Episode 25. Holy shit. That is an oldie. Episode 25. That's got to be. I mean, what is that? 2011? 11? Wow. Okay. Episode 25, which is, I just got confirmation, 2011, where we cover Halle Berry's Catwoman. Boy, what an absolute banger of a movie.

34:32I just rewatched all the Nolan Batman movies. Phenomenal. Absolute blast. So keep checking out all the replays of classic episodes every Tuesday. Okay, enough matinee talk. Time for Paul and I to chat with Susie Barrett, who's an amazing improviser, writer, actor, teacher, and host of the absolutely fantastic Yes Also podcast, which is essential listening for any improv or comedy fan. If you like this podcast, if you like Bang Bang, if you like any of the comedy podcasts, if you just like comedians, if you just like hearing people talk about process and comedy and comedy of the last 25 to 50 years, Yes Also is an essential listen.

35:14I cannot recommend it enough. Susie is a fantastic improviser and a terrific host. She is a great conversationalist. Paul and I have both been on the show, as have a ton of people who you might know from this podcast as guests. So stay tuned for our conversation with Susie. And to play us into this Just Chat segment, here's a new theme song inspired by the shimmy slide from Champagne and Bullets. This is the Just Chat Scoot by our pal, the Action Jackson 5. Who is that on the dance floor in the cowboy hat? Scootin' and a shimmyin' this way and that. Is it teen witch tryin' to two-top that? Oh, Satan worshipers holdin' baseball bats.

35:57It's just Jason and Paul and it's called Just Chat.

36:05Jason Mantzoukas:Susie, an interesting thing happened I don't know, maybe about a year ago, Jason and I were both talking about your fantastic podcast. And we are, I mean, I think we're both some of the biggest fans of what you're doing, which is basically creating this giant history of improv through the performers and how people improvise. It's one of the most fascinating looks at some of my favorite performers, people that I perform with a lot. And I never knew any of this stuff about them. It is one of my favorite things to listen to. That is such a high compliment. You two have always been two of my favorite improvisers.

36:48I feel like you're a senior classman to my freshman. And I've always looked up to you both. It's just such a cool thing that people like you are getting into the pod and sharing your wealth of wisdom. And yeah, hopefully it just continues to keep growing. It really is. It is. I talk about it all the time. I've talked about it on this podcast a lot. I've talked about it on every other podcast that has had me as a guest. Or I've talked about it to anybody who's asked me to recommend a new podcast. It is an incredible resource. It is undeniably an archive of this art form that does that simply does not exist.

37:29Like there are books about improv, of course, but there is nothing that approaches this scale and scope to what Paul was saying, like that we can be listening to you interviewing the generation of, you know, you're saying that we are the seniors to your freshmen. The Chicago generation are the seniors to our freshmen. So to hear you talking to that generation of people, the people that are going to talk about Jazz Freddy or are going to talk about those shows or those teams or those or the advent or the beginnings of certain stylistic moves, you know, like the idea that you're talking to the generation that started the movie form or tag outs or stuff like that.

38:11These are the bedrock elements of improvising that we knew. And for my generation, I feel like we spent a lot of our time stripping out the stuff they put in. So to see the thing grow and ebb and flow as to how everybody does it is all inside of your show. And it's incredible. Yeah, it's cool that it's also I feel like this is just the tip of a very big iceberg, too. Like even, you know, when you guys both have been on the pod, but I plan on having you back in the future. It's like this amorphous organic thing that can keep building as people hear each other's stories and thoughts, then they can come back and re-reflect.

38:50I've had people like reaching out being like, oh, this has unlocked so many memories from my time. Oh, cool. And it's like one of the few art forms that we see the beginning of right in our rear view. Like, you can't just go back and interview the first blues musician anymore, but you can interview some of the first long-form improvisers. And that's like a magical thing that I feel compelled to, like, capture.

39:18Jason Mantzoukas:Well, what I also really love about it is I think that it's very hard to capture the history of improv in a book. Because it's very much a person's perspective. I mean, Jason and I came up at UCB at the same time. We have many similar friends. We've done many similar shows, but the way that we got in, the teachers that we had, the way that we experienced it is completely different. What we took, what we learned. And I feel like that's the thing that, you know, sometimes a book is kind of hard pressed to do. And I love that you can sit back and listen to people. um i think i told you like one of my favorite episodes was uh carl tart who we perform with a bunch and his lack of like oh yeah i don't know i just go out there and i just do what i do and i love that and then you hear other people who are very specific about moves and you know and there are these things like jason said that get warped and i wonder in that seat that you're in how do you i think do the hardest job which is like to sit there and kind of craft it for a person but also kind of help keep it all on track or tell a larger story?

40:30I think I see it as almost like its own improv scene. Each person who is in that chair is my scene partner. I'm basing everything organically off of what they're saying. I'm going to follow where it's leading, but if something pops up that feels like a shiny object to me, I'm going to jump on that unless I see that it's making them uncomfortable and then I'll adjust accordingly. But it is – we cut very little out of it. You know, once in a while there will be like a rambly tangent that doesn't matter and the person will be like, can you cut that?

41:06Jason Mantzoukas:Right, right, right. But it is – it feels like its own organism. It feels like we are alive. And it's a different kind of improv than I've ever done. I've never been an interviewer before. I know you guys have done this podcast for years. You're used to this kind of format. it's new to me and it feels like it scratches a journalistic documentary itch that I have, like my own curiosity about wanting to open every door. And it's like this incredible opportunity for me to sit down with like every tree in this forest that I love and ask each tree what it's like to be that tree, you know? Well, it's so interesting because I do feel like to what both of you are saying, you know, it's an art form that we all learn how to do it in classes.

41:57Or Paul is saying, we've read the books or, you know, there's ways to receive how to improvise. And I'm putting that in quotes. But there is everybody does it different. And I think what the books and what everything can't quite capture, but I think what your show does capture very well is how everybody does it different, but how imperative it is for those people to then be able to be inside of an ensemble of other people who are doing it differently. And people's ability to succeed and thrive in this art form is their ability to collaborate and learn how this person does it and how I fit it. What we talk about so little, I think, we talk so often about people's moves or this was great or blah, blah, blah.

42:47But like teams, ensembles, this is a teamwork-based art form. This is not, you know, solo, lone wolf style comedy. This is, this thrives in ensembles and people working together. You know, I make you look good, you make me look good is the ethos that I feel like is so imperative in this art form. And I think what you get at on the show, which I love is how do people do this thing? How do they think they do this thing and how do they fit in with other people? You know that, and what I, the stuff I care about in the show, but the most is when you're talking about process, how do you think about this?

43:28How, how do you do it?

43:30Jason Mantzoukas:That was the thing that was kind of eyeopening to me was really trying to think about it. Right. Like even when I, I think when I came on too, I wanted to talk about some things that I feel like also get labeled the wrong way. Because I think a lot of people have like, it's certain like words may be like, oh, I don't like that word. But I do. But people are still using that basis. And that's the other thing, too, to kind of pick out. It's like, oh, we actually are working on the same thing. We're just calling it different. We're looking at it differently. Are you talking about things like using terms like the game of the scene?

44:05Yeah. Yeah, where people have categorized that or assumed that that means one style of play when really it's also the quote unquote IO style. It's just you're calling it different things. Yeah. And I think you've illustrated the exact word that people feel the most away about, you know. Like I feel like to some people when you talk about the game of the scene, they act as though that is like an indictment of a style of play, you know. that I also don't agree with. I think that it's just a term. But I understand generationally, the younger generation, I think, grew up in a prison of the game. And I think it depends on who your teachers have been.

44:51I've heard from people, like certain teachers have a style of teaching game that is very binary. Like that's the correct answer, and that's not. You got it. You missed it. which to me is a miss and it's unfortunate because it turns a lot of people sour on something that really boils down to just what is the most fun thing to you about this scene and what do you want to keep playing for you and your partner in the audience um what's the fun you want to follow uh but yeah for people to uh feel shut down or like it's so heady that it's this suddenly left brain pursuit where they have to get the answer right to me is a miss.

45:33Well, this idea that like it's out there and you just need to excavate. Every scene has a game. You just need to dig around in the right place and you'll uncover it like it's a like it's a video game or something. And the reality is the answer is that it's a pattern that you play between you and your scene partner. The game is just something between you and your scene partner. It's right there. It's not a third thing out in the world that we need to like root around and find as if it's treasure, you know?

46:03Jason Mantzoukas:Right. I also think it's like any class, whether it's a writing class, an acting class, you know, like there are professors that can take the fun. There's a joy, right? And what we do. And I feel like you can watch people get burnt out because it does feel like this elusive thing. But it's not mathematics. And it's like you watch acting like I think a lot of I listened to this director talk privately, so I will not say who it was. There's a big director talk about how he has to do a bunch of takes to get actors out of their acting style. Right. Like because it's sort of like you've made all these choices and you are not making any of these choices as you are acting.

46:46Jason Mantzoukas:You are going off of the notes and the things and your idea. And it's like, how do you break the actor down? And I think you can go back to like somebody like Kubrick did this a lot too, which is like, and not that, and, and look, Kubrick destroyed people. And, uh, you know, so I mean, but it's like that. Yeah. And himself. And it's like, and I think that that's the tricky thing. It's like, how do you walk that line where you get people to feel free enough to take a chance without feeling like I'm making a mistake. And some people are good at teaching. And that's the other thing too. You teach.

47:19Jason Mantzoukas:You have that ability, I think, to also hear from people who have been taught. And I think a lot of teachers actually don't do that. Yeah. Well, and there's different angles. It's like a gem with many facets. Like there's different ways into it. And, you know, the UCB approach of game and premise is kind of one angle, but it leads to the same center of the gem, which is just, you know, activated listening and energized playfulness. and I think it's interesting. We do what we do in pursuit of making comedy. There is improv that doesn't do that, but we all do that. We want to do funny scenes ultimately or make funny shows and I've noticed in my years of teaching there is such a thing as a good improviser who is not a funny person.

48:07I've seen it and I've seen them do funny scenes. So I think there's like different methods that feel more like water to certain fish and certain methods that feel like air to the birds. You know, a person who isn't a funny person might not succeed in the kind of premise method because they're not good at finding funny from the outside in and then initiating from that place. But they can do a great improv scene and be very successful in a funny way that's just not the same inroad. And that's something I like about this podcast too is I'm like, you know, diving deeper into groundlings training and early, early IO.

48:49And like you said, people who were like the very first ones to try a tag or do a sweep at it. And it's like to dissect the history of how people figured out what made something funnier or more successful or more fun to play is a wild privilege to have. Yeah. I mean, I think that like just in our generational lifetime. So the this 25 years, I feel like when we started, Paul and I both started at UCB in New York. So never Paul, right? You never went to Chicago, even for like classes or something. read it. So never Chicago, but so we are receiving the UCB, uh, Armando Diaz, uh, Ali Faranaki and generation of, you know, the family essentially we're, we're receiving the movie form, you know, that, that the family's, you know, uh, signature style was the movie form that they had created.

49:45And they'd created this form that had like it, like in that way that sometimes improv does the elements of the movie form had fully invaded everything else. So like filmic description pervaded all of ASCAT, and then as we started to learn, all of our heralds had filmic kind of language. That's so interesting. We see this person is this. We see that we take you to that, blah, blah, blah.

50:12Jason Mantzoukas:When Adam McKay did that the first time at an ASCAT, it blew my mind because it was like, whoa, wait, what is happening? Yeah. So he so they would edit like like let's say they lead a tag and they're bringing you to the doctor's office and they say like we we take you to a doctor's office and we see that the the doctor is immaculately dressed and has a Rolex on. Wow. Yeah. Not not all the time. Not every edit. Not every time. But all of those tools that the family had built up with Dell as the movie form tools had had like pervaded everything. Right. And so much so that when we came up, it was just part of how we worked.

50:49We worked with all of that stuff. And then slowly, but what that stuff did was provide a bridge for the audience to get into faster moving scene work. You know, like you didn't have to take the time to illustrate that now we're in a dentist's office and I'm the evil dentist who's the villain of the scene, blah, blah, blah. Because the scenic description at the very beginning set it up. You know, and it moved the it jumped the audience forward in time without them having to get there within five lines.

51:21Jason Mantzoukas:And it also was a way to kind of lay in jokes, right? Because it was this thing that you have a blank stage, a bunch of people up there just, you know, in their jeans and T-shirts. And now all of a sudden, visually, it pulled you in. I think that like that was the thing that was kind of interesting for me. I was coming from slightly more of a costume based or like a look based improv. So seeing that, like for the first time before I started taking classes, I was like, Oh wow, you can use your words to paint it all out. And, you know, and the audience is, you know, it's the difference with the audience finding out that you're in a tuxedo or being painted with a tuxedo either way, you know, it's going to be fulfilling, but it was fun to see.

52:02And then I think in, you know, only maybe 10 or so years later, all of that stuff was stripped out in a way that felt to me important because I also, I felt like the audience had already caught up. Like the audience didn't need that bridge language anymore. We could still move just as fast without having to give all of the, without having to step out of the scene to be this other omniscient kind of character who gets to describe and gets to that went away completely. Nobody does that anymore. Everything is internal again. Isn't it cool that like on the micro level, this form improv is something that is about the relationship between the people on stage and the audience in the room that night, like on the micro level.

52:47But what you're describing shows that it's also that on a macro level that over a period of 10 years and audiences needs and reactions determined the course of the very art form and that something was stripped down because the audience didn't need it anymore. Like it's like a fractal structure. Like the, the whole is the, the part. Yeah.

53:07Jason Mantzoukas:I don't know if I talk, I don't know if I talked about this on your show, but it's something I talk about a lot. When we first came to LA or UCB first came to LA, I felt like we needed to back up a handful of steps for the audience to catch up with where we were in New York. And that was something like Like one of the reasons that we built, I guess at that point, it was my space was to show, no, no, this is improv. You're we're basing this on you. We're interviewing you. That's not a plant. We're bringing you up. Like it was almost like proving to the audience like this is improv. And then all of a sudden it caught up.

53:43Jason Mantzoukas:But it was like those first maybe year, I feel like it was like just teaching the audience who hadn't seen this style. How did what it was. And you could feel that palpably like in the room. in a show like MySpace or Facebook, you could feel like the audience was on board more than a show where you were just getting a suggestion and doing scenes. I also felt the audience was, and this is, now I'm full LA, I don't think the audience was as hip as they were in New York. Because we were making jokes in New York that I think were maybe harder. And the audience would - The audience, I agree 100%. We're talking 2004, 2005.

54:21Yeah. Or 2005, 2006, I guess. the audience I believe didn't get a lot of it it was moving too fast now IO existed Groundlings existed but they were much they weren't as fast they were and we were we were used to a younger hipper audience in New York that was just showing up a lot to shows yeah so they were with they had grown with us in a lot of ways or they were part of it and it felt like in LA it took a minute to find that audience that was like oh whoa this is it you know what's amazing to me is like in talking to people like craig kakowski who are you know like ground floor the best the absolute the absolute fucking king yeah the best um but these like old school chicago people uh brian stacks another one who uh they observed that like when besser and the ucb four kind of emerged as this force in uh in Chicago and then moved to, or I guess it was the family that emerged like this, they said they pushed the style of improv to be a much faster, taggier style.

55:26And what's interesting to me is like, then they brought that to New York and kind of led the charge there. Now you're talking about bringing that to LA, but it all kind of originated from like Besser and Adam McKay and Ian, these like fast brains. And that's wild to me that people in an art form can be so pivotal in their own like style and the way their brain works that they can move the entire paradigm. Simply, simply by being the way they are, Besser, especially, I would say, because McKay, I think McKay's impact is felt so large at Saturday Night Live where he goes and then becomes head writer and dominates that that environment.

56:09But Besser's importance cannot be underestimated and Ian as well, because they are driven to New York to start a school to teach us their version of it. They're fast, you know what they would call punk rock improv, you know, like we want to play fast songs, fast, short songs, boom, boom, boom, move it quick, quick, quick, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. You know, it was all punk rock. It felt like that. And, And it wasn't, you know, notably Walsh in the same group is an annoyance guy. Like when you took a when before the curriculum, as it is, got codified. When you took a Walsh class, you were taking an annoyance class.

56:51You were taking a freewheeling, you know, open ended. Anything is possible style annoyance class, which was the coolest thing, because the four of them came from very different.

57:03Jason Mantzoukas:Like it was like you were you weren't even just taking curriculum. You're taking four different perspectives on the same like the core idea of what everyone was doing. But it was wildly different. And very. And I will say as a result, very confusing. Yes. Right. I mean, I mean, but I do think that like there was an attitude of, all right, I've taught you what I need to teach you. Now you go over here. So like I took Walsh later in my run. so like all right i was probably with some people who had never really improvised but then what he was doing was like freeing me up in the strictness that i'd already come to like it was like you could kind of do any of them in any order although i think you know it would it it probably was i mean coming from best or going down yeah i mean i think actually coming from best or going down that's the way i did it it was almost like the hardest structure into the loosest structure that's tough but it was I felt very lucky that I got um I got Armando first uh which Paul you didn't because Armando hadn't arrived yet when you started I felt very lucky because Armando was awesome the Armando Diaz I feel like doesn't get enough um credit doesn't get enough uh love as truly the the for generationally for us the goat teacher like the person who who really helped take all of what the what you know because I took Armando a couple of times I he he was a mother a longtime mother coach mother being the the team that I was on he really did a great job synthesizing everybody's stuff from Ian to Besser and and giving it to you in a package that was understandable yeah so that it didn't seem like well wait a minute Besser said this thing and that directly contradicts this thing that Walsh said or this thing that Amy said.

58:59How do I justify those two things? You know, and Armando is very good at doing that of of of say of kind of what we're talking about, saying giving you the information in a way that is they are all just trying to say this and this we can this this move forward. We can all agree is necessary. They're just telling you how to do it differently. Yeah. Which to me is the difference between a great teacher and a great improviser. It's like a great teacher is basically a translator. They're like taking the wealth of information and then making it kind of palatable, understandable, you know. Armando is also one of those people who came in knowing a lot of different forms and wanting to,

59:43Jason Mantzoukas:like he taught us the Herald in the Dark, which was one of the coolest things. And it also taught us to play slower and play in different avenues, right? Because I just think it's, I think it's good to have different teachers, but I guess the question that I have for you is, you know, you're listening to Jason and I, we could keep you here forever, but like, what are, what are the episodes that you felt like, all right, I'm, I'm in, you know, if you're a person, you're in Texas, there's no improv theater, but you're trying to do something or you're interested in it. Like, what's like a good entry point for people?

1:00:17Jason Mantzoukas:Because I think if you're an improviser, jump in at any point, you're going to find great stuff. But if there are people out there like, oh, I want to understand more. I want to like, what are good introductory episodes for people, if that's something at the top of your head? That's such a good question. It depends. There's maybe two avenues for this. One is like, if you want more context and overview of long form itself, or if you want like practical tools for doing better scenes. In the first lane are like Craig Kukowski, Brian Stack, both of you guys. You know, Kukowski and Stack are good for the Chicago context.

1:00:56You guys are good for the New York context. Julie Brister's another New York early adopter. It's a great one. Will Hines also. Oh, yeah. Incredible. Yeah. And I'll throw in Gethard in that New York contingent as well. A hundred percent. But in the lane of practical improv advice, I think Mike McClendon's episode is great with a lot of like really actionable, simple tools and methods. Tao Yang had some fun hot takes on heralds and openings that I really liked. Man, I'm forgetting so many people.

1:01:37Jason Mantzoukas:But this is a great way to start. And, you know, and I also like for our audience as well, because our audience are not necessarily improv diehards. So it's good to be able to give people different ways in because and I would say, too, the way that like we talk about, like, if for people, whenever somebody says, like, how can I get somebody into your podcast to our podcast? Rather, I'm always like, oh, have them pick a movie that they like, you know, or so. And that's the same for your podcast. Look on the list of people that are there and pick out the people that you like or recognize. And for for listeners of this podcast, it could be Paul and myself, but it could also be, like I said, Gethard or Paul F.

1:02:20Tompkins. Or there's there's a lot of people in your list that are going to be recognizable to folks. And then once you're in, then just start because there are one of the things that I love about the podcast, even though I'm couldn't be more inside improv is you're interviewing generationally younger people that I just do not know. Right. And to hear that generation talk. Boy, is that exciting. And that'll be relatable to a lot of your listeners. Like I try to get all the dropout kids. Yeah. Jacob Wysocki is another great episode. Yeah. Jamie Moyer, another great one. She came up through Second City, Detroit and has kind of a different angle on everything, more emotional play, more like freeing up your right brain, your inner child, you know.

1:03:05But, yeah, you're right. Find whatever strand you want to pull first and then you won't be able to stop unraveling it, I think. But I will say just for me, like you've mentioned a couple of my favorites. Krakowski, I think, is just one of my favorite conversations. He's always the person at a party that I'm excited to talk to. Yeah. You know, so anytime I can hear him, I thought that episode was great. And then just two of my absolute favorite improvisers you've interviewed, which is Dassey and Steph Weir. Oh, yes. I completely forgot about them. To have both of those, like, true geniuses. So funny.

1:03:45You know, who oftentimes, they're a married couple, so they work together on every level. I thought both of those episodes were invaluable.

1:03:53Jason Mantzoukas:And the other part of this that I think is kind of amazing is right now we are living in a time, no matter where you live, no matter what your access is, for a couple of bucks, you can watch some of these people, Jason and myself included, improvising on stage in New York, in Los Angeles. And that's something that I really think is awesome. Right? I don't know how much I love videotaping improv, but I also, I love the idea that it's awesome. You mean live streams? Live streams, yes, yes. Sorry, yes, sorry, sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah, like that to me is something that I think is really cool. Like, you know, whereas we probably, we heard a lot of stories.

1:04:34Jason Mantzoukas:We never get to see any of these people. And you could watch people do fine shows. Like, you know what I'm saying? And that's good to watch a fine show. Like, it could be like, maybe it's a great show. But it's also like, sometimes it's like, oh, you get to see the whole thing. It's not mythologized as much, which I think is a good thing sometimes, too. Yeah. To see the balance of it. And that's one of the goals of our podcast, too, is to not only be this repository of improv history, but also basically very, very, very dirt cheap masterclasses. Right. And, you know, Susan Messing was in town a few months ago, and I took her masterclass, and it was basically all the same content as her part two of our Yes Also episode.

1:05:12So I was like, man, for eight bucks a month, people, it's like a cup of coffee, and they're getting six extra episodes a month. that it's just when I was coming up, the only option was to spend hundreds of dollars on an eight week class. And now it's like you can spend a little bit of money and get all of this knowledge and all these like exercises and listen to people. And I love the part of it's what you're talking about right there. I love the how did you come up? It's great. It's great to hear how people found improv, who their teachers were, et cetera. Great. Fine. What I, what I digest with such glee is process is how do you, because, you know, I, as much as if I talk to stack or something like that, I'm happy to hear tales of the old days.

1:05:59I want to hear about jazz Freddie, blah, blah, blah. But I really want to hear, how do you do this? How, what are you, you know, like that to me is what your podcast is giving, especially in that second half. And I would come back to the podcast and just do three hours of process questions from the audience. You know what I mean? Like, that's the stuff that we can all mythologize and romanticize nostalgically for like, I was there when, you know, this happened and that happened. I was in the room when, blah, blah, blah. Who cares? What I'm really interested in, what I'm really curious about is kind of what we're talking about is how do we, even now, 25 years in the fact that I'm still watching people like I watched Brian Stack in Washington, DC during Gravid Water a couple of years ago, play incredibly economically with seeing partners with such few lines, making the most with such few lines.

1:06:59Whereas then I would go on stage in the same exact show and just drown in improvised lines that I was, that I was the one doing that I was, I couldn't immediately do what he was doing. And that was making me so frustrated. And I spent the last three years trying to do what he was doing. It's incredible. You know, um, that's all I want to talk about is, is even 25 years in, I think for those of us who are still obsessed with or still invested in doing regular shows, there is still so much further to go.

1:07:33Jason Mantzoukas:Well, that's, I mean, that's the thing that you, brought to me, which is like thinking about it in a way, looking at it differently. Like, like it's even setting little goals for myself for fun. Like I love performing, uh, and I love doing this, but like, I think about it in a way that I haven't thought about it in a long time because it is like analyzing the moves and trying to work against certain instincts. And I love that ability, especially as we get into it. Uh, and you, you teach, so you, you're, you, you, this is a whole entry point for anyone in the world of comedy, go to your website, listen to the podcast, subscribe to this super cast.

1:08:10Jason Mantzoukas:Uh, you get all this bonus content. You get a, a bonus Instagram as well. Some fun stuff. You can become our close friends on Instagram and then allows you to, uh, submit questions to our future guests directly. It's really cool. When both of you came on, you had people who had like reached out specifically to you with questions. It's, It's a cool access. Let me ask you one question before we let you go. I think when I first started doing improv, it felt like, wow, this style, this long form style is not like I can't take this on the road. And now all I'm seeing are people doing improv, long form improv on the road.

1:08:54Jason Mantzoukas:And I wanted to get your take on like, what do you think change? What do you, because we're talking about, oh, well, L.A. had to catch up or this place had to catch up. Like what what do you think is different? Like that makes it something that people now it's like an art form like stand up or something like that. I feel like from from where I sit, it worked on the road before in colleges. Like, you know, when I was in college, even like, you know, there was word of an improv group coming through town. We knew what Second City was. we knew to like it because Whose Line existed. So there was like that was something that college kids would see.

1:09:32I think the difference now with people like you guys and Ben Schwartz and the dropout kids like selling out these huge venues is that now you guys have the benefits of like a fame level, a clout with the general public. So people know to trust like they see Ben Schwartz on a marquee and they go, I love that guy. He's so funny. I don't know what this is. And often I've done a couple of his tour shows and he'll pull the audience before the show and be like, how many of you have seen improv before? And like a third, like a thousand out of 3000 will clap. And then it's like, how many people have no idea what this is?

1:10:09And you thought you were going to see a stand up show. And it's like a raucous cheer.

1:10:13Jason Mantzoukas:Wow. You know, something I just started doing on the last tour that we did was I started asking, do you do people know what improv is? And the and it was resoundingly no. And what I think I was able to do for the first time, and I'm like, I can't believe I've done this. It's what I kind of do with when we do with how to kind of set the tone. I'm like, this is what you're going to see. This is what's going to happen. Like in the very, in a very baseline, like we're making this stuff up. We're talking to you. We're going to use it to improvise. Like we kind of let them in on it. And I felt like the shows that we did on this last tour, they always are really fun, but I felt like they were really fun right from right from go.

1:10:52Jason Mantzoukas:And I think the difference was the like for majority of that audience, they're like, I think they're like, oh, is it going to be a standup show now? Is somebody else going to come out? Like, what am I seeing? And I feel like letting them in and you forget. Oh, my God. Right. They don't exactly know what they're seeing. And it's so fun to do shows for people who are about to have their minds blown. Yeah. They have never seen improv and they're about to see like the top level of improv from people who have done it for 25 years and it's an art form they didn't even know existed. That's fun. That's a whole new layer that's beyond doing great shows for an ass cat crowd or a crowd that's mostly improvisers.

1:11:29Yeah. I also think like I don't think we can underestimate how much podcasts, comedy podcasts. Yes. Have educated a generation to receive, if not improv comedy, which in some cases, Comedy Bang Bang or Besser's show Improv for Humans. You know, that is straight improv, scenic based improv. We get that. But even our show or other comedy shows are at least priming people for a style of comedy that then when they go to Ben Schwartz or when they go to Dinosaur or when they go to, you know, any of these touring shows, they are they understand improv a little bit more than just a cold audience who just is like, what is it?

1:12:17You know, I think. Yeah. Yeah, comedy podcasts have done a little bit, seeded the terrain a little bit, educated people enough to get them to the show. Right.

1:12:29Jason Mantzoukas:And even if they don't know why they're there, they're excited to be there, which is the difference between. And I think I may talk about this on your show. Us, Respecto, going to Minneapolis Mall of America and doing a show on a Friday night at eight o 'clock and people being angry, you know, there was no there was no kill yourself was said in the first five minutes. All right. Well, I'm not going to win over this crowd. Susie, this has been awesome. like we said, we love your show. It's the best. If you're in LA, look up Susie because if you're interested in any of this stuff, she's teaching, she's out there, she's doing it all.

1:13:08Come find me. Yeah, thanks so much for having me on and yeah, hope to have you guys back on the show. This was awesome. I want to have you guys back on Yes Also together. Oh my gosh. And do more of this. It's great. So fun. For everybody listening on our side, you know, go seek this podcast out. it will be incredibly informative and, and also very funny. You're like, not for nothing. Scenes often break out in your interviews and it's a very funny way to oftentimes illustrate something that the people are the interviewee and you are talking about. And that is also a very fun, unique element to the show, which I always enjoy.

1:13:49Yeah. Cool. Well, thanks for having me. And thanks again for all the, the love and support of the pod. it's very awesome.

1:13:58Jason Mantzoukas:All right. We will talk to you later. Thanks, Susie. Thank you. Okay. We did it. Thanks again to Susie Barrett. Now it's finally time to announce our next movie. Next week, we'll be going from boobs and shooters to ice cubes and computers. Okay. No. What was that? So that rhymes. I don't like that. I don't like, I don't like being forced. I don't like rhymes being sprung on me. Wow. That, that was shocking. That my whole system, reacted to that. So I'm going to, you can keep all this in, but next week, I'm not going to do this whole rhyming. I guess we do rhymes? Boy, I don't know. We're becoming, what are we doing?

1:14:41We just do rhyming stuff now? The show is becoming too cute, Scott. We can't be this cute. Next week, we're going to be covering Ice Cube's movie, War of the Worlds, And if you haven't watched this, I gotta tell you, you have to check it out. It's absolutely bananas. I guess you guys have all been demanding it. And I'll be honest, whether you asked for it or not, we absolutely were going to have to cover this because having now seen it and talked about it, this was nuts. The movie stars Ice Cube, Eva Longoria, Clark Gregg, a bunch of other people. Here's a breakdown of the plot. Do you need a breakdown of the plot?

1:15:25Do you need, it's War of the Worlds, guys. Except what if War of the Worlds took place on a computer screen? Because Cube is on a computer the whole movie. Rotten Tomatoes rates this movie at 2%. And for our review snippet, I'll pull a quote from the only positive review of the movie on Rotten Tomatoes. Jordan Hoffman from Entertainment Weekly writes, Is this movie really that bad? The answer is dot dot dot, absolutely not. It's certainly stupid, but it's also a great deal of fun. War of the Worlds is never boring. It is filled with entertaining lines, and it has a cheese factor that is perfectly self-aware.

1:16:04I agree with Jordan Hoffman right here, and I think, you know, without giving away too much, I think we all felt similarly. We had a blast, just as Jordan Hoffman did here. The cheese factor is perfectly self-aware. I think they're having a blast in this movie. You know what? Let's listen to the trailer. Dad, when's the last time you left the office?

1:16:28Jason Mantzoukas:That's classified. Our most precious resource on Earth is data.

1:16:37And data is food for the superior intelligence. Eyewitness video is coming in from all over the world. Terrifying machines rising out of these meteors. Dad!

1:16:52Jason Mantzoukas:Get away from that! Get out of there! Get out of there! Okay, that's the trailer. I think you get it now. So tune in. It's going to be a great one. One last thing that we don't mention in the episode, but I think is worth mentioning here for War of the Worlds, is that the very real tagline for this movie is, quote, it's worse than you think, unquote. You can only watch War of the Worlds on Amazon Prime, but even if you have ad-free Prime video, guess what? You're going to be receiving quite a few Amazon ads during this movie. There is, I don't want to say anything, but one of the characters is driving an Amazon delivery truck.

1:17:40So that's part of the movie. But you know what? Here's the thing. I don't love that next week's movie is only available on a subscription service. And we always try and look out for you guys and keep it such that our movies are available on free streaming services, many of which are available through your library. I'm talking about your canopies, your libbies, your hooplas. These are free digital media services that are offered by your local library. You can watch a lot of the movies that we cover. They have a surprisingly robust library of stuff that you can get. and they have e-books and they have audio books.

1:18:22So it's not just your library isn't just helping you with how did this get made movies. It's also helping you listen to all the Bosch books as audio books. You know, what are you up to? I mean, if I'm if I'm spending the summer re-listening to the Star Wars Thrawn audio books, guess what? They're available through the library. So Hoopla, Canopy and Libby, these are free digital streaming services that are available through your library. We love the libraries. We love the librarians that show up to our shows. There's always quite a few of them in the audience. And as they say in Boise, I think Boise had the right idea.

1:19:05Put an exclamation point at the end of all our libraries. Stop asking about the library. Stop giving libraries a question mark or a period at the end library? It's too soft. We have to reiterate it that we are library. That's it for last looks. If you listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, rate and review us. I know we always say it at the end of the episode. People forget to do it, but it does mean something, so do it up. Please also make sure you are following us on your podcast app and have automatic downloads turned on. It helps the show and we appreciate it. Visit us on all social media at HDTGM.

1:19:45And a big thanks to our producers, Scott Sani and Molly Reynolds, our movie picking producer, Averill Halley, and our audio engineer, Casey Holford. An incredible team of people who make this absolutely dumb show run so well. We will see you next week for War of the Worlds. Do yourselves a favor and watch it beforehand. It's a good one. disconnect the discord as i can't i mean oh boy i feel like i've got hives from talking about the discord so much in the last hour i've gonna have to go and do an epi pen eat shit everybody

1:20:32having lots of choices sounds like it would be great

1:20:35Jason Mantzoukas:Who doesn't want more flavors of ice cream? It turns out the answer is us. Too many choices can make us anxious, overwhelmed. I'm Shankar Vedantam, host of the Hidden Brain podcast and YouTube channel. Each week, Hidden Brain brings you fascinating, science-backed insights about human behavior. So the next time you have to choose, choose Hidden Brain on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or hiddenbrain.org. Wendy's believes summer should be more fun and less expensive, which is why, for a limited time, they're making their small classic frosty just$1. Because let's be real, summer and frosty just go together.

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