South Park vs Trump

28:08Can I, before we do the statistics, let me tell you what Grow a Garden is. Yes, please. As I said, if you're not used to what I would call the Roblox aesthetic, it's very lo-fi. You essentially get an empty plot. It looks like sort of, you know, it kind of looks sub-Minecraft. You get an empty plot of farmland. So can I just say, this is on a computer? It's on a computer. Yes, Richard. It's on a computer. Now it makes a lot more sense to me. I was really worried about land values. Yeah, you get an empty plot of land, farmland. You start with something like 20 shekels, which is the currency. and you need to buy some seeds and then you need to plant seeds and tend to your garden and wait for them to grow into lovely plants.

28:50You can acquire exotic pets and, you know, you can sell stuff. You can go to the seed shop to buy more things. You can go to the gear shop. You can sell your wares. And, you know, it's sort of quite calming and relaxing in lots of ways. Of course, there are some users who found kind of ways around this to make it less pleasant. Plant Wars. Plant Wars. I feel like I've played games like this before. Like SimCity had like a SimFarm version and things like that. Well, there was Farmville, wasn't there? And Stardew Valley. So it sits in that kind of tradition. And anyway, let me just blind you with some of the statistics first.

29:29Because not last weekend where they actually did have a new update. They have an update every Saturday. the previous Saturday July the 19th they had 22 million concurrent users for that update which is by far a platform record as I say on this already unbelievably successful platform it beats things like even Fortnite I think the Fortnite's record was 16 million or something like that and that's that's a that was you know culturally one of the biggest things in the world they've got 22 million concurrent users yeah there was a May update where they had more concurrent users than all the top 100 Steam games combined.

30:05Every game on the Roblox platform is created by somebody. And actually, this one is quite interesting. It only came out in March, by the way. And it's amazing how these games kind of sweep to absolute prominence, this kind of viral thing where, and I'll talk to you about at the end, about what I think is coming after this one. And the creator was a guy called BMW Lux, but he... Is that his real name? Yes, I think it is on his birth certificate. I'm not sure in which order. Could be Lux BMW. Mr. and Mrs. Lux. Daughter BMW. And anyway, whoever that creator was, he or she sold it in April when it had about 1 ,000 concurrent users to a New Zealand guy called Jansen Madsen whose handle is Jandal.

30:47Jandal is his handle. Jandal is his handle. So now he has it and he's got it in a sort of joint venture with a studio called Splitting Point. and you have to, you know, you have to do all the patches and the updates and all of that. And the whole point about games on Roblox is that you have to find a way to keep updating them or they become sort of old hat or no one cares anymore or people find their ways around them or they find different bits of source code and they can do, you know, they can ruin them. So there is actually a lot of pressure if you run a game like this, but he's very unusual, this creator.

31:19He comes into the game and you can, which doesn't really happen with other creators. this is like my children play a huge amount of roadblocks and they have done you know for a long time and they've all they've been all the big games that have gone through roblox sort of brookhaven adopt me i don't know dress to impress there's lots of these games jailbreak they've played all of these brookhaven adopt me first impress jailbreak all the big ones yeah yeah these these are huge by the way these are such huge parts of my life so i find it hilarious that you don't actually even know what i'm talking about but okay but as i say they're all different like lo-fi things but he comes into the game channel and he can you know he can pick out individual users and give them things but the clever thing he's done is that he has these kind of timed updates so you all have to be there and it's not like you have to spend money robux is the currency of the platform you don't have to spend money but these kind of in-game items are available during these limited time updates so there's like a half an hour time on a saturday where so if you want to get those mega mega user numbers which is he's obviously achieved and it's become the most sort of biggest thing in the history of the platform he's created these event moments and the one that we've just had we're recording this on a monday the one that happened on saturday travis kelsey had come and has done a huge collaboration and he gave all the players something and you know my children were so impressed like they know who travis kelsey is it's a real celebrity it's not like a gaming celebrity which is you know a gaming celebrity it's not the same thing and they just thought oh this never happens in roblox you know this is really unusual and so it's extraordinary how successful this game has become cravis kelsey also turns up on uh on happy gilmore too but we're going to get to that we will get to that but wasn't the original bmw lux supposedly 16 years old yeah i mean jandal doesn't look a whole lot older i've got to tell you i've seen lots and lots of tiktok no not at all i mean he wanted to go to college and he wanted to get enough money jandall to go to college and study marketing apparently but i think he's probably i think it's sort of but like 150 million in sales which is via roblox purchases within the first three months of actually existing i mean that's every single every single parent uh listening to this and i know roblox is absolutely huge and the kids play it forever and ever and you know that's i get it it keeps them quiet but they were then now they must be going how come you didn't make a billion dollars you go surely you could have made grow a garden it's only some carrots and some strawberries it's so basic and it's so sweet it's like oh i want to grow a sugar apple you know a special elder elder strawberry i mean it really is quite adorable it's very interesting in this i once you know you can see these incredible data visualizations of the games that that surge on roblox and you know there were things like as i say brookhaven or blocks fruits or any of those things.

34:07And suddenly they just become this dominant thing. It's interesting and it's quite hard to sort of understand the world and the mindset and the sort of gen alpha of it all. But the next bit, I can see that the next big game that, as my children would put it, is really starting to cook is Stealer Brain Rot. Sorry? It's called Stealer Brain Rot. Now, I don't know if we'll deal with brain rot in just a second. And that's already a play on Grow a Garden. And Steeler Brain Rot is a, you have to acquire Brain Rots. Do you know what Brain Rots are? Take a guess as to whether I know what they are. Okay, you don't know what they are.

34:44Okay, Brain Rots are a kind of a form of sort of Gen Alpha Pokemon, these kind of cutesy little animal something hybrids that are sort of ridiculous and that you've got to kind of collect. And it started with Italian Brain Rot, which were these kind of AI generated. Oh, I know this. so i know it's you know this you know this but italian brain rot was earlier this year so it's like in the before the flood times i mean like who cares you know and they're like tralilero tralilali the shark who was wearing the trainers i mean it's kind of ridiculous and you know ballerina cappuccino all these ones anyway and so steal a brain rot the premise the premise of this game is obviously grow a garden is very wholesome and very sweet and blah blah blah steal a brain rot already a sort of play on the title is a is a sort of alley but your your the game is you have to acquire brain rot and store them in a base which you have to defend against all the other people who want to steal them off you and you kind of get some it's absolutely brutal you get some weapons and all it is is a sort of aisle between people's kind of fortresses where these brain rots are being kidnapped and stolen and taken away.

35:53And yeah, it's baseball batted. I guess it's the obverse of Grow a Garden. And you can see kids having sort of meltdowns. There's all these viral videos of kids having meltdowns about it because I suppose it sounds a little bit like Grow a Garden and they've got their brain rots, which they're really proud of. And loads of adults do play Roblox, I should say. and they're just going in and stealing all these kids brain rots but it's not it's not compulsory right no it's not nobody has to do it Richard but they do do it this game is going massive now so it's so interesting the games you know the game that becomes really big and then the game that's a kind of reaction to it and I was saying to my kids is this like a is this like a satire on on grow a garden and they're like yeah a bit but it's sort of like a joke about life and it's not a joke about life a joke about life yeah steal a brain rot is a is a just a joke about the pointlessness of existence i think but it's sort of it's very very interesting to watch this platform which is as i say you know worth 10 times what paramount something we've obsessed about all all week all year is actually worth and is a huge huge deal and it's just again is very nimble and reactive and is constantly coming up with these new things that suddenly go viral and millions and millions and millions of people are playing them at once if millions and millions of millions of people were watching one netflix thing at once we would never stop talking about it we're going to talk a bit about how many people we think might watch you know might have watched happy gilmore and it's opening weekend on netflix but it will not be there were 22 million people watching it at once there's just no it just doesn't happen like that but it brings us back to the thing we talk about sometimes where the decline of terrestrial tv when people say no you've got to appeal more to kids it's crazy you've stopped appealing to kids and you know you can get this audience back i it cannot be overemphasized that we cannot get that audience back because something like grow a garden it's more fun it is more fun than pretty much anything you could put on tv you know because it's tv that you play instead of tv that you watch it's a completely different language how could you put i mean me even trying to explain me trying to pitch the idea of steal a brain rock to you is so absurd it's just like a sort of collection of vibes and memes and you know reactions to the moment and it happens and maybe in two weeks it will be the biggest thing and maybe it won't be anymore because something that's a reaction to that will have come along and also because because it comes from a subsystem which is very very very cheap to create something like that at any given time thousands and thousands of people are creating it and one of them comes out of the top and you cannot predict which it's going to be and it becomes absolutely massive and it becomes organic and people add to it and that's not something you've traditionally been able to do in television.

38:41It comes from nowhere. It's almost, it's like punk. Yeah, you're right. And it's something I wanted to, something that made me think about, you just, what you just said, made me think about the gamification of absolutely everything, as we say. They accept that like whatever I would be planning otherwise they're doing on a Saturday, I've got to be here for this thing because you've just got to be there and it's fun and everyone's there and talking about it or whatever and we've talked about gamification of all different types of things but it seems silly when we've had million quiz shows and phone-ins and all of that but television isn't really a place where you can have gamification as it were you can't grind and build stuff up and all the sort of things that feel just an intrinsic part of the dynamics of that generation and what they expect in everything you know you've got to work you've got to stay you've got to do all this stuff and then you get enough points and then you get bigger.

39:30And how could television be like that? I can't picture it. Maybe you can. Weirdly, there's a question I want to answer on our Q &A on Thursday, which is about, there's a French game show where you can build up huge, huge, huge amounts of money over a number of years. It's about as close as you can get. But it's genuinely at the start of this, I didn't think I would be comparing Grow a Garden to Punk. But there we are. Has it, can I ask on behalf of parents everywhere, has it made your children more interested in actual gardening no it's really i when i said to one of my children what do you like about it and she said i mean it would just take so long and be such a hassle to do this in real life okay yeah and i'd have to wait ages it's like it seems like you're having to wait quite long for your sugar apples anyway and she's like yeah but it's like a day you know it's not an unallowed joy is it there's one thing i read about it which is you can sync it up to your local weather so the weather outside can be the way that's cool Yes, there's lots of stuff like that.

40:27And it does, as I say, it's, you know, occasionally these things are used by kind of malign actors to kind of build up lots and lots of money. And then they sell those things on eBay or El Dorado or other platforms where people will actually pay real life money for stuff that's been built up in game or for a profile that's been built up in game. But in general, it remains a place of quite bucolic lo-fi charm. Yeah, that's one of those things about games. There is some real joy to them. And there are some beautiful kind of very slow lo-fi games that do promote people looking after each other, people looking after themselves, people working hard.

41:05And this feels like one of them. It does. But in the same way that we worry that violent video games will make our kids violent, I think there's no evidence that gardening video games make our kids garden. So maybe there's something to add. No, but I do think they set the right circumstances for Steeler Brain Rot to then come into existence. so it's a push and pull Richard I didn't say so many sentences in the last 20 minutes I've never heard before absolute gibberish isn't it I'm so sorry if it's remained gibberish hopefully you're slightly enlightened but anyway it's a huge and actually have a look at it you don't have to play it yourself but you can watch videos if you just want to have a look watch videos on YouTube of people playing it and you'll think ah okay so that's that thing then Marina if I start playing that that's the end of this podcast because I would get so obsessed with it.

41:55Well, you have that tendency, don't you? That's why you can no longer do fantasy football. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Shall we talk about something that feels more traditional and has sentences I would understand, which is the rise and rise of Adam Sambler. Yes. Lots of people have signed big deals this week, but he signed a$275 million deal with Netflix. He's Netflix's most bankable movie star, that's for sure. he writes, produces, he's got his own production company, stars in these things as well. Happy Gilmore 2 is out this weekend. It's been an enormous success. And I just wondered if we could talk about what is it that has made Adam Sandler the king of Netflix?

42:35Well, it's really interesting. And it's such a story of what happened to stardom, and who realised it first and who didn't. If you look at those big stars, I suppose, big comedy stars of the 90s, early noughties, and you've got Jim Carrey, Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler Seth Rogen I mean you know all those people all the Judd Upater crews Adam Sandler had started as a sort of stand up and then he got SNL he'd done Happy for Gilmore but he got his break in a Sony movie when Chris Farley died that was Big Daddy he became a sort of bought and paid for Sony star and a bit like Will Smith it's very interesting both those two were the two people that Sony Sony Pictures really kind of bet their studio on he's so interesting as emblematic of what happened to stardom so they got paid in that old movie world 20 million dollars against 20 percent of the movie's gross receipts whichever was higher it's wild when you look at those numbers okay a lot of this by the way we know from the sony hack remember when the north koreans actually because of the south park movie hacked sony so much we know um about of all of this from the sony hack when north koreans hacked sony pictures and we got the emails of all sorts of people but principally in terms of interest from Amy Pascal, who was a big executive and who looked after people like Will Smith and Adam Sandler.

43:52Now, Sony executives used to joke that Will and Adam bought their houses because they made so much money for the company. There was a point where they accounted for 23 % of Sony Pictures profits and they got all this stuff. You know, like the basketball court on the lot was called Happy Madison Square Gardens. They always had use of corporate jets. Sometimes Will Smith's entourage was so big, he needed two. But what was great about Adam Sandler particularly is that he's so prolific. He makes a lot of movies. He wants to make a lot of movies. But by the time it got to Jack and Jill, I think, which he played a man and his own twin sister.

44:31And that was in 2011. And it was just really cringe. And it didn't make any money. And holds the world record for the most ever Razzies. The Golden Mastery Awards. Yeah, won 10 Razzies. Well, the next one he did was called That's My Boy. And that was, you know, like a classic sort of like one of those real late stage studio things, which was a comedy that cost$70 million and shouldn't cost anything like that. It was all for the talent costs. And that lost a load of money. And people or some people were beginning to realize, it's actually been realized this incredibly slowly in Hollywood, but that talent doesn't drive the theatrical business, the cinema's business any longer.

45:06It is IP and it's brands. People don't turn out or were starting not to turn out because Adam Sandler was in it. So in a way, although no one and still many people have not acknowledged this, A-list stars as an idea sort of collapsed. And at that point in 2014, Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, comes along and they do not see in Adam Sandler a washed up star that no one actually really cares about. But they think, they look at their data and they think, oh, wow, all those people who used to go out in their teens and early 20s to watch Adam Sandler movies in the movie theaters, in the cinemas. They've all got kids, so they don't go out very much anymore.

45:48They all sit at home and they watch him like hell on our service. They watch so much Adam Sandler. He is brilliant for us. We should do a deal with him. So he sees the writing on the wall, Adam Sandler, and signs this. Yeah, he was smart as well. he was smart enough to put his ego aside because at that time it was very different and Netflix was smaller and movies were still bigger and he's one of the first people to really really get that this was a great deal for him as well as a great deal for Netflix yeah and he so he did the first their first ever multi-movie deal and all those things we've come to know about Netflix which is that they want a lot they want a lot of whatever the thing they're buying is so whether that's like shows with massive libraries that they can stream and people keep going back because there's 20 series of it.

46:39He's the perfect Netflix star, which is very, very prolific. He wants to make a lot of movies. He's not particularly demanding. The humor is really quite basic and therefore doesn't feel like it can't be put in different territories. It doesn't feel like it's so sort of like highbrow and uniquely suited to the North American market. It's got a real every man quality for sure. Well, yeah. I mean, that's his screen persona, isn't he? He's like a sort of schlub who's a failure and he has to somehow pull it out of the bag to impress his friends. But he's a kind of, yeah, an overgrown man-child, really, in almost everything.

47:13But he did so well that, yeah, as you say, the next deal that he's done is a four-movie deal or something, which is for$275 million. He's extremely interesting as someone who, as you say, worked out the way that wind was blowing. I would say when I'm thinking of Happy Gilmore 2 I understand that it wasn't made by Universal who made Happy Gilmore 1 and so therefore it wasn't in theatres and it's a Netflix thing and they make a big deal and that's the part of his deal with them this would have performed very well in cinemas and there's not that many comedies they put in cinemas I think so and you make a lot of money doing it that way and then you could have put it straight onto in a month or six weeks you could have put it onto the surface it also might not have done because it would have been made by Universal and there might have been different restrictions on it and the budget might have been less.

48:02And, you know, because Happy Gilmore, it was huge, but it wasn't, you know, it's not Top Gun. So Happy Gilmore 2 is... But it's a cult thing. And over the years, it comes that thing where it accrues more fans because it's been constantly available on these services. But cult things are perfect for Netflix. Cult things are less perfect for cinema release, I think. Anyway, I watched it. Tell me, because I didn't watch it. I will watch it. So Adam Sandler does have this everyman persona. You know, he studied at Tisch at NYC. He studied under David Mamet. He's a super bright guy. Every time he's in like a, what people would call a proper film, an uncut gems or punch drunk love.

48:42He's a terrific actor. He's obviously a very, very smart guy. He's a terrific writer as well. But he does this sort of thing so well. So Murder Mystery and Murder Mystery 2 were his biggest hits for Netflix. and I suspect this will join them in the pantheon. I loved it. I loved it. I love the original Happy Gilmore. This is so packed with cameos, which normally is the sign of this is going to be an absolute disaster. Like every golfer in the world is in it. Rory McIlroy is in it. Scotty Scheffler is in it. He was the world's number one golfer. And by the way, turns out a great actor. There is nothing that Scotty Scheffler can't do.

49:19What? No way. Rory's a lovely presence. Scotty Sheffield are actually a pretty good comic actor. Is Bryson DeChambeau in it? Bryson DeChambeau is in it. Brooks Koepka is in it. Jack Nicklaus is in it. Nick Fowdo is in it, looking like he's had a makeover. I'll tell you who else is a great actor, is Bad Bunny, who plays Adam Sandler's caddy. He is so funny in this film. He's so great in this film. He's full of stuff. Travis Kelsey is in it. Eminem is in it. He turns up. Do you know the original film at all? The guy who shouts out? Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The guy who shouts out jackass all the time.

49:57Evan M plays the son of the man who shouts out jackass. And it is very, very funny. There's lots of kids of various people from the original film. Shooter McGavin is back. And I thought it's a really, really, really funny film. It's unreconstructed. It's all of those things. But it's got a huge heart. It's got a proper plot. Hayley Joel Osment plays the baddie. the kid from sixth sense uh is is i i i loved it and i i think what adam sandler's done throughout his career he's shown himself to be an impressive businessman but most of all he's a great writer writes a lot of his scripts with tim hurley he's also in this movie has a great payoff line in this movie i just thought it's exactly what netflix is for which is his two hours just absolutely entertained from start to finish oh i'll tell you who's brilliant in it john daly the golfer he is really great in it i would say john daly and bad bunny um compete with each other to be the uh the best celebrity cameo and that was with scotty scheffler a pretty close third it's incredible how people who've worked with him first of all he's very very loyal to his friends in terms of casting so all you know so many of his movies have the same people in but they all are so though i remember reading one profile maybe a new york times thing or new yorker thing and you couldn't move for people who wanted to help the writer just and be really you know be really really nice about adam sander because they say he's so loyal so you had obviously ted surrounding saying he's so loyal you had drew barrymore saying just anything you want if you need anything more anything for adam so you just write you know ring me to the right the person doing the profile all of these people absolutely love him you couldn't really i mean you can find lots of people who've got bad words to say about his movies because they think they're crude and basic and whatever but you can't find people who've got too many bad things to say about him who've worked with him it's sort of incredible the roll call of people who are like anything i could do could do to help yeah i love that he's he talks about the casting of eminem in this thing and he said everyone all the way through the script everyone's going you should get eminem to do this it'd be really really good part for eminem and he was like oh i don't want to bother him you know he's in detroit he's doing his thing everyone can you've got to ask eminem he's like oh but eminem's really busy and he said in the end he picked up the phone and asked eminem and And Eminem went, yeah, of course I'm going to have you feel more to you.

52:14Are you mad? He was the first choice for Wonka, Adam Sandler, the Johnny Depp Wonka. Sorry, I was imagining Eminem as Wonka. Oh, no, not Eminem. That's very different. That's an alternative take, isn't it? Listen, it rhymes with a lot. Yeah. And, you know, maybe in the future, in a future version of it, they're always trying to make them darker and grittier. Don't forget. Do you have any recommendations this week, Marina? I do have a recommendation. I have a book that I've absolutely just finished and I absolutely loved. It's called Diana World by Edward White. And it's about the sort of obsession is the best thing I've ever read about Princess Diana.

52:52And I've read all of it, including her own books. I mean, it's quite highbrow, but it just managed to synthesize all the trash and all the treasure and all the sort of royal mythology and talk about what she meant. It's not a biography at all. It's a sort of biography of the obsession with her. It's really fascinating. I really loved it. As I say, it's quite a high vibe, but it's brilliantly done. Every single thing from the different tabloid reporters all the way through the mediums, all the people, the colonics, the whole lot of it, and then right back to all the kind of ancestral stuff. It's all fascinating.

53:33Anyway, I really like that. So that's Diana World by Edward White. And I will recommend, we've had the nieces and nephew here all week, So we've watched, for example, K-pop Demon Hunters about six times, which is very enjoyable. But a YouTube series I loved is by these two guys called The Map Men. And they essentially, they do like great YouTube videos. And it's things like, why is the United States of America the only thing that's allowed to call itself America? Where did that come from? Despite the fact it wasn't sort of discovered by America over Spoochie. How did that happen? It does loads of things about why the English counties, the size and shape and names they are.

54:05Educational, smart, funny. So if you've got kids at home and you want something to stick them in front of that actually is going to entertain them, and if they like that sort of thing anyway, the map men, I've been enjoying them all week. Oh my God, that sounds, I'm getting right into that, let me tell you. All right. Well, on that note, we will be back, as always, for our question and answers episode on Thursday. This week, there's no bonus episode for our members due to kephalonia and various technical issues we've been having. But I have a special treat for all of our members. I have 10 pairs of tickets to give away for the Thursday Murder Club premiere.

54:41It's going to be in Leicester Square. All the stars will be there. We've got Sir Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, Celia Emery, David Tennant is in it. Lots of huge names in it. I'll be there. My mum will be there. Marina, I'm very much hoping you'll be there as well. So I think it'll be a fun evening. So if you are a member, look out for the newsletter. If you're not a member, feel free to join. there will be other places to get those tickets to um that premiere oh it's so exciting on that note see you on thursday see you on thursday

55:27this episode was brought to you by our good friends at sky who've made something rather the special. Yep, a TV and a smarter one at that called Sky Glass. No box, no dish, no cables, creating abstract modern art on the wall. Just one sleek screen that does it all. It adapts to what you're watching too. A Spanish villa in the day of the jackal, a jungle paradise in a nature documentary, or poolside in the White Lotus. The crystal clear picture quality will make you feel like you're right there, minus the questionable company. Sky, Netflix, Disney +, Apple TV +, Plus, your favourite apps built into one place.

55:59Gone are the days of app-hopping your way to a perfect evening's entertainment. If you fancy a TV with the latest tech and unmissable titles, visit Sky.com. Requires relevant Sky TV and third-party subscriptions. Broadband recommended minimum speed, 30 megabits per second, 18 plus, UK Channel Islands and Isle of Man only. It's David Olushoge from Journey Through Time. Here's that clip that we mentioned earlier. If you look at all of the accounts of the fire at this point, as we get to the end of Sunday the second, the first day, this fire is not behaving in any way the way fires traditionally did in London.

56:39And there are some people who've argued that it was becoming a firestorm, that the heat and the wind and the movement of air caused by the fire was feeding, it was becoming self-sustaining as it were. John Evelyn, who's a great writer and a diarist of this moment, he talks about the sound of the fire. He said it was like thousands of chariots driving over cobblestones. There are descriptions in Peeps and elsewhere of this great arc of fire in the sky. I mean, imagine that everything around you is coloured by the flames, yellows and oranges, and above you is this thick black smoke. This is a city you know.

57:20These are streets you walk. This is a place that's deeply familiar to you, and it looks completely otherworldly. It looks like another, like a sort of landscape you've never seen before. People describe the fire almost as if it's supernatural. If you want to hear the full episode, listen to Journey Through Time wherever you get your podcasts.