The Perfect Show

This episode Scot explores being in Japan for the opening of Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) in 1997, and trying to see it again before it was available in the US. Mononoke Hime was Scot's introduction to the animated movies of Hayao Miyazaki and began a life-long appreciation for his work and films.

Special thanks to Ben Reburn for being on this episode briefly.

Music from this episode from:

Mononoke Hime Theme and VocalLyrics by - Hayao MiyazakiMusic by - Joe HisaishiVocal by - Yoshikazu Mera

Gui Moraes - https://www.fiverr.com/guimoraes Dawnshire - https://www.fiverr.com/dawnshire Desparee - https://www.fiverr.com/desparee Aandy Valentine - https://www.fiverr.com/aandyvalentine

AI-Generated Transcript:

Speaker 1: 0:21

Hi and welcome to the Perfect Show. I'm your host, scott Moppin, and this is a podcast where I catalog some of the perfect pieces of life, one by one. Hey, there, right at the top, I want to say this episode may sound a little bit different audio wise, and that's because I'm trying something new today. Usually you hear me talking from within a small room at Morena Studios, but this episode has a lot to do with Japan and nature, so I thought it would be a good excuse to try out recording at a location. So all that is to say that right now I'm sitting in the Shenzhen Japanese Friendship Garden, outside of Fresno, california. The sounds you might be hearing are either geese or peacocks. There are many of them wandering about, and I'm sitting over by a waterfall and overlooking a pond, a koi pond, with a really cool curved bridge up over the top. Nice setting for an episode. So there are these buildings that I drive by. Sometimes they aren't particularly remarkable, but every time I pass them I get a feeling. In Japanese, there are many words that don't have direct, clean translations. One of those words is natsukashi. I often see it translated as reminiscent or sentimental, which I think are sort of clunky terms because we don't use them the same way that Japanese people use natsukashi. I would describe it as an adjective that is part deja vu, part positive recollection and part ah, the good old days. Whenever I see these buildings I get a feeling of natsukashi. Like I said, they aren't remarkable by themselves A couple of nondescript apartment buildings visible from the highway, probably 20ish stories all, but they are positioned right next to a small wooded area. A tiny forest appears to have popped up and partially engulfed one of the buildings. From the angle I get on my drive, it looks like one building is at the edge of the woods and another is just sprouting up from within them, where only the top third or half is visible above the canopy. In the cities around the bay area here I'm used to seeing the two extremes the heavily developed areas with very little nature and the spots set aside for nature but with very little development. To me, these buildings in their forest exist in a perfect balance between those two extremes, equal parts human and nature, and I realized the natsukashi feeling I had when I saw them wasn't really even for a real world location. These buildings specifically remind me of the balance and themes of the movies of Japanese animation master director Hayao Miyazaki, the care he takes to depict humans, nature and the balance between them. Recently I was driving past with my friend Ben in the car and I had my recorder with me, okay. So here we go. There's this big clump of woods over here and then there's some buildings coming out of there. As we turn toward them, I kind of get this weird Miyazaki sense of the specific buildings here that are just coming out of the trees. See what I'm saying at all, or am I kind of just making that a little? This clump right here, yeah, okay, yeah, I can see that it feels very much like just the hillside and then the I don't know something about it. Dense small houses, vegetation, the hillside. I just kind of want to investigate these couple buildings, sometimes Just go in there. Sometimes I have no idea what I would find. I don't know what it is. They look like just normal apartments, partly complex. That's probably what I would find and it would probably be a nonissue, but it is something that I've wanted to do for years. Yeah. It's not done because there's no real reason. Oh, look at this mural. This would get me a reason. Keep up alive. It's pretty cool. I'm using these buildings as a backdrop to talk about my first time encountering Hayami Izaki and his extraordinary work. Now, I've said before that I plan to make a number of Japan-centric episodes and this is the first one of those. I have these Japan experiences because after college I lived and worked there for six years and many things from that time will be the subjects of later episodes. But before college I also lived in Japan for three weeks during high school on a home stay in the summer of 1997. It was through the Rotary Club of Olathe Kansas, the city where I grew up. Oh, remember Dan from episode 4 about the Perfect Road. It was actually his mom who saw the notice in the paper, cut it out and passed it to me because she knew I was taking Japanese classes. So through that clipping I applied, interviewed and got a spot in the group of five teens going over from Olathe Kansas to Maybashi, japan. I remember it being that it was like a sister city sort of association. But when I try to look it up now it shows me that Maybashi is officially sister cities with Birmingham, alabama, and that started in 2017. And I don't see anything about Kansas before that, but for some reason our exchange was with Maybashi. Okay, so Japan has 47 prefectures. They're kind of like states, also different than states, but for this example that's the best analogy and so each one has their own prefectural governments and capitals. Gunma is one of those prefectures and Maybashi is the capital city of Gunma-ken. Maybashi's population is about 340,000, and it's an hour and a half northwest of Tokyo by car, nestled at the foot of Mount Akagi, smack dab in the center of Japan's main island Honshu. In this group of five, there were three boys and two girls, and we were all between 15 and 17 years old. The schedule had us in Japan for a little over three weeks, and then we would reverse the process with our host brothers or sisters at our places in Kansas. The trip had scheduled a few experiences where the whole group would get together and go to, like Tokyo, disney or the Niko Shrine, where the original Sinoeval, hironoeval, speaknoeval, monkey carvings are at, or to go make pottery with an old school master in the mountains. But for a vast majority of the trip, we were in our separate houses with our separate host families, having completely separate experiences. I stayed with the Chigita family, a family that ran a local hotel, the Chigita Hotel, and in the home were Mr and Mrs Chigita, their three children and Mr Chigita's mother and father. If I remember correctly, my host brother was Kazunori, the middle child of the family, and I got along well with his younger brother, hidenori, and older brother Akinori too. I stayed in a guest room at the Chigita house. It had a small TV in it and late at night, when everyone else had gone to bed, my jet lag and I would quietly check out what the mini channels of NHK had to offer. This was my first exposure to Japanese comedy, game shows and commercials. Speaking of discovering new anime on the TV in the summer of 1997, one of those commercials was for an animated something that was coming. I couldn't actually tell if it was a movie, a TV show or something else entirely, but I knew immediately I wanted to see it. As the commercial continued to come on, I would click into the song first, which is haunting, ethereal and beautiful. Then I would lock into the beautiful landscapes and scenery I was seeing and, finally, the wonderfully rendered characters. The movie was Princess Mononoke, or Mononoke Hime, as I heard it advertised. I'll probably flip back and forth from time to time with how I refer to it, but Mononoke is a 1997 movie from writer-director Hayao Miyazaki of Japan's famous Studio Ghibli. The Studio Ghibli started in 1985 by Miyazaki, isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki. It's often likened to Disney as the easiest comparison for its success, esteem and track record in Japan. But I knew none of that. I had never heard of Miyazaki or Ghibli, but something about this commercial just had me hooked. I mean, the animation was obviously lush and gorgeous, but it was more than just that. The commercial ended with a lot of Japanese writing and then the date of 7.15. I needed to know more. Was July 15th, a TV air date? A movie opening? How could I see it? I went to Kazuhide and Aki for more information, but with no idea how to ask. I must have seemed quite odd, trying to describe the clips I'd seen with my limited Japanese and whatever hand gestures I thought would do the job. But one night the commercial came on the TV in the family room and I rushed to show someone before it was over. I think I grabbed Hide and we finally hit that point of mutual understanding. He explained to me, it was a new movie coming out the July 15th. That's the opening date and it was only a few days before I had to leave, which meant there might be a chance that I could actually go see it before I flew home. That settled it. I needed to find a way to see Mononoke before leaving Japan. I think the hardest part about getting Mrs Chigoda on board was that the only time we had left was mostly booked, at least for the Chigitas. That meant if I went, none of the Chigita family would be able to go with me. I think it was probably a situation where everyone had school activities to either attend or drop off and pick up at, and in fact that's almost certainly it. I would have had limited time left before leaving and they would have had limited free time on that Saturday because of after-school club activities. In Japan there is a whole world of after-school sports and clubs and extracurricular activities that are really enriching but also really demanding, and Japanese kids often have lots of responsibilities for them. It would have been the middle of the school year there. Japan's school starts in April and the first term usually ends sometime in late June, so we were coming right up on that. So I bet all three sons were locked into after-school club obligations that I wouldn't have had, leaving me as the only one for you to go see Mononoke. So on that day my host mother drove me to the mall where the theater was and dropped me off out front. We got there a little late, but there wasn't enough time to wait for the next show or away from me to contact my host mother and attempt to adjust any plans. So I bought my ticket to the showing that had just started and went inside amongst the throngs of Japanese moviegoers. The theater was mid-sized, small compared to giant American multiplex theaters, but it still seated a good number of viewers Like maybe 200? Hard to estimate, but every chair was full. There were also people sitting on the floor and standing in the hall. That led to the exit. Living in Japan for six years, I went to see movies in the theater many times, movies from Japan, america and elsewhere, big and small. I saw sold out shows for Hollywood special effects, blockbusters and superhero flicks, but none of them were like this. By the time I entered the theater, the previews were already over and it was about two minutes into the film itself. So I quietly squished in and found an empty spot in a clump of people sitting on the stairs next to the rows of real seats. It was hot, it was crowded and I didn't care one bit. I locked in Sitting there on the floor and the next two plus hours was mononoke. At this point in my Japanese language ability I had no hope of understanding the dialogue. I could pick up a word here or there, maybe, but doing so would make me lose the thread of the movie and then reorienting took so much time that I found it was much better to try to match the pace of the film and just take in everything I could via context, tone the visuals as much as I could and see if I could keep up with this film, more like a surfer riding a wave. So I wasn't going to catch much from the dialogue, but it didn't matter. For the very first time I was inhaling the intoxicating atmosphere of a Studio Ghibli movie made by Hayao Miyazaki's team of masters, and it was an extremely potent drug. Even without that full understanding, the movie was powerful, beautiful, haunting and amazing. I've never had a theater experience quite like it. I mean, I've been to other movies knowing very little before, maybe without seeing a trailer or knowing much at all, just going in and taking whatever gifts the experience has to give. But this experience, combined with the stranger in a strange land thing that I was having in my real life and the vivid Technicolor glow that everything at age 17 tends to have, this experience was singular. Moronoke Hime's themes are about the powerful ways that people in nature brush up against each other and the friction of the old ways budding up against the new and, if the two can never really coexist, that balance between man and nature that I was talking about earlier. Well, that's a theme you will find echoing through every Miyazaki film. In Moronoke Hime there are some complex plot and allegiance things going on that I did not clock on my first watch, but the main struggle of the people against the forest and the spirits that live in and protect it, that was very clear. I won't get into much of the story of Moronoke Hime there are other great articles and podcasts that do that far better than I could hope to here but briefly, the setting is Japan in the 1500s and it follows an exiled prince named Ashitaka who gets involved with the struggle between a town of people and the forest that surrounds them, trying to be the voice of reason on both sides. And then, midway through the movie, the song from the trailer plays, the one that had made me take notice of the commercial to begin with, the haunting melody that was so beautiful, so sad and so hopeful simultaneously. Everything I had been anticipating since discovering this film was all converging at once and it was perfect. The song is just called Princess Mononoke Vocal. The lyrics are written by Miyazaki and it's sung by countertenor Yoshikazu Meira, born in, interestingly enough, miyazaki Prefecture. Side note looking it up, for this was the first time I discovered that this song is sung by a male vocalist. I actually can't believe it took me this long to correct that misconception. The music is created by Joe Hisaishi, a longtime Miyazaki collaborator. They worked on five movies together before Mononoke and then five after, so a total of eleven films so far. They're great. Hisaishi has such range too. The scores go from pounding dramatic pieces to cute childish melodies and everything in between. I took in the rest of Mononoke Hime as it played. It's beautiful, it's ominous, it's amazing. I absorbed it the best I could, not knowing when or how I was going to be able to see it again. I wasn't ready to leave when the credits started rolling, so I stayed through them too, but so did the entire theater. I don't remember having to scoot aside for anyone. I think we were all in states of appreciation or maybe quiet contemplation. I mean, come on, come on. During the walkway on the way out some folding tables had been set up and theater employees were behind them selling merchandise for the bigger movies as you exit them. So I stopped and I ended up buying a CD of the soundtrack, a program like Booklet, with art from the film and a sheet of jiki, which is a sheet of plastic that you slide under the page when you're writing in a notebook so that it doesn't imprint whatever you're writing onto the pages underneath. I didn't even know that's what it was at the time, but it was in the price range of the yen I had left and it had a bunch of cool images from the film. I was sold, and then a few days later, I was on a plane with Kazunori and the ten of us were now headed from Tokyo to Japan all the way back to Kansas City. We had a good trip in the US side as well. But apart from my many listens to the soundtrack, this is really where my story with Mononoke ended. I poked around from time to time looking for Mononoke, but of course it wasn't available anywhere yet. Looking for it did help me find my way to Miyazaki's previous films, though this is where I met Miyazaki characters like Nausicaa, kiki and Totoro. By this point I was in my freshman year at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, living in a dorm room at Hashinger Hall. I was majoring in illustration, but was also taking Japanese language classes, and in one of those classes I heard about an upcoming screening of Mononoke. This would have been 1998. Wikipedia says there was a Japanese VHS and Laserdisc release in 1998, so I'm guessing that we saw the Laserdisc projected on a small screen in a room in the student union. This Laserdisc version would have been in Japanese without subtitles, just like in my Bashi, but this time at least I'd have a seat. I'd also have the help of something else I found on the internet. Using my old laptop and an Ethernet cable, I found a text document with the full Japanese script for the movie and also a line by line fan translation into English. I printed it out at the computer center and read through it days before straining to replay the movie from 18 months earlier. As I read the lines, I also managed to talk to my friend, josiah into seeing it with me. Josiah and I were really good friends in high school and now we were both at KU. We had some art classes together, but Josiah wasn't learning Japanese. Regardless, he had been on the receiving end of me telling about my first time watching Mononoke countless times and when the chance came to see it on campus for free, he was all in. His experience would have been similar to mine in the movie itself, but we both had access to the script this time, which we dove into before and then again after the film. I took it in for a second time and even without the dark theater or booming sound, the movie held up and I was thrilled to take it in with a level of plot understanding that I didn't have the first time. Josiah was blown away. It was fun experiencing it through someone else's first time and seeing his wide eyes. Afterward I had made a convert and now there were two of us with our ears peaked for chances to see it again, whenever that next chance might be, and that next chance came about a year later. In the meantime, film studio Miramax had acquired the rights to distribute Mononoke Hime in the US, now titled Princess Mononoke. I think it's meant to imply that she's Princess of the Mononoke or the vengeful forest spirits, not that her name is Mononoke. So Miramax wanted to trim the movie down from 133 minutes to 90. Then comes the infamous story of how Miyazaki and his people sent a samurai sword to the producers with an engraved message no cuts. The film remained 133 minutes. It was released on October 29, 1999 in only eight theaters and then it was rolled out slowly, week after week, to more and more screens, from 8 to 38 to 48 and reaching a peak in theaters numbering in the 120s. Outside of major cities and maybe in them too. It was shown primarily at smaller theaters like indie or art house places. I knew at the start I couldn't go to LA, toronto or New York where it opened in the first week, but I kept watch and one of the weeks it expanded to one theater in St Louis, missouri. The first was about a four to five hour drive from KU, but growing up in the Midwest that sort of road trip felt okay to do on a whim. So one day after class we printed out a map. I know. And I rode with Josiah and possibly Danny in my car down to try and make the last showing of Princess Mononoke at the one theater in St Louis where it was showing. I was caravaning with another carload of friends and we were cutting it close. We pulled into the parking garage but as it turns out we had also parked in the lot on the opposite side of the mall from the theater, further complicating our timeline Cut to the six of us running full speed through the empty mall, past shuttered stores, as they were closing everything down except the theater. I'm not going to say much about the English dub of this film. It is what it is. I am definitely not a fan of some of the choices that were made. Okay, I'll say one thing I'm not a fan of the billies here. What up or Bob Thornton I? I really just don't think of the English dub as my version of Mononoke at all. But the other guys didn't have that package and they were all awestruck. It was a great night. After the movie was nearly midnight and being four hours away, the group split up into two camps. Most of the guys stayed to crash for the night in a cheap motel room, but I had class early the next morning and so did Josiah, prompting the two of us to hit the road and drive back to Lawrence in the middle of the night. I'm sure I was probably worthless the next day in my classes and at my job, but sometimes you got to sacrifice a day of being a fully functioning human for the sake of Mononoke. As of this recording, mononoke is available, along with most Miyazaki's movies, on HBO Max streaming in Japanese or English. I made the mistake. I watched it a couple times, preparing for this. The first time I started in English and tried to switch to Japanese and it wouldn't let me. I don't have the Japanese version, but it is an option from the main menu so you can select it there. I don't think you can switch the audio mid-movie for some reason, but I would highly recommend the Japanese audio with the English subtitles, obviously. I've come back to Mononoke over the years pretty regularly and I continue to watch Miyazaki and Ghibli movies. Actually, that's pretty much the only anime I do make a point to watch, much to the chagrin of some of my more anime-centric friends. But nothing else is really top to Mononoke. For me, it's a one-of-a-kind movie experience. I feel that I was just in the right place at the right time when it swept through, and that's something I can only really relive in memories. But watching it again this week in the original Japanese, it brought me right back to being 17, sitting on the steps of that theater and watching a true master of their craft at work. It just it holds up, alright. What have we got? What is that? And then I used this episode as an excuse to do something that I've been wanting to do for a long time Dymel. So these buildings up here. I'm now driving up to them. I've gotten off the highway, I'm on a road I've never been on. Driving up to them, I got a small lav mic. Lav mic, I don't know how to say that, but I got a small mic so that I could hike around hands-free. And I went to finally go visit these buildings. That kicked off this whole idea for me, the ones I described at the beginning of this episode. One's perfectly placed at the edge of the forest, alright, so here I go, going into the woods area. So now I'm headed up. Hiking uphill is a rare thing for me. I'm also not exactly wearing hiking shoes. I'm wearing Chuck Taylor's, which are fine for walking around on the street level, but I don't think it's really meant for this. Okay. I don't think I'd be hiking. Actually I just thought I'd come and visit the bottom of the building. Oh no, that's pretty. So up here behind these buildings now Okay, I'm going to film it off Up here behind these buildings there's like a gap and through the gap I see some steam rising up. But I see through there I see Angel Island. It's really kind of a nice pocket view of the bay and I think, oh, I bet, I bet the apartments on the other side of this building are rented out at a higher rate, a much higher rate than the ones on this side. The ones with the view of that bay probably go. The ones with the view of that bay probably run way higher than the ones here on the back side. I don't know, I don't think this one was a success. Really, I'm not like a lot of these. I think I'll get up here and be like oh, and sort of gain a deeper understanding of the perfect thing I'm examining. But I have to be aware that that's not always going to be the case, certainly have to be open to that and not always be the case, and I think maybe this time it's one of those times where it's just not the case In Mononoke. The spirit of the forest is personified by the Shishigami, the deer god. It's this forest spirit that everyone in the movie is searching for or fighting over. At pivotal times in the film, this deer god appears in the woods and we can feel its magic and majesty. Alright, so I'm still walking. I've now hit up with some gutter and rebar. Here are some mistakes. I'm realizing One as I get into the shade of the building and the sun goes down further. I'm only wearing my sunglasses. They are prescription sunglasses so I need to be wearing them, but I did not bring my regular glasses. Glasses, oh, hello, do you hear that that's a deer that I'm about 30 feet away from? Maybe? I'm sorry, I just I'll go find that guy Girl, let's see if I can get a picture. I didn't recognize it fully at the time, but the forest was providing me with the most Mononoke ending I could have asked for. Oh, can you hear that that is the deer walking away? Alright, cool, cool, seeing you, alright. What I am now worried about are the things that chase and eat the deer. So I'm going to start walking back so that I don't end up running into dinner time for the mountain life. I don't think they get that big, especially not out here, and I'm a pretty big thing. I don't think they would really want to come at me, but I've heard of mountain lions doing that before, so I'm not wanting to find out exactly how much they do or don't dig it. Well, let's get out of here. I don't know that there's much more to gain from this side of walking through these. Alright, so headed back down around where I came. So why don't I just get out of here? And with that Mononoke Hime, the Princess Mononoke becomes the next item entered in the Perfectorium, the Index of Perfect Things. Big thank yous to Josiah Durmire for talking to me about this episode and Ben Rayburn, whose voice you heard in the clip at the beginning of the show. You can find all the credits and links for the music in the show notes on this episode's webpage. Don't forget also that you can find a direct link to the Perfectorium now by going to perfectshowsiteperfectorium. This episode was recorded at the Shinsen Japanese Friendship Garden in Fresno, california, and it will be mixed back at Marina Studios in Oakland. Be sure to subscribe to get every episode and, if you're enjoying these and want to drop the Perfect Show, a perfect rating or review on Apple or whatever you're using, go right ahead. It's the easiest way to support the show. Once again, the Perfect Show site is at perfectshowsite. That's S-I-T-E. Email any comments, music or other things to perfectshowshowcom and connect on Twitter, instagram and YouTube to username PerfectShowShow. And remember, if you have to end up with some demon curse running rampant through your body and slowly killing you, at least try to make sure it's one that gives you super strength and makes it so. When you fire arrows they fly hard enough to just pop people's body parts off them like plastic action figures. I mean, this movie shows a lot of animal blood and I mean a lot, but body parts for humans just fly off in battle, and there couldn't be a cleaner, drier depiction. Ashitaka rules San rules. Lady Ebochi rules Yakul. The red elk that Ashitaka rides rules. This movie rules. It's just so good. Anyway, until next time, I'm Scott Moppin and thanks for listening to the Perfect Show.

In this episode, Scot takes a quick break from format for a few announcements and to introduce a new Halloween song: The Haunted House Song. I also learned how to do video editing by making a music video for it! It's silly and dumb and I'm also very proud of it.

Check the video here on the youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CSYBwPfx3Q

And check out all the lyric videos on the youtube channel's main link:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPxDnKc4gzWuwjpl1tz6WUw

Today's music courtesy:

Shawn Korkie - https://www.fiverr.com/shawnkorkie

Bastereon - https://www.fiverr.com/bastereon

Aandy Valentine – https://www.fiverr.com/aandyvalentine

And for The Haunted House Song:▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Lyrics and vocals: Scot Maupin

Music provided by Rujay.

Instrumental: "Next Level" by SeriouzBeats.

Channel: https://YouTube.com/user/RujayTV.

Beats video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qzo8fRwWHc

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Contact:

https://twitter.com/PerfectShowShow

https://www.instagram.com/perfectshowshow/

AI-Generated Transcript:

Speaker 1: 0:20

Hi and welcome to the Perfect Show. I'm your host, scott Moppen. Normally, this is a podcast where I catalog some of the perfect pieces of life, one by one, where each episode I examine something that I or someone else considers perfect. I say normally because I don't have the next regular episode ready just yet, and this one is about something that I am not claiming is perfect, but I still wanted to check in and tell you what I've been doing recently, give some updates about the show and then proudly present what I do have for you this episode a new Halloween song. So let's get to it. First off, I tried to hook up my soundboard for this episode, but failed. When I started learning how to record podcasts, I made some drops or sound effects that I never really used. So now I wanted the soundboard so that I would have that option here from time to time and can give those drops a second life, but I couldn't figure out how to set up the audio to record everything at once, so I'm still working on all that. I know it's possible, but for today I'm going to go back in and add the drops after the fact, boo, speaking of, which seems like the perfect time for an announcement, right? So then, a few announcements. Up top is that I've added a new section to the website for the Perfectorium the Index of Perfect Things. It's a page where you can see a picture for each item entered, and then clicking the picture leads you to the webpage for that episode. Pretty simple addition, but still. Right now there are only four pictures, but as things grow it may be helpful to have a way to search visually instead of scrolling through a long feed of episode notes and media. The new Perfectorium can be found on the Perfect Show site, which is, of course, at PerfectShowsite, and the Perfectorium is at PerfectShowsite, slash Perfectorium. That might be tricky to spell, so once again, check out P-E-R-F-E-C-T-S-H-O-W dot S-I-T-E slash Perfectorium. Okay, and now the second item Avrobot. If you would. The Perfect Show YouTube channel finally has some content now. The YouTube channel is the same as the Twitter and Instagram name at Perfect Show Show, but if you go to the show's YouTube channel, which is in the show notes, you'll find new lyric videos for the three dance songs from episode four, the last episode. Each video shows the lyrics line by line as the song plays. I made them myself, actually, and that's part of what's been eating up my podcast time recently because at the point when the last episode came out, I had never done any video editing, and so part of the time has been me teaching myself how to make and edit videos. So check them out, if that's your thing. I think the videos turned out nicely. They're easy to find and share this way too. Instead of just songs stuck in the middle of a podcast episode somewhere, I've added them to that episode's webpage too, so you can find them through the show's website. Good job, scott. Okay, okay, those three videos were kind of a bonus side benefit, because the real reason I had begun to teach myself video editing was to make a music video. So today I have a new Halloween song and there's also a video component, but this is an audio thing. So I have the audio for the podcast, but I had an idea to try and make an animated music video for it, and when I hatched the idea three weeks ago, I'd never done animation or video editing before. I've always been an art guy, but mostly drawing and painting. Another driving factor was that a song about Halloween has a pretty hard expiration date each year, so I knew there was sort of an invisible timer counting down and I wanted to see if I could get it done by the beginning of October, which, as I'm speaking these words today, is October 1st. So it worked. Hey, why do I even have a Halloween song anyway? Well, that's certainly a fair question. So where do I start this? During the pandemic, I started taking a sketch writing class, which was another thing I had never done before. I thought it would be a good opportunity to step out of my comfort zone, and it was. It also ended up very much becoming a comfort zone for me through the pandemic. Each week I would meet up with my teacher and a bunch of other writers and we would share, read, perform and riff on each other's sketches and just have tons of fun on a Zoom call for three hours a class. Then, each week for homework, we were assigned a certain type of sketch to write and bring to the next class, which was how we continually had things to read and discuss. It became something I would look forward to and I really appreciated having something as simple as a weekly assignment to absorb some of my COVID and quarantine thoughts at the time. It was good to have to shove everything aside from time to time and be like I'll think about that later. Right now I need to do my homework Strangely, very helpful. And then one week the assignment was to write a comedy song. From the start of class I had been keeping a Google Doc with snippets of sketch ideas and when it came time to do my homework I would usually springboard off something in it. What came to mind for the song assignment was a premise with a guy who is super scared of haunted houses but a girl wants to go to one with him. So before the date he just goes to the haunted house over and over, getting like traumatized over and over again, so that on the date night he can go and pretend that everything's no big deal. Fun premise, right. So I wrote it up for class. It went well. I got good feedback and suggestions that I incorporated and did rewrites. But it was very much not Halloween time at that point. So I was like what am I going to do with the haunted house song during the rest of the year? Well, the same thing as someone without a haunted house song Nothing. So I put it away and kept writing sketches for that class. I also continued taking classes here and there when they were offered, to keep up my writing habit and actually maybe at some point I could make like an audio version of one of those and see about recording it for this. But we'll see. Oh, okay, hey Scott, how about you just focus on making regular episodes and not distract yourself with even more side projects just yet? Okay, classic Scott. Yeah, so here's how the process went making the video. Unlike the lyric videos I was talking about before, this was going to be a full on video with characters, a plot and visual jokes that you can't get just from the audio. I did a couple of monster pictures for it early on, but most everything else has happened just in the past three weeks. The first week was just drawing. Animation is labor intensive. You know that on an intellectual level, but you forget what it actually means until you start trying to make something yourself and how slow that process can go at times. I had storyboarded the video, so I already knew basically what scenes and pictures I would need, so I just buckled down with pencil and paper and started banging out the images as best I could. Now here's where a smarter version of me would have drawn a little bit of stuff and then tried to animate something small first to make sure it would all work, but that would have been a smarter version of me. What I actually did was draw image after image for a full week without animating any of it, until I had a pretty hefty stack of paper, got all the pieces I thought I would need and then shifted over to the computer. The reason why I did it this way was pretty simple. I was just scared of doing something I hadn't ever done before. I was afraid I would fail. So I turned to learning the software only when I had completely run myself out of other things I thought I could do without having to dip my toe into those waters. There are levels to animation many, many of them. I knew from the beginning that what I was shooting for was a very rudimentary level, more like taking static images and moving, resizing and rotating them than traditional frame animation. I shouldn't say more like. That's exactly what it was Like. It would be paper puppets on popsicle sticks moving around in front of a camera the animation version of that. I'm using a particular program, premiere Pro. So the learning part turned out to actually be something I never should have been worried about Whenever I was stumped by a question of how to do X, or even if X was something that could be done. It was answered after a very short Google search and then I would hop on to the next hurdle. Quick side note if you haven't tried to learn something new outside of school or job context and Some people have had such bad experiences in those two places that they just don't but if this has you thinking of something like this for yourself that you would love to learn completely for fun, you really should. I very much recommend the process. I was able to jump into a program I had never used and without reading any manuals or books on it, I was up and running so quickly, doing things, making stuff and seeing the results immediately. I could research the problems I encountered and find the solutions as I went. That learning experience is so different than being in a class where maybe you are constantly being loaded with information that you will be asked to recall at some later point in time. Okay, I know this sounds strange, considering I was just talking about my positive experience taking classes, but for this, whenever I had a problem I needed to learn how to solve, I would go out and the information was like finding water in a desert. Even the small things I learned seemed huge because they would be addressing the exact obstacle I was facing at that moment, which also gave them emotional weight, meaning they should be easier for me to recall later on as well. But it was great. I really recommend learning a new skill this way, especially if you have bad memories of being forced to pick up something when it wasn't originally your idea. That description takes me back to playing scales on a trombone Just hours and hours of blowing pure hatred through that horn. Anyway, back to making the video. So one week drawing pictures, then one week creating the animations and video. The third week was mainly tweaking small things on the video and then adding the animated lyrics and trying to time the words with the song. I was more intricate with this song than the dance songs because I needed some words to appear at specific times for jokes, so that took a bit longer. Plus, this was the first one I made. The other ones came after when I knew how to do it, so I was learning how to do it at the same time as I was making this. Also, I do realize video is sort of an odd topic to pick for a podcast, but it has an audio component, I wanted to share it and also I needed content for this episode. So when all of that aligned for this, I figured that the podcast. Please will let me slide on this one. I could definitely see myself doing more of these eventually and maybe I'll save that kind of stuff for future interlude episodes like this from time to time. So yeah, it's up on the YouTube channel now at PerfectShowShow. If you want to see it and I wish you would I'm really proud of how this video turned out, especially knowing where I started from and the length of time I made it in. I'd love for you to check it out if you can. So let's try finding it on YouTube. Hold on, let me type. So. Haunted House Song by itself is not enough to find it Not surprising. There's no reason it would be on my brand new YouTube channel. But if you type Haunted House Song and then my name, scott Moppen, that pulls it up first. If you type Haunted House Show sorry, if you type Haunted House Song, perfect Show, that also brings it up. So you can also try finding it that way. So now here, in time for the upcoming Halloween season, is the Haunted House Song by me, overbeats by Rujae. It's Halloween season again, which means jack o' lanterns, pumpkin pie, picking out just the right costume, those big haunted houses and maybe even going to one with your special someone. Hit the haunted house up every single day. I gotta take there, but it's three weeks away. Add it all up. That's a lot of lines, but I won't be scared. After 21 times I start out and I always cover my eyes. These monsters use the element of surprise, so I steal my nerves, continue on my mission, become a tough guy through repetition. You can't scare me, no matter what you do, cause I've seen all your tricks and memorized them too. But my girl will get scared at least that's the plan and she'll cling to me, cause, baby, I'm her man. I brag to my days how I don't get scared. She doesn't know it's only cause I'm so prepared. All seem pretty macho, as I'm unfazed by the horror, but it's just because I took the time to see it all before her. I'm a new part that was under construction just opened up today and it started to function. She wants to end her right away and I don't want to go, but it's hard to get an alpha male to say an alpha no, you can't scare me, no matter what you do, cause I've seen all your tricks and memorized them too. But my girl will get scared at least that's the plan and she'll cling to me, cause, baby, I'm her man. Egyptian Pharaohs walking double time seeing these mummies makes me really want mine. Count Dracula appears right behind my back and I have to hide my full blown panic attack. A clown holding knives with a chain for a belt, and my brain short circuits as it starts to melt. Wolfman grabs my arm, cause I'm within his reach, so I scream like a dolphin dying on the beach. You can't scare me, no matter what you do, cause I've seen all your tricks and memorized them too. But my girl will get scared at least that's the plan and she'll cling to me, cause, baby, I'm her man. I duck behind my woman and I get real stressed. I guess you could say that she wasn't impressed. I slump down in the corner and I cry from pride. It's so bad. They have to stop the show and turn on the light. Look, man, ghouls and goblins don't exist. There's no reason to be hugging on the ground like this. So dry up your eyes and also close up your mouth. Do you think of ghosts were real, they'd haunt a haunted house. I open up, my eyes to the manager poking and I get up right away to say that I was just joking. I'm embarrassed and I do my best to make it not seem sadder. But I look down and I notice that I didn't do anything out of my bladder. Neither of us spoke and it got real awkward. The vibe was killed and the mood was slaughtered. She left all by herself. I never stood a chance, cause if I get scared enough I guess I'll beam my pants. Man, I can't wait for Halloween to be over. Going to hay ride, a slave ride, have hot chocolate, marshmallows, man, all that is better than monsters and vampires. Dumb Halloween, stupid, scary time. Nothing scary about jingle bells. I just feel like scaring people isn't fun, it's really mean. I mean, who does that? Bad people, that's who. That place wasn't even that scary. So yeah, there we go. That's the haunted house song I made, and with that, nothing new gets added to the perfect story in this episode. But I will remind you that it now does exist as a page on the website which you can get to via perfectshowsite. Slash perfectorium. That's P-E-R-F-E-C-T-S-H-O-W dot S-I-T-E. Slash P-E-R-F-E-C-T-O-R-I-U-M. See, I eventually spelled it. I liked my silly joke earlier as all. As always, you can find all contributors' names and links in the show notes or on the episode's webpage. This episode was recorded and mixed at Morena Studios in Oakland, california. Be sure to subscribe to get every episode, and if you are enjoying these and want to drop the perfect show, a perfect rating or review, then please do. It's the easiest way to support the show. Once again, the perfect show site is at perfectshowsite. That's S-I-T-E. Email any comments, music or other things to perfectshowshowcom and connect on Twitter, instagram and now YouTube to the name Perfect Show Show. And remember, the Monster Mash came out in 1962 and it's somehow still the go-to Halloween song after nearly 60 years. Is it wrong to feel like it may be ripe for the toppling at long last? I mean that one's about a monster who comes to life and then immediately starts a viral dance craze that other monsters do with him. Wait, hold on. That's also exactly what happens in Thriller too, and I made a song about a tough guy who gets scared and pees his pants. I mean, now I'm realizing that if I wanted Halloween gold, I should have just sung about dancing monsters. Anyway, until next time, I'm Scott Moppin, and thanks for listening to the Perfect Show.

In this episode, Scot tries to convince a friend to chase down a perfect drive on the perfect stretch of road, and things don't go completely according to plan.

Even if you don't know this stretch of road yourself, I hope this episode brings you fond memories of whichever stretches of road are your own pieces of perfection.

Here's a link to the Google Maps Streetview to at the starting point and you can navigate down it yourself:

Google Maps Link to K-10 and I-435

Today's music courtesy:

Ryan Branflake - https://www.fiverr.com/nickwoott

Captain Creamsicle - https://www.fiverr.com/capncreamsicle

Relaxo Beats - https://www.fiverr.com/relaxo_beats

Desparee – https://www.fiverr.com/desparee

Handanu - https://www.fiverr.com/handanu

Aandy Valentine - https://www.fiverr.com/aandyvalentine

Contact:

https://twitter.com/PerfectShowShow

https://www.instagram.com/perfectshowshow/

AI Generated Transcript:

Speaker 1: 0:22

Hi and welcome to the Perfect Show. I'm your host, scott Moppen, and this is a podcast where I will catalog some of the perfect pieces of life, one by one. Join me each episode as I examine something that I or someone else considers perfect. When you start driving, everything is exciting, everything is new and you want to take it all in. You're still getting the feel of being behind the wheel, and even running errands is awesome. Fast forward a few years and everything is a lot more dulled down. Your body can practically drive on muscle memory a lot of times and you know instinctively how hard to crank the wheel or push the gas when you need your car to move the way you are wanting it to go. After this point, you can drive places in almost a trance at times, but every so often you get to a part of the road that wakes you out of that state for a minute and invites you to be present. Instead, it could be a new sight or some accident, or even just the road itself, if you happen to be upon a specially nice stretch of it. That's what today's episode is about that perfect stretch of road. I grew up in Olathe, kansas, a suburb about 30 or 40 minutes from Kansas City. You can get your permit at age 14 in Kansas and when I got my permit I was driving everywhere my parents would let me, with one of them sitting in the passenger seat. When I got my full license at age 16, I started driving to work in school, but I would often take the long way home or just go out and drive to thank, crisscrossing major streets and highways and exploring new roads and unfamiliar exits. This is still how I sort of get my bearings in a new city. If I'm going to be there for an extended time, head out for a drive and find my way down roads. I've never been down before. I don't remember when this was, but at one point in time I was switching from one highway to another in a direction. I rarely had a reason to go and I took notice of this ramp being particularly nice. I made a mental note and, even though it was a route I didn't travel often, I made my way back to it and tried the interchange again pretty quickly. I noticed that it felt particularly nice to drive that short stretch of road. I would make more reasons to travel that way and hit up the interchange whenever I was even nearish, which wasn't often, but often enough I started to anticipate getting to just drive this quick run of asphalt, the way you do when you know you're going to have something you love for dinner. It's the perfect stretch of road and I haven't driven on it in 13 years. If you hit it just right, going the right speed and without traffic, you start to notice this pleasant gliding sensation and I swear, for a second or two it feels like you're weightless. Over and over again, the same conditions produce the same results. When I say without traffic, I'm saying the ideal condition was zero other cars, no one else to monitor or adjust speed, based on just open road. But in Kansas that may be easier to come by than you might be thinking. I remember slowing down a mile before this interchange at times, just to put enough space between my car and the one car on the highway in front of me. I refined the experience more and more. Let me stress it was never bad. It was always uncommonly nice, but over time I developed some rules to make it optimal. I'll list them in a bit, but follow these instructions do it when there are no other cars and you have a perfect experience on demand for whenever you need it. So what is this perfect interchange then? Well, it's in the episode title, so I'm probably not keeping you in suspense, but it starts on highway K-10. K-10 is an east-west state highway for Kansas. That's where the K comes from, and it goes from Lawrence, kansas, on the west end, and merges into Interstate 435 over Nolathe, kansas, on the east end. This is the end on which I want to focus. When you're traveling east on K-10 and you reach I-435, you have to pick whether to go east or north. It's east slash north rather than east slash west or north slash south, because I-435 is a beltway, a highway that makes a large 83 mile loop all the way around Kansas City like a moat. So when you enter the corner as K-10 does, you wind up with the options of east or north. This might be a good point to jump out of my narrative and talk about highways just for a second. I knew some of this, but I filled in my knowledge gaps from various Wikipedia articles. So in the United States, we number the interstates in a certain order. They start with Interstate 1 on the west coast of California and increase in number as they go east. They all have either a one-digit or two-digit number. The interstates that run north to south are all odd numbers. The even numbers are used on east to west interstates. Those start with the lowest numbers in the south and the numbers get higher as you travel north. Main should have all the highest interstate numbers overall and Arizona should have the lowest Branching off from these main interstate routes are different types of bypasses, beltways and spurs. Spurs are routes that only attach to the main highway by one point, so, like an offshoot, bypasses connect at two points, so they become an alternate route for a stretch. Beltways or loops also connect at two points to the main highway but, unlike a bypass, they make an entire loop around. These routes all have three-digit numbers, with the first digit being odd on spur routes and even on bypasses and beltways. Is that interesting to anyone else? Where I grew up there was an I-35, a 435, 635, an I-70, 470, 670. I always wanted to know the rules about why they numbered them the way they did, so it's interesting to me. Back to my perfect stretch of road, I figured the easiest way to check it out again after so long was to take a trip there via Google Maps Street View feature and, after a bit of time getting reacquainted with how to move around in the map. I was off there we go lots of nice cut rock on the side, but prairie, good clouds on this Google image. Now I get to the part where I have to choose between 435 North or I-35 to Wichita and Des Moines. I-35 is the way I would normally go. 435 North is the way I don't normally go, but that is what we're looking for actually, alright. So as I pick 435 North, I'm entering the ramp I'm talking about, and it looks like the Google car might have a wide, open road for this. So here's what I'm noticing this road kind of tilts up as it turns left. The right side tilts up kind of like a racetrack. I mean, that's not too abnormal, but I remember it. Just, it also slides to the left as it goes. You get this great effect, alright, so Alright. And then here's the part where it curves in and finally where other people start to merge in with it, and then you're on 435, headed North. It looks like it's still there. On Google Maps it looks like it's still the same. I guess that's what we're going to see. Since it looked like everything was all good on the Google Maps, I decided the next step was to reach out to someone local. Even though I haven't lived in Kansas since 2003, I have many friends who still do, and this is where my friend Danny comes into the story.

Speaker 2: 8:44

Hello.

Speaker 1: 8:45

Hello Danny. We've known each other since 10th grade. He was with me, in fact, for the Billy's Balloon experience from episode 1. He's been a good friend from way back and I figured now was the time to see if I could trade on any of that for a favor. So hey, buddy, you're my big interview for this episode.

Speaker 2: 9:06

All right, all right, lucky me, I guess.

Speaker 1: 9:10

So I was going to ask if you'd be willing to drive over a stretch of road near you that I remember being perfect and then report back to me after you've done it. Does that sound like something you'd be into?

Speaker 2: 9:22

Sure, I can do that. I have no idea what a perfect stretch of road is, but all right.

Speaker 1: 9:28

So the stretch of road I'm talking about is going from K 10 going east, and then you merge onto 435 north.

Speaker 2: 9:36

Well, when was the last time you were back in Kansas City?

Speaker 1: 9:39

Well, I was. I was thinking about that, do you know, the last time I was back in Olathe, so that that would have been the last time I drove this stretch of road, and that was 2008 for my sister's wedding. Do you remember that?

Speaker 2: 9:53

I remember being you know, oh, did we, did we watch the final four together?

Speaker 1: 9:58

That's right, yeah, we watched. We watched the KU basketball game at your house with your dad.

Speaker 2: 10:06

The final four on the UNC yeah, with North Carolina, yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:11

I drove out to Lawrence, I think, to watch the championship somewhere at a friend's house, I think.

Speaker 2: 10:17

Yeah, yeah, I was back, yeah, and I was back in Baltimore at that point. Yeah, but yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 10:24

So that was the last time I was in Kansas City and that time going to Lawrence when I came back. That would have been the last time I would have hit this interchange, but that's it like 13 years ago.

Speaker 2: 10:35

I got to tell you they completely redone that change.

Speaker 3: 10:40

Have they yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:43

The road you're talking about no longer exists. I'm pretty sure.

Speaker 1: 10:47

I went like I went down Google Maps, I did the street view and kind of went down at driving on my computer and it, I mean I felt like it was still there.

Speaker 2: 10:55

But Heading East, then into Into 435. Yeah, I can do it. I'll do yeah. But yeah, I think they redid it within the last five years.

Speaker 1: 11:08

Oh no, okay, well, we'll find out, I guess. Yeah, so here's, here are the parameters. I was thinking it's. I was thinking daytime, not nighttime. I was thinking that I would have been doing this afternoon or or evenings, like just daytime scenario, and going the speed limit or or a little over. That's probably what I would have been doing when I was striving it no radio off, windows up, no talking, and then looking slightly out, like two o'clock and maybe a little bit up, kind of slightly out, so that you're not seeing the ground or the road. And then if you get it just right, it's kind of it's like you're floating. Okay, that's my that's my theory, this is my memory of it, and I'm I'm going to see if I can put you through it and see, see how close my memory comes to reality, if at all.

Speaker 2: 11:56

Yeah, I can do. Yeah, I mean it's not far yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:00

Awesome.

Speaker 2: 12:01

Like 10 miles at most from where I'm currently living. So yeah, that's doable. Yeah, Danny.

Speaker 1: 12:07

Danny, you are a lifesaver.

Speaker 2: 12:09

This is awesome, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:14

I'm just wondering if you could do it today or tomorrow. Would you be open to the idea of me riding with you on the phone?

Speaker 2: 12:20

So I'm on the phone when we go through this and I just I'm listening. Sure, yeah, I could do it today or tomorrow pretty easily, I think in the afternoon.

Speaker 1: 12:30

Yeah, okay, yeah, that totally does. I would not turn that down. No, I could do it anytime. I can make it work around you 100%.

Speaker 2: 12:39

Yeah, I think that's for me to do it sooner rather than later.

Speaker 1: 12:42

Okay, well, that works on my end. That's, that's great. So, yeah, all right. So let's talk compensation. Here's my offer. I thought about this I can either Venmo you $5 for gas and stuff, or I'll pay someone else $5 to make a song about how awesome you are. Don't answer yet Consider it. Think about. Think about having $5 of gas money. I mean, I think that's a great idea. It's a great idea.

Speaker 2: 13:11

I think it's nice, but consider how cool it would be to have a custom song all about you.

Speaker 1: 13:19

Oh wait, what is this? Like a service of some kind? Yeah, this is so I've been needing. Sometimes I need music or different things for this that I can't do, and so I will.

Speaker 2: 13:29

I've we'll outsource it to people on like Fiverr Okay, all right, go for it. Go nuts, yeah, I'll get a.

Speaker 1: 13:39

You've made the right decision, Dan. Maybe, All right. Well, let's, uh, we'll, I'll wrap this up here and um, and then we can plan and and execute the whole drive a little bit later on. Is that all right? Okay?

Speaker 2: 13:57

Yeah, all right.

Speaker 1: 13:58

Very cool. I appreciate this, dan. Thank you so much. I was on cloud nine waiting until the following day for Danny to call back and I could introduce him to this divine chunk of asphalt and concrete. Danny told me he actually had a dentist appointment the following day. That would put him right where we needed to start. So I just had to bide my time until he would be able to call back from the road. I'm talking. Can you hear me? I hear you. Can you hear me?

Speaker 2: 14:24

I can. All right, are we recording?

Speaker 1: 14:27

All right, we're recording. I got my, I got my technology. We made lots of small talk until we got to the end of K 10. All right, then I quieted down to hear Danny's reaction to the drive.

Speaker 2: 14:37

All right, just pass uh Richfield and getting on the interchange for 435.

Speaker 1: 14:48

Okay, okay, this is it 435 north and 35. Okay, when we get to the actual curve, I'll be quiet and just and just let it go, because I want to. I want you to get the full effect, okay.

Speaker 2: 15:02

Getting over and yeah, I'm just about to the curve I think you're talking about, and that was it and going down the highway towards 35 south. Um, yeah, I think I did the thing it's it's done.

Speaker 1: 15:26

And yeah, all right. So what? What'd you think what? What do you think of it?

Speaker 2: 15:34

Um, a pretty normal, slightly confusing highway interchange.

Speaker 1: 15:40

Okay, I was bummed out. My perfect stretch of road was gone. I figured I'd at least salvage what I could for the episode. I mean, these aren't all going to turn out the way I want them to at the beginning. I know that.

Speaker 2: 15:53

Okay, I wasn't entirely sure whether, uh whether, I should have been on 435 north, 435 east or the 35 south way.

Speaker 1: 16:07

So I chose to find that, but as we were talking a bit more back and forth, we discovered it. So, was there an option to get to 435 north? To get to where? 435? What North? Yeah, and did you take? Did you take that option? No, okay, I think that's the option I was trying to get us to take To go from K 10 to 435 north. Uh Well, I don't know what to tell you, but Did I, did I, uh, so is so backing up, I think I, maybe. Maybe I explained it bad. We talked and I apologized about messing up the first explanation. It turns out that later that same day was going to still be the best time to give it another try, so a few hours later we were back on the phone and ready to go again.

Speaker 2: 17:10

Hey, scott, you there.

Speaker 1: 17:13

Yeah, is this working? Yeah, this is much better. Hey, all right. So sorry about the first one. This time we're going to, we're going to try and do K-10 going East, and then take the 435 North ramp, which is totally not the one you would normally be taking.

Speaker 2: 17:35

Got it Okay, no problem.

Speaker 1: 17:39

Well, now I feel like I have to make you follow. I was feeling bad because we did it the first time and it didn't work, but I feel like I need to make you follow through because I've already put the wheels in motion for for music. So I mean, there's no, there's no going back. I've already that ship has sailed already.

Speaker 2: 17:57

Yeah, Uh, getting on the K-10 now.

Speaker 1: 18:01

Okay, I'm following you on, I'm looking down on you at. Google Maps.

Speaker 2: 18:05

I'm looking down at you on Google Maps, yeah all right, looks like I'm about two and a half miles from 435. All right, this is exciting.

Speaker 1: 18:19

I am taking 435 North, 435 North right. It'll peel off to the right, but then it'll fork to the left. Yeah, that's the one.

Speaker 2: 18:33

All right, just past Woodland Road.

Speaker 1: 18:36

Okay.

Speaker 2: 18:38

Coming up on Earth.

Speaker 1: 18:39

You here yeah. And here comes all right, I'll be quiet.

Speaker 2: 18:50

Basically there's this own separate highway now yes, yes. Like the model leading to 435, 35.

Speaker 1: 18:57

Yeah, okay, so I'll be quiet and I'll let you just take it in All right, here we go, taking the 435 North exit.

Speaker 2: 19:09

Now I'm at the left-hand lane, I believe I'm supposed to what, and entering the curve Going to look out at my two o'clock changing lanes. Oh, there we go. There's that nice little bay, Okay yeah. And coming out of 435 comes the merger with the rest of maybe the Lackman Road traffic.

Speaker 1: 19:49

You're merged back in.

Speaker 2: 19:54

And yes, that merged back in.

Speaker 1: 19:56

Yeah, we did it. That's it Okay.

Speaker 2: 20:03

All right.

Speaker 1: 20:04

First off, thank you so much. That's great, yeah. So I heard you. I heard you like have a moment of recognition. Did you feel what I was kind of talking about or trying to describe?

Speaker 2: 20:16

There was a moment where, like the bridge on the road came up, you know just the normal side barriers, and they eliminated everything else from my field division and the road entered a part where basically you couldn't see over the end of the road, like you pressed the hill and fall down, so like it just became a pure sort of vantage point. There was like a road to maybe, if not quite, nowhere, just like it would just unfurl forever perhaps.

Speaker 1: 20:52

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:52

Infinite road.

Speaker 1: 20:53

All right.

Speaker 2: 20:54

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:56

That's it All right. Okay, I've, I'm very happy. I'm happy with how that worked out. Okay, can I? I want to read off some words to you. Will you respond yes or no to them, based on if you think each one accurately describes the experience. Sure, okay, here we go.

Speaker 2: 21:20

Smooth, Uh yeah.

Speaker 1: 21:24

Tranquil, no Transcendent.

Speaker 2: 21:32

No.

Speaker 1: 21:34

Enlightening? No, no, nicer than normal.

Speaker 2: 21:43

Yes.

Speaker 1: 21:45

Regular.

Speaker 2: 21:48

No.

Speaker 1: 21:50

Flying.

Speaker 2: 21:53

I'll say yes, over high. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1: 21:56

No, no remote.

Speaker 2: 22:00

Over-hyped no no.

Speaker 1: 22:05

Worth the trouble.

Speaker 2: 22:08

I don't know, Scott, this is a lot of trouble.

Speaker 1: 22:14

It really was yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:16

It was a lot of trouble, but that might not be a reflection. Yeah, the experience itself, yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:27

Dude, thank you, I appreciate this so much. So have you turned around? I know you headed back the right way now.

Speaker 2: 22:35

Yeah, I'm back on 95th Street right now.

Speaker 1: 22:37

Cool, all right, danny, I cannot thank you so much for helping me out, not once, but twice, with my ridiculousness.

Speaker 2: 22:47

It has no problem, Buddy. You're very, very welcome. Happy to help. All right, buddy.

Speaker 1: 22:55

Danny, I love you baby. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 22:59

I hope you have a great rest of your day, bye, bye.

Speaker 1: 23:04

We did it. I mean, really he did it. I didn't. I didn't really do anything. Well, actually I told him to do it. I guess that's something, yeah. And then I went to fulfill my end of the deal. But to show a peek behind the scenes, I discovered that it wasn't quite as easy as I had planned to get a $5 song made. I had done this a few years ago and it had really been no problem. But this time I just hit a string of bad luck. The first artist I bought a gig from didn't respond at all, and I had to cancel that gig. The second artist I bought a gig from sent me a message that he was on vacation until the end of the month. Another I bought from messaged me back to tell me he had set up the offer a week ago but forgot all about it, and now he was too busy. So that one got canceled too. Then I had a $5 delivery that came through, but I couldn't understand any of the lyrics. I would say I was starting to panic a little. If you're counting with me now, that's four tries Along the way. I got smart and started messaging people about what I was looking for before getting their gigs. So there were also messages to people that didn't contact me back or couldn't deliver because of whatever reason. By this time I had all the other pieces of the episode in place and Danny's song was the last thing I was waiting for. I had even planned for this episode to come out before the last one, but had to change the order of things. When the song kept getting pushed back, I hired a fifth songwriter. This gig also got a bit delayed, and by that time it had been long enough that the second guy I contacted, who was on vacation, had returned and could do the song now. So it just became a matter of which song would get to me first, and that would be the song that made it into the episode. So I texted you because I mean, you'll find out in the episode. It was a long process, but I finally have a song for you.

Speaker 2: 25:00

It took me a while, but I now have a song and I want to play it for you. Okay, okay, well, I'm all ears here. I am so this is a song called the.

Speaker 1: 25:12

Greatest man, by somebody named Ryan Branflake, and I got it for five bucks, and now it's going to be yours, alright, so here we go.

Speaker 6: 25:54

I'm a man. I'm a man. I'm a man. I'm a man. I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man. I'm a man. I'm a man. I'm a man Strong like ox and clever like dog, wise like owl and modest like frog. Brave like lion and graceful like deer. Nothing like rats or snakes or fish or worms. I'm a man. I'm a man. I'm a man.

Speaker 2: 27:53

I'm a man. That's it. That's amazing. That's a perfect $5 song. I'll give you that. That's a perfect $5 song.

Speaker 1: 28:01

Yeah, that was totally great.

Speaker 2: 28:03

I love it so much. Yeah, yeah, I love it so much.

Speaker 1: 28:07

I was super happy with that. Ok, well, that was pretty much all I was going to bug you with.

Speaker 2: 28:14

I love it. I love it.

Speaker 1: 28:17

This is my way of saying thank you for it, for doing that ridiculous stuff.

Speaker 2: 28:21

Oh, my God, I'm so happy, I'm so happy.

Speaker 1: 28:29

Yeah, I'm pretty happy to Thanks Danny. When I was talking to friends about the subject of this episode, the conversations would eventually turn toward perfect drives that people remember from their own lives, and everyone I talked to seemed to have at least one to share. The perfect drive isn't really a physical stretch of road out there somewhere. It's a connection you have with the mood, driver, vehicle, road environment. Everything is aligned in the same moment and it's a connection so strong that when it happens you can't ignore it. It interrupts your driving trance and invites you to be present and appreciate the experience. Then it etches into your memory and stays with you to the horizon. Some of you eagle-eared listeners out there may be wanting to say to me hey, scott, he technically went out there for you twice, so does that mean he gets two songs? And that is a completely fair question. The answer should be an easy yes. Honestly, it does make sense. But the process of getting the first song took so long and it was also getting close to the time I wanted to publish this episode. But Dan did do me a huge favor Twice and I owed him. So I did what any good friend would do I made the second song myself.

Speaker 5: 30:39

Dan, you're the man and I think you're awesome. Like some barbecue ribs, right after you saw some red on the bone from front to back and you're kind of like a mix of Jack's white and black. Your brain is superb and it couldn't think clear. I got to say, if I may, you got a lucky mirror. What a handsome guy that should be on canvas facing Danny Boy. You're just the best in Kansas. Here we go, dan. You're a gentleman and a scholar. Your mom loves her birthday because you always call her. Now, don't forget your dad. I bet he's real proud with the sun. As unique as Conor McLeod In law school. Aspire in to make a good grade, because when you're Dan, it's quieter than it's time to get paid. Step on out of children. You can conquer worlds, and we'll tell the tale of Danny to the boys and girls. All right, and with that the K10 to I435.

Speaker 1: 31:39

North interchange becomes the fourth item in the perfectorium, the index of perfect things. Thanks to my friend Danny for being such a great sport from when I initially texted him about the perfect thing. I'm going to be back in a minute. I'm going to be back in a minute. I'm going to be back in a minute. Thanks to my friend Danny for being such a great sport from when I initially texted him about this. All the way through, you can find all the credit and links for the music in this episode on the webpage or in the show notes. Thank you to Ryan Branflake for the first Danny song. On this episode's webpage you can also find the Danny songs if you just want to hear them on their own. This episode was recorded and mixed at Morena Studios in Oakland, california. Be sure to subscribe to get every episode and if you're enjoying these and want to drop the perfect show, a perfect rating or review, please do. It's the easiest way to support the show. Once again, the perfect show site is at perfectshowsite. That's S-I-T-E. Email any comments, music or other things to perfectshowshowcom and connect on Twitter and Instagram to username PerfectShowShow. And remember if you came here and waited all the way until the end, just ask me to sign your transfer request so you can drop this podcast and get into a different one with a different host, or because it's too early in the morning, or because there's this other one that your friend is listening to and you want to study for final podcast exams together, or whatever reason. I regret to inform you that those are not legitimate excuses and it will still show up on your podcast transcript as a withdrawal and stay on your permanent record. So just think about that before you're in the registrar's office going through all this trouble of adjusting your podcast schedule this semester. Anyway, until next time, I'm Scott Moppin, and thanks for listening to the Perfect Show. Oh, hello, you're still here, okay. Well, as I was finishing up putting this episode together, my last songwriter got back to me, so now it's an extra bonus for people who stayed all the way through. Here's one additional Danny song, written and performed by Captain Cream Terkel AJAYا.

Speaker 3: 34:33

He roams through the hills like a galloping beast. You may call him the old majesty. He makes the ladies race and get some end of mood, cause he's got a baby face and he's a good looking dude. He can totally afford his rent but he still makes time to go and pitch a tent, camping his Kansas on his snacks he is munching. Back in high school used to blast the smashing pumpkins. Come on, danny, there's no plan B. The plan is have a good town. That's all I can see. Danny's the man. He's got big hands. You know what that means. I hope you understand.

Speaker 2: 35:26

This is amazing. Yeah, Can I get all three songs?

Speaker 1: 35:29

Yes, you are getting all three songs absolutely. They don't have a lot of interest with other people who are named Dan Alright man, I'm gonna let you go, I'm gonna go eat some fish sticks and then I'm gonna watch Shang-Chi, and with that I actually will bid you a fond farewell until we meet again. Bye.

In this short episode Scot goes over the perfect pairing of Baseball and the Radio, exploring a bit of its history as well as his history with it.

Today's music courtesy:

Desparee - https://www.fiverr.com/desparee

Contact:

https://twitter.com/PerfectShowShow

https://www.instagram.com/perfectshowshow/

AI-Generated Transcript:

Speaker 1: 0:23

Hi and welcome to the Perfect Show. I'm your host, scott Moppen, and this is a podcast where I catalog some of the perfect pieces of life, one by one. Join me each episode as I examine something that I or someone else considers perfect. This is a quick episode I wanted to record and get out before the end of the month. Today's topic is sort of a Venn diagram, and I love Venn diagrams, but that's a separate issue. It's a Venn diagram of two things and we are focusing specifically on the area where they overlap. Today's perfect thing is baseball on the radio. Researching this episode, I discovered that at the time of recording August of 2021, I'm at the 100 year anniversary of the month of the very first time baseball was ever on the radio. That event happened on August 5th of 1921 on radio station KDKA of Pittsburgh, when Harold Arlen announced a game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Philadelphia Phillies live. They even invented their own microphone out of a modified telephone to be able to catch the noise of the game. Football baseball initially resisted the radio. The owners were slow to adopt. They worried that people being able to get the games for free would cut into their attendance and no one would go to the games in person anymore. That first year, the World Series was actually broadcast by announcers reading telegram updates rather than being at the game themselves. It didn't cut into attendance, though it did the opposite. With greater access, the popularity grew. You had a monopoly on this market for about 18 years, when it was the only way to experience a game apart from being in the stands. But August 26th 1939, the first baseball game was broadcast on TV and baseball entered another level of pop culture awareness. Tv is great for most sports, but I think baseball and the radio are perfectly suited for each other. You can catch a game live at the ballpark or on TV, but catching the game on the radio has always been my favorite way to enjoy baseball. Likewise, I've heard other sports on the radio too. Growing up, I can remember hearing Chiefs football games, kc Blades hockey and occasionally even Chicago Bulls closest NBA team to KC basketball games, all broadcast at different times, but they just didn't mesh as well with the audio only version as baseball did. There was always either too much happening or too little, but baseball happens to have the luxury, in my opinion, of being the perfect speed for an audio only experience. With football it feels like there are too many people in motion at once and an announcer is going to have to leave something out. With basketball there are fewer players on the court but action is happening so quickly and in so many places that you simply have to leave out some of what's happening there as well. Baseball feels like it's happening at the exact pace. The announcers need to describe every piece as it's happening and with just a little bit of knowledge of the structure and rules of baseball it allows you to visualize the whole game perfectly. When a TV broadcast zooms in for a close-up, it is choosing to exclude everything else going on for the benefit of that close-up shot. But the radio announcer is able to act as a conductor of sorts, giving you both the melody and the accompaniment all at once, more like a symphony. A baseball announcer had the ability to do what I'd never heard on the radio to just take long pauses. For normal radio announcers that would be just silence, dead air, the thing every disc jockey and talk radio host was conditioned to fear the most. But baseball has all these built-in ambient noise and the best broadcasts make sure to capture it along with everything else. There's the crowd, the organ, the garbled stadium announcer bleeding through or the pop song being played for the fans, the occasional crack of the bat or sound of birds vendors yelling in the stands and it was always going on in the background. It lets them match the pace of the game, and listening always reminded me of easy summer conversations with friends, where sometimes a sentence could trail off and then come back after a short hiatus and that's just the pace we're going. I loved soaking in all those extra sounds as I found my thoughts wandering to different places during those times. For me, hearing baseball on the radio takes me back to three different times in life. Most recently, it makes me think of one of the cars I drove early on that had only a radio and the FM. Half of that was broken so I was only listening to AM stations on the drives I took in it. It was the Midwest, so I was in the car a lot and that meant discovering weird and wonderful things like the Phil Hendry show and Art Bell talking to people about aliens on coast to coast AM at 2 in the morning, but also lots of baseball games with the sun setting and the windows rolled down, driving across deserted Kansas highways with the sounds of Royals baseball coming through 980 on my AM radio. It's just the best. Denny Matthews is the Kansas City Royals' announcer and he's been with the team since its first season in 1969. He announced all the way through my childhood and still announces them today, so he is the voice I associate most with baseball. Radio, like baseball, is also regional right, so where you are it might have been other famous voices like Vince Gowney or Harry Carey Jack Buck. Whoever it was, it became a familiar voice you trusted to paint a beautiful picture for the next few hours. The second place it takes me is to ages 12, 13, 14, pushing a lawnmower back and forth over the neighborhood on lawns and humid weekend afternoons with a tape player slash radio on my hip. A lot of times it may have had a cassette of Danny Elfman's Batman Return soundtrack, but when the Royals were playing I'd be listening to the game. I've always had an easier time doing chores with some sort of separate audio. Sometimes music used to be talk radio or audiobooks, now it's mainly podcasts. But it helps me just switch to autopilot while walking back and forth with a mower and instead exists fully inside the reality of whatever I'm listening to. Baseball worked beautifully in that regard. I stopped mowing lawns as soon as I could drive to a different job, but I would have tapped out a lot sooner if I didn't have these audio escape hatches while I was mowing. The main place that baseball and the radio takes me back to is my grandparents house. I grew up about 45 minutes away from where my father's parents lived in Independence, missouri. I have one older sister, so from the earliest I can remember it was already an established pattern for my grandparents to take each of us for one week at a time to stay with them. My grandparents get one on one time with each of us, while my parents got to do the same with the other kid, and it gave my sister and I some time apart from each other too. We did this every summer of my elementary school years, as far as I can remember. Now that I'm an adult, I take for granted that I can fall asleep practically anywhere, but as a kid, unfamiliar surroundings can be hard to ignore, and at my grandparents house there was a lot of unfamiliar. There was a cowboy lamp shaped like a stirrup, a wall with a bunch of pictures of geese beautifully painted on various sized circular saw blades, and a machine in the basement that you leaned on while it jiggled instead of doing exercise. But any night they were on, and in the summer that was often, one of my grandparents would turn the radio on and maybe, while working on a jigsaw puzzle, I'd fall asleep listening to the familiar sounds of the Royals in the baseball game. I could completely see, even with closed eyes as I drifted to sleep.

Speaker 2: 11:04

Here's the O1 pitch swing and a foul, and again the Royals are one strike away. And how about the guy in the mound right now?

Speaker 1: 11:12

The Royals wondered if he could. Once in a while we might even go to a game and if it was a late one or not, a particularly competitive one, which, as a Royals fan, you just have to make peace with sometimes. But we could find ourselves in the car driving out to beat the traffic or preserve my bedtime when I was really young and listening to the end of the game over the radio that way. But I remember so many other activities playing croquet, frisbee, grilling up hamburgers and hot dogs or catching lightning bugs in a jar, where the sounds of a game coming out of the radio were as much a part of the fabric of the moment as the locusts and the frogs. Baseball on the radio is just a space and time machine, depositing me in memories from before, giving me the feeling of those slow summer nights, no matter when or where I hear it. In a world where the pace of everything seems to be increasing all the time, it's nice to go back to a thing that feels exactly the same as it did when I was a kid, the same as when my dad was a kid. To me it's just perfect. And with that, baseball on the Radio becomes the third entry into the Perfectorium, the index of perfect things. This episode was recorded and mixed at Morena Studios in Oakland, california. I'm working on some more episodes right now, so if you don't want to miss them, be sure to subscribe. And if you're enjoying these and want to drop the Perfect Show, a perfect rating or review, please do that on Apple, google, spotify or whatever you're using. Once again, the Perfect Show site is at PerfectShowsite. That's a site TE. Email any comments, music or other things to PerfectShowShowcom and connect on Twitter and Instagram to use your name PerfectShowShow. And, as always, if you need to use this podcast in a high stakes gambling situation where some bombastic high roller has laid out a ridiculous sum of money claiming that there's no such thing as a perfect show and my money says none of yours can prove any different and you walk up all cool Miami Vice and you're like I'll take that bet. Then you reach into your pocket all casual and hold up your smartphone where this podcast is playing. Then the other guy falls to his knees yelling no, while you saunter off with a briefcase full of his money. Well then, by all means, you have my full permission. Anyway, until next time, I'm Scott Moppen, and thanks for listening to the Perfect Show. I'm gonna eat 50 eggs.

This episode Scot explores the year he was a MoviePass subscriber and the ups and downs of that company. We also talk with Scot's dad and actor Vivian Aalis. Find Vivian Aalis at: https://www.youtube.com/c/VivianAalis

Today's music courtesy: Shawn Korkie - https://www.fiverr.com/shawnkorkie Relaxo Beats - https://www.fiverr.com/relaxo_beats AudioVisualGods - https://www.fiverr.com/audiovisualgods Aandy Valentine - https://www.fiverr.com/aandyvalentine

Contact:https://twitter.com/PerfectShowShow

https://www.instagram.com/perfectshowshow/

AI-Generated Transcript:

Speaker 2: 0:22

Hi and welcome to the Perfect Show. I'm your host, scott Moppin, and this is a podcast where I catalog some of the perfect pieces of life one by one. Join me each episode as I examine something that I or someone else considers perfect. So welcome back everybody and just top of the show stuff, let me give you some closure about the sunburn. My sunburn is now totally okay. It has taken long enough between episodes that it has healed, and that doesn't, unfortunately for me, mean turn into a tan, it just means kind of sink back into my previous tone. So it either comes and goes. I don't seem to have any lasting effects, but yeah, all better. Can resume activities. Stop hiding like a pseudo vampire. So here's the deal with this show. Some of the experiences are going to be fully accessible, like Billy's Balloon was last episode, and when they are, all do my best to tell you how to access them. Some of them will only be locally accessible. I may talk about something in a certain location and if you're not there, well then I'm sorry, but you'll have to make do with me just doing my best to explain it or give you a audio version of it. But then some of them, like today, are just plain inaccessible, and that's because they are things of the past. Today's perfect thing is my year with movie pass, and that's a perfect thing for me because I love movies I always have. Two of my earliest jobs were movie related. I worked at a movie theater as soon as I could drive, when I was 16. And then I also, during senior year of high school, I worked at a video store on nights and on weekends. So I was immersed that. I mean movies were how I communicated with my dad instead of sports. That's what we talk, especially I. After college I went to Japan for a number of years. I'll get into that, I'm sure, on a number of episodes. But when I was in Japan especially, I lost the train of American sports because the time difference and the inability to access them on on TV anywhere really you just kind of fall out of it. So movies were still something that I could talk to with my parents or with my family or with friends and and have that sort of connection back and forth. So movies have always held that place and the idea of movie pass was perfect for me. So I call my dad up to talk to him about movie pass, but of course, we also just talked about movies. First I was going to say how many movies did you watch yesterday?

Speaker 1: 3:10

Let's see. I probably watched three movies yesterday.

Speaker 2: 3:15

Do you remember what they were often?

Speaker 1: 3:19

Oh, let's see, that's a good. That's a good question I had. I had a couple of movies come through on Netflix, which is, you know, I I use a lot.

Speaker 2: 3:39

Yes, the disc in the mail version.

Speaker 1: 3:43

Right, yeah, right, and I don't remember the name of this one, but it's probably a good sign for the movie. Well, I don't know, it was the. It was the first movie that I have watched all the way through where the movie itself was in a foreign language, but I liked the movie enough that I watched it with English subtitles.

Speaker 2: 4:27

This is the first foreign language film you've gotten all the way to the finish line on.

Speaker 1: 4:32

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:32

Really Well that sounds significant what?

Speaker 1: 4:35

now I got to know what this is Was it recent or now one now I can can go to my computer and I can tell you that'd be great. What, sorry, what I watched?

Speaker 2: 4:50

But now I'm fascinated the first foreign language film you've ever watched, with subtitles, all the way through.

Speaker 1: 4:57

Right, right.

Speaker 2: 5:00

It feels like there are a lot of ones that you could circle back to some really good ones.

Speaker 1: 5:05

Okay, all right, let me do a quick wake up to the computer and I'll be able to tell you what it was. Okay, oh, oh, okay. I I'm going to say it's a completeonnaise to a full thing of a was called the Assistant. Okay, it was a 2018 Ford film.

Speaker 2: 5:43

I see it.

Speaker 1: 5:44

It was in French as the primary language and since I had taken French way way on back, like in high school, I knew or in college, I guess I knew some of the words and could put together some of what was being said, but it came on immediately with a. It came on immediately with English subtitles. So it was. I did not have to request English subtitles.

Speaker 2: 6:29

Right.

Speaker 1: 6:31

It just showed up with English subtitles and it was definitely, even though not a Hitchcock movie, it was definitely a Hitchcock genre type movie.

Speaker 2: 6:59

So then, what's the deal with MoviePass? My friend, justin, first told me about it, and when he did, I thought he was describing a not real thing. And that's how I put it to other people. When I would describe it to them is I'm going to tell you about a real thing that sounds like a not real thing. So the way MoviePass worked, at least when I jumped in, was that you pay a monthly fee, which was $9.95, and in exchange you get to go to the theater and see one movie per day every day of the month. So that worked out to 28 minimum, 31 maximum movies per month for $10 total. So, even though I'm only paying $10 per month to see all these movies, when I go to the box office and get my ticket, they're charging a full ticket price. The theater is getting their full money, and then I give them a MoviePass debit card, credit card I think it was some sort of card and that would go through. It would cover the charges, and then I think on the back end, moviepass paid that off somehow. But I'm sitting here thinking I only gave MoviePass $10. And MoviePass has, in exchange, given the theaters that I'm going to hundreds of dollars. How is this possibly working. I'm like maybe it works off me because I'm constantly talking to people about MoviePass. I think I single-handedly got probably like nine or 10 people to sign up that I know of. So maybe that's how it works on people like me. But it couldn't. I'm like it should be hemorrhaging money. There's just no way this is profitable, there's no way this works and, in short, it was exactly hemorrhaging money. It was hemorrhaging to the tune of 20 million a month or sometimes up to 40 million, but I'll get into that when I go through a timeline a little bit later. At that time I think I lived maybe a four-minute drive away from the theater and I had a wife and a very young child, so they both actually went to sleep pretty early and that left me a night out with a lot of extra time on my hands. And once I got like done with some house upkeep, I was just kind of sitting there twiddling my thumbs, and so MoviePass swooped in. I was like, oh, this is perfect. As soon as the rest of my family goes to sleep, I'll just head out right down the street to the movie theater and I'll see, like the 10 o'clock or 1030, whatever is playing at that time zone at the theater, and so my first movie was Blade Runner 2049. And I went, and I went late at night and of course, in a comfortable seat, late at night in the dark arena I'm going to and did immediately fall asleep Not immediately, I made it partway through the movie, fell asleep. Absolutely no fall to the movie, it was all the condition in which I was viewing it. But the great thing about MoviePass and what I enjoyed is I went back the following day and saw it again, stayed awake during the parts that I had fallen asleep of in the first time and put all the pieces together. So I got the complete experience after only two tries. But it was amazing because just that first ticket, the first night I went to a night theater and normally I had been going to see Matt and A's or the cheaper end of shows or wait till a cheap day, but this first ticket was, I think, 1249, maybe for an evening ticket, which is not terribly expensive for movies in this day and age. But considering that I had only given 9.99 for the movie pass, I was already feeling like I had gotten away with something as I walked into my very first movie. So let me try and give a real quick MoviePass timeline. I tried doing a more detailed version of this, but it was getting way too cumbersome, so I'm pulling from a digitaltrendscom article and Wikipedia. So if you want more detail than what I've got, check out those two places. They have a lot more because I'm leaving a lot out. So basic overview for MoviePass. June 2011 it starts for the first time in San Francisco and they get 19,000 people to sign up. In October 2012, they do a national test for MoviePass, a beta test. Then by 2016,. June 2016, they throw out a $50 monthly fee for six movies a month and a $99 monthly pass for unlimited movies. July 2016, there's a new tier based thing with offering for two movies a month and a lower price, and unlimited is still there, but it's between $40 or $50 a month. December 2016, they now have 20,000 subscribers. And then there's the big move August 2017, moviepass announces a drop to $10 per month for unlimited movies one per day. September one month after bringing in the new price point, they get to 400,000 subscribers. They are wary about subscribers who are going to be seeing more than one movie per month. And speaking of subscribers who are gonna see more than one movie per month. That is exactly where I come into the story. I signed up for $995 a month on September 25th 2017 at 11.54 PM. I got this through email records. I get my card about a month later, on the 17th of October. I use it two days after that and then we are off to the races. Mid-november I get an email offering to upgrade for a full year for $6.95 a month, but I have to pay the full year. I'm like yes, please. I think at this point, moviepass is like we need cash now. Let's see what we can do to get a lot of cash come in quick. So that's where they get their year people paying for year-long subscriptions at that point, which gives them the upfront capital. In December 2017, moviepass announces that it now is at one million subscribers. I got my dad in that same month. I got my dad a six month pass to MoviePass as a Christmas gift. So I remember I think I looked it up, but I sent you a six month MoviePass for a Christmas gift, I think in 2017. Yes, you did, and how did you like it? Did you do positive?

Speaker 1: 13:43

things or any problems with it. Definitely, definitely really enjoyed it and definitely enjoyed going to see movies.

Speaker 2: 13:56

And how often did you use it? Per week or per month or whatever you estimation you think would make?

Speaker 1: 14:04

sense I probably used it two to three times per week. I remember that movie pass encouraged me to get out to the theaters. Obviously this was pre-COVID times, but it encouraged me to go to the theater.

Speaker 2: 14:39

In April 2018, movie Pass comes out and says it is now losing $20 million per month. In May it is the first time I start getting some of the major shenanigans. They start putting a lot of stuff to change the subscription. The first one was making sure you can't see movies more than once or you can't see new movies or certain movies. They would try to channel you to certain movies. May is the first time I have a record of my movie ticket stubs that I'm taking photos of for the app. They would have you purchase a ticket and then take a picture of that stub to prove that you had it in hand and you weren't just using the service over and over again but not actually seeing any of the movies. In June they now have moved past 3 million subscribers. They also introduced surge pricing for certain movies to add extra $2-$6 fees per ticket, even for Movie Pass subscribers. I don't remember ever paying for that. I think I went around that by going to get tickets for older or less popular movies and then just either seeing those. My theater had a ticket taker just inside the door and then the theaters were kind of open on either side of the concession. You could go into. Whatever theater you walked into, I would sometimes get a ticket for a movie that I wasn't going to see and then go see the movie that I was blocked from seeing on Movie Pass. July. Movie Pass borrows another $5 million in an emergency sort of situation. In August. I get an email now telling me I have to update or cancel. I have to either update to a new plan that allows me three movies per month instead of one movie per day or I have to cancel it completely. If I cancel, I can't come back for nine months. I think I ignored the email and just kind of figured that they would shut me out. Eventually. I didn't actually see a movie for I think, eight or nine weeks there while I was waiting it out and refusing to use the app because the app would funnel me through and make me update, which would make me agree to the new terms. I wasn't going to agree to the new terms because I still had my year deal set. It was kind of a stalemate for a little while where I didn't use it. I definitely remember seeing Venom and Bad Times at the El Royale, both of which came out in October. I know that I stuck around at least with Movie Pass abilities until that point. I do remember that as it went on, the app was getting less and less functional and it was becoming more and more frustrating. I think that after October I was pretty much out In October. There's also an investigation opened into Movie Pass for fraud. The next email I have is from April 19th of 2019 saying welcome to Movie Pass. I guess I signed back up and they had a service ready to go again in April. I don't remember a lot about this second one. I remember that there were a lot more shenanigans involved in using and redeeming your Movie Pass and that there were things about like it would run out of Movie Times quickly during the day. I think my theory was that it had a pool of money that it would draw from. As soon as people used enough movie tickets to use up that pool, it would kind of shut off the faucets and everything else would be like no available times for this movie. That pool would get used up by people on the East Coast. Since I'm on the West Coast, it would almost always be blocked. By the time I got to a space where I could use it, I started going on my breaks from work early and getting passes for later in that afternoon or evening, and that was working. I used it to see movies that way for a while. But I don't remember a ton about the second one. I just remember that I kind of rode with it for a few months, but I was out before the end of the summer. On August 20 of 2019, movie Pass had like a breach with their security breach and tons of their client account stuff was exposed. That was a problem that they were dealing with on top of all the financial stuff, on top of fighting with the theaters back and forth about revenue sharing or using their service at their different places. On September 14 of 2019, movie Pass shut down its ticketing service. On January 28 of 2020, movie Pass' parent company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and announced that it ceased all business operations and that was pretty much the end. So during this time I mostly saw movies at that theater four minutes down the road, and that summer I started seeing a new Coke commercial on the front of every movie. It starts with a pair of people headed up a theater escalator holding coax while they talk about movies. Then it switches scenes and conversations every few seconds to create sort of a mad lip of dialogue. In no time I had the whole thing memorized, but there was one part I remembered the best. I don't know if it was something about that transition or if I just like hot dogs, but forget the 9 announcements for me to put my phone away. That was the signal for me that the movie was about to begin. It was such a part of my experience that I went to look for it again as I was planning this episode and I found it on YouTube. I also happened to see the uploader's profile picture and I recognized her immediately. I mean, of course, of course, actors have acting reels. That's exactly what I had found. I reached out to see if she would be willing to talk with me for the show and for my first interview. I couldn't have made a more classic blunder, but I recovered and Vivian was a total pro throughout. I wanted to see if I could call you up and talk to you about the cinema guide that you did a few years ago. During that time, the commercial that you were featured in was playing before every movie.

Speaker 3: 22:08

I imagine you saw it all the time, so when you first saw it I think I filmed it close to around that time it was well, it was definitely. I think it was 2018 when it was filmed.

Speaker 2: 22:24

And are you a big moviegoer?

Speaker 3: 22:26

Oh, of course. Yeah, I went to school for acting and that's my passion, so I'm obsessed with movies. Definitely, I feel like going to see a movie is like that classic American thing.

Speaker 2: 22:40

Absolutely yeah.

Speaker 3: 22:41

Even like when you go to date someone too. It's like when you think of like your first date, that's like one of the big things that comes to mind is like go to a film and then go to eat dinner afterward. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 22:53

So did you run into your own ad at the front of movies, often when you were going to see them yourself?

Speaker 3: 22:58

Oh, I did yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:00

Does that get weirder? As an actress, do you get used to that at a certain point and it doesn't really faze you.

Speaker 3: 23:05

I know a lot of actors don't like seeing themselves, but I've always found that I like watching it back because I think to myself okay, oh, I could have done this or what I would have done better or changed. I'm definitely more of like a critical person. I like to like critique and see what I could have done differently. So I liked watching it. And also I liked watching my peers too, because the other people that I worked with. They were so amazing and they were really funny and I like watching the work that they did too.

Speaker 2: 23:35

We talked a bit about how the commercial was made and Vivian's co-stars.

Speaker 3: 23:40

Yeah, each one was filmed at a different time slot, so we would have our specific time slot. They'd be like, okay, now Vivian and her co-star, you come together and we're gonna film your spot, and then we have the main lead. That was the couple at the very beginning going up the escalator, and then the two girls, the jalapeno. That's hot, and they're filmed together.

Speaker 2: 24:09

The pepperoni pizza, gentlemen.

Speaker 3: 24:11

Yeah, they may not have been twins, they might've just been friends, but I always think of them as twins. I don't know why.

Speaker 2: 24:17

So was movie pass? Just cause my episode's about movie pass? Was movie pass something that you were aware of yourself or had?

Speaker 3: 24:26

I was. I never got a chance to get. Actually, my co-star had it and he was telling me about it. I never. I never wound up getting it while I was out there, but I don't know why it just never wound up happening.

Speaker 2: 24:40

It was very flash in the pan. It kind of flared up and then flew too bright. It no longer exists. It no longer exists. Oh. Do you have a favorite movie or anything you would classify as your favorite movie of all time?

Speaker 3: 24:56

Oh, absolutely oh yeah, okay. Yeah, my favorite movie is called Gigi. It has Leslie Calron, louis Jaldon and Maurice Chevalier in it and it's like a musical type movie. It's got like romance and drama and it's about this young girl who is coming into her own, she's growing up and she's slowly becoming a woman. She's friends with this young, rich bachelor who's been dating a bunch of women, trying to look for his perfect woman or whatever, and she lives with her grandmother yes, her grandmother and her mother ran off and became an opera singer and has nothing really to do with her.

Speaker 2: 25:55

As one does.

Speaker 3: 25:56

yes, Exactly, you know, as a mother does. And they're trying to raise Gigi to be this polite lady so that she can become someone who like marries and settles down. But she's like a rebel, you know. And then the guest on that's his name. He falls in love with Gigi when he realizes that she's becoming like a woman and they want her to like bend over backwards for him and she's like, no, I'm not gonna do that. He's been a family friend forever and I'm gonna be myself and he's gonna have to get over that. And it's a great film. It's definitely worth watching. This is basically about those little perfect moments that people connect to and, I imagine, like change people's life for the better, right.

Speaker 2: 26:52

Like I think so.

Speaker 3: 26:54

Because for me, that's kind of like what movies are? I've watched a lot of films that have changed my life and definitely like going to movies and watching them, having that full experience and kind of being enveloped by that world and kind of transferring yourself into that world. You feel like you can escape your present reality for a little bit, especially during times like right now, when we're going through so much together as a country and as a people it's not even just as a country, as our world, you know, with climate change and with the pandemic and there's just so much going on and people are really suffering. It's a way to escape and it's also a way to connect and I think movies have always been a really great way to express that and also to express our humanity. And I think it's really beautiful and it's a good reminder that don't forget to go to the movies, don't forget to, you know, take that moment to escape and and to try to connect with other people and remember how important it is and to be human, you know.

Speaker 2: 28:22

I decided the interview is going well enough that I could risk messing it up with an idea. So I got to admit to a slight ulterior motive here. I was wondering if you would be willing to run the line with me, so where I would lead you into the line before, so the jalapeno line, and then you cut me off with the hot dog line. Oh for sure That'd be okay, so I'll be like. I've been practicing too, so I'm ready on my end, but let's see if I can do this. I'm not a professional, but I'll give it a go.

Speaker 3: 28:53

Yeah, I hope. I hope I remember my line, but I think I got it.

Speaker 2: 28:57

All right, so jalapeno, wow, that's hot dog. Yes, fantastic, that's awesome. That's everything I wanted it to be, thank you.

Speaker 3: 29:14

I wonder, if you compared the two voice samples like, how similar they would be. I was trying to make it sound almost exactly like.

Speaker 2: 29:24

I think, I think we nailed it. I think I think I was probably a little bit off, but I think you nailed it.

Speaker 1: 29:31

Thank you.

Speaker 2: 29:43

So what all did I see during this stretch of the theater that the app became inaccessible at a point. So I can't go back and look at my history I just made. I used my movie pass probably 150 times during that 2017 2018 chunk. But the highlights for me At the top our family really got into the greatest showman. It's a fun musical about PT Bartom's life that in no way reflects his actual life, but they've made a fun musical out of it and we watched it a bunch. I think I saw it maybe 10 or 11 times in the theater. It just became comfort food at some point if nothing else was on Mike will, I'll go see the greatest showman again. It was great. I saw Black Panther a few times, ragnarok a few times. Happy death day was one that I took a chance on early. That was really fun. Actually, I was not expecting it to be as fun of. It's kind of a groundhog day Mixed with the horror movie concept. It's really fun. Upgrade was another one I wasn't expecting. I think I just took a chance on it and it's that's one kind of a lower budget movie where A guy gets a computer chip in him that, as computer chips do, start taking over. So you get fun fight scenes where the actor gets to look surprised and amazed and repulsed at what his own body is doing Really fun then the the Phantom Thread was a good one. During that time I'm always happy to see a new Paul Thomas Anderson movie. This was a chunk of time that I started my habit of going to see all the huge releases on the Thursday before, because A lot of people go on Friday night. Friday and Saturday are packed, but I mean I was in the habit of going late at night anyway, and Thursday night they pretty much start the new movies at seven o'clock the night before so I could go and see like Infinity War on the Thursday night and not have to fight the crowds on Friday is fantastic, I love to do that, but I, yeah, I saw, I saw everything. Some clunkers Daddy's home to comes to mind that I mean I wasn't expecting a ton, but there's a legit 30 minute like product placement commercial in the movie in the middle of that movie. For for a theater it is Astounding three billboards outside of having Missouri yikes, that is. Yeah, that was one. Justice League was that was a big mess. Yeah, those that's what comes to mind for under the category of clunkers. But so, when it was all said and done, I saw a ton more movies than I would have seen otherwise. I went back to theaters for more than just the event movies, the 3D films, the kid movies, which those were the ones I almost exclusively saw prior to movie pass. I saw movies that I never would have taken a chance on, like I was talking about. I transferred a ton of movie passes money to the local theaters around me and the chain theaters to. I guess. I got a ton of free air conditioning at times during the summer when I would have Paid just to sit in an air conditioned room, much less have the movie aspect of it. And I think after it was over, I kept going back to more movies than I was going to previously. It started to have it that stuck to a degree. I wasn't going to see as much, I wasn't going to see nearly as frequently, but, but I was going to see more. I even remember the kind of shock when I had to start paying for my own movies again. I was just like what, what this is? It was just a back to reality sort of moment. But I promptly switched back to my habit of seeing the early morning matinee and the special discount day movies on those days instead. More than anything, I think movie pass helped me remember that I enjoyed seeing movies and theaters with other people. Again I bring this up now because it seems like we're currently in a similarly precarious situation. I did a lot during that main year. I had my movie pass. I went through the stress of moving home renovations. I also started and had a stressful breakup with a new job during this time period. Going to the movies was a real comfort during all these challenges is something about sitting there in the dark knowing that professionals had written the next two hours of my life and I could let go. People were once again worried about the state of theaters. There's talk of them all just shutting down and that being an old thing that we don't do anymore. Man, I really hope not. I wanted to ask Vivian one more thing in our interview. So have you gone back to theaters since the, since the COVID pandemic or since quarantine?

Speaker 3: 34:48

That's a good question that has definitely, I'd say, put a wrench into my happiness. I think in everyone's happiness.

Speaker 2: 34:57

For sure, for sure.

Speaker 3: 34:59

For sure, but definitely in terms of like movie going, because that was something I enjoyed doing all the time. Even I would just go by myself too, of course I loved like bringing friends along, but I would just walk to a movie theater and just go in and just pick a movie and just go watch it.

Speaker 2: 35:17

That's sort of the best right.

Speaker 3: 35:18

Yeah, it's like what's in here? Yeah, or just be like hey, what's a person in front of me? What are they watching?

Speaker 2: 35:26

Ooh, that's staring, yeah.

Speaker 3: 35:31

You just gotta take that chance. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 35:33

Jump off the cliff and let it fall away.

Speaker 3: 35:35

Precisely. Yeah, hope you have a parachute, but yeah, the pandemic definitely ruined that quite a bit. Unfortunately, I haven't really gone to the theater since then. In the small town where I went back to the theater that was there because of the pandemic, all these small businesses really suffered and that theater is kind of like closed down, which really sucks. Yeah, so it's like you have to like drive a long ways to get to one, so it's just kind of sad. But I feel like movies in general have changed a lot, definitely with acting as well. I was supposed to be cast in a pilot and that's kind of been like pushed back quite a bit as well and like the quarantining and everything and has been the dynamic for acting and making film has even been weird. So even like going to see a film and making one has all been very strange because of COVID. So I don't know, definitely makes it sad. You know, movies it's a whole different experience because you're actually like sitting there in the theater with the whole vibe as the lights go down and the popcorn and you know. And that's a whole other experience too because you have to have someone that's like physically there and like making it with their hands and everything and like everybody's so weirded out now with putting their hands in things and which is understandable completely. Just, it's so much has changed. You know, it's such a strange dynamic now. Yeah, I've seen two movies and theaters since coming back and it's weird, it's worrisome but it's also really nice to be back in a theater again.

Speaker 2: 37:36

There's something amazing about experiencing art with other people. That's why a museum works. It's why a concert works. It's absolutely amazing, and I think that's why I'm so excited to be back in a theater again. And I think that's why I'm so excited to be back in a theater again, if it works. It's absolutely why a movie theater works. I want these things to be around for my kid to enjoy the way that I did, and so that I can see big stories on big screens. And with that, my year of MoviePass goes up on the shelf as the second item in the Perfectorium, the index of perfect things. Thanks again to Vivian Alice and my dad for being on the show. This episode's music comes from Sean Corky, relaxo Beats, audiovisualgod and Andy Valentine. Everyone's links will be on the webpage and in the show notes. Well, I mean not my dad's, but Once again, the Perfect Show site is at PerfectShowsite that's S-I-T-E and find us on Twitter, instagram and YouTube under the name PerfectShowShow. This episode was recorded and mixed at Morena Studios in Oakland, california. If you're enjoying these, be sure to subscribe, and if you want to drop the Perfect Show, a perfect rating, please do. I hear other podcasts I listen to talk about doing this often, so I know at least they think it's an important piece when starting up and I'd probably be wise to follow suit. Oh, I've been using Fiverr to get music and other freelance things I've needed for this podcast, but I'm still very open to other music, stingers, themes, comments or whatever people feel inspired to send, email them to PerfectShowShowcom. And remember, if someone in your life mentions how they just can't find the Perfect Show to listen to, now you have the power the dad joke, cringe-inducing power to point them here and risk losing either your friendship with that person or the place you previously held in their mind as someone who would never use that moment to interject just a dumb joke of a show name. But it turns out they were wrong this whole time, because that's exactly the type of person you happen to be. Anyway, until next time, I'm Scott Moppin, and thanks for listening to the Perfect Show.

Welcome to The Perfect Show! Let host Scot Maupin introduce the show and himself and then tell you about today's perfect thing - Billy's Balloon, an animated film by Don Hertzfeldt.

Find Don Hertzfeldt at http://www.bitterfilms.com

Thanks to Aandy Valentine for intro and outro music. You can find Aandy at fiverr.com/aandyvalentine

Contact:https://twitter.com/PerfectShowShow

https://www.instagram.com/perfectshowshow/

AI Generated Transcript: Hi and welcome to the Perfect Show. I'm your host, scott Moppin, and this is a podcast where I will be trying to catalog some of the perfect little pieces of life, so join me each episode as I examine one thing or experience that I or someone else claims as perfect. Like I said, my name is Scott and I'm actually with you today. While family members of mine are out having fun at a water park, I am grounding myself from being out with them because I lost a fight with the sun and now I must cower in shame. Earlier this week, I sat outside for hours and hours after being asked if I wanted sunscreen for my exposed skin and foolishly turned that offer down because it was cloudy, even though I know that you can still get sunburned on cloudy days. I was promptly given my bright pink comeuppance as my entire head and neck area developed a giant sunburn, which I am sporting now. So I sit here humbled, hiding and recording the first episode of this show while others slide down large wet plastic tubes and do other awesome, fun summer things. I'm recording here in Oakland, california, and maybe I should get some first episode house cleaning things out of the way. Until plans change, I'll be the solo host for the show, but I'm also open to expanding, experimenting, adapting. What that might look like is me trying out things like interviews, one or more co-hosts, sponsored ads. I like the challenge of maybe making an ad that people would want to hear, and also segments or bits, I don't know. I gotta warn you I have quite a silly boy comedy streak in me and I like the idea of adding something random or unrelated from time to time. It's all going to be very much a work in progress as I figure out how to make this what I want it to be, or even what it is I do want it to be. I'll be learning a lot as I go. This is also not going to be some super research heavy podcast. It's going to be more experience based. I think the context of how you experience something has a lot to do with whether or not you consider it to be perfect. Also, it's a lot less work to do a lot less research. I'll do some Googling and reading, sure, but don't expect, like regular research, deep dives. I'll leave that to other podcasts. Before I get going with today's episode topic, you can connect online a few different ways. First, of course, we have the Perfect Show site, which is PerfectShowsite. It's pretty empty right now so don't go there. But again, the Perfect Show site is at wwwperfectshowsite. That's S-I-T. Connect on Twitter, instagram and YouTube to the handle at PerfectShowShow or by emailing PerfectShowShowcom. Today's topic to talk about the very first Perfect Show topic is a cartoon called Billy's Balloon, or more specifically, my experience first seeing Billy's Balloon. So the year is 2000 and I am but a young lad at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, kansas, and my friends invite me to go along with them to an animation festival on some weekend afternoon. I love movies but usually I saw them in cineplexes or mega plexes. The Glenwood four plex, the Oak Park Mall four plex, which is not actually in the mall but in a complex next to the mall, the Olathe landing 8. Then the South Glen 12 opened up and it was like 12 screens in one place. This is crazy. I Actually worked there for a summer. That was my first like non self-employed job. It ruled. Then the West Glen opened up, a bit more of a drive, but usually less crowded, a little better facilities, a little newer. Then the mothership opened up and started eating every other Cineplexes lunch the AMC 24 there, one 19th Street and I 35, two dozen screens, Mine blowing to a young me. At the time there were smaller art house theaters I would go do from time to time not a lot, probably the most often in college and Liberty Hall, but for this animation festival we went to the Rio theater in Overland Park, kansas. That's a suburb of Kansas City, right near where I grew up, about a half hour south of the city. This is my first time going to this theater. The Rio is an independent theater hosting Spike and Mike's animation festival, volume six at that time. So we each paid for one ticket and we got to go watch a lineup of nine short animated films. I think there may have been an introduction in outro, but I knew nothing about any of these. This is a. I was going in cold, which I love to do the rare times I am able to. Sometimes I hear a recommendation about a movie or or a TV show and just like don't find out anything else More about it, just go and see it, and I, on the times that I'm successfully able to do that, it's usually pretty fantastic. So this is one of those times. Not on purpose, this was just from lack of knowing anything about these movies. So Some of them were comedic, some of them were dramatic, some of them were silent. There were dialogue ones and dialogue free ones. Billy's balloon is one without dialogue, but there was even an animated music video for a squirrel-knit zipper song. But then, yeah, this one came on that just blew me away. It was this is my spoiler alert for Billy's balloon. So if you've somehow made it this far and don't want to know what happens in the short film, this is your last eject point. Okay, okay, good, okay. So Billy's balloon starts out with a pretty simple drawing of a child holding a red balloon and a rattle. The movie proceeds to take its time, letting the child shake the rattle with a blank expression. After what seems like an eternity, the balloon strikes the boy in the head and I'll tell you, sitting in the audience, I did not know what I was expecting from this movie, but that absolutely wasn't it. What follows is a heightening of that initial bit. For the rest of the five minutes and 25 seconds, the balloon batters Billy and he looks helpless to do. Anything is like running around and just the menace of this completely unmenacing object battering this kid as he runs helplessly and Flails about I. It's completely absurd and it hit me at just the right point in my age or my demeanor, my mood for the afternoon. But the sound effects. The sound effects are tremendous. Whatever it was I can remember that maybe three or four times in my life a movie Getting me the right mix of me and the movie where I was laughing so hard that I'm crying. And this is one of those times. So, as the bit continues to heighten, we lift Billy into the air and drop him with just the perfect thud sound effect. The film gives us glimpses of hope and then dashes them away with a jumbo jet. The films world expands and we see what appears to be a global revolt of balloons against children everywhere. I Remember gasping for air, wiping away tears in my cheeks, just hurting. It was one of those laughs where something gets you laughing so hard and then while you're laughing you realize how hard you're laughing and that makes you like laughing Harder. It's an avalanche. Laugh, no, but a laugh. You remember for the rest of your life, or for me at least 20 years now, I guess. So the cartoon ended and I regained control of my lungs. I think we watched the rest of the films and probably the outro Afterward. Billy's balloon was the clear standout in my group of friends. This is pre YouTube, so I had no recording of it. We had no way to rewatch it. We just relived it several times in the car, highlighting different bits of writing, echoes of those laughs we enjoyed in the theater. But it would be a few years before I would actually be able to see Billy's balloon again, but I had this memory just seared clearly into my brain. So what is this cartoon? Billy's balloon is an animated film and it's made by Don Hertzfeld, the artist, the writer and animator. He actually released it in 1998, a year and change before I saw it, and it was one of the movies he made as a film student at the University of Santa Barbara in Santa Barbara, california. It was his fourth and last student film, actually, and the first one with this kind of like slapstick humor. Really, it's done well for itself, winning 33 awards and being nominated for best short film at Cannes in 1999. Now, clearly that's not all stuff I just had memorized. I did go and do some research, even after my big disclaimer earlier. I just don't want to be locked into doing that every time, but I enjoy it, so sometimes I will. Don continued to make movies professionally, like after Billy's Balloon, so he started with Rejected in 2000 and he's putting him out. He's put out a bunch ever since, but he's been able to make these movies independently and self-finance their production. So this way he's in complete control over every aspect of the films. And that's exactly what I want to see, because clearly watching Billy's Balloon but then also Rejected is a big one, and his recent ones, the three-part World of Tomorrow films they show the open mind of this guy and it is a weird, exciting place and I want it undiluted. I want to see it without. I want to see it as pure. I want to see that mind that gives me something as pure and ridiculous as Billy's Balloon. I want to mainline that, without interference. This is like I get the same sort of feeling when I see Charlie Kaufman type movies where I'm like this is so unique that it can only really come from one place and you know, like it or hate it. I really just want to see more of that because I find it so interesting. Yeah, so after having this experience with Billy's Balloon, I kept my eyes open for a way to chase it down to rewatch it. This is the thing that I do sometimes. I I get like I decide something is my white whale and then I go okay, now game plan, how are the different ways I could figure it out, to find this thing or to accomplish this task? That seems difficult, but at some point I'll probably share my journey of chasing down the out-of-print Quigley Down Under score by Basil Poladors. But yeah, back to Billy's Balloon. I I had a DVD player and discs by that point, but I there was no way to just buy the movie, that. It was not really a market for short films at Best Buy. It wasn't on a DVD by itself, it wasn't like a, a CD single where they would make DVDs of short films by themselves. So I remember searching for a way on the internet to own this short film, and this would have been pre-Google. I was probably searching on Yahoo or different whatever, asking chiefs, but I dove down some weird message board comment threads and finally found my solution. So I would have better info on this. But I really I haven't seen this part recorded anywhere. I don't find it on Wikipedia or recorded on Don Hertzfeld's website, but I and I sold the copy I had years ago. So I'm working totally on memory here, but Hertzfeld's website, which is bitterfilmscom, lists the bitter films volume one as the place where Billy's Berlin was first put on DVD, and I had that too. But before that was available I found a short film magazine that I think published quarterly and included a DVD with the films from each issue on it. So I remember somehow finding out about the existence of this thing and getting an order in for the issue. It may be 2001 or 2002, probably 2002, and being stoked when I finally got my hands on it, but the magazine was. I don't remember a lot about the magazine. I think they just wrote about the filmmakers or the films themselves, but I really wanted that DVD and the DVD was in. I remember it was in one of those cheaper covers where the only plastic part is like the clasp part on the right edge that holds down a wrap around cardboard cover. It was a black cover with like a cyberized pill on the front, probably very matrix influenced. Everything in that time period was. But I don't remember a lot about the disc other than a couple of things. The one is finally being able to relive the film that made me laughs to tears and being able to watch it a million times and that ruled. I still loved it. I don't think any viewing ever quite matched the surprise in relation to that first perfect one, but that's totally okay. Too. I've got to. I have gotten to experience that sort of sort of again by showing other people the the movie for the first time on the DVD copy. I had people who would come over and go into a cold, as I first did, and the response I get is usually pretty, pretty good. So oh, the other thing I remember about that short film magazine DVD was that it had a long looping track of just a fire in a fireplace, you know, like crackling fire with just. It would be on a loop and you could put it on for as long as you needed. And I pulled that disc. I pulled the disc out for that feature almost as much as for Billy's balloon, because this would have been a time before streaming where you could just pull up a pull up a long looping video like that. So it was pretty handy at times. Later on, as I said, I found Billy's balloon again on Don's compilation DVD Bitter Films, volume one, which appears to no longer be available, or at least the link doesn't work on the website, but more recently I found it on YouTube, where it's on Don. It's on Don Hertzfeld's YouTube channel and that's probably the best and easiest place to see it. Okay, and I think that's pretty much where I want to wrap up the talk on Billy's balloon, or at least what I had planned to say on it. And since I'm here by myself, there's no one else to just kind of weigh in or riff off of, so that'll probably be it. It rules find it and see it if you haven't. If you have seen it, then find it and see it again. And with that, billy's balloon takes its slot as the first item entered into the Perfectorium, the index of perfect things. So once again, the perfect show site website is at perfectshowsite that's S I T E, and find us on Twitter, instagram and YouTube under the name perfect show show. Oh, and I want to talk about theme music. I plan to put music or jingles at the beginning and end of the podcast, maybe places in the middle, like for transitions, but I haven't settled on anything yet. I'm not super musically confident myself, but you know I can get better. But I'm completely down to hear any listener submissions for the theme music or just short ending songs about perfect things. Yeah, whatever you got, email him to perfectshowshowatgmailcom. Thanks to Andy Valentine for the killer music on today's episode. You can find his link in the episode notes. This episode was recorded and mixed at Morena Studios in Oakland, california, and if you liked this and think someone else would like it too, then let them know that you found the perfect show for them. And yes, I partially picked the show name so I could do silly wordplay like that. And no, I don't think it'll get too old too quickly. And yes, I know I'm probably wrong about that. No, I wasn't thinking that if I am able to do a bunch of these episodes, then I can start being a guest on other people's shows and they will have to say this is Scott Moppin and he hosts the perfect show and I'll misunderstand them on purpose and be like oh, thank you for the lovely compliment. It'll be a whole thing that I do when everyone finds it adorable and endearing. But yes, it would rule if that actually ended up happening and I called it here. Anyway, until next time, I'm Scott Moppin. Thanks for listening to the perfect show. Bye.