0:02

Welcome everyone to the Sports Illustrated

0:04

Media Podcast. I'm your host, Jimmy Trana.

0:07

Thanks so much for listening. Great episode today.

0:09

Two guests. First up, Brian Curtis from The Ringer.

0:12

He wrote a really good article last week

0:14

about UM sort

0:16

of the Brent Musburger leaving

0:18

CBS getting fired from CBS and Jim Nance

0:21

getting all those roles, and it ties in with Nance

0:23

now currently in the middle of negotiations with CBS

0:26

and UM. A lot of NFL

0:29

TV talk, NFL media talk, TV

0:31

rights broadcasters. So we do all that with Brian

0:33

Curtis from The Ringer. There's a great job covering media.

0:36

And then after Brian Allen stupon Wall,

0:38

the chief TV critic for Rolling Stone,

0:41

joins the SI Media Podcast with,

0:43

Uh, you know, we're in the down a little

0:45

lull now with sports. So Alan gives you some recommendations

0:48

dramas and comedies to sort of stream

0:51

and binge, and we talk about some other shows.

0:53

You're honor Ted Lasso, uh

0:55

Young Rock shis Creek Golden

0:57

Globes of this week, so I asked him for his opinion

0:59

on some of the nominations. So Brian

1:02

Curtis up first on NFL TV

1:04

broadcasters Jim Nance, Brent

1:06

Musburger and then Alan stepping Wall for

1:09

some TV talk On this episode last

1:12

week, If you missed it, Dan Revel got

1:14

into the whole baseball card craze and trading

1:16

card craze, I should say, gave us sort of

1:18

an education on it. Um, So check

1:21

that out. I especially recommend the YouTube there you

1:23

can see me flash some of my fancy

1:25

cards. Other recent guests on the podcast

1:27

Aaron Andrews, Kyle Brandt, Roman Reins,

1:30

So check those all out in the

1:32

archives. All right. Brian Curtis from The Ringer

1:35

and then Alan stepping Wall from Rolling

1:37

Stone coming up right here on

1:39

the SI Media podcast. All

1:42

right, joining me now. I always like to have him

1:44

on to talk about the great stuff he writes over at

1:46

The Ringer. Editor and Large, Brian Curtis was

1:48

a great article last week about Jim

1:51

Nance's contract situation TBS and he ties it

1:53

into Brent Musburger leaving CBS thirty years

1:55

ago. Brian, how's it going good?

1:57

Jimmy, how are you? I'm good? Thanks

2:00

for coming on mention. Brian also

2:02

is a co host on the press Box podcast

2:04

for The Ringer, and like

2:07

I said, I love the article last week.

2:09

Uh, sort of connecting Brent leaving

2:11

CBS, leaving getting

2:14

fired not having a contract renewed. However

2:16

you want to spend that. I thought you did a nice job because I was

2:18

always under the impression Brent was fired,

2:21

but he just didn't have this contract renewed.

2:23

I guess it's the shorthand, right,

2:26

and really the difference at that point, you

2:28

know, we're Brent is not going to announce

2:30

any more games for CBS, well except one

2:32

what you went out and did. We can talk about that in a second. Again,

2:35

Um, what did I post yesterday?

2:37

Oh? In um in my column on on

2:39

Tuesday, Monday or Tuesday. I forgot it was an anniversary

2:42

of of Bobby

2:44

Night throwing the chair against

2:46

the across the court, And

2:48

I said, you know this, this fits into the if

2:51

Twitter was around category,

2:54

and Brent getting fired and

2:56

then having to do the n C Double A

2:58

Tournament finals the next day is definitely

3:00

a if Twitter was around moment. I think

3:03

I was trying to think, like, what would be the announcer

3:07

move that would even be on the same podium

3:09

stand as that, And maybe

3:11

if like Marv got fired and then he had

3:13

a call like Game seven of the NBA Final, but

3:15

he doesn't do the finals. It's it's Breen now. So

3:18

even that one, I guess doesn't work. Yeah, I'm

3:20

the only one I came up was. Let's imagine like the Nance

3:22

negotiation blew up on Saturday

3:24

at the Masters, and then Nance had

3:26

to come out and do Sunday like

3:28

that. We'd all be watching. It would be like nineteen

3:31

thousand columns. But you know what, I don't

3:33

think it would be as big. I just don't.

3:35

The world has changed too much. When Brent was on the

3:37

front page of

3:39

major newspapers next to the

3:42

Soviets rolling armored tanks into the

3:44

way, that was how big Brent was. It's

3:47

a really good question about whether that would be big

3:49

a national It's

3:52

a good question from a national state because you

3:54

know, locally, I remember, you know, locally, I remember

3:57

when Mike and the Mad Dog broke up. That was on the front

3:59

page of every news pay be here in New York. Um,

4:02

but national it's a little different. So yeah,

4:05

that's that's an interesting one with Nance, if

4:07

that would make the front pages. Um, I'm

4:10

gonna do a little tease though before we'll dig into Brent

4:12

and nance because there's a lot there. But this whole

4:14

sort of ties into what's going on now with the NFL because

4:16

information is trickled out

4:19

and have been has been leaked out over the last

4:21

few days and started Friday with the NBC. I

4:24

mean, first of all, listen, I understand

4:26

the NFL is king and they can do what they

4:28

want. And they had a seven percent ratings trap this year. It

4:30

does not matter. We are addicted to the

4:32

NFL. The NFL is the drug of America.

4:36

You got, you got a lot of balls asking for a hundred

4:38

percent rights fee increase right

4:41

now. I mean only the NFL.

4:44

Only only the NFL. And

4:46

I know for certain that you know, network people

4:48

way before the pandemic, right so, way

4:51

before the economic situation and and

4:53

just the sidal situation we find ourselves in. We're

4:56

looking at at the idea of a HUD increase because

4:58

the NFL has wanted this all along, and we're like, no

5:00

way, no way, that's what they'll

5:02

last for. But the number will come in, you

5:04

know. That's you know, it's all a big game of poker. I

5:07

wonder what those people are saying now, because now

5:09

we've had a year of very

5:11

weird television. A year of revenues going

5:14

as you said, ratings going down, revenues going down, and

5:17

they still might get right, They

5:19

still they still might. They still might do it.

5:21

Maybe ESPN, because they pay so much,

5:23

already comes in at some you know, some

5:25

blower place. But would

5:27

you bet against them? I mean, I definitely would

5:29

not. And you know, I talked to James Andrew

5:32

Miller earlier this week after the report came out,

5:34

and you know, he knows everything about ESPN. He

5:36

said he thinks, he said,

5:38

he isn't. The ESPN will pay a rights

5:41

fee increase, but it'll be close, you know,

5:43

maybe eighty nine, and they'll keep Monday Night Football.

5:46

But even I mean, it's

5:49

it's just remarks. I mean, ESPN is

5:51

paying one point nine billion for

5:54

Monday Night Football, and I think all Rand said

5:56

yesterday they're looking at three point five

5:59

billion, and those games are terrible, so

6:02

that increases over a billion

6:04

dollars, over a billion dollars.

6:06

And Disney came into this whole negotiation saying, we

6:09

want more NFL. We don't

6:11

quite know how we're gonna get it. Maybe it's just buffing

6:13

up Monday Night Football. And now we hear, you know, simulcasting

6:16

ABC doing some doubleheaders, getting in the

6:18

Super Bowl rotation, whatever it is. We want

6:20

more NFL like that.

6:22

That's our path right now. So yeah,

6:25

I would bet on the NFL. I've

6:27

said this on this podcast a few times. It's

6:29

surprising to me. You

6:32

know, maybe ESPN is you know, maybe

6:34

ESPN and the NFL are having some contentious negotiations,

6:37

are arguing over money. We've heard um

6:40

what over and had told me on this podcast a few weeks

6:42

ago, is all the networks are out on Thursday

6:44

Night football, it's just gonna be NFL networking out.

6:47

I don't understand why Turner Slash

6:49

Bleacher Report doesn't t N

6:51

T TBS. Why don't they

6:53

try to get in the mix for the NFL. That's

6:56

a good question because they've been there before, right

6:58

and the old days time ago with the

7:01

Sunday night package. Very

7:03

long quest. Yeah,

7:05

with a kind of interesting cast of analysts

7:07

on that show. Now, that's a good question because

7:10

how many of these things, you know, how many times

7:12

does something like that come open? But I don't know. Maybe

7:14

they looked at the numbers and you know, apparently everybody

7:16

has looked at the numbers of that package and billing it's

7:19

amazing. I mean, the networks

7:22

don't want Thursday Night because it costs

7:24

too much money, they don't make enough money on it, yet

7:26

they're gonna get writes

7:29

the increase, and

7:31

that's gotta be That's got to be part of it, right,

7:33

like where we know we're going to have to pay so much more

7:36

to hold onto this thing that we absolutely can't

7:38

lose, which is Sunday afternoon or so.

7:41

So now this sort of ties into NANCE

7:43

because if if you follow sports

7:45

media, you know Andrew Marshan has

7:47

been sort of on top of this with with Nance

7:49

wanting Tony Romo money, which

7:51

is seven seventeen and a half million dollars

7:53

a year to do um NFL,

7:57

And I guess this is one of those things where

7:59

you can are you both sides of it. You

8:01

can make the argument, Okay, well, if

8:03

you're CBS and you're paying billions,

8:06

not million, but billions for

8:08

the NFL package on Sunday afternoons,

8:10

where the most highly rated game of

8:13

the week is every Sunday

8:15

split between c basin box, you

8:18

should spend the money to have what's what's

8:20

another hundred million

8:22

for your play by play guy

8:25

well, you can make the argument, we have to spend

8:27

all this money for the NFL, how can we give the play by play

8:29

guy on tremillion or whatever the amount is. So

8:32

what's the right way to look at it? Well, clearly

8:34

they made the decision on the on the color guy,

8:37

you know that, Oh, what's another hundred

8:39

million or whatever whatever? The difference between

8:42

what a normal Tony Romo salary and what they actually

8:44

paid him is. I don't know. I mean, I look

8:46

at it two ways. On the one hand, this is ridiculous,

8:50

ridiculous. No, you know, we we

8:52

we say this. I feel like all of us who write about sports

8:54

media write this call. Nobody watches sports

8:57

television for the announcers except

8:59

an extreme and we'll say this. I disagree

9:02

from the standpoint I will not

9:04

watch a whole game because of an announcer. But

9:07

like for me, like I I really can't watch college

9:09

basketball, just can't do it. But if I'm

9:11

flipping and I hear raft three's voice, I'll

9:13

give it five or ten minutes. Okay,

9:15

Okay, that's my only caveat on that.

9:17

But go ahead, don't you'll come into the Gonzaga game

9:20

or whatever, because give me ten minutes or raft

9:22

three and I want to hear the where I want to hear him

9:24

say onions and lingerie on the deck and then I'll

9:26

move Then I'll move on with my life. We can agree there's

9:28

a small number of Jimmy trainers in the world will come

9:30

through it. The Bill

9:32

Raftree, right, like you know, not not that it gets Bill,

9:34

but it makes me feel good. Yeah, yeah, no, he

9:36

does. He does. Um So,

9:39

on the one hand, right, you're paying a ton of money for

9:42

somebody that, unlike a star

9:44

of an HBO series, not bringing people

9:46

to the show. It's weird.

9:49

On the other hand, as you point out, it's a giant commercial

9:51

transaction, so you

9:54

are managing essentially this commercial

9:56

transaction through your announcer. Remember a

9:58

couple of years ago, Joe Testator told me we talked

10:00

about play by play an ouncers that we're not really journalists,

10:03

were more like capitalists. And I actually

10:05

thought that was the perfect phrase. Yeah right,

10:07

I mean, you hit the nail right on the head. Those

10:10

announcers, especially the play by play person,

10:13

they're there to keep the NFL happy more than anything.

10:16

And I mean I think you saw this play out in

10:18

I think a completely ridiculous

10:20

way. A few years ago, an NBC got

10:23

Thursday Night and Goodell

10:25

wouldn't let them use Mike Tyko. They

10:27

wanted al Michaels, they wanted the A guy.

10:30

So it should you know, it shows you what the end of you

10:32

know that that lead play by play person.

10:35

Uh, the NFL has to sort

10:38

of be on board with that in a big way.

10:40

Yeah, And you just and either keep them happy

10:42

or not piss them off, not say

10:44

anything on the air that's gonna get somebody,

10:47

make somebody in Park Avenue pick up

10:49

a phone and make a call. So that is

10:51

it is valuable. I I don't think it's that valuable.

10:54

I really don't. And I think you know, it goes

10:56

to the Brent thing, right, these guys have all this capital

10:58

built up, and we think of Jim Nance

11:00

CBS Sports, we have Joe Buck Fox

11:02

Sports. But if they left, and

11:04

I'm not rooting for him to leave, but if they left,

11:07

the world would continue, and I think everybody

11:09

knows that, and it's just a matter of

11:12

and somebody would come in and do that job and do

11:14

it probably pretty well, if not quite on the level

11:16

of those A guys, at least right away.

11:18

But you know nobody, nobody seems

11:20

willing to take that risk right now, do you

11:22

subscribe to the theory that, so you

11:24

know the report no one knows

11:26

what exactly t but the report is that you know Nance

11:29

wants Rama money. Um,

11:33

you would, now, like you said, if

11:35

Jim Nance left, CBS would plug in Iron

11:37

Eagle here and there, they

11:39

plug in Harlan and life would

11:41

go on, as you said, But can you

11:43

But do you subscribe to the to the argument

11:46

that Nance

11:49

should have more leverage or be more

11:51

valuable since he does NFL

11:54

masters college basketball?

11:57

And what if I'm leaving something out? I don't remember,

11:59

but least theoretically sure. But

12:02

again, I just I'm and I look,

12:04

I'm I don't want to discount the talent or

12:07

anything else. It's just it is what it is about announcement.

12:09

I don't I don't think anybody would would dispute

12:11

the idea that we're what We're all watching

12:14

sports. And by the way, if CBS is

12:16

mad about the CBS did this, he

12:19

knew as soon as they signed that Tony Romo contract,

12:21

this was gonna everything up for everybody

12:24

across networks. Yeah, Troy Agman's

12:26

agent was gonna make a call. Chris Collins worst agent

12:28

was gonna make it call, Joe Buck's agent was gonna make call. Everybody

12:31

was gonna make a call. And why not that's

12:33

oh, that's a new price, I

12:36

understand, Like, yeah, it was. It was a unique situation

12:38

with leverage. But you know what, these guys are all big television

12:40

stars, right, Okay, well one one,

12:43

now, let's fix my contract. Okay. I

12:45

had I had Troy on a few weeks ago, and I

12:47

brought up the Romo contract and and all Troy

12:49

would say on the podcast as he said, Um,

12:51

he said, it's a good time to be a sports

12:54

analyst on network television. Absolutely.

12:57

I'm sure Troy is making has his

12:59

agent making phone calls. Um.

13:02

So this ties into the great, great column

13:04

you wrote last week, which was about

13:07

um, Brent Musburger,

13:10

who was the face of CBS

13:12

Sports in a major way, having

13:14

contract issues. They end up not renewing

13:16

them, and then Nance sort of fills in for

13:18

you know, takes over all the Brent roles and Nance

13:21

has become the face of CBS for thirty years,

13:23

which is remarkable. It's the two things that's

13:25

you know, when I read

13:28

your article, one of the frustrating things

13:30

for me was it reminds me how old I

13:32

am because there were things in there that I'm like, I

13:34

think I remember that, but I like, I

13:37

don't. When I read it, I said, I don't think I

13:39

knew that, And then I said, wait, maybe I didn't know that that For

13:41

a time, Brent did the the

13:43

did the news in l

13:45

A. Yeah,

13:48

I mean that's the anchor,

13:50

but the anchor. Yeah, I'll

13:52

give you the trivia. Whose co anchor was? Wow?

13:58

Before she who she did

14:00

with Dan rather right that that was the disaster.

14:03

She went to the big network too. Yeah.

14:07

Yeah, So that was a great nugget in there. And

14:10

uh, the two things that was, you know, the two things

14:12

that hit me where you know, Nance has been with

14:14

CBS for thirty years and Brent

14:16

had a twenty seven year run at ESPN.

14:20

I know, that is unbelievable. He

14:22

had a second career that's just about better

14:24

than anybody else's first career, absolutely,

14:27

and he was called the National Championship game like again,

14:29

time flies but was not that

14:31

long ago, right, and he was

14:34

still the big college football announcer.

14:36

So so one of

14:38

the things that Brian lays out so great in the story is, you

14:41

know, you have to

14:43

really you have to really understand how Brent was the

14:45

face of CBS sports. He did everything they and

14:47

and there was a year there where they had every

14:49

single property almost They had the NBA Finals,

14:51

they had college football, they had Major League Baseball,

14:53

the NFL obviously Brent, and Brent was involved in all

14:56

of it, hosting or studio or play

14:58

by play. So um,

15:03

but I

15:05

would gather that Brent thought he was more

15:07

valuable than CBS and that's why they couldn't

15:09

renew. I mean there was there's

15:12

Brent sort of has an ego, I guess would be

15:14

sort of the way to put it. Well,

15:16

he wanted to do everything, I think, and they

15:19

came out here and as his agent, which which

15:21

was his brother. Another very interesting feature

15:23

of the story. Um, they

15:25

wanted to work. I mean Brent's thing was

15:28

I want to be on television. And when I was thinking,

15:30

by the way, you're right, we are old and this is

15:32

what our parents sounded like when they talked about rock and roll.

15:34

You know, you had to be there, but

15:37

you kind of had to be there in understand

15:40

this because he did. He had the same job

15:42

generally speaking as Nance and Joe buck do now.

15:45

But he was just all over the

15:47

place. He was every was almost

15:49

like the cable news anchor when you you turn on and they're

15:51

on at noon, and then there are at three am, and then

15:53

they're on their primetime show and you're like, when is that guy

15:55

not on the air. That was sort of Brent

15:58

in the eighties doing sports. Networks

16:00

were so much bigger, Jimmy right.

16:03

Networks had of the primetime

16:05

audience three channels, So

16:08

if you were big in the eighties, you were just

16:10

bigger than anybody

16:13

now. But yet to go to your to your question, Yeah, he wanted

16:15

to do everything. He wanted to do the Masters, wanted

16:17

to do the US Open. He would always

16:19

renegotiate his contract and he would get more stuff.

16:22

So he became lead college football guy

16:24

for a time. He became lead college basketball

16:27

guy, which he was still doing at the end, and

16:29

he wanted to work. And I think CBS looked

16:32

at it and said, we've got young people like Greg

16:34

Gumble at that point, jim Nance, and

16:36

we just want to break this up because

16:39

when somebody does everything, and when somebody

16:41

makes a ton of money like that, they get really really powerful

16:44

and they become you know, hard

16:47

excuse me, hard to control, right and

16:49

that and that's I think from what we can tell

16:52

if you look at and I've talked to people from that era

16:54

who were at the network or around Brent, and that

16:56

that is really what it was. You know, Brent said

16:58

it himself. They got they out, I got

17:00

too big for my bridges and they wanted to take me down

17:02

a pack. And you

17:06

know, it's hard to it's

17:09

hard to imagine CBS pulling that trigger. Um,

17:12

And I'm thinking about something else in that article.

17:15

Um, when you talk you want to talk about

17:17

just you know, an astonishing

17:20

where you're talking about Nance wants Romo money,

17:22

which is seventeen and a half million. Musburger

17:26

peaked at what three or four million with

17:28

with CBS, and at

17:30

the time that was a fortune. Yeah,

17:33

that was an absolute fortune because

17:35

you know, announcers weren't making that kind of money

17:37

in the seventies and he is he was the guy who

17:40

he was the highest paid announcer at the time. He was the guy who kept

17:42

jacking up the rates. It was the Romo of the eighties

17:44

at four million a year. Yeah,

17:46

and he did he did every you know, I

17:49

thought it was also interesting the way you laid it out, where

17:51

um, you know, CBS

17:54

for that year had everything

17:56

every sport imaginable and at some point

17:58

you do have to pay that back. And

18:02

now we're getting into this situation with the NFL.

18:04

It's it's amazing. I feel like your article is

18:06

like a I feel like it was just so full circle in

18:08

a way with such with what's really the

18:10

timelinness because of what's going on now with the

18:12

NFL contracts and the nance thing. It was

18:16

it was fascinating to read similarities

18:18

at the time and really don't even change really

18:20

is numbers, basically items totally. And

18:22

a couple of years after that, CBS didn't write

18:24

the check for the NFL and

18:27

made this horrible mistake, and then four

18:29

or five years later whatever it was after that, they wrote

18:31

it and they've never stopped writing it again. They're

18:34

like, no matter what happens, we're

18:36

never gonna not write the check to the NFL. They

18:39

figured out where the bread is buttered. Yeah,

18:41

that's our that's our strategy. But the Dream Season,

18:43

which was what was called, was amazing because

18:46

also, Jimmy, all those series are almost

18:48

all of them turned out to be terrible. Remember

18:51

World series was a sweep NBA

18:53

Finals. I' pretty sure it was a Piston series was four

18:56

to one. The

18:58

cotton ball that year was which Nance called was terrible,

19:00

Like everything was terrible, so they

19:02

had the lock on everything. It was just one of those years where all the

19:05

you know, nothing was terribly exciting. Baseball

19:07

was always a weird fit with CBS. It was Jack

19:10

Buck and McCarver and um,

19:13

what did it go from? Did

19:16

it go from CBS to the Baseball network?

19:19

Is that was that the order? Yeah, we're

19:22

to explain to the kids with a baseball network? Was that's

19:24

a story for you the Baseball network? That

19:27

was bizarre. Anyone remembers

19:29

that, Yeah, yeah, CBS had

19:31

paid a billion dollars in baseball when I went to the

19:33

Baseball Network. Um,

19:35

so do you think do

19:38

you think the situation with Musburger

19:41

that you wrote about is in

19:43

Nance's head while he's negotiating. Do you

19:45

think Nance is thinking, like,

19:47

listen, if they play hardball, I go to ESPN

19:49

tomorrow, Um,

19:52

how do you think those negotiations

19:54

are going? I mean to be interesting that to uh,

19:57

to to actually know if if

20:00

the Brent example, since Jim was the guy who benefited

20:02

with brill left. But I think one thing I'm

20:04

sure as in his head, is that the identity

20:06

of Jim Nance is mixed up in the identity of CBS

20:09

Sports. And Jim Nance

20:11

could walk out the door and go

20:13

somewhere else and do great stuff and be

20:15

be Jim Nance in every way that he

20:18

is now, and his job wouldn't be the

20:20

same. It just wouldn't be the

20:22

same. That doesn't mean that he that he

20:24

should stay or whatever it is, but it's just not

20:26

the same, right he is part of the part

20:29

of the reason he's so big there is because

20:31

we see him as part of CBS Sports.

20:33

He has all this thirty years of seniority

20:36

built up, and I just don't think

20:38

that's something you can take with you out the door.

20:40

You take everything else, But

20:43

these these guys and gals are they

20:45

we identify them with the network and

20:48

especially him. Yeah, and and

20:50

even in the case of Brent, like you mentioned,

20:53

you know, for years and years called the National Title

20:55

Game Rose Bowls college

20:57

basketball. Um, I

20:59

think did him. I'll be for ESPN,

21:01

But you hear most Parker, and the first thing you always

21:04

gonna think of as the NFL today, of course

21:06

you know, so you're looking live.

21:09

Yeah, and

21:11

that's I think. I think that's just an interesting thing about

21:13

announcers because do you

21:15

know, we live in this world where everybody is kind of a

21:17

free agent now and freelance and you have

21:20

your Twitter accounting all stuff and not applies to those

21:22

guys, But we still do associate

21:24

them, I think with their employers maybe in a way we

21:26

don't a whole bunch of people. It

21:28

would be it would be fascinating if

21:31

if Nance left. I mean, for for

21:33

from our perspective, for our job

21:35

and what we do in content, we want

21:38

Nance to leave because we would get so much milage

21:40

out of that, probably because you get like, okay Nance

21:42

leaves, is he gonna go to ESPN? What CBS

21:44

going to do? So there's a lot you know, bombs

21:47

on the media beat. That

21:50

would be a good one, good for all of us.

21:53

I do wonder if he left, if CBS

21:55

would elevate only

21:58

Iron Eagle and make him to the face and

22:00

give them the number one NFL job and have them do the

22:03

tournament finals or which

22:05

you wrote about again in the article at the time

22:07

when Brent left, they spread it around. You mentioned

22:09

Greg Gumble earlier Um,

22:12

I wonder what CBS would do in that case,

22:14

if if Jim did. It's

22:16

a really it's a really good question. I mean

22:18

it's like you would, I would. It feels

22:20

like I would certainly get the Antia

22:22

Tournament. You know that that would just like you just he

22:25

does, you know, he and Rafte just like, Okay, here

22:27

we go. We're good, right. But with

22:29

the other stuff, I just don't know. I don't know what. I don't know what

22:31

the network would think about that. It's

22:33

funny with these with these number one guys, there's

22:35

so few of them. It's kind of like the Supreme Court

22:37

and they never leave. But you

22:40

know, the network has a particular ideas

22:42

about who should be in those jobs. Again,

22:44

to go to that stuff we were talking about earlier, and

22:47

you know, sometimes it's very just peculiar.

22:49

It's just like we've settled on this guy rather than

22:51

this guy, and we don't

22:54

you don't quite understand, you don't ever quite understand

22:56

why. But yeah, they'd be a really good question,

22:58

especially with the NFL, especially things like that. I

23:00

don't know, and I know

23:03

I and I think just resigned, yes,

23:06

and he's you know, he's one of these guys I just always

23:08

feel like should have, should have, Like he feels

23:10

like he should be an ESPN guy just because he's

23:12

so versatile and they have everything. And

23:15

you know, I've discussed this with Marshan a lot

23:17

because he's he's reported that when

23:19

Marv leaves, which

23:21

apparently is going to be soon, I guess if

23:24

you you know that T and T is

23:26

gonna go to Brian Anderson over

23:28

Iron and Harlan, which I

23:31

find curious to say the least. You know, I don't

23:33

understand that either. Okay, I don't

23:35

either. I just don't. I don't understand that. I don't

23:37

quite get that decision. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen

23:40

Anderson do that many games. I know he's

23:42

done Washington in the tournament a couple of years ago on that stuff,

23:44

But I don't. I don't that that didn't I

23:47

don't get why that's the obvious call here. Um.

23:51

Yeah, like I said, I love the

23:53

article. It's uh if you have not read

23:55

it. I put it in training thought last week

23:57

and tweeted it. But if you've missed it. At the

23:59

Ringer, Jim nance knows what life after CBS

24:02

looks like if you're into sports mea,

24:04

do you have anything cooking that? Uh? You

24:06

think it'll appeal to me because you know you always have some great

24:09

well you know, I, um what what

24:11

would I say? What else am I doing about the eighties?

24:13

Uh? Yeah, give me anything on the

24:15

eighties and I'm in there we go. This is

24:17

like I said, this is our rock and roll. We've already become those

24:20

guys. We we talked about this briefly before

24:22

we started about I'll mention it since it's the news.

24:24

I mean, did you see, because you're so great

24:27

at covering media, did you see anything on

24:29

Tuesday in the Tiger Woods coverage

24:31

that either stood out to you good or bad?

24:35

You know, it's it's funny to watch everybody scramble

24:38

in a in a situation. Funny is the right word, since

24:40

it was obviously a serious thing. But it's just everybody

24:42

is. You're hit with the situation where who

24:44

do we have? You know, wh who can get

24:47

on the air? There was that somebody tweeted

24:49

that thing where I guess it was was it the jump

24:51

that just ran as normal? Because I

24:54

can't remember who made this point I'm stealing

24:56

it from. But they were talking about how ESPN

24:58

news kind of doesn't exist. Me. It's in coup doesn't

25:00

exist anymore, so they have to They

25:03

just kind of ESPN normally where you'd have

25:05

like a story like

25:07

that. So it's like there was a line on ESPNS

25:09

website that said, like, Kendrick Perkins

25:13

scares his thoughts on Tiger Woods to

25:15

be on the air at that moment, you

25:17

know, Like, but I noticed that, you

25:20

know, CNN went to Costas, right, Bob Costas,

25:22

like he's worked be there now. So it's

25:24

like, this is if we need a guy who

25:26

can go on there and talk about this and

25:29

and just like if we decided this

25:31

is this is the news

25:33

of the day. But it strikes me

25:35

and you and I were talking about this for the pot this is kind of partly

25:37

a post Trump thing where

25:40

these networks would just be doing Trump trump, Trump, trump,

25:42

Trump, and now they are looking for

25:46

big stories that can fill their airwaves

25:48

all day. And the Tiger Woods story is a huge,

25:50

serious, big important story and all that kind of stuff.

25:52

But I just feel that they're kind of groping

25:55

around trying to find like what what what do we

25:57

program during the day when there's not you know,

26:00

a political emergency happening all right.

26:02

And I noticed too. I guess after sort

26:04

of the inauguration

26:07

and inviting sort of in the you

26:09

know, in office, they see

26:11

an end. I guess they're shuffle and a lot of their lineup

26:13

too. Is that just is

26:16

there anything now that ties in with like, you know, Trump

26:18

is gone, let's shake it up? Or is it anchors

26:21

just want to move around. I haven't studied

26:23

that too much, but I think it's just one of the things where you

26:25

you you kind of reach it's a time to reshuffle,

26:28

you know. The Post and the Times changed

26:31

up their White House correspondence a little bit, right,

26:33

that's kind of what you that's kind of when you stand back

26:35

and do stuff like that. And

26:39

yeah, I have a feeling cable news ratings or

26:42

a little bit of a tumble a little bit of when we talk

26:44

about now is

26:46

I I love that there's nothing to talk about

26:49

now? Yeah, no, I got no,

26:51

I got no complaints. I mean it's

26:53

nice to not, you know, have to worry about what a

26:55

maniac is tweeting all day. Yeah, I'm

26:58

no, uh no sadness that that. Yeah,

27:01

you know what, we'll we'll move on. There's always something.

27:03

I mean, listen, I

27:05

kind of I mean, I enjoy the fact that I

27:09

don't want to. I don't want to pay attention

27:11

to politics like that ever again, you know, I

27:13

mean listen, I want to be informed and you

27:15

know, using my votes in ways is that matter?

27:17

But like the daily just in

27:19

and out non stuff I'd much rather focus on,

27:22

like the Britney Spears documentary and

27:24

why You're on or with Sad on Showtime,

27:27

Like that's the stuff i'd rather Yeah,

27:30

yeah, exactly. Don't need the COVID relief bill.

27:32

We can uh, that's that's like

27:34

the only news I'm trying to get. Give me all the COVID news

27:37

we got. Good news today was good news too. There was a lot

27:39

of good news today about Johnson and Johnson

27:41

and increasing Fiser Maderna. So

27:44

you know, it's like, I don't know if you feel this, but

27:46

I sort of it's like I don't

27:48

even know how to handle good news any Like. I see those tweets

27:50

and I'm like, Okay, that's good,

27:53

right, Oh yeah, it's good. And is

27:55

anything gonna go wrong or were actually gonna get these hundred

27:57

forty million increasing doses that they just

28:00

said that? Like, I can't even I don't

28:02

even rely on the good news. It's it's you gotta like

28:04

wait for it to happen and then you can you know,

28:07

yeah, that that's a good point. I think, really,

28:10

yeah, maybe you made a suspicious many

28:12

any happy news at all. Yeah,

28:15

And it's it's getting back

28:17

to where we can accept like, oh, that's good

28:19

for society. This was the tweet. I

28:21

saw this going fives and Madonna executive told lawmakers

28:24

that they can dramatically increase COVID and teen vaccine

28:26

deliveries two hundred forty million more doses

28:28

over the next five weeks. Now, your only

28:30

response that should be oh my god, that's awesome. Yes,

28:32

let's go. And I'm just like, alright,

28:34

well, if that happens, it's okay. Like you're just waiting

28:36

for the other shoe to drop. At some point, it's got

28:38

to get out of this mindset. We are still in

28:41

a pandemic, right, Like that has not The

28:43

pandemic is still happening, So it is

28:45

it is all joy and happiness will

28:47

be tempered. The one thing about the pandemic,

28:50

you know, it isn't me. I feel like sports has rolled

28:52

on pretty I think college football

28:54

was a complete not our disaster and embarrassment.

28:57

But other than that, sports has rolled on, you

28:59

know, pretty markably well considering

29:02

that was in you know, remember in

29:04

the summer last summer when it didn't necessarily

29:07

seem like that was gonna happen, Like

29:10

you and I were chewing up podcast and thing's

29:12

going and they're gonna have football this year. What CBS

29:14

gonna do? And then it just all kind

29:16

of happened, and it mostly happened on schedule.

29:19

Yeah, they just had here in New York. They

29:21

let people back in Madison Square Garden last

29:23

night for the Knicks and the Nets at Barkley, So I

29:26

think it was only you know, a couple of thousand, but

29:28

still, you know, I gotta start somewhere. So yeah,

29:31

yeah, all well, I appreciate you coming on. And

29:33

again everyone check out that article on The Ringer by Brian

29:35

Curtis on Jim Nanson Brent must bark and I'm

29:38

sure I'll have you back on when all this

29:40

NFL stuff sort of hits the fan and get

29:42

some more content of it. Absolutely

29:45

we need, like I said, we need some woo bombs. This this

29:48

this this beat can't dry up yet,

29:51

No, not yet. All right, thanks, probably appreciate

29:53

it. Thanks, Jimmy, take care all

29:56

right? Turning me now as I media

29:59

podcast. He's been on a few times, but with

30:01

no sports going on and TV sort

30:03

of taking the forefront

30:05

here with the NFL over, I thought it'd be great to

30:07

talk to the chief TV critic

30:10

from Rolling Stone, Allan second Wall, Alan,

30:12

how are you, Jimmy? I mean, the Nicks

30:14

are still playing, so there are still sports

30:16

going on and not and not and not

30:18

embarrassing themselves, so there

30:20

is something to be said for that. They are pleasantly

30:23

mediocre right now. They're watchable. That's

30:26

a change. Yeah, last night's game not so

30:28

much. But mostly they're watchable. I should

30:30

have had I should have had you on early in the pandemic,

30:32

because it did seem like early in the pandemic everyone

30:35

started rewatching the Sopranos and we know

30:37

you're the Sopranos officionado.

30:40

But well, we'll talk about the Sopranos a little later.

30:43

Um full disclosure, we're taping this

30:45

Monday afternoon, normally a tape

30:47

on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, but Alan

30:49

wanted the table a little earlier because he's getting his second

30:52

COVID vaccine shot on Tuesday.

30:54

So I think that's tremendous. And I just my dad

30:56

got his second shot. He had maderna.

30:59

Everyone said, you're gonna be sick the second shot.

31:01

My dad is in his seventies, totally fine after

31:04

a second shot. In fact, is that his arm

31:06

hurt more after his first shot, which

31:08

is bizarre. So um,

31:10

nothing but good vibes for you there

31:12

and thank you. I I hope

31:14

I can follow in your father's footsteps, but I've

31:17

I've sort of moved everything in my week around

31:19

under the assumption that I may just be curled up into a ball

31:21

for a couple of days. It's

31:23

funny most people I

31:26

want to, you know, if

31:28

they have an illness that's not serious.

31:30

I'm not trying to say people want to get sick,

31:33

but the people who people who work every day at

31:35

their jobs, you know, like a two day

31:37

mini illness so they can sit in bed and watch TV

31:39

all day is sort of such a dream for them. But you

31:41

watch TV for a living, So when you're sick, just

31:44

like sitting in bed and watching TV all day do

31:46

anything for you? Or I

31:48

feel like if I'm even in the position to

31:50

be watching anything, it might be a movie, but more likely

31:52

I'll just like you know, have a book or something if

31:55

if I'm too sick to work. Like

31:57

I said, this is February is

31:59

the dead time sports until sort

32:01

of March madness gets going. So I

32:03

think people are looking for things to watch. So

32:05

who better than to discuss that within you? And

32:07

we also have the Golden Globes this week, so

32:09

I thought we could touch on that. Um

32:13

let me so, I want to ask you for some recommendations,

32:15

but I want to The last two

32:17

shows I've binged in the last month

32:20

or so have been Ted

32:22

Lasso and Your

32:25

Honor. Let's start with Ted Lasso.

32:28

I thought it was good. I know a lot of

32:30

people on on sports Twitter thinks it's great.

32:32

I thought it was very good. I don't know if i'd go

32:34

great, but I thought Sudakis,

32:36

Jason Sudeikis was tremendous

32:39

in that and should get and every

32:41

nomination possible. What was your take on Ted

32:43

Lasso. I was a little surprised

32:45

to see it become as much of a phenomenon

32:48

as it turned out to you over the summer and over

32:50

these last few months, because I watched

32:52

all of it early to to review for Rolling Stone,

32:55

and I liked it. I never really loved

32:57

it. I didn't find it all that funny for a

32:59

comedy, which is a deal breaker. Necessarily,

33:02

it was really watchable. I love underdog sports stories,

33:04

I love Major League, which they're sort of lovingly

33:06

paying tribute to, but it

33:09

never really sort of rose above the well

33:11

this is a very nice show, Barrier. I guess

33:13

what I underestimated is the idea that in

33:16

like the past year, when

33:18

everything has been so awful, having

33:21

shows about nice people feel

33:23

special and so like I get

33:26

in hindsight why this was a big deal for

33:28

me that show was more. PBS

33:30

just did a remake of All Creatures Great and Small,

33:33

which I was never into the original version when

33:35

I was a kid, and like, I could not have

33:37

been happier to watch this one because it's just, Hey,

33:40

nice people, cute animals, pretty scenery.

33:42

This is what I need right now. It's

33:44

it's so funny. I have about fifty things

33:46

I want to jump off from what you just said, but I like

33:48

the fact that, um,

33:51

I feel like I'm on the same page with you. Like I thought

33:53

Talasa was good, I didn't think it

33:55

was great. It was you know, easy watch

33:57

enjoyable. I was very impressive today because um,

34:00

yeah, I didn't think it was, you know, an all time sitcom.

34:03

And it's funny you mentioned about people looking

34:05

for nice and and

34:07

um, you know, nice characters.

34:10

Because when I I I tweeted

34:12

about this a few times. I watched

34:15

every episode of Your Honor and

34:18

really hated it over probably the last

34:21

five to six episodes. And

34:24

I still watched the whole thing and felt kind of like an

34:26

asshole because I was like, why am I doing this to myself?

34:28

And I was talked to a buddy of mine, Salakata,

34:31

who if you're from New York, he on w

34:33

f A and here and s and why, and he had

34:35

this similar experience. He he hated it and kept

34:37

watching it we could. And I said, my issue

34:39

with Your Honor was who am I supposed to root

34:41

for? There was nobody to root for in

34:43

that show. Everyone was

34:47

bad in my opinion, and I

34:49

want to watch things where I root for someone.

34:52

Um. So I

34:54

was wondering what you thought about Your Honor on showtime

34:57

all right. I watched only four of those, so

34:59

I didn't even get the point where you really started

35:01

hating yourself for doing it. I love Brian

35:03

Cranston. I think he's one of the great actors. I've literally

35:05

written a book about Breaking Bad, so I

35:07

think he's fantastic. This to me felt

35:09

like there's a lot of these shows

35:12

recently. Ozark's another one where it's like

35:15

they they're trying to reverse engineer

35:17

the really great shows of the first

35:19

two decades of the century, so ripping

35:21

off the sopranos are Breaking Bad or Mad Men or the Shield

35:23

or the Wire or whatever. But they don't really

35:26

understand what made those shows special,

35:28

so it feels very mechanical. It's

35:31

all about like, here's a problem, and

35:33

he tries to solve it, and he creates three more problems

35:35

to solve, and things get worse and worse,

35:37

and he always looks panicked, And like

35:40

you said, there's sort of there's nothing really to care about

35:42

because all you can sort of see are

35:44

are the wheels spinning or the puppet strings being

35:46

pulled, or whatever metaphor you want to use there. And

35:49

as much as I love Cranston and a bunch of the other

35:51

people in and as good as I thought that they were in this,

35:53

I just didn't care about anything. And

35:55

so when I got they only gave me four episodes

35:57

to review, and that was kind of a relief

36:00

because sometimes if they give me the full season, I

36:02

feel like, oh, I should watch it just in case it gets

36:04

better because something they do and

36:06

you know, Showtime made the decision for me. I wrote

36:08

my review and didn't look back. It

36:11

was one of the worst finales I've ever seen in

36:14

television. Um Uh.

36:16

The other show I should mention that I've

36:18

I've started. It's only been one episode. Second

36:21

episode as this week is Young Rock on NBC.

36:23

I have to mention it because I have a little obsession

36:26

with the Rock. I thought, Um,

36:29

I thought, whoever casted the show, I

36:31

thought did an unbelievable job

36:33

with the wrestlers. I don't know. I don't know what kind of

36:35

wrestling fan you are, but

36:37

if you're a wrestling fan, you should watch the show

36:40

just I mean, forget the rock story. They

36:43

did an unbelievable job casting the old school

36:45

eighties WWF wrestlers.

36:48

Um, you know, And I meant to

36:50

check and I didn't it did. Did

36:52

Young Rock do well in the ratings? I mean network

36:55

TV ratings? I know I'm not. I don't even pay

36:57

attention to them anymore because they almost don't matter. It's

36:59

really just sort of like what the streaming

37:01

deal is or what the value of the show has

37:03

on the back end. So I don't know. But to

37:05

answer your question about am I wrestling fan? You want to know

37:07

how much of a wrestling fan I used to be, especially

37:10

during this period. Okay, my

37:12

best friend Mike Igan and I we would talk

37:14

on the phone every night, and one of the things

37:16

we do like lame comedy bits that we

37:18

came up with, and one of them was we would do a fake

37:20

talk show called Intellectual Wrestling hosted

37:23

by Acts and Smash or Demolition because

37:25

we just thought it would be funny. What if those two guys were

37:27

in smoking jackets, you know, trying interview

37:29

Tito Santana and it would always go

37:31

a right. So that was my era when

37:33

all of these guys who you're seeing hanging out

37:35

with with the Young Rock are So you are definitely

37:38

in that target group that would enjoy Young Rock

37:41

with the you know, going back to when his dad, Rocky

37:43

Johnson was wrestling, said did you did you would

37:45

you make of that first episode? I've

37:47

gotten to see three, so I've seen that one, I've

37:49

seen the one that's coming up next,

37:52

and then they sent me the sixth one, which is largely about

37:54

Andre the Giant. The guy that cast to play Andrea.

37:56

I think his name is Matthew Willing. He's amazing, Like,

37:58

I don't know how you Andre is

38:01

not really human, and so I don't know how you find someone

38:03

who's that size, but can also, you know, sort

38:05

of seem that gentle. I think

38:07

that the show is trying to do a lot of things, and that

38:09

first episode especially because they're trying to set up three

38:11

different young Rocks and also do this thing

38:14

where you also have old Rock twelve years

38:16

from how running for president, and

38:18

it's maybe a bit much of the other two episodes they sent

38:20

me. It's just takes place in one time period.

38:22

So there's one episode where he's a teenager and there's one

38:25

episode about him as a kid in Hawaii,

38:27

and those I thought were both better. I

38:29

think, weirdly enough, as much as

38:31

I love the Rock and as charismatic as he is,

38:34

I think they could probably stand to just ditch him all

38:36

together and just give us the flashbacks

38:38

with young Rock and maybe he does a little voice over. But

38:41

I felt like every time we jumped back to him on the

38:43

presidential campaign, it was a little bit

38:45

of a distraction and I wanted to get back to him

38:47

as a kid. So the So Dwayne Johnson

38:49

is in all of the episodes, yes,

38:52

so like in one in each episode, he's

38:54

either doing an interview or he's doing a press conference

38:56

or something, and someone will ask him

38:58

a question about something in his campaign

39:00

and he'll say, well, you know, that reminds me of this time,

39:03

and suddenly you'll get a story about, like you know, when

39:05

he lied to some girl to impress

39:07

her to get around a date, or when you wound up going

39:09

to see a movie with with Andre the Giant and

39:12

I have it on my DVR, but I have not watched it

39:14

yet. Um, I'm old. I DVR on

39:17

stream. I mean I stream, but I I used

39:19

the DVR first. The stream is like the second method

39:21

because I'm old. Uh. I love Keenan

39:23

Thomps on SNL I dv art his show.

39:26

Would you recommend I have to watch it? I

39:28

was gonna do that today? Would you recommend it? I

39:30

don't know. I've only seen the one episode, which

39:32

is I don't review anything if they only send me one

39:35

episode anymore, because it's just there's there's too much

39:37

stuff. The episode I saw like, I

39:39

love Keenan, and I think he's very likable in this

39:41

It's a weird show. It feels like

39:44

somebody wrote like an old fashioned multi camp

39:46

sit coome like Big Bang Theory or cheers

39:48

or whatever, meant for an audience, but then they

39:51

shot it in the more modern style, so

39:53

it's like you keep waiting for you to

39:55

hear a laugh track and it never comes. And

39:58

so I found that kind of distracting. But I do like him,

40:00

so I'm gonna check it out again. Speaking

40:02

of Keenan, we had talked about this briefly

40:04

privately because I wanted to

40:06

discuss with you. I think one of the big TV

40:09

stories for this season at least

40:11

is SNL post Trump, and

40:14

you revealed that you don't really watch SNL,

40:16

so um it would I

40:18

used to be. I used to be a devout SNL fan,

40:21

and basically around the time of the election

40:24

and its aftermath, I kicked to have it. I was

40:26

just I was so frustrated

40:28

a with their role to a degree in helping

40:30

him get elected, but also how

40:33

poorly equipped they turned out to be to

40:35

address this the last

40:38

three years in America. Uh,

40:40

And it really exposed like a lot of the show's

40:42

vulnerabilities, and I would get to Saturday

40:44

night and I just didn't want to deal with it.

40:46

I didn't want I thought Baldwin was was a

40:48

terrible Trump. I didn't want to watch him. On

40:51

top of just I think all those sketches were really

40:53

badly written. Uh, And I just didn't

40:55

think any of the political or topical material

40:58

was really well handled. And so

41:00

I just stopped. And now that Trump

41:02

is no longer president and I don't have to worry

41:05

about seeing that, I feel like, well,

41:07

once I've kicked the habit, I don't necessarily need to.

41:09

I didn't miss it as much as I thought I might have. Yeah,

41:13

Um, and they put everything. I mean, it feels

41:15

like, you know, Sunday morning that all those clips are

41:17

all over Twitter. So if there's something you need to see you

41:19

every now and then, I'll watch a sketch if it winds

41:21

up online. And you know, usually it's

41:23

like what they call the the twelve fifty or

41:25

the tend to one sketches, like the last Thing

41:27

of the night, which is really weird, and

41:30

those tend to be my jam yeah um,

41:33

and those have always been great going back,

41:35

you know, nineties, eighties, Um, that last

41:37

sketch, Um,

41:39

Wayne's World was a tend to one sketch. Once

41:42

upon a time, I was on a field trip. It

41:44

was at the end of like a Leslie Nielsen episode, and

41:46

and all of us the next morning we were just walking around

41:48

singing the theme song. There's a little jarring.

41:51

Seeing them in the super Bowl commercial. Was

41:53

that bumped me out a lot? That was really bumped

41:55

me out. I'm with you on that one. Um,

41:58

Yeah, I just I wonder you know

42:00

Trump, I mean Trump Alec

42:02

Baldwin hasn't been on yet this season. I don't believe.

42:05

Maybe he said he's done

42:07

with it and he should be. He should be,

42:09

he should be. It's just interesting. They've

42:12

always you know, one of the things I think they

42:14

got a bad rap on. You can

42:17

debate obviously whether they did it well, but

42:19

they've always been a political show. I think you

42:21

know people you know, I know Magga, people

42:23

are like, I don't watch sn L anymore, and it's like, well,

42:26

they've always done that. They've always done

42:28

Every president has been skewered by

42:30

that show. I mean, maybe that

42:33

has been portrayed, and they've been sketches

42:35

in comedy. So I thought it

42:37

was ridiculous that it was people portrayed. It's

42:39

like this new thing phenomenon. Now, obviously they did

42:41

it every week and they went over the top with it. It was

42:43

also that he was complaining about it every

42:45

week on Twitter. You know, no

42:47

other president really did that if you go back to the

42:49

beginning, like Gerald, Ford knew he

42:52

couldn't punch back at S and L, so he put his Press

42:54

secretary Ron Nesson hosted an

42:56

episode in that first season. I

42:59

think I think it's a political

43:01

show in the extent that they portray presidents

43:04

for the most part, I feel like they don't really

43:06

skewer them, at least for what they're doing as president.

43:08

It's more like they figure out a personality

43:11

trait and that's what they do. So Ford

43:13

was clumsy, Uh, Carter

43:15

was too smart for the room. Uh,

43:17

George H. W. Bush would babble endlessly,

43:20

etcetera. So it's like they figure out one specific

43:23

thing and that becomes a character. But it's almost

43:25

never about what the president

43:27

is doing as a president. And

43:30

I guess maybe what happened was we get

43:32

to this particular presidency and what

43:34

he was doing was so many steps beyond

43:36

what anyone else had done good or bad.

43:39

That for them to just make it about

43:41

him being an idiot seemed like

43:43

not nearly enough. I

43:46

got yeah, I mean, and I think Baldwin

43:49

just it became too much same thing over and

43:51

over and there was nothing. It's very

43:53

one note. Yeah, um, so

43:55

I mentioned the top. You know, like

43:58

I said, sports fans, this is a little bit of a dead

44:00

time for them, probably

44:02

a lot of people turning to trying

44:05

to find new shows. Can you give

44:07

me something two of three

44:09

things maybe that everyone should be watching right

44:12

now. Give me maybe one comedy, one drama,

44:14

and one Alan must says you must

44:16

watch this show whatever it is. Okay,

44:18

so let's think here. I mean,

44:21

the great thing is I don't have to necessarily

44:23

be limited to something that debuted yesterday

44:25

because now everything is streaming somewhere,

44:28

all right. So one show I what recommend

44:31

is What We Do in the Shadows, which you can stream

44:33

on Hulu right now. It's an f X comedy. It's

44:35

a dot a mockumentary about like a bunch

44:38

of vampires living in a house together in

44:40

Staten Island, and it's

44:42

just the funniest thing on television

44:45

right now. It's so just utterly ridiculous

44:48

and gross and stupid,

44:50

and I love it a whole lot. And it's that

44:53

that latest season started airing very

44:55

early in the quarantine and it was a great escape

44:58

every night when I was able to run away from the

45:00

news and put that on. Where are they at with that? They

45:02

in season one, season two, where

45:04

two seasons of air. They're actually up

45:06

in Montreal right now filming the third

45:09

season of working on a feature about that right now, four

45:11

Rolling Stones. So everyone is in quarantine together

45:14

in order to make that. That's how a number

45:16

of shows are having to do things. They sort of make their

45:18

own bubble somewhere, uh, and produce

45:21

that way. So I'm excited in the name again one

45:23

more time. What we do in the shadows?

45:25

What we do in the shadows? Okay, and

45:27

you got a drama, let's

45:29

see drama. There's there's a new one,

45:32

a second season of a show on Apple actually

45:35

speaking ted Lasso, called for All Mankind.

45:37

The second season just premiered last week.

45:40

They're rolling it out weekly, so you kind of have to wait a

45:42

while. I almost might suggest someone might

45:44

want to wait about a month and start binging

45:46

it a little bit. But the whole first season is already there. The

45:48

premise is, what if the Russians

45:51

beat us to be the first, you know, country to

45:53

walk on the moon, and what effect would

45:55

that have on history and on the space race? And

45:58

so it's this alternate reality where the space race

46:00

in the Cold War never quite ended. And

46:02

the first season takes place throughout the late sixties

46:04

and early seventies. Season two, which

46:06

just debut, is set and

46:09

there's some slow spots here and there, but overall

46:11

it's really a lot of fun. And the last couple of episodes

46:14

of this season, when everybody get to them, are

46:16

like I just watched them with a huge smile

46:18

on my face. Throughout as

46:20

a lot of different things. We're going down on the Moon, in

46:22

an orbit and elsewhere. So give

46:24

me comedy, give me drama, give me a wild card,

46:27

anything you want, the documentary comedy, succumb

46:29

anything, give me want. You know, if someone says tonight,

46:32

I need to fire something up, what do you tell

46:34

them? All? Right, Well, I feel like at

46:36

this point I may not there may not be too many

46:38

people who already have been seen this. But Lupan,

46:41

which is this French heist series

46:44

on Netflix, starting an actor named O Marcy

46:46

who's just like a master thief in and

46:48

around Paris. And they they debuted

46:51

five episodes about a month or so

46:53

ago, and they're gonna debut more in the summer,

46:55

and that is just a whole lot of fun. And the

46:58

actor omr C is just why only

47:00

charismatic, and I feel like he's going to be a huge, huge

47:02

star. And I just really enjoyed that.

47:05

I want to just go back for a split

47:07

second because the drama you mentioned you said

47:09

it was on Apple is that is the Jennifer

47:12

Aniston morning show worth watching? Should

47:14

I dip into that? I didn't really

47:16

love it. I watched I think three episodes

47:18

and stopped after that. I know a bunch of other

47:20

critics enjoyed it more than I did. It

47:23

felt to me like sort of a

47:25

show in search of of

47:27

a reason to exist. It just had a lot

47:29

of expensive talent, and they're really talented,

47:32

and they were good on the show, but there just didn't

47:34

seem to be a whole lot of there there for me. You

47:37

mentioned shows basically creating bubbles

47:39

to shoot um. Do

47:41

you know anything about anything that's

47:43

going on with the next season of Curb your Enthusiasm?

47:46

Does anything linked that about there. They're filming

47:48

it now. A friend of mine lives in uh

47:51

not Beverly Hills, like some some like

47:53

fancy issue neighborhood in l A. And he

47:55

said Larry was filming at a golf course down

47:58

the street for him over the weekend. So

48:00

they're in process. Now. I have to imagine

48:03

that there's gonna be a lot of quarantine material in

48:05

the show, because like there's a lot of shows

48:08

where when they start doing pandemic stuff, it feels

48:10

weird to me, and I don't love it. But if any

48:12

show is equipped for it, it's curb

48:14

because you can see Larry like turning this to

48:17

his advantage, right, you got you got that right. I.

48:19

I spoke to James Andrew Miller uh

48:21

this morning, who is writing

48:23

a book, Well wrote a book. It's coming out in the fall

48:25

on HBO, and he

48:28

said they've they've shot some stuff. They had to stop.

48:30

He's not sure if they've restarted filming, um,

48:33

but you know, he was pretty sure there's gonna be a lot

48:35

of quarantine in the next

48:37

season, which I'll tell

48:39

you that's that's gonna be good. That's good.

48:42

I'm looking forward to it. And I thought after a rough

48:44

couple of years. I thought Season ten, which came

48:46

out at the beginning of the pandemic, I thought it was a

48:48

strong season. What do you make it? The last season of Curb,

48:51

I thought it was definitely better than the previous

48:53

couple. The one with Lint Manuel Miranda was pretty

48:55

disappointing to me. Not all of them

48:57

this time worked, but there was enough of them that to

49:00

scratch that. It's that made me think, all right, I'm glad that Curb

49:02

continues to exist. Yeah, for sure.

49:04

Um. I mentioned the Golden

49:07

Globes of this weekend, now the Globe. The Golden

49:09

Globes explain this for people listening,

49:11

like they're not really to be taken that seriously, right,

49:13

don't keep be taken seriously at all? Like

49:16

don't people get paid to win or something like? I mean,

49:19

globes are voted on by an organization called

49:21

the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and nobody

49:23

really knows who they are, you

49:26

know, or what they're about. The l A Times did a great

49:28

expose a on them the other day where they

49:30

revealed some of the ways in which shows get

49:32

nomination. So in a lot of cases, it's just

49:34

like Paola, it's flattering,

49:37

bribing other in other ways, sucking up to

49:40

the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. So their Netflix

49:42

has this really just awful comedy

49:44

called Emily in Paris, and

49:47

they flew the Hollywood Foreign Press Association

49:49

to Paris, put them up in a really expensive

49:52

hotel for like a weekend junket,

49:54

where they could then like you know, have a great experience

49:57

and meet the cast and and swam

49:59

around Paris for a few days. And shockingly,

50:02

this really bad show winds up with a bunch of Golden

50:04

Globe nominations. And they care

50:06

about that. They care about being around famous people

50:09

and being around movie stars. Every

50:11

now and then they sort of accidentally get something

50:13

right. Some of their TV awards in recent years have

50:15

been interesting, Like they gave Gina Rodriguez

50:18

from Jane the Virgin a Golden Globe.

50:20

She's great. They gave Rachel Bloom from Crazy

50:22

Ex Girlfriend a Golden Globe. She's great. But

50:24

a lot of the time it's just you feel as if

50:27

they're not they're barely even aware that television

50:29

exists, let alone what's good

50:31

on it. And the Emmys, though they

50:34

are, they still to be taken seriously.

50:37

The Emmys are have problems of their own.

50:39

They're definitely better though in that like

50:41

it's you know who the voters are, they're people who work

50:43

in the industry. The problem is just there's just

50:45

too much TV for anybody to keep track of,

50:48

and so it's like, what

50:50

what have people heard of? What? Who are

50:52

people? Who they know? Who they like? What's

50:54

the name they recognized on the ballot. There's

50:57

a lot of different complicated things that

50:59

come in to play. But like the most recent I means Watchmen

51:02

was one of the best shows of the last five six years,

51:04

and that you have swept a limited

51:06

series category. So I was happy about that. It's

51:08

what did you make now? I love the show, I

51:10

I it's one of my favorites of all time

51:12

now, But what did you make of Ship's Creek winning

51:15

every single literally every single award?

51:17

Yeah, again, that was a weird thing where it was like each category

51:20

one show swept it. So it was not

51:22

the most dramatic of nights necessarily

51:25

Ships Creak I kind of put in the ted Lasso category

51:27

if I've always liked it but not loved it, and I

51:29

also don't find it wildly funny. But again,

51:31

it's about a bunch of very likable

51:33

people, especially when you get about a season end and

51:35

the family accepts that, like we're stuck here

51:38

and we're gonna get used to it. I

51:40

think, like I think Ships Creak is

51:42

like so far and above Ted

51:44

Lasso, it's not even but that's that's

51:47

and that's good comedy. Comedy to me always

51:49

feels more subjective the drama.

51:51

And obviously not everybody's gonna like the same dramas or anything,

51:53

but it's sort of it's easier to look at something and say, oh,

51:55

that's great acting, or oh that's really suspenseful

51:58

or whatever, Whereas what makes person

52:00

laugh, it's not necessarily going to make another person

52:02

laugh, you know, on a very molecular

52:04

kind of level. Right, listen this people don't

52:06

like Seinfeld in Curb, so you know, alright,

52:10

so if the Golden globes, let's let's

52:13

play a game here and hypothetically, if they were

52:15

to be taken seriously, yes, the

52:17

nominees for the Best Comedy Series Emily and Pass

52:19

Did you mentioned the Flight Attendant, The

52:21

Great Ship's Creek and Ted

52:24

Lasso? If you're picking, not

52:26

not who you think will in, but who do you think deserves who?

52:28

If those were your choices. If someone said

52:30

I want to watch one of these five shows, which one would

52:32

you tell them? I would recommend either Flight Attendant,

52:34

which was a whole ton of fun that's on HBO

52:36

Max or The Great, which is on Hulu,

52:38

which was one of the big surprises of

52:40

last year. It's a comedy about

52:43

the young Catherine the Great with l Fanning, and

52:45

she is so funny and so charismatic

52:47

in a way that I was not expecting from her. It's

52:50

just a really great performance. And it's from one

52:52

of the writers of Oh my God, the name

52:55

just fell out of my head. Uh, The Favorite,

52:58

um, and it's so it's her. Nicholas Holto

53:00

was also in The Favorite and that's really a

53:02

really weird and dark show,

53:04

but you will not forget it if you watch

53:07

it. And the same thing, the same

53:09

question here in best drama series, which the means

53:11

are The Crown, which my dad loves, Lovecraft

53:13

Country, the Mandalorian, which

53:15

I see on Twitter, Ozark,

53:18

what you mentioned in this show I never heard of called

53:20

Ratchet. Ratchet is

53:22

so bad. That's this. It's it's

53:24

an origin story of Nurse Ratchet

53:27

from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest that

53:29

basically like makes no sense within

53:32

the context of who she is, and one flew over the

53:34

cuckoo's nest. It's just sort of it's one of Ryan

53:36

Murphy, who's one of the most prolific and successful

53:38

producers in television, signed

53:40

this big deal with Netflix and it's

53:42

just making a fortune. And it feels

53:44

like whatever restraints were sort of making his

53:46

shows, the shows that worked good

53:49

are now gone, and so pretty much everything he's

53:51

made for Netflix has been bad. And that may be the worst

53:53

of those. Uh, of those nominees. I mean,

53:55

I really enjoy Mandalorian. That's a fun show. I don't

53:57

know if it's a great show. I would say of those,

54:00

Lovecraft Country from HBO was

54:02

really great. It was every it did. Not

54:04

all of it worked, but enough of it did that that was one

54:06

of my favorites from the last year. The other

54:08

show I should mention, we don't

54:10

need to get into best actor and best actress, that's all.

54:13

Um. I feel like the

54:15

first part of Quarantine was dominated

54:18

by the last Dance and

54:21

um Tiger King.

54:23

Yeah, And I feel like this last portion of

54:26

the Quarantine was dominated by the undoing.

54:29

The undoing was so bad though it was Jimmy

54:32

Okay that I didn't watch it, but

54:35

I mean, my god, it was talked about. Yeah,

54:38

that's one where I like, I saw that

54:40

show in the spring, because

54:42

it was originally gonna debut I think in April

54:44

or May, and so I saw it to potentially

54:46

review for Rolling Stone, and then midway

54:49

through the process of putting the end of that issue, HBO

54:51

called me up and said, hey, we we didn't quite finish

54:54

filming the finale before production had

54:56

shutdowns. We're moving it back to the fall. And

54:58

so I had already been kind of unimpressed, and

55:00

then I get to and I didn't even

55:02

seen this the terrible finale at the time,

55:05

and then you get in the late summer, early fall,

55:07

and all of this excitement is building up. You know, oh

55:09

it's you know, you Grant, it's Nicole Kidman, and

55:11

I really like, I didn't want to be the buzz

55:13

kill, but I tried to warn as many people

55:16

as possible to not get excited. And

55:18

even then there were still some people who were excited and you

55:20

could see but now,

55:22

but you can see the enthusiasm kind of waning

55:25

week after week, and then the night of the finale,

55:27

I decided what the hell I'm gonna put I didn't

55:30

even like the show, but everyone is so gung

55:32

ho. I want to see like if if they can pull

55:34

off the ending, and also how people respond

55:37

and like you've never seen a balloon deflate

55:40

on like social media quite

55:42

like that before. With each passing

55:45

minute, people were getting madder and madder

55:47

and madder at the show, and it

55:49

was just they really there was no

55:51

there there without um,

55:54

this has been great. I've enjoyed it, but I can't

55:56

have you on and let you go without at least mentioning

55:59

something about the suppress. I

56:00

did you get a vibe in

56:03

the beginning of the pandemic, which it's

56:05

hard to believe it has been a year now, but

56:08

it did feel like in March April

56:10

May of twenty I

56:13

felt like there are a lot of people rewatching the

56:15

soprano or Yeah, I mean I knew a couple of people who

56:17

got into it for the first time, which was shocking

56:19

to me. Now I think a lot of people

56:21

come to you for soprano. Did you what was your

56:23

experience with that with the sopranos and the pandemic?

56:27

Yeah, no, I I heard a lot of anecdotal

56:29

evidence. I had a lot of people saying, you know, hey, we finally

56:31

we It was sort of like the

56:33

the pandemic and the quarantine became an

56:35

opportunity to cross shows off your viewing bucket

56:37

list. And Soprano seemed to be high and

56:39

a lot of folks and so they would say, oh,

56:42

we you know, we're gonna watch it. We're gonna buy your book,

56:44

The Soprano Sessions. Is it okay to read

56:46

it like before I've seen it? I said, no, you just

56:48

watch each episode and then read what what Matt sites

56:51

and I wrote about it. Uh and so,

56:53

but it was it was very cool. I mean it

56:55

was the same experience we had when the book came out a couple of years

56:57

ago, of like the show really

56:59

who holds up both if you've seen it

57:01

before and if you're coming to it new. I

57:03

almost never get anyone say like, oh,

57:06

I watched this, and I get why

57:08

it's important, but it didn't do anything for

57:10

me because I've seen so many other things

57:12

that copied it right. Well,

57:14

first, well, people should watch it just

57:16

to watch the performances. I think of

57:19

James Gandelfini, Needy Falco. I mean that's

57:21

television history right there. Now, he's

57:23

he he gives like the greatest dramatic performance

57:26

TV has ever seen, and she is not that far behind,

57:28

not far behind it all. I think, um,

57:31

I should have mentioned this when I when I set it up

57:33

the podcast that came out that

57:36

Michael Imperioli and Steve Shrippa.

57:39

I think that sort of helped loose things they they've been on

57:41

this podcast. If anyone's listening, you can dip into the archives

57:43

and listen to it, and they do a nice job with it. Um.

57:46

I think that helps obviously get some

57:48

more people into it. Yeah, no, it's it's great.

57:50

I'm doing a new podcast now called Too Long

57:53

Didn't Watch. And the gimmick is every episode we have

57:55

like a celebrity watch pick a show

57:57

they've never seen before, and they watched the first one

58:00

and the last episode and nothing in between.

58:02

And so far nobody has picked the Sopranos,

58:04

and I'm waiting for someone to do it. Imagine

58:07

watching the first and last and nothing else of

58:09

the Sopranos saying some

58:12

A lot of people who have done it have sort of regretted

58:14

their choices. I'm

58:16

so glad you mentioned that. I meant to bring this up, and I

58:18

had it written down and I didn't see it out

58:21

of the corner mine. And I'm so glad you brought up that podcast

58:23

you're doing because it was on your podcast. Way, I guess

58:25

it came out. Jon Hamm audition

58:28

for Sandy Cohen on the o C. Yes,

58:30

yeah, he was in the very first episode

58:32

we taped, like right before the quarantine.

58:34

I was in l A in the like March

58:37

eleventh or eleventh to tape

58:39

that, and we sat next to each other and we touched

58:41

elbows and we watched two episodes of Gossip Girl

58:43

together. And the process of that. John

58:45

mentions that, you know, because it's Josh

58:48

Schwartz who had created the o C, was one

58:50

of the creators of Gossip Girl, and he said, you know, I auditioned

58:52

for the C. And I assumed

58:55

like he auditioned for I picked like

58:57

three or four of the roles, and he's like, no, I auditioned

58:59

to play the dad Sandy Cohen. My

59:01

mind, and I'm not sure I paid any attention

59:03

to Gossip Girl for at least ten minutes after that,

59:05

right That is? Yeah, that's a mind blower, right

59:07

if I mean, listen, the guy who plays Sandy was

59:10

Peter Gallagher, that Peter Gallagher who was

59:12

great, tremendous. Yeah, I

59:14

wanted I wanted Kirsten and Sandy

59:17

to adopt me when I watched that show, Like they

59:19

were the best parents you can besides

59:21

the fact that Kristen was an alcoholic, you

59:23

know, they were just the greatest parents.

59:26

And John like that's the case.

59:28

But like John Hamm is so awesome, But you're

59:31

glad he didn't get that role, Yeah, because

59:33

he was a little too young, but also it would have kept him from

59:35

playing Don Draper. So history

59:38

is littered with those where it's like you miss out on one

59:40

part and as a result, you wind up getting the part

59:42

you should have in the first place. And we mentioned

59:44

season ten of Curb. I thought that John John

59:46

Hamm episode might have been I think the second

59:49

after the Maga Hat episode. I thought that John Hams

59:51

second best. Yeah, yeah, I mean I almost

59:54

wish that they could have done like a whole episode

59:56

that was just about ham like becoming

59:59

Larry David, because I I feel like there's something

1:00:01

to the idea of like how much more

1:00:03

acceptable is Larry David's behavior

1:00:05

if he looks like Jon Hamm but even if

1:00:07

the little snippets that we got, he was perfect.

1:00:09

Right. I think I tweeted after that episode like he should

1:00:11

be on every episode. It was just he was. He was so

1:00:13

good in that episode. It was so funny.

1:00:15

I love him. What is he doing anything

1:00:17

right now? Is he on a show right now? He's not. He's

1:00:20

developed. He's developing. Um

1:00:22

like they're gonna revive Fletch. So

1:00:25

he's gonna play Fletch in a new movie based on

1:00:28

one of the Fletch novels, which I have on my bookshelf

1:00:30

right off over my right shoulder here. Yeah,

1:00:32

we could use more John Hamm, but I want him on Curb.

1:00:36

I hope he's back. Yeah, all right, and

1:00:38

I appreciate it. I know the listeners. I'm sure they'll

1:00:40

check out your recommendations. And of course you can

1:00:43

read all of Alan's stuff on Rolling

1:00:45

Stone dot com. Chief TV critic does a phenomenal

1:00:48

job, and of course he is uh

1:00:50

the Master of the Sopranos. Has a great book out,

1:00:53

The Oral Session, So check all that out. And thanks

1:00:55

so much for coming on. Appreciate it, Jimmy, thank you,

1:00:57

good luck with the second shot. Thank you.

1:01:00

Thanks all

1:01:02

right, that wraps it up for this episode

1:01:04

of the SI Media Podcast. My thanks to Brian

1:01:06

Curtis from The Ringer and Alan

1:01:09

stepping Wall from Rolling Stone. Enjoy

1:01:11

talking to both of them mensely. If you missed any previous

1:01:14

episodes of the SI Media Podcast, get

1:01:17

into those archives and check them out. Last week,

1:01:19

Dan Rovel on the Trading Card Explosion

1:01:21

two weeks ago, Kevin Clark from The Ringer, three

1:01:24

weeks ago, Aaron Andrews and Kyle Bryant four weeks

1:01:26

ago, Roman Range w

1:01:28

W Champions. So check those out, subscribe, rate

1:01:31

and review. All Right, that's

1:01:33

it. We'll see you next week right here on the SI Media Podcast.

1:01:36

Be safe, take care,