Dungeons and Daddies - Teen Talk (Season 2 After Show)
Episode Date: April 9, 2024Back for another special post-season after show, the Dad Crew sits down to talk through the season two finale, how it came together cleaner than the season one finale, the giant scissors Matt act...ually bought during the recording, and how the teenage motif fit into the pressure everyone felt after the first season.Plus composer Maxton Waller stops by to talk about the marching band version of the season two theme song and they answer some questions about the most memorable records and everyone's favorite intros from the second season.Thanks so much for listening and supporting us this season! Stay tuned for some very exciting new developments, including Will taking the DM reigns for a while!This episode contains Profanity.Support the show on Patreon! (You get access to this kind of after show every other week!)Get merch and more at our website!Follow us on Twitter @dungeonsanddads!Check out the subreddit!DM is Anthony Burch (@anthony_burch)Lincoln Li-Wilson is Matt Arnold (@mattlarnold)Normal Oak is Will Campos (@willbcampos)Scary Marlowe is Beth May (@heybethmay)Taylor Swift is Freddie Wong (@fwong)Theme song is "On My Way" by Maxton Waller (maxtonwaller.bandcamp.com)Brian Fernandes is our Content ProducerAshley Nicollette is our Community ManagerKortney Terry is our Community CoordinatorCindy Denton is our Merch ManagerEster Ellis is our Lead EditorTravis Reaves provides Additional EditingRobin Rapp is our transcriberCover art by Alex Moore (@notanotheralex)Send us stuff and get in contact: https://www.dungeonsanddaddies.com/contactThe story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Welcome, welcome, faithful listeners to Teen Talk, a show about a show that just had its second season.
Yay! We did it. We landed the plane, technically.
Any landing you walk away from is a good landing, you know?
I guess this is going to be a retrospective,
not just on the finale episodes, but on the series as a whole.
Yeah.
But I guess let's start with the finale in general.
How did you feel about the finale?
It was so fun to be able to drop a big long one right at the end.
You know what I mean?
Oh, you want a finale to have some junk in the trunk, dude.
You want the juice on you.
Nothing would disappoint me more.
The show I'm listening to, and I'm'm like, alright, here's the finale 42 minutes
Yeah, it's like when you're watching like an HBO show and the finale is like 42 minutes. I'm like, come on
Fuck this HBO trend I don't know what HBO show you guys are watching that had a 42 minute finale
Even sitcoms nowadays are like, oh, this storyline just
can't possibly fit the 22 minutes.
So this finale is 35 minutes long.
I'm watching a two hour episode of Ted Lasso.
I'm like, what are you doing?
I'm sorry, do you understand that he's invited two
separate dates to the same restaurant?
We have full 35 minutes to explore
this to its full potential.
But I mean, it was a, I'll tell you what.
This one felt like, like, when did we start this one?
My sense of time.
Starts with the episode or the season?
The season, but also like, I mean, well,
so just to give you a background into sort of the way
that we record the end of it, season one, we recorded,
we all sort of got an Airbnb and we all powered through
like five episodes of something like that.
Yeah, it was crazy. Yeah.
And it was like the three-part finale and stuff.
And we didn't do that for this one,
but we knew that we were like, as we were approaching the end,
we were like, all right, let's start.
We kind of did.
We just kind of got stretched out.
Like over the course of three weeks,
we did a lot of banking, both of MBICs and the season.
Yeah.
Yeah, because you guys had the tour coming up at South By,
so it was like, OK, let's get this stuff wrapped up.
Yeah, yeah.
And it was like, I remember going through the series of them
and feeling like it was very different than like,
oh, we're out in the place and we're all like just really,
really focused on it.
It felt more like what you would expect
from a second season of a thing.
Okay, the machine is a little more well-oiled.
We kind of have a sense of where we're going.
We have a sense of how we've done this once before.
There's a confidence going into it.
I actually really enjoyed it.
It actually felt like it was a very clean clean smooth process, especially compared to season one
We had a lot of pickups after the fact we were
A lot more duct tape on the back end and we really didn't have much at all
Yeah, it basically came out fully formed our pickups were like little tiny character beats
We're like, oh, let's change this little thing here like small stuff
It was like scary says a different song for the epilogue dance.
We're like, oh, maybe actually the other song's better.
I'm like, oh no.
It was dead and gone originally, right?
Yeah, that was the first one that came to mind.
But on the ride home, I was like,
that's not what it would be playing.
Well, and you also changed the way
that Scary reacts to Willie's death.
Yeah, and it's like, I feel like people listening
to both versions would be like, why did you change this?
But it's just important to me that she just didn't care. Now she'd weaponized her not caring into what Willie's versions would be like, why did you change this? But it's just important to me that she just didn't care.
Now she'd weaponized her not caring
into what like, Willie's death would be
rather than weaponizing it on herself.
That's cool.
I mean, yeah, it was just like a very small beat.
Compared to season one where we were like,
oh, this whole section we got to re-record,
we came in and patched stuff together.
In that sense, I just had such a blast with it
on the way out. It was simpler also,
the combat as defined was simpler.
They both essentially end with a big fight.
In some ways, like, you know, the first season is like a more epic, like larger scale fight.
It was also more complicated because we had like multiple parties in different locations
and like the teens were in one place.
Like it was like a whole white board to like even track it.
It was like massive. It was like a whole thing.
Whereas this was rather straightforward in terms of we're just going to try to kill Willie.
I also thought then like the stakes were like also in a weird way, like clear and maybe more immediate.
Like the stakes of season one was like, you know, you got to get through the portal.
But like the fact that the parents were at his feet and could get killed at any moment, like at least as a player, the tension I thought was like really fun in this final.
Yeah, it was like an extra element that we were having bad roles.
And we added at the last second basically yeah in recording yeah the
previous episode yeah I think is maybe after Willie became God or at a certain
point there was just like a time we're like the last three episodes did there's
a lot like stress getting up to it but then like the last three episodes I felt
like were at least for me was like conscious like a pleasure record like
was just fun yeah it was a really good record except someone did make someone else cry.
We're not going to say who we're not going to say who said what.
We're not going to get back into it.
But I just like I want you guys to know that I remember who it was.
And I bet they still feel bad about it.
I was like the finale went so smooth.
Yes, I'm not going to talk about how I had to take
a 10 minute break in the middle of it just to cry.
Do you remember what Matt said to you? She remembers. She'll never forget it.
Well, I remember well, I was just bringing up a joke. We all know I'm very nervous about
bringing up jokes now. I was like in the bathroom trying to pull myself together. I'm like,
they're never going to make a joke again. I'm like, they're never going to make a joke again.
I was like, Will's never going to make a joke again.
Give a little context.
All right, so basically I had my
It's not going to change the way the three of us act around you.
Yeah, don't worry, Beth.
When I did my mean joke about Beth rolling a natural one
on her joke, I was like, haha, I'll be like Freddie
and just roast someone right now.
And then it hit harder than I thought it would.
And I could tell.
I'm going to give the context for this now that it's all over.
In January, I got a concussion and it had some pretty bad,
like snowballing kind of effects because instead of going to the doctor,
I just smoked a bunch of weed. And so I was in the hospital for two weeks.
It had to take about a month off the podcast and wasn't able to record.
And then finally like, you know, got back to it.
Your most vulnerable state is not making me look any better.
You just needed us to be friends and support for you. Right.
I was like feeling like kind of like myself again. I was feeling kind of normal.
Like I was like, okay, you know, I'm like talking to my therapist.
I'll never be funny again.
I like I literally was like saying that to my therapist. I'm like, I don't think I'll ever be back where I was like, okay, you know, I'm like talking to my therapist. I'll never be funny again. I literally was like saying that to my therapist.
I'm like, I don't think I'll ever be back where I was.
And so we go into the-
We're all picking up on this.
We're all like, let's just be really supportive.
I get three of us.
I get three of us.
Like fucking you guys were, you were a dream.
You like have all the time I needed off.
You did Kingdom Dad Monster to fill in the, you know,
truly if I had any other job, I would be like fucked.
So, yeah, it was great. And then I was like finally feeling like a little bit kind of like myself again.
And then I was noticing as in the beginning of the finale, I was like, none of my jokes are landing.
I fucking suck. And then Will's like, you rolled a natural one on humor.
I was like, I'm fucked.
Everything's fucked.
To our credit, we fucking pulled a, I fucking pulled a.
You fucking did.
You did.
And I thought you were being very funny before I said what I said.
I realize that you wouldn't have said that if you thought I was actually like, fucked up.
This is what's fucked up is that like, normally it normally, if something bad happens to someone on the podcast,
they'll be like, oh, let's give them a card.
Let's do something.
And then you guys will be like, send them
a card that says, you stupid dumb bitch,
pull yourself together.
I hate you.
Why don't you fucking crawl up and die?
And I'll be like, that's really mean.
Are you sure they're going to think that's funny?
And they'll be like, trust me.
Well, they're going to think that's really funny.
That's going to mean a lot more to them
than it being some sort of forced thing.
It always works.
It's all like, all right, let's just trust each other.
And then it's like, I can't do it. I can't do it. I'm bad at it.
Maybe you're too good at it.
Maybe you're too good at it.
You know, that scalpel is too sharp, my friend.
Perhaps your cutting insight is a little bit too sharp.
Maybe you're too funny, Will.
Maybe I'm too funny.
I think it was nice though, Beth crying did give us like a nice break,
like for a long episode.
We did get a good-
You can just burst into tears
into every episode we do, that would be great.
Which is by the way, which is why Anthony,
when you make the joke, we're like,
oh, natural one, I'm a-
It's so much funnier in the room.
That's why everybody's reaction to that joke
is like at 11 because it was straight up
the funniest possible thing you could say.
It was a perfect icebreaker.
Perfect, perfect, perfect.
You're okay, Will. No, it's perfect icebreaker. Perfect, perfect, perfect.
You're OK, Will.
No, it's not.
It's fine.
You brought it up.
It's true.
I did bring it up.
I knew it would be funny to talk about.
But things that we liked about the finale.
I've got a couple of favorite moments.
Go for it.
I completely missed this.
But when somebody asked, what's your favorite position
and Will saying doggy style, it was like a throwaway.
It's Willie's least favorite position to be in.
Oh okay, least favorite position and I was like listening to the live listen and I was like I had never heard that in the room.
I was like fuck, doggy style that's fucking hilarious.
I wrote down no womb for me from Matt but I have no idea what the context is.
Oh that was Matt's whole thing with like the it was just running joke of every time we'd come out of one
of the angels, he'd be like, a rebirth of sorts.
Yeah.
And then, yeah, then he was like, no womb for me, please.
And I jump out of the angel lie or whatever.
I think the $42 scissors have to be like my favorite part of the fucking season.
That's I think one of the funniest riffs.
That was mine where it's like, Will being like,
it's in your mind that you decided it matches me.
Like, I cannot describe to you how much you're just describing rock paper scissors. Funniest riffs that was mine where it's like will be like it's in your mind and you decide that matches me like I can't
Describe to you how much you're just describing rock paper
Last funny bit become more fun
Pretty my argument really has a danger of like going in the wrong direction
But this one just held on just enough it escalating into an actual game of rock-paper-scissors
And then me winning on the laptop.
And then there's the whole other.
Oh yeah, so yeah, if you're not in the Patreon
or the Discord, you wouldn't have heard this, but.
Yeah, I'll tell the story.
So you hear in the podcast where I say,
fuck, I just bought these scissors.
I don't know why they're $42.
Because I just searched scissors on Amazon,
I clicked on the first image of scissors,
and that's when I showed to Freddie.
And did not click to any of the follow-up images
of those scissors.
Nope, I just clicked on the image,
and I showed it to Freddie, and I won the scissors,
and I said, well, I won with these scissors,
so I'm going to buy them.
So I clicked buy now if you know anything about Amazon.
Buy now means buy now.
They don't wait anymore.
One click purchase.
Safety top, dude.
Yeah, one click purchase.
There's one thing I know about Amazon,
that one click purchase, so it's good to go.
So I forgot about this.
Beth cried, so I forgot about buying the scissors.
And then like a week later, my wife is like,
Matt, did you buy, what are these for?
Are these cut?
What are these?
And I look and she has this massive box.
It looks like a poster, like a movie poster sized box.
And she's pulling out this pair of scissors
and my daughter's looking at them.
And they're like those three foot long,
ceremonial red scissors.
You remember Clock Tower?
Yeah!
The PS1 classic!
That's why I was telling Freddy that for our tour we need to cut a ribbon.
We need to cut a ribbon, yeah!
So I got these incredible red massive huge scissors, ceremonial cutting scissors that
will forever remind me that I beat Freddy rock-paper scissors
It's pretty great. Yeah, we'll definitely bring them on tour. We'll have to do some sort of throw them into the crowd at the end
Matt saying the it I fucking died. Holy shit
About the book I'm such an old man oh my god and then a link at the end saying don't hug me if you're
not gonna try like that fucking killed me oh my god we are what a great kind of
full circle moment for
link and the whole like cycle of brokenness kind of thing. And then fucking
Lincoln scary.
Such a when we hit the epilogue, you know, and you can kind of feel it too.
Everyone's a little bit tired. Been a long record day. We feel like we're finally
we're done. So then there's that loose energy And then that loose energy, the amount of just like,
yes, standing, just chucked across the room like fastballs.
Matt runs that epilogue.
Yeah, Matt QB1 over here, fucking.
I mean, to gas Matt up a little bit,
I was a deer in headlights when we started that scene.
I think the edit is essentially what it was like,
which is I know we all knew we were going to do an epilogue,
but I felt like that too because like.
I actually forgot.
I just didn't know.
Yeah, I thought we were going to take a break or something,
and Anthony's like, all right, we're going to do the epilogue now.
We're all like, uh, what?
Which is great.
So Matt immediately jumps in with you like, oh,
Link is the soccer coach, which was already the sweetest possible grown
up Link thing you could do.
And then I'm literally trying not to look at anyone
because I'm trying to frantically think of what to do with Norma.
And they're like, oh, I see you there, Norm.
And it's like, which is what I needed because I needed to not overthink it.
But then it was like, I'm still there. And I'm like, I was emotional. you there, Norm. And I was like, which is what I needed, because I needed to not overthink it.
But then it was like, I'm still there.
And I'm like, I was emotional.
So then I was like, all right, normal's going to be emotional.
And then it all started to go from there in terms of like,
oh, he's sad.
He doesn't want to be here.
And then you being like, oh, hey, go help this kid put
on the mascot costume was such a generous move as a scene
partner to be like, this is meat on the table for you to like play something off of.
And like, once I got to that scene with the kid,
it was like, I knew exactly what to do with it.
Perfect.
What went into the idea that Normal shouldn't be happy?
He's the only one that sort of stands out
as like not having a good time at the party.
I have a lot of thoughts on this.
When we kind of maybe circle back a little bit,
we can get into a little bit more.
But like, Normal, I don't think he gets closure
with his father, even afterwards.
One of my favorite moments is Sparrow
turning into the love wolf.
As normal, I'm like, I think that's this beautiful moment
for Sparrow, but I think it's like one of the worst moments
in normal's life.
Like, cause it's this feeling of like,
this is what it takes for you to love me.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like, this is the level I have to be operating in at
to earn my father's love.
Which is not necessarily the right thing,
because that's not necessarily what Sparrow
is feeling in that moment.
But I think for Normal, this has been this whole struggle.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, it's interesting, because we almost
get into this in the version of the scene with him and Willie,
where Willie's pretending to be Sparrow.
And then he says to Normal, I'm proud of you.
And then he cuts Normal off.
But Normal's about to be like, I'm glad you're right now
proud of me.
But where the fuck have you been?
And I feel like Normal never gets that.
And then I think that that affects him deeply
going forward.
I think it kind of fucks up his ability
to kind of heal from what's been going on.
I think it kind of is probably something
that affects his relationships going forward,
in terms of when someone something that affects his relationships going forward like in terms of like
When someone says that they love him he gets his guard up and stops trusting that
It's just like he has like a really raw feeling that he doesn't get the kind of like psychological closure
Yeah, the other characters do from the adventure like he winds up angrier at the end
Yeah, especially because his whole thing was like he was just stuffing his emotions in a drawer the entire adventure
Yeah, and then it's like now it's time for it to come out
But it's like everyone's already kind of moved on everyone's happy so he doesn't feel like he wants to you know
even though I think
Link is like the scene master of the epilogue
I think like norm is the way in like you know I feel like you're listening to like any sort of party
I don't know
Maybe I'm just a freakazoid
But I feel like you
have no choice but to identify with the person that feels like a weirdo and is left out and
is not quite connecting with the other people. And so, yeah, again, like when I was listening
to the episode, this was like even before the live listen, I was like listening to it
in the edit. Yeah, your moment, I was like crying. I was, I was like, God, this is the
good cry. If you know me, you know I love a cry no matter what.
But yeah, I was fucking crying.
With these epilogues, it's always interesting
because it's very easy to kind of assume like,
oh, this is the whole arc of the character.
But like, right, I saw people being like,
oh, were they not together?
Did they not hang out anymore?
But it's like 20 years later.
This is just a moment in time of this character.
I didn't necessarily read as like,
Norm is sad or has no good relationships.
I read it as like, the experience that we went through
in season two probably is maybe something
Norm is still working through.
And it's not something that he likes.
The memories aren't great for him when he comes back.
Some people you go to, you can have a great life,
but you go to your high school reunion,
and high school's not a thing you want to remember.
I didn't necessarily be like, when I listened to it,
I was like, man,
this time for normal was harder for him
than it was for the other characters.
That's essentially, for one, it was also like,
if you're gonna do a scene at a high school reunion,
someone has to not wanna be there.
There's no such thing as smoking like-
Not everybody's happy at a high school reunion.
If that scene was just four people being like,
and I'm a therapist, and I got married,
and they'll be like, this sucks, I hate this.
For me, it is like this feeling of like,
his post high school, post college years were very hard.
And I feel like he hit the bottom at some point.
And this is like, you catch him like on his first step up.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, I feel like if he's in therapy,
he was probably like,
I've got a fucking high school reunion coming up.
I really don't want to go.
And-
So if somebody told him he wasn't funny, like,
like it would be hard for him?
Yeah. But he persevered, like you, man.
To me, it was very much like he feels like this
is something he doesn't want to do,
but he knows he needs to do.
And that was kind of the energy that it started to make sense
to me when we played it.
I know we're on this epilogue, but I loved everything.
I mean, the epilogue was by far, I was so, so happy.
But you took it on too, like once it threw to you,
it's also your thing to Freddie of like,
you finally got out is like also like a perfect.
And then doubling down on the Jerry being our kid, like.
As soon as his name rhymed with scary,
I was like, that's my kid.
That's my son.
I think you'll hear it in the uncut too,
but like, I want to talk about that
because we were all laughing when I said honey,
and then you responded, but then you said,
you weirdly thought the same thing.
You were gonna do the same move, right? You thought they were either just dating instead. I thought that they had dated and then you responded. But then you said, you weirdly thought the same thing. You were gonna do the same move, right?
You thought they were either just dating instead.
I thought that they had dated and had broken up.
And then when you said honey, I'm like, we're married.
I don't know what it was.
I was never like a big GothKleets person or anything.
Sorry, Matt, explain what that means.
Oh, GothKleets is the Tumblr ship name.
Ship name.
And I was always-
Because Matt was, by the way, we were on this movie tour, Matt's like, I don't know, the goth cleats fans are
going to be psyched tomorrow. I'm like, Matt, what the fuck did you just say?
I'm learning up. I was like, what the fuck is Matt saying? But yeah,
since it was so spontaneous and I was just like feeling, I sent the thing over
to Norman. Then I was just like, I don't know. Okay. He's a coach. I really know
what's going on. And then just the moment you're describing, I love this image of
scary, just rocking out. You literally just the moment you're describing. I love this image of Scarra just rocking out. I'll be honest with you.
You literally just land on, maybe this is how I think
of my wife, do you just land on like my love,
which is like, Scarra was just this confident woman
dancing on the dance floor,
I'm like, Link's in love with her.
I'm like, Link would marry this woman.
Like, I just said, yes, honey, she is mine now.
I just thought it was so funny.
I'm glad you went with it.
Beth, you then established that, you know, Taylor,
the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Everyone going to jail in that family. I'm glad you went with it. Beth, you then established that, you know, Taylor, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
Everyone going to jail in that family.
I wasn't even thinking about that.
I was just like, what's the dumbest thing
I could fucking say about Taylor?
No, that was really perfect for Scarry.
I feel like that really resonated to people
who really identify with Scarry's arc
because Scarry has such a hard time
thinking that she could love somebody
or that even accepting love from her family
and seeing her be this confident person
not worried about how she's looking in front of them.
And then just having all this care.
Not only having a child,
but just clearly being this very loving mom.
I just loved it.
Thank you.
Yeah, it was important to me that,
I think I went in the opposite direction
that you did, Will, where it's like,
I imagine Scarry still like kind of a
fucking down on herself or has a hard time being happy.
But for this moment, it's like high school meant something
different to her too.
And so for this moment, she's letting it all go.
This is where she met her hubby.
Yeah, fuck it.
I wanted so bad to get choked up during when we were
recording the upload, but I was like, I can't cry again. Oh, no! I was like, you know, Will's getting to get choked up during when we were recording the upload, but I was like, I can't cry again
You know will get a little choked up Anthony was get a little choked up
I was like man, this is such a touching moment, but I gotta keep it together
I don't know where Taylor having an Apple vision broke him from
But the reveal of three angle tracking monitors was yes
Yeah, I saw yeah, yeah.
I saw a couple of theories.
One was that because Link says when we're all trying
to figure out what we're going to do when we're gone,
and Link's like, I never want to pay taxes again.
One of the great-ad jokes in the episode.
But someone was like, yeah, you know what?
They get back, and then Taylor thinks that that happened
and just never pays taxes and gets arrested for it.
Definitely.
Becomes a sovereign citizen.
Taylor manages to get blue collar and white collar crime.
And someone else said that the three ankle monitors
One is from heaven one is from hell and was from earth
I was a big fan of
Okay, we're just jumping around because not technically epilogue was a big fan of Taylor's like before the epilogue ending like I was the same
It's so consistent. I love oh my god. Yeah, and that was a pick up a lot of the stuff with Nick was a pick up. Right. But
the initial you and me are perfect. I love that. It's like no arc. You're both
perfect, but it is like a realization to it. But then pairing it with the Nick
stuff being like Nick sucks like it is this like becomes an arc. Yeah. You break
the cycle of trauma. I guess your own weird thing now
Have daddy issues I have mommy
Like you improv Glenn is being like, I know we'll see if I want to hang out with my
Only like original dad that we see Don't you want to hang out with your grandkids?
Let's find out.
I was like, what is he saying?
Yeah, it's insane.
It's just Glenn saying like a tropey line,
but in the context like, wow, how are you
going to see if you want to go see your grandkids?
What does that mean?
The vibe between Nick and Taylor, I'm just like, no.
And then my favorite little beat with Nick in the episode is then like when
Taylor's like, mom, you and me, we're perfect. We're an amazing family.
And then like Nick still tries to like,
yeah, we are. We definitely are. It's like, no.
It's very, very good.
Yeah. Nick is really own.
I feel like Freddie and Anthony have the same like plot graph in their head where
the hotter a character is the stupid.
Cause it's like, that's like, Nick is like the funniest of the Sundads. He might be my favorite just because it is
like his entrance is this incredibly cool like he shows up and kills all these FBI guys
and it's just like every moment with the character he gets dumber and dumber and dumber. He's
like the tuxedo mask of the season. He's so fucking funny to me. I just love it.
Well there's two sort of beats that I was thinking about with Taylor on the way coming out,
which was, I was like, all right, well, everybody seems to be going through
some pretty interesting, pretty nuanced character stuff. And I had even like,
in terms of my brainstorming, I had like just written out one night, just being like,
what would Taylor say? It didn't end up in any of the uncuts or anything like that.
And he never says it, but in my head, it was like, in his head, he was thinking he's this main character thing.
And then very quickly, both the momentum of the story
and also the normal stuff, it's just like,
oh, he's not the main character.
But then what is he then?
Because that's a real source of tension
for someone who's got main character anime kid energy.
And I was like, oh, the funniest thing would be like
to talk to the other teens, the fellow teens,
and be like, I see now that on this journey, I was tasked with the most important job to bring all of you to your
character realization, to actualize all of you, your growths as human beings, a solemn
task that I undertake with great seriousness, which is like its own like brand of insufferable.
So it's like, that was kind of the energy. But then I was thinking about like, okay,
what's he going to talk about with his mom? So it's like that was kind of the energy. But then I was thinking about, okay, what's he gonna talk about with his mom?
Because it's like very quickly, you'd be like, Hey mom, I don't know about the guy
that you picked and all this stuff. But I'm like, nah, nah, Taylor actually is like a true,
just like, no, no, no, nothing is wrong. Forgive everything, which is its own problem.
But it's like, nah, that's fine for Taylor and his mom. They just think, no, they deserve
everything, which then to me is like, well, of course
he's going to end up in jail at some point.
The person with this kind of attitude
is not the kind of person who's like,
you know what I mean?
Yeah, exactly.
How about you, Anthony?
Yeah.
And the doodler, and you got a little choked up at the end.
Oh, we're going to talk about that?
Yeah.
We're going to talk about that.
What does that mean for you?
Oh, did somebody else cry?
We're talking about being a little bitch boy.
I thought, I had forgotten about the doodler
because he had this like, Nesenian.
Honestly, my favorite part of the epilogue is the doodler coming back.
Yeah. And I thought that was so sweet.
And I know it's like, yeah, but I also just appreciate the way all four of us like,
you know, it's like a surrogate to you.
It's like, no, you don't get me sad, Anthony.
Yeah. Like we're bringing you in to this.
I'm just wondering what the I mean, you did the most work.
The season's the hardest for the DM.
I thought with the doodler thing, part of the reason I was crying because I was thinking about what I wanted it to this, but I'm just wondering what the, I mean, you did the most work. The season's the hardest for the DM. I thought with the doodler thing,
part of the reason I was crying
because I was thinking about what I wanted it to be,
which is the moment from Toy Story 3
where Ellie is like waving to Andy with Woody
and for a second Andy's like,
like Woody's real, like, you know,
he's saying goodbye to his childhood,
that kind of stuff.
And to me that was like dude waving goodbye
to all of you or whatever.
And so that was, I think the main reason I was tearing up
just because I was thinking about Toy Story 3.
I mean, that's fair.
That's a good reason to tear up, though.
And then, yeah, you pulling him in and being like,
no, you have to dance with us.
You're here in the scene now.
I thought it was a really, really funny little moment.
I think we've talked about the finale a lot,
but like, holistically, how do we feel about
season two of Dungeons and Daddies?
Which are we gonna call it legacy?
Is that what we like?
I don't know.
Legacy's pretty good. We don't have to decide on right now.
Yeah, okay.
I mean, I guess we'll be talking about-
Is that a piss, piss, bang, bang?
Piss, piss, bang, bang's pretty good. I guess I'll just jump in. I guess the reason I like
the finale so much is like I thought it was fitting for the season. I think the season
is fitting for what we were exploring with. I don't know if it's chicken or an egg. I
don't know how, if the form of the season
made the characters or the other way around.
But like, I liked that, at least to me,
it felt fittingly high school.
It felt messy, it felt very character driven.
It felt like the characters were trying to explore themselves
and not knowing exactly what's going on.
And like, yeah, sometimes I think it made it more confusing
or some of the, it wasn't like as tight in some ways
as the first season or all these other things.
But at least as a player, listening to it,
it'd be hard for me to even compare them
or like one more the other because it's been so long
since I played Darryl in a real way
and I've grown to really love Link and all of his friends
and the ending felt, it felt very appropriate.
I don't know, I felt better after the end
of this finale recording than I did
after season one finale.
Yeah, I did as well.
It really felt perfect for me as a player.
I just felt really satisfied.
Weirdly enough, for it being all kind of more messy
in some ways, I thought the very end was a lot tighter
and simpler and cohesive.
Everybody only needed a tiny little moment with their dads.
And it wasn't after the battle and everything else,
when the moms come in.
It was a little moment is all we needed
to kind of feel like we had been through a journey of high school and
then that epilogue was just felt so organic and like unstrained and just
like fun like I don't know it just felt yeah I think it's a much better finale
than season one's finale and for me when I think about the season as a whole it
does what I respect the most in the artists who I love which is like people
made it hurt me make this comparison before but when we talk about anime to just give you may have heard me make this comparison before, but when we talk about anime, they just give you, you'll see where
I'm going here. But like when we talk about anime, right? Miyazaki is the goat. Everyone
acknowledges that. But for me, I like Masaki Yuasa better and Masaki Yuasa has done a whole
bunch of range of things. And I would sum up their bodies of work as follows. Miyazaki,
it's never below a B plus A minus, right? It's always an A minus, at least if not A, right?
And then if you look at Yuasa's work,
some of those movies are dog shit.
Like some of them are just wild swings,
but because he's going wild, some of his movies go higher.
They reach greater heights than anything
that like Miyazaki has done, in my opinion.
And so to me, I'd much rather be the kind of person
and do the kind of person
and do the kind of work where it's like taking big swings. And to me, season two was this like big swing
and it's different.
And I think it's very easy to look at and be like,
oh, yeah, okay, here's what we have this formula
in season one, let's just copy this, let's just do it
and let's just run this as long as we can.
And even philosophically, I've been fucking doing this game
since right out of college.
I've seen rises and falls of empires, of entire, like hell.
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
And I've seen so many things, both individuals, groups,
they fall into the trap of we made something cool
and it's working and we gotta run this as long as we can.
And like, I've seen the end of that road
for a number of my peers in this space,
and it's a horrific road.
It never ends well.
Nobody ends up happy,
and it always leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.
Whereas, I think for everything that we've always tried,
and something I'm so proud of with season two,
and something I'm so proud of with this group,
is the bravery of being able to like, take a weird swing,
not knowing where it's going to go.
And that's like, I can tell you, it's so much harder
when you have like a baseline of success that you're like,
okay, hey, this is already kind of working.
Why shouldn't we do this?
It's like, yeah, but like there's a trapeze artist
risk taking that happened in season two.
And I found myself when playing Taylor,
having so much more fun, I think, than playing Glenn.
You know, I love both characters dearly,
but for me, there was something about
being able to play Taylor and to be able to
bounce around in this space.
And to have that feeling of like,
ooh, I don't know what's gonna happen here.
I don't know where we're going.
Wait, you're bringing in someone to do stand up in front of?
Like, well, this is, you know,
I think that having that feeling
and that is something I value very greatly
when it comes to creative work,
because I think it's way too easy to get stuck
doing one thing and trying to chase that,
because you're never gonna chase it.
So instead, try something different
and try to like, zag out a little bit
and see like where it goes.
That's what I think I'm most proud of
when I look back at the sort of body of season two
is that it is so distinctly different
and I just, I loved it.
But that's sort of my subjective take on it.
So I'm really proud of I'm proud of
everything that we do I'm proud of the ways that we continue to experiment and
I like that we're willing to like just go for a thing and see how it goes and
do our best on it and it's gonna be different I think that that's the only
way you survive in this weird creative world there's only one constant I've
seen over and over again which is people get sick of things. And I think the worst thing that can happen
is not that your audience gets sick of something.
It's when you get sick of something.
And I've seen the people get sick of something.
And I think over and over again, when I think about this show,
when I think about the directions that we push it,
when I think about the directions that Anthony,
you are pushing things in season two, that gets me excited.
And if you're not excited, I think,
as someone who creates something in this very, very
saturated world of visual and audio media
that you can consume, if you yourself, the creator,
isn't excited about, then what the fuck is the point?
Go find something else that you can do.
I've just had a blast, and I really enjoyed
just the whole process from beginning to end.
Something I think is really interesting about season two
and looking at this as a person who hasn't been doing this
since college, who's only became kind of a public person
since season one of Dungeons and Daddies,
is that in comparing the two seasons,
season two had pressure to live up to season one
and stuff like that. But it's like we're playing kids who are pressure to live up to season one and stuff like that.
But it's like we're playing kids who are pressured
to live up to the legacy of their parents.
And so it's like, it's like a weird...
Like, I remember something that stressed me out about season two
was like having to contend with all of the knowledge
of the season that came before.
Like having to hold all of that in my mind as a character
and as a person, like, just knowing facts
and, like, feeling the weight of season one on top of me.
And I thought that's even cooler than that we were able
to create something new and kind of just, like, yeah,
get out under the shadow and form our own kind of thing.
Because at the end of the day, you're your own person
and you're not your parents as
much as society would have you think otherwise.
So it's an interesting kind of a zag.
Yeah, I think that's why the epilogue was so fun.
It's like the other dads were in there at all.
Like, it really felt like the four of them were just like them now into their own.
Yeah. To me, the metaphor is that season two felt like raising a teenager.
Like it was like this kid,
you have like a bunch of your own conceptions
of what they're gonna be like,
how they're gonna grow up,
all based on, you know, like,
your own distorted, rose-tinted version
of your own childhood,
which for me was like my version
of like whatever season one was.
So, like, you watch them and then you're like,
oh, this isn't, they aren't what I thought they were.
They're making mistakes that I can't control them and then you're like, oh, this isn't, they aren't what I thought they were.
They're making mistakes that I can't control
and they are doing things that are, you know,
their own thing and they're failing
and learning their own lessons.
But it's like, you watch a kid grow up and make friends
and like have experiences that you've never seen before.
And then like, they come into their own
and you're so fucking proud of them.
And that was a kind of my arc with it.
Like I think I came in with way too much baggage.
Like the same kind of pressures you were talking about,
Beth, like being very nervous about living up to season one.
I know I was excited to do something different,
but I don't think I was quite ready to really,
I was like, I knew that that was something we should do,
but I wasn't quite ready for everything
that that was gonna take.
And then I think at a certain point,
like it was just, you kind of surrender your control of it
and you go with it. And then it think at a certain point, like, it was just, you kind of surrender your control of it, and you go with it.
And then it was like, I don't think
there's a funnier run in the entire show
than finding Tori into fucking the Apollo Space Mission
episode.
It was like, I think the funniest one-two punch
in the entire show.
And then, like, then Terry dies the next episode.
Yeah.
And so it's like, I love it just as much as season one.
I'm just as proud of it.
I think I'm going to be more proud of it.
I'm really, really, really going to miss playing normal.
I'm going to miss playing the other characters.
Yeah, I don't know.
It was a journey.
I think it was definitely a harder process than season one
for me.
And it was a struggle.
And at the end of the day, I'm extremely proud of it.
And I'm extremely proud of all you guys.
And I am.
You're going to roll natural one and not crying.
I am extremely proud of Anthony. Yeah. Yeah. Which I know he doesn't want to hear. So we'll press it. I just,
you took on so much fucking work this year and it was so hard.
And I know that a lot of the, a lot of it was especially hard for you,
which again, we don't have to get into, if you're not comfortable with it, but that's fine. And I know that a lot of the, a lot of it was especially hard for you, which again,
we don't have to get into if you're not comfortable with it.
It's fine. Like I,
the way you showed up every day, the way you,
you put your whole effort into it. Um,
and the originality you brought to everything and the division you had for it
and the,
the way that you were able to keep going and just carry us to this fucking
ending. That was amazing.
Like, I'm in awe of it.
And last thing I wanted to talk about
from the finale itself was the choice to have,
I was just so stunned by the simplicity of it,
but having the kids sit on the throne of God
and get to make one choice,
essentially just turning the keys completely over
to the players for one moment
is such an incredible act of trust in your collaborators.
And it was also just like, it makes sense.
It fits in the thing.
And it's like the perfect climax of the show
because it also is like, again,
like so much of that is us trying to undo
our parents' mistakes and like wrestling
with the choices that they made.
And then it's like, okay, now you have the ultimate choice.
What are you gonna do with it?
And it just allows the characters to kind of like,
have this sort of, to me, like a really satisfying conclusion
where again, we choose to love instead of hate.
And without spelling anything at all,
it wasn't like, you have your choices or A or B.
It was like, do whatever you guys want.
I thought it was so fucking cool, man.
And anyway, I just, it was an absolute joy
and one of the greatest creative experiences in my life
playing this game that you laid out for us.
Thank you very much.
Yeah.
Yeah, I had a really hard time with this season.
I came in super excited for it because I was like,
ooh, I've got these twists planned.
I've got the code purple thing, and I've got all this stuff
with the dads, and I've got this entire basically lost season
that is an entire story about just the season one kids
and now the season two dads. Yeah, yeah, and I think the
Awkwardness of elements of this season is me trying to force that into a story that should be yours
Or I don't know. I have a lot of very mixed feelings about this season, but I
Generally think that we did something really cool
Generally speaking I think it ends well. I think all the character stuff that you guys did was really really smart
I think we found a couple of little set pieces that were really really fun and really really different
I was basically in a pretty bad emotional space for a lot of this season for a variety of reasons
But mainly because I read too much commentary online about like the show and so so I was like, oh, I'm ruining it.
Like, I'm ruining the livelihood of five people.
And it was a big weight on me.
Yeah. But the thing that ultimately made me feel like.
OK, about this season is I realized like, oh, this is our legend of Cora.
Like nobody likes, nobody likes, of course, as much as they like Avatar.
But everybody is like, yeah, it's pretty good show.
It's probably worth watching.
And if I'm going to do a rewatch of all of Avatar,
yeah, I might as well do a rewatch of Legend of Cor, too.
You know, hey, why not?
And to me, that's sort of where I I sit with this season.
I think there's a lot of mistakes I made early on in the season that I
I think we got away from, thankfully.
And I think we we landed the plane in a nice place ultimately.
But yeah, I think going forward, the next season that I DM is going to have less
direct connection to the season prior to it, because I think that was a lot of the
stuff that made me really interested in the season.
But also a lot of the stuff that made some of the difficulties and some of the
imperfections sort of show up.
But I think generally speaking, it was a big swing.
I'm glad I made the swing.
It didn't always hit, but I'm glad that we did it.
And I'm very proud of all of you for the work that you put into it.
I'll give you one more compliment.
Oh, because we talked about...
No, because I think it's important.
It's something that I think everybody learns and at once, because it's not like this is
the first thing you've had a long and varied career in video games and writing and so forth
and so on.
But I think it's not easy, but it is definitely easier
to be creative and keep going when you're having a good time
and when it's going well.
Like that is, that's the height.
That's like the most fun part about creativity
and it's the most fun part about this job.
But I think real artists and people who will stay
in an industry or a career, the harder thing
is to keep going
when you don't feel good about it,
when you're not sure about it,
when you're doubting yourself.
That's the hardest part.
And the longer you do this,
the more you will have those times.
And the way a lot of people deal with it
is just to put their head down
and go through the paces and just get through it.
You're just putting your head down,
you're just hoping you get to the other end.
But I never saw that with you.
And that's the hardest thing to do.
And it's the thing that I always struggle with
and always try to make sure.
And honestly, like your job is a lot harder.
Like for me, like I co-write a lot, I coach,
like it's nice when you have somebody like
in that little bubble with you
cause you can push each other a little bit
when a person's feeling down like that.
But even when you're at your lowest,
like you're always trying to find something creative
and interesting and new to do.
And to me, that's what makes a real artist and a
real creative person. So I was just very impressed with you the whole season. I
know it's hard, but you did a great job. Thank you very much. And like your
humility is a club. We don't all need to jump on. We do a circle. Now we all
get a part about Anthony. You only got to deal with this once a season. I won't go.
I won't. Yeah I won't go.
Yeah, I will be very surface level and bitchy about it, but you know, it's like, I fucking
get my feelings heard all the time.
Like if somebody's like, this idea is better.
I'm like, fuck, what is wrong with me?
Your ability to take ideas from other people and incorporate them and say, let's do this
differently and let's, I think it takes much more strength than anybody would admit to.
So, yeah, I'm in awe of you, man.
And I also think a lot of the legacy stuff, just to talk about the show in general,
the last season, I think is actually super cool.
Like, and I think it actually like it winds up being a hard thing to integrate.
I think you're absolutely right.
And like there were times where I felt like it's very appropriate for the show
because it's these there's no other way to do it.
We're the fucking kids of the kids who went on the thing.
So like what those kids were doing,
how they grew up is an integral part of
A, both the fact that it's a sequel season
and that people are very,
again, people got really attached to Lark and Sparrow
and Grant and Terry, which is a credit to your work.
But like people really wanted to know
what happened to those guys when they grew up.
So like the story of their broken friendship
is a huge part of what influences the story this season.
So it is a lot of the meat and gristle
that the kids themselves are wrestling
with the sins of their fathers.
So it's essential.
And it's a hard lift to figure out how to work that in.
But it is, I think, a lot of the really compelling moments
throughout the season came out of that stuff.
Like, I really loved everything we did with Normal
and with finding out what happened with Code Purple,
which was devastating.
I really like the time jumpy episode where the dads show up
and we're seeing that stuff.
It wound up being a really interesting and fun element
of the show.
So that was all I wanted to say about that.
To speak sort of broadly about this weird space
that we get into, like like I want to also make sure
that we acknowledge we're in such weird territory right now.
You know, I mean, this isn't like we're sitting here
writing a TV show and there's been how many hundreds
of thousands of TV shows and writers rooms you can look at
or feature films or dramas or plays or free act, whatever.
Right?
The thrill, the tightrope walk of this genre
which is what excited me about it when we first started. and it was what is I think exciting to so many people who listen
To it and a reason why it has grown even as a genre in the five years that we've been doing it going from a
niche of a niche of a niche of a podcast genre to something that we can do and have this be almost like a
Career of sorts for us. This is weird territory.
And it's almost like it's a writer's room where it's like, cool,
you get one shot at your idea and it's live and we're working it immediately in.
It's a tightrope walk. It's a fresco painting, right? And it's like, again,
I always have been listening. I've been quietly listening to other shows as well.
And again, there's different styles. There's other DM styles who are like,
okay, you get a sense that they've written out a whole lore and all that stuff.
But like, I think we go against that by me preparing nothing.
But I think that like, he brings nothing into the drift.
But like there's something like really interesting and really exciting and unique
about that approach.
Right.
Because I think we know the world of like, okay, it's written out.
And to me, it's like, this is something that's live on its feet and it's evolving.
And it feels way more like free jazz.
As a writer, it definitely reminds me of a first draft
is what it always feels like.
I think like your first draft of a screenplay
is usually pretty weird and kind of like all over the place.
But like also the rowdiest ideas are in the first draft.
Exactly, exactly.
And the crazy designs and the stuff
that you remember from it.
To me, a lot of the fun of like surrendering yourself to that and then just fucking going for it like has been. Yeah. Anyway, it's just been really. Yeah. It's a terrifying process. And I'm proud of us for being able to just be like, no, again, keep going at it like this. Right. Like on the spot. What can you come up with? What are you evolving in the moment? What's everyone in there? There's like an energy, which is by the way, like I think one of the reasons why this show,
we felt such a difference in this show season one when we switched, when the pandemic hit and we switched to remote, right?
Like there's something very much that I value about this weird living room setup
that we have that feels so much more immediate and like
this live fucking ball of electricity that we're throwing around to each other. There's, I don't know, I never would have thought
getting into movies that the process of storytelling
could express and manifest itself
in so many different ways and different approaches
that yield such interesting end results.
And I think that like for me,
the last five years of this has been a real like lesson
in being like, hey, all this stuff that you went
to film school, you think you know about narrative
and all this stuff, it's like, take all that bullshit
and like, no, no, no, no.
There's even other ways of looking at that.
There's even other ways of approaching the fundamental
things that we think we know about storytelling
and look at how it works and look at the flavor
and look at the angles that you can get from this
that you can't even touch in the world of like,
if you had written this all out and you had this all planned out and there's
all every idea had 10 different iterations and we bounced it around for
two weeks pounding our head in the writers room it's like it's been such a
great reminder of like the ways that storytelling can shift and have all of
these really interesting outputs anyway yeah it's like I mean there's permission
to play and there's permission to fail and And I love that. If we could zoom out for a second.
I've got some questions to cut in line for maybe some of our listener.
Oh, do we have listener questions?
I'm sure we do. Oh, OK.
What do you think your most memorable record was of this season?
Who asked that one?
Oh, no, this is just Beth's question.
Oh, these are Beth's questions.
Oh, OK. Oh, yeah. I mean, probably doing stand up for Tori.
Gotta be Tori. Yeah, that's the most honorable.
It's like burned in my mind.
Oh, my God. Matt, with the Garfield movie, I remember my insides coming out of my body.
It was like it was horrific.
I loved every second of it.
I still think about your joke about like you wish you had a time travel machine
so you could go back and tell more sexist jokes.
I think that the Tory thing was like a crazy therapist
in a movie would do to you.
And especially for me, like again,
I have a ton of anxiety.
Like I very much have a perfectionism thing.
So like Anthony just shoving us out the fucking airlock
and being like, this person has not seen the show.
They don't care.
They're just fucking here.
It's like, this is a stranger.
And like do it in character, stand up in front of them.
Like again, it's like his exposure therapy for failure, right?
You know, like after I did that, it was like, I don't have any fear about this guy.
This is like I can fucking do anything now.
Like it was a really, really fun.
It doesn't feel like that actually happened.
Yeah, like we brought that up.
I'm like, that's right. This season's wild.
Like we did stand up in family guy universe to a stranger.
Yeah, that's definitely most memorable.
For whatever reason,
I think the one that really still sticks in my mind was an early one when we end
up teleported into the FBI and we're stuck in that room.
And I remember just like not the whole record, but that section there being like,
Oh, what the fuck am I going to do now?
And ending that episode and then getting into the next one with that feeling for
a whole week was very memorable to me in the course of this one.
I remember the one where Elise showed up.
Yeah.
Was like, that was the one where I think
the season two tone like locked in.
Yeah.
I go back to all the time, the trumpet acid joke.
Yeah.
Where like the trumpet acid joke was like,
this is not a season one joke.
Like I don't think we would ever do
the trumpet acid joke in season one.
But it was like, oh, okay,
season two is playing by different rules.
That and then the pilot, like I remember just coming in
with such a fucking nervous energy,
and like once we hit the ground running
and like the elevator bit, like I think was like-
The whale.
Yeah, the whale, like, do you wanna see the whale?
Like, I just remember laughing so fucking hard
in the room with that stuff.
Yeah.
Fave intro.
Ooh, the intro.
Favorite intro.
We went much more musical this season.
Yeah, we do a disservice to ourselves by only
Replaying the musical intros before our live listens. I often forget some of our non musical intros because of that
I really like the ladybird one the what the ladybird one
Because that one has like the very specific beat from the trailer yeah
Like the Eltonans into a gun
Lady Bird 7 no it's a gun is a yeah
We should do a compilation of all the non-musical
Because it's probably like what 45 minutes it would be fun to yeah
I'll answer to two different versions of the musical ones of the non-musical ones of the non-musical ones
we've done several Metal Gear parodies, but link and
Taylor doing the mission briefing about Kegels.
The fact that you can hear when it like goes into like live action footage.
Yeah.
But you can just hear the audio quality changes, like the most specific joke for
the smallest amount of people that I hope appreciate it so very much.
It's two lines.
Fucking Matt does this perfect Link as David Hader
as Solid Snake fucking voice, which is so funny.
And then like, I just re-listened to this one.
Taylor has a couple specific beats that cracked me up.
One just the like, after World War II
and the defeat of Emperor Hirohito.
Which has nothing to do with the cakeless guy.
Yeah.
Is that, and then there's this one line where you're like,
Link.
And it's like exactly how the Colonel's a snake
These guys have played so much fucking metal
That was a fan I had one of my favorite ones to write was the one where Tony pepperoni dies and the Queen had just died
Funeral like I found like this like 30 minute
Oh yeah! Oh my god! We do Tony Pepperoni's funeral.
And like, I remember like, I found like this like
30 minute BBC video of the Queen's funeral procession.
And I like, I was like the most pizza puns
I've ever stuffed into anything.
I just had a ton of fun writing that one.
Yeah, that one was fun too,
because I was, for the reverb of that,
I was trying to match the actual church reverb to like,
which is like such a weird little side joke.
But it makes that joke, it wouldn't work without like,
everyone's been in a church and heard the echo-y microphone.
Yeah, it was a very specific, like everyone's been in a church and heard the echo
Yeah, and then in terms of the song ones we hit the ground running this season with the music parodies to the point where I'm like We should be cool. This is too easy. We should be doing less musical parodies next season huge fan of all-star
Yeah, that was the first one we made Anthony sing on and I was like, oh shit
Anthony fucking killed it. That was another one where it's like I think I had another idea and was like, all right Let's just fucking and was like, oh, this Anthony fucking killed it. And there's that pipe. That was another one where I was like, I think I had another idea and I was like,
all right, let's just fucking,
and I was like, oh, this is,
like once I heard, I didn't think it was sad when I wrote it
and then we heard it, it was like, oh my God.
Yeah, it's crushing.
People were like, cry, listen to this All Star parody.
I'll be watching you from the stars, fuck off.
The most fun I had was definitely the Bill Nye one
because of just how loosely we recorded it
and how just perfectly it ended up
and just being able to go into and play with like, okay
What are the effects they would have had in like the 90s? They wouldn't have any of these nice effects
It would all be really pretty like wow. Yeah, and then I mean like to me far and away
The best intro was the redux of see you again
Don't you understand?
I'm just a fucking troll.
It's so good.
It's so funny, the audacity of it.
I'm proud of that one.
I'm so proud of that one.
Nobody else liked it.
It's so much funnier.
I'm still in love with the idea
that this character that was in there for half a second.
For half a second.
It's as much of a thing as Payton did
Yeah, I'm a big fan of that one
My favorite is that one
And then my other favorite is just Black Parade with you, Beth
Oh yeah, holy shit
It'll be this open like, I never care
That song's whatever to me
Don't fuck yourself
For what, really?
It's whatever to me, never hit me
Best singing it, I get the song now
And I would always rather listen to your version
than the real version.
Yeah, I prefer Beth's version.
100%.
I think the voice, okay, it's not about the specific
scene quality or whatever, like your voice
and the way you perform it, to me is, I don't care.
To me is better than who, I don't even care
who the band is.
Gerard Way, Gerard.
I don't care.
With respect on his name.
Is better, is better.
I love it.
Beth, do you feel like those early ones,
because we did that and then we also did Mr. Brightside.
Do you think that got you ready for sophomore slump?
Oh, yeah.
OK.
Well, for some reason, it had never
occurred to me that I would be doing sophomore slump
until I very vividly remember Freddie coaching me
on the screaming parts of Black Parade and stuff like that,
and then driving home and being like, I think I can do this.
Like if I fucking put my mind to it.
So yeah, it was like a big pivotal intro for me.
I also, I'm fucking this last intro, I'm sorry.
I just loved playing Jessica so much.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's so good.
The line of that what is still to me is Anthony should be like,
I've asked you several times not to call a call.
Fuck, I just had a blast with it.
There is a vast deference between, is like,
I don't know how that joke is laid on the table
for all of human history,
and you're the first person to make that,
because it's such a good joke.
What's crazy too is like, and I love that we kept this,
is like, because it's still kind of worse,
but if you listen to it, you can absolutely tell,
it's like, is that you're breaking?
I know, I'm totally like, corpseing it.
You're corpseing as you say it,
because it's so insane.
Yeah, we didn't really have a script for that one,
so I was like, calm and pee pee.
I was losing my mind.
We broke many times in that recording.
That was a fun.
That was, yeah, that was a very funny.
That was a cool, like, uncut record.
I think my favorite little bit,
not to bring it back to Schmeggen,
but like, I can't remember,
I think it was your idea, Matt,
to have Henry show up. I can't remember if we were like, and then Henry shows up and doesmagan, but like I can't remember. I think it was your idea, Matt, to have Henry show
up. I can't remember.
We were like, and then Henry shows up and does first and
then I was like, I wouldn't be funny if Henry showed up and
then you're like, give him like a fucking kid.
Give him a new kid, a new kid, which is how we came up with
Birdie Oak, a fan favorite who was supposed to show up at one
point, but did not show up, which I like more than she's
just out there. Is she a bird?
Is she a bird?
We'll never know. But that was very fun. That's real troll energy. did not show up, which I like more than just out there. Is she a bird? Is she a person?
We'll never know. But that was very fun.
I was really like, I think it was like, I was like, put lore in this.
Nobody will like put a lore jump in there.
Yeah, huge lore drop in there.
This is a pure troll energy intro.
Which when I heard that intro, I was like,
I don't know what to do.
Here's one more thing I can either ignore or try to wrap up.
Speaking of theme music and songs.
Yes, speaking of intros and music and all this stuff,
stay tuned, folks.
We got Maxton Waller in the live waiting room waiting
to come on and talk about the theme song.
Well, he's mugging to the green room cam right now.
We'll see him after the break.
["The Green Room Cam"]
We'll see him after the break. Should we introduce our special guest for this part of the Daster Show?
Look who just walked into the studio.
Hello.
Hey, y'all.
You know what I was thinking actually we should talk about first is our confusion about the
certain lyrics of like classic rock songs that we listen to and songs from musicals.
Well, that's going to be in the video.
Yeah, video.
Nevermind.
Great.
Really great video of us.
Max and Max, and you're here to talk about the music.
Yeah, you have ideas.
Fuck me.
Right?
Yeah.
Hey, Max, why don't you stay in your fucking way?
Rest that pretty little area.
We shot a really good video.
I'm still cutting it together.
But just like a really good video of us doing our gang vocals, our teen vocals
for the end song.
But let's talk about the intro song and the end song
and what was different this time around.
We interrupted, Anthony had like a good intro.
Yeah, that's a good question.
And we just talked over him.
So go ahead, Anthony.
I was going to ask, at what point did you decide,
instead of doing the typical season one sad acoustic version
of the theme song, to do a marching band version instead?
Well, Freddie texted me and said, start thinking
about a different version for end of season two.
I think I was watching TV or watching trailers at home,
and I was like, epic trailer version.
What if it was a piano blink at the beginning?
And Freddy just didn't respond.
I was like, all right, so no on that one, I guess.
Yeah.
And then we was compiling the drone shots, you know,
for the Epic Dreamer.
Yeah, we texted back and forth a little bit about it.
Marching Bay was actually your idea.
I had a dream.
I remember Freddie woke up.
And then you and I had this.
And I saw you in the Discord said the same thing.
So we met in the dreamscape, my brother.
What? Yeah, I was just, I met Freddie and the astral projected over to Freddie's
house. What about a marching band version?
And then, you know, I turned into a big alligator and Freddie.
No, I was traveling the astral plane.
Freddie was traveling the astral plane at this time.
No, I didn't wake up. I think it was on the tour.
We met and I, we just, you know, we got back from this film tour showing our movie.
And then I was like, one of the mornings I was like, hmm, something different.
Marching band. Yeah, I figured we were going to do another acoustic one.
And then you were like, let's do something different.
And then you said, Martin, yeah, it literally never occurred to me
that it would be an acoustic.
I was like, it's going to be something different.
I remember because we were on the plane.
And Fray is like, Matt, sometimes when I dream,
good ideas come.
I'm like, where's this going?
And he's like, this is why I listen to myself and my dreams.
Like, OK.
He's like, a marching band version, not acoustic.
We can't do the same shit again.
A marching band, it's going to be good.
It's good.
Is he doing the Italian hand gesture like that?
Yeah, he was.
He was like, this is why I listen to my dreams.
I was like, no, that is a good idea, Freddie.
Good job.
You should dream more.
That was very good.
So yes, they did come to you in your dream and you're very excited by it.
And it's perfect. Yeah.
Can you tell us a little bit more about how much you liked Freddie's idea?
This one or all of them?
No, I love this idea.
I mean, it was so Wednesday at Vidiot, some people came up to me
and they were like, hair, are we going to get an acoustic version of on my way?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, I don't think we had figured it out yet.
And I was like, no, no, probably not.
But I don't know.
Trying to be kind of vague about it.
This was a little bit last minute.
And I have to give you a lot of credit for jumping on
and being like, oh, hell yeah.
And turning it around very, very quickly.
It was a wild weekend, but it was fun.
Yeah, so that was the only thing that was kind of stressful
was like, because marching band is like,
to make it sound real with software instruments,
you need a lot of tracks.
And you have to kind of put them all in a space.
And the space has to be the same kind of across all the tracks.
So then you're, for like the music nerds out there,
you're stuck determining like, OK,
am I going to use like the microphones that
are built into the software instrument tracks? Or am I going to use like the microphones that are built into the software instrument tracks or am I going to use a
Reverb that sounds like a room across the board
Yeah, I went with the first one because the mic sounded pretty good
But the most time-consuming thing was the dialing in of the I would imagine too
Because there's actually quite a bit of horns in the original
So like making that distinct which I think you did a great job of,
that is another challenge in terms of like,
because it sounds like a marching band, which is super cool.
But yeah, that's awesome.
It's deceiving.
Because in the original, there's actually
three tracks that are stereo horn tracks.
And on each one, I'd say there's about three or four horn parts.
And one of them I just muted, because it wasn't working.
Interesting.
There's a thing that happens in the chorus.
It's like a bow.
Bam, bam, ba-da, da-ga.
And I just muted that, because I was like, that's not really.
So the other thing about the room
sounds of the marching band instruments
was that with the way that these samples were working,
there's a much longer delay.
And because I was doing it in Pro Tools,
figuring out the delay compensation was like sometimes literally dragging over
the so like timing everything.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And all of that.
What is the room like?
What is it that you eventually ended up on?
Like, is it like, you know, studio hall three?
It was like whatever they recorded it in.
So but they get different mic positions when they do it and a lot of it
Was a Spitfire library called drum line for the drums. Oh, and a lot of the
Spitfire stuff is recorded at Abbey Road or okay
There are studios like actual instruments that are recorded as samples and then you can kind of line them up yourself to make what you
Want out of them. That's good. That's yeah exactly
Did you have to watch the Nick Cannon movie
Drumline to get into the space?
OK.
Yeah, it's burned into my memory.
The only question I had, and this
is the only note I had on an early draft, which was,
where did the library of the one guy blowing the whistle
at the beginning come from?
Because all the marching bands are like,
ta-da, ka-ka, and then there's this one guy, twee.
You know what I mean?
What's that guy doing?
Is there a special library just for him
or was that you with a whistle outside?
I thought about it.
I thought about the whistle library.
I just couldn't justify the $49 whistle library
that I was only gonna use one time.
I got it off of Splice.
Just every song you do from now on has a whistle.
Is that the whistle guy?
I'm making it worth it.
I gotta get my money's worth out of this.
What do you think about whistle right here?
I gotta watch this song.
One of the guys just to hype everyone up blew a whistle really hard at worth out of this. What do you think about Whistle right here? What if a guy just to hype everyone up
blew a whistle really hard at the beginning of this song too?
And then I was gonna go buy a Whistle and do it,
but then I forgot and I ran out of time.
So I-
And Whistles were $49 also and you're like,
yeah.
I was like-
I mean, if scissors are $42,
they're gonna be worth it. Yeah, it's the same size
as your scissors.
Yeah, and it's just gonna open a fucking landfill anyway.
So like, you know what I mean?
I found one on Splice, which is like an online sample library.
Oh, cool.
Online whistle store.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I searched drill beats, and then I
found they have like all the different layers
of different beats in there.
And I found a whistle, and I just cut it and like tuned it.
I think I tuned it up.
So is that a custom drum line that you put together yourself?
Or was that like, because I was like, how, where did you like,
do you have a lot of experience cooking up, cooking up a drum line part?
Because it feels like an incredibly specific type of percussion thing to do.
I texted this to Freddie.
It was just individual samples that I kind of like programmed in.
But I was in drum line. No shit in high school.
But don't get excited because the whistle we didn't have real drums because our teacher
You know, god bless him like didn't have his stuff together too great. So we're hitting trash cans. Okay
And I remember we went in this parade
There's like a lot of parades in Tampa and like right on Bayshore and we went in this local like kids parade and I was holding
this hefty 50 gallon plastic garbage bin
upside down and like hitting it with an actual drum mallet.
And by the end, my hand was just so blistered
and like messed up from the,
we were walking like two miles doing this
for like an hour, you know, it sucked.
But no, I mean, like as far as that goes,
it was pretty straightforward
if you know what it's supposed to sound sure
Yeah, drum lines is like you take the beat and they just put a lot more in there
There are drum majors out there shake
Even was out. yeah, I mean
Yeah, that's it's kind of the gist of it but yeah, that's probably gonna upset some people
Matt's already pissed off farmers
farmers and today. He just says what we're all thinking.
I think it is.
Yeah, it's a lot of knowing what the rhythms sound like,
and then layering them in.
And there was, I think, twice, I would walk away
and go get a coffee and come back and listen to it.
And I'm like, this is unhinged.
There's way too much going on.
So mute a bunch of stuff.
The idea was to get it to sound as big as possible
using as few tracks as possible, I guess.
So we're just sound like a coffin of noise because it will.
Very quickly, especially with like 800 snare drums, you know.
Also this one, by the way, just to keep talking about this track,
everyone got a second verse that wasn't in there before.
Well, before we talk about the second verse in particular, can we zoom out a little bit
and talk about like, you're kind of like a creepo because you somehow wrote a song that
made more sense after we completed the story that you did not hear you. Oh, yeah. So like, how, I know this is your job.
How did you do that?
Like, what was your approach to the second season theme
in general?
Because I don't even think we've had you on to just discuss
the second season theme.
You know, we, when we did the season two theme,
Freddie and I talked like at length about what the
characters, who they were, like what this season was going
to be like as much as we knew at that point.
There's like a lot of, I used to tell myself
it'll be all right.
Like it was intended to kind of be an evolution
of the first, you know?
Yeah, that comes through, I think.
Yeah.
Is that what you mean?
Maybe it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy
because that song.
I guess, yes.
We hear it all the time.
Because you read it so much.
We know it so much.
No, I mean, I actually genuinely think that's partially true.
The song becomes part of the identity of the show to me.
So then like I kind of play to it.
Yeah. Also, there's an alternate version.
You guys did a like a first version of the season two theme
that was like way more like upbeat.
It had like a lot of like the who kind of influence on it.
It was like, yeah, I was like much more optimistic.
It's about time. Yeah.
It was like a really hard rock and roll, which I loved.
But once we did the second one, and I remember when we all
listened to it, it was like, holy shit.
I remember cranking that in my car.
It definitely flavored how I was thinking about the season,
for sure.
We were also just coming off of the Fetch Quest theme,
so I was fucking pissed.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
So I mean, as far as influencing the show,
does that mean I get an EP credit or something?
Yeah.
I just said it.
Cool.
Thanks.
Matt says what we're all saying.
Unless you unionize, you'll get whatever credit you want.
Yeah.
And then as we said, we get the whole song at the end here.
Yeah.
So are you saying that because you're not playing the?
You know, there's a podcast edit.
And if you recall, for those're not playing the you know, there's a podcast edit If you recall for those of you remember season one
The dictum of season ones like intro was very specific and it was designed entirely around the fact that at some point
Something needs to drop out and we need to do an intro to a podcast. So like structurally it's not like what you know full song
It's not full song
It's a podcast song right with a little bit of a verse that dips out for a little bit as the background music goes. Right. So it's like, it's fulfilling
needs beyond kind of the typical, just like, I want to make a three and a half minute catchy
song. Similar to this, you know, like there's two verses and then we were like, Oh, but
like, you know, it was a podcast. So we got to get into the show, you know, so we dock
and then we don't hear it. We haven't heard it until this point, which was I think kind
of cool. It was always hidden there.
Yeah, it was always in the...
Except for the people who went to Bandcamp to download the full version.
Yeah, the real ones.
The true, the true, the true.
That's true. That's true. That's true.
Yeah. And it's funny you talk about that too, because like as far as alright goes,
it's like the most positive response I've ever had to anything I ever did in my life.
Oh, really?
Yeah, like you said, it's like a minute and 30 seconds long and I'm just like maybe I should just write songs
There are a minute and you and I talked about that one time actually you were talking about tick tockers
Have you seen this like hyper music
No, hi, is that what it's called? I love it
I saw a YouTube video the other day that was basically they're like, yes
You're gonna take this EDM song and speed it up 30 BPM
And then you're gonna chop this up and then speed it up again
And it was crazy, but it was really fun and I don't know. I really dig it
You know, I think we're entering this like Dada is deconstructivist era when it comes to pop music for the first time you're getting like just
Absurd sounding stuff stuff that makes you feel like old for the first time dog
Yeah, it's such an interesting kind of like combination of our attention spans are so short that we need like two-minute songs
But then when you find a song that you really like you just want it to be longer
So this is kind of an interesting little situation there. Yeah
Yeah, totally weren't song shorter though. No, no, like the Beatles and the Monkees.
Yeah, back in the day.
Because there's that sample that Kanye uses
that whatever that famous guy's like,
here's all you need for a two minute song.
And then that streaming got,
before they realized that it was all about the number
of tracks as songs, as concept albums started becoming,
again, it was all long.
But I feel like whenever I listen to the Monkees,
every song from the Monkees is two minutes long.
Yeah, there's some jazz songs that are old jazz standards that if you just listen to the old recordings of them, yeah, they're like a minute and a is like two minutes long. Yeah, there's some jazz songs that are like old jazz standards that if you just listen to
All recordings of them. Yeah, they're like a minute. Yeah, I guess like classic rock
Like 22 minutes long also
Too long song which is Led Zeppelin's whole lot of love which has that whole shitty section in the middle
They go from the hardest rock riff of all time to just noodley
bullshit for ten hours and then the greatest guitar solo you've ever heard
and then back into just the hardest rock riff you've ever heard about rush
rush endures because they are the only artists capable of making a song that
have like ten seconds in your like. This is the sickest song I've ever heard
and then ten things later, this is the dumbest shit that's ever been recorded
and then I'm so glad you said that, this is the dumbest shit that's ever been recorded. And then 10 seconds later, you're like,
nah, nah, this is good again.
In that realm of songs that feel like they go too long, for me,
and I get why it is, Metallica is the ultimate,
I get it, man, seven minutes in.
I ain't my guy, you know?
Yeah, I'm really glad you said that.
Casey Edwards and I are in a constant feud about Rush,
when he loves Rush.
And I'm always sending him pictures of my trash can.
I'm like, that's where Rush should be.
He's pretty mad at me about it.
I love you, Casey.
Well, we are going to want a Rush themed theme song
for season three.
That's the tonal top.
Season three is Rush.
You want a 17 minute pro-rock epic.
I feel like sometimes when people make something
based around something they hate, they crush it.
I feel like if we told you to do a rush song,
you'd crush it.
Like people making Dungeons and Dragons podcasts?
Yeah.
Exactly.
I feel like you'd crush it.
I feel like if a minute and a half worked,
like why wouldn't 22 and a half minutes work?
22 times as good.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah, I guess it all comes back around.
It's like fashion.
Yeah.
That's true.
That's true. Maybe we're entering our prog rock era with all of the shortened songs oh
God, what is um when Scott coming back? Can you tell us so I can be ready?
I don't know if scarver left for some of us. Yeah
God's always with us. Have you heard my top of to tweet?
Somebody fucking did a tweet that said,
I ain't got no tapatio, I ain't got no spicy sauce.
I think about that constantly.
Are you a hot sauce head?
I am, yeah.
I mean, I don't know the difference between hot sauces.
I just like burning myself.
What are your sort of final thoughts here, Max,
in terms of where the season song went?
Like, what do you think it would be?
What are your final thoughts in terms of how we ended
this season?
How do you think we ended it?
So I'm actually, I put like a compilation together
of all the theme songs and iterations for the show so far.
Oh, sick.
And I'm putting it out on Spotify on April 12th.
Oh, fuck yeah.
Oh, cool.
Hell yes.
Yeah, so I wanted to plug that, obviously,
but I'm super excited,
because people have been messaging me
about put it out on Spotify.
Yeah, yeah.
That's great.
And I think finally I just felt like
there was enough stuff to do a,
I didn't want to just do one, another one.
See, we got your mini email.
But that's the way it works,
but that's the way Spotify gets played yeah totally
is but I'm also just like really stubborn when was the decision to have
all of us character sing yeah that was another thing that we talked about in
that same text message where it was like I had mentioned like doing a coral
version mm-hmm and like Gregorian chant I think like the backdrop of you all against a choral version
may have rubbed a little bit.
I felt like with the marching band thing,
it made a lot more sense.
It's not exactly what I'm trying to say.
I'm just trying to say like.
But like hardly.
What do you mean?
That's fine, totally cool.
No, I'm kidding.
No, you guys nailed it.
That was like the most fun.
That was one of the most fun recording sessions
that we ever had.
And you got to meet my mother-in-law too. Yeah, that was crazy. That was cool. She was a nice lady. She was like the most fun. That was one of the most fun recording sessions that we ever had. And you got to meet my mother-in-law too.
Yeah, that was cool.
She was a nice lady.
She was like, they were so nice.
She was like, they're all so nice.
I'm like, yeah, you know, you just met them,
so give it some time.
Give it a second.
Tell them at their best.
Yeah, right.
I really, I thought that was great,
because I feel like, to me, that's like,
the marching band idea was really good,
and then once it was like hearing all the characters
sing at the end.
Yeah. It's very emotional. It really end. It's very emotional. I think it
fits really well for especially since all the characters have this like baggage
other than maybe Taylor who's like pretty much expresses himself at all
times but the other three characters are like hard to express themselves so like
hearing everybody like singing just like all out like this like kind of like
triumphant song was like I thought that was like perfectly fitting. I was
actually gonna ask how did you pick the final arrangement in terms of
who got what line? Cause we had like thoughts on it originally and then we were
like, you know, let's all just sing the entire thing and then let Max and Freddy
kind of figure it out. I really liked it. Like normal and Hermey come in.
I was like together. I thought that was really cool.
Like there was a lot of nice little choices and how that worked out.
It's like, what was your instinct? What were your instincts on that?
I knew that I wanted to start with Beth.
And then I knew that I was going to basically go
through all the takes and pick the best couple
words from everybody.
And Freddie and I had talked a lot about,
is somebody doing a whole line versus a half line?
And then panning was another thing,
where are they in the mix?
And so it was kind of like, Will, you and Anthony sounded like your voices together
worked really well.
And then like Beth and Freddie's voices
worked together really well.
And I knew Matt was like a standalone.
My voice didn't work well with anybody.
Just because like it was like in the middle.
And I was like, that's the timing of it and everything.
Like it's going gonna hit right there
You know just like dynamics basically this fucking cool like it was really awesome hearing it coming together Yeah, I had listened to it when will found it in the drop
Drop box and pull out like the max mix
Dropbox and pull out like the max mix. I was like, here we go
I was like, this is amazing. Um, but you know, I had like been at the recording So I didn't think it would like affect me and then when I heard it in conjunction with like having just listened to the finale
Yeah, and then when everybody's like credits came in at the end. Yeah, I teared up and I was like I did this
I don't know why I'm crying. But yeah, it really touched me.
Dude, you guys crushed it.
I even like texted Beth afterwards and was like,
punk band?
Like, are we starting a punk band sometimes?
Dude, I'd be so down.
And I don't know if the world would be down,
but I would be down.
But I think the whole idea is that,
who cares if they're down.
Yeah.
Cause that's like punk rock.
You know what, that's a good point.
Yeah, well there's more punk rock then.
You think the sex pistols were like,
I don't know, people gonna like this?
I don't know if we should put sex in our name.
Or a gun.
I just know there was this moment where,
Freddie, you were standing like off to the side of my desk,
Beth was in the booth, Beth started to sing,
and you and I looked at each other,
and we both had the same thought at the same time,
which was like going from pre-Sophomore Slump talking
to you about singing and like how you felt about it versus now.
I was like, holy fuck, like Beth is a really good singer.
Yeah, it was crazy because throughout the whole process,
you know, you see a video of it that we did for an MBIC,
but like recording Sophomore Slump,
you get to see you at the start of that process,
your time out taking vocal lessons. And then in that booth at the end, it was like, Oh shit,
this is somebody who's had a little bit of Mike experience, a little time on the booth.
You could tell. Yeah, she kicks out the fucking door down. Yeah, it was great. And the grit,
which is like not easy to do for a lot of people. So yeah, it was a total treat and like,
get just getting to hang out with you guys. And yeah, we are really fun to hang out with.
And I used to, to be transparent. I was a little nervous about that because the first time I've Total tree and like get just getting hang out with you guys. Yeah, we are
To be transparent I was a little nervous about that because the first time I've had like a group session in there So I was like, oh, I don't know what this is space. That's base the vibe feels pretty good, right?
It's cozy, but it's also just like you could get in the work zone
Yeah, I felt safe and taken care of you did wonderful. Yeah spoon by rooms. Yeah
I felt safe and taken care of. You did.
Wonderful.
Yeah, that's good.
It's like being spooned by a broom.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A lot of good natural light.
Yeah.
You got an air conditioner you have press buttons on.
That's how you know, by the way, when you're in a real spot.
What's that?
What's the air conditioner remote?
Ah, turn it off.
It was weird that you required no pants while working there.
But other than that, that's just the thing I do.
Yeah, yeah.
That's just sort of good freedom.
Just got to keep it free and leave it on.
It's just the rules.
Yeah.
No innovations.
The jazz is about the clothes you don't wear
Yeah, all right Well, thank you so much for spending time with us talking about the songs and and your your incredible contributions to the show maxed out
Yeah, what's your instinct for season three?
What's my instinct? I know I know just what do you think? What do you want to do?
Maybe like what do I want to do dude?
I would really love to do something that is at least like hip-hop adjacent
Yeah, it was one of the things I had actually texted you about this
Season 2 and theme song where I was like, maybe we should do a hip-hop version of it. Good news
The next thing that I'm DMing is set in the 1950s.
So get ready to think in exactly the opposite direction.
Yeah, that's great.
But here's the thing, right?
I think that one of the fun things about when
we do the theme song, I felt this in season one,
I felt like we were like, all right, we just got to get a show.
We got to get a theme, whatever.
But then we did FetchQuest, as we did season two,
it sort of becomes its own little weird creative thing.
I would say that I think I'm pretty confident that FetchQuest
went in the direction that nobody thought it would go.
And I think the season.
I still think about how insane the FetchQuest thing is.
And I think it's so hard.
Man, Miley Howling and yeah. Miley.
RIP. RIP.
To a real one, but immortalized forever in the FetchQuest theme.
To the fucking heavy metal blast beat
into the trap beat
at the end, yeah. And it was just like
I remember when you sent me the first cut I was like
my brain just went on a whole journey.
At 30 seconds.
Yeah, FetchQuest
from the 50s, What's that like?
Yeah, interesting. Interesting. Interesting.
That sounds fun.
Maybe some synths.
Maybe some...
Maybe go like old...
If we were old, not that we are necessarily, but if we were all playing like grandparents or old folks, what would you think?
Playing old folks?
Grandparents in space, let's say.
I would actually still probably think hip hop. But I was thinking to you,
this is classics, I hope,
because 2000 years of future is hip hop.
I have this buddy who Freddie has met named Chel Strong,
who's just like a fucking incredible rapper.
And he's one of those people, you record him,
and then you don't have to time correct anything he does.
And I've done that where I would like move something
onto the grid and he's like, no, that's not right.
Move it back.
And I'll move it back and I'm like,
oh, he did that on purpose.
Like he's in the pocket constantly,
which is an unbelievable talent.
That is like super rare.
I would love to do something, maybe bring him in
and like do something along those lines.
He's the best.
But 50s, grandparents, I mean, that's fucking rad.
It won't be grandparents.
Great grandparents.
I'm doing a thing in between that's a 1950s thing.
Give me a hint.
Can you give me a hint?
We don't know yet.
Oh, well, no, it's this thing.
So my thing is we're doing a Call of Cthulhu thing set
in like Leave It to Beaverville.
Oh, dude, then you know what it is.
Monster Mash?
No, it's like it's like mid-century modern Palm
Springs, lots of like what's that instrument?
Oh, like the Wurlitzer Mood Organ kind of stuff?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, that sounds so fun.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, no, it's like a horror 1950s.
Rhodes-y.
Fuck, what is?
A Hammond?
Vibraphone? Vibraphone and like. Oh, yeah, yeah, fuck, what is? A Hammond? Vibraphone, vibraphone and like.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Like some lounge kind of thing going on a little bit.
Interesting.
I like that, that could be fun.
Yeah, like going exactly a little bit from like the,
the way you think the like 1950s horror
with the synth or whatever that is.
Though the.
Theremin.
Theremin.
Theremin.
That would be the most obvious thing to do,
but it's like.
Hear me out though, a fucking Cthulhu version of the Monster Mash,
but it's like about Cthulhu and Riley and all those guys.
I was racist in the lab.
Shit was good.
I mean, give me any excuse to buy a theremin.
Oh yeah, that's I feel like every component.
You can make one.
You could technically make any.
I know, but they're not hard to make.
I don't know if I could make one.
You could, they're not hard to make.
Well, I could make one.
Wait, wait, hold on.
Bitch, go make a theremin.
Hold on, hold on, hold on.
Matt, they're not hard to make, a theremin.
So where are you pacing that off of,
like your extensive musical instrument building experience?
I may or may not have made a theremin in high school.
You made a theremin in high school?
You made a theremin?
Yeah, it didn't work very well.
I'll show you, it's not that hard. It's just a fucking electrical circuit
between two pieces of metal next to each other.
I'm obsessed with you watched Ed Wood,
and you're like, I need to make a theremin.
Matt was the sickest kid in high school, dude.
It was pretty fucking cool.
Pretty fucking cool.
That's great.
Well, thank you guys so much for having me.
Thank you.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you, Max.
You're like a quality multiplier.
I love you, Max.
And where's the Spotify? What's your Spotify, bro? It's just my name, Max and Waller., guys. I love you, Max. And where's the Spotify?
What's your Spotify, bro?
Ah, it's just my name, Max and Waller.
All right.
So sick.
So sick.
Fuck yeah.
Yeah, so April 12.
April 12.
And you're going to get, all right, the acoustic version.
It'll be the 1930s version that we did with the brass section.
And then it'll be the season two theme and then the renditions
thereafter of that.
Oh, and an instrumental one, just in case people are curious about it.
Yeah, you throw a fetch quest on there, too, right?
Fetch quest is on there. Nice.
Sick. Yeah.
That's an example of a song.
I'm like, I wish this was 10 times longer.
Yeah.
Thank you, Max. Thank you.
So Quick Oats Breakfast asks, are we happy with where our characters wound up?
Extremely satisfied.
Yeah.
Little detail that Beth, you added, of Taylor absolutely went to jail.
Yes, absolutely.
Fucking hilarious.
Of course this feral child who thinks he's perfect goes to jail.
Like, yes, that's absolutely.
It does not affect his confidence in himself at all.
Yeah, because by the way, we've seen those guys.
The guy who did Fire Festival still
run around trying to do the Fire Festival again.
Do you think Taylor tried to do a Fire Festival?
I think he tried to start his own anime con.
Or a cult.
Oh.
An anime convention, like his own convention.
And he got all the money first and then
didn't know what to do with it.
Fucking Dashcon 2.
Yeah.
Dashcon 2. Dashcon 2.
He got the ball pit from Dashcon.
I am really, really, really happy with where Normal wound up.
I like that it's not a tiny little bow.
I miss that little goofus so much.
Yeah, I had a ton of fun playing the character.
And yeah, this is a simple answer, but yes, absolutely.
Yeah, I'm so stoked.
The fact that Matt gave me such a gift and in that Lincoln's Gary being married
Not just because it's funny, but because I think you know in order to not saying that all marriages are good
But to be in love with somebody you have to love yourself
And there's an implicit like love for herself that scary is found along the way here
And I think that that was so sorely lacking at the beginning of the season so to see her find that it was really important
To me for arc and stuff find that, it was really important to me
for Arc and stuff like that.
So I'm stoked.
Yeah, I wasn't sure going to the very end,
but I always liked that these coming of age stories
are not about having an ending so much as understanding
where the character is going to be putting their efforts
as they move forward.
And I thought that last moment with Lincoln and Grant
was just the right amount of acceptance
of where they are in a bad spot,
but they both decide
that they're going to work together as in a different relationship than it was before.
Like not that they're not father and son anymore, but it's a different age. Like you're older.
Like now we have to work more as like peers and that we're in a relationship together.
And like, you need to work with me if I'm going to, you know, be your son and so forth.
And then, yeah, I thought all the ending was just really fun. Like it's not that it needs
to be like happy per se, but I thought so much of it was so rough that like, yeah, I thought all the ending was just really fun. Like, it's not that it needs to be, like, happy, per se, but I thought so much of it was so rough that, like, yeah,
I just liked that Lincoln had a nice, you know,
he doesn't have to be a pro soccer player or any of this stuff.
Like, I just like him being around town.
And I feel like Lincoln just wants family in the first place.
So, like, him having a son and just being at the school
and, you know, his coaching just felt right in fun.
And then he, you know, he fucking,
he landed the hottest girl in school.
What do you want?
What do you want?
Lincoln won.
The lowest to his Peter.
No, that was really funny.
And it's funny, cause I didn't even think about him
having a kid and then adding Jerry was just,
I think in my head, him being there as a soccer coach
was maybe a little sadder, but then-
It's so funny the coach lineage too.
Yeah, yeah, those were so cute about it.
But then it's the specifically, it's just having a kid that was cute about it. But then it's the specifically,
it's just having a kid that's at the school
that's also like clearly he's well parented enough
that we're like engaging him to like go out there
and be the mascot and he's struggling.
I don't know, it's just, I fit really well.
I was like, this is wonderful.
I just love the addition of Jerry being the kid.
And it's funny because then retrospect,
I was just a good parenting moment for a link.
Like link takes his friend who was a good mascot and like the first thing he's
thinking about is like, go, hey, my son's having some trouble.
Like, I don't know.
He's like, now my sad friend is going to tell him something really depressing
about being a mascot.
I feel like in that moment he made Link like a good dad, too.
So it just worked really well.
I thought it was really fun.
I loved it.
Nikita asks, after season one playing characters around your age, then digging
through memorabilia to make younger season two characters,
how is everyone feeling about making season three grandparents
who will presumably be quite a bit older than all of you?
Or are you still the teen mindset and the due date is the due date
and you haven't thought about it yet?
This is the latter for me.
Because we have like another season before.
Yeah, yeah.
I got to be thinking about this new character I need for Will's thing.
I've definitely vaguely thought about grandparents.
To me, I know like general angle I just wanna do
and just in terms of I wanna have a character
that's just in the prime of their life,
fucking ready for the big ride baby,
you know, a little looser, a little bit more.
I've been very much, I can't remember if I pitched that,
I was like, somebody should play a 35-year-old
who married a widow, do you know what I mean?
And it's like, I'm a grandpa now.
And like his kids are like his age
and they're like, do not call me grandpa.
You are two years older than me.
That's really funny.
That's really good.
I was thinking it would be fun to do a Valley Girl grandma.
Like it'd be an old person voice,
but also a Valley Girl voice.
That would just be a fun challenge for me.
I was also looking to think about playing a grandma.
So we'll see how it goes.
There's this fucking song, Bonnie Raitt's song,
called Angel from Montgomery, which
is one of my favorite songs.
But it's about this old woman living in Montgomery.
It's a fucking awesome song about womanhood
from this perspective of this, from an older perspective,
which we don't hear a lot.
And then I found it was written by John Prine, who's
like a 30-year-old dude when he wrote it.
I'm like, how the fuck did he write this song?
This is insane.
So I was like, if John Prine can do it, I can do it.
I can play the guitar.
So a 30 year old man wrote an older woman
that responded really well to another 30 year old man.
Exactly.
Exactly.
This guy really gets what it's like to be an old woman.
Shut the fuck up, man.
I think I could play such a funny crotchety old person.
I'm so looking forward to that.
But yeah. for our last question
Let's go for Torby Torby says is there anything you wanted to accomplish for your characters that couldn't happen in the story?
That couldn't happen. No
My mildest regret is that it's not even necessarily a character thing. I wish we had done an intro that
Was like a parody of some of the music I listened to in high school.
So meaning that like maybe 23 people have heard of this song.
You know, it's just like a real deep cut, a real deep cut, like 2009 sort of song.
And done a parody of that would have been my dream.
But maybe next time.
I think I said mine, which is I think Taylor definitely had a insufferable monologue to his friends where he recast himself, of course, as the arbiter and the
fucking guide shepherd for their world. It's like data to me. Very funny.
It would need it for the season. I guess the only thing and I always tried to
find ways. I think when the intros I even we did when like the schmiggin
captured us, I like made a me talking to Marco is like, I wish we had like,
you never really solidified and we never really had a like the most time we have with him is in
the Titanic. And even then it's not really so like it would have been fun to do something
with the Chinese. Sorry, man. I don't have ideas for market. But again, you didn't really,
it's not like a really regret. But that'd be the only thing I can really think of them.
Like stuff I had thought about that never really, we never really did anything with. I am bummed.
We, I couldn't find a way to sneak birdie Oak in there.
I thought that would have been fun with normal.
I'm trying to think of there was any,
the whole time I was looking at my spell sheet normal has an ability called
divine intervention where you can like ask God to do something for you.
And so I was like, I had that in my back pocket, like normal.
We'll at the most desperate possible moment I can pray to God and see what
happens. Our normal's God or figure out like he's gonna pray
to this. When I rolled him as a cleric I was thinking that obviously like school
spirit became like a big thing with him but like I was thinking that like oh
like there's this fun motif of like school spirit being these sort of like
religion that he has that I didn't really explore as much but that was the one spell I
was like oh I never got a chance to use this but we got that great moment on the
throne of God anyways.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true.
We became God. My big moment is I regret that the Kellogg Knaif never came back.
Oh, yeah. No, it's not your bad. It's the group's bad.
I was really hoping that would be a really good brick joke of like, hey, remember when we said
that if you didn't masturbate, this would be useful. Well, they haven't masturbated for the
entire 25 episodes between, you know,
introducing Willie, could he kill William one shot with the Kellogg knife?
But it's no big deal. It's better that he died somewhere sitting there gathered
the killings, gathering infinite power.
Well, now the thing about for a second, it's so interesting that we have the
duality of the Kellogg knife and the Jio crystals as like Janin because they
both kind of are like two sides of the same coin
You know I'm saying fascinating
Well, that's it for season two. I guess now now before we wrap it up. There's a baton. That's about to be handled
No, no, yes one man to a one DM to another DM
Thank you, William, I am putting the flashlight on my penis you have you have sheathed the baton of DMing Tell us William, what secrets can you reveal?
So it looks a little roomy.
Feels a little roomy.
The next thing we're going to do is for about a year, we're going to be running a another
game in the Call of Cthulhu system.
Our favorite system.
So we're taking a little break from D&D and so it's gonna be a horror campaign set the 1950s
The name is the peachyville horror think leave it to be for meets call Cthulhu is all I will say for now
Yes, we're very excited for that. So yeah, you guys call get it email me your 50s
I have absolutely zero percent of my character done. So that is my job. Excellent this week. I'm very excited though
Will wanted me to play a Confederate soldier
that is my job this week. I'm very excited though.
Will wanted me to play a Confederate soldier.
I wanna know, hold on.
I told Matt, I was like, you know, 1950s,
like you could be a hundred year old civil war soldier
is all I said.
And then Matt was like, well, the only way I would do this
is if I got to play Confederate soldier.
To make you uncomfortable.
But I was like, it's fine if you do it,
I'll just kill you off very quickly.
That'd be the only way it would be funny
if I could never do that.
Now I'm not gonna be a civil war soldier. I don't wanna you off very quickly. That would be the only way to be funny if I could never do that. Now I'm not going to be a Civil War soldier.
I don't want to be an old man.
You should be a ghost.
But what?
Horror's await.
Only time will tell.
Do any of you know your characters yet?
No.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah.
I know very very well.
And by the way, I want everyone to know.
Freddie, have you workshopped your next female star
stage and screen name that you're going to be?
Not yet.
No, no, no.
I come into a blind.
I have some options for you.
So just let me know. Excellent. And I want to say one of the things I'm most excited about.
Can I just pitch one to you?
Yeah, let's hear it.
Toni Collette.
That's really good.
Toni Collette!
Holy shit, dude!
That's really good.
Holy shit!
That's better.
I was going to say Ashley Judd, but Toni Collette.
Toni Collette!
I love Ashley as a male name.
Yeah.
One of the things I'm most excited about here, as the show continues for our next arc, Tony Collette. Tony Collette! I love Ashley as a male name.
One of the things I'm most excited about here,
as the show continues for our next arc,
is for the world to meet Anthony Burch as a player.
People on the Patreon have gotten hints
of Burch as a player.
He's been on fetch quests.
Yeah, but I'm saying like in a long form,
like really, like I'm psyched because I think secretly.
Like a full look at him.
Like come here.
Yeah, I think secretly we've been harboring a fucking killer.
A fucking weapon.
Raise expectations.
The best at both parts of the job.
Yeah.
Don't raise expectations.
We fucking put this cannonball on ice for five years and now we
unleash it.
Come on, man. Give a little bit of a hype to yourself.
You know, all right. Beth, would you like to take us out?
Sure. Yeah, taking it out. I want to thank you, the person listening to this, whether you're a casual, a filthy
casual, just like tuning in sometimes, maybe like letting the episodes pile up
and then you're like, oh, maybe I'll listen
to this fucking podcast while I'm emptying the dishwasher
or whatever, or whether you're in jail
for stalking one of us.
Um, I-
One of us, in best.
I just want to say thank you so much
to coming on this wild ride with us.
Something that becomes very apparent to me
when I read comments and stuff like that
about, like, different parts of the show,
is that I've listened to maybe every episode of the show,
like, no more than two or three times.
And I, you know, still find people who are like,
yeah, I'm on my eighth listen through or something.
And I'm like, wow, that, you know,
a lot of people know the show better than maybe we do.
And they're more familiar, and they've really sometimes grown a lot of people know the show better than maybe we do.
And they're more familiar and they've really sometimes
grown up with the show and stuff like that.
So that is like kind of take about for that.
I think when you make something and put it out in the world,
there's a part of it that doesn't belong to you anymore.
And so to embrace the other people that take ownership
over the show and kind of like help it grow and spread the word and stuff like that
It means so much to us and we really truly couldn't do it without you. So thank you
To everyone listening. Thank you. So this is teen talk the summary episode of season two
but we've done episodes of teen talk for every episode of the season as well as
Every episode season one for a little show called talking Dad, same format afterwards we talk about it.
So if you're interested, that and a whole lot of more audio and video content
available for you, check it out. Patreon.com slash Dungeons and Dads. Support
the show directly. How many hours of content do we have yet? I should probably tally it up, but it is a lot.
It's at least like 300, right? Yeah, it's a little at least 300 hours of content. Yeah waiting for you on
Patreon.com slash and what's coming two weeks from now and then coming from two weeks from now
We're gonna give you a little
Sneak peek a little taste of one of the probably the biggest fan favorite patreon response
Things we've ever done, which is a little side freddy
warren gamer comedian called kingdom dad monster matt has this i would say a cult classic kickstarter
board game called kingdom dad monster he loves him death monster kingdom death monster kingdom
death monster he loves it for the intricate miniatures that you can paint and that's something
that he's been doing for the last. Big titty anime.
OK, well, now people are going to Google it.
Certain miniatures will give a certain impression of me,
and other miniatures will give a different impression of me.
Neither of them are great impressions of me.
But let's just be clear, it's a scary monsters part.
Yeah, so kind of a little bit of an experiment,
we decided to run it.
We've tried to play this game maybe three times, times but we've never been able to get all the way
through and I said you know there's a way you can get something my favorite
board game ever and we started this campaign and it's been a hit and we're
already three episodes in I think it's just gonna be a continual monthly
patreon bonus campaign that we're just gonna keep doing until people get bored
of it but so far that's not been the case so honestly one of the things you
were missing from Dungeons and Daddies is like
crunchy combat where we actually follow rules, this might actually be a series
for you. It's probably the crunchiest we'll ever get. Yeah. So look forward to that in two weeks and
then after that, Will takes the reins. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see
you next time. Music