Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Ep. 80 Rhett & Link Live - Ear Biscuits
Episode Date: July 31, 2015In the very first live audience recording of “Ear Biscuits,” Rhett & Link take questions from fans submitted both online and in-person. From hard-hitting questions about their childhood and curren...t family lives, to queries about their professional success, to curiosities surrounding their personal favorites, Rhett & Link answer it all. Link discusses his former dream of becoming a famous weatherman, Rhett reminisces about the time he was attacked by a group of puppies, and they both express their overwhelming gratitude to the fans who got them where they are today. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
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This, this, this, this is Mythical.
Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Link.
And I'm Rhett.
Joining us today, not at the round table of dim lighting,
but in a relatively well-lit room at VidCon,
are some Mythical Beasts.
That's right, this is the first ever
What did we just decide?
We'll call it a live recording
A live recording of Ear Biscuits
Because we are live and this is being recorded in front of people
Ear Biscuits
And so this is experimental
We normally sit kind of across from each other
Or at a 90 degree angle from one another.
Right.
When doing Ear Biscuits.
We're in a Good Mythical Morning configuration.
Right.
It's kind of weird.
But we're doing the podcast.
I've never seen you with headphones.
You've looked at me while we've done this.
But it does make me be more aware of how we typically record an Ear Biscuit that, yeah, you're right. It's
dimly lit. We're at the round table.
I'm usually leaning back like this.
If there's not a guest, we're still like, it's not like we're constantly looking at
each other. There might be an occasional glance, like, when are you going to shut up so I can
talk?
But we have little cues. We have little cues because when two people interview one person, first of all, we have built-in redundancy.
So if one of us passes out during the interview, the other person picks up.
Or dies.
Let's just go all the way.
Really what the whole design of this thing was about was that we could continue this thing when one of us passes away.
But during an Ear Biscuit, you may notice that sometimes we do start talking at the same time.
Sometimes that's edited out if it's really embarrassing.
But there are little like, I'm coming in.
It's so embarrassing when we talk at the same time.
I'm coming in like, the hand has to come in a little bit early.
And it's not being recorded.
Sometimes I think the guest thinks we're coming in for like a throat jab or something.
But I'm like, yeah.
But we don't have to do that today because it's our guest.
The irony is, A, we're talking at the same time right now.
And B, I've never seen this signal.
So it's like totally not worked.
Well, that's another thing, too.
I have no clue what you're talking about.
Look straight for a second.
So if you have glasses, you may notice that your peripheral vision often is compromised.
Yeah, I can't see you at all.
You could be dead right now.
Apparently, I've been making this hand signal for two years for no one.
Except myself.
We should have talked about this.
Yeah, sometimes.
I thought we had a system.
Like a fingertip might fly in sometimes.
I'm like, what?
I just saw like, did I just catch a fingertip?
It's like, no, that's meaningless.
I'll just start going like this.
Right.
I'll reach out in front.
Just actually, just pull my ear.
It's like a form of pull my finger.
I'm not going to touch you.
It's just for podcasting.
Okay.
But still involves passing gas.
So, moving right along,
the idea today is we're going to take some questions
that were submitted on the internet
and also some questions that were submitted in real life by you
and answer them in no particular order.
The handwriting here is fabulous.
Exquisite.
Thanks for doing that.
And thanks for waiting to come in.
I know a lot of you guys were waiting for quite some time.
So were we, which made it weird.
We could have just, no, just kidding.
Okay, let's get a question here.
This is Juliz at Julissa Lee 03 tweeted at us.
What was your first impression of each other?
P.S. I love you guys.
Various emoticons of hearts.
I do have a very specific memory of Link in first grade,
that first day that we met.
If you know the story about being held in from recess
because we wrote profanity on our desks
in Ms. Locklear's class,
we had to sit there, just the two of us, coloring. because we wrote profanity on our desks in Ms. Locklear's class,
we had to sit there, just the two of us, coloring. And I specifically remember, like I'm a first grader,
and I was, I think, a typical first grader,
at least according to how my sons have been.
And it was kind of like, I have a crayon
and I'm just doing this, you know,
just like this boot needs,
and all the area around it needs to be red and very dark.
And by this, you mean a motion, like you've got a fist,
but you're making a motion as if you're like
chopping down trees, like erratically.
Right, but that's me coloring.
Yeah.
And then I look over and Link is like,
really right inside of these lines
and it's really light and it's very calculated.
I was like, what is wrong with this kid?
I'm meticulous, man.
I was like, it's the most,
he's taking so much time and approaching this
with so much care.
How is this possible?
I've never seen anything like this.
I was just thinking, probably, because I don't remember,
but knowing myself now and projecting it back to then,
I'm pretty sure I was thinking, man, I don't want to screw this up
because I don't want to be trapped in here with this guy tomorrow at recess.
It's like I thought it was some sort of aptitude test.
It's like I'm beating this guy.
I'm not gonna be in here tomorrow.
So yeah, sadly I'm sure that there was some sort
of feeling analyzed, like I was performing for somebody.
It's like, oh, I gotta get this right.
I don't know how to do this.
But it would also make you uncomfortable
if I had just reached over and like colored your boot.
Oh, that would kill me, man.
Yeah, you couldn't handle that.
Yeah, we wouldn't have been friends,
we would have fought.
Let me read another question.
Colin, all capital letters with spaces
in between each letter asks,
what was your dream job as a child?
So, okay, we're still in child-dom here.
I call it childhood, usually.
My dream job as a child was to be a weatherman.
Not a meteorologist, but a weatherman.
So, growing up...
An unqualified meteorologist.
I mean, let's just... First of all, David Letterman was a weatherman he was pat sajak was a weatherman uh he's the host of wheel of fortune that is a
show you may be familiar with which is our standard of uh excellence in all things but i
actually thought there's no wheel involved i want no no part of it. I actually thought when I was five years old.
No, that's probably too young, too old.
Four years old.
You're making it up.
It can be any age you want.
Pat Sajak was on the weather in California, the local weather.
I actually lived out here when I was like three, four, and five.
I saw him doing the weather, and I thought that my dad was doing the weather
because my dad looks just like Pat Sajak.
And it's about the same height.
He's 5'9".
A lot of people don't know that.
Anyway, my dad is not Pat Sajak.
He has never done the weather.
I don't even know why I brought that up.
What was the question?
Oh, you wanted to be a weatherman.
Yeah, because Bob DeBartolaben.
This is a real weatherman from North Carolina.
He was awesome.
I mean, his name was Bob DeBartolaven, and that was enough for me.
I mean, he was on television every night, and he like...
He was a local celebrity.
He served...
He was a friend who told me what the conditions were going to be in my environment,
a.k.a. the weather.
It just seemed... He was important, you know?
Yeah, very.
It's like, how are you going to know
what the weather's going to be?
Without Bob.
No, and like five days into the future,
the dude was magical.
Yeah, he's a prophet.
He's a weather prophet.
And he was bald.
Yeah.
So he looked like a prophet.
They're all bald, right?
Yeah.
By the end, yeah.
Okay.
What about you?
What was your dream job as a child?
I wanted to be an architect, and I would, from a very early age,
I would make floor plans for homes.
Like at age six.
Like would you charge for it?
No, I would just,
I got a charge from it,
doing it.
Okay, dad.
But,
but you,
this was a service
you were performing for anybody.
At any given time.
These were hypothetical.
No, I was like a six year old kid.
These were hypothetical houses.
And there was no structural engineering,
you know,
approach to this,
but I would literally, I don't know what was wrong with me.
I don't know, but at any given time, you could walk into my room,
and I would have this elaborate floor plan with doors,
and this is the bedroom, this is the bathroom.
This is the foyer.
Like an overhead blueprint, right?
Yeah, that's what, yeah.
It was a 2D floor plan, Link.
I didn't do any 3D.
I didn't make any,
I didn't do any folds or anything.
Oh, you didn't incorporate origami.
It wasn't an origami house.
No.
And I wanted to do that for a long time.
And you got a,
but you got a civil engineering degree.
But the reason I got a civil engineering degree.
But you thought it was somehow related.
Well, no.
Well, it is related.
Because the structural and civil engineering department
at NC State University is the same building.
It's the same, you kind of go to the same classes
and then it branches off.
And then once I got into it, I was like, this is hard.
And I was like, which one's easier?
And they were like, well, the one where you make ditches is the easy one.
The one where you put water through pipes.
Something that a farmer could do probably without an engineering degree.
That's the one that I chose and that's what I ended up getting a degree in.
So what are we concluding?
In some way, I'm living my dream.
I mean, sometimes I'm in front of a green screen and there could
be weather on it if we want if we so chose right you know and i could i have access to like weather
forecast that i could relay to people yeah without having a degree which is what a weatherman is but
you uh you just abandoned your dreams have been shattered right i no longer make floor plans
i'm sorry for pointing that out uh le lo go no lo led waba that's i said the last name that's
her name she asked it's awesome uh have you guys ever seriously hurt or come close to seriously
hurting yourselves while filming you first since you have the easier answer, I'm sure.
I don't think, no, I don't think I've ever hurt myself while filming.
Definitely not seriously.
But you've been hurt, and then we had to film something,
and it was potentially seriously compromised.
I'm talking about the Conan thing with your back.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you may know I have back issues. I don't have them right now necessarily.
It's just long.
Yeah, I have a very long back.
So something's bound to be compromised.
And right after we moved to LA when we were working on Commercial Kings uh commercial kings there's you know when you do a
television show there's all these like there's the pr side of it and the press tour and so
that was how we were able to become guests on conan o'brien show and the like two days before
we were supposed to go on i threw my back out it turns out it... How did you throw your back out? I was eating a sandwich.
But that's true. It was a large sandwich.
It had a lot of meat on it. Oh, wow. I'm not kidding. As I was... Well, it turns out, I mean, this is probably, you know. It's common to throw your back out eating sandwiches because.
Well, what happens is what I was told later is,
oh, you probably did something before the sandwich.
And then it just happened to be while you're eating the sandwich that it went out.
So anyway, I was in extreme pain.
Like I couldn't really stand up.
I definitely could not walk straight without leaning very hard to one side.
So much so that I was like,
you know, we have to walk out from behind that curtain
and like shake Conan's hand and sit down.
And it was going to be a disaster.
We thought we had to address it.
That had to become the whole thing.
I remember when I first saw you,
like, I mean, you texted me.
You're like, sandwich back, bad.
We need plan.
Call the weatherman or something.
But when I saw you,
even though you had prepared me,
it was, how do I describe it?
It's like you were walking towards me,
like came in the room very slowly.
And it was, I guess it's like if you had a freeze frame
of what could be like the most painful part
of like a contortionist act.
Or like someone dodging a punch constantly.
Right, but knowing that they're still gonna get hit,
so their face is like, oh no, I'm about to get hit.
And it's like, I don't wanna be on Conan with this guy.
Well, and you may not know this,
but you probably have picked up on this,
that when you're on a talk show,
the host is just feeding the pre-prepared questions
to the comedian or whoever it is,
so they can say the four or five things
that they've already come up with
and he knows exactly what questions
they're going to be asked.
So, because a producer calls you ahead of time
and they're like, okay,
this is what we're going to ask you.
Do you guys have anything else
that you want to talk about?
Let's work it out.
So you kind of work out like,
we're going to show this clip
and Conan's going to ask this question
and then we're going to tell this story.
But then we were like,
there's something we need to mention
and that's that my back has
hurt so bad that we feel like we may have to address it but he was like okay we'll just play
that by ear you could kind of tell he was like i don't want your back to be a part of this man
but then when we got there there was so much adrenaline just from being on a show like that
that you were healed there was absolutely no problem. I felt absolutely no pain.
You can watch and it doesn't look like I'm in pain
because I wasn't, but as soon as the show was over,
it was horrible.
Oh, I forgot that part, really.
Yeah, it was horrible.
I didn't tell you about that.
I'll try to leave you out of this, Link,
so you don't have to share the burden.
I have enough pain of my own.
That's right.
But you have been seriously hurt while filming.
Yeah, and I'll keep this one short because there's a whole video.
I mean, I think it's called Link's Fall Fail.
Is that what it's called?
It's on our second channel, but basically I thought it would be cool to run at top speed
for like an interstitial for commercial Kings. And I just fell.
Well,
I didn't fall flat on my face.
I actually fell on like 18 different parts of my body and rapid succession,
but it was caught in on camera in such a way that like we could analyze it in
slow motion and make a video out of it.
Well,
and then sadly has been seen more than the television show.
And it was for the interstitial stuff.
Like as we were cutting to commercial
or coming back from commercial on the show,
they had these little vignettes.
And so this one where Link nearly died.
It's violent, you know?
He was hurt so bad.
It's like something you would show to kids before prom.
He broke his elbow.
So that they don't run to prom.
You broke your elbow, right?
They couldn't find a break.
But it was dislocated.
But I know it was.
It was bad and it affected him for a while.
But it affected him so much,
he was like, we have to put this in every episode.
So in every episode of Commercial Kings.
Before the commercial break.
It's like, bam, I hit the ground.
Here's a question from the room.
No name is on it, but you know your handwriting.
Who asked this question?
How does making videos affect your family life?
How did they take the news that you are going to do YouTube full time?
It's somebody.
You're awesome.
You're in here.
Take credit.
Right there.
Don't be shy.
You're at it.
Take credit.
Take credit.
Right there. Don't be shy.
Your edit, take credit.
How did they take the news
that you're gonna do YouTube full time?
Well, I mean, we didn't like sit them down like,
kids, your parents are splitting up.
Actually, actually we did.
Well, interestingly, our wives are one of the reasons that we're doing what we're doing right now.
Because we told the story in some capacity somewhere.
But going back to right out of college when we were working as engineers,
we wrote a song for our roommate Greg's wedding rehearsal dinner.
Right.
We basically wanted to make fun of him in front of his whole family
and warn his fiance that it's not too late to change your mind in a song.
And it was actually, the song was later, the lyrics were all changed
and it became the Unibrow song,
which was one of the first songs ever on YouTube from us.
Um,
but this one was all about Greg and like the wedding night and how
embarrassing it was going to be for both of them.
And,
um,
it says,
we've seen Greg naked soon.
You will too.
Hope you enjoy it more than we do.
Right.
That was,
that was a chorus,
but,
but you probably won't.
No,
we didn't say that.
And,
uh,
but we did this song and like
everybody really reacted to it well and then on the way back home uh with our wives they were like
you guys you guys should do there should be more than just doing this like wedding receptions you
know you should you should there's something here like you should really do something with this
right so now whenever you know we're we have to be away to be here
or do something else that impacts our family,
it's like, well, it's your fault.
Yeah, right, it was your idea.
We put it back on them, is that what you were getting at?
And then with the kids,
how do they take the news that you're going to do
YouTube full time?
It's just, it's more of, okay, this is what dad does,
and it's like no big deal, really,
I think is what all the kids would say.
It's interesting that they now have friends
who find out that we are, their parents are one of us.
Did that make sense?
Hey, are your parents one of them?
One of them YouTubers.
But they're fine about it.
I think it was kind of a everybody's dad must do this until it was like, oh, okay, you watch my dad on the internet?
That's weird.
Yeah.
Yeah, they're-
I watch him at dinner sometimes,
but I try to look away.
His chewing is really annoying.
Yeah, they're dealing with that in their social lives.
We should probably check in on that.
We should probably ask them some questions.
Here's a family question.
Brian asks, how often do your families interact?
Oh, well, we definitely keep them separated.
They actually don't know about each other.
Yeah, right.
No, you know, very often.
You know, our kids are, Locke and Lincoln are like our best friends,
and then Lando and Shepard are our best friends.
It's really, you know, it's cool to have to see.
By design.
Yeah, it's cool to see them, to see our friendship in their friendship.
Well, and we have two chances of being replaced.
Again, redundancy.
If Locke and Lincoln end up just sucking, you know,
then Lando and Shepard are like the next in line.
They can try.
Or they can both do things.
And I'm sure Lily will want to produce the whole thing.
So Lily's the oldest of all the kids.
But it was not engineered.
She's a girl, so it's like she's kind of an odd man out.
It was not engineered.
Well, she's a woman.
Not quite.
But it wasn't engineered.
And there's always been this um you know it with our wives it was um okay you guys kind of have to be best friends now
no one ever said that but it was sort of like this expectation that like okay well you're either
going to be best friends or you're going to have to find a way to get along but they they do get
along and they are best friends and then with the kids it was like all right when you know the first you know lily was first and then lock who's a year
younger than she is but then lincoln who and they're good friends i should say that are good
friends right but then lock lock and lincoln kind of naturally two they're both boys they kind of
gravitated towards one another and they sort of just naturally became great friends.
They see each other all the time.
And then Lando and Shepard are each other's favorite person on earth.
And so that's how it's going right now.
We're just like, all right, hands off.
Guys, don't feel like you have to have a YouTube channel or a website or anything.
Just be friends.
But there's like a percolating assumption, isn't there?
I mean, we don't talk about't there? Well, we have.
I mean, we don't talk about it.
I mean, we have reserved all the websites.
Yes, we do have all the websites reserved.
Or at least we'll say that so you don't do it right now.
Don't do it.
Instead of just talking about our wives, though,
now's probably a good time to say say that hey they're here so we're
gonna bring them out you're such a jerk link this is okay let me tell you our wives are not here
and i want to tell you something about link okay you you may know this already but definitely i
know this about link and everyone who works with us knows this about link do you may know this already but definitely i know this about link and everyone
who works with us knows this about link do i know it link his style of joke is a joke that is only
funny to him it's like this no no no no no not all of them i hope no no no i'm saying you have
this thing that happens just like that.
It's just like, I'm going to say something right now.
And the only thing, the way these people can react is to be disappointed by this.
Okay.
I'm just...
I don't...
I mean...
I'm testing their fervor.
It's a sickness.
Do they...
It is a sickness.
Like, I mean, nobody's gotten up and walked out.
So, I actually... that's what I need.
I need to know that if I upset you,
you're still not going to abandon me.
Okay.
So it has nothing to do with humor.
It has to do with a deep-rooted insecurity.
Oh.
This is an ear biscuit, man.
Wow, okay, all right, it's about to get serious.
Just a fear of abandonment by you guys.
Okay.
So you would lie to them?
That's your application?
I'm not saying it's healthy.
No, but I'm trying to...
I mean, do you have another example?
Because you got to have more than one to say,
Link is like this.
You do this all the time.
Okay, I do it all the time.
With people.
It's usually like in groups of two or three.
Well, I think it's the, yeah,
just kind of adding a little bit of awkwardness
into any small gathering.
You know, turning people against each other.
Well, okay.
Like against me.
Which, you know, that's an interesting thing
because I also do like awkwardness a lot.
One of the things that we have kind of discovered
over the years is that, you know,
when we first got started making YouTube videos
and then one of the early things that we were doing was local commercials, right?
The Red House Furniture and the TDM Auto Sales,
and then what led to I Love Local Commercials and the Commercial Kings.
That's the favorite.
In terms of what we've done, that's the favorite work that we've ever done.
We love those commercials, probably because we're not in them much,
and we get to see other people do things. um they're so bad and they're so purposely
awkward that we just like revel in that kind of thing but what we have found and you guys can
confirm or deny this uh especially with like the teenage generation right now they are so
uncomfortable with awkwardness that they can't watch it so like
we'll do we'll do something like um okay so we we did an episode of good mythical morning where we
uh one of the the backup plan geico sponsored ones where we were realtors and we did the open house
yeah so people were you know people were coming to the house to try to figure out if they wanted to buy it but we were there to
uh just screw with them right and um but also to learn how to be real estate agents oh yeah right
and uh you know first of all in general a great reaction to the episode people really liked it
but over the years we've started seeing so many more comments about like
guys what would you think those people thought
when you were trying to sell that house to them in that way?
It made me so uncomfortable I had to stop watching.
You guys feel that way?
Oh, you're lying now.
You do in the comments.
Okay, so you still like awkwardness.
Okay.
Because I'd say that's one of the reasons
that we haven't made any more local commercials, honestly,
is because people are like,
are you taking advantage of these people?
And we're like, I just don't even want
to have that conversation anymore.
Well, that's the fine line.
Obviously, we don't want to take advantage of people,
and there's a way to mess with people
that's still just fun and not at their expense,
but it's not a hard line.
It's not black and white.
So you got to dance around that.
Just having fun, man.
Just having fun.
Mix it up.
Just have a little fun.
I got another question here.
Which one did I want to read?
Haley Dahl.
Where's that one?
It's right under the previous one.
Oh, you're not looking at my screen.
Oh, no. I'm looking at my screen you're not looking at my screen oh no i'm looking at my screens are not i'm looking at my screen read it uh how do you guys put up with each other
all the time good question i'm glad it wasn't like uh phrased towards one of us like
how do you put up with link all the time well Well, that was in there, but I chose not to read it. I did this one.
How do we...
What's the real answer to this?
There is a real answer.
You know, we had a really good conversation
with the Wasabi Bros on Ear Biscuits.
Was that last week?
That was a week ago?
Basically embracing conflict.
Well, this has happened a couple of times.
It happened when we had Smosh on as guests.
Anytime we have a duo,
we really like to start talking to them
about their process and how they get along
because we've been working together
for a really long time.
And what you find when you talk to somebody like Smosh
or somebody like even the Wasabi Brothers,
it's like they're younger.
They've been working together for a long time,
but they're kind of younger.
They haven't, you know,
we're getting old at this point and uh we're like you guys haven't really had a lot of conflict
because we're like well how do you guys like resolve conflict and how do you argue with each
other like well we don't and on the if you go back and listen to the episode last week with
wasabi bros like they had like we just lay into them at that point they started talking about the
fact that one of them was um they're moving out they've been living together but now they're moving out they're
still working together but they're moving out and they started like they hadn't talked about why
and so they start talking about why during the ear biscuit it was great it was it was awkward though
but we like that but for us i think the answer is what we told them which is
embracing conflict in order to resolve it and just to have open communication.
Because I think the point, you know, the first point about this is how do you guys put up with each other all the time?
Because it is all the time.
Because there are a lot of people who, you know, a lot of duos will like have you know they'll get together to do certain projects
or like oh we get together on tuesday we get the we carpool i mean we are together from nine to
at least six every single day and then probably talking to each other uh about projects and that kind of thing
you know over the weekend so it's i mean yeah because it's like and nothing can fester because
it's any low level of um tension very quickly builds up when you're spending that much time
together i mean if you're you know you know that from any committed relationship type thing.
So you just gotta get that stuff out there.
Yeah.
So I think that's what we do.
And there is conflict.
I mean, I think we've been pretty open about that.
That's one of the cool things about Ear Biscuits
is that it's more relaxed and, you know,
a lot of people say it's like a therapy session
when they come on the show,
because the way we start asking questions,
but then we start kind of talking about us
and trying to relate to the people and that kind of thing
and kind of processing different things.
But yeah, it's like, I think, I don't know,
I'm probably gonna get this wrong,
but I think what we ended up saying was conflict
is guaranteed and communication is key.
So in any working relationship, in any relationship, period,
there's gonna be conflict.
And so we, I mean, we're constantly bouncing ideas off of one another
and working on things and trying to fine tune something,
develop something, and it's all the time,
and we're two different personalities.
And we actually think very differently
and approach things very differently,
which I think is a strength,
but it's also a source of conflict.
Yeah.
So.
And we vacation separately.
We do.
We're about to do that actually.
We're not going to the same place.
I didn't even know you knew that I was going on vacation.
Oh yeah, I'm going on vacation at the same time.
Oh, man, I thought I was onto something.
And we're actually heading in opposite directions.
Not even going to separate places,
we're literally like moving apart from each other.
Right, and when we shouldn't talk.
Oh, we won't.
Right.
No, I'm blocking you.
And when we...
That's okay, I'm effectively.
That got some applause.
Yeah, because we always juggle whenever we relaunch the new season of Good Mythical Morning, it's like, where have you been?
But it's kind of true.
Yeah.
Because we will have been on vacation separate.
Right.
Here's a question.
Morgan Whitted asks, do you all have a favorite episode of Good Mythical Morning?
Do we have a favorite episode of Good Mythical Morning? Do we have a favorite episode of Good Mythical Morning?
There's a lot of them.
They all start to run together
and then we'll be thinking about something
we wanna talk about and be like,
I feel like we've talked about that.
And then we'll do it and then the comments will say,
you've already talked about this.
That actually has,
that's almost happened a couple of times.
So they all start to run together,
but do you have a favorite?
Well, I think there's an ironic principle in this.
The episodes that are the crowd favorites
are probably the ones that are the least favorite
for us to do.
You know, so like the Will It episodes.
The more we suffer,
the more people seem to respond to those things.
But I think there's a difference
between the two of us, too.
So let's not talk about what our favorite episodes are, people seem to respond to those things. But I think there's a difference between the two of us too.
So let's not talk about what our favorite episodes are,
but let's talk about types of episodes because I do anticipate a different answer
between the two of us
of what type of episodes are our favorites.
Yeah, Willits are, I mean, they're very trying.
Obviously for me, they're very trying. Obviously, for me, they're very trying.
But it's nice knowing that they're going, that you guys love them
and that they're going to perform really well.
You know, it's really nice to know you can put something out there
and that you're going to, not only are we going to be proud of it,
but that it's going to work, that it's going to get a whole bunch of views.
Like, that is a great feeling, having worked on YouTube as long as we have.
And before Good Mythical Morning, this is just the psychology of why I love these episodes,
even though I vomit almost.
A lot of dry heaving, usually.
Is because I, you know, we know there's going to be
that return on investment before good mythical morning really took off every video was kind of
like starting from scratch in a lot of ways and you know it was it was most likely a music video
and we knew that was going to be well received but we didn't know if it was going to blow up so to speak um and of course we always
you want that um so it's i love the willets because you know they're going to do well so
that really helps you know me stare down the barrel of that trash can and actually be happy
about it but but those aren't my favorite types. What's your favorite type of episode? I mean, I definitely
like the information heavy
ones, you know, where we're like
breaking something open.
You know, we do a lot of... Conceptually,
not physically. Right. We do a
lot of list episodes
because that's, not just because that's
what works on the internet, but because it's a great way to
think about information.
That's why Lister's,
they've always been popular and will always continue to be popular.
But I think I like the ones where it's more like,
Oh,
this story about this guy who hibernated for 25 years or this,
uh,
the alien abduction ones where we each had this, the most convincing alien abduction story.
Cause,
cause that's,
those are the kinds of things that I would naturally kind of read and think
about and talk about naturally.
Cause there's this principle.
We talk about this a lot.
Like the way we want to present information on good mythical morning is the
way that we would want to present it at a party.
If we were like, hey, you guys hear about that guy
that hibernated for 25 years?
Let's talk about that.
And then present is not even the right verb in that.
Just have a conversation about it.
Yeah, but when we're at a party,
it's like there's this, you know,
let's talk about something interesting.
And that's actually why we started Ear Biscuits
because we have this tendency that if we are together
at a social function and we find somebody
who like has a weird job, and sometimes they're like.
Or a normal job, but I'm convinced
there's gotta be something hidden.
We start asking, like this guy right here, you know,
we would like ask him some questions about his weird camera.
And we would like get him in a corner.
So wait, you're the stick guy.
Like there's a camera on the end of the stick. And it's like, where do you get that stick?
And like, what kind of camera is that?
Oh, this is...
Everybody gets one of these?
Yeah, under your seat.
This is like Oprah.
This guy works for Google.
Be nice to him.
Okay, all right.
He does say YouTube on his thing.
You know how the paychecks.
But we kind of like, we team up on somebody who like.
Oh, yeah, we would be all over.
He's like a septic tank pump guy.
He's like, man, nobody's ever asked me so many questions about my job.
But y'all got a tag team in me up in here.
And that's not just an example. That's happened. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He's always ever asked me so many questions about my job. But y'all got a tag team in me up in here.
And that's not just an example, that's happened.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, and so we ended up talking to the septic tank guy
for 45 minutes and like he leaves with his wife
and I can only imagine, it's like man,
there's these two guys.
I think they're gonna start a septic tank company.
Because I've given them all the information that they need.
But it's just because we're interested in things.
But that's also why that was the kernel
that started Good Mythical Morning,
is it the kernel?
Actually, the kernel.
Like KFC kernel.
The whole thing has been sponsored by KFC.
A stealth KFC sponsorship
is going to be revealed in episode 1,000.
The kernel with a K
that started Good Mythical Morning was
your tendency
more than mine to have
a new thing that you wanted to talk
to me about.
And so then Good Morning Chee
Lincoln was, well, we're
carpooling and we're talking about something.
We should just put this on the
internet, which was then weird because then we should just put this on the internet,
which was then weird because then we had to be quiet in the car,
and then we would just put it out there.
This is the 10-minute conversation that we would have had in the car.
And those are why those are still your favorite episodes because you're the, different than me,
I think you're more the conceptual kind of thinker.
Would you say that's a good way to put it?
I don't know how you put it.
You're kind of the reactor.
Yeah, so for me, my favorite episodes,
there's a little less,
there's more pressure when there's something
that I need to think about and have to talk about.
For you, it's not pressurized.
It's just, I'm excited to talk about this thing.
And I'm certainly excited to talk about alien abduction stories or any of that stuff too.
It's not that I don't enjoy talking about it.
But I think it's a little more pressurized for me.
Whereas when we play the games and it's just, okay, just react.
Just kind of go on gut and see what happens.
Right.
Or I like those because they're a little less pressurized for me.
It's like, okay, by design, what I don't know is going to happen,
if it happens, is going to be the best part of the episode for me.
Or I feel like that's how I'm going to contribute.
At least that's how I started to think about it.
And so I'm a little more,
it's easier for me to just step into those episodes where it's like responding.
Right.
And that's why we do a lot, you know,
we do both.
We do a lot of different stuff.
So the game formats are easy to step into.
I like those.
And then like the physical stuff
where we're doing stuff.
Right.
And we're continuing,
we're always trying to come up with a new format um and we're gonna you know we're continuing we're always
trying to come up with a new format within good mythical morning you know that's you know like
oh let's try debating each other about something ridiculous uh so we're continuing to develop
those ideas uh and you'll see some of those in season eight uh ayla alzabi asks are there unpublished gmm episodes this is a really good question um
unpublished is probably not the right word because i think that that would imply that
we had created an episode and edited it and then decided not to upload it that's never happened
but what has happened you might be interested to know or maybe you kind of figured this is that every once in a while there's an episode that about five minutes in we're like
okay let's start this again and why is that like what would what are the reasons
uh i would say the most common reason that happens is we have like, and this is a little insight into whether, you know, how much this is planned, right?
So the process that creates an episode of Good Mythical Morning has evolved quite a bit and is much more structured and stringent than it used to be when it was just like, oh, I got something.
Trust me, let's talk about this.
stringent than it used to be when it was just like, oh, I got something. Trust me, let's talk about this. To, no, let's sit down with our team. Let's decide on what we're going to talk about.
Then let's have our team find the information, consolidate the information so we're not going
off on the internet all the time trying to find everything. Then us reviewing it,
paring it down, dividing it up,
kind of figuring out, I'm taking this.
So it's not scripted,
but it's outlined pretty, you know, tightly.
But it's so off, the show's so off the cuff
that sometimes we'll start this riff
at the beginning of a list
and realize that we just talked about some,
we talked about that septic tank guy for four minutes.
And this is an episode about something totally different.
And we're,
and we like,
we were,
there's a timer.
We,
that's why most of the episodes are about the same length because we're,
it's a timer.
We just don't have this innate sense to go like 11 minutes and stop.
And sometimes it'd be like,
well,
yeah,
we kind of do,
but it would be like a timer too. One of us'd be like, well, yeah. Yeah, we kind of do, but there's still a physical timer too.
One of us would be like,
okay, let's start this again.
I'd say that's one out of 20.
Right, because, I mean,
we'll continue with that answer
by asking another question,
which was,
can you explain your rapid subscriber growth
within the past year?
What has changed since then and how have you managed this new level of success?
I'd say one of the things that led to just the rapid growth of Good Mythical Morning
was kind of developing the format so that when we say in episodes about something
with a title, with a thumbnail,
then we deliver on that and you get that. There's this weird dance because
we never want the show to be rigid, but we decide to give you guys something in an episode and then
we want to give you that. But then the dance is, but we also want to you guys something in an episode and then we want to give you that.
But then the dance is,
but we also want to create in the moment.
So like if you start talking about septic tank guy
and there's like this dance of decision making
and figuring out,
am I going to go with septic tank guy
or am I going to go back to UFO girl?
You know, or UFO girl.
Yeah, she's awesome.
Oh, wow. She's, she yeah you've been researching her
um yeah I don't want to talk about it right now though because we'll save it we'll save it for
the episode um what was my point my point was exactly well what was my point? I'm not entirely sure.
I'm not Bob de Bartelayden.
He's a prophet.
No, it was, you got to have that balance of,
am I going to give you guys what you want in the episode?
And I think that's the answer to that.
One of the answers to this question is rapid subscriber growth is that we deliver on what we say we're going to give you.
And it's before we would do an episode and we would kind of discover what it was as we were doing it.
Right.
It was more like.
Even if we knew what we were going to talk about, sometimes halfway through it would like.
Well, and it was more about this conversation and less.
And now it's like, well, it's like, I'm talking to you,
I'm talking to you, I'm talking to you, I'm talking to you,
the whole time.
But I think probably the most significant thing that changed
since the inception of Good Mythical Morning was,
you may remember back in, was it 2012 that we did the mythical show?
Is that right? i think so um so right at the beginning of uh 2012 we had this idea to uh try the longer form
thing right the the 30 minute version of good mythical morning essentially called the mythical
show and we got some funding from YouTube to do that.
It was part of something called the Creative Creator Innovation Program,
where they give you a little bit of money to try something
that seems to be innovative on the platform.
And that required us to hire a team.
At the time, we had the first two years we were out here, we had Jason.
Remember Jason, who worked on Good Mythical Morning?
Jason Inman,
who's now hosting the DC Comics,
DC All Access on DC Comics channel.
That's what he's doing now.
But January of that year,
we hired Stevie.
Shout out to Stevie.
And that was kind of the beginning
of us building a team.
And Stevie was very involved in hiring out our team to make the mythical show.
And that was the beginning of us functioning more like a team that would create a television show.
It was like, okay, this is a process.
We have to be – we're creating a quality piece of entertainment.
There's a schedule. There's
a certain standard that we're holding ourselves accountable to. And doing that, even though the
Mythical Show wasn't a huge success, it was kind of wrong time, wrong thing at the wrong time.
We were proud of it and we learned how to function as a team. And then we brought that back to Good
Mythical Morning that fall when we restarted the show.
And so I think that's the biggest thing
is that the process has changed so much.
And then I think serendipitously, is that a word?
Serendipitously.
Yes, dipitishly.
Providentially.
There was a change to the way that youtube rewards your videos essentially
they changed the algorithm so that the longer that people stayed on your channel or the longer that
your videos led to them watching videos on youtube the more your videos got served up to them and
that's why it wasn't about a view. It was about watch time.
So whenever YouTube was smart enough as a tool
to understand that you guys weren't just clicking on something,
but that you were deciding to watch basically the whole thing.
And we always wanted to create something that was you know i i'm not creating a 10 minute
video but i only care about the first three minutes so we also want we want to craft it in
such a way that you care about all of it you know so a simple thing uh very early on that's why the
wheel exists one so that you have something to look forward to.
Even if you don't care about what we're talking about,
something different will happen at the end with this,
oh, look, a shiny wheel is spinning.
And also we get to interact with you guys
and be fueled by your ideas.
Yeah, so that's one example of a way
that we tried to craft an episode and that
the way that youtube worked it kind of came together yeah so i think it was kind of
the other thing is just a whole bunch of videos where it was like that and then they
you would see one and you kind of got sucked in through related videos into watching other ones
yeah so it was kind of a combination of creating the right product and then having
the system reward that product in the right way.
And that's why there's just,
there was this astronomical growth and it ended up surpassing anything we'd
ever done on our main YouTube channel.
And now it's kind of the hub of what we do.
And then the kind of the reason that people listen to ear biscuits and the
people that watch, you know watch stuff on our main channel,
which I think leads into another question.
And I will add, you mentioned the team,
but I'll just mention them again.
It's surrounding ourselves with great team members,
everybody on our team.
Shout out to all you guys who are here.
Everybody's not here, so there's even more of our team back still working on stuff right now. But
you know, they're great and they enable us. And you know, we have learned to lean on people
who are good at things to help us be better at what we're best at. So instead of just doing
everything. And that's certainly advice that
we try to give to, I mean, a lot of you are creators and you aspire to expand and, uh,
make more things. And you, the challenge is finding people that you can trust and you can
lean on and that they do things better than you. And then you can just take credit for it. Like
Rhett and I do publicly, but, um, yeah, so we're glad to give some props to the mythical team.
Yeah, and unlike a lot of people have commented in the past, they're not all interns.
It's just like, can you guys show the interns again?
Well, any given time we have like one intern, but they're all like staff members, employees with titles.
And, you know, it's a production company.
But they're paid in leftover willet food.
Yeah, right.
That is.
And they're okay with that for some reason.
Right.
But seeing that Good Mythical Morning has become that hub for so many things, including
what we're doing on our main channel, which you may say is nothing, guys.
You're not doing anything on your main channel.
Mythical Rink asked,
last year you talked about doing more narrative content in 2015.
Are you still planning to do that?
Because it would be awesome.
Did we talk about that last year?
I think we did.
Oh.
So, yeah, yeah, we did talk about that.
And we are doing it.
So, yeah. Sounded like a question. No, we did talk about that. And we are doing it. So yeah, so...
It sounded like a question.
No, we are.
We are doing it, aggressively, actually.
So just one thing to note is that, you know,
with the growth of GMM and the growth of our team
and just transitions into a new studio and things like that,
it's been very tough to manage
and continue to maintain the
quality of the show, but we really, really, really have every intention to create story-based
content online. So series, feature films, that kind of thing. So those things are being worked
on. So I mean, it's sort of the way that you'll see that kind of rolling out towards the end of this year is more sketch comedy on the main channel,
kind of flexing that muscle a little bit and exercising that muscle, which we haven't done very much.
So stay tuned for that.
So the main channel is not dead.
It will continue to become more active.
Do you want to see more sketch comedy?
Is that a good thing?
Okay.
And not at the expense of Good Mythical Morning,
so you don't have to worry about that.
So that train will keep a rolling.
Question from Tesla Lamarie.
If you two were stranded on an island, would Link eat Rhett first or would Rhett eat Link first?
That's my type of question right there.
Observation.
We do.
We've talked about this multiple times.
I just love to keep talking about
how in a survival situation, who would eat
the first. Well, there's a lot of factors. I think we've both
established. Why is our humor really dark?
Well, sometimes. Is that a problem? I don't know.
Is that a problem?
No, I think this is something we need to work out because
there's a lot of people out here who are going to be in a situation
where their friends are family members and they're going to
have an opportunity to eat them and they're going to be like, we haven't talked about
this. Is it a race? Because the way that she framed the question opportunity to eat them, they're gonna be like, we haven't talked about this.
Is it a race?
Because the way that she framed the question.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
It's not like who's gonna do it first
because this is after one of us die.
So I think the question is who's gonna die first?
No, that's not what she asked, she said.
Really?
Would Link eat Rhett first or would Rhett eat Link first?
There's no assumption of death at all,
which makes it really weird.
I think, I thought at first it would eat Link first. There's no assumption of death at all, which makes it really weird.
Um...
I think, um...
Yeah, one of us should die first.
And then we should, like, process it.
Well, I think that I am generally hungrier than you.
I mean, that's been established.
I like to eat more than you like to eat. I eat a lot more than you eat.
But I'm smaller than you.
Yeah, right.
So therefore, you should die first,
and I should eat you, and I will live even longer
than you would live if I died first
and you tried to live off me.
That's true.
And yeah, so.
But it's not, I mean, you're asking me
to make the decision to die first.
No, I just made the decision.
I think the question is, who is going to die first?
I've got a little bit of spare tire that I can access
for maybe a week longer than you.
Where are you gonna get the, where's the fat, man?
Where's it gonna come from?
You don't have any.
I want you to die first.
Okay.
I think, let's just, can we do that?
Are we talking about this?
We are talking, and there's people here.
Even the spare tire thing is support of that.
You're even supporting more, that's even more substance.
You want to chew my spare tire?
Whatever it takes.
I can just picture you.
Oh, gosh.
I'm not.
Don't picture me, like, chomping on, like, your belly.
And as much as you chew, and as loud as you chew,
but there'll be nobody there to hear it.
You'll be sitting there.
Oh, and I'm going to film it.
With your TMJ jaw just chewing on my belly fat all by yourself.
Well, I'll get, yeah, I'll get, I mean, Chase will hack you up.
Oh, so we're bringing Chase.
Like, you know how, and he'll be in the bunny costume.
Yeah, we really need Chase.
You have to be there, okay?
How about this?
To wrap things up.
Did you just pick the final question?
I mean, okay, if you don't think this is a good question
to end on, you can add another one.
I trust you.
The Jellins asks, what's the weirdest, unusual thing
you've received in the mail?
I have to tell this story because someone sent us milk.
It's true. Are you here? It's the person someone sent us milk. It's true.
Are you here?
It's the person who sent us milk here.
Are you here?
Because we need to talk.
Oh, in the back there.
So no.
So Jen, hey Jen, Jen goes to the post office.
She is the one who retrieves the mail.
And she has a special relationship with the person at the post office because there's a lot of things that come into our mailbox.
And, of course, the people at the post office do not understand why.
They're like, what kind of business do these guys run
and why are the boxes weird shapes and decorated in weird ways?
They're trying to figure it out.
But she went one time and they were
like kind of just looked at and they were like come back here and she follows never good news
when you're going into the back of the post office she follows them to the back of the post office
and they're like we've had this this has been sitting here we've been trying to you know because
she doesn't go every day this has been sitting here for a couple been trying to, you know, because she doesn't go every day. This has been sitting here for a couple of days
and no one will touch it.
And it was just this box that was sitting there
and someone had just put full gallon jugs of milk,
like multiple gallons of milk,
and just put it in a box.
Was there a reason?
Was there a stated reason?
They said, will you start a milk club?
What?
Like your bean of the month club thing
that you talked about that time?
But it was heinous.
It was that these people had like gloves on.
That's the name of the milk club, heinous milk.
And so that was weird.
And I gotta say, we actually never saw it, guys.
We never drank it.
It was disposed of on location at the post office.
So don't send milk, please.
And I saw that Stevie texted you during this thing.
She did.
She's trying to produce this thing
even from over there via text.
She texted.
Just lay off.
But why did you,
but it was.
Can I tell you what,
can I tell everybody what you texted me?
Well, I saw the text
and I was like, what?
Read it.
What is it?
It says.
She texted puppy bite.
I know what she means,
but for a second,
I was like, what?
I'm doing,
we're doing this thing
and then all of a sudden
in the middle of it,
she's texting puppy bite.
But okay, this is what it is.
You have been injured.
Oh, yes.
Okay, so this is a good story.
Oh, this is a good one.
This is a good one to end on.
Have we ever been injured shooting a video?
You should know this by now.
You have to tell me exactly what you mean.
You have to say, tell them the story
about the time you were bitten by a puppy
while we were making a video. So, yeah, you were injured, dude. You should tell the story. And to the point
where this video never went out. So tell them. Yeah, there's a lot of things wrapped up in this.
Okay. So we did a series of videos that were kind of different.
Like, you remember our Oregon Trail video that was...
Oregon Trail in real life.
Oregon Trail in real life.
Like, different physical challenges inspired by that.
But we also wanted to do another...
The same day, we did one about gladiators, like Roman gladiators.
Like, we dressed up like gladiators, and we developed these physical challenge games,
and we were just going to make that an episode of gmm um what was and then well we like had we're like busting
fruit so it's just a weird series of challenges like our kids dressed came out and dressed in
togas and threw eggs at us uh but one of the things we had was you know gladiators always
battle animals so we got these puppies, these really expensive puppies
because you have to rent them from the right place,
and there's a representative from the ASPCA that has to come
when you use animals in a video.
So there's these really cute puppies,
and the idea was, because we had seen another person do this online,
was to put puppy food all over our faces,
and you let this pack of puppies come in,
lick the food off your face,
and it's the person who laughs first loses. So didn't see i kind of told them well you should get like you
know soft like mushy food but i don't know somebody thought that got some chunky food and so i'm
sitting there on the on my back and link is putting this really chunky food all over me and it's getting into like my crevices
and nose and my ears and they let these puppies go.
And these puppies, as you can imagine,
They were hungry.
They were so hungry and they,
one of them had those little puppy teeth,
sharp puppy teeth, they were like this big.
Not the teeth, the puppy.
It's like a megalodon shark tooth.
It was a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Got on my ear and could not differentiate
between the puppy food and my ear and just grabbed it,
pierced the top of my ear and just pulled.
And it was like I-
And you said that you heard like a pop.
I heard a pop and like a rip of cartilage.
How?
And my job, while he was-
Your job.
Trying not to laugh was to just taunt him.
So like, I was just, I was like laying into him like,
oh, you could, this is so funny, you're gonna laugh.
I had no clue what was going on.
Just like, you had this look on your face.
It was so intense. I was like, oh, he's playing it that way. Oh I had no clue what was going on. It's like, you had this look on your face. It was so intense.
I was like, oh, he's playing it that way.
Oh, and one of them was going for my nose.
It could have just as easily been my nose,
but there was one on my nose and one on my ear,
and right when the ear thing happened,
I sat up immediately and was like,
Like, puppy's like flying off of your head.
I'm bit, I'm bit.
And then once they got the puppy food off of my ear,
we realized that it had gone all the way through and ripped.
Not all the way through my ear, but a lot.
A lot of rippage happened.
And it kind of ruined the day.
It kind of ruined the vibe for you a little bit.
I was loving it.
I was like, ooh, puppy man.
And the rest of the video didn't really turn out, so we never released that video. We never even loving it. I was like, ooh, puppy man. And the rest of the video didn't really turn out,
so we never released that video.
We never even edited it.
But in fairness, I guess you won because you definitely didn't laugh.
And there's a, I mean, you can't really tell
because people's ears are kind of weird,
but if you look at my left ear and my right ear,
the left ear is totally forever different
because there is just this weird bump right here
from a puppy and it's all Link's fault.
And then, yeah, so, but you were so upset.
Like, I mean, you were in pain
and you were mad that it had happened
and it was like there was no salvaging the video
so we could put it up.
There was some conflict that day.
Yeah, because I was.
But we resolved it, We communicated about the conflict.
I thought it was great.
I was like, yes, this is...
We've got a thumbnail.
We've got Rhett's ear
ripped off by puppy. That's the title.
I'm talking multi-million
views and it didn't hurt me at all.
Loving it.
In the end, it didn't look as...
If we were to put it online, it wouldn't look as graphic as it actually was. in the end it didn't look as if we were to put it online
it wouldn't look
as graphic
as it actually was
no
and it was
yeah
ear pierced by puppy
big deal
could have gone to Claire's
you know
okay guys
thanks for all your questions
that you guys submitted
and you know
it's so cool
to be able to
hang out with you guys
and see your faces and hopefully many of cool to be able to hang out with you guys and see your faces.
And hopefully many of you will be able to meet us later for the signing.
But either way, we just wanted to take a second in closing
and say that thank you guys for always being your mythical best
and for all your support of us and for watching all the stuff that we do.
And I see a lot of merch out there and we feel all the support that you guys
give us in watching and hanging out with us every single day through good
mythical morning.
So we appreciate that.
Thanks.
Mythical beast.
Yes.
Thank you.