The Worst Idea Of All Time - Friendzone 103

Episode Date: September 7, 2020

The boiz are back in lockdown and Tim's smashing No Man's Sky while on LSD - a solid recommend! Rob Schneider is on the radar and we've got a question about Metal music. The Hugger Bunch is floated as a viewing option and both Guy and Tim are pretty freakin' terrified by it. A check in on Tanya from all the way back of Season One days and a massive shout out to friend-of-the-pod Rose Matafeo's recently released Horn Dog on HBO Max!Discord: discord.gg/KVMF3uH Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Well it's the Friend Zone, with Tim and Guy, it's the Friend Zone, we're gonna have a good time, it's the Friend Zone, with Tim and Guy, because making friends is the best idea of all time, Friend Zone. Hello and welcome to the friend zone with Tim and Guy back in lockdown. Confusingly, we were doing okay. And then some people got COVID, which is what happens. That's fine. And then we needed to lock down again. So a little frustrating. Canceled a lot of cool things I was going to do. But c'est la vie.

This is our life now lockdown is much more mentally challenging the second time around it sure is the first time there was a bit of novelty to it eh but this time it's like do you know what i'm finding one of the hard things i think is that the first time i was like okay this is what's happening and i treated it as the new normal the new permanence. And then the second time, even though I knew it was coming, or like, you know, I didn't know it was coming. You knew it was possible.

Well, yeah. I remember the night I found out it was 7 o'clock or something, and I saw the news that the Prime Minister and the Director General of Health were going to do an impromptu 9.15 p.m. news conference. And I thought, they don't usually do these when there are no new cases i've never seen a 9 15 press conference which is like nice keep it up everyone's doing great within the second one i don't think i've transitioned into a lockdown mindset like i've just it's it's existed as purgatory so i haven't been like

just adjust and behave accordingly i've sort of just acted like it's one day of you know an experience but it's actually a significant enough chunk of time that if you don't mentally wrap your head around it you're gonna you're gonna fucking you're gonna wipe yourself out i think i haven't treated this with the the degree of permanence and seriousness it deserves and the kind of opportunities that are there to either fully just relax and take your hands off the wheel for a bit or get some shit done

that normally you wouldn't be able to do. Exactly. It's kind of like neither of those. It feels like no one's done either of those things. Yeah, existing in this in-between is immensely challenging. Do you know what I was doing, and I had to stop doing it?

Played a lot of no man's sky that's a good game can you tell me about it yeah the thing that me an idiot and a layman it's not don't this isn't about that you don't have to know all the video games i'm just i'm i'm saying that to establish my role in this conversation as an audience proxy for the do you I always think that the listeners have more in common with your extracurricular activities and habits than mine I don't know if this is true or not but you know that's just a baseline assumption I live with what do you think I have no idea but also I only put forward like certain of my extracurricular activities what are you

suppressing what are you holding back from us we're your friends man a lot of kinky stuff a lot of s&m a lot of bondage a lot of ass play i see so it's a it's a boundaries thing and mostly for our boundaries you're withholding a lot of this information you seem very forthright in sharing any of it no it's just like all the all the truly nerd shit like i'm about to talk about no man's sky which is a certain level of nerddom but like the truly nerdy shit no one wants to hear me talk about that so why why put it on but no man's sky excuse me fascinated me because it came out four years ago and absolutely fucking died a death because it was one of the most overhyped games there's ever been everyone was incredibly excited for it to come out because it used this technique called um procedural generation which is when the computer can kind of

just automatically make levels for you they don't have to be custom built it's just you give it a rule set and what that means is that because it's set in space and you land on planets and asteroids and space stations the universe is just this infinite like the game it's just so expansive and massive and the possibilities are so wild but when it came out it was like completely broken did none of the things that the guys who made the game said it would be able to do and was like barely playable but it sold so many copies of all the hype and promotion how did like i guess that makes sense but like if surely because it gets released to reviewers and like you know people first weren't they just like this is dog shit don't invest or was it everyone is so excited so my

understanding is that there was no review copies released before the commercial release of the game it's a massive red flag for anything eh what happened is it was this tiny team called hello games they're like still kind of are an independent um video games uh developer and led by this guy called uh sean something and they they got quite successful with an early franchise this little game that they made called joe danger and then sony kind of like saw what they were up to and that they were getting a bit of hype with this game they announced called no man's sky and we're like right we're gonna fucking back the hell out of this but you have to do heaps of press so they keep putting this poor guy in front of larger and larger cameras and stages of people

like can the game do this he was like oh yeah yeah we're trying to make it do that and then there'd be these headlines being like it's incredibly multiplayer it's like it got six trillion planets yeah it's got this it's got that and he just got so caught up and um these things that he kind of wanted to be in the game but but they had a team of like six people. So then the game came out terrible. Everyone fucking hated them. Like it was a bad scene online for them. And then they just went completely radio silent for three months. They posted nothing on their Twitter,

nothing on Reddit, just like went dead silent. Everyone was like, this is fucked they've taken the money and run which is something that has happened before in like big overhyped video games here's here's what i think happens enter tim bat and tim starts playing the game a lot on lsc and goes hey everyone this game is actually awesome everyone listens and now there's been a huge resurgence what happened next is that after it's released in 2016 these guys just fucking got back to work and put their

nose to the grindstone and started fixing all the bugs and then adding a whole bunch of content for free so usually you'd like pay 20 30 whatever dollars for downloadable content to add on to the game these guys just kept releasing more and more add-ons for the game suddenly you can be in a mech suddenly multiplayer fully works you can play with your friends all the tech trees got sorted like everything just got sorted out and now it's this like fantastic game right to put it away because i got a bit too into it that's how good it is yeah well it's also one of those things where it kind of like it plays on my um completionist uh sort of mindset too much so you gotta go around

collecting all the things and yeah i like it i like i like this game for you i like you like you gotta do you you know i feel like you put a lot on your back you take a lot on you work really hard and i like it when i hear that tim's taking time out to do just tim things like do acid and go into space yeah that's the sort of thing that i like to know you're doing for yourself oh thanks man that's very kind and it is it's good it's good it's like to know you're doing for yourself. Oh, thanks, man. That's very kind. And it's good. It's good. It's just, you know, I get worried about games

because they can be a big sinkhole for time if you let them. So can everything, man. How are you? How are you spending your time? Clock watching. Counting down the minutes, hours the days uh i've had my ups and downs i've been running a lot listen to the podcast will know that i am in peak physical condition and there was a long period where i wasn't i suffered a nasty toe injury playing social football and it

took about three weeks to recover to a state where i could run again but um i'm pushing it out i'm pushing my body i'm pushing my lungs i'm training for a marathon in three-ish months and i'm up to a point where i can like i can go for a 15k run any time of day no worries and i can go for a 20k run but i have to like mentally and physically be you know in the zone for it but i'm just extending out the lengths i'm running for and honestly if i think about where i've concentrated my mental and physical energy to a point it's all gone there like i have been so unproductive i can't sit down at my computer to do anything i literally can't bring myself to. I've been watching some good stuff, trying to enjoy myself, but I'm finding it really hard.

Yeah, it is hard. Won't be forever though. It is hard. Our Prime Minister last night went to the trouble of saying, hey, like at the end of telling everyone what was happening she said by the way if this feels hard it's because it's really hard and like you know there was a quote from that press conference that i tweeted out i think she said like 2020 has been frankly awful. It's like, yeah, it has. It's just, but it's nice, you know,

like, you know, we say it to each other and you say it to friends and family and those around you, but it's nice to hear it from, like, the person occupying the highest office in your country being like, I see this. You're not wrong.

This does suck. Yeah. Hey, well, you know what'll cheer us up? Digging into some four-month-old messages we got from our Patreon supporters. Some friends. What do you say? Yeah, dude. I would love to.

Let me share a message from Danny. I'm just going to mute one mic, and hopefully you can't hear me because I've just got to, like, sniff a little bit. Hold on. I'm still so congested. I thought it would have gone away by now, it really hasn't hey boys i've been listening to all of the free release this is from four months ago uh free releases of your review episodes and they are brilliant which is by the way totally like can remain unsaid and assumed before anything we read i learned of you guys and started listening to sex in the

city 2 season and gained a real appreciation for your stuff i started oh sorry i listened to a lot of we are your friends season 2 i've listened to till death do us blart since the first episode and that is probably the best part of thanksgiving i loved every single aspect of overlooked and undercooked the day after i saw cats our week with cats began oh man that was just what i needed and so incredible i also adopted do more not a great name there but uh i i gently critique since you what do you reckon about that guy far away i think um you know whatever man since you've begun releasing the review episodes for free i started to go back I think, you know, whatever, man. It's all right. Since you've begun releasing the review episodes for free,

I started to go back and listen to the original Grown Ups 2 season. I'm listening to three or four episodes a day from the original season now. I've never watched Real Rob or any of the movies except Cats and Paul Blight 2. You guys are truly brilliant and deserving of payment for all your entertainment you've provided. I do regret it's taken me so long to realize this fact and begin to pay you. Boys, but rest assured, I will never remember to cancel this payment, even if you stop making your awesome podcast. Please don't stop, though.

Thanks for all you do. From your previously silent fan, Danny G in Portland. P.S. Guy is the best daily zeitgeist guest sweetheart that is so sweet um well thank you so much for everything including your light criticism of the naming of one of our spin-off series and just quickly with reference to um uh overlooked and undercooked we do have an exciting piece of news for that stream in the works rob schneider as some of you many of you in fact have alerted us to has a new netflix special out which is called um i can't remember i'm trying to find the name right now something horrific i'm

sure uh actually you know what that's crazy they don't even have the full name of it on this clip. Anyway, he's got a new special out on Netflix. Tim and I are going to watch it. Hold up. I think it's called Asian Mama Mexican Kids. Yeah. Does that sound right? That's in the fucking wheelhouse.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to rolling my sleeves up and sitting down to a screening and conversation about the product of that with tim have we ever no we go on we shouldn't we wouldn't go on what i know we haven't have we ever like we could do a little um week-long asian mama mexican kids Week long Asian mama Mexican kids. Fuck you, dude. My week with Schneider. Sort of number on this. I've never repeatedly watched a stand-up special.

I'm sure I have one I've enjoyed, but never daily for one that I'm very confident is going to be atrocious. That would be so shit because there's so many good comedy specials I haven't seen. Like all of them. That kind of means that I want to do it. How do you say more? What? I'm not going to say no. I'll definitely if you if you think you're up to it, then I'll do it.

All right, my man. I will talk about that with you at a later date. I'm interested. Hold on. Let's dwell on this a moment longer because I've come to a review on readysteadycut.com, which has awarded Rob Schneider 1.5 stars and summary reviewed the special

as though it features a moment of family joy in the last five minutes. Rob Schneider, Asian mom and Mexican kids, falls and sounds flat, likely due to its host's affinity for stereotypical accents oh oh that's that's the rob schneider i remember um i think we should we'll watch it once with an eye to watching it six more times this message comes from the 10th of july and reads here's a question for your friend zone what do you frosty fellas think of metal as a genre of music i feel like you guys aren't really

the type but i'd be really pleased to learn that either or both of you are into grown men singing songs about magic demon slaying swords and shit and that is from tom lando the most i've got into metal is probably like i i guess not like dead Set Slayer or something like that, but more slightly adjacent bands like Dragonforce. Because I'm very into the more silliness stuff, the aspect of the magical and the Middle Ages type knights and dragons and things like that. I find that pretty awesome. knights and dragons and things like that that's i i find that pretty awesome um i mean i'm slightly ashamedly so a pretty big andrew wk fan and he is very heavily influenced by metal he's like you know that power pop stuff is pretty influenced by metal but metal is not a genre that i um uh yeah like wholeheartedly fuck with what about you guy i don't really fuck with it at all

um nothing against it all there's you know there's great music inside of all genres but i if just it's never grabbed me i think like i've had friends who have listened to it and so i've found i couldn't tell you because i haven't thought to put them on outside of their company but i i've probably found a few songs inside of the genre that i enjoy i've never developed a relationship to a group um but you know what tom lander you do you man like you know i i'm aware that they're still making the music even though i'm not listening to it and i fucking respect their resilience tom uh i can't i can't remember all of the songs so this may get me cancelled but if i can make make a recommendation of Maori and comedy and metal, look up Crotch Duster from fucking like 20 years ago.

They're a very funny metal band who do not take themselves or the genre at all seriously. Can I share a message from Sarah? Yes. Hi, boys. Love your work and would especially love your take on the Hug A Bunch movie available on YouTube. I was born in the States. My dad is American.

So even though we grew up in New Zealand, we have some very specific cultural touchstones that you good boys might have not come across. The Hug A Bunch were a short-lived, toy-becomes-film fad in the 80s that was truly nightmarish. I don't know what we liked about this movie so much, but we pretty much wore out our VHS copy. You'll be pleased to hear it comes in at under an hour, barely even a movie. Please consider having a watch from Sarah. Hmm.

There's a YouTube link, which I'm going to play on mute. Oh, maybe this is... Oh is oh boy this does look scary oh this is the whole movie yep this looks fucking terrifying holy shit i don't like this at all we will definitely watch this um i look forward to seeing that can you fire that link over to me now please tim i'm going to send it to you now so that we don't lose that in the ether it's that like kind of um jim henson style puppetry but they're little kids so it's got a real uncanny valley quality to it oh i don't like this i'm just gonna have a quick uh glimpse of it myself oh boy not. That's going to scare the shit out of me. Oh, wow. Yeah.

I love this. This is my shit. I love these little guys. This is really good. Read a real quick one while you absorb that. Kat says, where's Tanya? Hello, friends. I recently discovered your podcast thanks to the McElroys.

I've binged nearly all of season one on Stitcher, and I've run into some confusion. Where's the Tanya interview? You declare on episode 43 that the ep will end with the interview but then the episode cuts short did i miss something happily becoming a new fan from well they've signed off kit but their name on here is cat so i guess we get to choose um what the fuck happened there i legit can't remember i don't think we ever got to interview her, but she was on stage at our live episode.

Yeah, I think that's true. I think we just lied for an episode, maybe? Does that sound familiar? Yeah. We were just like, there's a big interview with Tanya, and then either we pretended that one of us was Tanya. You pretended to be Tanya, I'm pretty sure. There you go.

This was like six years ago yeah so sorry uh yeah but we did we met her lovely um just regular ass person who probably had no idea of the folklore that her role in grown-ups who would take on i do remember that she um left the screening early unfortunately in la because she had to go and do something before her scene was on screen and everyone gave her like a standing ovation for the six seconds she was on for. Like two seconds she was on for and she missed that,

which always kind of broke my heart a little bit that she didn't get to enjoy that moment in the sun. I should really reach out to Tom Stratford, aka Coffee Guy. I have memories of him messaging me after we missed him to try and get him in our live show in New York

I remember like a year later he was like hey guy how are you never picked up that dialogue which is crazy

considering how obsessed with him we became this is from the 11th of July 2020 I think this is also a recommendation for something

we should watch this says dear Tim and Guy I have a suggestion for a movie you should absolutely watch I don't know if it's objectively

the worst film I've ever seen but director Kenneth Brander's recent film adaptation of beloved young adult book series Artemis Fowl is the only movie I can ever remember watching that brought me absolutely no pleasure whatsoever at any point during viewing except when it ended not a single particle of dopamine was released in my brain while I was watching this. I don't want to suggest that you do a whole season of it simply because that would be exceptionally cruel. But it would make a great bonus episode.

There's literally nothing redeeming about this film. This movie had a really bad impact on whoever this is. Not even Judi Dench could save this absolute garbage drive movie. The 10-year-old protagonist will make you want to slap a child just kidding in other words i cannot recommend this movie highly enough keep up the fantastic work and i cannot thank you enough for lending a little of your seemingly indomitable positivity to this chronically depressed killjoy hope you still check these say my name or don't correction there would be molecules of dopamine not particles i knew my psych degree was a waste sarah alexandra um i loved the artemis fowl books when i was a boy did you read them no i can't read that i there was some sort of magical element but it was about this

uh they were by an i think the author was ir, and they were about a boy. There was some magical quality. It had a really cool cover. It looked like a secret journal. Was there an owl on the cover? No, it was like a gold sort of slightly embossed cover, and there was a lock to be like, you know, as if you wanted to access it.

He's some sort of young mastermind who is a fairy that's all i can remember i'm sure it's a shame it didn't it didn't do well because the books were a sensation we have um uh obviously like the trouble is there's there's only sort of so many hours in the day and lots of good suggestions come on in. So what we do have is the Deciders Club on Patreon, which you can join and put forward suggestions for movies that we should watch and review as bonus episodes on Patreon. 9% on Rotten Tomatoes.

That is very low. Jesus Christ. What about Metacritic? Can you see that? 3.57 out of 10. On what? Oh, on Metacritic? Sorry, no.

On Metacritic, the film has a average score of 31 out of 100. Whoa, that's fucked. That's mega fucked. That's mega fucked. So low. Gutted. Because I reckon that movie would have had a big old, juicy old, big old budget.

Yeah, $125 million. Oh wee. Kenneth. Carl writes, Hey there, is he like Guymont Day Morning? And Tim Timony, Tim Timony, Tim Tim Taru.

Something like the Mary Poppins song. I got it, Carl. Obligatory but still sincere. Hope you are keeping sane in these weird times. Now, this one, Guy, was sent also four months ago. So happy to hear you guys are doing another season. Your sanity will, ironically, be helping keep me sane. I floated this question to Guy on Twitter but thought I'd send it to both of you

and lay down some harsh ground rules. Would you rather, A, spend five months by yourself in a large house in the middle of nowhere, the house has many rooms and activities to keep you busy, a gym with a pool, a stocked library, home cinema, game consoles, internet, large bedroom with a king-size bed, et cetera, et cetera. You are not allowed contact with the outside world via phones or the internet.

Oh, sorry, you are allowed contact with the outside world via phones and the internet, though no video chat. Food's delivered weekly, but you never see the delivery driver. And you're allowed to walk outside for a max of 30 minutes a day. Ooh, is this sounding familiar? The rules are more loose in this scenario, but you're totally alone with no in-person interaction for the whole five months here's option b you got your pen and paper ready yeah spending 52 days with tim and guy in a small cabin in the middle of nowhere the house has a small living room kitchen combo one bathroom one bedroom one set of bunks there are no other activities to

keep you busy other than a handful of books dvds you bring phones etc will be confiscated there are no clocks anywhere you are allowed outside for 10 minutes a day all food is already there so you don't even have the weekly delivery to look forward to the final kicker you have to watch either sex in the city 3 or grown-ps 3D once a day and review it. Please discuss why you would or wouldn't choose A or B, which film you prefer, etc. P.S. Deciders Club, listen up. Please vote for the 25th Reich. Yes, I have cheated, but too late.

It has officially been said out loud by Tim and there's no take backs. Insert evil laugh here. Sorry to dupe you like that i just need need need to hear your thoughts on it and no i'm not the only one who thought it was mind-bogglingly crazy lots of love to you both from carl o callahan wow five months by yourself in the big house 52 days with me in the little cabin uh i'm so sorry to you tim but it's got to be the big house like i think without the introduction of the film it was close but i mean to be totally honest there's something about like i would like to be able to do that anyway even within my current reality i would love to know what it's like to spend five months with myself i feel like it would be challenging but eventually you'd probably you know there'd

be quite a lot of discovery and pleasure to be derived like you'd really slow down the other one is just a genuine torture situation like one of the things you've presented has genuine appeal that i consider on a day-to-day And the other one. Aside from going to a cabin with Tim for fun. Is like. It would never occur to me to seek out. It sounds horrible and scary. I'm on the fence. But I respect your decision.

Um. But. I reckon. In my heart of hearts. Like I could make a. I could make a go of the cabin. But I reckon in my heart of hearts, like, I could make a go of the cabin. This is your insane, this is where you're, like, this is so Tim. I would need for you and I to be on board

with, like, what we were going to do in there. Because I think 52 days is kind of a long time, and we need to be, like, we're going to emerge out of here with a finished something uh like script or something um yeah i mean it there's ways to make it more bearable but it's bad that's a bad where you're taking us is bad and if i have the knowledge that it's at the cost of the other thing we're gonna going to have a rough 52 days. Respect your answer, Guy.

If we're in there, do I know that there was this other option or is it just like, this is what you have to do, no reasons, just do it? I guess you get to pick. What movie would you... Sorry, is that what you're asking? What books and movies would you take?

To the cabin? That's a good question. I don't know. The only books I know are ones I've read, so I'd have to have a research of some books that I need to go and read now. That you want to read. I've got one, and should we close on this, Tim?

Yes. This is from the 31st of july 2020 hi 31st of july i'm dad nice i hesitate to even bring this to your attention but after all the horrible psychological trauma you endured watching real oh here we go watching real rob but did you see that rob schneider has his own stand-up special on netflix called asian mama Mexican Kids. Do you think he also paid Netflix to air it? Do you brave boys plan on giving it a go? Here's a hard-hitting one-paragraph article about it from Yahoo News, which I'm just opening up. One paragraph.

Former Saturday Night Live star Rob Schneider returns to the stage and shares his take on life, love, and dinosaur dreams in this stand-up special. returns to the stage and shares his take on life love and dinosaur dreams in the stand-up special for the record my husband said that i should leave you two alone and not message you about this but i'm just so stunned this exists i needed to reach out how just how thank you both for the ongoing laughs and lovely podcast friendship times much love alissa from philly well alissa from philly i'm assuming you've been listening along to this episode so far as you clearly have displayed knowledge of the friend zone so you as anyone else who's invested in rob schneider in our relationship will be excited to hear we're gonna do this at least once

oh fuck i mean the thing is like i think we've got to do it first thing in the morning. Part of the appeal of this to me, Tim, is that we cannot perform stand-up comedy. Like, one of the things, aside from seeing my friends and being out in the physical world, one of the things that I miss the most is live performance. And so the torture element of doing this

is so high. Yeah. Which makes it so interesting i've had three like not just individual nights of shows but three like seasons of show cancelled because of this uh this here uh virus so i i i hear what you're saying well the pain that that for me is just you know that's part of what makes the knowledge that you know the greats like rob schneider getting out there and recording specials to be committed to the you know annals of time it's such a relief it's so satisfying all right i guess we're watching it every day for a week. Yes, brother. It's not that long, eh?

It's like 45 minutes. I'll check right now. It'll be... Sometimes they run for like an hour eight, which would be brutal. I'm imagining 52. That feels like probably... I don't want to say how much material he's got,

but I also don't want to watch this on my own Netflix. I'm pretty sure we read something like in the last 30 minutes that told us the duration all right it was about must have yeah 44 okay well i guess fucking that's a bit of us and it'll be on the trailer the opening of the trailer i just want to i just want to um say it to you I'm at the age now it's not that I'm less interested in sex but I'm as interested in cookies

yeah yeah hey I don't know what he does with that premise it could be could be good that's your lead that's your lead joke on your fucking special trailer? Oh, by the way, while we're here, if you're in America, you got to watch Rose Matafayo's Horned Dog,

which has just been released on HBO Max. Is that right? 100%, yep, that's the one. There is a very short list of New zealanders who have um a fully produced comedy special on an american network and our friend rose is among that that very small list it's a very special thing um i saw the show live like i think four different times it's sensational i look forward to um wiring up a vpn so that i can watch the the hbo max special as well so go check that out it's called horn dog it won the best show at the whole edinburgh

fringe festival you owe it to yourself that is sage advice otherwise keep uh sending stuff in to the facebook we're sitting here all time twitter twioat pod we're on patreon twioat if you want to chuck us a little bit of cash all all these links will be in the show notes and we're also now on discord so if you just like if you're feeling lonely and and uh i get it i feel lonely i feel very trapped in house. Come hang out with some like-minded people who also enjoy a bit of silliness from your boys on the Discord. And if you've never done Discord before, like me, I hadn't.

Guy just got on it today. Fucking jump on in. It's pretty easy. It seems all good. It feels like a modern MSN chat room, but it's all group conversations. This is from my 10 minutes on the website anyway everyone's got positive memories of msn and everyone's old enough to remember what it is

bye well it's the friend zone with tim and guy it's the friend zone we're gonna have a good time it's the friend zone with tim and guy Because making friends is the best idea of all time Friend zone