(upbeat rock music)
- "Johnny Bravo",
I did watch--
- "Johnny Bravo".
- Quite a bit.
I loved all the sexy girls
that he would come across and hit on.
How did I ever think I
was straight, honestly?
- I remember playing RuneScape,
and that was my first game
where there was a lot of other people.
And I immediately just got kinda (beep) on
for being new at the game.
- I wish I could tell my younger self,
hey, these girls are putting you down
because they're threatened by you,
and they don't want you to
look prettier than them,
(beep) them, wear and
look however you want.
- Hated Jimmy Neutron with a passion.
(laughs)
Why did you hate it?
- 'Cause he's an (beep)
(laughing)
He doesn't learn anything ever.
(upbeat rock music)
- Sound sync for me real quick (clapping)
- Sound sync for Damien (clapping)
- Well done.
- I'm kidding,
I don't need to sync.
- Well done, Damien.
- Thank you, thank you.
I think,
did I just hear Kevin?
- What a Damien?
- Was that Kevin?
Get outta here.
- Kevin, get out.
- Stop it.
- Go on, get.
- Go on, get outta here.
Don't you see we can't
keep you anymore, boy?
- Boy.
Boy, buh buh buh buh buh.
- Buh buh buh buh.
Ba ba, oh bye bye.
- Ba ba, oh bye bye.
Oh bye bye.
- Oh bye bye.
- Oh my gosh, I just
realized you're wearing
your, one of those shirts.
- Actually it's How Much
in The World Money is It
Does It Cost?
- Is it, does it cost?
- That's the name of the
shirt that we made up.
- Excellent.
- But thank you.
Yeah, yeah yeah.
- I didn't, sorry.
Gotta put my phone on Do Not Disturb.
- That's okay, I'm assuming
that we've already started
and that this whole
minute-and-a-half is already in.
I'd like that very much.
- Oh bye bye, oh bye bye.
- Oh bye bye, oh bye bye.
(laughs)
Kevin says, sure.
- Kevin, Kevin.
(laughing)
- For those who.
- I've got the itchiest nose.
Sorry.
- No, it's fine.
For the people who watch or listen,
we usually record on our own computers,
but then we go through Zoom,
and Kevin is sometimes able to hit us up
in the chat on Zoom,
and either remind us, tell
us if the sound is bad,
which usually is what he has to tell me.
And so, yeah,
that's usually what we're referring to.
- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- But hello, welcome
to another casting of a pod.
We are, it's I, Courtney,
Mayor of "Smosh",
alongside of my right-hand
man, Dame a Men House.
- Hi, it's me Dame a Men House.
I am known as friend of Courtney
and employee of "Smosh".
- Employee of "Smosh".
So Olivia is CEO on "Smosh".
Ian is President of "Smosh".
I am Mayor.
What would the government
official position
would you like to take for "Smosh"?
- I would like to be the viceroy
of the principality of Smoshers Colonies.
- What is that?
- I don't know, a viceroy (laughing)
is just some kind of official, sorry.
- Nice.
- I'm in like the
goofiest head space today.
I've been all over the place this morning.
Do you ever just like wake up
and you're like, ah, I
feel dumb and cranky,
all at once.
I feel like I'm there.
- Yeah, what did you--
- I just wanna be honest.
- Eat before bed?
- I didn't, that's the thing.
So I had a very bad stomach last night,
and although I ordered some
delicious Mediterranean food,
it remains in my fridge to this day.
'Cause I was like--
- Oh no.
- No food for me, not on this day.
- Did you eat this morning?
- I did, I Postmated some
Starbucks as a treat.
- Ooh, nice.
- So I had some coffee
and then I had some of
their Sous Vide Egg Bites,
- Good.
- Which is a brilliant
marketing technique by them
'cause they're like,
how can we just like rapid-fire crack
some eggs and like 20 cents worth of eggs,
charge some idiot $6.
- Yeah.
- I'm that idiot, hi.
(laughing)
Thank you, yes please.
- I always get those little bagel balls.
- Oh, the bagel balls.
- The bagel balls, they're pretty good.
- Oh I wonder wonder whom I do my whom.
What's in a bagel ball?
- Well, it's like an everything-bagel,
but it's like a little sphere,
and inside is this veggie cream cheese.
- Ooh, what's the ratio of bagel to cream?
'Cause I feel like it could--
- It's actually pretty good.
And I usually, I strategically
will bite certain spots
so I'll get some extra cream cheese there,
and I'll nibble on some
of the bread there.
- Oh, so it's like a soup dumpling.
You bite it first,
blow on it for whatever reason.
(laughing)
- Yeah, it's a good
on-the-way-to-work treat.
- Nice, well, back when we used
to leave our homes.
- Mm-hmm, dude,
I used to feel so good
whenever on our way to work,
on our way to the office, I
would go through the drive-thru
at that Starbucks near me.
The workers there are
so sweet and friendly.
And it's not the annoying
sweet-and-friendly
where it's like it puts a
bad taste in your mouth.
- Yeah.
- It's like genuine kindness.
And I'm like, I'm literally
as they're like, okay,
you have a good day, okay?
And I'm like, yes!
- Yeah.
- And I'm driving away,
and I'm like (beep)
yeah, that was so nice.
Yes, niceness.
And then I have a good day (laughs)
- I didn't really realize
it until you just said that.
But I think I define
different points in my life
by which coffee shop I would go to
and how the employees were.
So before I ever moved near Smosh Mythical
in the first place,
there was a coffee shop on
the way that I'd stop at.
And it was like just the nicest people.
They'd be so happy to see me again.
And they'd be like, no, I'm
gonna spell your name right
one of these days.
(laughing)
But they'd remember the
order and all that stuff.
And then after that, I
started going to a closer one
that was a drive-thru like you're saying.
And they're very nice,
but they did have a little
bit of that saccharin-like,
I'm so happy to take your order today.
- Oh, yeah.
- And I'm like,
I don't know if you are.
And it's nice that you're saying that,
but you can just give me--
- Yeah, you tried.
- The bean water and will be polite.
But you don't have to be like--
- Hot bean water.
- This is the best moment.
Hot bean werder.
- Hot bean water.
You were the first person
to ever say that to me.
And I think it's so funny,
hot bean water.
- That's funny, thank you.
- Yeah, I'm really excited
about this episode of the podcast, oop!
- Me too, and I oop.
- Because we're diving into
our childhoods a little bit.
We asked on Twitter--
- Who needs therapy,
am I right?
- I know, it's weird
because I've actually been
taking this time in quarantining.
I still do video chat therapy,
and I've been just taking this time
to dive into my past
and really digging out the issues
that have affected me today.
- That's awesome, that's huge.
- It's a lot.
I feel like it's also made
me kind of extra sensitive
in these last few weeks,
because those wounds are open.
- Yeah, yeah.
- But I'm getting,
I think I'm finally at
a point where I'm like,
okay, I've gone through
all of that dirty laundry,
and I think it's good.
I can go now.
- I can definitely relate to that.
I had a lot of rough
patches as a younging,
a lot of weird, difficult circumstances.
Everybody's got their struggles,
but mine were weird.
I feel like I've done a
good job of capping them
and being like, all right,
that's in the back of my brain.
We're good, and all that stuff.
And I can go through life being just fine.
So it's like you're saying,
do I open the wounds again and be like,
all right, time to deal with this,
and what is there to deal with?
- I know, I think one thing I've learned
is you have no idea how
much these small things
that happened in your childhood
affect you when you're a 40-year-old.
It is, even the smallest things,
I realize, I have entirely built
this entire construct in my head
of how I look at everything in my life.
But also, it's also the positive things
that affect our lives.
Like toys and video games
- Yeah.
- That really
shape our creativity.
- I like that, good segue.
- Thank you, I try, I do my best.
But yeah, so--
- I'm gonna call out
every producery thing
(laughing)
that we do here.
I'll be like, hey, I see what you.
(laughs)
- That's gonna be a good edit.
- Yeah, it's gonna be,
ah, why edit at all?
- But yeah, so we got questions on Twitter
from all you guys asking,
basically wanting to know
what your questions were,
or references to things
that we had growing up,
whether it was video
games, memories, cartoons,
stuff like that, so--
- I'm gonna say toys too.
I saw a lot of response about toys,
so I'm gonna slip that in there too.
- 'Cause our notifications
were fricking, so much--
- Popping.
Banging.
- And just pictures.
A lot of them were just pictures of toys.
So yeah, I'm down to do some
mentions of those as well.
- Nice.
- Are you ready to get
right into it, my guy?
- Are you ready to get
right into it, my guy?
Yeah, yeah.
(laughing)
- You are too good at that, let me try.
- Are you ready, to get
right into it my guy?
- That was the, how did
I say it twice? Wow!
You did the same thing.
(laughing)
You did the same thing twice.
- We did it, okay.
- We did it.
- All right, the first question
comes from @topicbreezes.
What were your favorite games growing up?
I didn't have a console,
so the first game that
really stuck with me
was The Sims 2.
Oh, did you play Sims?
- I did, I only did at a friend's house.
- Mm-hmm.
- 'Cause my parents were
open to video game stuff
right off the B.A.T, so.
- Nice.
- I remember we had like an old Mac
and I tried to play SimCity on that,
the original, I think, SimCity.
- Oh, yeah.
- So I was familiar with it there
and I really liked the
city-building aspect of the game.
My first video game memory
was I was in Germany still,
so I must've been three or younger.
- Oh!
- And my family got a Super Nintendo,
which is really lucky.
I can't even imagine inflation-wise,
how much that would have been
a hit to a family back then.
So I was really grateful to have it.
So I remember watching my
sister play Super Mario World.
And then when she was done, I
would play Super Mario World.
And I must have been
two and a half or three.
And then from there,
all the Super Nintendo things
like Donkey Kong Country,
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts,
which I think influenced
my love for dark souls
'cause it was hard as hell,
- Oh yeah.
- And very spooky.
Star Fox, F-Zero, all those games,
I loved them.
And then the first game
that was ever mine was...
We had a poetry competition
in my school system
from kindergarten to high school.
And so the first year I did it.
It was all recitation.
It wasn't writing anything.
So the first year I did it,
my parents told me that
if you do a good job,
we'll get you a treat.
And I'm like, oh, okay.
And I had been playing
this demo disc of Diablo,
which was an incredibly mature
and terrifying game.
- Oh yeah.
- I was five years old.
And so my parents,
I ended up winning it,
but my parents were like,
hey, we wanted to get
something for you either way,
because you've tried your best,
and which is, looking back,
really lucky, so they got me Diablo.
So that was the first
game that was ever mine.
And it was like,
I was five and it was a very mature game,
but I loved it.
- Yes it is.
Is that like with Lara Croft in it, right?
- No, you're thinking of Tomb Raider,
which is still a mature game.
Diablo is the one where
literally looking back,
it's sort of like a, almost
like a D&D-style thing,
but it's a top-down,
it's an isometric view.
- Oh okay, yeah, I think I
played one of the newer ones.
- Probably, and it's much
more Arcadey nowadays,
but back then it was incredibly dark.
You couldn't even really see
what was going on in the game,
and there were just monsters around you,
and the walls are covered
in pixelated blood
and horrifying, but
amazing and I loved it.
How about you Courtney?
What's your first game?
What'd you do?
- Oh man, so my household,
we didn't have any kind of console.
I think growing up my
mom was very fixated.
A lot of us were homeschooled.
- Mm-hmm.
- My older siblings were homeschooled
up until middle school,
high school, some of them.
I was just homeschooled for
the first couple of years,
but I was in a way kind of
raised by homeschool kids.
So I feel like I see fans
making edits of like,
this Courtney has homeschool energy,
and I think I do.
- That's funny.
- So a lot of our games
were computer games
that were Reader Rabbit
and math games, right?
- I loved Reader Rabbit.
- Great, and I loved them too.
They were definitely very fun,
but that was all I had for a while.
- Yeah.
- And then when we would visit
my cousins who lived in Utah,
they had a Nintendo,
and we played James Bond, GoldenEye.
- GoldenEye, that was great.
- Yeah, I was always so
bad at it, but I loved it.
And that was the only one
I ever wanted to play.
- That was always the game that you,
your cousins had,
it was always the game
that every friend had.
I did not have it.
It was that and Turtles in Time,
those were the two that every
friend had and I didn't.
- Oh, Turtle in Time, I
haven't heard of that one.
- Oh, it's a Ninja Turtles.
- And I didn't even see
the James Bond movies.
I didn't even know
what James Bond was.
- Yeah, same.
- It was just the video game.
And then my mom had
Sims, the very first one.
And me and my sisters,
'cause you know, I had a lot of siblings,
so it was always fighting over
getting time on the computer.
And my mom loved it too,
'cause she would do coding
and try and put pictures of
people's faces on the Sims,
- Ooh.
- But it was actually
really terrifying-looking (laughs)
- Yeah, it's, yeah.
- Yeah and then we finally got an Xbox.
And the first games we played
that I love to this day, Halo,
all the Halo games.
- Sure.
- Played so much of that,
and then Dead or Alive 3.
- I've heard you bring up
Dead or Alive many a time.
I feel like it's really influenced you.
- Yes, it has, creatively,
sexually (laughs)
- I feel like the second one is true
for a lot of people who
played Dead or Alive.
- Yes, it's a very sexy game.
- I did not, but I know,
It's a very...
Even Xbox era,
which is interesting
'cause how many years
in between us, Courtney?
Four or five?
- Five, I think.
- Five, so that's especially
like the '90s to mid 2000s,
there's a lot of technological leaps.
- Oh, yeah.
- Just moment to moment there,
like you describing Xbox's childhood,
I'm like, oh yeah, that's right.
That's interesting, whereas
Xbox for me is like,
I'm a little bit older,
preteen, so that's funny.
I can't imagine what
it would have been like
for me to play Dead or
Alive at that point (laughs)
- I know, dude, wow!
But my first my game,
oh, and we had Dance,
We had DDR, we had Dance
Dance Revolution too.
- Love DDR.
- We had two of those pads.
We'd like hide them in the garage.
- They're in my car right now.
(laughing)
I have those pads.
- In your car?
- Yeah, well, I don't
clean my car very much,
and we had done a video with them at DEFY.
- Oh.
- And so, I had put them
in a garage storage unit at some point,
but then I just moved again.
So now they're back in there
and Lord knows when I'm
actually gonna pull them out
and do anything with them.
- Yeah, it's a whole thing.
But now that you have the space,
they could look cool in
your office or something.
- I'm literally thinking,
I wanna find a way
to put a TV up there
and have a PS2 connected
so I can do DDR.
And also, I wanna get a VR headset,
for my room, so.
- Ooh, yeah, yeah.
I think that's a good idea.
- Yaw.
- My very first game that was mine,
I remember some other
cousins in Arizona were like,
Oh, this game is really great
because you can actually beat it,
'cause I wasn't good.
I don't have very good motor skills,
so they were basically telling me
it was easy, and it was Fable II.
(sighs) Fable, so good.
- Mm-hmm, so good.
- So good.
- I loved it so much.
The graphics blew my mind at the time.
And then I went on to play
the other Fables as well.
Fable II, I think was the best one.
- I've only done III.
- III is pretty good.
III is pretty good.
I haven't played Fables IV,
I don't think, but--
- Wait, then maybe I played IV.
- I think I played the most recent one,
whether it's III or IV,
and then they just announced
a new one with a teaser trailer.
I think there's something to be said
since you brought up graphics.
I think there's something
to be said about games
that go for the fantastic goal
as opposed to the realistic,
'cause there was a big push,
like take Gears of War, for example,
a lot of people love that
game for good reason.
But when it first came out,
people made fun of it for being like,
oh, how many browns and grays
can we jam into a texture?
And it's all like, blah and sad.
Whereas with something like Fable,
even if you're looking back
several console generations,
if they're trying to do a babbling brook
next to this pretty green grass,
tuft of bushes and a fairy meadow,
it holds up and you still
get that same feeling
of like, I wanna explore.
I wanna feel, like--
- Yes, dude, it's so nice.
I remember in Fable II, I think,
at certain point in the game,
you'll all of a sudden just start getting
heckled and roasted by this voice
that's in the trees.
- [Damien] Mm-hmm.
- And for years I could never find
where this voice was coming from,
ha, you think you're good at that?
You're never gonna blah blah blah."
And I was, where the
freak is this coming from?
And apparently, recently,
- Was that a pixie?
- It's like some, I
think it's like a dwarf
or a Snow White-style dwarf,
but, or a Gnome-type thing.
But my little brother
recently went back to play it,
and he found one in a tree
and killed it (laughs)
and never heard the voice again.
- Oh my gosh.
I love stuff like that.
- It's like, oh my God.
- That's--
- Yeah.
- What I do love about Fable,
For Better or For Worse,
and anything made by...
So Peter Molyneux is, I think,
the dude who originally
pitched it and made it,
and he's very much like a dreamer.
He is the kinda guy that's like,
this game is gonna change everything.
Like every choice you
make in the game matters
and will affect the rest
of the games forever.
- Yeah.
- And looking back, it's like,
no, you choose if you
wanna be good or evil,
and that's gonna change the storyline.
But he's such a big pitch kinda person
that sure, there might be
a little gnome in the
game chilling in a tree
that you can kill.
Those are the good things
that come out of it.
- Mm-hmm.
- The bad things
are like the, just the shattered
expectations when like...
I'm sorry, you were about to say.
- No, no, that was the first game
that was open-world
that I ever experienced.
- Sure.
- Dude, open world is my favorite--
- Within reason,
I like it a lot.
- And it's to this day.
Yeah, I think it's maybe the
ADD in me that is just like,
ooh, I can go over and do this thing,
and I can finish that task later.
- I didn't know you had ADD.
- It's undiagnosed, but
it's just so apparent
in my being stimulated and everything.
I'm sure if I wanted
to get it officially diagnosed, I could,
but it's like, I wouldn't want
to take medication anyway,
'cause I just prefer not to
take that stuff, but, yeah--
- No, I was just relating
because I got the OCD label later in life,
and it was just like,
oh, I understand why
I'm like this now, so.
- Yes, no I, yeah, I've
had a little bit of that,
but with something else
that maybe we could talk
about off the podcast,
because it's really odd, but yeah.
And then Knights of the Old Republic
was another one of those
games that I was obsessed with
and it's like, it's so sad.
It's also like, I tried
playing it recently,
and it's a kind of a bad game.
The story is good--
- Really?
- But the maps are so
insanely large for no reason.
- Yeah.
- And empty.
- What a beautiful time, though in gaming
where you didn't have the capacity,
or maybe we were just young enough,
but you didn't have the
capacity to be like,
this is a bad game.
I don't get it.
- I know.
- You just have beautiful memories of it.
I remember being a teenager
and getting Digimon World
for the PlayStation 1.
It is universally despised
as a wretchedly bad game, but--
- Wait, which game?
- Digimon World.
- Oh, okay, I was like, what?
- So, oh no, not KotOR, not.
(laughing)
So I remember playing it and
having a really hard time,
and just constantly
thinking to myself, wow,
this game is really hard.
I need to get better at it.
As opposed to being like, this is trash.
And I'm like, what a nice
little gift of ignorance?
I kinda wish I had that naivete still.
- I know, and then when we got to that age
where you start hearing people
criticizing games like that,
I was like, what?
I don't understand.
But I kinda do now when
you look at certain games
and how they're done.
But I think I love, it's cool,
'cause I was obsessed
with Halo growing up,
and now there's Destiny,
which is like a kind of an open world.
- Love it.
- It's a spiritual successor
made by the same people, Bungie.
- Exactly, Bungie is great.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, Knights of the Old Republic,
I heard that they were gonna try
and make a series out of that era.
- Mm, that'd be cool.
- And I was like, oh my god,
that would be so cool to be like in that.
You ever just like hear about projects
that are like literally your soul
and you just wish you
could be a part of it,
but you don't know how?
(laughing)
- Oh, yeah, Courtney, I'm a voice actor.
(laughing)
I constantly get emails for
auditions where I'm like,
all my dreams are right in front of me.
Am I gonna go for it or let it slip?
And then if you don't book
it, you have to be like,
that's okay, everything's chill.
I got time.
Oh, what was I going to say
right before the project
thing you were talking about?
I still remember, oh yeah!
That's always been sort of my problem
with Star Wars in general,
and it's gotten better.
I like Star Wars a lot,
but I'm not a fan that
gets upset about things.
If something is off of my
expectations, I don't care,
but I get why people do.
But I think Star Wars historically
has been a very much
like a tell-don't-show kind of series,
where someone will show up
and they'll be like,
that's General Parkus, don't you know?
He did the beat bop run in 48 blepples.
And he once battled all the bleeples.
And I'm like, show me the
battle with the bleeples
and show him doing all that stuff.
They just show a dude in robes,
like, yes, you have heard of my tales.
And I'm like, there's only
so much that you can do
and still have me go like,
uh-huh, so I guess he's really cool.
I can hit it.
So (laughs).
- I'm trying to think
of other video games.
Final Fantasy was huge for me.
- Yeah, that's right.
- Love Final Fantasy, and
it was my sister's game.
So I remember it being the
kinda thing where it was like,
I was never allowed to play it at first,
because it would be like,
no, you're gonna overwrite her saves.
You can't do that.
- Mm-hmm.
- But my sister and I had our
own individual memory cards.
And so I remember one day being like,
hey, I now have enough knowledge
to know how this console works.
I'm gonna go ahead and play
this game if that's cool
'cause this has nothing to do
with her memory card,
and changed my life.
- Hell yeah.
- I also was of the age
to rent Super Nintendo
games from Blockbuster.
- Oh, Blockbuster.
- Which was so many bad games,
so many good games.
God, I miss it.
- God, I miss Blockbuster.
That was the coolest store.
It's really sad that
it's not a thing anymore.
I get that the business model itself
was kind of not the best,
but the fact that you
could go into a store
and literally plan an entire weekend,
the snacks, the candy, the movies,
the video games, the posters,
the toys were all there.
- Loved it, yeah.
- It was a party going to Blockbuster.
I remember if I heard my mom was going,
I'd be like, oh, I wanna go with you.
- Mm-hmm, same, I would always be like,
oh, can I come and can
I pick something out?
Yeah.
- It was such a fun place.
- They just adapted to it.
- We used to have one
really close to me, yeah.
- Same, same.
- It's gone now.
- It was one of the few
places I could go on a bike.
Did you bike around your
neighborhood and stuff?
- Yes, I could have biked to Blockbuster.
I usually biked to Carl's
Jr. after a sleepover.
- Oh, that's cool.
(laughing)
I never did food stuff as a kid,
but it would always be like,
Do you wanna go to Kmart
and just look at the toys?
- Yep, yep, okay.
So yeah, I guess that kind of carried
into the next question,
which was @thepixelpunchthing.
First video game memories, perhaps?
So yeah, I hope that answered
the question, Pixel Punch.
Oh, this is a cute one.
This isn't so much
about games or anything.
This is from @chelstagram,
and the question is, not to be cliche,
but what would you tell your younger self?
- Do you have anything in
the barrel ready to go?
Go for it.
- There's a lot of things.
There's also things where,
actually one of the things
that I was working through in therapy
was growing up,
the popular girls would
kind of shame anyone
that tried in terms of looking cute.
And I had been friends with those girls
in elementary school
and into middle school.
And every time I tried to curl my hair
or wear cute boots or dress up,
they would kind of heckle me and tease me
about having curly hair or, wow,
why are you dressed so
like that for just school?
What the hell?
When they're obviously
dressing so nice and so pretty.
You can see pictures of me all
through senior year, junior,
all through high school.
I was always wearing hoodies, jeans,
or track pants
and like maybe a razorback
tank top similar to this.
And if I curled my hair, they
just like would glare at you.
- That sucks.
- And it was very subtle sometimes.
And they would be like,
they would laugh at a girl who wants
would like to wear high heels sometimes.
And so to this day I
have a really hard time
looking pretty at things
where I don't need to look pretty.
- Oh, Courtney.
- Like VidCon and stuff,
I'm like, yeah, it's fun.
I can dress up,
and it's a show and it's a good time.
But yeah, ultimately,
I dress for comfort
and it's not just physical
comfort, emotional comfort.
So I wish I could tell my younger self,
hey, these girls are putting you down
because they're threatened by you,
and they don't want you to look prettier
than them (beep) them, wear
and look however you want.
- What weak humans they are?
- Absolutely.
- I straight up pity people
who can't raise themselves up,
so they keep others down.
That's the lowest form of, I don't know,
it's just so animal to me.
It's not human (laughing)
- It's crazy how people
need to shake the idea
like, other humans don't exist for you.
We are all existing in our own space,
and we can all do whatever
we want with our own space,
as long as we're not hurting anyone.
- [Damien] Exactly.
- And, yeah,
so even to this day
I struggle with, I own skirts,
I rarely wear them.
I own nice high heels and boots,
and I did have a period of time
where I would try and
wear those sometimes.
But then I'd be like, I feel ridiculous
'cause I'm like, wow,
someone in the corner is going,
wow, why is she trying so hard?
That is that voice that
I was always afraid of.
- Damn.
- And I wish I could tell,
yeah, my younger self,
hey, it's okay.
- Yeah, that's that's really sweet.
I'm sorry you had to go through that.
- It's all right.
I think it's just like,
I think a lotta girls, unfortunately,
maybe went through that.
But what about you?
What would you tell younger you?
- I was trying to think,
and I feel like I've answered
this question before.
It's in some interview or some something,
but honestly today I kinda feel
like it may be a cop-out answer,
but I don't think I would do that.
I don't think I would say anything,
because for all my struggles, all of...
And this goes for anybody,
all your mental turmoil,
anything you go through,
it does make the person you are.
- Absolutely.
- And the mistakes
very much included.
So I don't know what my life would be like
had I had any extra knowledge.
- True.
- And I like where I'm
at now. I really do.
So if anything, if anything (laughing)
I might say something to the effect
of, hey, you have OCD.
You need to lighten up a little bit
and learn that it's okay
to stray off the straight and
narrow every now and then.
- Mm-hmm, I can relate to that.
And not so much in OCD sense,
but I get that.
And yeah, ultimately there
are no regrets in life,
but I mean, I guess I
would frame the question
more so like if I were to find someone
who's clearly on the same path,
I lately really wanted
to, I've gotten more and more intrigued
by becoming a high school film teacher,
because I just really
wanna help kids like that,
that are dealing with that stuff,
and also just giving them
good taste in movies and
games and stuff (laughs)
Because we have good taste, I think.
- I think so, yeah.
I think, I've had the fantasy
of being a teacher as well.
I think my fear is that I think
a lot of teachers start out
super gung ho and happy,
and then the meanness of youth
just beats it out of them.
- Yeah dude, I believe it.
And you're not getting paid enough.
So how can you feel happy
about anything (laughs)
But I would hope that if it's an elective,
I would feel okay.
Yeah, but I think I
like that answer though,
that you wouldn't tell them anything.
It makes sense.
- Thanks.
- The next question is from Chloe DT100,
or Chloe DT00.
Favorite childhood cartoons?
And did they shape
the type of humor you have today?
- Yeah, I was,
I was a big Nicktoons
and Cartoon Network kinda person.
- Mm-hmm.
- Didn't ever do the Disney stuff,
to be honest with you,
which is why it was so
ironic that I ended up
working on the Disney Channel.
But Nickelodeon stuff,
I loved "The Angry Beavers".
I loved "Invader Zim"
which definitely influenced my humor.
It's dark as hell for a children's show.
Cartoon Network stuff. I
loved "Ed, Edd, n' Eddy".
"Courage, the Cowardly Dog",
again, a spooky, funny show.
- Mm-hmm.
- "Dexter's Lab" was like, uh, for me.
- Yeah.
- I loved "Powerpuff Girls".
- Oh yeah.
- Hated "Jimmy Neutron" with a passion.
- (laughs)
Why did you hate it?
- Ah, it just is so nestled in
that uncanny valley of like,
everybody looks horrible and disgusting--
- The proportions.
- And their heads
are horrifically misshapen.
- It's hard to get past.
- Yeah, it's just, there's
no shading on their bodies.
And his head is the size of a peanut
and also somehow like a medium-sized dog.
(laughing)
And he's also,
we can curse on this podcast.
He's an (beep)
(laughing)
He doesn't learn
anything ever, he's just like,
that's my latest adventure, Goddard.
Then he ruins everything for 30 minutes,
and then wonders why everyone
has a problem with him. And
I'm like, I hate this kid
just as much as the villain is you.
- His voice, so it was
ah, Goddard, what are we?
(laughs)
- What do we have today, Goddard?
- I think that's--
- Brain blast!
- And the voice actress
who plays him is great.
She's awesome, I just,
I hate the character.
- Yeah.
- How about you, Courtney?
(laughs)
What are your favorite cartoons?
- Well, I watched a lot of "SpongeBob".
- Yes, how could I forget?
- Yeah, that's classic.
I think Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network
definitely did cartoons better.
- Mm-hmm.
- Definitely did cartoons
better than Disney.
"Johnny Bravo", I did watch quite a bit.
I loved all the sexy girls
that he would come across and hit on.
How did I ever think I was straight?
Honestly, how?
(laughing)
- I don't know.
"Cause when you you're a little kid,
you probably have ideas
and thoughts and feelings,
but you're not sitting down
and contemplating like,
so sexuality is a river
that I'm rafting down.
- Yep (laughs), exactly.
- You're like, it's a spectrum.
Let me think about this, I'm three.
- Yup, I loved "Dexter's Lab"
'cause it totally reminded me
of my relationship with my siblings.
I'm like, don't touch my things.
Stay out of my space.
What else?
I actually loved "Jimmy
Neutron" at the time,
though I was bothered by the proportions.
- They're nightmarish.
(laughing)
They didn't know when they had to try
for romance stories
between these children.
It felt weird.
It definitely was like this
isn't, I don't believe this.
I don't know why I liked it so much.
- Do you know why they canceled it?
- Why?
- Because the same studio
spent a bunch of money
to work on a film called "The Ant Bully",
which was equally hard
to look at
- Oh, right.
- And it was a cinematic failure.
- That was a bad movie.
- Hell yeah, it also made no money,
and they spent so much
and lost so much on it
that the entire studio is like,
well, we don't make cartoons anymore.
- Amazing.
- Which sucks, but--
- I do remember the "Jimmy Neutron" movie,
which was kind of iconic
from what I remember.
- That was okay, that was okay for me.
- But yeah, the animation,
I for one, I remember "Fairly Odd Parents"
was a good concept--
- I loved that one.
- And great story.
But Timmy's voice, I just remember,
I think I've told this story before
where I would be watching George Lopez
till three in the morning
and then I'd fall asleep
and then wake up to Jasmine, really?
And I hated his voice so much.
- But it's interesting
because the voice actress is
also in literally everything
you've ever heard ever.
- Oh, I'm sure
'cause I see the pictures of like,
I voice all of these
characters and that's like
everything I've ever watched.
- That's funny.
- Do you remember that show?
I don't know, maybe it was on Disney,
about being 16 and it was a group of kids
at the mall and they would
just always sit at that table
and drink smoothies and talk about drama?
- Oh wait, are you talking about"Daria"?
Not "Weekenders", not "Daria".
I think it was called
"6teen" or something,
where one girl worked at a
lemon booth and she sold,
it was kinda like a hotdog on a stick.
- Why does that sounds so familiar?
- And they're always at the mall.
There was one skater dude,
the girls were pretty and--
- This might be the generational thing
'cause this is after my time.
But are you talking about
"Total Drama Island"?
- No, but that was the same animators.
- Okay, well, 'cause that's
what I'm like I did that
missed me entirely.
In the meantime, while
you're thinking of that,
I wanna give special shout-outs
to the weird Saturday morning cartoons.
- [Courtney] Mm-hmm.
- Like the one Saturday morning, "Recess".
"Recess" was really good.
- Mm-hmm, nice.
- The "Weekenders",
which Kevin just typed was really good.
Oh Kevin just sent us a message y'all
saying, Court, the show
you're talking about is called "6teen".
- "6teen".
- Oh, I've never even seen that.
- I'm showing the picture
in the video right now,
but yeah, the number six and then teen,
and it's kind of cool how the cast
is pretty diverse-ish.
- Mm-hmm.
- Yeah, it was just like
a bunch of cool teenagers
at the mall (laughing)
- I think that's probably the kinda show
that you didn't watch
as a teenager though.
You watched it maybe like
a 12-year-old in excitement
for being like, yeah, I'm an older kid.
I'm watching this older-kid show.
- Yeah. It's like when you're
a little kid and you get
your first Barbie, clearly
this is an adult female doll
that was super controversial,
but you're talking about
Saturday morning cartoon, sorry.
- That's totally fine.
In fact I got so excited to talk about it,
but I can't really think of any anymore.
I will say "Doug" was
better on Nickelodeon
than the Disney version/Saturday
morning cartoon version.
- Mm-hmm.
- Even being in Germany,
watching the Saturday morning version
of "Sonic the Hedgehog",
not the Toon Disney one,
not that, whoa, Chile Doug's
and, it was a very like gritty one
that was kinda dope,
and I loved watching it.
- Yeah, I never got hugely
into "Sonic" cartoons.
But like sometimes you just
turn it on and be like,
what is this?
And you like the episode.
And then you move on "Teen Titans",
- "Teen Titans" was good.
- The original "Teen Titans",
especially when it got
really dark sometimes
with Robin and Slade.
- Slade.
- Dude, that storyline was incredible.
I loved their group too.
- Yeah.
And I gotta say I kinda hated
the relaunch where Raven
was like this cutesy
character, really upsetting.
Really, really upsetting.
- They're doing a really good
job with that show though.
The difficulty is that they're suffering
from their own success as a franchise,
because the first time,
they nailed the style.
For people to watch like teenage versions
of DC Superheroes and care
about it even if you don't care
about superheroes, they
flipped and nailed it.
They did.
- Mm-hmm.
- And "Teen Titans Go!", the
new one could have on its own
been just as good and just as fine,
even though it's an
extremely different style,
but now you can't help,
but compare the two.
And if you truly love
one more than the other,
you're always gonna have this little bit
of a, mm-hmm, just a little
bit of a rub, not feeling it.
- Yep.
- Speaking of dark
shows, there is one more.
Oh, Kevin's asking about "The Invaders".
- "The Invaders", yeah, I
never got into "Invader Zim".
- It was just a really
dark show that was made
by a comic book writer
that had previously done
only very adult comics.
I don't think they were sexual,
but I think it was just
the humor was just so dark.
And how did it shape my humor?
I think my humor was already
kind of there, but I was like,
Oh, this show is here for me.
And finding humor in
the darkness of things.
And the show would frame humans
as being these horribly gross creatures.
- [Courtney] Mm-hmm.
- And it was just kinda funny
to be like an angsty teen
and laugh at that.
But the thing I did wanna say before Kevin
had suggested that, which
is in the same vein,
this is gonna be a
generational thing for us.
Did you ever know the show " Mighty Macs"?
- "Mighty Macs" sounds really familiar.
- I might've talked about it before
or maybe it's something--
- No, I think I'm gonna look it up.
- So it was an older
Saturday morning cartoon
back in the days where, a
lot of people don't know this
probably this generation,
cartoons used to be made
in conjunction with toys at the same time,
so that you could sell those toys.
- He-Man
- Exactly.
It's exactly the same thing.
So "Mighty Macs" was the,
quote unquote, boy version,
and I know that's not what
we would generally say,
but that's how they marketed it,
the boy version of "Polly Pocket".
So they would send these little play sets
where you can open it up and, yeah,
it's like a little Dungeon.
You'd be like, you, I'm "Might Macs".
But it was about this
kid that got a hat that,
and it was a very special hat that had
these amazing universal powers.
It's like the hat of power
or something like that.
And it worked him to this
crazy D&D-style world
where his companions are
this huge barbarian guy.
And I think his name was Victor,
and then this foul Birdman
Wizard thing, but it's so dark.
I remember the last
episode, I'm gonna spoil it
'cause it's from the '80s,
early '90s, everyone dies.
- Wow.
Wow.
- They fail.
They fail.
And the thing that they leave
you on is the last minute
the hat sends Macs back in
time so that he can start
the whole adventure over again.
And it's kinda stuck in
a time loop that ends
with his friends dying.
It's like, what?
This is for children.
- Holy smokes.
- I love it, so good, so dark.
It's crazy "Infinity
War" stole that premise.
(laughing)
- Sure.
It's--
- For "Endgame".
- "The Time Machine"
by I think H. G. Wells,
that was definitely came into play but--
- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!
- Is that? I have to look up
who did the "The Time Machine".
Yeah, H. G. Wells.
Okay, cool, I'm not dumb.
- I really loved actually a weird cartoon
that I was super into,
but only existed online,
or unless you found the DVD,
or sometimes if you bought
the doll, you get the DVD with it.
'Cause it was super, well,
it was a kind of girly thing.
It was My Scene Dolls,
which were, so Barbie
was a thing, right?
And then this other company came out
with Bratz, which was--
- Huge.
- Kind of for-older, more preteen kids.
And then so Barbie tried
to come up with Flavor.
What's your flavor?
Basically copying Bratz.
- What's your flavor?
- Do toy companies were low-key savage
with their copying of each other.
- Absolutely.
- But then Barbie came out with My Scene,
which was kind of like Bratz and Barbie
were married together where
it was the same height
in Barbie doll, but their lips
were bigger and their hair
was more of a lump with multiracial cast.
And they had these movies on Barbie.com
'cause you could go to barbie.com
and then you could switch
to the "Polly Pocket" side
or the "My Scene" side
and you can watch animations and cartoons
of these 16-year-olds
that somehow go to Jamaica by themselves.
(laughing)
- Before the time of being in influence.
Now I can't help, but--
- Yeah, I guess you're right but--
- Yeah.
- Yeah, so I was very
much into those cartoons.
They had "Jammin' in Jamaica".
They masquerade all these
crazy little cartoons that came
with the dolls.
- Was that a success as a toy?
Because I know Bratz just blew
up because like you said--
- Bratz blew up.
- Bratz was definitely more diverse.
'Cause like with Barbie it
was like, Oh don't worry.
She has a black friend,
whereas with Bratz it's like--
- She has Brown hair.
- Hey, whatever you look like,
that is the normal, word
advertising all of this.
- There was straight up a
very strong period of time
where being a Brunette was diverse,
because straight up and the
whole cast of "My Scene",
you couldn't even tell like this one girl,
her name was Nolee or Nolee,
and it was like, is she Asian?
I don't know.
You kinda just, it's like they made them
on androgynously different looking--
- Interesting.
- Just playing it as safe
as they possibly could.
- So it was like it
was made by a boardroom
of white men probably
without consulting anybody else (laughing)
- And all the boys, they
had the weirdest names
like Sutton and (laughing)
- Sutton, that dude plays Lacrosse.
I've never even seen Sutton
and badly plays Lacrosse.
And he had a shell necklace.
- Oh, we all did though.
(laughing)
- Were there ever any
toys that, maybe even ones
that you didn't have,
but just '90s toys or early 2000s toys
that you would just see
commercials for that stick with you
to this day?
- Yeah, dude, the immediate
one that goes to my head
is the robot dinosaur
that could move by itself
and walk around.
- Is that Zoomer Dino or
Zoomer Dino Two reason?
- Let me see, oh, what were you saying?
- I remember there would always
be these, not board games,
but self-contained games,
bulls-eye ball where it would be
like, go there's a
trampoline on the whatever,
and you've got to throw
these balls to get up,
but make sure you do it before the timer
or you get sprayed,
and there's water, ugh!
But then in reality, when you play,
it's just like dink, dink, ah (beep)
So am I.
(laughing)
It's never as cool as the--
- The commercials were so epic.
- They were like
they wanted you to feel
that adrenaline of open up
mouse trap, good luck!
- Yeah dude.
For me, so it was called the Roboraptor.
- Roboraptor.
- I'll show you the picture.
- Please do.
- No, no, I don't want it on eBay.
- Don't want it on eBay.
Get it out of there.
- They were like this.
- Oh!
- I'm showing a picture
to Damien right now.
It's like basically it
looks like a robotic Raptor.
And I just thought that
was the coolest thing,
'cause we couldn't have pets.
We had our cats, but then
they got eaten by coyotes
and then I couldn't even have
anything else after that.
Those were the coolest and
for-real pets, I always--
- [Damien] Yeah.
- Animatronics were always
so interesting to me.
- [Damien] Mm-hmm.
- So having your own animatronic pet
was the coolest thing.
- You just blew my mind.
I think the first one of those
that was readily available
during our childhood was that dog
with the almost emoji, like
LCD screen eyes or LED eyes.
I can't even remember
what that was called,
but Holy crap.
- Yeah, dude, they're cool.
- My favorite
was also "Beast Wars".
Do you ever do "Beast Wars"?
- "Beast Wars".
- It was made by Transformers,
except they were all animals.
'Cause I don't care about
like this 18-Wheeler,
this one has 16-wheels.
- Yeah, I know.
- Instead it was like,
this is a cheetah with a water gun.
No, this is a polar bear
that turns into a bat.
And you're like--
- I think my brothers had the cheetah.
- Oh, the cheetah was great
'cause you could actually
fill it with water.
- Yeah, I can remember.
- And laser people.
- So I had Barbies and I was
super obsessed with Barbies,
and then my older brother
and he had G.I. Joes,
a ton of them.
- Wow.
- He had so many, right?
'Cause my mom loved them too.
So if she liked them, she
would buy you a ton of them.
So I would mix those,
my Barbies and stuff.
But then also my little
brothers had hundreds
I think of Hot Wheels cars.
Hot Wheels were exciting for sure.
- Did they have the tracks?
- The tracks and everything.
- Yeah,
- Yes, we build crazy tracks.
And then there was this,
even there's a movie,
the entire movie is on
YouTube called "World Race".
And it was these really weird looking cars
with super powers and you
had to race and you go,
you have to go 300 miles per hour in order
to activate the portal.
And then you go into this different world
that has this track,
but it's all on YouTube.
And so, so dorky, but--
- That sound amazing.
- Do you remember which
tracks you had for hot wheels?
I remember I got the carwash
one at a garage sale,
and then I had Chris Cross
Crash where you just make
the track and a four-leaf
clover pattern, and it was like,
they're gonna go until they go.
- Yes, yes, you had that one.
- You have Chris Cross Crash?
- Yes, you do guys.
- Chris Cross Crash.
- And then like my dad,
when you get the thing
that speeds them up,
that's the coolest little device.
- Yeah, the Chris Cross
Crash one was like,
I remember it had a dial
for the amount of speed
that you wanted, and if
you wanted it too fast,
usually it would just fly
straight off the track
and probably hit something.
And then a parent would
yell from the other room
like, what was that?
And you're like, nothing.
(laughing)
- Yeah.
I think the biggest
disappointment when I had
was called Metal Molder.
It was another one where it
was just an awesome commercial
of people hammering things
with metal and it's like,
you can make real crap out of metal kids.
And they'd show like, Oh, cool,
I made jewelry, a cool school ring.
And so I ended up getting it for Christmas
and it didn't work.
I guess my version was broken,
but you would get these little pellets
of quote, unquote, metal.
I think it was plastic.
(laughing)
And you would pour it into these molds.
It was like an Easy-Bake Oven,
but for future blacksmiths, I guess.
- Wow, that's awesome.
- Yeah.
I never had the Easy-Bake of it.
That was the one that my friends had.
I'll be like, Oh my God, it's amazing.
- I always kinda wanted one.
- Just so weird.
They're basically microwaving
will baby cakes, I guess.
I don't know.
- But it's not even a microwave.
It's done with a 10-watt light bulb.
So it's like, Oh yeah, I
would love to make a tiny cake
over the course of eight hours.
- Yeah.
It took a while.
- Yeah.
- Oh my gosh.
So let's go to this next one.
I'm gonna go to this one
from @cecarrington instead.
What are some of the movies you watched
at too young of an age?
I remember watching things
like "Predator" and "Seven"
when I was a child,
which probably explains
why Gore horror has no effect on me
as opposed to suspense horror.
- I didn't really have any restrictions
when it came to movies
(faintly speaking) and stuff.
Yeah, my parents were dope.
- Oh my God.
- But If there was a
nude scene or whatever,
they'd tell me to close my
eyes and all that stuff,
which is probably why I thought sex
or anything mentally
relating to sex was bad
for a very long time.
It took a long time for me to be like, Oh,
it's not actually bad.
You just had to your eyes
'cause you were a kid.
But yeah, I remember we
would watch our movies
and I was always there for it.
And maybe I'd play a handheld
game at the same time,
but it was for a movie night.
And so I remember, I don't even
remember what the movie was,
but I remember hearing my
teachers talk about something
one time and I overheard
them and I walked over
and I was like, Oh yeah, I
saw that movie. That was good.
And they were like, I
don't think your parents
would let you watch that one.
And I'm like, no, then this
happens and this guy's there.
And they're like, do your
parents know you watched it?
I'm like, yeah, I was with
them, it was a good...
Can we talk about this
like adults that we all...
- Oh!
Oh my gosh.
- Yeah, how about you?
What was your situation like?
- So I was very restricted
to actually very restricted.
Even we have this weird thing on Sundays,
I wasn't allowed to watch
TV or movies or anything,
unless it was like the
"Book of Mormon" stories
that were weird, weird
cartoons basically explaining
the "Book of Mormon" and
"The Holy Bible" stories,
which I wonder if I went
back and watched some
of those, if there was
anything weird or not.
Okay.
But a lot of them was
like, Oh, lying is bad.
Stuff like that.
Or David and Goliath weird Claymation.
Yeah, lying is fine.
Lie whenever, just lie.
- Yeah.
- But I remember watching "Mars Attacks!"
when I was way too young.
- Yeah, that was a good one.
- That one was weird.
And still kind of when I think back on it,
it was really scary to me.
- Yeah, I think I was a little
scared of that one actually
just 'cause of the weird-looking them.
- Yeah, ad then I wasn't allowed to watch
really scary movies ever.
- Mm-hmm.
- Because my mom instilled in
me, and I think I've mentioned
this a little bit where it's like,
you can't watch those and
humor the idea of dark spirits
in your home because dark
spirits will be (laughing)
- Wow, that's a lot of pressure.
- So I wasn't really watching scary movies
until I was in my late teens.
Even then I would maybe watch a thriller.
I remember the first scary movie,
but it was a thriller was the "Knowing",
that Nicholas Cage movie where--
- I don't know I've heard that one.
- It's so weird.
It is so weird.
I can't even explain to
you what's happening.
Basically the world's
ending and he somehow knows
it's ending, then I think in high school,
I finally watched "The Ring".
- That one was scary.
Wow.
- Yeah.
Which one's the one
that's like seven days?
Is it "The Ring"?
- That's "The Ring".
Yeah, certainly.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- And then I watched "Signs".
I think "Signs" when I was
really little freaked me
the (beep) out and I had
nightmares and couldn't sleep
for months and it was just
scared of aliens coming.
Yeah.
I think that one was the
one that turned me off
from scary movies for
years and years and years.
And so I still to this day
I can't watch them alone.
Even murder stuff, I'm
like kind of okay with,
but I'm usually I have
to watch with somebody.
- It's just the opposite
for a lot of people
because believe in what
you're gonna believe in.
Some people do acknowledge ghosts, spirits
are real or could be real.
- Mm-hmm.
- But murders are definitely real.
So I know a lot of people
watch something a goblin
or a monster and they're
like, Oh, who cares?
And with the murder, it's
like, yeah, people are evil.
They can do that.
- Yeah, I don't know
why I would rather watch
a murderer movie than a ghost movie,
even though one is much more likely
than the other (laughing)
- Well, maybe it's 'cause you already deal
with the possibility of like,
that's a real dark thing
that exists in the world directly
in front of your eyes
and it's demonstrable
and all that stuff.
So you already have sort of
walls built up to be like,
I deal with this all the time.
Whereas like ghosts and stuff,
your imagination runs away
and you don't have the toolkit
to actually rationalize like,
well, if there was a ghost,
I would just do it.
- Yeah, I like those, those
spooky (beep) up video games
where it's like, there's ghosts
in the halls and you open
a door and you see a
face, I'm like, no sir.
I see clips of those on Twitter and stuff,
and I'm like, absolutely filthy, no.
- Do you know which one
you're talking about?
'Cause I kinda want to play it.
I love horrors though.
- I don't know (laughing)
- I really do.
- I'm so disinterested
when I see those clips
that I don't even wanna
know what they were.
The only time I ever could
watch someone play them
was PewDiePie because he was so silly.
- I was literally about
to say that Courtney.
- Yeah.
- That's crazy.
'Cause I that's the whole
reason I found PewDiePie.
- Mm-hmm.
- 'Cause he was playing some
terrifying Japanese horror game
for the PS3, it was Blood
Parasite or something.
- Yeah.
- It was horrifying, and
I loved it and I was like,
who is this guy?
This is fun and yeah.
- I would always watch his
funny-moments compilations
and there was so much of those spooky.
So that's probably why I
didn't know what the games are
'cause there was always
like a compilation.
- He was famous for doing
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
where he'd have a
statute called a Stephano
and he'd be like,
Stephano, and that's
where, barrels, barrels.
(laughing)
Stephano.
- Good old those old days.
- Those were the days.
- Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I think in terms of
movies, I was fairly restricted.
And when I finally, I think
it was when my parents
got divorced and I had a different
support system in my life
at that time, my dad was seeing someone
who they were married for a
while and I still consider her
like a member of my family
'cause she was an awesome step
mom and was basically the one
who helped to loosen the reigns on my life
of like, I was allowed to wear...
I wouldn't be allowed to wear
this shirt, stuff like that.
But when we were with her,
then my dad, I think more
my dad was the careless one.
So then we were allowed
to watch "Superbad"
or "Pineapple Express", all those movies.
But those were later on.
I'm trying to think of other vivid movies.
I had so much Disney
shoved down my throat,
and I don't really complain,
but 'cause since my grandmother
was an animator forever.
- Which is so cool.
- So I had to watch it.
- Do you think it also came
from, was that a safer bet
from your mom that you can watch Disney
because we know Disney's okay,
or was it still your dad letting you?
- No, that was from my mom.
My mom had a lot of dictation.
She probably let me buy
Fable II because she liked
the artwork on the cover.
- Interesting.
- But she wasn't a huge
fan of Harry Potter
because of the magic.
- Mm-hmm.
- 'Cause that's not real.
- I know a lot of People,
'cause I grew up in Georgia,
same thing where people would be like,
you're allowed to read
those books, and I'm like,
what is life like for you?
- Yeah, it's so--
- No disrespect, but wow!
- So odd.
A lot of stuff I had to
watch was educational
or whatever she wanted me to watch, so.
- Sorry that just unlocked a
memory because we're talking
about video game stuff.
I think I had one before Diablo,
even though it wasn't mine,
but my dad would play Doom or Doom II
on the computer every night,
or Duke Nukem or Wolf's Shine,
all those first-person
shooters, very primitive ones,
he loved those.
And so I'd watch him every single night.
It was like a very special ritual.
And then as I got a little bit older,
probably starting five or six,
I would play after he was
done. I'd be like, can I try?
Can I do it?
And I remember I had some neighbors
that were pretty religious
and they were shocked
that I could play that.
They'd be like, you
actually play those games?
They're devil games.
And I remember it.
But I remember being so surprised by that
'cause I didn't have the
scope of understanding
of why people believe what they believe.
And I always need to be respectful,
but I just didn't get it.
And I tried to reason
with them by being like,
well, no, in this game,
you're killing demons.
You are defeating the devil.
Isn't that a good thing?
And they were like, no, it's the imagery.
And I was like, okay, well I don't get it.
But--
- Yeah.
- And again, if that's how
someone feels is how they feel,
but I just didn't have a tool
toolkit as a six-year-old
to be like, Oh God.
- I agree, I have weirdly vivid memories
of my older brother.
He would play games
where it was like you're
in a SWAT team and it was a mix of video
and I have no idea what it was called.
- Oh!
- But it was very strange,
just hunting for someone
in a house that was under arrest.
- Wait, did your brother play Night Trip?
- Maybe.
- That was the game that
made there be game ratings.
Because similarly, like, again,
you're watching these girls have a party
and you're in the police
trying to stop the killers
by looking at different cameras
of actual video footage and stuff.
But it was like a political thing,
where I think some senator was like,
There's a game
where you're trying to
trap women in a house.
And it was like, that's
not what the game is about.
And they're like, no, we need to get this
out of the hands of our kids.
They're gonna do drugs 'cause of it, and.
- I'm so thankful that we were raised
with this technology
and with these things around us
because with being able
to understand them,
we are not those people.
Because these people don't
understand something,
they are opposed to it.
And instead of wanting to understand it,
they just think it doesn't make sense.
- I wonder if we'll ever
become those people, though.
I wonder if there's gonna
be a leap in technology
where without even realizing it,
we just sorta miss the boat.
And I don't mean in the
next five to 10 years.
I mean like for we're 50, 60.
- Yeah, I hated TikTok
when it first was a thing.
I was so opposed to it.
I hope that we never become those people.
I like to think that
we're just, in general,
very open-minded people,
so we'll at least have
that in our advantage.
And with being tech-savvy
that we could at least try
and figure those things out.
But I think we're also in
the age where consumption,
a lot of it was surrounded around kids.
And fun stuff, games, was about kids,
whereas all those kids have now grown up
and these adults are playing video games,
and video games are all about
older people playing them.
- And we have disposable income now.
- Yeah, exactly.
- Whereas, like before,
it would be like, even at best,
you're marketing to their parents.
- Yeah, it's a new age.
- So it's all sort of
pointed at adults in a way,
which is really interesting.
- Exactly.
- The one thing that I think
is bizarre though about that
is when I was a kid and I
played whatever game I wanted,
the most I'd use the internet for would be
to like look up cheat codes.
And that would be fun, but there wasn't
that social aspect to it.
Whereas I remember playing
RuneScape, and that
was my first game where there
was a lot of other people.
And I immediately just
got kinda like (beep) on
for being new at the game.
And I'm like, there aren't
too many interactions in life
or too many situations where a
10-year-old and a 30-year-old
would be on the same
plane and playing field.
And so it's interesting
where socially you're like,
how does that affect people?
Kids over Xbox live are toxic as hell?
Where's that coming from
and what's that gonna do
to the psyche?
- Yeah, that's still like a thing.
Yeah, in rust and stuff.
There's just like
toxicity in the game play.
Did you ever play or anything?
Really something you could
play or maybe there was games,
but I never did them.
Did you ever hear about Gaia Online?
- I didn't do Gaia, I did "Ragnarok".
- I don't know "Ragnarok".
- Similar, similar.
- Gaia was, for those who don't know,
it was like a very, I'm sure
tons of weaves played it
and used it.
It was basically where
it was like Club Penguin
but with none of the games.
You just wear this pretty anime character
that would walk around towns
and chat with people.
And then there was forums
people would role-play
and stuff like that.
And it was my first time ever
seeing anything like that.
- Gaia and "Ragnarok",
I'm looking it up now.
They basically look the same.
- That's crazy.
And then Club Penguin, I
was very into Club Penguin.
- Wow, and didn't do that one.
I did Neopet.
- And then Neopets
a little bit.
- Neopets!
What was your Neopet?
- There was a unicorn
that I loved very much.
- Mm-hmm.
- I don't remember the names,
but I always tried different ones
and I was not very good
at maintaining them
'cause I wasn't allowed to
go on the computer very much.
So they would always be famished
and (laughing) things like that.
- My favorite one was I did the
Griffin at first and I think
it's name was just Griffin,
but I ended up switching
to a Caro.
A Caro was cool
'cause it was like a
little cat-looking thing,
but it had this tendril ears.
- Oh, I do remember.
I do remember.
- But there was a really
thin live cat-looking one
with tendrils, I'm not
talking about that one.
I'm talking about the floppy one.
(laughing)
I feel like for Neopets,
they would end up designing
three different concepts
for the same one, and then
some executive would be like,
great, print them all.
And you're like, well, no--
- Oh my Gosh!
- This is the tendril cat.
They're like, Nope,
we got three tendril
cats, get them out there.
- Oh my God, all right.
We're running a little short on time.
- No, I'm having so much fun.
- I know, this is good
stuff, good childhood stuff.
Maybe we can do more
episodes with other people
and talk more about it.
No, no, no.
I've just been so excited to.
- Absolutely not my guy.
So the next segment that we
have planned is a new segment
that's basically called
"What I'm Watching".
"What I'm Watching".
We watch things, wanna
know what we're watching.
Oops!
I'm gonna open FaceTime, hold on.
- I am gonna not say a show.
Actually no, ah,
there's so many things.
I've been hooked on a
YouTube channel lately
called Extra History.
- Ooh!
- It's really fun.
They've been doing it for a few years now.
So it's really sort of
rudimentary drawings,
but fun and a lot of personality
to just sort of, they'll basically narrate
in a very digestible way
something that happened in history
that maybe you just
need more context about.
- Nice.
- And they'll just show in acted out
with these little, not
quite stickmen, but--
- Is it cartoon animation or?
- It's not quite animation.
It's, they might do little
bits here and there.
But I discovered it
maybe a month or two ago
where I was just sitting around.
It was midnight, but I
wasn't ready to go to sleep.
(laughing)
And I just thought to myself,
I don't know enough about
Hawaii and I'd like to,
and I don't really know about its history
before it was straight-up ruined by--
- Mm-hmm, and fetishized, yeah.
- And fetishized by European
culture and American culture.
- Yeah.
- So I was like, I'd
like to know about this.
So I just googled history
of Hawaii, and I'm like,
one of the first things that came up
was "The Legacy of
Kamehameha" who was the person
that sort of unified all the islands
to make it Hawaii as one unit.
And it was just like a four-part series.
And I was just hooked and
I was like, this is great.
And then the next time I clicked on
was like, yeah, right?
Then the next one I clicked
on was about Mansa Musa,
who was the richest man to ever live ever,
even by today's standards,
the richest person.
He would travel and
just by tipping people,
change the economy and
make there be inflation.
People would kinda be mad when he visited
because they're like, our
entire economy is in shambles
because you just dropped
our yearly GDP in a minute.
It's just interesting 'cause I'm like,
I missed out on that history,
'cause I'm of European
descent and I feel like a lot
of American textbooks
really focus on that.
So it's like a black man was
the richest man to ever live.
That's awesome to hear about.
And then I was like, I don't know enough
about the Byzantines.
So right now I'm learning
about Justinian and--
- That's really cool.
There is so much good
educational stuff on YouTube
that isn't like, I don't know why I got
such a bad emotional attachment
with educational stuff growing up.
But there is some really cool stuff.
Shane has showed me a lot of
different thing, he's like,
this is what happens if
you drink an entire bottle
of soy sauce.
And weird stories about like, this man got
a 7-Eleven hot dog and it
spread a virus through whatever,
weird stories that are
real history like that.
But I wanna check out what
you're watching as well--
- Yes, extra History.
Extra History.
- Extra History.
My YouTube has been kinda garbage.
I always watch on my TV and
it's harder to navigate.
And I swear to God, I watched
one drama, Tea spill video.
And my homepage is literally, okay,
'cause I used lo-fi hip
hop livestreams a lot,
and then I watched one
(beep) drama video and now
it's literally like livestream drama,
livestream lo-fi drama, Tea Spill, Spill,
here's the Tea Drama, all
these different channels.
And I'm like, God, I don't even wanna go
on YouTube anymore.
So I need to vet it.
- It's so interesting how long the apps
have been out for, things
like Xbox PS4 Phone,
and how difficult it still is to navigate.
- We'll get there.
I think it's hard 'cause
you can only do so much
with the controller.
And with a remote, yeah.
But I haven't been watching, yeah.
I haven't watched like a ton.
I've been in a weird rut
where I was watching a lot of Netflix.
I love that series.
It's a series called "Glow up"
where it's basically
"America's Next Top Model".
But it's with makeup artists
and being given a prompt
and doing crazy, like,
Oh, you need to do this,
the makeup for this play
tonight on Broadway.
Okay, now I need you to do
this editorial photo shoot.
And it's really cool 'cause I love makeup.
And then there was "Next in Fashion",
which was a fashion--
- I did watch "Next in Fashion", yeah.
- So good, and I'm sad they're
not making another season.
I think it was probably
because it was too expensive
and probably exhausting for people.
But that was really good.
- I also think it was kinda weird
the way they did teams sometimes.
I feel like they wanted drama,
but in reality I would have
just have liked to have seen--
- Yeah.
- More cohesive ideas.
- There were teams that were like, Oh,
these people know each
other and they seem great.
And then there's people who
literally met the day before
and that was their downfall.
- And they're polar opposite
styles where someone's like,
well I want something a
little bit more reserved,
then someone else was like,
I would like there to be
a sparkly cheetah pattern
and if you could have
fire coming out of it,
that'd be great.
And I'm like, well, that's not gonna work.
- Yeah, that's not gonna work.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, but it was good.
And then I've been trying
to watch more movies
that I've been putting off.
Like I finally watched
"Silence of the Lambs"
for the first time.
- Ooh, nice.
- That was really cool.
- What do you think?
- I thought it was amazing.
It was scary and super intense.
And luckily my friend was staying with me
who had been
social-distancing, quarantining
and stayed with me for the weekend.
And got to watch it with
her and I'm just like,
Oh, I'm like, oh my, is she gonna die?
And she's like, I can't tell you.
I'm like, God!
- Can't tell you.
(laughing)
Oh yo, would she look a
great big fret person?
- God!
- And I'm like (laughing) you
know what you look like to me
with the good bag and the cheap shoes?
- So good.
So good.
- So good.
- Yeah, and then last night
I watched "12 Years a Slave".
- Oh wow!
How was that.
- A random random watch.
It always was a very sad movie,
but it hit me really hard this time around
'cause (laughing) I saw
this tweet the other day,
a tweet was like white
people calling the protests,
everything going on right now.
It's like, goddamn!
- Ooh, wow, yep.
(laughing)
- Yeah, with the protest and everything
going on right now (laughing)
- Mm-hmm, and there you go, but yeah.
- I think it's just 'cause
we're in a huge awakening
right now, so that movie was like,
it just seems even more insane--
- [Damien] Mm-hmm.
- The way these people were treated.
Anyway.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Other than that, I
haven't been watching a ton.
- Sorry, one more thing
specifically relating to that,
because I've always been
really interested in Haiti
and Haitian history as well.
- Mm-hmm.
- Watch the Extra History on
Haiti because it's incredible.
It is the only successful
slave revolt in the history
of recorded history.
- Wow!
- And so they break down how it happened
and why and what all the
social classes were in Haiti
and how the French Revolution
and American Revolution
both effected that all at once.
But I think it was
there that I saw a chart
for how long slavery had
been going on compared
to how long it wasn't.
- Yeah dude.
- So it's really eyeopening.
That's why I've been digging
history more and more lately
is just give me that
context, that sweet context.
- Well, I think that will
conclude this segment
of "What I'm Watching".
I'm glad we were talking
about history 'cause I think
we're gonna be learning
about someone named John's
history in this episode
of "Shoot, Dude!"
- Hey Courtney, that was a good segue.
- Thank you very much.
- "Shoot, Dude"!
- [Woman 1] "Shoot, Dude"!
- [Man 1] "Shoot, Dude"!
- [Woman 2] "Shoot, Dude"!
- [Man 2] "Shoot, Dude"!
- [Woman 3] "Shoot, Dude"!
- [Woman 4] "Shoot, Dude"!
- [Woman 5] "Shoot, Dude"!
- [Man 3] "Shoot, Dude"!
- [Woman 6] "Shoot, Dude"!
(laughing)
- [Woman 7] "Shoot, Dude"!
- "Shoot, Dude"! And for
those of you who don't know
what a "Shoot, Dude" is,
these are basically viewer
or listener-submitted stories
that provoke a "Shoot, Dude".
They're basically embarrassing
moments or yikes moments
that really suck that they happened.
So we're gonna read these
stories and we are going
to determine if they are
indeed a "Shoot, Dude"
or something else.
- Mm-hmm.
- Are you guys ready?
Damien, would you like to
read it or would you like me
to read it?
- Oh, I can do it.
I don't think I've read one before.
- I didn't read it.
I like to be surprised.
So please read it.
- From John, I was just in
a call presenting two weeks
of findings over the course
of half a dozen meetings.
I was sharing my screen to go
over a spreadsheet as a group.
I always remember to turn off
things like push notifications
and other personal apps.
However, I forgot something this time.
I was talking to the
clients on another monitor
and I saw them start cracking up.
Unsure what the issue
is, I just kept going
for another 10 seconds or so.
Eventually, I turned to
the screen I'm sharing
and seeing email notification saying,
your receipt from Manscaped.
I quickly closed it and then
pretended it didn't happen
for the remaining 30 minutes.
I have a pretty thick skin
and so I'm already laughing
about it, but it sure
felt like a "Shoot, Dude".
- Oh my gosh.
- Courtney, would you say
that's a "Shoot, Dude"?
- I think that's a pretty
mild "Shoot, Dude".
- It's a mild "Shoot, Dude".
- It's a "Shoot, Dude".
- Yeah.
- It's a "Shoot, Dude".
- Oh, oh, "Shoot, Dude"!
- "Shoot, Dude"!
- 'Cause obviously it's
embarrassing if people laugh at you
for anything, even if it were something
that you're super proud about.
- Yeah.
- Like Manscaped, let yourself be
however you wanna be
hygienic-wise or trim your hair,
let it grow, who cares?
Men, women, non-binary.
Who cares?
Do your thing, live your life.
- Honestly, I feel like if
I saw it, I'd be like, huh,
all right, nice, cool.
- Yeah, I'd be like, hey sir,
thank you for the presentation.
I just wanna say I'm glad to know
that you keep it trimmed down there.
- Nice to know we have
a well self-disciplined
hygienic queen (laughing)
- Exactly.
No, I think that's great.
It is a little "Shoot, Dude" though.
Anything personal coming up,
especially if you're being
aware about the notifications.
- And you're totally right.
It sucks when you're just
laughed at in general,
or even if it is something
you're just legit proud about.
So yeah.
- Yeah.
- But yeah, I can't say
I've ever experienced
anything like that.
Have you ever experienced
something similar?
- It's not an embarrassment thing
or a presentation thing,
but I do audition for a lot
of things voiceover-wise
that are very confidential.
I have to sign nondisclosure agreements
to even receive the email.
And so sometimes I have
these panic moments
where that's the last
thing lift up on my screen.
So I'll open my computer around friends
and then immediately
I'll be like, hey, hey,
nothing is there.
There is no new thing from
that really cool property
that you really like coming out.
It's just.
(laughing)
Yeah, so.
- Yeah, I get that.
I think the craziest I've ever had
is showing someone
something in my camera roll
and being like, shoot,
where's that other photo?
And scrolling past a
few photos that parents
don't need to see, so.
- Yeah, I think I've done that.
Yeah, just something,
or like, why do I have
10 Chris Pratt photos in the world?
That's weird.
Why do I have wonderful photos
in my camera?
- That is the thing.
(laughing) Working with social
media as part of our job,
sometimes you pull down a
bunch of photos for a purpose.
- Yep, yep.
- And then you go back
later and you're like,
this looks really suspect, huh!
- I could say that my
camera roll is very weird.
It's a lot of cursed images.
And it's the only thing
that's more common nowadays, but yeah.
- I'm gonna text you one right now
and that'll just be for us.
- Thank you, I appreciate it.
Well, this has been a lovely
episode of the "SmoshCast",
it's been quite nostalgic for me.
- Same.
- I hope that we sparked
some nostalgia in those listening.
If you would like to submit
your own "Shoot, Dude",
you can send an email to
us at shootdood@smosh.com.
That's S-H-O-O-T-D-O-O-D@smosh.com.
And oop!
I received the photo.
That looks pretty good
from what I'm seeing.
- Mm-hmm, that's a pretty funny meme.
(laughing)
- And then if you wanna ask
questions for future episodes,
follow us on Twitter or
Instagram because we post
our prompts or questions as
tweets or as Instagram stories
and if you don't wanna miss them,
you can put notifications on as well.
But yeah, other than that,
you can just pop by to listen or watch us
on any listening apps on
Wednesdays and then video apps
on Fridays, which is
basically just YouTube.
So was subscribe to "SmoshCast"
on YouTube (laughing)
- And always remember to go
beyond plus ultra, do your best.
- Hell yeah.
- Yeah.
- What is it called?
One for All.
This was fun Dam.
- This was fun.
This is the most--
- You're the man.
This is the most you've ever talked to me.
- I know, we never talk...
No, we've got more than this.
Wait, what did Kevin ask?
Kevin said, Damien, how did this one feel
as far as "Best Friends Podcast"
compared to last week's
"Best Friends" episode?
- I feel like we probably
got more legit bonding done
'cause I didn't just look
up Wikipedia articles
about Courtney the whole time.
- Oh my God, yeah,
I was just a little bit--
- No, this is funny (beep)
- Yeah, I like talking
about childhood stuff
because you really do
learn about each other
and about ourselves in a way,
what really makes us happy, so.
- And I also forget I've
got a bunch of (beep)
- And it's also like when
you find out something
that you have in common with
somebody from your childhood,
that feels a little more special
than now where it's like,
Oh, you like "Avengers"?
Cool, wait--
- Yeah (laughing)
- You hated "Jimmy Neutron"?
Oh my God.
Something like that (laughing)
- I (beep) hate "Jimmy Neutron".
- All right, let's get
outta here, shall we?
- Oh, I thought we already
done for now for a minute.
- No, no, we are still--
- Oh (beep)
- We are still rolling.
- Please, please, cut
all of the things I said.
- Okay (laughing)
Bye.
- No, I'm serious.
- No Dam, please.
- No Courtney.
(laughing)
Courtney.
- Oh, bye bye.
- Oh, bye bye.
(upbeat rock music)
