Dangerous Minds: How Stephen Glover Baffled Hollywood

We're starving for things that make us think and make us laugh. And so we welcome back the multi-hyphenate co-creator of Atlanta, Stephen Glover, who takes Pablo on a behind-the-scenes Hollywood tour in which we encounter Liam Neeson, Goofy, Coolio and Dan Le Batard. Not to mention the bizarre Atlanta cameos that worked out (from Black Justin Bieber to the time Stephen's older brother, Donald Glover, raced Michael Vick) and the ones that almost did (from Steve Harvey to Stephen A. Smith). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Pablo Torre?

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• 0:42Pablo Torre?

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• 1:09Speaker 01

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• 1:54Pablo Torre?

  This episode is brought to you by Apollo.io. A lot of the stories on this show start the same way. Something that looks pretty simple turns out to be a mess once you look under the hood. Well, it's no different in the sales world. Your team has a tool for finding prospects, a different tool for reaching out to them, and a third for keeping track of it all. On paper, that's a system. In practice, it's a salesperson spending the better part of the day copying names from one tab into another, and not much of it actually selling. Apollo.io is a platform that helps sales teams find the right buyers and reach out to them. It brings prospecting, outreach and follow-up into one place instead of several separate tools. It's used by sales teams of all sizes, from small businesses to larger

• 2:39Pablo Torre?

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• 3:07Speaker 02

  I went out deliberately into black areas in this city, looking to be set upon so that I could unleash physical violence.

• 3:23Pablo Torre?

  Right after this ad. You're listening to DraftKings Network.

• 3:41Pablo Torre?

  When we got to know each other, Steve Glover, you came in with a lot of stories that I didn't know about, about [BLEEP] you had done. I'm not here to confront you over whether you had ever driven a car under the [BLEEP].

• 3:55Speaker 03

  Oh, my goodness. The police are waiting outside.

• 3:58Pablo Torre?

  Do you have a power ranking in your mind of like, mm, young Steve?

• 4:05Speaker 03

  Irresponsible. Man, when I was like, when I first came into college, I got super drunk, like with my friends.

• 4:15Pablo Torre?

  Is it Georgia Tech?

• 4:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. There was like a club next to it that we like went to. By the time I stepped in there, I was just wasted, just from like pre-gaming. And they literally threw me out. They were like, this kid is like a liability. My friends were like, they like picked me up like jazz from

• 4:34Pablo Torre?

  Fresh Prince.

• 4:34Speaker 03

  Fresh Prince.

• 4:37Speaker 03

  They like threw me out to the club. And then my friends brought me back to my dorm and then like my RA like saw them put me in there. And he was like, hey, what's going on? And they just like ran and left me.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  It makes you scared for like the future and your own kids a little bit. Cause you're like, oh, man. You look back and it's like lucky that you kind of made it. Like somebody said something the other day about like thinking about the fact that you're here is like all these people behind you like survived, you know? And it's like, that is kind of crazy when you think about it. There was probably somebody down the line, one of my ancestors who had a similar experience. He got like super drunk and almost got kicked by like a horse. He just like barely missed, he's like, whoa. That sounds close. Like you're just barely making it over and over again.

• 5:38Pablo Torre?

  So the people who have been subscribing to this podcast from the very beginning, remember that my friend Stephen Glover, who was a screenwriter and rapper and actor and producer, was our guest on the fifth ever episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out, in which we found out that Steve and his older brother Donald invented the concept of memes as children in the 90s and are also currently working on a secret Lando Calrissian Star Wars movie for Disney, which immediately made news when he said it on the show in 2023. But Steve is also the guy who accepted in 2017 two Writers Guild of America Awards for Atlanta, which remains my favorite television show of all time.

• 6:22Speaker 03

  I gotta say, after winning the second one, I'm jaded already.

• 6:28Speaker 03

  This town's not that great. Everybody here thinks they're so hot. My agent took me to Dan Tana's, awful.

• 6:40Speaker 03

  Nah, I gotta thank my agents at WME, Tom, I love you, man. I gotta thank my lawyer, Lev in the house, Lev Ginsberg, y'all know him, for taking me to a real restaurant.

• 6:54Speaker 03

  I'm taking down a lot of people, I'm sorry.

• 6:58Pablo Torre?

  And so if you've never seen Atlanta, which also won a bunch of Emmys and Golden Globes, and also mainstreamed Migos into popular American culture, just know that what we're about to do here is talk about stuff like Donald racing Michael Vick, and casting Liam Neeson, and also this insane project from last year that involved both 21 Savage, another very popular rapper from Atlanta, as well as Dan Lebatard. You know, my boss here at Metal Lark, which we'll explain. But it is not like Steve has been able to make every project that he's ever pitched in Hollywood.

• 7:39Speaker 03

  There's always one we talk about where we wanted to do a trailer for 56 Nights, the Future, uh, like, mixtape.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  Like a movie was coming out, basically, like about Future's life story. Like, just the idea of, like, if you know the 56 Nights.

• 8:05Pablo Torre?

  Well, please, for people who don't know, 56 Nights, refresh our memories.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  So Future's DJ and friend, DJ Esco, well, I guess they were in, like, Dubai, ends up getting, like, detained by maybe, like, Customs or whoever there. And, uh, he's put in jail, and he has all of Future's music, I guess, on his hard drive that's also confiscated. So Future is without his DJ, and he also doesn't have any of his, like, songs that he's worked on. So, like, the legend is he had to, like, start working, you know, from scratch, like.

• 8:45Pablo Torre?

  I, I like that, that Esco is like the guy with the nuclear football for the president. If you lose this archive, we are [BLEEP].

• 8:59Speaker 03

  Rappers always have like things like that, you know? It's like this bag with my-

• 9:05Pablo Torre?

  This unbacked up, uncloud stored bag.

• 9:10Speaker 03

  Seven hundred thousand dollars.

• 9:12Pablo Torre?

  So Future has to start from scratch.

• 9:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's, because Esco is locked up and there's no telling when he's getting out. He did eventually get out after 56 Nights, hence the name.

• 9:24Pablo Torre?

  But on night 55, it was real.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  Night 55, they almost, they almost got a new DJ.

• 9:35Pablo Torre?

  He almost recorded an acoustic album.

• 9:37Speaker 03

  The mixtape that like came out and like the subsequent like run of music Future had supposedly was like inspired by having to like start over again, which is kind of funny. It's funny that rappers all have like this kind of same like Christ-like story. They would like make like a fake movie trailer for that, but we never got to do it.

• 10:00Pablo Torre?

  Wait a minute, hold on. You're acting like I'm so wistful for this idea we never got to do, or we made a fake movie for Future and instead had to settle for making a fake movie for 21 Savage.

• 10:28Pablo Torre?

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• 10:59Pablo Torre?

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• 11:43Pablo Torre?

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• 12:06Pablo Torre?

  I'm pretty sure this won't shock anyone out there, but buying a car is just a hard process. You have to figure out what you want from thousands of options, then you have to find somewhere that's offering a good deal, then you get hit with unexpected fees. But let's just break it down, and think about how you'd describe your ideal car to a friend. You know, something like, good gas mileage, four-wheel drive, reliable, under 30 grand. Luckily, CarGurus makes it that easy. Just describe it to CarGurus the same way. With Guru, you search in your own words and you get listings, real listings, that match. No endless filters, just the car that fits your life. CarGurus also helps you shop with more transparent pricing, allowing you to see when dealer fees are included

• 12:50Pablo Torre?

  so you can compare listings with greater confidence. And with more than 4 million listings, CarGurus has the biggest selection of cars. So it's easier than ever to find the right car and the right deal. It is no wonder CarGurus is the number one most-visited car shopping site according to SimilarWeb's estimated traffic data. So buy or sell your next car today with CarGurus at cargurus.com. Go to cargurus.com to make sure your big deal is the best deal. That's C-A-R-G-U-R-U-S dot com. Cargurus.com.

• 13:29Pablo Torre?

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• 14:03Pablo Torre?

  So before we get to this fake 21 Savage movie, which I've been meaning to get to for more than a year now, you should also know that there is a thing that PTFO does share in common with Steve and Donald and their group of friends that I have been lucky enough to watch flourish in this industry as both writers and, honestly, cultural critics over the last decade from up close. Because both of us love stuff that is extremely smart, but also extremely stupid.

• 14:35Speaker 03

  I think that's a good way to put it. It's like eyebrow and low brow. I think that like best describes like the kind of comedy taste. Like even you, like me, Donald, it's like, you know, it's like The Simpsons. That's why we get along. It's like, we could make a joke about Mark Twain. We could make a joke about that. Do you, Huck, take Becky as your wife? Whoa!

• 15:06Pablo Torre?

  He done switched to chrome with a pig. No wonder he was pooping so much.

• 15:14Pablo Torre?

  I say melting cheese on broccoli a lot. Trying to melt cheese on broccoli.

• 15:18Speaker 03

  That's what people want. You gotta mix the high and the low. You gotta mix the candy with the vegetables.

• 15:26Pablo Torre?

  And sometimes, as PTFO has established as well, you also gotta mix in a little bit of Lebatard, as you will very vividly see over on our YouTube channel. Which brings us back to something that, yes, I really did need to find out.

• 15:45Pablo Torre?

  So, the 21 Savage thing, though. Me talking about this is so overdue.

• 15:53Speaker 04

  These people, they think we're savages.

• 15:57Pablo Torre?

  It's overdue for a couple of reasons. One of them is that my boss, Dan Lebatard, friend and boss.

• 16:04Speaker 03

  Is in that, yeah. I mean.

• 16:06Pablo Torre?

  We, we, is depicted in it by a guy who looks, I wouldn't say in a literal way exactly like Dan, but is spiritually exactly like Dan.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  Just enough so that he couldn't sue us, you know?

• 16:25Speaker 03

  Pretty much. That could be anybody.

• 16:29Pablo Torre?

  Except for the part where you said it's him two minutes ago.

• 16:32Speaker 03

  Did I say?

• 16:35Speaker 03

  I think, I think I meant that was Stephen A. Smith.

• 16:39Pablo Torre?

  The investigation that I went through on like, so how is it that Dan Lebatard and Bomani Jones, it turns out, were both depicted in the trailer? How would you describe what I'm talking about? What that project was for people, again, who did not get to consume it at the time?

• 16:57Speaker 03

  Like, the way we would explain it to somebody is like... There was a video back in the day for Coolio, for Gangsta's Paradise. A lot of movies had like the soundtrack, you know, song that was also had a video. And they splice in, you know, scenes.

• 17:18Pablo Torre?

  Where the musician is also in the movie.

• 17:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. Michelle Pfeiffer actually is in the video. She does the backwards chair.

• 17:26Pablo Torre?

  So they didn't splice Coolio into a scene from Dangerous Minds. They put Michelle Pfeiffer into the Gangsta's Paradise.

• 17:33Speaker 03

  You know, so that's Gangsta's Paradise.

• 17:36Pablo Torre?

  The Gangsta's Paradise cinematic universe, the multiverse.

• 17:39Speaker 03

  Is the blueprint for this.

• 17:49Speaker 03

  I like how you're like, explain this to people. I'm like, have you seen Gangsta's Paradise? If you're like, no, I'm like, okay, there's absolutely no way to explain this. Which is pretty much how it was. Like you try to explain it to somebody, they're like, what? And you're like, all right, well.

• 18:03Pablo Torre?

  I feel like you and Donald and all of our friends who work with you guys, Swank, Ibrafam, Chad, they're all mad when I don't say their names aloud when I listen to podcasts. I say that you guys collectively like it when people are like, so this is a real movie for 21 Savage that you guys are making.

• 18:28Speaker 03

  It's always a funny joke as of just playing something so like straight or close to it that it's there for a second. You're like, wait a second, is this real? To us, that's always just funny. And it's, it's a lot harder to do than I would have originally thought to make it, to really get close. I mean, like the goofy like episode of Atlanta, the goofy documentary.

• 18:56Pablo Torre?

  For people who haven't seen the goofy episode of Atlanta.

• 18:59Speaker 03

  What is it?

• 19:00Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 19:01Speaker 03

  So Gangsta's Paradise, right?

• 19:05Speaker 03

  No, it's just a basically a documentary telling the origin of the Goofy movie at Disney.

• 19:15Pablo Torre?

  And the documentary is named The Goof Who Sat By The Door: The Thomas Washington Story.

• 19:24Pablo Torre?

  Which is already just like.

• 19:27Speaker 03

  Pretty hilarious.

• 19:28Pablo Torre?

  And why I think on some level like we are friends. It's like this is both the highest brow and the lowest.

• 19:35Speaker 03

  Very, very true.

• 19:36Pablo Torre?

  It's like a spook who sat by the door illusion in the name of a fake documentary out of fake black media network about Goofy.

• 19:46Speaker 04

  It's a story so unbelievable, it could only happen in Hollywood.

• 19:53Speaker 04

  How did this young, black, unassuming animator from East Atlanta wind up as the CEO of Disney? At the company's most powerful moment in time?

• 20:11Speaker 03

  We just play it so close. Like, the belief is that a Goofy movie is inherently a black movie. It was just this idea of like, what if it was actually made by a black guy who managed to get in charge for like,

• 20:29Speaker 03

  you know, just, just long enough to make this movie. That's the blackest movie of all time.

• 20:34Speaker 05

  We all voted for this guy named Tom Washington, but we didn't realize that Tom's first name was actually Thompson, not Thomas. Thomas Washington was an animator. People were pretty upset when they found out they voted for the wrong man.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  So making this documentary that feels really real to the point where I'm like, yeah, you know, it kind of does feel like that's the truth, you know?

• 21:06Speaker 05

  He knew that people thought Goofy was dumb, but he wanted to show the systemic factors that Goofy was dealing with. A shitty job, angry kid, and embarrassed by his lack of influence. Man, it was wild how deep he leaned into all this, cuz as far as I knew, Thomas had a really solid home life.

• 21:33Pablo Torre?

  Brings us to why Dan Lebatard was in the 21 Savage fake movie trailer music video.

• 21:39Speaker 03

  He's a part of the culture, whether he likes it or not.

• 21:43Pablo Torre?

  I don't think he understands his significance enough to have a developed opinion on it.

• 21:50Speaker 05

  I don't know how to explain this to Greg Cody and Stugatz exactly in ways that they would understand. But the internet, I am told, because we are three old people, the internet has told me that I have beef with 21 Savage. I think I could say to either Stugatz or Greg Cody that his name is Savage 21 and they would not know the difference. But I don't want to be having beef with 21 Savage.

• 22:22Pablo Torre?

  I just remember him saying to me, like, what is this?

• 22:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time. You know what I mean? Sometimes the universe comes for you. And it was like, he had no idea 21 Savage was gonna be such a huge thing.

• 22:41Pablo Torre?

  So he interviewed on Highly Questionable, R.I.P. to a great show that interviewed rappers a lot. A show that aired on ESPN. Just to keep in mind what everybody's pulling off here.

• 22:52Speaker 03

  I love that.

• 22:54Pablo Torre?

  Where Dan, and at the time Bomani, and Dan's dad, Poppy Gonzalo Lebatard, are interviewing remotely 21 Savage.

• 23:03Speaker 05

  You're savage. Why you trapping so hard? Why this capping so hard? Why you got a 12-car garage? Why you pulling all these rappers' cards? 'Cause the, and I'm hard. I turn it into some hard. I grew up in the streets without no heart. I'm praying to my Glock and my car then.

• 23:27Speaker 03

  The background behind him is like, you know, the buildings or whatever, like kind of like a nice view.

• 23:32Pablo Torre?

  He has like a green screen.

• 23:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, like.

• 23:35Pablo Torre?

  A TV, a TV fake background. In a studio somewhere.

• 23:39Speaker 03

  But the way like he's like sitting kind of and like spinning in his chair. It makes him look like an evil villain, like kind of, you know, and because like Dan and Bomani are kind of like, you know, here's 21 Savage, like kind of talking to him. It's like a little bit like they're a little bit out of their element. It kind of feels like they're scared of him because he's like a supervillain. So it's just a a thing that immediately kind of became like a meme.

• 24:07Pablo Torre?

  I mean, 21 Savage has a tattoo like on.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  On his forehead.

• 24:12Pablo Torre?

  On his forehead between his eyebrows. His hair is.

• 24:15Speaker 03

  Like an anime character.

• 24:17Pablo Torre?

  I was gonna say, imagine Coolio was an anime character and you kind of approximate.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  Like a black Saiyan.

• 24:23Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  If you watch Dragon Ball Z.

• 24:26Pablo Torre?

  And he is just like, sort of like smiling and holding his hands in a way that has like a Dr. Claw aspect, like as if he had just rotated his chair around. And that still frame inspired Donald to play the role of 21 Savage in that interview. The casting, a big gap in the understanding that I had as to how, how much of an homage this was to this specific HQ interview was me then asking around to our group of friends that made this and being like, like, oh my God, like I would love to talk to the actor who played like Dan. I gotta get him on this show. And I believe, I think it was Fam who was just like,

• 25:13Pablo Torre?

  that guy has no idea

• 25:16Pablo Torre?

  what role he was playing.

• 25:18Speaker 03

  He really doesn't. It was funny. I remember that guy specifically was kind of like. Like an actor who's like there like doing a role. He has no idea of like the context of what we're doing. That was also what's funny. You saw me having to explain to you what this is.

• 25:37Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  So trying to explain.

• 25:38Pablo Torre?

  Your life is repeatedly being asked by people to explain the weird thing you're working on. And that includes the people who are starring in various parts of the thing that they are helping you make.

• 25:50Speaker 03

  This is the hardest part about creating anything. You know, it is, it starts off as an idea to you. So you have to translate this into the real world to other people.

• 26:05Pablo Torre?

  Like, all right, so you're this Cuban guy with a dark goatee and you wear a suit behind this desk next to this old guy and this black dude on the other side. And you have like buttons unbuttoned and you're kind of like, you're that guy. And also, uh, I remember Bomani's complaint, uh, that he voiced online. They, they thought that I would get on TV without no jacket on, just with a shirt, a dress shirt with the undershirt out of it, the out the pack joint.

• 26:35Speaker 03

  We had to do just enough to be like, it's not you guys, you know?

• 26:41Pablo Torre?

  And the old man in between them.

• 26:43Speaker 03

  I remember that day specifically, we're kind of behind. So you just gotta give them the fastest things. I didn't give them the whole Coolio speech. I didn't have the time, you know, we were moving fast.

• 26:57Pablo Torre?

  But that ended up being a thing that people eventually realized, oh, this isn't actually a movie.

• 27:03Speaker 03

  That's how you know it's a good prank, when people are sad at the end.

• 27:06Pablo Torre?

  When you're mad that you didn't get the fake movie that this advertised.

• 27:11Speaker 03

  But that's the thing, like you already know what this movie is. Yeah, that's why it works so good, you know? If they're like, we're making the 21 Savage movie, like you already know what the highlights are and how Hollywood is gonna twist that. Have you ever seen the like?

• 27:28Pablo Torre?

  Do not ask me if I've seen Gangster's Paradise.

• 27:29Speaker 03

  Sometimes.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  Coolio's video. Have you ever seen the Biggie movie that came out a couple of years ago?

• 27:41Pablo Torre?

  I saw it in theaters.

• 27:46Speaker 03

  We all make it. If I don't make it, not going back on the block. What cracks me up about that movie is I think he's, there's like a catchphrase in it. He keeps being like, Can't change the world unless we change ourselves. That Biggie is saying like over and over again in the movie, where you're like, there's no way Biggie ever said that, right? Like, I don't think he's ever said that.

• 28:20Pablo Torre?

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• 29:05Pablo Torre?

  because Cozy makes every part of the process easy. So, visit Cozy today. That's C-O-Z-E-Y dot com and make yourself at home.

• 29:17Pablo Torre?

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• 30:01Pablo Torre?

  And all 800-plus clinicians are in-network with major insurers, so you can use your existing insurance instead of paying monthly subscriptions or out-of-network costs. Head to talkiatory.com/ptfo to complete the short assessment and get matched with an in-network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. That's T-A-L-K-I-A-T-R-Y.com/ptfo to get matched in minutes. Talkiatory.com/ptfo. Did you know over 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated and 90% don't get enough potassium, which is a key electrolyte responsible for energy, muscle function, and clear thinking? Well, that's why you can be drinking water all day and still feel tired, or foggy, or

• 30:46Pablo Torre?

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• 31:29Pablo Torre?

  That's instanthydration.com/ptfo, promo code PTFO.

• 31:41Pablo Torre?

  I remember getting a text, if I'm just gonna throw Ibra onto the bus. I think it was Ibra. Ibra Aké, who is, again, not to dwell on who Ibra is, but just for people who don't know him, artist, curmudgeon.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Professional, professional New Yorker.

• 31:57Pablo Torre?

  Who lives in France now.

• 31:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. In the most New York way possible.

• 32:01Pablo Torre?

  Creative director guy who's worked with you guys.

• 32:03Speaker 03

  Like, yeah.

• 32:04Pablo Torre?

  Beyonce now. I'm just like, what's the, the resume is actually crazy the more I say it aloud.

• 32:08Speaker 03

  No, Ibra is like, a real artist.

• 32:11Pablo Torre?

  A real artist, a snob.

• 32:13Speaker 03

  A snob.

• 32:14Pablo Torre?

  Professional snob, Ibra Aké. Got to get a text from him. Just to give you a sense of the high, he's the highbrow, you could argue. He brings highbrow credibility.

• 32:21Speaker 03

  He definitely does.

• 32:22Pablo Torre?

  From now, Paris. Can I get Stephen A. Smith's contact info? We're thinking of Castigam in an episode of Atlanta. What was the role for Stephen A. Smith?

• 32:33Speaker 03

  It was probably season three of Atlanta. This is the flamethrower episode of season three.

• 32:43Speaker 05

  I'm gonna donate a million dollars to your school. And I'm changing the name from that degenerate slave owner to one of the richest black men this side of the Mississippi. From now on, this school is gonna be named the Robert S. Lee High School.

• 32:59Pablo Torre?

  Here are the other actors who I guess were being considered for the role. Steve Harvey was our first choice. Then Denzel and Spike and Kevin Samuels.

• 33:10Speaker 05

  I am going to pay every single senior's college tuition.

• 33:23Speaker 03

  Who's black?

• 33:28Speaker 03

  We had wanted it to be Steve Harvey. And I think Steve Harvey seemed like he was into it and like he wanted to do it. And then he kinda, I don't know, at the last moment dropped out. He might have been.

• 33:41Pablo Torre?

  You think he read the script?

• 33:44Speaker 03

  I don't, I don't even, I don't know. Actually, did he ever get the script? Maybe that was it. He read it and was like, uh-oh.

• 33:52Pablo Torre?

  Like, I can't host Family Feud after this.

• 33:54Speaker 03

  I was gonna say, I think he was shooting Family Feud at the time. I think he was like shooting Family Feud in Africa or something at the time. That might have been why. Welcome back to the feud, everybody. The Sidira family won the game.

• 34:13Speaker 03

  And now it's time to play.

• 34:18Pablo Torre?

  As somebody who has met Steve Harvey,

• 34:22Pablo Torre?

  when I, you know, became the owner of the greatest comeback in the history of Celebrity Family Feud.

• 34:27Speaker 03

  Name the greatest breakfast food ever created.

• 34:30Pablo Torre?

  Bake.

• 34:31Speaker 03

  Name someone you should never call when you're drunk.

• 34:34Pablo Torre?

  Your mom.

• 34:34Speaker 03

  Name a coin you throw into a fountain to make a wish.

• 34:37Pablo Torre?

  A penny.

• 34:38Speaker 03

  We got a shot. I should have made you ask Steve Harvey why he didn't do our episode.

• 34:43Pablo Torre?

  If I knew the backstory in full then, his voice would be right here.

• 34:49Speaker 03

  Trying to get people in Atlanta, it's like, that's pretty much what it was. You would just kind of be trying to work your network of like, hey, does anybody know?

• 34:59Pablo Torre?

  Does anyone know Liam Neeson? The Liam Neeson thing is one of my favorite things that a celebrity has agreed to do. Eyes open.

• 35:11Speaker 03

  Once again, kind of toeing this line of like realness and like the strange that we love, you know?

• 35:19Pablo Torre?

  Again, inspired by an actual interview a celebrity gave to someone.

• 35:23Speaker 03

  Inspired by a real interview that he did.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  I remembered an incident nearly 40 years ago, where a very dear friend of mine was brutally raped.

• 35:38Speaker 02

  But I had never felt this feeling before, which was a primal urge to lash out.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  I asked her, did you know the person? It was a man? No. His race? She said he was a black man. I thought, okay. And after that, there were some nights I went out deliberately into black areas in this city, looking to be set upon, so that I could unleash physical violence.

• 36:20Pablo Torre?

  Liam Neeson says he's not racist, that's in quotes, after controversial interview. Liam Neeson has, this is from the BBC. Liam Neeson has denied he is racist after admitting he once set out to kill any black man who provoked.

• 36:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I mean, you know.

• 36:38Pablo Torre?

  So just, just let's just sit in that for a second. And so then you guys are like, we have an idea for Liam Neeson.

• 36:48Speaker 03

  I mean.

• 36:49Pablo Torre?

  And by the way, the quote that I just read in All of Its Bluntness and Discomfort is kind of where there is a place to actually understand why Liam Neeson would want to do this and actually benefited from doing what he did with Atlanta.

• 37:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I mean, I think, you know, shout out to Liam Neeson because it was, it was great of him to do this, to even like hear us out. Talking in the Atlanta writers room, we were like, we were talking about it, we're just like, it's kind of funny because he's doing the thing that we kind of want him to do, you know, is being honest and like telling these like this real thing, you know, and it's like, yeah, it's like might be uncomfortable, but it's like this is the truth and like we're all better for it and like he should be like applauded guy. But of course, nobody, the headline is just, you know, taking him down.

• 37:44Speaker 03

  We just, we just thought was funny of like, we always joke like, you know, you go to like a restaurant, you accidentally like eat somebody else's food, you get the wrong order and like a white guy there, like that's enough to push him over the edge to racism. He's like, I hate all black people now, you know, all he has to do is have one bad interaction with a black person.

• 38:07Pablo Torre?

  And then you might, quote, "Go out deliberately into black areas in the city looking to be set upon so I could unleash physical violence," end quote from Liam Neeson. Which again, the honesty in that is like, I'm gonna actually express what was going through my mind and we are in fact better off when people are able to express how they honestly feel. So the, the episode, again, to fill in the blanks here, it's the season that, and the episode particularly in this case, takes place in Amsterdam.

• 38:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:43Pablo Torre?

  And there's a club, a seemingly hallucinatory club. Where you go in and everybody who's in there has been cancelled.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  How'd you get here? Uh, I just followed a local. What'd they do? What you mean?

• 38:58Speaker 02

  Oh, did they strangle a fan, shag a teenager? How'd they get in?

• 39:04Speaker 02

  Uh, thank you. Now, you don't have to say. It's fine. It's your business.

• 39:10Speaker 03

  I mean, not to spoil the episode.

• 39:11Pablo Torre?

  We can spoil it. What the [__] are we talking about?

• 39:14Speaker 03

  Some people haven't seen.

• 39:15Pablo Torre?

  Steve, spoiler alert, okay? We can speak freely now. You've been warned. You've been warned.

• 39:21Speaker 02

  Well, now I feel that way because you tried to ruin my career. Didn't succeed, mind you.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  However,

• 39:33Speaker 02

  I'm sure one day I will get over it. But until then, we are mortal enemies.

• 39:44Speaker 02

  I'll see you around, Vic.

• 39:46Pablo Torre?

  I presume there are people who have not seen this and they should go and watch it and they should come back to this to find the analysis that we're providing. I now realize, I, by the way, for the record, whenever we meet up, I have no idea what we're gonna talk about. Turns out that I've just realized what Atlanta was through this particular lens, which is a show where you had to at one point ask Michael Vick to be on it. Yeah, Michael Vick out here racing people. He taking bets, too. Is he?

• 40:16Speaker 03

  Is he doing okay? Oh, he fine. It's just a good hustle. Yeah, drunk people just wanna race. This is his sixth race in the 10 minutes I've been standing here. That boy good. Anybody else? Anybody? Three to one us. It's fair.

• 40:34Speaker 03

  I kinda wanna see this. I'll do it.

• 40:41Speaker 03

  What do you think?

• 40:44Pablo Torre?

  The shooting of it, in terms of like just how you guys told the story of the race. As in, stops right as Donald seems to like get ahead of Michael Vick at the starting line, and then like the the motif of the

• 41:04Speaker 03

  Kind of like rocky music.

• 41:12Pablo Torre?

  The whole thing of, we don't need to show the race.

• 41:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, you don't need to see the race, but it's like, how much of the race do you need to show? It's like, just him getting a jump on Michael Vick is enough to make you laugh and like, oh, maybe he's actually gonna do this, you know?

• 41:30Pablo Torre?

  And then the car, and there's no music. It is dead silent for several seconds. And you don't even know the outcome, except it's now obvious what the outcome is. And then she says,

• 41:44Speaker 04

  It's Michael Vick.

• 41:46Speaker 03

  Which is the truth, you know? That's what's so funny too.

• 41:49Pablo Torre?

  It's such a great economy of showing and, I mean, in this case, obviously like in, in, in writing, it's show, don't tell. This is the inversion of that. It's don't show either. Like, don't show and don't tell.

• 42:06Speaker 03

  It's kind of like, like horror movies, you know? It's like, the less you show, sometimes it's like, the better, you know? Let people's imagination work a little bit, you know?

• 42:19Speaker 03

  I mean, Donald always had a philosophy on the show too, just like, we don't need to explain everything to the audience. We don't need to like, hold their hand through everything. Like, they're gonna get it. You know, TV sometimes, you're like, too worried about like, explaining everything, you know? Like I said, it's like, I gotta bring Dangerous Minds, right?

• 42:40Pablo Torre?

  It's literally the exact opposite to what I've been forcing you to do for an hour.

• 42:48Speaker 03

  Exactly. Michael Vick, man, you know, an Atlanta legend.

• 42:52Pablo Torre?

  Can you take us inside the origin of that scene? Do you remember how it originated?

• 42:58Speaker 03

  I remember me and one of the other writers on the show, Jamal, AKA Swank.

• 43:06Pablo Torre?

  Yep.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  I remember we went to Like Complex Con one year, like out here in L.A. And like you go into like the bathroom and it's like a hundred dice games going on like full mighty. It's like a Star Wars casino in the bathroom. And that's what's kind of like funny about like Atlanta, like, you know, the strip club or like the parking lot even. It's like, there's like a million things like going on, other side hustles and side adventures happening, you know, all throughout this place. It's like a pool game going on over here for thousands of dollars, you know?

• 43:46Speaker 03

  It's just this idea that Michael Vick could like raise money whenever he wants, you know? Just racing drunk people, which to be fair is a pretty great thing. I mean, if I was in Atlanta and Michael Vick was in a parking lot and people were racing him, I would definitely be interested.

• 44:04Pablo Torre?

  I mean, I feel like that's actually a wildly, that's like Hot Ones now.

• 44:09Speaker 05

  That's hot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was hot. I know, I know. That is still hot. It's a, it's a weird show. I know.

• 44:19Pablo Torre?

  Hey, that's like a, that's a complex YouTube franchise, actually, speaking of which.

• 44:23Speaker 03

  Man, we should talk to Michael Vick and see how, if he wants to race people. He interviews people, like, they're like stretching, he's like, guy like, ah, so like, uh, what's the movie about? Like, they're both starting, and he races them. He's like racing, like.

• 44:39Pablo Torre?

  You have to answer while you're racing him?

• 44:42Speaker 03

  It's like long distance, like, they gotta race him for like a mile. That's the equalizer with Michael Vick. If you can run for a long time, you know, that's how you beat him.

• 44:54Pablo Torre?

  What was the, the pitch to Michael Vick? Was that a hard, you remember if it was a hard ask, if he got it immediately, if he was like? Yeah, I'll do that.

• 45:03Speaker 03

  I think he was pretty on board. He was actually like, sure, yeah, no, it sounds cool. Like, I remember he was like into it and fine. I mean, with that shot in particular, I'm like, that's just like a perfect, uh, like, kind of picture of like doing comedy, especially too, of like, the script, whatever's in the script there, it was not what it was there. You know what I mean? It's like, you gotta like find it. You gotta find the comedic timing. Sometimes that's there, sometimes it's in the editing. I realize that too, like first season. People would read scripts and they would be like, what is this? You know, kind of like, what are we doing? You know, by the time-

• 45:47Pablo Torre?

  Like, wait a minute, Justin Bieber is black?

• 45:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Wait, it's cool, it's cool. This is me. This is the real Justin. It was always funny with the Justin Bieber episode. I remember we literally sent it to FX, the script, and they were like, are we gonna be able to get Justin Bieber? Like, that was like the kind of the first ask. Because that's, that's how hard it was to, for them to understand what was going on in this script.

• 46:19Pablo Torre?

  Like, so you guys want us to get Justin Bieber?

• 46:22Speaker 03

  And they're like, so Donald's gonna get Justin Bieber, right? Because we're not going, we can't do that, you know?

• 46:31Pablo Torre?

  But, look, the term from literature to be highbrow, right, is magical realism. Like, that's Spanish literature. It's like, they don't, they're not explaining either.

• 46:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know?

• 46:41Pablo Torre?

  Like, why, why is there this mysterious man on a bus eating like a peanut butter sandwich?

• 46:47Speaker 03

  Resistance is a symptom of the way things are.

• 46:52Speaker 03

  Not the way things necessarily should be.

• 46:56Speaker 03

  Actual victory belongs to things that simply do not see failure.

• 47:01Speaker 03

  Let the path push you like a broken branch in a river's current.

• 47:06Speaker 03

  Nah, nah, I'm not going out like that, but thanks for the advice.

• 47:14Speaker 03

  Fight this out.

• 47:17Pablo Torre?

  At the end of the book, they don't- Tell you, by the way, that was an allegory.

• 47:35Pablo Torre?

  Do you think it's harder or easier to make Atlanta now? Than it was compared to when you guys actually did make multiple seasons? Critically acclaimed and also very at times subreddit aggravating.

• 47:51Speaker 03

  It's hard to answer that question because in some ways, it's like, yeah, it would be hard to get it made. But at the same time, I think people are just as thirsty for this type of thing. So in some ways, the climate is like perfect for it, you know?

• 48:12Pablo Torre?

  Yes, yes, that's, that's the argument for it is that we are, whether we can articulate this or articulate it enough, we are starving for stuff that actually does make us think as well as make us laugh at the same time. And doing that's smart, but again, has some cheese melted on the broccoli.

• 48:33Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 48:34Pablo Torre?

  Is, is, we just don't have enough of it, even as we're starving for it.

• 48:39Speaker 03

  Even when people are asking for it, the timing's gotta be right. You gotta be able to like, find a way to cut through. I think our show was able to cut through. And like in an age where everybody's also like, look at me, I'll do anything to cut through. It's like, how do you subvert that? It's like, well, you just be good, I guess.

• 49:02Pablo Torre?

  I do like how the lesson at the end of this, like, what did I find out today? I guess you should be good at making things. I would bet on whoever. Is actually like skilled.

• 49:15Speaker 03

  You definitely. You definitely should, you know, I mean, it's like. I'll go to the like farmer's market, very LA sort of thing, you know? And there's like this bread like place that's there, just kind of like French bakery. That like comes out there and all the bread is like every time you like come, it's like most of it's gone. Cause I guess people are coming at like six in the morning to get this bread or whatever. You wanna be like, there's no way this is. And croissant is that good or whatever. And then you like get one, you get like something there and you're like, oh, this actually is pretty good. And you're like, yeah, you know, like you said, betting on the people who know what they're doing.

• 49:59Speaker 03

  You could, you could think like, man, I'll just go to. Vons and get a croissant, but it's like. You're gonna pay for that.

• 50:08Pablo Torre?

  No, you and by the way, what you need. Are people who have maybe the ability to like communicate. And then teach this to younger people, even if they may seem like a strange person to listen to. Which does remind me of the movie Dangerous Minds.

• 50:27Speaker 03

  Man, we got, maybe we'll just update Dangerous Minds. I'm thinking Lando, the Lando movies, it's kind of like Dangerous Minds.

• 50:36Pablo Torre?

  What if Lando?

• 50:38Speaker 03

  Lando.

• 50:38Pablo Torre?

  Was Michelle Pfeiffer.

• 50:40Speaker 03

  He, there's a space school.

• 50:42Pablo Torre?

  In Cloud City.

• 50:43Speaker 03

  There's a lot of these like inner Cloud City. Aliens, they gotta pass this test, but they don't believe in themselves enough. You know, they got a lot of issues at their alien home life. Oh, we'll pitch that to Disney.

• 51:08Pablo Torre?

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production.

• 51:14Pablo Torre?

  And I'll talk to you next time.

• 51:35Pablo Torre?

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