Our dream TV workplaces

We spend the majority of our adult lives at work. We also see so many depictions of working life on TV. So where’s the fictional place we’d like to work? We’ll talk about Ted Lasso, Game of Thrones, The Muppet Show and The West Wing. If you want more workplace shenanigans, check out these episodes: ‘Widow’s Bay’ is an island in the scream https://www.npr.org/2026/06/16/nx-s1-5855729/widows-bay-is-an-island-in-the-scream The final course at ‘The Bear’ was both sweet and savory https://www.npr.org/2026/07/01/nx-s1-5876150/the-final-course-at-the-bear-was-both-sweet-and-savory ‘The Paper’ is an ‘Office’ spinoff where journalism takes the lede https://www.npr.org/2025/09/08/nx-s1-5529370/the-paper-is-an-office-spinoff-where-journalism-takes-the-lede Connect with Pop Culture Happy Hour: Letterboxd https://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture/ / Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pchh Our weekly newsletter https://www.npr.org/newsletter/pop-culture Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org http://plus.npr.org/. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:14Speaker 01

  I've been doing this show for about 16 years and I sort of feel like I've already worked at The Muppet Show. So I don't know that that would really be a new horizon for me.

• 0:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. Honestly, though, it's not that bad.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 0:35Speaker 03

  Growing up, we all saw workplaces on TV. And whether we knew it or not, they were teaching us what our lives would look like for most of the time, right? How and where we would be spending most of our waking lives. But of course, not all workplaces on TV look the same or felt the same. So we were wondering, here's the topic. What fictional TV workplace would you like to work in and why? I'm Glen Weldon, and joining me today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour are our co-hosts, Linda Holmes. Hey, Lynda.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  Hello, Glenn.

• 1:06Speaker 03

  And Stephen Thompson. Hey, Stephen. Hey, Glenn. Also joining us is the co-host of NPR's daily economics podcast, The Indicator from Planet Money, Wayland Wong. Hey, Wayland.

• 1:15Speaker 04

  Hi, I heard we were talking about the labor market, my favorite topic.

• 1:18Speaker 03

  I know, in a way.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22Speaker 03

  All right, so Lynda, kick us off. What TV workplace would you like to work in?

• 1:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I thought about this quite a bit. And I made a few decisions about the bounds of my thinking, which would be, I gave myself complete freedom to pretend I was qualified. So I didn't go around thinking like, well, I guess I could work, you know, at some show that was set at a magazine because I'm a writer and stuff like that. Like, I didn't, you know. I decided that even if I would be totally inept, I could do whatever I wanted. And I chose to approach it as, I want this workplace more than I want this work, right? So what I came up with is I would work on Ted Lasso for Richmond AFC, the soccer/football team.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  Now, if you know me, I don't know very much about soccer/football. I would have to learn. I'd be willing to learn. My real thinking was, I think I would enjoy being around people who are involved in such an energetic endeavor as a sports team. I have a lot of spirit. I have a lot of team spirit. I enjoy being a hype person for other people. I think I've been a hype person for some of the people on this call at times. Love doing that. Love doing that. And also, some of the people that I feel I would be working with are the kind of people I think I would enjoy working with. For example, I would have so much more patience than someone like, for example, Glenn with

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Ted himself and his relentless optimism. I would find this charming. I would find this charming. The big, big boss is Rebecca, who's a nice person. So I feel like you're not ultimately answering to any sort of snake or nasty person.

• 3:09Speaker 04

  Right.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  And many of the coworkers are just people I think I would enjoy hanging out with. I think I would enjoy, you know, spending my time around the people who are in that office. I got to sit down and have a long conversation with Coach Beard. I think that's-

• 3:23Speaker 04

  That's the dream.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  I think that's my destiny.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  I feel like this pick is all about being around good people.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  It is. I think that's right. It's a show made up of good people. I thought about, you know, there are other shows, you know, that are also about good people, you know, Parks and Rec and shows like that. But I don't want to work in government. So I decided I would rather work in sports. So that was my thinking.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I wouldn't want to work there, but it's not because I don't want to be around, you know, cheerful people. I count Stephen Thompson as a friend, so, you know, I'm totally fine with cheerful people. It's that the boundaries between work and life are tissue paper in that place. And this is a problem with a lot of, a lot of television workplaces, actually.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  So many.

• 4:02Speaker 03

  Everybody is up in everybody else's business. That would be a little too much for me.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  And I think the thing is, I grew up that way. My parents worked at my school, so I'm very accustomed to that. So I think it doesn't alarm me as much.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  Slippery work-life balance has been a big part of not only my adult life, but my childhood, because my parents worked together.

• 4:21Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  And worked together doing something they deeply loved, doing nothing but writing about something they deeply loved. Work as an all-consuming passion is definitely, it made it hard to look at a lot of fictional TV workplaces and think, this would be better than what I'm doing now.

• 4:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 4:37Speaker 04

  Lynda, did you think about what job you might want within the organization?

• 4:42Speaker 03

  That's a good question.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Well, I did. And I was a little bit limited by my lack of knowledge of soccer/football, as well as my lack of athleticism.

• 4:49Speaker 04

  But that's part of the onboarding.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Putting that aside, I think I might be good in the kind of like, marketing and PR departments. As I said, I'm a good hype person.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  Social media?

• 5:00Speaker 01

  It's, yeah, it's creative. So I think I might find myself sort of over on the Keely part of the team. Although, listen, there are a lot of lovely people in that office. I could probably find my way into doing something useful, which is also how I approached coming to NPR.

• 5:22Speaker 04

  You said, "Put me in, Coach."

• 5:24Speaker 01

  I really did. I sort of did. If you don't know what you want me to do, I'll figure out what you want me to do.

• 5:32Speaker 03

  I think that's extremely fitting. I think we're going to learn a lot about it, each of us.

• 5:39Speaker 03

  Speaking of, Stephen, hit me. Where would you work?

• 5:42Speaker 02

  Well, one place that I strongly considered was 30 Rock. Being around funny people, being around creative energy had a lot of appeal. And then I kind of paused and thought, like, I kind of have worked in one of the professional environments that is actually closest to 30 Rock? And it was very exhausting. I worked at The Onion for 12 years. I have been in rooms full of professional funny people. It can be extremely exhilarating. It can be extremely exhausting, including hitting that deadline time and time and time again. So ultimately, I decided to opt out of 30 Rock and into an even more stressful, even more exhausting, even more kind of immiserating environment.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  But for, I think, some very sound reasons, I went with the West Wing.

• 6:28Speaker 03

  Okay. You sweet son of a-

• 6:30Speaker 02

  No, I know. I know what you're thinking, Linda Holmes. Again, it's politics. It's a bunch of speechifying. It's a bunch of-

• 6:38Speaker 04

  You hate meetings.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  I hate meetings.

• 6:40Speaker 03

  You hate meetings.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  I hate meetings more than anything on earth. But hear me out. One, you have the ability and power to change the world for the better. This is very meaningful work, of course.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  According to Aaron Sorkin.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Running the US government is meaningful and does entail the power to make the world a better place, even if you choose not to pursue that option. Two, you are surrounded by plucky dreamers. You are surrounded by people who believe in a better world. Look, I understand how that has its limits, but it does have its appeal. Three, you only have to work those long punishing hours for a maximum of eight years. This is limited-term employment before you get to run off and live the rest of your life as some rich layabout like George Stephanopoulos.

• 7:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, or just a cushy consultant, yeah.

• 7:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  There is ultimately a second chapter that is not televised, that is you collecting a big fat paycheck for spouting the conventional wisdom circa when you had that.

• 7:46Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  Four, every problem, no matter how complex, is solved with an impassioned speech. And I think the simplicity of that, the ability to kind of talk your way out of real complex problems, I understand the appeal of that. And five, and perhaps most important for this conversation, there is no environment on television or on earth in which the opinions of 53-year-old white men carry more weight.

• 8:19Speaker 04

  You're just writing, like, "Free college" on a napkin at a bar and being like, "Look at me!"

• 8:23Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 8:24Speaker 04

  Saving the world.

• 8:25Speaker 03

  My work is done here.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Hold on, everybody, stop. A man is talking.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  That's true. It does work that way. I have to say, like, first of all, much of this is very cynical, Stephen, and I'm very disappointed in you for just wanting your future as a lobbyist or whatever you would be after then. But, as you know, I do understand the surface appeal of hanging around in Aaron Sorkin world. If I were going to do that, I would have chosen Sports Night, which I also considered. But, but that show is always on the brink of being canceled. Who wants to do that?

• 8:55Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  But I simply think, as stated, your low tolerance for attending meetings would make this completely impossible. Because ultimately, your low tolerance for meetings springs from your, the part of your personality that thinks the absolute worst thing for someone to say to you is, "I need to talk to you."

• 9:19Speaker 01

  And you know what happens a lot if you work in the White House and you have a position of responsibility? Someone comes up and says, "I need to talk to you." And sometimes it's stressful. And they say, "I need to talk to you later." And that would ruin your entire day.

• 9:33Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, that's true.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  That might actually kill me.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, that might actually kill you. So I mean, I hope you enjoy the speechifying, because you're going to hate a lot of the rest of it.

• 9:42Speaker 04

  I have a question. Do you count a walk and talk as a meeting? Because if you could put all your meetings into walk and talk format, maybe that would be more tolerable.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  Honestly, that is a significant improvement, in part because when you're walking around, you eventually reach a destination, at which point that meeting would end. And I think it would feel less like I'm trapped in a conversation.

• 10:05Speaker 03

  Exactly. Because it's like a car trip. You're not looking at each other in the eyes, right? Because you have to see where you're going. So you can actually share real feelings.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  It's a whole day if I need to talk to you.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  I'm talking about a four-to-eight-year prison sentence, followed by a lifetime of the cushiest work on earth.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  See, I would just not go to prison.

• 10:26Speaker 03

  Like Lynda, I'm a little leery of the Sorkin quality here, although we have to acknowledge that, as Lynda referred to, there are eras of Sorkin. And this is, this is a good era of Sorkin. Yes, it's an idealized Washington DC, but there are cynics on that show. There are bad faith arguments that people make, but they're always cast as the bad guys. They're constantly shown to be in the wrong. They get called out, usually in a pretty sanctimonious speech. But later on, he moved with the newsroom, he moved to hectoring. I will take sanctimonious over hectoring any day. And in the pilot episode, Sorkin is also letting us see that this is Bartlet's ego. Like, he loves rubbing someone's face in how wrong they are. And that is a character trait that is also a character flaw that gets mined a lot on that show.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  And later with the newsroom, that layering went away because the mission statement of that show was, you know, the news got it wrong. Here's how I would have gotten it right.

• 11:18Speaker 04

  Man, that show was insufferable. I would walk into the ocean rather than work in the newsroom.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, you'll notice that I did not mention the newsroom or Studio 60.

• 11:29Speaker 03

  See, also, errors. Like Taylor Swift, the man, man has errors. All right. Well, thank you for that, Stephen. We're going to take a quick break and then we're going to come back with my pick and Waylon's pick.

• 11:41Speaker 05

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• 12:59Speaker 03

  And we are back. Waylon, what fictional TV workplace would you like to work in?

• 13:05Speaker 04

  You know what? It's time to play the music. It's time to light the lights. It's time to play the music. It's time to light the lights. It's time to meet the Muppets on The Muppet Show tonight. And you know who could cue up the music? Who could light the lights? Me, Waylon Wong. I would like to work at the OG Muppet Show, which, you know, then I was thinking about, you know, what is my ultimate dream? And my ultimate dream is to meet the Muppets and to hang out with the Muppets. This is like all I think about. And so I think working at the Muppet Show would obviously put me in the orbit of all these Muppets. I think that, you know, in the show, Scooter's uncle owns the theater and so he's kind of the

• 13:48Speaker 04

  gopher. And so I think that I could replace Scooter and then, I've already thought this through, and then he could get promoted to do kind of bigger, better things, right? But I could be the one, you know, like making sure that Rita Moreno gets from the green room to the stage and keeping Miss Piggy's dressing room stocked. I am making sure that Kermit's water glass is filled, you know, I've got a headset on. And I think I'm very organized. I'm an order Muppet.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, I was gonna ask.

• 14:16Speaker 04

  I'm an order Muppet all the way. I'm Prairie Dawn. I'm Prairie Dawn of Sesame Street, like directing the school play and getting really upset when, you know, like Ernie forgets his lines. So I think I would really keep things moving along at a very efficient pace at the Muppet Show. And I think I would prove my value. And then hopefully, this is like the longer term plan. If I'm a really good employee, then they'll take me along when they do the movies. And then I would get to be on the set of Great Muppet Caper, Muppets Take Manhattan, Muppet Christmas Carol. So I basically just want a career with the Muppets.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  I think you're the only one who came up with an arc.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. How do you bring down Scooter? What is your, what is your plan to destroy?

• 14:58Speaker 01

  No, she doesn't want to bring down Scooter. She wants Scooter to get promoted.

• 15:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, because like I think Scooter, I love Scooter. And I think, you know, like Scooter definitely has a place in the Muppet Universe. So it's like, I would just do the grunt work that Scooter gets hired for. And then he could get promoted to do other stuff. You know, maybe he wants to be on stage, whatever. And then I would just be the one fetching things. Yeah.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  So you want to be the underling of the nepo baby?

• 15:21Speaker 04

  Well, later on, the Muppets inherit the theater after Scooter's uncle dies.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, and she'd be working with everyone. When you're the production assistant, you get to work with everybody.

• 15:29Speaker 04

  And I feel like they would treat me really well. Like, can you imagine Kermit being a toxic boss? Obviously not, you know? Miss Piggy, maybe.

• 15:36Speaker 03

  No, he's not a toxic boss. It is a toxic workplace. There is too much chaos in that workplace. Too many gonzos, too many Lusielens, too many Crazy Harrys.

• 15:44Speaker 04

  There's only one gonzo. There's a lot of chickens. I guess I'd have to wrangle the chickens as the PA. That would be hard.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  Link Hogthrob, you'd have to work with Link Hogthrob. I mean, come on.

• 15:53Speaker 04

  He's a really good actor, though. Pigs in space.

• 15:57Speaker 03

  See, here's, here's what this workplace is like. Somebody makes a fat joke to Piggy. Piggy responds with a physical assault. Everyone is in the wrong there. This is a toxic work environment. You need a Scooter, you need a Kermit, you need a Sam, you need a Rolf. Who is, who is HR? Is it, is it, it's probably Robin. Robin's probably the HR.

• 16:13Speaker 04

  You think Robin's HR? But Robin's like a child. It's probably Sam the Eagle.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  You know who I think it is? I think it's Janice.

• 16:18Speaker 03

  Oh, maybe.

• 16:20Speaker 04

  Janice is so spacey, though.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  She's so mellow. She's, no, she's so mellow. She just makes everyone feel more calm. I will say, I only have one hesitation about the Muppet Show as a potential workplace for me, which is, well, I've been doing this show for about 16 years as of this summer. And I sort of feel like I've already worked at the Muppet Show. So I don't know that that would really be a new horizon for me, having worked at Pop Culture Happy Hour. I think I've already had the Muppet Show experience.

• 16:52Speaker 04

  Amazing.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. Honestly, though, it's not that bad.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 16:58Speaker 04

  Who's the Lusie land of Pop Culture Happy Hour?

• 17:00Speaker 03

  This is like 30 Rock, but with explosions. Crazy Harry. Crazy Harry is like exploding things. Like, this is not, this is not a healthy workplace.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  You got a guy throwing fish.

• 17:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:11Speaker 04

  Imagine getting to work alongside Rolf the dog.

• 17:15Speaker 03

  See, this is, you're speaking my language here, Waylon. You're in the show business. I get it.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  And you also get this rotating, like you get to work with like Paul Williams and Rita Moreno.

• 17:23Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Elton John, Raquel Welch.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, if it's OG Muppet Show, you've got some really impressive people in those, those years.

• 17:31Speaker 03

  All right. That's a pick, Waylon. I'm not gonna, I can't, I can't go with you. I think it's really toxic, but.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  I love that pick.

• 17:38Speaker 03

  My workplace is the Citadel, which is the home of the maesters from the Song of Ice and Fire books by George R.R. Martin. On TV, that's Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, and Night of the Seven Kingdoms. Maesters are this world's scientists, healers, scholars. It is, and the Citadel itself is kind of a university slash secular monastery, a monastery dedicated to science and medicine. But it's also a school. Now, downside, it is not a very progressive institution, and it is also exclusively male, which I, I think that would be a chore for me because, you know, I, where have I worked? I've worked in bookstores, I've worked in the nonprofit world, and I've worked in public media. My bosses have tended

• 18:21Speaker 03

  to be women. And if I can be gender essentialist for a second, broadly speaking, I think it just makes for a healthier, emotionally healthy workplace. It is a very political institution because it has to be to survive in this very cruel and brutal world where things like, you know, intelligence and empathy and compassion, they get viewed as weaknesses. Look, I, I have a very artisanal blend of softness. I'm a soft boy. And the softness of my ilk would not be welcome in the world of Westeros. So I would go to the indoorsiest of all indoors places, because the world itself is not a great place for indoor kids. I would go to the Citadel. Now, we've only glimpsed one aspect of the Citadel in Game of Thrones,

• 19:04Speaker 03

  the character of Sam Tarly, who is played by John Bradley. He goes there to study and enters as a novice. And what we saw him doing there was mostly just, you know, emptying bedpans. And, look.

• 19:15Speaker 04

  Got to start somewhere.

• 19:16Speaker 03

  Is that my job, dream job? No. But, you know, shout out to the healthcare workers who do that extremely necessary, biologically necessary job every day. But you got to remember, this isn't the real world. This is oldie timey fantasy fakey times, where cleaning out chamber pots is, like, it would just be part of your day, right? It's like running errands. It's like emptying the dishwasher. You get through it. It's just something you do.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  But you're choosing from all of the televised worlds, you're choosing one in which you empty chamber pots in fantasy murder land.

• 19:45Speaker 03

  For it's part of the deal.

• 19:46Speaker 04

  I think it'd be really drafty, too.

• 19:48Speaker 03

  Here's where it comes. I would have access to a world of knowledge, including forbidden knowledge, which is, as we all know, the best kind of knowledge. And, look, each maester gets a link in a chain that they wear around their neck of different metals that signify each field of study that they've mastered. For example, black iron chain is the study of ravens, which sounds pretty random until you remember that.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  Now I get why you want this.

• 20:12Speaker 03

  The ravens are like, you know.

• 20:13Speaker 04

  You want a charm bracelet?

• 20:14Speaker 03

  Ravens are telecommunications. Bronze is astronomy. And, look, if astronomy is just like recognizing patterns, I'd be down with it. But I'm sure there's azimuths that need to get calculated. So maybe, maybe I'd skip the bronze. Copper is history. I could deal with that. Gold is mathematics and economics. I'm not getting a gold chain. Iron is Warcraft. I mean, I could fake it. I played the game. Silver is medicine. I could do that. And Valyrian steel, here we go. Valyrian steel link is for studying the higher mysteries, which means magic. So I would ensconce myself in the locked vault where all the forbidden books are kept. I wouldn't get much sun, but it's not like I do anyway. And, you know,

• 20:57Speaker 03

  Linda, you and I grew up in the Delaware Valley. I could wear a chain. We grew up very close to New Jersey. I could do it. I could pull it off. I think I could. I think I could. That's, that's me.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  I just find myself thinking about the fact that this is a world in which a relatively good and merciful death is having your head chopped off.

• 21:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  And that's where you would like to work because the Muppet Show is too toxic.

• 21:22Speaker 04

  And there's not even indoor plumbing in this world.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know what? You'd be part of the old and timey fakey times. It would all be kind of of a piece.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  I really don't think you would like it, Glenn. I really, I really don't think you'd like it.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  The Citadel is a beacon of knowledge and critical thinking in a world that desperately needs it. People would come to us looking for, looking for, well, I mean, one of, one of the jobs that people from the Citadel have is they're the scribes of this world. I could do that. I could totally write stuff for people.

• 21:51Speaker 04

  Well, wouldn't you rather do Name of the Rose then, if you're looking for like monastery, cool literary monk types to hang out with? They get to solve crimes, you know?

• 22:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. If I could be Sean Connery, I mean, just a general, then yeah.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  I'm also thinking about the dentistry of it all.

• 22:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know what?

• 22:10Speaker 02

  I really like modern dentistry.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  You know what I'm also thinking about, Glenn? Are you taking your husband to Westeros?

• 22:16Speaker 03

  Well, see, these are the things. I mean, it has, it has an advantage.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  Because I don't think he's going to Westeros, buddy.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  Trying to imagine. I, I think we could, we could sneak him in, you know? Sure. He's like, you know, the maesters are kind of left to their own devices.

• 22:32Speaker 04

  Well, until they get murdered or whatever.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, you know, I, I still think it'd be good and I, I like the accessorizing, so.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  Buddy, we want, we want better for you.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  Uh, I, I think it'd be great and I would have, uh, access to a world of knowledge where I could, uh, work my terrible will.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  I support you in whatever idiosyncratic career you want for yourself, including Master of Forbidden Knowledge, because I do think that sounds very cool.

• 22:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, see, because what I was thinking was, well, maybe it would be like the, the news station on the Mary Tyler Moore Show or WKRP or WNYC from News Radio. And I'm like, well, that's not even, you kind of do that. It's not even a fantasy.

• 23:09Speaker 04

  I know, because I was thinking about Mary Tyler Moore then. I was like, I already work in the news.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  I thought about all of those.

• 23:14Speaker 03

  Why would you, why would you, why would you do that? And then I thought maybe the Dragonfly Inn from Gilmore Girls or the Stratford Inn from New Heart, but that's dealing with people.

• 23:22Speaker 04

  Oh, I thought about the antique store in Gilmore Girls, because I don't want to work for Lorelai, but I was like, I would work for Mrs. Kim.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  Sure. Oh, see, now again, Mrs. Kim.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good idea.

• 23:31Speaker 03

  A little toxic, too.

• 23:32Speaker 04

  No, I think Mrs. Kim and I would actually get along really well, because I grew up evangelical.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  It's, it sometimes just takes a little balance to figure out, like, what could you tolerate and what you couldn't tolerate, because I would probably have fun at Cheers, but I don't want to work in a bar.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  You know?

• 23:47Speaker 03

  Well, I think we've learned just a little something about each of us, as I thought we would. But now we want to learn a little something about you. I'm sure everybody, you know, I asked this question at a July 4th party and I got a host of different answers, so we want to hear from you. That brings us to the end of our show. Waylon, walk Linda home. Stephen Thompson, thank you so much for being here.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 24:05Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 24:06Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, Lennon Sherburne, and Mike Katsev, and edited by R. Sherwin or Jessica Reedy, and Hello Kim In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glen Weldon, and we'll see you all next time.

• 24:21Speaker 00

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.

• 24:26Speaker 05

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