Pod Insights Pop Culture Happy Hour Toy Story 5 and What's Making Us Happy About this episode In Disney’s Toy Story 5, Jessie, Woody, and Buzz are back to confront a new threat – screen time. When their kid Bonnie gets a new tablet called Lilypad, she forgets about the rest of her toys. But Jessie is determined to win Bonnie back, even after a series of events separates them. Toy Story 5 features a familiar and beloved voice cast with Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and Joan Cusack reprising their roles.
Are you a fan of all things Pixar? Check out these episodes!
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This message comes from Data IQ Agent Management. Most enterprises can't count their AI agents, let alone manage them. Data IQ Agent Management lets you do both from a single view. Visit dataiq.com to learn more.
0:19 Aisha Harris? In the fifth installment of the Toy Story franchise, playtime is so over and screen time is in. Jessie, Buzz, and the rest of the crew face yet another existential crisis, but this time, the threat is not the arrival of a shiny space ranger or a kid going off to college. Nope, it's dun, dun, duh, tech.
0:40 Stephen Thompson? And with that comes the introduction of new and colorful characters voiced by the likes of Greta Lee and Conan O'Brien. Can analog and digital coexist? We'll see. I'm Stephen Thompson.
0:51 Aisha Harris? And I'm Aisha Harris. Joining us today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is Regina Barber. She's a host and reporter for NPR's science podcast, Short Wave. Hey Regina.
1:01 Speaker 03 Oh my gosh, I'm the only non-pop culture happy hour person here. I am so honored and I'm so glad that I am your animation person, basically.
1:09 Stephen Thompson? Aww. You're more than just our animation person, Regina.
1:13 Aisha Harris? Aww, yes.
1:15 Stephen Thompson? You've got a friend in us.
1:16 Aisha Harris? Yes, you've got a friend in us. Yeah. Well, in Toy Story Vibe, we are revisiting all of our friends. And at the start of the movie, much of the gang are still together, including cowgirl Jessie and space ranger Buzz Lightyear, voiced by Joan Cusack and Tim Allen. Now, they're happily fulfilling their playtime duties with their eight-year-old kid Bonnie, who's voiced by Scarlett Spears. That is, until Bonnie is given a tablet called Lily Pad and remains glued, zombified to its screen. Lily Pad is voiced by Greta Lee. Jessie instantly becomes a very vocal opponent to everything tech and won't accept the sudden abandonment without a fight. But a series of events separates her from Bonnie and the rest of the forgotten toys.
1:59 Aisha Harris? It's going to take a lot to get Jessie back where she belongs, with, of course, some help from Buzz and Woody, voiced by Tom Hanks. But she's also going to need to begrudgingly work with some new smart toys she meets. Along the way, including a quirky potty training gadget. Didn't even know that those existed, but that's cool. And a bubbly digital camera. Toy Story five is in theaters now and Steven, I'm going to start with you, bud. We did, and our, our listeners helped us rank the Pixar movies last year. And I'm not going to ask you to put this Toy Story five, like I'll give you a little more time to think about where you might rank this overall in the Pixar oeuvre. But I am curious, did you at least have a good time at Toy Story five? Does it still feel, if not fresh, at least still delightful to engage with?
2:45 Stephen Thompson? I think so. I enjoyed myself enormously. I fully laughed, fully cried, had a great time. I think it's, it's really interesting when we talk about the fifth installment in a franchise. You start to get into this mindset of where does it rank? Not only like among other Pixar movies, but among other Toy Story movies. And I think if you were to rank particularly four and five, the ones that kind of come after that initial trilogy. It's really easy to sort of view them as less than. Instead of just viewing them as pleasurable viewing experiences. Because is it the best Toy Story movie? Of course it's not. It's the fifth one. But it's still is working with a very, very, very sturdy metaphor.
3:31 Stephen Thompson? And still working off of just sort of like the many challenges and existential crises of childhood. And one thing that really occurred to me watching this film, kind of even in comparison to the other Toy Story movies. All of these movies are built around metaphor. But it had never really been quite so clear to me how much the Toy Story movies are metaphors, not for childhood, but for parenthood. And how often these films are fixated on obsolescence, going all the way back to Toy Story two. Obsolescence is a really, really key ache that runs through these films. It's interesting, you know, part of it is like, as you get older, you're going to kind of have different relationships with these films and kind of view them from different perspectives.
4:17 Stephen Thompson? This film in particular, I found it a little. Cluttered, we've now added so many characters that trying to juggle them all is a fool's errand. And so many of the characters introduced in Toy Story four are almost completely sidelined here.
4:31 Speaker 03 Yeah.
4:32 Stephen Thompson? In part to make room. And so I have a bunch of quibbles with some of the B plots and some of the clutter in this film. But I found its central story very moving and I was entertained throughout.
4:42 Aisha Harris? Yeah, not to mention like a hundred more Buzz Lightyear.
4:46 Stephen Thompson? So many more Buzz Lightyear.
4:47 Speaker 03 I was like clapping in the theater. I was actually sitting next to Steven and I was like, yes.
4:52 Stephen Thompson? Just clapping like a train seal.
4:54 Speaker 03 Yes.
4:55 Aisha Harris? I love the point you make, Steven, about parenthood and the metaphors that are coursing through this series. I would even say that I would argue that the first Toy Story is also about obsolescence. Because it's Woody. It's Woody feeling as though here comes Buzz Lightyear.
5:10 Stephen Thompson? He's an old fashioned cowboy with a pull cord.
5:12 Speaker 03 It's almost as if these stories make an arc, you know?
5:16 Aisha Harris? Yes. Well, Regina, please, I know you love the mini buzzes. What do you think of the whole movie?
5:22 Speaker 03 Yeah, I'm going to go in the absolute opposite direction as Steven and just be like super judgy. And I am going to actually rank them and I'm going to be less meaningful because those kids, those mean girls were dumb and I did not like them. I had like PTSD from when like my daughter had like bullies, you know?
5:41 Aisha Harris? The quote unquote friends, the really frenemies of Bonnie, who we see in the movie. Yeah.
5:46 Speaker 03 Right, right. And I actually thought that this movie, Toy Story five, was equivalent to Toy Story three. Cause I'd watched them all again recently and I was like, wow, this is, I think, just as good. My partner was like, he even thought it was better than three.
6:00 Aisha Harris? Wow.
6:00 Speaker 03 Cause like I said, I'm judgy and I, we rank.
6:03 Aisha Harris? Okay.
6:04 Speaker 03 Yeah.
6:05 Aisha Harris? Let's not get too wild here.
6:07 Speaker 03 I thought it was really tight. Unlike Steven, I didn't think it was too cluttered. I didn't know it was Conan O'Brien until the very end. And I was like, this is amazing.
6:15 Aisha Harris? As the potty training, Smarty Pants is his name, the potty training gadget thingy.
6:19 Speaker 03 It's the role he was born to play, you know? And there was a scene in the movie where um, his character is like, they're playing make believe. And his character has like fake hair. And I'm like, that kind of looks like Conan O'Brien. And I, and then at the end I was like, oh. But I, I like the idea of, you know, these kids finding a friend and what a real friend is. But um, we walked away also thinking, did that movie just shame just a ton of kids that are screen kids? And I was like, eh.
6:50 Aisha Harris? So what?
6:51 Speaker 03 Ashamed of me. I stopped looking at my phone that day a lot more, so.
6:56 Stephen Thompson? I mean, I mean, these whole movies are centered on the anthropomorphization of objects. And if you are a neurotic anxious person, I was a very neurotic and anxious child. I'm a neurotic and anxious adult, to feel guilt about the way you handle your toys.
7:13 Speaker 03 Yeah.
7:13 Stephen Thompson? Is a byproduct of this franchise.
7:16 Speaker 03 Yeah, I pulled out my childhood teddy bear that night, like literally. But Aisha, how did you feel?
7:24 Aisha Harris? Well, look, I am on record, I think, as like being very skeptical of sequels. I do think that three was a perfect number. It ended perfectly and I'm not sure we needed four.
7:36 Speaker 03 Same.
7:36 Aisha Harris? I can confidently say I would rank four as the least of the Toy Stories, in my opinion.
7:41 Speaker 03 Same.
7:41 Stephen Thompson? I like four a lot, but go ahead.
7:43 Aisha Harris? I really enjoyed myself at this. Like I, one of my notes at the end of it was just like, cute. It's very cute.
7:48 Speaker 03 Yeah.
7:49 Aisha Harris? And I don't mean that in a shady way. I mean that in like, I was delighted. I had a good time.
7:54 Speaker 03 Yeah.
7:54 Aisha Harris? Given that like, I don't think any of the Toy Story movies, even four, which I'm not very high on, like, it's Toy Story and so far I think they've proven that even if they keep returning to this well, they are gonna find at least some creative ways into it. And as you kind of alluded to, Regina, like what I liked about this is that it's, yes, it's about tech taking over kids and playtime and interrupting playtime in a way that is maybe a little concerning. What I also appreciated about it is the way that it also is not too, like, part of the other underlying thing that's happening here is not just that tech has taken over and Bonnie is obsessed with it, but it's also the idea that she's having trouble making friends because she is still imaginative and wants to play with toys.
8:39 Aisha Harris? And that's the bullying, right, that comes out.
8:41 Speaker 03 Yeah.
8:42 Aisha Harris? She's like invited to a sleepover and the girls all have their lily pads.
8:46 Speaker 03 Yeah.
8:46 Aisha Harris? She has her lily pad too, voiced by Bradley, but then she also brings Jessie and Bullseye, the horse, Jessie's horse. And the way that one of the girls says to her, oh, you still play with toys?
8:58 Speaker 03 Yeah.
8:58 Aisha Harris? It reminded me of being five or six years old. I was in kindergarten and then I moved like midway through the year. I moved up to first grade. In between all of that, like all the transition, whatever, I was still into Barney. Yes, this was the early 90s Barney was the thing. I was still into Barney and I got teased for that because I was still into Barney. All the first graders were not and I was like, you know, I'm still in kindergarten at least emotionally, if not, you know, academically and the way, oh, you still play with toys. It hit me and that that is the thing about these movies, right? That is the thing about Toy Story is that they're gonna get you, I'm not a parent, but they are gonna get you regardless of where you sit on.
9:37 Speaker 03 Somewhere.
9:37 Stephen Thompson? They'll hit your kid self, they'll hit your adult self, they'll hit your anti-self.
9:43 Speaker 03 Yeah.
9:43 Stephen Thompson? They'll find a way in.
9:44 Speaker 03 Yeah.
9:45 Aisha Harris? I really just adored those moments and appreciated how, yes, is it a cash grab? Yes, is it playing very hard on nostalgia? But also the creators of this have found a purpose in a way, even if it is rehashing aloud the same themes that we've seen over and over again.
10:02 Speaker 03 I wanna echo what you said, Ayesha. I was made fun of in middle school for watching Batman, the animated series. So this was in the 90s as well, but they're like, you still watch cartoons? And I was like 12. One, this is a very good cartoon. Like, okay.
10:18 Speaker 03 But yeah, no, I mean, it's the same thing of this bullying for like kids. And it's so funny because they're like, these kids are a little different. What they actually mean is that these kids are actually creative and not boring. And I was just like, I love how this makes like kids who don't have imaginations feel like maybe they should.
10:35 Aisha Harris? Hmm, yes, yes, especially the playtime scenes where we're inside Bonnie's head. The animator is deliberately.
10:42 Speaker 03 Oh, they're so good.
10:43 Aisha Harris? The way it's animated is so beautiful.
10:46 Stephen Thompson? They do such a gorgeous job.
10:48 Speaker 03 I love it.
10:49 Aisha Harris? This sort of pastel chalk looking. And so those moments are just really vividly rendered, yeah.
10:56 Stephen Thompson? And there's there's such energy to the animation in those scenes that does a great job making play kind of imaginative playtime seem way more fun than it actually is.
11:07 Speaker 03 Do you know what was kind of reminiscent of Princess and the Frog? When she has that scene where she's thinking about her restaurant?
11:13 Aisha Harris? Absolutely.
11:14 Speaker 03 And it's kind of like art deco and it's like brighter.
11:17 Aisha Harris? Almost there. Yes, the song. Yes.
11:19 Speaker 03 It was kind of like that and I really liked that.
11:21 Aisha Harris? Yeah, yeah. I do want to ask though, I both love this, but then I also kept wondering, was this movie too late?
11:29 Speaker 03 I was also thinking that.
11:30 Aisha Harris? And is it too late to save the children?
11:32 Stephen Thompson? I'm glad, I'm really glad that you asked this question because I did, even watching the commercials, I had this feeling of like, are we railing against the LeapPad learning system?
11:42 Speaker 03 It was like my kid. She's 17.
11:45 Aisha Harris? Yeah.
11:45 Speaker 03 She had a little keyboard.
11:46 Stephen Thompson? They had different devices and our kids had the LeapPad learning system. It's like, I'm DJ Leap. And I was like, oh god. I feel like these movies could have made it clearer how annoying some of this tech is for the parents, who I think are well represented as like well meaning and kind of trying to do right by their kid and help their kid hold on to childhood. I definitely had these feelings of like, this film should be against AI, not tablets.
12:13 Speaker 03 Yeah.
12:14 Stephen Thompson? Was kind of the feeling I had is that it's a little bit behind.
12:17 Speaker 03 It wasn't totally against tablets.
12:18 Stephen Thompson? No.
12:19 Speaker 03 I do want to just like push back a little that I was surprised on how it was nuanced. It was like, hey, like this is a good device to help connect with people, with people you do want to connect to.
12:30 Aisha Harris? Right.
12:30 Speaker 03 It straddles the line of like, where is tech useful and where does it suck you in? And all those scenes where the kids like are looking at the screens in the blue light? I think that's still very, very apt right now.
12:41 Aisha Harris? Yeah, it's apt. It just feels also a little like, not that it's too late because there's always going to be new children in the world.
12:49 Speaker 03 I hope.
12:50 Aisha Harris? Even when I was a kid, like I remember I did have like a toy, at least one toy that was like a teaching toy. Like it had, it was a robot. It was the 60s version idea of what a robot might look like.
13:03 Speaker 03 I love those.
13:03 Aisha Harris? And then by the time I was 11, I had a Tamagotchi. So like, it does feel as though the obsolescence, again, I don't know how many more existential crises these toys can have.
13:15 Stephen Thompson? I think limitless.
13:16 Speaker 03 Yeah.
13:16 Stephen Thompson? It's about childhood. And parenthood and there those are completely universal things. As you said, there are always new children being born. And there are always new forces encroaching on and trying to shrink our childhood. And that is absolutely universal. That was true, even even in the before times when I grew up.
13:35 Speaker 03 In the land before time, twenty five.
13:37 Stephen Thompson? We played with triceratops, not plastic dinosaurs, but actual dinosaurs.
13:41 Speaker 03 Real ones. He rode them, Arlo.
13:43 Stephen Thompson? And the other kids were always like, ride the dinosaur. And it's like, no, I'm still too small.
13:47 Speaker 03 Right.
13:48 Stephen Thompson? I definitely felt watching this more than I did with four, I felt watching this like, oh, there's room for more sequels.
13:53 Speaker 03 I thought that too.
13:54 Stephen Thompson? To me, I'm just like, bring them on, give me more of them. Do I have quibbles along the way? Did I need a B plot about Buzz wanting to marry Jessie?
14:04 Speaker 03 Yes.
14:05 Stephen Thompson? No.
14:07 Speaker 03 I I thought it was cute. I liked the Buzzes.
14:11 Aisha Harris? I mean, it was cute. I I mean, it was funny a little bit, but I don't know if I needed like the full on Bambi sequence with like the multiple Buzz Lightyear's in the woods where like you hear Love is a Song, like the instrumental of Love is a Song from Bambi, but then it turns into the ominous man's theme when a family is.
14:29 Speaker 03 It was theatrical.
14:31 Aisha Harris? Well, it was theatrical, but it also felt like it was leaning a little too hard into let's reference other Disney movies.
14:37 Speaker 03 Oh, I hadn't even thought of that.
14:38 Aisha Harris? And it's not that they haven't referenced them in the past, but they were usually a little more subtle. Like, it might be like, you might see a flash of like a toy.
14:46 Speaker 03 Or a keychain or something.
14:48 Aisha Harris? A keychain or something that's referencing a Disney movie or another Pixar movie. It did feel as though this is like where we're coming up on like, okay, we're a franchise now. So like, we have to be a little bit more self referential. I will say, the one thing that kind of like became clear to me, just to like go back really briefly to this idea of like the children and parents. There's also a moment where Jessie is just really kind of despondent and like almost about to give up because that always that's what's gonna happen before they save the day again.
15:15 Stephen Thompson? Always lost.
15:15 Aisha Harris? But she says something along the lines of like, I can't keep doing this. Like, I can't love another kid just to find out I never really mattered. And then I was like, this is not just a metaphor for childhood and parenthood, it's also a metaphor for like anyone who's had who. Like is having a really sucky time at trying to find a romantic partner or trying to find like friends and like.
15:32 Stephen Thompson? Oh god, do I have to start over?
15:34 Speaker 03 Yeah.
15:35 Aisha Harris? Yeah, the the whole like starting over part and again, I don't know how many more times I need to see them keep learning how to start over. At the same time, if we're gonna keep doing it, I think these same creative impulses, they are finding interesting ways into it. And I do think that like the choice to focus so much on Jesse and kind of let Buzz and Woody kind of take a backseat. Was kind of exciting, like Joan Kiesak is so, she's she's just really good in this role.
16:02 Stephen Thompson? There's also a very funny visual gag about Woody.
16:05 Aisha Harris? Yes, yes.
16:07 Stephen Thompson? I think is so funny.
16:09 Aisha Harris? Yeah, yeah.
16:10 Stephen Thompson? Before we leave this conversation though, Aisha, I don't know if you were gonna ask, but I do think we need to discuss the song.
16:19 Speaker 03 Oh, the Taylor Swift song?
16:34 Aisha Harris? I heard it during the credits and then I instantly forgot about it.
16:37 Speaker 03 I'm gonna plus one that, Aisha.
16:41 Aisha Harris? But let's be real, the Toy Story franchise, You've Got a Friend in Me, obviously a classic.
16:46 Stephen Thompson? When She Loved Me is one of the best movie songs ever.
16:49 Aisha Harris? When She Loved Me is is a banger and we get a little bit of that in this movie too. We we hear that.
16:54 Stephen Thompson? This movie is just a movie length extension of that song.
16:57 Aisha Harris? Yes, it is, because Emily, Jesse's owner, is is very much looming over this entire movie. But Stephen, tell us, what what do we think of the Taylor Swift song? What is it called again? I forget.
17:09 Stephen Thompson? I Knew It, I Knew You, it's fine. I was a little surprised going in because there had been a lot of discussion about how the song might be integrated into the film. In the past, a lot of the Toy Story songs are integrated into the film. You've Got a Friend in Me is part of kind of a montage. When you think about When She Loved Me, like that is central to Toy Story 2. That is the central poignant, most poignant moment in Toy Story 2. Uh, I can't let you throw yourself away from. Toy Story four, Oscar nominated Randy Newman song about Forky constantly throwing himself away. That's integrated into the film.
17:44 Aisha Harris? It's cute.
17:45 Stephen Thompson? I was lightly shocked when this song just like rolled harmlessly over the closing credits and wasn't integrated into the film.
17:54 Aisha Harris? Like a tumbleweed.
17:55 Stephen Thompson? And to me, that made the song seem slighter. And I was, I had listened to the song a few times in kind of the, the run up to seeing the film, just because I'm in the world. And I'm like, this is nice, but I wanted to see it kind of gather a little bit of kind of narrative heft, and this movie does not let it do that.
18:12 Aisha Harris? It, it also seems strange, given it's Taylor Swift and she is like a walking autobiographer when she is writing songs.
18:21 Stephen Thompson? So. She's nothing if not full of lore.
18:23 Aisha Harris? Yeah. So it, it does seem a little strange that this would be one of those songs that just plays at the end. And it does kind of make it feel more just like, okay, this is her shot at getting an Oscar nomination and eventually getting an EGOT. That's why someone like Taylor Swift does these movies. True. But we really, we really like Toy Story five as a whole. You should definitely go check it out and ideally in, in the theaters because it looks gorgeous and you will have a good time. And up next, what's making us happy this week?
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19:19 Speaker 05 This week on Up First, we're in the final days before the midterm elections. And this is one of the wonderful things about politics, one of the wonderful things about humanity. We have all this data, we have all this information, and nobody really knows what's gonna happen. We're gonna follow it day by day through Election Day and beyond. And you can listen to Up First every morning on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
19:44 Speaker 06 Oh, Kevin, it feels good to be back. It sure does, Casey. And what a time. The world is talking about AI and what's going on in Silicon Valley. And we are here with a new show to tell you all about it. That's right, Kevin. On our new show, Machine Gods, twice a week, we'll be bringing you the biggest news in tech and bring you unmatched access to the real titans of this industry. You can find Machine Gods from NPR on the NPR app. Or wherever you get your podcasts.
20:08 Aisha Harris? And now it's time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What's making us happy? Regina, we're gonna kick it off with you.
20:15 Speaker 03 Yeah, and I am going to break the rules and always talk about two. I am so sorry. I watched my first K-drama ever. It's called Bon Appetit, Your Majesty, and it's on Netflix. And it's about a chef that goes back in time to the 1500s in Korea. And it is ridiculous and like funny and also super bloody. I loved it.
20:37 Aisha Harris? Super bloody, okay. Yes, go, keep going.
20:40 Speaker 03 And it's like, you know, great food. And my daughter, my 17 year old daughter, is making me watch an anime called Haikyuu. And it's about volleyball. That's all it's about. These kids are failing school because all they care about is volleyball. And it is incredibly compelling and I had no idea you could do this.
20:57 Aisha Harris? Wow.
20:57 Speaker 03 It's also on Netflix.
20:59 Aisha Harris? Okay, so that is Bon Appetit, Your Majesty.
21:02 Speaker 03 Yes.
21:03 Aisha Harris? The K-drama. And then what is the other one?
21:06 Speaker 03 Haikyuu, the anime on Netflix. It's about volleyball. That's it.
21:11 Stephen Thompson? Volleyball anime, alright.
21:13 Aisha Harris? And they're both on Netflix. Alright, thank you Regina for that. Steven, what is making you happy this week?
21:21 Stephen Thompson? What is making me happy this week is the new mixtape from the wonderful Philly rapper and singer Tierra Whack. Just announced just like a couple of weeks ago, out for Juneteenth. If you don't know Tierra Whack, just endless, endless wellspring of weird ideas. I fell in love with Tierra Whack when she put out this kind of quote unquote album called Whack World, which was a 15 minute album, 15 one minute songs. And you just got a sense of just ideas just springing out of every second of her music. She's kind of gone on to perform what I think is one of the all time great Tiny Desk Concerts, which includes a cameo appearance by the Philly Fanatic.
22:05 Aisha Harris? Why guess?
22:06 Stephen Thompson? Her music is best accompanied by her videos, which are just like wildly inventive and fun to look at, just full of bright colors and wild imagery. This new mixtape will also be accompanied by videos. I have not seen them yet. I've only heard the songs. And I will say that I'm sure the videos will only add to just the wild technicolor. Geyser of Ideas, that is her new EP. Let's actually hear a little bit of the song Wiggy Whack.
22:57 Stephen Thompson? You just hear that warped arrangement kind of wobbling underneath her.
23:03 Aisha Harris? Very 90s.
23:04 Stephen Thompson? She continues to just be a wonderful, wonderful font of creativity. And I'm just delighted that she's got this new record out for Juneteenth. That's Tierra Whack. Her new mixtape is called Wax Museum.
23:18 Aisha Harris? Love it. Thank you so much, Stephen. That's awesome. Well, I'm gonna keep it in the musical realm. Underscores is an artist who's new to me because musically speaking, I tend to be late to everything except Charli XCX. I was on that bandwagon way before everyone else. But Underscores has a new album, a newish album, came out a few months ago called You. And I am just obsessed with this. This is like drill, hyperpop EDM, songs that zig and zag and start in one place sonically and then evolve into like a different movement by the end of it. It's a type of music that I want to actually listen mostly to in my headphones because you want to hear the many harmonies and the stacked vocals in this empty space that like
24:02 Aisha Harris? punctuates some of these songs. Some of my favorites on this album are Music, Love Field, which sounds kind of like a spiritual successor to, I think, to Janet's Velvet Rope album. It could have been on like the Velvet Rope in the 90s. Do It, which is really kind of Timbaland and Justin during like the future sex love sounds era. But I think my favorite at this moment is probably The Pace. That's P-E-A-C-E. And it's just kind of like this song about an unhealthy attachment to another person as told through like sharing a smoke with them. And let's actually hear just a little bit of that song.
24:57 Aisha Harris? Yeah, I love the emptiness and the chopped harmonies and the spareness and all of that.
25:02 Stephen Thompson? You just listened to that sample and my pupils are darting all over the place.
25:05 Aisha Harris? I know.
25:06 Speaker 03 That's good. What was the name again?
25:08 Aisha Harris? The name is Underscores. That's the artist. And she's actually from the Bay Area. But that song was The Peace, and the album is You. It's just the letter U, very Prince-like. So yes, that is what is making me happy this week. And that brings us to the end of our show. Regina Barber, Stephen Thompson, thanks so much for being here. I love that we all enjoyed Toy Story 5. Because
25:34 Stephen Thompson? We did.
25:34 Aisha Harris? Yeah, we need this. We needed this.
25:36 Speaker 03 It was great.
25:38 Speaker 03 Thank you.
25:38 Aisha Harris? This episode was produced by Hepsa Bathama, Liz Medsker, and Mike Katsif, and edited by our showrunner Jessica Reedy. Hello, Kim Min provides our theme music. And thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris, and we'll see you all next week.
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