Pod Insights SNAFU with Ed Helms Live at LA Talks with Tig Notaro About this episode Today is another SNAFU treat from the book tour archives! Tig Notaro joins Ed live on stage at Live Talks Los Angeles, where they break down Ed's book, SNAFU: The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screwups. Tig also roasts Ed like a campfire marshmallow, which will indeed leave you asking for "S'more."
Find your copy of the New York Times Bestseller wherever you get your books, or go to: www.snafu-book.com http://www.snafu-book.com/
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Transcript 7,839 words · 13 speakers
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1:32 Speaker 04 Hello, Snafu listeners. Ed Helms here. I mean, who else is it gonna be? I'm the host. This is my podcast. So yeah, it's Ed Helms, and I've got another really fun surprise for you. This week, I'm sharing the live recording of one of my favorite stops on last year's book tour, where I was essentially roasted to a crisp by the one and only Tig Notaro. Now Tig isn't just a brilliant comedian, actor, writer, and podcast host. She's also a longtime friend. We go way back, and I've Always admired her completely singular comedic voice.
2:13 Speaker 04 She has this magical rhythm to her delivery, like a deceptively gentle, slow burn style to her jokes, and then these punchlines that just hit you in the gut so hard. She can leave a massive audience doubled over without ever raising her voice. You've probably seen her in her Netflix stand-up special, Happy to be Here, or her TV series, One Mrs. Sippy, or stealing entire scenes in shows like Star Trek: Discovery, The Office, or perhaps even the movie that Tig and I did together called Together Together. Now, sharing the stage with Tig at L.A. Live Talks was an absolute blast.
2:58 Speaker 04 We dug into the stories from my book, Snafu: The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screw-Ups, talked about the research and production process for the book, and even tossed around a few bold predictions for the future. So, listen in, and don't forget, you can order the book or the audiobook at snafu-book.com or wherever you get your books. So, sit back and enjoy my conversation with the incredible Tig Notaro.
3:37 Speaker 04 Could you guys give us a minute? We're gonna just catch up.
3:41 Speaker 05 Didn't see you there. Do you know when I get started on the questions that I printed out?
3:49 Speaker 04 Do I know what?
3:50 Speaker 05 When I should get started on this?
3:53 Speaker 05 Like, should we just chat casually for a minute?
3:57 Speaker 04 I feel like that's appropriate.
3:58 Speaker 05 Okay.
3:59 Speaker 04 Some casual chatter, and then, honestly, don't ever get to this stuff.
4:03 Speaker 05 Okay. All right.
4:06 Speaker 04 That's the, uh, let's get real.
4:08 Speaker 05 Mm-hmm.
4:09 Speaker 04 Let's get under the hood.
4:10 Speaker 05 Let's get real, real fast.
4:11 Speaker 04 Yeah.
4:12 Speaker 05 Like, what's on my pants?
4:15 Speaker 04 Yeah.
4:16 Speaker 05 I realized, uh, on my way here tonight that I had a stain on my pants.
4:23 Speaker 04 And I just asked backstage if she knows what's on her pants. She doesn't know.
4:29 Speaker 05 But I did decide it would be the name of a really good talk show. Or a game show.
4:36 Speaker 04 Game show.
4:37 Speaker 05 Yes. What's on your pants? Crowd goes mild. Great, well, um, what's on your pants?
4:53 Speaker 04 So much, I've been wearing these pants basically every day for the last eight days. This is the last, this is the last stop on my book tour.
5:00 Speaker 05 Congrats.
5:01 Speaker 04 Thank you. And, uh, and thank you Tig for, for doing this and being here.
5:07 Speaker 05 It is my pleasure. I'll go anywhere for you, my dear.
5:11 Speaker 04 Well, fantastic, all the way to Culver City.
5:13 Speaker 05 That's right, to the straight area of town.
5:16 Speaker 04 Yeah.
5:19 Speaker 05 Should we get started?
5:21 Speaker 04 Um, why don't I ask you all the questions?
5:23 Speaker 05 Absolutely.
5:24 Speaker 04 How much did you love my book?
5:29 Speaker 05 I loved it so much that when I had time, I read parts of it.
5:34 Speaker 04 Amazing.
5:35 Speaker 05 Yes.
5:37 Speaker 04 You read the excerpts, the blurbs?
5:39 Speaker 05 No, I read more, way more than that.
5:41 Speaker 04 Oh, cool.
5:42 Speaker 05 Yes, um, but we'll get into that.
5:44 Speaker 04 All right, good.
5:45 Speaker 05 What else do you want to ask me?
5:47 Speaker 04 Um, where'd you grow up?
5:51 Speaker 05 Mississippi and Texas, but I feel like you probably knew some of that.
5:57 Speaker 04 I know, but this is for them.
5:58 Speaker 05 Oh.
5:59 Speaker 04 I'm getting, I'm just, yeah.
6:00 Speaker 05 I forgot that I wasn't just here to talk to my friend Ed. Mississippi and Texas.
6:07 Speaker 04 And I'm from Georgia.
6:09 Speaker 05 He's from Georgia.
6:10 Speaker 04 We're bringing a real...
6:11 Speaker 05 Southern.
6:12 Speaker 04 Some, we're just bringing some southern vibes.
6:15 Speaker 05 Yeah, we are.
6:15 Speaker 04 To California, which is...
6:17 Speaker 05 That's right.
6:17 Speaker 04 It's what we do.
6:23 Speaker 05 I'm out with questions.
6:25 Speaker 04 You're out already?
6:26 Speaker 05 I'm out. I am out, yeah.
6:28 Speaker 04 Because you didn't even read anything on that paper.
6:31 Speaker 05 Well, I realized this was my grocery list.
6:35 Speaker 04 For Gailson's?
6:37 Speaker 05 Ham.
6:41 Speaker 05 That's not true. Can I tell you, speaking of Mississippi, my cousin, who is a grown woman, 29, married, has a child, a couple of years ago, and she's not, and I know people here in Mississippi, and you picture, whatever you're picturing. There are civilized areas and people. My family is one of them. My cousin went to college, she went to business school, found out a couple of years ago, ham is not an animal.
7:13 Speaker 05 She thought, like, chicken and
7:17 Speaker 05 fish. There were hams running around.
7:22 Speaker 04 They don't teach that in business school?
7:24 Speaker 05 No.
7:26 Speaker 04 Where did she go to business school?
7:28 Speaker 05 Uh...
7:29 Speaker 04 In Mississippi?
7:30 Speaker 05 No, in New Orleans.
7:31 Speaker 04 Okay.
7:32 Speaker 05 Yeah, so...
7:34 Speaker 04 That is one of the few meats that has, like, multiple names. Ham, bacon, there are all these things that aren't what it is.
7:43 Speaker 05 That's only two.
7:44 Speaker 04 Well, also, pig.
7:46 Speaker 05 Pork.
7:47 Speaker 04 Ham, pork, bacon, pig.
7:49 Speaker 05 What'd you say?
7:52 Speaker 05 That's not a pig.
7:53 Speaker 04 But it is, it is not a cow also. Her point is that it's not a cow.
7:57 Speaker 05 Oh, right. I was gonna say, are you from Mississippi?
8:02 Speaker 05 All right, well, let's get in to these questions.
8:05 Speaker 04 All right.
8:07 Speaker 05 Ed?
8:08 Speaker 04 I'm an onion. Just start peeling the layers.
8:11 Speaker 05 Okay.
8:11 Speaker 04 It's gonna get real.
8:13 Speaker 05 All right. If it's gonna get real, then. Tell us a little bit about why you chose to write this companion book.
8:24 Speaker 05 For the Snafu Podcast.
8:26 Speaker 04 Wow, I'm so glad you asked.
8:27 Speaker 05 What spawned your interest?
8:29 Speaker 04 What a great question to take.
8:30 Speaker 05 In this type, I'm a slow delivery, I'm still asking the question. What spawned your interest in this type of history project in the first place?
8:41 Speaker 04 That feels like a question you wrote. You use words like spawned in a lot of regular time.
8:47 Speaker 05 And Snafu.
8:48 Speaker 04 Yeah.
8:48 Speaker 05 I always say Snafu.
8:49 Speaker 04 Every time we talk on the phone, you're like, what spawned this? What spawned that?
8:54 Speaker 05 What spawned this Snafu?
8:55 Speaker 04 Basically, everybody does a podcast.
8:58 Speaker 05 Mm-hmm.
9:00 Speaker 04 Including you.
9:00 Speaker 05 Yep, it's called Handsome, check it out.
9:03 Speaker 04 Check it out. And there are so many great podcasts out there, and a lot of them are just interviews kind of style shows, which I love, and I was consuming a ton of these shows as a fan, and I was like, do I fit into this podcast space somewhere? And if I do, what does it look like? I didn't really want to do an interview show because I felt like there were just so many of them out there. And it's like, well, history is a fun thing that I've always loved to just kind of go down these little rabbit holes of looking into stuff. Our show, this show Rutherford Falls, was very kind of history oriented.
9:42 Speaker 04 I played an historian who owned a museum in that show, and I just, yeah, it was something that felt very organic to me, but then it's like, well, I still want it to be funny. And then it was like, well, what's funny in history? The Snafus, the car crashes of history that we can't turn away from. Those will be fun, like, that'll be a fun thing to do a podcast about. So, we partnered with the great people at Film Nation and their podcast department, and set to work on this thing, and it just turned into a really intense project with
10:23 Speaker 04 deep research and heavy audio production, and...
10:28 Speaker 05 Were you expecting that, the deep research? Or did you not account for that?
10:32 Speaker 04 The first season, I think we were very ambitious, but it worked, like, it really clicked, and we kind of figured out, got a rhythm on how to do this. Anyway, in doing all that research, you just accumulate basically like a pile of these crazy stories, and some of them don't... Warrant like the full podcast treatment. Like it's just, it doesn't have quite as much material there, but it's still really funny or interesting. And those, those just started to pile up and it was like, alright, this is, this is fodder for a book.
11:10 Speaker 05 Yeah.
11:11 Speaker 04 It's like, it's all right here. It's just sort of like quick, each chapter is a different snafu. So it's not nearly as deep a dive. And the stories are just kind of quick and fun and easy. It's, which is part of what makes this book such a fantastic gift. For Mother's Day or Father's Day. You can pick it up and just go anywhere and find a five to 10-page little fun story. It's basically a book of short stories. There's 31 snafus in there. You can, it's a great beach read. It's perfect for your nightstand. I, you can read it in the bathroom.
11:48 Speaker 05 Really?
11:48 Speaker 04 Yes.
11:49 Speaker 05 You know of people that have read it in the bathroom?
11:52 Speaker 04 I'm just saying you can. I haven't asked people, but I have been told that it gets things moving.
11:59 Speaker 04 That one chapter is equivalent to nine grams of fiber.
12:05 Speaker 05 Would it be the longest enema?
12:10 Speaker 04 Ever Given?
12:11 Speaker 05 Ever Given?
12:12 Speaker 04 Yeah, so there is a, there is a chapter about the, the Ever Given, which is a container ship that was wedged in the Suez Canal. That's one of the more recent ones that you might remember. And yeah.
12:26 Speaker 05 I learned, I didn't realize this until I was doing my semi-deep dive on the book, that snafu stands for
12:39 Speaker 05 Situation Normal All
12:44 Speaker 05 Fucked
12:48 Speaker 05 Right?
12:49 Speaker 04 Yeah.
12:49 Speaker 05 You can say, you can also, you think?
12:52 Speaker 04 Well, if, if what you silently said is what I think you said, then yeah, I think you're right.
12:58 Speaker 05 Are you guys okay with me saying the F-word?
13:04 Speaker 05 But you can also put fouled up. That's how you kind of clean it up.
13:09 Speaker 04 Oh, okay.
13:10 Speaker 05 Yeah, I also learned that. Not from your book or podcast, but when I was researching snafus.
13:16 Speaker 04 Yeah.
13:17 Speaker 05 And snafus. I did, you know, I dove in here and there.
13:22 Speaker 04 All right, cool.
13:22 Speaker 05 Yeah, I just, I...
13:23 Speaker 04 That's a good one. That is a good one for when I take this into schools.
13:27 Speaker 05 Mm-hmm. To be able to say, "All fouled up."
13:30 Speaker 04 All fouled up.
13:31 Speaker 05 Now, speaking of schools, were you into history as a kid?
13:35 Speaker 04 Hmm, as a little kid, we had a huge collection of National Geographic magazines.
13:42 Speaker 05 Hmm.
13:43 Speaker 04 And, um, and I just was always so into that. I would just like pull them out and thumb through and just be... It was such a vessel for curiosity. And I really, it made me really want to be Indiana Jones.
14:02 Speaker 04 Because...
14:02 Speaker 05 How did that go?
14:03 Speaker 04 It hasn't worked out yet. Also, I don't think it's... I think that, like, his version of that profession is now frowned upon.
14:14 Speaker 04 But at the time, it was just adventurous and curious and wonderful. But, uh, yeah, those National Geographics and also the World Book Encyclopedia, did anybody have those in their homes? I, like, I just loved those things. You could pull them off and just be like, "Ardvarks." Like, "What's up with aardvarks?"
14:37 Speaker 05 So you started on page one?
14:39 Speaker 04 Yeah. Right.
14:41 Speaker 05 Because that's the double A, right?
14:42 Speaker 04 Sure. Yeah, but you could also just be like, "Zanzavar." Where, like, what's the deal? What's the population? Where is it on the map? And anything that you wanted. I just, I couldn't believe that we had, like, this book set that could just tell me anything I wanted to know. But the podcast and the book have become these, what I hope and feel are very productive applications of that, that curiosity and interest.
15:10 Speaker 05 All right. Where were we?
15:16 Speaker 05 So, you know, we all heard in our bios that, I mean, or yours especially. I mean, you've done a lot. You've been an actor, a podcaster, a writer, comedy writer, all of these things. I mean, you know, musician, but we're not here to talk about that. Guys, settle down. We're not talking about that. How did all of those experiences inform writing this book? How, like, everything that you've done, here we are now today, you are an author.
15:56 Speaker 04 I do kind of feel like the Snafu podcast was a culmination of sorts because it's so, it's so deep. And there are stories in the podcast that are very heavy and poignant and stirring. And, and that's not something I really expected coming up through comedy that I would be diving into. And so that sort of just, I think, opened my mind about, just creatively, like, what would be, like, what else I can do and how else, like, the book just felt like a very, like, a natural step from that.
16:40 Speaker 04 And, and I've really enjoyed it. If I, yeah, I think there's gonna be more.
16:47 Speaker 05 You enjoyed the process of writing?
16:49 Speaker 04 Yeah.
16:50 Speaker 05 How long did it take you to write? I wrote a book. It took me four years, and you can read it in an afternoon next to the pool.
16:57 Speaker 04 Yeah.
16:58 Speaker 05 How long did yours take?
16:59 Speaker 04 Like, a year and a half. And there was, but the nice thing about this book is that it was, it was not overwhelming to work on because it's such short chunks. So each chapter is, is a, is a story, and that, that caters well to, like, the way my brain works. Like, I think writing a novel would just be terrifying and overwhelming. And even writing, like, a memoir feels, or something along those lines, I don't know, anything like a narrative that's like two, 300 pages feels, maybe I'll get there eventually, but right now that feels, like, scary.
17:38 Speaker 05 It doesn't sound like you'll get there.
17:40 Speaker 04 Yeah.
17:42 Speaker 05 Based on the ADHD and...
17:44 Speaker 04 Yeah, all that stuff. And also, the nice thing, you know, I had a lot of research support on this book because we built such a great team on this, on the podcast. And so, it was, you know, it really was a collective effort, kind of organizing this material and getting the, um, getting the research materials together. And, uh, and I just was working with great, great people, pulling the, the information together.
18:16 Speaker 05 So, in that research, were there any surprises that stuck? I'm sure there were so many surprises, but any that really stuck out to you when you like really, you know, because I'm sure you have some idea maybe of what one particular story or snafu is about, and then you're like, here's the twist.
18:37 Speaker 04 Well...
18:38 Speaker 05 In a major way.
18:39 Speaker 04 I'm gonna back up or sort of like go high altitude for a second because, hopefully, all the stories in the book are that for everybody. Because in, and again, starting with the podcast, the idea, like, I didn't want to tell stories that, that people know. I want, I wanted to tell history that feels new or fresh or, or kind of like rediscovering things. And in the podcast, um, it just, it was like trying to find stories that have a lot of power and impact, but have been largely forgotten in the, in the sort of popular memory.
19:23 Speaker 04 Um, and, and that's what, that same thing I brought to the, to this sort of like, that was the art, sort of like organizing principle and building the, the content for the book. And, and because of that, like, every story is surprising. Every story is like, holy shit, that happened? Like, that's real? There's a few in the book that you probably have heard of, um, like the Ever Given, that in the, the, everybody knew when that container ship got wedged in, in the Suez Canal.
19:55 Speaker 05 And what is your favorite story?
19:57 Speaker 04 Well, they're all my babies, you know? So, it's hard to pick, but, uh, I'll tell you two. There's one that I love...
20:06 Speaker 05 Just one?
20:07 Speaker 04 Uh, okay.
20:08 Speaker 05 (laughter)
20:09 Speaker 04 There's another one that's absolutely insane, which is in the 1950s. This was, this is the Cold War, so... One thing that emerges when you read the book, the Cold War did not bring out the best in us. Like, we were very scared and made a lot of really terrible decisions. This is one of them. So, a plan was hatched to shoot a nuclear warhead at the moon. Now, why would you want to do that? Well, the thinking was that if we can hit the moon with a nuclear warhead,
20:51 Speaker 04 the Soviets will see that, and they'll be like, "Holy shit." And then I guess we win the Cold War, because they're so scared. Because they're like, "Oh my god, the Americans can hit the moon with a warhead? Like, we're done. Like, we can't, we just surrender." So, they, they really thought that this would like, kind of shut down the Cold War, or like, scare the Soviets really badly. So, they went really far down this, this road. They spent a lot of time and money researching this. Carl Sagan worked on this project. A young Carl Sagan, he likes planets! But he was part of this plan to actually shoot a warhead at one. Millions of dollars went into this. Yeah, untold millions. Yes.
21:35 Speaker 04 They eventually realized that any tiny malfunction or miscalculation could very easily result in the nuclear warhead slingshoting around the gravitational field of the moon, and just coming right back at us. The other thing they realized is that even if they hit the moon, you know, even if they actually were on target, that it wouldn't look like much. It would just be, because I think the hope was, like, the Soviets would see this big, like, crater on the moon, or, or see like, a big explosion on the moon. But they realized that it would really just probably be kind of a little gray dust cloud.
22:20 Speaker 04 You wouldn't really see very much. And that detail I love, because that is literally Wile E. Coyote. Every time Wile E. Coyote falls off a cliff, it's like... That little, that little dust cloud. And this is a Looney Tunes idea. Like, you could see Acme on the side of this forehead, very plausibly.
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25:04 Speaker 05 You were saying before that you have this, you know, a lot of great researchers, and you would have to. But where do researchers even begin to get this information?
25:15 Speaker 04 This is a good question.
25:16 Speaker 05 Thank you.
25:17 Speaker 04 Because it's important to point out, the only reason we know about that,
25:25 Speaker 04 the only reason we know about that nuclear warhead shooting at the moon, that whole thing, the only reason we know is because a, one of Carl Sagan's biographers was researching him, looking through all of his old papers, and he had actually put this project on a fellowship application, like, applying to something, you know, right after grad school. And this researcher, this, you know, his biographer was like, "I'm gonna put Carl Sagan aside for a second, look into this moon thing." And they uncovered it. And all of that's to say that the only reason we know about any of this stuff
26:06 Speaker 04 is because of so many dogged journalists and writers and people that just have like, yes, for sure. Huge round of applause. And because of that, like, when you just start looking for snafus, they bubble up. They're on Google, they're, you know, they're in history books.
26:32 Speaker 05 But yeah, like, where do you Google? Like, "snafus, 1973."
26:38 Speaker 04 Yes, 1960s disasters.
26:41 Speaker 05 Uh huh.
26:42 Speaker 04 Problems. I mean, it's like, there are books, there are, there are books that focus on these things that aren't funny.
26:50 Speaker 05 Mm hmm.
26:51 Speaker 04 And like, that are written by serious historians, unlike me.
26:56 Speaker 05 And has the government reached out and been like, "Do not tell anybody."
27:01 Speaker 04 Shut up. No, but I actually feel like now, like, this book would piss Trump off because it's like honest about our history, which he is like, seems, right? Like, doesn't it feel like we're in this moment where he's just like, "Don't say any bad stuff about us."
27:18 Speaker 05 Yeah.
27:18 Speaker 04 That's anti-American.
27:19 Speaker 05 Mm hmm.
27:20 Speaker 04 To point out that, that we, that the CIA tried to surgically implant microphones into cats' ears and then train the cats to go sit next to bad guys so you could hear. And, and the only thing, the only-
27:34 Speaker 05 As a cat lover, that was one of my favorites, I must say. A microphone on a cat?
27:41 Speaker 04 Yeah.
27:42 Speaker 05 Like, sitting next to a bad guy?
27:46 Speaker 04 Yeah, and the only thing that came, that it came from that entire, like, research effort was the startling discovery that you can't train cats.
27:59 Speaker 05 And how much money went into that?
28:03 Speaker 05 You don't have that right off.
28:05 Speaker 04 Millions.
28:06 Speaker 05 Millions, yes. Are there any other anecdotes that you would like to share?
28:10 Speaker 04 Um.
28:11 Speaker 05 I mean, because it is like, it's like an, like you were saying, an encyclopedia of Aardvark to Zanzibar. There's so many. Was there a, well, no, that would be, that's not a good question.
28:28 Speaker 04 I could tell you another one.
28:29 Speaker 05 Yeah.
28:30 Speaker 04 This one's, this one I love because it's, it's not as absurd. It's actually, some of the snafus in the book are, are, kind of have this silver lining of being a very obvious lesson that, that, that we learned culturally from it, or, or there are heroes that emerged during snafus, and this is one of those. Also in the 1950s, the, one of the first nuclear reactors is built in, uh-
29:03 Speaker 04 Deep River, Ontario, which is just up the Ottawa River from the city of Ottawa. And it's very early in nuclear technology. There's a very Homer Simpson series of mistakes that happen at this nuclear reactor and a meltdown starts. And it's a terrible accident. And this is the first nuclear reactor meltdown in human history. So, nobody really knows what to do. They're freaking out. They call the US military and they're like, "What do we do? Do you have anybody that can help us?"
29:45 Speaker 04 And they're like, "Yeah, actually, we have this 28-year-old kid who's been working on our nuclear sub-program, and he's extremely knowledgeable about all this stuff. He's a great leader. We're gonna send him up with a team to help you out." That was Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter? Yeah. So, this is a story about a young Jimmy Carter. He runs up there, gets to Deep River, Ontario. The reactor's melting down. It's so radioactive that they can only be in close proximity to the reactor core for 90 seconds at a time, or else they'll die of radiation poisoning.
30:29 Speaker 05 I know what ends up happening.
30:31 Speaker 04 You do?
30:33 Speaker 05 Mm-hmm. But go ahead.
30:35 Speaker 04 All right. Don't spoil it. Okay. So, they build a replica of this reactor core on a nearby tennis court. So, they start rehearsing this disassembly, and they drill it, and they drill it, and drill it, until they've got this plan down perfectly. And then they start running in, like a relay team of NASCAR pit crews, just like, "Viz, viz," you know, 90 seconds at a time. They can only be in there. So, and every time they do something to the reactor core, they come outside and they do it to their replica as well, so they can keep track of everything that's happening. It's a brilliant plan, and it keeps all of the workers healthy, and they save the reactor. There's still a partial meltdown.
31:20 Speaker 04 There's a lot of damage done, but they prevent the, basically, a Chernobyl from happening. That very easily could have been North America's Chernobyl. And I love this story because it's, you know, I grew up in a, in a southern Democrat household. My dad was very politically engaged and we loved Jimmy Carter. We always, he was like a venerated figure in our home. But I feel like sadly, in sort of the popular memory, he's considered kinda wimpy, you know? Even though he did a lot of really badass stuff, both as a president and especially in, as he's one of the most productive
32:06 Speaker 04 post-presidents we've ever had. And I think of him as a hero. I always have, and I've always resented this kind of popular sentiment that he's just sort of this wimpy, ineffective guy. But this is like a great little nugget of proof that he was a really courageous badass with serious leadership and...
32:25 Speaker 05 I can really accentuate this point even more with a detail about this story, this snafu in your book, that when I said, "I know what happens," this is what I'm talking about. His urine was radioactive for how long?
32:47 Speaker 04 Like three months afterwards.
32:49 Speaker 05 Afterwards.
32:49 Speaker 04 Yeah.
32:50 Speaker 05 That's a badass.
32:51 Speaker 04 Yeah.
32:53 Speaker 05 Okay. Make fun of Jimmy Carter all day long, but have you had radioactive urine?
33:00 Speaker 04 And they, they were very afraid that, that all these workers would not be able to have children. And Jimmy Carter had four very healthy children. He's, he's a tough guy.
33:11 Speaker 05 Yeah, yes, yeah.
33:14 Speaker 04 Give it up for Jimmy Carter.
33:19 Speaker 05 Those are some of my favorite live moments is when one person claps and nobody chimes in. And it's just an awkward, and then you go, "Oh, did you feel like I should pull back? Nobody's joining? No, she's not even acknowledging that I'm talking to her."
33:42 Speaker 05 What are some patterns that you observed in lessons studying snafus?
33:51 Speaker 04 Hmm.
33:54 Speaker 04 The, okay, so the, well, one of the things that, I don't think this is something that we sort of culturally would have, would say we learned from this book, but, but it's, but the book reiterates it in a very powerful way, which is that we just don't learn from history at all, which is so sad and dumb. We're so dumb, and we just do the dumbest stuff. But I do think there is a, like, a positive takeaway from really digging into these snafus. Like, the more you, the more you look into these really dumb or kind of horrifying, crazy
34:37 Speaker 04 events from history, it's very easy, just when we're in this moment like we're in right now, and I, this, this I think applies, whatever your political stripes are, wherever you fall in the sort of conservative liberal spectrum, this moment that we're in feels volatile. It feels like, it feels unstable, it feels a little like, you know, like we're polarized and there's a just tremendous uncertainty about the future, which is just unsettling, makes us anxious. When we look back at crazy things in the past, it's actually kind of nice to be reminded
35:20 Speaker 04 that we've been there before. Like, people have been terrified at lots of times in the past, and that at least all this stuff in this book and like... Most of the time, there's some sense that we got through a thing, or that we got to the other side and found some sense of equilibrium again. And so I don't mean to be like glib or Pollyannish about the moment that we're in right now, because I think it does feel legitimately scary in a lot of ways. And I don't know what will happen. But I do think, looking back, it's nice to be just sort of reminded that we have felt this way before,
36:03 Speaker 04 or previous generations have felt this way before, and that they have gotten through these moments. And so maybe that gives us sense that there's a light at the end of the tunnel as well.
36:15 Speaker 05 I mean, I agree, you know, as tough as things are and scary as things may feel, I mean, this is really extreme, but I go to, like, God, it used to be normal to like behead somebody back in the old, old timey times. And I'm like, we don't do that anymore. I'm also curious, like, there are so many amazing stories. How do you decide what to choose, what to put in your book, what to put in the podcast? And also, you must have people, are people contacting you or stopping you on the street going, "I have a story, I know, I have some inside scoop on this thing."
36:59 Speaker 04 A few people actually on this book tour have been like, "Did you hear about this?"
37:03 Speaker 05 Yeah.
37:04 Speaker 04 Like, random.
37:04 Speaker 05 And do you have a lot of conspiracy theorists that are, that reach out to you?
37:09 Speaker 04 Not yet. I haven't, I'm sure.
37:15 Speaker 04 Yeah.
37:15 Speaker 05 I'm getting the vibe on it, yeah, that guy, I looked right at him, there he is.
37:21 Speaker 04 You know, weirdly, I think just like writing about real stuff that's crazy is weirdly a little bit of a hedge against conspiracy theories. Because it's like, the research on these-
37:34 Speaker 05 But they think that's real, don't you?
37:36 Speaker 04 Yeah, okay.
37:40 Speaker 04 That's the title of my next book.
37:43 Speaker 05 I'm curious.
37:49 Speaker 05 I mean, you're obviously gonna do another, you're gonna do Snafu 2, right? The next book? Because there is, like you said, so much going on.
37:57 Speaker 04 Well, it's such a fun space to play in. It feels like there's so many different kinds of ways to, or different ways to frame Snafus. We could do like a book about sports Snafus, or, you know, different time periods, medieval Snafus.
38:17 Speaker 05 Yeah.
38:18 Speaker 04 You know?
38:19 Speaker 05 But I'm saying, like, you, chronologically, you go through this, you know, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. And I'm like, right now, we're sitting in a bunch of, thank you.
38:31 Speaker 05 We're sitting in the middle of a bunch of Snafus.
38:33 Speaker 04 Yeah.
38:33 Speaker 05 Potential Snafus, more to come.
38:36 Speaker 04 Yeah, it does feel like we're swimming in, just like a big ol' sea of Snafus right now.
38:42 Speaker 05 So I'm seeing Snafu 2, Snafu 3, you know, all coming down the pike.
38:46 Speaker 04 That are just about the last, like, 100 days.
38:53 Speaker 05 Snafu 100.
38:54 Speaker 04 Yeah.
38:55 Speaker 05 Have you ever, this is unrelated to your book, but just curious, any personal Snafus in your life? That you'd like to share?
39:05 Speaker 04 So many, but not, not so many for public consumption.
39:11 Speaker 05 Wow, so should we end there?
39:16 Speaker 04 Let's do it there, because I do think that we're gonna get some audience questions. I think it'd be nice to hear from you guys.
39:22 Speaker 05 We are, we're gonna take some audience questions.
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41:23 Speaker 00 Halloween's almost here, and I've got plans. My first stop is Total Wine & More for cold beer, ready-to-drink cocktails, and a bottle of wine to share. And I know I'm getting the lowest prices. Get the fun started at Total Wine & More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. Be 21.
41:40 Speaker 09 If The Office had a historical snafu-themed episode, which disaster would Michael Scott have proudly caused?
41:53 Speaker 04 I mean, isn't that every episode of The Office? Like, some horrible disaster? I don't know, I feel like the ever-given container ship getting wedged into the Suez Canal totally fits his particular kind of...
42:11 Speaker 05 Snafu.
42:12 Speaker 04 Yeah, his particular weaknesses. Because that's such a... That accident was so mundane. Like, it was such a... It was like people in the wheelhouse of this ship, like, kind of panicking, trying to figure out what to do. I mean, you can imagine an episode of The Office, or something feeling like an Office episode, unfolding in the wheelhouse of that ship as they're trying to, like, adjust for the wind and then back up, but there's a guy behind them, and somebody's yelling at the navigator, and the navigator is like Oscar, and he's like, "I don't know, I have... This is the data, this is all I have." And then Dwight Schrute is freaking... He's like the engineer freaking out, like, "We're losing power! We're losing power!" It just... Yeah, the whole...
42:57 Speaker 04 That one feels... And Michael Scott as the skipper just, like, frozen with fear. I don't know.
43:04 Speaker 05 This isn't a follow-up question, but I will tell you, for those that don't know, I was on an episode of The Office, and to this day, I get recognized as that being my only credit.
43:19 Speaker 05 Where people come up and be like, "Huh, you're from The Office!" And I was like, "Yeah, 13 years ago, for one second."
43:28 Speaker 04 Yeah.
43:29 Speaker 05 It's insane how massive that show is. Ed, it's a bit of a preview question, but I wonder about one or two snafus that are on the list that you haven't done a deep dive into, but you're just... Dying to get into, really curious about.
43:43 Speaker 04 Season four of the podcast is going to take a little bit of a different shape. And I'm gonna have guests on. Tig, you're doing it, whether you know it or not. You're coming on the show. And I'm gonna tell them about snafus. And then we'll have just sort of fun, it's kind of spin off chats about it. But, so a lot of things that maybe kind of didn't fit the book or the podcast framework, I think are gonna work really well for that. So that'll be things like the Donner Party and Ernest Shackleton's crazy attempt to cross and be the first to cross Antarctica in the early 1900s.
44:26 Speaker 04 That's an incredible story. What else? The Lusitania is one, the cruise ship that was sunk in the North Pacific by Germans. And, gosh, there are so many cool, there are so many cool, crazy, weird stories. But that's a sampling.
44:52 Speaker 05 Now, again, not really related to what we're talking about. No, I know you have two kids and I have two children as well. And at bedtime, we have a joke where I go, where I say, come on, guys, let's get in bed. I'm gonna tell you some boring stories. And I tell them like mundane stories, like, you know, I was pulling into the parking lot at the grocery store and they're just like, they fall asleep. And as we've been talking, I'm like, do you ever sit and tell your kids snafu stories?
45:32 Speaker 04 Horrible tragedies.
45:36 Speaker 05 You should. I mean, leave the tragedy out because they'll snooze before.
45:41 Speaker 04 Yeah. Um, no, not this stuff. Although, one of my favorite bits in a movie is, uh, does anyone remember the movie The Great Outdoors? Sure. Okay, so there's an amazing, it's such a dumb-
45:54 Speaker 05 One person over there could remember it.
45:56 Speaker 04 There's such a dumb throwaway joke in that movie, but Dan Aykroyd tells, he has these creepy little twin daughters in the movie, and-
46:05 Speaker 05 I have twins?
46:06 Speaker 04 He tells the, he tells them the story. They're like, can you tell us a bedtime story? And he's like, yeah, sure. Okay, so, uh, he tells the story, it's basically like, uh, the military left a box in the woods, and it turned out to have, uh, this, this creature that they'd done all these experiments on, and the box spilled and opened up, and it came, this creature came out of the box and terrorized all these children in this little town. Uh, are we good?
46:31 Speaker 04 And the kid, the two kids are like wide-eyed, and then it cuts to the morning, and the kids are still just sitting there.
46:41 Speaker 04 That, that's what the, what I think most of these stories would do to my kids, um, but-
46:46 Speaker 05 So they're not sitting on your laps going, daddy, tell us more.
46:49 Speaker 04 Tell us more about nuclear warheads and, and the Cold War, uh, but-
46:53 Speaker 05 Radioactive urine.
46:54 Speaker 04 But I will say that you do raise a great point, which is that reading this book will make you a killer at dinner parties. Because you will have so many fun, quick, little zinger stories that you can just drop, like, and they're funny, and, uh, the people will think you're smart.
47:15 Speaker 05 I've been sitting here honestly thinking, wow, Ed is a smart guy.
47:20 Speaker 10 Hi, um, so I'm a battlefield guide. I work overseas in Europe, and we all love the podcast so much. We use a lot the, uh, reference of Fidel Castro with those assassinations, and how so many people are shocked about Hitler and all those failed assassination attempts. So we're wondering, from overseas, if you've addressed it a little bit about World War II, but would you ever go more into Second World War, First World War, snafus? Because there's just so many to name.
47:53 Speaker 04 Oh, wow. The World Wars. Just a cavalcade of snafus. There's so much written about those. They're so heavily researched. And that's kind of, again, outside of where I've been the most charged up with my curiosity, the things that have fallen out of popular memory. But the Lusitania is a crazy World War II story.
48:18 Speaker 11 Yeah, I've seen you both, some of your work. What's the relationship between you two? And why her to interview you tonight on this particular topic?
48:27 Speaker 05 Lovers.
48:31 Speaker 05 Ex-lovers.
48:36 Speaker 04 Yeah.
48:36 Speaker 05 But, good question. Why me?
48:40 Speaker 05 How rude.
48:47 Speaker 05 Yeah, what the hell am I doing here? I should be telling my kids boring stories.
48:53 Speaker 04 Yeah.
48:54 Speaker 05 I failed three grades and dropped out of high school. I have a seventh-grade education.
49:00 Speaker 04 But you're smarter than most people I know.
49:04 Speaker 05 Next question?
49:07 Speaker 05 No.
49:08 Speaker 04 How did we meet? I'm trying to remember the first time.
49:10 Speaker 05 From the comedy scene. Gelson's, thank you. I mean, yeah, the comedy world, Largo, the venue here in town at Largo. I did The Office. We also did a movie together. I don't know. Where'd she go?
49:28 Speaker 04 It's a bit of a...
49:32 Speaker 04 It's... Yeah.
49:34 Speaker 05 Yes. Why her?
49:40 Speaker 04 You have... I guess, I don't know why I like hanging out with you, Tig, because you're not very nice to me.
49:48 Speaker 05 Right.
49:49 Speaker 04 We did an interview when we were promoting a movie we did together, where I think you just, you kept telling the reporter how stupid my face was.
50:02 Speaker 05 To translate that,
50:05 Speaker 05 it's because he's so funny and silly and he makes these little smirky faces when he deliver, you know, he's so unassuming and subtle and then boom, right out of his stupid face is the funniest thing you'll hear.
50:20 Speaker 04 That's actually very sweet. You're one of the only people that's ever
50:23 Speaker 05 Complimented you?
50:24 Speaker 04 You called my comedy subtle and I appreciate that.
50:28 Speaker 05 Well, no, you just have a subtle vibe about you.
50:30 Speaker 04 Oh, okay.
50:31 Speaker 05 Like, you know, when we're chilling and whatever.
50:35 Speaker 04 Yeah.
50:35 Speaker 05 And then you'll, and then you'll do, but also when we did that movie, like all of your stu-, that's where it came from.
50:42 Speaker 04 Yeah.
50:42 Speaker 05 Because when we were doing the movie, the director said, "And now Ed just, you know, riff and do some things." And he just was delivering all these different, improv lines and face expressions. And I was like, "This stupid face, that's where it came from." That is where it came from. It's when you started riffing and your face went nuts.
51:04 Speaker 04 Yeah, that was fun.
51:06 Speaker 05 But we still don't know why I'm here. Next question.
51:11 Speaker 12 Have you thought about turning one of the stories into a movie?
51:14 Speaker 04 Yes. And that's a, there's concerted effort on that front with a couple of these. I think someone, someone actually had the idea to do the book. Does anyone remember History of the World, the Mel Brooks movie?
51:32 Speaker 05 Mm-hmm.
51:33 Speaker 04 Like, that's such a funny, like, just compendium of, basically just comedy sketches. And you could do all of these chapters as comedy sketches, too.
51:43 Speaker 05 Yeah.
51:44 Speaker 04 So, I don't know. There's a few things in the, hopefully in the hopper and then a few very abstract ideas.
51:52 Speaker 05 Is there a role for me?
51:53 Speaker 04 No.
51:55 Speaker 05 I guess that is the end of the evening here, isn't it?
51:59 Speaker 04 Give it up for Tig Notaro, ladies and gentlemen.
52:02 Speaker 05 Give it up for Mr. Ed Helms.
52:06 Speaker 04 Snafu is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snafu Media, a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company. Our post-production studio is Gilded Audio. Our executive producers are me, Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Basner, Andy Kim, Whitney Donaldson, and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino and Tori Smith. Our video editor is Jared Smith, technical direction and engineering from Nick Dooley. Our creative executive is Brett Harris. Logo and branding by The Collected Works. Legal review from Dan Welsh, Megan Halson, and Caroline Johnson. Special thanks
52:50 Speaker 04 to Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane Klein, and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman, Nikki Etor, Nathan Otoski, and Alex Corral. While I have you, don't forget to pick up a copy of my book, Snafu: The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screw-Ups. It's available now from any book retailer. Just go to snafu-book.com. Thanks for listening and see you next week.
53:21 Speaker 02 Pumpkin carving sounds fun, until you're elbow-deep in pumpkin guts. There's an easier pumpkin tradition: Reese's Pumpkins. No seeds, no giant kitchen knife, no pressure to create a masterpiece that's just gonna shrivel up on the front porch three days later. And if something goes wrong, just eat it. Every mistake is still pretty delicious. So this Halloween, skip the mess of pumpkin carving and stock up on Reese's Pumpkins.
53:50 Speaker 00 The Halloween party is at my place this year. It's my favorite party to host. With the lowest prices and the huge selection, Total Wine & More is my first stop. A bottle of wine for me while I'm preparing the snacks, ready-to-drink cocktails for the party, and beer for the friends who always end up on the couch. Between hosting and grabbing something to bring, I love getting the lowest prices. Now I'm ready for Halloween. Are you? Get the fun started at Total Wine & More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. Be 21. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
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