Live at LA Talks with Tig Notaro

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/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:32Speaker 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.

• 2:13Speaker 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.

• 2:58Speaker 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.

• 3:37Speaker 04

  Could you guys give us a minute? We're gonna just catch up.

• 3:41Speaker 05

  Didn't see you there. Do you know when I get started on the questions that I printed out?

• 3:49Speaker 04

  Do I know what?

• 3:50Speaker 05

  When I should get started on this?

• 3:53Speaker 05

  Like, should we just chat casually for a minute?

• 3:57Speaker 04

  I feel like that's appropriate.

• 3:58Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 3:59Speaker 04

  Some casual chatter, and then, honestly, don't ever get to this stuff.

• 4:03Speaker 05

  Okay. All right.

• 4:06Speaker 04

  That's the, uh, let's get real.

• 4:08Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:09Speaker 04

  Let's get under the hood.

• 4:10Speaker 05

  Let's get real, real fast.

• 4:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:12Speaker 05

  Like, what's on my pants?

• 4:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:16Speaker 05

  I realized, uh, on my way here tonight that I had a stain on my pants.

• 4:23Speaker 04

  And I just asked backstage if she knows what's on her pants. She doesn't know.

• 4:29Speaker 05

  But I did decide it would be the name of a really good talk show. Or a game show.

• 4:36Speaker 04

  Game show.

• 4:37Speaker 05

  Yes. What's on your pants? Crowd goes mild. Great, well, um, what's on your pants?

• 4:53Speaker 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.

• 5:00Speaker 05

  Congrats.

• 5:01Speaker 04

  Thank you. And, uh, and thank you Tig for, for doing this and being here.

• 5:07Speaker 05

  It is my pleasure. I'll go anywhere for you, my dear.

• 5:11Speaker 04

  Well, fantastic, all the way to Culver City.

• 5:13Speaker 05

  That's right, to the straight area of town.

• 5:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:19Speaker 05

  Should we get started?

• 5:21Speaker 04

  Um, why don't I ask you all the questions?

• 5:23Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 5:24Speaker 04

  How much did you love my book?

• 5:29Speaker 05

  I loved it so much that when I had time, I read parts of it.

• 5:34Speaker 04

  Amazing.

• 5:35Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 5:37Speaker 04

  You read the excerpts, the blurbs?

• 5:39Speaker 05

  No, I read more, way more than that.

• 5:41Speaker 04

  Oh, cool.

• 5:42Speaker 05

  Yes, um, but we'll get into that.

• 5:44Speaker 04

  All right, good.

• 5:45Speaker 05

  What else do you want to ask me?

• 5:47Speaker 04

  Um, where'd you grow up?

• 5:51Speaker 05

  Mississippi and Texas, but I feel like you probably knew some of that.

• 5:57Speaker 04

  I know, but this is for them.

• 5:58Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 5:59Speaker 04

  I'm getting, I'm just, yeah.

• 6:00Speaker 05

  I forgot that I wasn't just here to talk to my friend Ed. Mississippi and Texas.

• 6:07Speaker 04

  And I'm from Georgia.

• 6:09Speaker 05

  He's from Georgia.

• 6:10Speaker 04

  We're bringing a real...

• 6:11Speaker 05

  Southern.

• 6:12Speaker 04

  Some, we're just bringing some southern vibes.

• 6:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, we are.

• 6:15Speaker 04

  To California, which is...

• 6:17Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 6:17Speaker 04

  It's what we do.

• 6:23Speaker 05

  I'm out with questions.

• 6:25Speaker 04

  You're out already?

• 6:26Speaker 05

  I'm out. I am out, yeah.

• 6:28Speaker 04

  Because you didn't even read anything on that paper.

• 6:31Speaker 05

  Well, I realized this was my grocery list.

• 6:35Speaker 04

  For Gailson's?

• 6:37Speaker 05

  Ham.

• 6:41Speaker 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.

• 7:13Speaker 05

  She thought, like, chicken and

• 7:17Speaker 05

  fish. There were hams running around.

• 7:22Speaker 04

  They don't teach that in business school?

• 7:24Speaker 05

  No.

• 7:26Speaker 04

  Where did she go to business school?

• 7:28Speaker 05

  Uh...

• 7:29Speaker 04

  In Mississippi?

• 7:30Speaker 05

  No, in New Orleans.

• 7:31Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 7:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, so...

• 7:34Speaker 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.

• 7:43Speaker 05

  That's only two.

• 7:44Speaker 04

  Well, also, pig.

• 7:46Speaker 05

  Pork.

• 7:47Speaker 04

  Ham, pork, bacon, pig.

• 7:49Speaker 05

  What'd you say?

• 7:52Speaker 05

  That's not a pig.

• 7:53Speaker 04

  But it is, it is not a cow also. Her point is that it's not a cow.

• 7:57Speaker 05

  Oh, right. I was gonna say, are you from Mississippi?

• 8:02Speaker 05

  All right, well, let's get in to these questions.

• 8:05Speaker 04

  All right.

• 8:07Speaker 05

  Ed?

• 8:08Speaker 04

  I'm an onion. Just start peeling the layers.

• 8:11Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 8:11Speaker 04

  It's gonna get real.

• 8:13Speaker 05

  All right. If it's gonna get real, then. Tell us a little bit about why you chose to write this companion book.

• 8:24Speaker 05

  For the Snafu Podcast.

• 8:26Speaker 04

  Wow, I'm so glad you asked.

• 8:27Speaker 05

  What spawned your interest?

• 8:29Speaker 04

  What a great question to take.

• 8:30Speaker 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?

• 8:41Speaker 04

  That feels like a question you wrote. You use words like spawned in a lot of regular time.

• 8:47Speaker 05

  And Snafu.

• 8:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:48Speaker 05

  I always say Snafu.

• 8:49Speaker 04

  Every time we talk on the phone, you're like, what spawned this? What spawned that?

• 8:54Speaker 05

  What spawned this Snafu?

• 8:55Speaker 04

  Basically, everybody does a podcast.

• 8:58Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:00Speaker 04

  Including you.

• 9:00Speaker 05

  Yep, it's called Handsome, check it out.

• 9:03Speaker 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.

• 9:42Speaker 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

• 10:23Speaker 04

  deep research and heavy audio production, and...

• 10:28Speaker 05

  Were you expecting that, the deep research? Or did you not account for that?

• 10:32Speaker 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.

• 11:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 11:11Speaker 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.

• 11:48Speaker 05

  Really?

• 11:48Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 11:49Speaker 05

  You know of people that have read it in the bathroom?

• 11:52Speaker 04

  I'm just saying you can. I haven't asked people, but I have been told that it gets things moving.

• 11:59Speaker 04

  That one chapter is equivalent to nine grams of fiber.

• 12:05Speaker 05

  Would it be the longest enema?

• 12:10Speaker 04

  Ever Given?

• 12:11Speaker 05

  Ever Given?

• 12:12Speaker 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.

• 12:26Speaker 05

  I learned, I didn't realize this until I was doing my semi-deep dive on the book, that snafu stands for

• 12:39Speaker 05

  Situation Normal All

• 12:44Speaker 05

  Fucked

• 12:48Speaker 05

  Right?

• 12:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:49Speaker 05

  You can say, you can also, you think?

• 12:52Speaker 04

  Well, if, if what you silently said is what I think you said, then yeah, I think you're right.

• 12:58Speaker 05

  Are you guys okay with me saying the F-word?

• 13:04Speaker 05

  But you can also put fouled up. That's how you kind of clean it up.

• 13:09Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 13:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, I also learned that. Not from your book or podcast, but when I was researching snafus.

• 13:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:17Speaker 05

  And snafus. I did, you know, I dove in here and there.

• 13:22Speaker 04

  All right, cool.

• 13:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, I just, I...

• 13:23Speaker 04

  That's a good one. That is a good one for when I take this into schools.

• 13:27Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm. To be able to say, "All fouled up."

• 13:30Speaker 04

  All fouled up.

• 13:31Speaker 05

  Now, speaking of schools, were you into history as a kid?

• 13:35Speaker 04

  Hmm, as a little kid, we had a huge collection of National Geographic magazines.

• 13:42Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 13:43Speaker 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.

• 14:02Speaker 04

  Because...

• 14:02Speaker 05

  How did that go?

• 14:03Speaker 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.

• 14:14Speaker 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?"

• 14:37Speaker 05

  So you started on page one?

• 14:39Speaker 04

  Yeah. Right.

• 14:41Speaker 05

  Because that's the double A, right?

• 14:42Speaker 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.

• 15:10Speaker 05

  All right. Where were we?

• 15:16Speaker 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.

• 15:56Speaker 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.

• 16:40Speaker 04

  And, and I've really enjoyed it. If I, yeah, I think there's gonna be more.

• 16:47Speaker 05

  You enjoyed the process of writing?

• 16:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:50Speaker 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.

• 16:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:58Speaker 05

  How long did yours take?

• 16:59Speaker 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.

• 17:38Speaker 05

  It doesn't sound like you'll get there.

• 17:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:42Speaker 05

  Based on the ADHD and...

• 17:44Speaker 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.

• 18:16Speaker 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.

• 18:37Speaker 04

  Well...

• 18:38Speaker 05

  In a major way.

• 18:39Speaker 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.

• 19:23Speaker 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.

• 19:55Speaker 05

  And what is your favorite story?

• 19:57Speaker 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...

• 20:06Speaker 05

  Just one?

• 20:07Speaker 04

  Uh, okay.

• 20:08Speaker 05

  (laughter)

• 20:09Speaker 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,

• 20:51Speaker 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.

• 21:35Speaker 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.

• 22:20Speaker 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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• 25:04Speaker 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?

• 25:15Speaker 04

  This is a good question.

• 25:16Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 25:17Speaker 04

  Because it's important to point out, the only reason we know about that,

• 25:25Speaker 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

• 26:06Speaker 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.

• 26:32Speaker 05

  But yeah, like, where do you Google? Like, "snafus, 1973."

• 26:38Speaker 04

  Yes, 1960s disasters.

• 26:41Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 26:42Speaker 04

  Problems. I mean, it's like, there are books, there are, there are books that focus on these things that aren't funny.

• 26:50Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 26:51Speaker 04

  And like, that are written by serious historians, unlike me.

• 26:56Speaker 05

  And has the government reached out and been like, "Do not tell anybody."

• 27:01Speaker 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."

• 27:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:18Speaker 04

  That's anti-American.

• 27:19Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 27:20Speaker 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-

• 27:34Speaker 05

  As a cat lover, that was one of my favorites, I must say. A microphone on a cat?

• 27:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:42Speaker 05

  Like, sitting next to a bad guy?

• 27:46Speaker 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.

• 27:59Speaker 05

  And how much money went into that?

• 28:03Speaker 05

  You don't have that right off.

• 28:05Speaker 04

  Millions.

• 28:06Speaker 05

  Millions, yes. Are there any other anecdotes that you would like to share?

• 28:10Speaker 04

  Um.

• 28:11Speaker 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.

• 28:28Speaker 04

  I could tell you another one.

• 28:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:30Speaker 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-

• 29:03Speaker 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?"

• 29:45Speaker 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.

• 30:29Speaker 05

  I know what ends up happening.

• 30:31Speaker 04

  You do?

• 30:33Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm. But go ahead.

• 30:35Speaker 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.

• 31:20Speaker 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

• 32:06Speaker 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...

• 32:25Speaker 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?

• 32:47Speaker 04

  Like three months afterwards.

• 32:49Speaker 05

  Afterwards.

• 32:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:50Speaker 05

  That's a badass.

• 32:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:53Speaker 05

  Okay. Make fun of Jimmy Carter all day long, but have you had radioactive urine?

• 33:00Speaker 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.

• 33:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, yes, yeah.

• 33:14Speaker 04

  Give it up for Jimmy Carter.

• 33:19Speaker 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."

• 33:42Speaker 05

  What are some patterns that you observed in lessons studying snafus?

• 33:51Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 33:54Speaker 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

• 34:37Speaker 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

• 35:20Speaker 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,

• 36:03Speaker 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.

• 36:15Speaker 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."

• 36:59Speaker 04

  A few people actually on this book tour have been like, "Did you hear about this?"

• 37:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:04Speaker 04

  Like, random.

• 37:04Speaker 05

  And do you have a lot of conspiracy theorists that are, that reach out to you?

• 37:09Speaker 04

  Not yet. I haven't, I'm sure.

• 37:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:15Speaker 05

  I'm getting the vibe on it, yeah, that guy, I looked right at him, there he is.

• 37:21Speaker 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-

• 37:34Speaker 05

  But they think that's real, don't you?

• 37:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay.

• 37:40Speaker 04

  That's the title of my next book.

• 37:43Speaker 05

  I'm curious.

• 37:49Speaker 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.

• 37:57Speaker 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.

• 38:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:18Speaker 04

  You know?

• 38:19Speaker 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.

• 38:31Speaker 05

  We're sitting in the middle of a bunch of Snafus.

• 38:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:33Speaker 05

  Potential Snafus, more to come.

• 38:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, it does feel like we're swimming in, just like a big ol' sea of Snafus right now.

• 38:42Speaker 05

  So I'm seeing Snafu 2, Snafu 3, you know, all coming down the pike.

• 38:46Speaker 04

  That are just about the last, like, 100 days.

• 38:53Speaker 05

  Snafu 100.

• 38:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:55Speaker 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?

• 39:05Speaker 04

  So many, but not, not so many for public consumption.

• 39:11Speaker 05

  Wow, so should we end there?

• 39:16Speaker 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.

• 39:22Speaker 05

  We are, we're gonna take some audience questions.

• 39:48Speaker 01

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• 41:40Speaker 09

  If The Office had a historical snafu-themed episode, which disaster would Michael Scott have proudly caused?

• 41:53Speaker 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...

• 42:11Speaker 05

  Snafu.

• 42:12Speaker 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...

• 42:57Speaker 04

  That one feels... And Michael Scott as the skipper just, like, frozen with fear. I don't know.

• 43:04Speaker 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.

• 43:19Speaker 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."

• 43:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:29Speaker 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.

• 43:43Speaker 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.

• 44:26Speaker 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.

• 44:52Speaker 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?

• 45:32Speaker 04

  Horrible tragedies.

• 45:36Speaker 05

  You should. I mean, leave the tragedy out because they'll snooze before.

• 45:41Speaker 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-

• 45:54Speaker 05

  One person over there could remember it.

• 45:56Speaker 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-

• 46:05Speaker 05

  I have twins?

• 46:06Speaker 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?

• 46:31Speaker 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.

• 46:41Speaker 04

  That, that's what the, what I think most of these stories would do to my kids, um, but-

• 46:46Speaker 05

  So they're not sitting on your laps going, daddy, tell us more.

• 46:49Speaker 04

  Tell us more about nuclear warheads and, and the Cold War, uh, but-

• 46:53Speaker 05

  Radioactive urine.

• 46:54Speaker 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.

• 47:15Speaker 05

  I've been sitting here honestly thinking, wow, Ed is a smart guy.

• 47:20Speaker 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.

• 47:53Speaker 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.

• 48:18Speaker 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?

• 48:27Speaker 05

  Lovers.

• 48:31Speaker 05

  Ex-lovers.

• 48:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:36Speaker 05

  But, good question. Why me?

• 48:40Speaker 05

  How rude.

• 48:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, what the hell am I doing here? I should be telling my kids boring stories.

• 48:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:54Speaker 05

  I failed three grades and dropped out of high school. I have a seventh-grade education.

• 49:00Speaker 04

  But you're smarter than most people I know.

• 49:04Speaker 05

  Next question?

• 49:07Speaker 05

  No.

• 49:08Speaker 04

  How did we meet? I'm trying to remember the first time.

• 49:10Speaker 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?

• 49:28Speaker 04

  It's a bit of a...

• 49:32Speaker 04

  It's... Yeah.

• 49:34Speaker 05

  Yes. Why her?

• 49:40Speaker 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.

• 49:48Speaker 05

  Right.

• 49:49Speaker 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.

• 50:02Speaker 05

  To translate that,

• 50:05Speaker 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.

• 50:20Speaker 04

  That's actually very sweet. You're one of the only people that's ever

• 50:23Speaker 05

  Complimented you?

• 50:24Speaker 04

  You called my comedy subtle and I appreciate that.

• 50:28Speaker 05

  Well, no, you just have a subtle vibe about you.

• 50:30Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 50:31Speaker 05

  Like, you know, when we're chilling and whatever.

• 50:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:35Speaker 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.

• 50:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:42Speaker 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.

• 51:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was fun.

• 51:06Speaker 05

  But we still don't know why I'm here. Next question.

• 51:11Speaker 12

  Have you thought about turning one of the stories into a movie?

• 51:14Speaker 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?

• 51:32Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:33Speaker 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.

• 51:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:44Speaker 04

  So, I don't know. There's a few things in the, hopefully in the hopper and then a few very abstract ideas.

• 51:52Speaker 05

  Is there a role for me?

• 51:53Speaker 04

  No.

• 51:55Speaker 05

  I guess that is the end of the evening here, isn't it?

• 51:59Speaker 04

  Give it up for Tig Notaro, ladies and gentlemen.

• 52:02Speaker 05

  Give it up for Mr. Ed Helms.

• 52:06Speaker 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

• 52:50Speaker 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.

• 53:21Speaker 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.

• 53:50Speaker 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.