Insights Into Entertainment: Episode 43 “Hacks, Honors and Baby Yoda”

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Speaker 1: 00:02 Insightful podcast by informative insights into a podcast network.

Speaker 3: 00:28 Come to insights into entertainment, a podcast series, taking a deeper look into entertainment and media. Your hosts, Joseph and Michelle Waylon, a husband and wife, team of pop culture fanatics are exploring all things from music and movies to television and fans.

Speaker 2: 00:50

Speaker 4: 00:50 Welcome to insights and entertainment. This is episode 43 hacks honors and baby Yoda. Kevin, I’m your host, Joseph Waylon. And my astute and energetic co-host Michelle Wayland. Wow, look at that. Well, I wrote that last night. I didn’t realize you wouldn’t be very energetic this morning. So stretching here somewhere. So today we have a lot of Disney news. Actually today we’ll be talking about Disney plus getting hacked. And I’ll add my own little rant rant in from our experience last night. We have some information on our stars from frozen two, which we will be seeing this weekend. We have some information on merchandising for the Mandalorian. Then we have some honors laid out for John Williams our favorite star Wars composer. And in our entertainment news, we have some some words of wisdom from a William Willem Defoe from Aquaman stardom . Then we have Michael Jackson and his lawsuits. Once again, coming back into the news, that story that never dies. And then we have some sad news about a show that we enjoy kind of being on hiatus for quite some time now. And then we’ll finish up with our insightful picks of the week ready to get going. Let’s do it. All right, let’s do it.

Speaker 4: 02:41 Go for Disney detective.

Speaker 5: 02:42 So in our first story, Disney pluses, obviously having lots of issues still, which we even got to encounter last night. So obviously everybody has been waiting for the launch of it. And then it was discovered early, there’s week by ZD net that thousands of Disney plus accounts have already been hijacked and place on sale, on forums by hackers within less than a week of it debuting enterprise and hackers have been reselling the accounts from anywhere from $3 to $11. While, obviously the cost is, you know, yeah, you’re not, you’re not really making a whole lot unless you’re, you know, hijacking the whole lot and, you know, basically people were posting on, on Twitter basically, you know, saying it’s not even been a week and a half and my Disney account has already been hacked, you know, great security. They’re unbelievable. So really didn’t say how many, you know, in this article it didn’t talk about how many people or what was happening. You know, just that their accounts were, you know, the passwords were being hacked and, and people were, were reselling, you know, their accounts. Again, nothing from Disney on it. Nothing about how many, just the, you know, it was already happening so,

Speaker 4: 04:02 Well, what I find interesting is Disney’s one of the more restrictive streaming providers where they’re locking you down the four devices. So that in a way kind of makes hijacking these rather difficult, and it’s fairly inexpensive. So there’s not a lot of money,

Speaker 5: 04:20 Right. You’re not making a whole lot off of it, especially if you’re selling it at $3 and you know, okay, cost seven you’re here. So

Speaker 4: 04:30 Yeah, and I would be interested to know exactly how they’re hacking it. Is there an issue with Hashem and passwords? Is there a vector into the Disney plus system that’s causing issues? And I’d also be curious to know if the hacking of accounts is what’s causing a problem with the service disruptions or running in.

Speaker 5: 04:47 That could be too. And it also seems like it’s what, you know, and, and as you were gonna rant, you know, it seemed like it’s not every thing, you know, like we were having a problem with the Apple TV, we use Apple TV to, to connect to it. And that’s where our problems seem to STEM from. And then we were having issues when we were trying to get the app on our phone to work. And then once I turned off the wifi on my phone, then we were, you know, using the data plan on our phone, we were able to get through to it, you know. And then I, I have friends who haven’t had any issues with it. And then this morning we had no issues getting on, you know, the app. So where, you know, where does it STEM from wa you know, what’s the common denominator? Is there one?

Speaker 4: 05:41 Well, and that’s the thing, like with most streaming providers, what happens is there’s usually take Netflix for instance, there’s a partnership between the streaming provider and the ISP where the streaming provider will actually put a caching server inside the network. And what that’s designed to do is cash what people are streaming on, on the network itself. So you don’t have to egress outside of the network to the distribution content distribution network, the pull that down. So if we go to watch, I don’t know, let’s say the Mandalorian. So if we do that on Comcast or Comcast modem, Comcast would stream it down to their box inside their network. Then through them, everyone else would, when they went to go watch a the same program, they’d be streaming it from that box rather than streaming from the Disney plus content distribution network. What I suspect based on what we saw here is that there might have been some throttling being done by Comcast.

Speaker 4: 06:46 In our case we’re, Comcast was actually causing the disruption. However, I do have a graphic up now on the computer here from a website that I use called down detector. And if you look at this, the trend lines that we see here kind of show that a lot of people are having problems during primetime hours. The drop off of reports come around, the 3:00 AM Mark in the morning. So you need to wake up early to watch your new episodes on Disney plus. Well, and what this tells me is this is most likely an issue with the content distribution network and the throttling that Disney actually is going through right now. I haven’t done the research to see what CDN they’re using at this point in time. A lot of people use, you know, there’s, there’s like three or four major ones out there, ACA, mine, a few others that people use for CDNs.

Speaker 4: 07:48 And it’s entirely possible that Disney simply doesn’t have enough resources judging from this graph that they need to actually support the load that they have. And and really that’s unfortunate because given the subscribership that they had for this and the advanced subscribers, they had, Disney should have been well aware of the low that they were going to incur on this. And they should have had more than enough resources allocated ahead of time. This is extremely frustrating when you get home on a Friday night from work and you want to go watch the new shows that dropped and you can’t, what’s the point of paying for a service that I can’t use? And this is kind of indicative of, you know, poor planning that Disney has had many times in the past with Mark merchandising. You know, we’re, we’ve got a frozen two coming out this weekend.

Speaker 4: 08:46 When the first movie of frozen came out, Disney had absolutely no merchandising available. So you had parents that were frustrated, children that were upset and you know, you go back and you look at how they handle some of the park Robbins, you know, they like, they over planned the star Wars launch and people stayed away because of how bad their other launches were and how long away the lines were. So, you know, this doesn’t come as a surprise that Disney launched a service that’s not working correctly. This goes back as, as you well know, all the way back to the launch to the opening of Disneyland when Disney land was flooded beyond capacity and couldn’t handle the, the launch on its day back in 1951 50, 55 55. So Disney has a history of poorly planning these launches like this and not devoting the resources and it, it strikes me as odd, especially considering Disney’s got more money than God.

Speaker 4: 09:51 So if anybody could throw money at a problem, it’s Disney and they’re not doing it. Then we sat on the, on hold for 15 minutes trying to report a problem and never even had our fault. And then we basically streamed it from your phone. Yeah, we’ve had to find a work around and that’s, that’s unacceptable. I’m sorry. I know they’re not charging a lot for the service right now, but it’s Disney and Disney makes enough money that they can do it. Right. Yeah. So that’s our, our, my ran on Disney plus right now. So frozen to tell us about our frozen to news.

Speaker 5: 10:29 So obviously as we’ve mentioned, frozen two opens this weekend. We will be seeing it tomorrow. It’s kind of interesting. The, the reviews have been kind of mixed. You have obviously die hard Disney fans who loved it. I had one friend who actually saw it on a preview last weekend and she said there’s, you know, a lot of little inside jokes some eighties references for certain, you know, for certain things like for the parents and other little, you know, Easter eggs that she couldn’t really talk about because obviously the movie hadn’t officially come out. And then there are others that are like, yeah, it was kind of boring, but you know, obviously we’ll know more tomorrow as we see it. But the story that we’re talking about is that the two stars, Kristen bell and Edina Menzel actually got stars on the Hollywood walk of fame.

Speaker 5: 11:28 This past week it was actually on Tuesday it was a double honor or a dual honor where both stars actually got their own stars. They actually Mendell Menzel actually said she thought they were actually going to be sharing a star together, not realizing that they were going to get two stars, you know, right next to each other. So this was kind of, you know, a sweet and nice honor for, for both of them. Kristen actually had said there are real moments that make a career and there are real moments that make a life. And obviously they had just experienced a real moment earlier that day when a group of protestors showed up before the festivities. But everything went off without a hitch. And Menzel actually had said about when she was 15, she had actually taken a trip to New York and had taken a picture of Barbara Streisand star you know, of herself next to it.

Speaker 5: 12:35 So, you know, even as 15 year old self, it was, you know, never imagining that one day she’d be there. So, you know, as you know, corny is, you know, it could be, you know, it does give you something, you know, for, for people, you know, something to kind of look up to. And, you know, maybe one day I’ll be, you know, their type thing. So it was a cool little thing. Obviously both women have been very busy along with, you know, the rest of the cast promoting, you know, the film, there’s been, you know, they’ve been all over the place. I was telling you, you know, about the, the little frozen, you know, crosswalk thing that James Gordon had done. You know, so it, it’s all over the place. You’re definitely gonna, you know, see it all over the place and like you were just saying, you know, the merchandise has been out, you know, for, for, it seems like a month already.

Speaker 5: 13:30 So does he definitely got ahead of this one here? Yeah. Yeah. So it’ll be interesting to see how the movie goes and how, how all of that is so cool. Very cool. Then we have Mandalorian news, so on the reverse side of having a lot of merchandise out and whatever we’re going to talk about the Mandalorian. Obviously now it’s, we’re, the third episode has dropped. If you haven’t seen it, it’s probably because you don’t have Disney plus, but obviously the spoiler alert oiler alerts, it’s, it’s been three weeks already. Basically the, the big news was baby quote unquote Yoda. You know, like everybody, you know, and, and there’s so many different memes out there, which, you know, every day there’s another funny one. You know, where, you know, basically the, the one in why we call Kevin is that, you know, basically, yes, we know it’s not baby Yoda.

Speaker 5: 14:35 We don’t know what his name is yet. We don’t know what the speech, we don’t know the species. We know it’s, we know he’s really, you know, in some way, shape or form related to Yoda. He’s the same coloring. We don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl. So we’re just gonna call it baby Yoda. And then in the one meme it’s, it’s fine. We’re just going to call him baby Kevin know. You know, they don’t help themselves by, by putting him in the same colored robes too. Right, exactly. Right. So you have, obviously there’s tons of different fan, you know, theories out there. Is he a clone? Is he, you know, an offshoot? Was he a horcrux and all this, but basically, you know what, what this article is, talks about why there were no toys and it was because they didn’t want to spoil anything because obviously every time there’s a new movie or something, you have all these, you know, toys that come out ahead of it, AKA, you know, the, the, you know just like, you know, with frozen and stuff like that.

Speaker 5: 15:40 And they didn’t want to because everybody then was gonna know the spoiler to it. And star Wars has been been notorious for this since force awakens because so much information was coming out from the toy lines that they had. Right. It was spoiling, you know, plot lines and stuff like, right. And, and being someone that works in a manufacturing industry and knowing how long it takes products to not only get to the stores to be bought and how far ahead you have to order them and how far ahead you have to make them, you know, to, to be able to keep this a secret. You know, because there are number of stories coming out now that basically within the next couple of weeks, yes baby Yoda merchandise is, or baby whatever is going to be coming to light. So you figure, you know, other people have known about it, you know, months in advance and they’ve obviously had to keep it quiet up until you know this moment.

Speaker 5: 16:42 And, you know, I, I’ve been known from time to time to criticize Disney for their, their greed and money grabbing and raising prices and stuff like that. And this one is kind of the exact opposite. They could have been making a fortune off of this up until now, after the first episode of Mandalorian they got, have been selling. He’s like, Oh yeah. And they made the conscious decision to hold off so that it wouldn’t spoil things for the fans. And kudos to them for that. Not to say that they’re not gonna make a ridiculous, you know, at this point, if you look on Twitter, if you look on Facebook going, if you look on any social media, everyone is like, Oh my God, I want one, I need one, I need to have one. When does this come into my life? And maybe yours are going to be the poor dogs from, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5: 17:34 And we have a pork cause he’s just really cute and taste as good for, I don’t know, baby Yoda might look at him. You know, I do like chicken. He likes frogs too, right, right. I was going to say he likes frogs. So we should excuse me, our baby Yodas to be in the store probably before, before Christmas. Yeah. And what was also interesting in the article was one of the stars was, was talking about watching, you know, cause it is a puppet. It’s not CGI, you know, it is a, you could tell it has that realistic look, has that original Yoda, you know, from the original trilogy versus, you know, the newer trilogy look to it. And he said it was just amazing to watch, like the facial expression, you know, there were two puppeteers doing it. One was doing the eyes, one was doing the ears and, and he said, you know, it just, it looked like, you know, so, yeah.

Speaker 5: 18:35 So very, very cute and definitely you know, and Carl, Carl weathers was actually one, you know, he, he says he has his own name. He’s, you know, very interesting and very knowledgeable and very cute. He says, and I never used that word, but he’s a cute little guy. So obviously we, you know, need to keep watching to, to find out, you know, more of his, his story says Friday’s episode in Friday’s episode was very cool. Yeah. On so many different levels. And then obviously the baby Yoda aspect just made it cute and adorable. So sticking with star Wars related, look how I kind of just almost like you planned it that way. It’s like almost like I did it. So our favorite composer, John Williams NABS his 71st Grammy nomination 58 years after his first. So when the Grammy nominations came out, it now brings his total to 71 and actually 24 wins to date.

Speaker 5: 19:37 So Williams was nominated for composing and arraign is nominated in a composing and arranging. So it’s for actually Galaxy’s edge symphonic suite, which he wrote for the star Wars theme land , excuse me, in Disneyland. And he’s also was nominated for best instrumental composition. While his arrangement Hedwig themed the best known piece from Harry Potter’s films was also cited for instrumental arrangement. So he got two nominations. So his 70 70th and 71st. And it’s his, he has, you know, 58 year history. You know, basically going back to 1961 when he scored the the T V score for checkmate. Obviously Henry Mann Sini is also up there with nominations. He ended up with a 72 nominations and Quincy Jones is actually the champ of them all with 80 nominations in, you know, in total. So, yeah. You know, between films and television shows.

Speaker 5: 20:50 And that was not, yeah, that wasn’t him. And he actually had a 28 wins a total. So, you know, kind of cool that, you know, wall star Wars, you know, the star Wars films or, you know, or at least the original sagas are, are coming to a close, you know, he’s still, you know, being, you know, nominated and who’s to say that, you know, next year after, you know riser Skywalker comes out, he doesn’t end up, you know, with another one. It was actually the music force Galaxy’s edge was recorded in Abbey road’s theater in August of 2018. And he, you know, was monitoring. He wasn’t there while they were performing it. He was actually monitoring it for Massachusetts where yeah, you watched it on YouTube just like we do. So, you know, so when the awards come out, it’ll be very cool if he, you know, gets another win, you know, in his hat. But if not, we know, hopefully there’ll be, you know, some more nominations coming his way.

Speaker 4: 22:02 Okay. Very cool. And I think that’s all we had for Disney detective.

Speaker 5: 22:07 That is it for the Disney stuff.

Speaker 4: 22:08 All right, let’s move on to entertainment news.

Speaker 4: 22:17 So tell us about willing to FAU and, and why he’s down on superhero movie.

Speaker 5: 22:23 Well, he’s not really down on, on superhero movies, so to speak. So he’s actually part of the Martin Scorsese’s film, the Irishman, but obviously he’s also known for being part of superhero movies as well. Obviously being the former green goblin and being in an Aqua man as well. There was a really good green goblin. Yeah. Yeah. And he, cause he just has that evil face. Yeah. He, he has that, you know, look about him. He said you have to have fun with some of the things that you do. Because there’s a lot of hardware, there’s lots of crazy crane shots and all those things, but it’s fun. But stuff is overshot. They spend a lot of money on big set pieces because that’s what delivers the action. And, you know, they’re, they’re too noisy, but let’s not get into this, you know, I don’t want to bite the hand that feeds me, but seriously, folks looks, you know, those movies aren’t what I run to.

Speaker 5: 23:24 So he’s obviously not, you know, a fan of the big, giant noisy, you know, type, you know how he describes, you know, superhero movies. He, you know, he likes to, you know, go into a dark movie theater and, you know, be with strangers and have the suspense and, and things like that. So, you know, kind of, he’s kind of on the fence between, you know, like obviously I star in them and you know, pays my bill. As long as you keep coming to check, she’ll still do them. Right. Exactly. You know, he says that films have have changed. You know, over time, you know, egos, you know it. It’s just how the culture kind of changes and you have to be that forward looking person and go with, you know, you know where the change is. He says I’m old fashioned. And the fact that nothing beats sitting in a dark room with a bunch of strangers watching a light on a screen and having the experience, he says, I think as everyone gets punched out from too much stuff on TV and too many choices, they’re going to want that.

Speaker 5: 24:24 You know, so it, it was interesting cause he can kind of see both sides of the fence. Like, you know, and I guess that’s also why there’s so many different types of movies out there. You know, if you, you know, want to see the action superhero movie, you can, and if you don’t want to, you can go and see the Downton Abbey, you know, movie or if you need a kid’s movie to go see the, there’s always, you know, there’s always a mafia and give Martin Scorsese some time and there’ll be a mafia mafia movie out there too, so. Okay. All right. So it wasn’t as bad as his Scorsese’s been. No, no. He was kind of, yeah, he, I think he, he knows because he, he plays in both. Right. You know, like he has to, that’s the thing, when you’re getting your bills paid by both sides, you kind of have played diplomat with it and you know, and that’s fine.

Speaker 5: 25:20 And obviously neither one is hurting, you know, at this point. So let’s drag Michael Jackson back into the mud again. Well, we’ve been talking about this for, for ages now. So a California appeals court appeared strongly inclined on Monday to give new life to the lawsuit that was filed by the two men. He accused Michael Jackson of molesting them when they were boys. So three judges from the second district court of appeal said in a tentative ruling that the lawsuits against the two corporate entities that Jackson owned should be reconsidered by trial, that the court dismissed them in 2017 so basically there was the documentary that came out and you know, these two now men, you know, accused, you know, Michael Jackson of molesting them basically, you know, it was a back and forth with the trial, statute of limitation, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now they’ve basically you know, the, the court has come back and said, no, we’re going to open up this case again and, and we’re going to, you know, see where it goes.

Speaker 5: 26:27 So they’re going to open these back up because there’s some legal merit or some new information that came out. I really hoped to not opening these backup just because a documentary came out and there’s a chance to get some more press, right. Because there’s, you know, there’s some sort of popular push because of a documentary. I hate to see that sort of thing driving the legal process. Right? Right. If there’s a legitimate legal reason, if new evidence came to light then you know, by all means pick it up, you know, and pursue it to its, its full end. But I hope they’re not doing it just as a publicity stunt and hopefully again it’s some closure for these, for these two, you know, and, and maybe others that, you know, never came forward and, and, and that’s the thing I, you know, if nothing else comes out of this, I hope it empowers other victims out there to have the urge and the freedom to come forward.

Speaker 5: 27:25 You know, they were, you know, they were young at the time, young boys, now they’re 37 and 41 and by saying, Oh statute of limitation, you know, that makes someone, you know, that could be in their 50s or sixties Oh well I don’t want to come forward, you know, or it’s been so long. No, you should, you know, that’s where the laws need to change. And you know, no matter when you were wronged, no matter what the statute of limitations, you know, the reason the statute of limitations is in there is because of the degradation of evidence over time, right? It’s impossible to prove it. However, there are certain crimes that don’t have a statute of limitations. This should by far by one of that. And that, that’s kind of my point. Is that why, you know, why should there, you know, be that on top of it, this is this, this is such a heinous crime that, you know, this stands up there next to murder.

Speaker 5: 28:26 You’re, you’re, you’re stealing someone’s life and crimes like this. So there’s absolutely no reason why there should be a statute of limitations. It makes, you know, granted the, the proof of evidence and the survivability of evidence makes it difficult to prove it further on, but it doesn’t make it any less of a crime. Right. You know, and in this case, you know, Michael Jackson can’t speak for himself. He’s been gone a while now. So it’s, and in most cases in most cases like these, the, the accused is never going to take the stance. So that can’t be a reason to say, you know, we can’t pursue this. They’re clearly not going to get any kind of vindication from a user to a offender or victim standpoint. Right. Right. But that’s not to say that they shouldn’t get some level of justice out of it. Right. And sometimes just coming forward and having their day in court, you know, and having other people believe them again, even though they’re never going to be able to face him and, and, and have, you know, a jury look at him and go, yeah, you were guilty. Just that, that vindication. You know, my, the, and the example that it sets for other people who

Speaker 4: 29:42 Don’t feel empowered and are intimidated, you know, to see someone come out against the public figure like this after so many years and get a judgment in your favor is enough to empower victims to come forward or come forward and seek justice. And for the predators out there to think twice before they prey on victims. Again. Yup. So tell us about mine.

Speaker 5: 30:09 So mine Hunter happens to be one of our favorite shows from Netflix, but it seems like we might have to wait a little while for a season three. So the show has been on since 2017 a season two came out over the summer, I guess it was. And now it seems that, you know, they were kind of putting things into place for season three, but the director that they got to do the next season unfortunately has such a busy schedule coming up that now they’re not even sure when the next season will come to light. So it looks like you know, based off of everything else that he, that he has coming up that we’re looking at maybe a 20, 22 release at the earliest which is kind of unfortunate. This last season that just came out actually ended up being a huge development.

Speaker 5: 31:13 For those of you that don’t watch the show, there was a lot of the storyline was held around Atlanta children that were being abducted and murdered. And you know, what you found out, you know, if you didn’t already know the story, it was basically these were cold cases. You know, in most cases there hadn’t been anybody found, you know, no new information. But because of the show, when it came out, it actually had a huge development in the murder cases and that there’s actually been a bunch of new things that have come to light. And it’s really from, you know, the show opening up people’s eyes about it. You know, that, that the Atlanta mayor and the Atlanta, you know, police chief, we’re looking at new evidence to try and figure out what had happened, you know, so many years ago. So,

Speaker 4: 32:11 And again, like we were talking about in the listsF a article, you know, it’s exposure. You know, this show has raised awareness. It’s, it’s raised exposure to these things and just raising exposure decades later has led to more interest in an investigation.

Speaker 5: 32:27 Right. So, you know, so kudos to them for helping to bring light to, to, you know, these cold cases. It’s unfortunate that, you know, that we’re going to have to wait a but what’s kind of funny is that for us in the U S we’re so used to, you know, seasons coming up and you know, very quickly, you know, or within a year, you know, that’s, that’s how we’re used to. Whereas if you look at like the U K you know, the way that they do their series are, are completely different. You know, their seasons are much shorter. And they’ll go three or four years in between, you know, look at, you know, like Sherlock you know, how, you know, it’s like a year and a half between you know, seasons and a lot of it’s because of the actors being part of other things or, you know, they’re just taking their time, you know, writing and, you know, and, and getting everybody, you know, everybody’s scheduled to line up, you know, even doctor who, you know, we kinda got used to the doctor who’s, you know, every year there would be a new doctor who, and that’s not how BBC, you know,

Speaker 4: 33:39 They don’t take why Netflix doesn’t take it up. Take a page out of Disney’s book here and replace the director. Disney has a, has a habit of changing directors. Like I changed socks, you know,

Speaker 5: 33:49 And that’s, and that’s the other thing too, is, you know, there’s so many different directors out there. Why, Oh, okay. You know, like if, and, and that’s the, like you said, how many times has, you know, directors changed, you know, mid production of something here. You haven’t even started doing anything yet. There, there’s not somebody that’s in at home not doing a project, the changes. So again, you know, maybe, maybe something will happen and they’ll, you know, move up the dates. But as of right now, it looks like we have to wait a little while to see our serial killers come back. But there’s so much other stuff to watch.

Speaker 4: 34:29 That’s true. That is true. Speaking of which, we’re going to talk about some of that when we come back with our insightful picks of the week.

Speaker 5: 34:42 Go for your insightful pick. So my insightful pick comes from Disney plus, I know IG shocker. And it’s actually a story a show to watch it right this morning. As a matter of fact. It’s called the Imagineering story. This was actually one that we had talked about in, in our Disney news couple of weeks back before Disney plus even launched. And it sounded like it was definitely gonna be a show that was going to be something that would definitely peak my interest and yours as well. And obviously it has, so the show was focused on the Walt Disney Imagineers and takes an in depth look into the history and the creation of Walt Disney theme parks and attractions around the world. Just like all the other original Disney television shows there’s only three episodes out right now. We actually just finished watching episode two.

Speaker 5: 35:42 And it’s, it’s interesting because again, being the Disney historian people that we kind of are, you know, we always look for that, you know, that new, you know inside information type type thing. And what’s happened over the years is a lot of times it’s the same story that we’ve heard over and over, like nothing new or, or interesting. And, you know, th we’ve only watched the first two episodes. There’s the new one that actually dropped yesterday that we haven’t seen yet. And it is interesting because there are those little tidbits that, you know, the most in depth Disney person might not have known or the little side stories. And you get to see video clips that you haven’t seen and interviews that you’ve never heard before. So the first episode basically talks about how Disneyland came to be and you know, all the troubles that they had.

Speaker 5: 36:41 And, and you know you know, the, the cement was still wet when the park opens. So women, you know, who wore high heels all the time, you know, back in the 50s, you know, they were getting stuck. And you know, the problems. Do you have, you know, water fountains available or do you have restrooms available, you know, on opening day and, and just these little, you know, tidbits of, of problems. And what was interesting was that in the, you know, second up episode, it talks about the life of Disney after Walt’s passing and, you know, how do we go on, how do we move on, what do we do next? And you know, they talk about getting you know, putting together Walt Disney world and all of that. And then once Disney world opened, it was like, okay, well now what do we do?

Speaker 5: 37:33 And they decided to go with Epcot. And you know, even though Epcot wasn’t what we have today is Epcot wasn’t what wall envision. They kind of took some of what he wanted and molded it. And what we found interesting, which we didn’t realize was that Tokyo Disneyland was basically going on, you know, being constructed at the same time that Epcot was like they opened within what, six months of each other. Right. You know, and that was something that, you know, I didn’t really know, you know, so it was interesting seeing, you know, all of that in this episode. Which was kind of the one that I was waiting to see. They had a lot of haunted mansion stuff. And you know, the, the history behind you want to call it mantra. Yeah. I kinda, yeah, a little bit. I think, you know, so it was interesting again, you know, a lot of stuff on the haunted mansion I knew, but there were a lot of little things, you know, that I didn’t know.

Speaker 5: 38:29 So it was a very cool, you know, so if you’re, you know, into Disney and, and you like learning about the history and how things came to be, it’s a really good show. Each episode is about an hour long. Lots of different interviews, lots of archival footage. You know, just, you know, we were, Ooh, I wonder how much that goes for, I wonder how much, you know, the original art of this is. And so really cool. You know, if you ever want to know another auction after this episode cause that’s what’s gonna happen. So if you like finding out the backstory behind, you know, your favorite rides or attractions or you know, even just, you know, the, the whole idea that, you know, Walt Disney world is its own little, you know, quote unquote country and that, you know, no place else in the world is as organized, you know, their own Navy. You know, that’s pretty awesome. You know, so if that’s, you know, your type of thing, definitely check it out. You know, obviously if you have Disney plus.

Speaker 4: 39:29 Okay, very cool pick. I agree. Cause I watch it with you. Very, very good. Thank you.

Speaker 4: 39:39 So my pick this week is from another, a recent addition to the streaming Wars here. And that is for all mankind streaming on Apple TV plus the first crude mission to the moon during the space race in the late 1960s was a global success for NASA in the United States. But this drama answers the question, what if the space freeze had never ended? And an Oh, I should’ve had that keyed up in an alternate timeline. The USSR beats the U S to the moon, thus setting its first Russian cosmos, Alexey Leonov on the moon, dubbed as red moon. This event leaves NASA in devastation. This doesn’t mean those working there have given up as they challenged the Soviet union a second time to show that there is no giving up on hope. So this has been described as man in the high tower meets Apollo 11. Now I have not watched man in the high tower.

Speaker 4: 40:47 So it’s an alternate universe type thing. And what’s kind of interesting is, you know, we won the space race by landing on the moon first. The Apollo program went for a few more missions but didn’t really go as far as anyone Haute because of budget concerns. You know, we eventually turned to the space shuttle program and hadn’t left earth orbit since then. So what this does is this postulates, you know, what happens if the Russians beat us there? Do we just give up like the Russians did? Then the push became, you know, they postulate that if that happened we would push for the next first, which would be the first woman and then the first moon base and then, then the next thing and the next thing. And that, you know, the theory behind the show is really that lack of competition from another superpower basically made us, you know, take a step back and rest on our laurels there.

Speaker 4: 41:47 And as a result, our space exploration efforts of have taken a beating as a result. You know, you figure we haven’t, aside from sending probes to Mars and, and you know, various other places, our manned exploration hasn’t gone anywhere despite the fact that we are trying to get to Mars now. So the show itself works on that premise and it’s a very well done show. It’s, it has a very authentic feel to it. You get the feel of the 60s and early seventies. They have the wardrobes down, they have the homes and the interior decoration down. They have the cars. I mean, it’s, it has a very genuine, authentic feel to it. And you’re introduced to a large cast of characters. So you know, I mean, obviously you’re introduced to all the Apollo astronauts. You’re introduced to some of the key figures like a Verner Von Bron.

Speaker 4: 42:47 Some of the controllers like Deek Slaten. So you get a lot of the personalities that were there. And then as the show progresses, you’re introduced to these ancillary characters as they bring women in as a couple episodes are very female empowerment. Like, like it starts this female empowerment move early on. And, and just looking at the impact of that and how it would have affected the country and where things would stand now had that started when it did rather than 20 or so years later. So got a very good feel to it. My early concerns with the first couple of episodes was they had this, this drama that seemed kind of unnecessary that they were playing into it. And and my concern when you take historical figures like this and you inject drama just for the sake of drama at the tracks from the story, and I was very relieved that a few episodes in that drama starts to play into the plot and it makes a lot more sense and it drives the plot forward.

Speaker 4: 43:53 So they do a very good job with the drama. There’s, I think they’re five episodes in now, four episodes in two a 10 episode, first season here drops on Fridays on Apple TV plus. And I think it’s a very good show. I think you’d enjoy it if you launched it. Definitely something I wanted to launch. So for all mankind streaming on Apple TV plus and that is my pick. Did we have any afterthoughts for this week? No, I don’t think so. I did have a one programming note that I did mention. We to record these podcasts at some point in time on the weekend. We don’t usually have a, a scheduled time for insights and entertainment and that’s going to be changing. We’re going to be moving to a regularly scheduled live stream and recording time. I think we’re shooting for Thursdays at eight, is that correct?

Speaker 4: 44:52 I think so. Probably not this coming Thursday since it’s Thanksgiving, right. Probably the Thursday after. So this coming, this next episode we will be streaming at our regularly scheduled some time on the weekend, sometime over the weekend. And we do, we will try to get some kind of notification out there as to what time. But the following weekend we’re going to be moving to a regular schedule of 8:00 PM Eastern time on Thursdays where we will be recording and streaming live for everyone. Aside from that, we would love to get your feedback. You can email us@commentsandinsightsintothings.com or on Twitter at at insights underscore things. You can get our videos of all of our episodes on youtube.com/insights into things or on the web at http://www.insightsintothings.comortheaudioversionofourpodcastatpodcastatinsightsintoentertainment.comoronfacebookatfacebook.com backslash insights into things podcast. And one little thing that I did want to throw out there, kind of as a tree, a teaser with the holidays coming, and we do have a special project that we’ll be working on. We will be releasing around the holidays. Look forward to that folks. Yep. And that’s it. Another one in the books. All righty. We’re out. Thanks a lot. Have a good one.

Show Notes

• Introduction
  • Insights Into Entertainment: Episode 43 “Hacks, Honors and Baby Yoda”
  • My astute and energetic co-host Michelle Whalen
• Disney Detective
  • Thousands Of Disney+ Accounts Are Already Being Hijacked & Resold Online
  • https://tinyurl.com/v2ya38v
    • The long-awaited Disney+ streaming service launched last week to a rocky start, as the platform had crashed on day one from an unexpected surge of subscriptions. It turns out that even after painstakingly trying to obtain accounts, some users are struggling to access or keep theirs.
    • As discovered by ZDNet, thousands of Disney+ accounts have already been hijacked and placed on sale on forums by hackers within less than a week since the debut of Disney+.

Enterprising hackers have been reselling accounts from US$3 to US$11, while a default Disney+ subscription costs US$7 per month.

• On Twitter, affected subscribers have criticized the service’s lax security. “Not even been half a week and my dad’s Disney+ account has ALREADY been hacked,” one user writes. “Great security there… unbelievable.”
• ‘Frozen II’ stars Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel honored with stars on Hollywood Walk of Fame
• https://tinyurl.com/sxkfyd9
  • HOLLYWOOD, LOS ANGELES — The women who bring Ana and Elsa to life in “Frozen,”and now in “Frozen 2,” celebrated a dual honor Tuesday.
  • Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel received stars together in a shared ceremony on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
  • “There are the real moments that make a career and there are the real moments that make a life,” said Bell, who experienced a “real moment” when a group of protesters showed up to disrupt the festivities.
  • But this is Hollywood and the show must go on. It did, to the delight of fans as both women made time for those who showed up to celebrate with them.
  • Idina knows the importance of these stars for the people who enjoy them so much on the Walk of Fame.
  • She knows because, once upon a time, she was one of them. “When I was 15, I had a trip here with my friends, a summer touring trip, and I took a picture next to Barbra Streisand’s star so it obviously means a lot,” Menzel said.
  • Both women have been very busy promoting the long-awaited “Frozen 2,” which opens this weekend.
  • Anna, Elsa and the gang are back for a new, and once again, dangerous adventure to save their kingdom.
  • Menzel noted her happiness at these two stars that are memorializing the “Frozen” projects they’ve worked on for years.
  • “Almost 10 years,” said Bell, who is also really happy about double stars, which actually came as a surprise.
  • “I thought we were going to be on the same star up until I saw that there were two stars on the ground, in all seriousness, and I was so thrilled with that.”
  • Menzel joked it would have been generous of her co-star to share one star between them because Menzel would have said, “Give me my own!” The two women laughed together at the joke, happy to share their day in Hollywood.
• Star Wars: The Mandalorian Producer Reveals Why There Are No Baby Yoda Toys
• https://tinyurl.com/wmwn2rc
  • We’re two episodes in to the first season of The Mandalorian, the first live-action show in the Star Wars universe. The series has already made some significant updates to the galaxy far far away, right down to the reveal of exactly who the titular character is bounty hunting — a baby version of Yoda’s species. The reveal, which was essentially kept secret until the first episode dropped, has dominated the Internet in recent days, with fans becoming gobsmacked about how adorable “Baby Yoda” is. But if you’re finding yourself upset that there isn’t Baby Yoda merchandise yet, there’s a good reason for that. In a recent interview with Collider, series creator Jon Favreau explained why merchandise surrounding the tiny character was (understandably) kept under wraps.
  • “I have to thank Disney and Lucasfilm, because the way the cat usually gets out of the bag with that stuff is merchandising and toy catalogs and things like that,” Favreau explained. “So they really back us up. We really wanted to have it be that you had to watch it yourself, so that every time you watch the show, there are new twists and secrets that come out. That requires a lot of restraint from the people who are footing the bill, saying they’re gonna hold back on certain things so that the public doesn’t know ahead of time. Part of that was holding back on some of the merchandise and holding back on some of the characters.”
  • So, while it might be a while until you can buy your own Baby Yoda plush toy or Funko Pop, it sounds like the wait will be worth it. And it sounds like the future merchandise will have a pretty adorable reference to go off of, considering the puppet that was used during production.
  • “It’s heartbreakingly beautiful,” Werner Herzog, who portrays The Client on the series, said in an interview earlier this month. “And I saw two technicians operating it remotely. One was for the eyes and the mouth, the other was for other facial expressions, it’s a phenomenal technical achievement, and beyond the technological achievement it’s heartbreaking.”
  • “I don’t know…but on the set it looked absolutely convincing,” Herzog continued. “It made you cry when you saw it.”
  • And while there’s no telling how Baby Yoda will factor into the remainder of the first season – especially after using its force powers to save The Mandalorian in the second episode – it sounds like there are still some surprises in store.
  • “He has his own name, and he is very interesting and very knowledgeable and very cute,” Carl Weathers, who plays Greef Carga, recently shared. “I never use that word, but he is a cute little guy… You have to see the shows to figure out who this baby Yoda really is, and what he is all about, or even if he is really a baby Yoda.”
  • New episodes of The Mandalorian will debut on Fridays exclusively on Disney+. 
• ‘Star Wars’ Composer John Williams Nabs 71st Grammy Nom 58 Years After His First
• https://tinyurl.com/s92a3jf
  • Composer John Williams received two Grammy nominations, as announced yesterday, bringing his grand total to 71 nominations, with 24 wins to date.
  • Williams was nominated in the composing and arranging field. His “Galaxy’s Edge Symphonic Suite,” written for the new “Star Wars”-themed park at Disneyland, was nominated for best instrumental composition, while his arrangement of “Hedwig’s Theme,” the best-known piece from the “Harry Potter” films, for violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter’s all-Williams album, was cited for best instrumental arrangement.
  • According to official Grammy statistics, these are the legendary film composer’s 70th and 71st nominations.
  • Surprisingly, considering his 58-year history of Grammy attention (dating back to his 1961 nod for his TV score “Checkmate”), he is not the most-nominated film composer. He is now just one nomination behind his colleague Henry Mancini, who amassed 72 nominations (with 20 wins, including “Peter Gunn” and “The Pink Panther”) before his death in 1994.
  • Quincy Jones – who sometimes toiled alongside Williams during their Universal Television stints in the mid-1960s – is the all-time Grammy champ at 80 nominations (and 28 wins), although only 11 of his nods are actually for his movie work in the 1960s and ’70s (including “In the Heat of the Night” and “Roots”).
  • Williams’ new version of “Hedwig’s Theme,” a tour de force for violin and orchestra, was written specifically for Mutter, who first begged Williams to write a concert work for her (“Markings,” which is on the deluxe version of her Deutsche Grammophon album “Across the Stars,” released in late September), then convinced him to assemble an entire collection of his film themes.
  • The Williams-Mutter album was recorded in Los Angeles in April. “Hedwig’s Theme” was one of 16 Williams movie themes newly arranged for soloist and orchestra. They ranged from the obscure (“Dracula,” “Cinderella Liberty”) to the popular (five from “Star Wars” films, including themes for Yoda, Princess Leia and Rey, and two from “Schindler’s List”).
  • The collaboration, which fit into Williams’ busy schedule just before he began work on his final “Star Wars” film, “The Rise of Skywalker” (due in December), was unusual in that Mutter is considered one of the world’s great classical violinists and had not previously tackled film music.
  • As Williams said at the time: “I’ve taken things that I’ve known for years, set a certain way, and translated and transported them. Presented on the violin, they become a different emotional experience.” He called Mutter “the greatest violinist that Germany has produced in a hundred years.”
  • Williams’ “Galaxy’s Edge” music was released by Walt Disney Records in advance of the May 31 opening of the Black Spire Outpost on planet Batuu, which occupies 14 acres of Anaheim’s Disneyland resort. As a Disney executive said of the music at the time: “There’s an optimism, a sense of adventure; you go on a journey in this five-minute piece.”
  • It was recorded at Abbey Road by the London Symphony Orchestra in August 2018 by conductor William Ross, with Williams monitoring the proceedings remotely from Tanglewood, Mass., where he often conducts during the summer months.
  • Williams could extend his win streak with one or both of these nominations. More than half of his 24 Grammy wins have been for either instrumental composition or arrangement, including such notable themes as “Star Wars,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Superman,” the 1984 Olympic Fanfare, “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan.”
• Entertainment News
  • Aquaman Star Willem Dafoe Says Some Modern Superhero Movies Are Overshot and Too Noisy
  • https://tinyurl.com/wlwxj4a
    • Willem Dafoe is in Martin Scorsese’s latest, The Irishman. But, it would only be a matter of time before someone asked the former Green Goblin about the state of superhero films. Especially, in such close proximity to a Scorsese production. 92Y in New York brought a chance for a crew to ask him some questions in Aquaman recently. (Seeing a how his experience in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies was a long time ago at this point, but he talked about them too!) The actor is still clearly having fun with a lot of these roles in the world of capes and spandex. But, he worries that there’s a little bit too much flash going on in the modern superhero blockbuster. That along with the need for different variations on these characters is what proves most pressing for Dafoe.
    • “You have fun with some of the things that you get to do, because there’s lots of hardware and there’s lots of crazy crane shots and those kind of things,” Willem Dafoe. “That’s fun. But stuff is overshot. They spend a lot of money on big set pieces, because that’s what delivers the action, and I they’re too noisy. But let’s not get into this [laughs]. I don’t want to bite the hand that feeds me. But, no, seriously, folks. Look, those aren’t the movies I run to.”
    • He continued, “I like James Wan. I think he’s a good filmmaker and he was kind of amazing that he could do this big stuff, and he could also talk to the actors.”
    • Dafoe had to chime in on the Martin Scorsese discourse as well. The debate around whether Marvel movies are cinema or not has been raging since the director made those comments to Empire magazine. Everyone that’s ever breathed on a superhero movie set has had to answer this question and it came for the veteran actor as well.
    • “Films have changed so much even in the time that I’ve been working, where they sit in the culture, obviously, and how we watch films,” Dafoe started. “And I’m a pretty forward-looking person, but I’m old-fashioned in the fact that nothing beats being in a dark room with a bunch of strangers, watching a light on a screen and having the experience,” Dafoe said. “I think as everybody gets punched out from too much stuff on TV, too many choices, they’re gonna want that. So it may be a more marginalized thing, but I think it’ll always be there.”
    • “What I worry about is, those big movies, they need something to feed them. They need a surge, and they need people pushing the boundaries so they can go forward. Because they’re not in the business of going forward, really,” he added. “They’re in the business of business, and you can make beautiful things because they have a lot of resources. They can make fantastic things and they can make things that work all over the world because very few other countries have that kind of muscle to make these spectacular things. And they’ve touched on comic book movies which have kind of a Joseph Campbell thing going, they’re our modern gods. But I don’t have anything, really, intelligent to say about this [laughs].”
  • Lawsuits by Michael Jackson accusers likely to be restored
  • https://tinyurl.com/upj8vx5
    • LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California appeals court appeared strongly inclined Monday to give new life to lawsuits filed by two men who accuse Michael Jackson of repeatedly molesting them when they were boys.
    • Three judges from the 2nd District Court of Appeal said in a tentative ruling that lawsuits from James Safechuck and Wade Robson against two corporate entities that Jackson owned should be reconsidered by the trial court that dismissed them in 2017.
    • Robson, 37, and Safechuck, 41, who became known to a broad audience when they aired their accusations earlier this year in the Emmy-winning HBO documentary “Leaving Neverland,” sat together in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom during Monday’s brief hearing.
    • Outside, their attorney Vince Finaldi said the decision was the right one, and they are pleased.
    • “All they’ve ever wanted is their day in court,” Finaldi said.
    • The suits filed in 2013 that were dismissed because statutes of limitations had expired can be revived because of new state law signed last month by Gov. Gavin Newsom that gives those who say they were sexually abused until age 40, up from age 26, to file lawsuits. It also gives victims of all ages a three-year window to sue, starting Jan. 1.
    • The Associated Press does not typically name victims of sexual abuse, but Robson and Safechuck have repeatedly come forward and approved of the use of their names and faces.
    • The tentative decision does not revive the actual Jackson estate as a defendant. A 2015 decision throwing out that part of the lawsuit will stand. The remaining defendants are the two corporate entities, MJJ Productions, Inc., and MJJ Ventures, Inc.
    • Attorneys for Jackson’s estate accepted that the cases must be returned to the trial court under the new legislation, but emphasized that the ruling is unrelated to the allegations they have long denounced as demonstrably false.
    • “This new law extends the time for genuine victims of abuse to file legal claims,” Jackson estate attorney Howard L. Weitzman said in a statement. “The appellate court’s tentative ruling is not on the merits of Robson and Safechuck’s allegations and the court in no way said that these cases will go to trial. Neither does it reverse the 2015 rulings dismissing Robson and Safechuck’s claims against the estate, which are final and no longer subject to any appeals. We are confident that the claims against Michael Jackson’s corporate entities will, once again, be dismissed as has happened before.”
    • Robson testified in Jackson’s 2005 criminal trial, in which the singer was acquitted, that Jackson had never molested or mistreated him, and Safechuck once said the same to authorities investigation Jackson, who died in 2009.
    • The men and their attorneys have said that stress and trauma that persisted into adulthood finally led them to accept that they had been sexually abused and go public.
    • Jackson’s estate is suing HBO over “Leaving Neverland,” in which Robson and Safechuck gave director Dan Reed graphic accounts of what they said were hundreds of instances of sexual abuse by Jackson over several years. A federal judge has ruled that case should be handled in private arbitration.
  • Mindhunter Season 3 Has Been Delayed ‘Indefinitely’
  • https://tinyurl.com/vwyzoeu

• There’s bad news from Tinseltown as Season 3 of Mindhunter is reportedly being put on hold ‘indefinitely’. Netflix’s gruesome psychological thriller has been making waves since it first hit the streaming service back in 2017, but if you’re waiting for Season 3, you’d better get comfy.
• Delving into the warped mind of serial killers, Mindhunter is based on John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker’s Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit. The acclaimed novel follows the retired Douglas as he gives candid insight into the FBI’s “criminal-personality profiling”.
• Joe Penhall’s series has proved to be just as gripping as the book it was based on and even secured the talents of Charlize Theron — yes, Atomic Blonde herself — as executive producer and David “Se7en” Fincher as a director.
• Sadly, Fincher’s busy schedule and upcoming involvement with Citizen Kane biopic, Mank, means he’s up to his eyeballs in work. Eagle-eyed Mindhunter fans had already clocked this could lead to a lengthy wait between seasons. Now, The Hollywood Reporter confirms it as fact.
• Lead actor Jonathan Groff (Holden Ford) told the site Mindhunter‘s next run of episodes is “on hold”.
• Earlier this year, there was a huge development in the Atlanta Child Murders case that Mindhunter Season 2 was based on. To this day, there has been plenty of doubt about the arrest and conviction of Atlanta native Wayne Williams, which has lead to Atlanta police officially reopening the case.
• Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields announce that they will look at new evidence and try to uncover the grisly truth of what happened all those years ago.
• It’s unclear where Mindhunter will go in Season 3 (if it isn’t given the chop), but it’s sure to be another shocking look at criminal profiling. We’re no stranger to lengthy waits between seasons. Shows like Stranger Things and Rick and Morty have become synonymous with making us believe patience is a virtue.
• Looking at the facts, Fincher is presumably hoping to get Mank out for 2020’s awards season. This means Fincher wouldn’t be free until early 2021, tipping Mindhunter Season 3 for a 2022 release at the earliest.
• Insightful Picks
  • Michelle
    • The Imagineering Story
    • The show is focused on the The Walt Disney Imagineers and take an in depth-look at the history and creation of the Walt Disney theme parks and attractions around the world.
  • Joe
    • For All Mankind
    • The first crewed mission to the Moon during the Space Race in the late 1960s was a global success for NASA and the United States. But this drama answers the question: “What if the Space Race had never ended?”
    • In an alternate timeline, the USSR beats the US to the Moon; thus setting its first Russian cosmonaut, Alexei Leonov, on it. Dubbed as “Red Moon”, this event leaves NASA in devastation. This doesn’t mean those working there have given up as they challenge the Soviet Union a second time to show that there is no giving up on hope.
    • Season 1 – 10 Episodes
    • Streaming weekly on Apple TV+
      
      
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