Insights Into Entertainment: Episode 132 “The Year In Review”

[INTRO THEME]

[INTRODUCTIONS] (2-3 minutes)
Insights Into Entertainment: Episode 132 “The Year In Review”
My caring and generous co-host Michelle Whalen

[SHOW SUMMARY] (2-3 minutes)
This week we mix things up a bit. Instead of doing our news articles of the week we’re going to take a look back and reflect on some of the big news articles of the year in each of our respective categories. Then we’ll finish up with a recap of our trip to Maryland for Ocean City Comic Con along with some footage of the show before we end with our afterthoughts.

[Show Plugs] (2-3 minutes)
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[TRANSITION]

[SEGMENT 1: Disney Detective] (8-12 minutes)

Biggest Disney Stories of 2021

Scarlett Johansson Sues Disney over Black Widow
In what might have been an even bigger story than the release of Black Widow–the first MCU film since before the pandemic–star Scarlett Johansson filed a lawsuit against Disney seeking money she believed she was owed on the film after it was released on Disney+ Premier Access, in addition to theaters.
At the time, it was reported that Johanssen had possibly lost out on as much as $50 million due to the move.
Two months later, the lawsuit between the two was settled for a reported $40 million.

Magical Express Has Been Discontinued
One of the first news bombs dropped on us this year was that Disney World’s transportation service to and from the Orlando airport, Magical Express, would be discontinued at the end of the year.
Guests have from now until 2022 to work out how they’ll be getting from MCO to their Disney Resort, and we’ve been sharing a lot of information on possible alternative options since then.

FastPasses Are Gone and Disney Genie+ is Coming
Since the parks reopened, FastPass+ had been suspended, meaning that all guests need to wait in the standby line for attractions.
And, Disney recently announced that FastPass+ would NOT be coming back and would instead be replaced with TWO new PAID options for skipping the lines.

[AD 1: SSE]

[SEGMENT 2: Tales from the Edge of the Galaxy] (8-12 minutes)

Gina Carano removed from Mandalorian
When Season 2 of The Mandalorian came to an end, it certainly looked as though Gina Carano’s character Cara Dune was preparing for her own spin-off show, Rangers of the New Republic.
Then, in February, Lucasfilm announced that the former UFC fighter was no longer employed by the company and wouldn’t be returning to the role.
This all came on the heels of Carano comparing “hating someone for their political views” to the persecution of Jewish people by the Nazi party.
Previously, she had been accused of being transphobic and made remarks about alleged–and repeatedly proven to be false–voter fraud in the presidential election.
Not surprisingly, it was later revealed that Rangers of the New Republic was no longer in development.

New Star Wars Shows on Disney Plus
The Bad Batch
Star Wars: The Bad Batch is the first of these to materialize.
This animated follow-up to Star Wars: The Clone Wars is set shortly after the events of Episode III and follows the titular team of elite Clonetroopers as they seek out a new destiny following the end of the war and the rise of the Empire.
Star Wars Visions
The other big animated Star Wars project for 2021 was Star Wars: Visions.
This series features 10 short episodes allowing various Japanese anime directors an opportunity to play in the Star Wars sandbox.
The Book of Boba Fett
We are getting the first Mandalorian spinoff in the form of The Book of Boba Fett, which features Boba and his new right-hand woman Fennec Shand as they take control of the late Jabba’s criminal empire.

Star Wars: The High Republic Kicks Off
Publishing is one area where the Star Wars franchise is coming into the new year with blasters firing.
January 5 marked the official beginning of The High Republic, a multi-pronged publishing initiative aimed at shedding light on a previously unknown portion of the Star Wars timeline.
Set roughly 200 years before Episode I, The High Republic explores a period when the Jedi are still at the height of their power and the Republic hasn’t yet collapsed into tyranny.
Adult Novels:
Light of the Jedi (January 5, 2021) by Charles Soule
The Rising Storm (June 29, 2021) by Cavan Scott
The Fallen Star (January 4, 2022) by Claudia Gray
Other Books
Lost Stars
Bloodline

[AD 2: TEENS]

[SEGMENT 3: Entertainment News] (8-12 minutes)

Jeopardy host debacle
Who knew the game show Jeopardy would be such a big topic of discussion in 2021?
As the long-running series looked to find a new host after the death of Alex Trebek, it hired one in executive producer Mike Richards.
That didn’t last long, though, after a series of sexist, racist, and homophobic comments he made on a podcast between 2013 and 2014 were unearthed.
He was removed from the job. Since his departure, Big Bang Theory alum Mayim Bialik and multiple-time Jeopardy winner Ken Jennings have been sharing the duties.

Meghan Markle, Prince Harry detail royal family rift in tell-all interview
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry sat down with Oprah Winfrey for a wide-ranging interview in March which saw the couple make bombshell accusations about members of the British royal family, including that there were “concerns and conversations” about how dark her son Archie’s “skin might be when he’s born.”

Britney Spears’ conservatorship battle
Britney Spears’ conservatorship drama was perhaps one of the most talked-about controversies in Hollywood in 2021.
After numerous documentaries covering the pop star’s legal and family drama, a judge relieved her from the 13-year court order once and for all in November.

[TRANSITION]

[SEGMENT 4: Insightful Picks of the Week] (8-12 minutes)

Ocean City Comic Con Recap
Impressions
They seemed organized by ill-prepared for the volume of people who showed up
The show floor was crowded at the entrances and resulted in some backups as crowds flowed in
Their foot court was completely inadequate to handle the number of people
Food trucks or 3rd party food vendors would have helped significantly
Availability of Panels was not well advertised at all
They had no printed programs to use nor did they have a sufficient number of signage pointing you to their online program making it a very confusing show
Turnout
They were totally unprepared for the number of people buying tickets at the door
Prepurchased tickets at participating hotels was very effective
The food court couldn’t handle the rush of people
Organization
The event seemed organized, but not expecting the turnout they got
Better directions for online programs would have helped
More or at least more effective announcement of panels coming up on the main floor would have been helpful
Facilities
The convention center itself would have been fine for the size of the convention, but was overwhelmed by the number of people in attendance

[TRANSITION]

After Thoughts

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https://bit.ly/2UfiDpk
Saturday MARCH 5, 2022 (10:00AM – 6:00PM) V.I.P. 8:30AM –> CHILDREN (4 – 12) $5.00
Sunday MARCH 6, 2022 (9:00 AM – 4:30PM) –> Children under 10 FREE
780 Falcon Circle . Warminster Pa. 18974

http://www.toyshows.org/aboutme.html
https://bit.ly/33veum0
Delaware Train Show Aprilfools Toy Show
Saturday, April. 2nd Sunday, April. 3rd
Nur Shrine Center
198 S. DuPont Highway, New Castle, DE.

FanExpo – Formerly Wizard World
https://fanexpohq.com/fanexpophiladelphia/
https://bit.ly/32VSRen
Philadelphia Convention Center
Apri 8-10 2022

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00;00;01;14 – 00;00;07;19
Michelle
Insightful podcasts. By informative host.

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Michelle
Insights into things.

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Michelle
A podcast.

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Michelle
Network.

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Michelle
Welcome to Insights into Entertainment, a podcast series taking a deeper look into entertainment and media. Your hosts, Joseph and Michelle Whalen, a husband and wife team of pop culture fanatics are exploring all things from music and movies to television and fandom.

00;00;50;22 – 00;01;03;25
Joseph
Welcome to Insight into entertainment. This is episode 132, the year in review, I’m your host, Joseph Whalen, and my caring and generous co-host Michele Rowland.

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Michelle
Hi, everyone.

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Joseph
How are you doing today, dear?

00;01;06;16 – 00;01;08;01
Michelle
I’m good. How are you.

00;01;08;11 – 00;01;12;16
Joseph
Doing all right? So we are totally off for an emotional week.

00;01;13;04 – 00;01;17;20
Michelle
We’re like, so out of left field. It’s it’s just not even funny.

00;01;17;26 – 00;01;31;27
Joseph
So the original plan was basically to just take this week off. We weren’t doing any broadcast, we weren’t doing any recordings, but we weren’t able to get this podcast in last week before we basically shut the studio down.

00;01;31;28 – 00;01;32;24
Michelle
Right, right.

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Michelle
Actually, it was two weeks ago.

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Joseph
Yes, it was two weeks ago.

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Michelle
Yeah, yeah.

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Michelle
Because we knew we were going to be off the week of Christmas. But the week beforehand, you weren’t feeling well and I was kind of tired and we just kind of.

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Joseph
And we’ll talk about why I wasn’t feeling well because it actually ties into one of the segments today.

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Michelle
Right, right.

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Joseph
But I wanted to get this in by the end of the year. In fact, the podcast we were going to do was going to be a regular.

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Michelle
Right?

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Joseph
Entertainment News Podcast. And we waited so long that that news was no longer relevant.

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Michelle
Right?

00;02;06;05 – 00;02;22;19
Joseph
So we decided we’re going to do a year in review. So this week we’re going to mix things up a bit. Instead of doing our regular news articles of the week, we’re going to go back and take a look and reflect on some of the big articles, the news articles of the year in each of our respective

00;02;22;19 – 00;02;38;03
Joseph
categories. And then we’ll finish up with a recap of our trip to Maryland for Ocean City Comic-Con, along with some footage of the show before we end with our afterthoughts, which kind of, you know, in hindsight, set the scenes for next year.

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Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

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Joseph
But before we do that, I would invite folks to subscribe to the podcast, you can find audio versions of this podcast listed as insights into things. VIDEO No, that would be. Audio versions would be listed as insights in the entertainment.

00;02;56;26 – 00;03;17;15
Joseph
VIDEO Versions of this podcast can be found listed as insights into things, and we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, iHeartRadio and pretty much any place you can get a podcast these days. I’d also invite our audience to writing, Give us your feedback, give us your shows that you want us to plug your your conventions, you

00;03;17;15 – 00;03;32;29
Joseph
want us to plug. You can email us at comments and insights into things dot com. You can hit us on Twitter and insights underscore things on Facebook at Facebook Dot Com Slash Insights Into Things podcast on Instagram and Instagram.

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Joseph
Dot com slash insights into things, or check us out on our official website and insights into things. Dot com. Shall we get into it?

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Michelle
Sure, let’s do this.

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Joseph
All right. Sure, you push all the right buttons here. The what happened in Disney Detective?

00;03;54;21 – 00;04;11;15
Michelle
So one of the the stories was that Scarlett Johansson had sued Disney over Black Widow in what might have been an even bigger story than the release of the movie Black Widow, the first MCU film since before the pandemic.

00;04;11;22 – 00;04;34;25
Michelle
Star Scarlett Johansson filed a lawsuit against Disney seeking money she believed she was owed on the film after it was released on Disney Plus Premier Access, in addition to the theaters. Now, at the time, it was reported that Johansen had possibly lost out on as much as $50 million due to the move.

00;04;35;05 – 00;04;41;11
Michelle
And then two months later, the lawsuit between the two was settled for a reported $40 million.

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Joseph
Yeah, and while the lawsuit itself? Consider how much money she’s made from.

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Michelle
Disney, right?

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Joseph
Both on the film and on previous film. That lawsuit was significant, but I think the implications that it had for the industry itself was much further reaching than the actual lawsuit itself.

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Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

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Joseph
It really forced the movie industry to to re evaluate its release plans, its compensation packages, how it’s treating its its talent, now treating its directors and actors. And I think all of that was directly result. It was a direct result of how we functioned during the pandemic.

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Joseph
That initial phase of the pandemic?

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Michelle
Right. And you figure now we’re in another phase of it, unfortunately. And now you’re starting to see things go back into some sort of a lockdown situation slowly because of the different variants and how much faster it seems to be spreading.

00;05;48;17 – 00;06;16;04
Michelle
And people, you know, even people that are fully vaccinated who are getting it, fortunately, very low percentage or hospitalized with it, which is a good thing. Yeah, but you’re starting to see, you know, changes. And what’s nice is that there are still movie companies that even though they are releasing movies in the theater, they are still releasing

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Michelle
them as a streaming accessible movie. But yet there are some companies that haven’t decided to go back to that. And that’s kind of unfortunate because not everybody feels comfortable enough going back into a theater. So now where you could be making some more money doing, you know, a 30 dollar Premiere access for a movie, you’re you’re losing

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Michelle
out on that. And obviously, we don’t really know the implications yet because we haven’t really they haven’t really talked about how much, you know, the movie companies.

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Joseph
Are box office numbers.

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Michelle
Right?

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Joseph
Turnout numbers or anything like that. You haven’t seen those published really?

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Michelle
Right? The only thing you’ve seen, obviously one of the biggest movies that you know just recently came out is Spider-Man. And that they had already broken records with the pre-sale tickets for it. They sold more tickets than Endgame Avengers Endgame had sold.

00;07;24;01 – 00;07;38;03
Michelle
So that one has definitely been a huge box office success in this time. And as of right now, there’s no plan for it to come out on Disney Plus because of Sony. No plan for it to come on.

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Michelle
You know, HBO Max. So really, unless you want to see this, you have to go to the theater and I guess enough people feel comfortable or maybe live in an environment where not, you know, because I’ve talked to a couple of people who have gone in and have seen it.

00;07;55;20 – 00;08;13;29
Michelle
And fortunately, they live in a small area where, you know, maybe there were ten people in the theater. Yeah, but I know if we went to go see it, the theater would be completely full. Unless we wait like another month and a half, then maybe we could luck out and have a half empty theater.

00;08;14;15 – 00;08;30;01
Joseph
So while I think the other thing that this kind of alludes to is the compensation package, you know, for the longest time you had your talent was compensated flat out, you’d get a certain amount for the movie.

00;08;30;02 – 00;08;30;12
Michelle
Right.

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Joseph
And based on what your previous. Movie, you know, totals were you could negotiate better numbers. And then we saw this idea of of bonus numbers being being packaged and Robert Downey Jr as a great example, that was as Avengers Endgame continued to rake it in to record numbers.

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Joseph
He would continue to hit these goals and get bonus packages right. So the the bulk of his compensation didn’t come from direct compensation from a salary. It came from all these.

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Michelle
Bonuses.

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Michelle
Right?

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Joseph
And over the course of ten years, the actors could see that trend occurring and would opt for that. So they take a small, much smaller amount. For comp and direct compensation going into the movie and then just collect on these residuals as they hit these.

00;09;26;08 – 00;09;27;08
Michelle
Benchmarks, right?

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Joseph
And I think if anything, this might fly in the face of that philosophy at this point where if the theaters are not going to be your primary form because they’re no longer going to be a reliable form of income, right?

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Joseph
Then you’re going to start seeing your actors and your director.

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Michelle
Want more upfront.

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Joseph
You’re going to want more upfront. You’re going to see that balance shift again, and this may be a significant change for the industry itself. Those are all the reasons why we picked this, one of them is one of our top stories.

00;09;59;07 – 00;10;03;17
Joseph
And our last two actually involve the park. Tell us about our next one.

00;10;03;20 – 00;10;22;26
Michelle
Right. So the first one, it had been announced towards the beginning of the year that one of the first bombs that dropped based off of the park was that Walt Disney World Transportation Service to and from Orlando Airport, known as Magical Express, would be discontinued at the end of this year.

00;10;23;05 – 00;10;42;03
Michelle
So now just guests as of January first, we’ll have to work out how they’ll be getting to and from the Orlando International Airport to the Disney Resorts. As of right now, Mia’s basically seems to be one of the major.

00;10;44;07 – 00;11;02;06
Michelle
Companies out there who have now offered their their service since the news story broke and actually was already running this the service they were contracted through Disney, so they were already Mia’s bosses and Mia’s drivers that were doing this.

00;11;02;14 – 00;11;18;08
Michelle
Now, for those that are old enough to remember or have gone to Disney back in the day, that was actually how one of the options to get to Disney or, you know, back in the day. Disney didn’t offer that.

00;11;18;14 – 00;11;41;07
Michelle
As part of the package, Disney only started doing the bussing when the cruise line actually started because it was part of your cruise experience. So you got to the airport and they picked up your luggage and then they brought you to the resort or to the port, depending on if you were doing Lander, see first and then

00;11;41;07 – 00;12;02;12
Michelle
, you know, they took you back to the airport. And that’s when Disney realized, Hey, we can. You know, kind of continue this, and that’s when they kind of expanded it. Now also at that time when Mir started doing it for the cruise line, when you booked a Disney package through Disney, they would suggest, Hey, if you want

00;12;02;15 – 00;12;19;11
Michelle
for $17 or whatever it was roundtrip, we’ll have mirrors come and get you now. You still had to get your own luggage. They weren’t getting it for you, but you didn’t have to worry about making arrangements to to get a car.

00;12;19;13 – 00;12;32;13
Michelle
You know, if you didn’t want to to rent a car or have a taxi or something, there was that option. And then again, it kind of morphed into it. So we really don’t know what the whole reasoning behind it was, obviously.

00;12;32;22 – 00;12;51;14
Michelle
Hey, money, I’m sure, because that’s what it always comes down to. So now they’re kind of backtracking and going away from giving it to you for free. And now Mears is offering the service. There’s another company that just came out a couple of weeks ago.

00;12;52;11 – 00;13;06;29
Michelle
I can’t remember what the name of it was off the top of its head, but their motor coaches were going to have like a train theme to them, and they were showing that the drivers were kind of going to be dressed like conductors.

00;13;07;00 – 00;13;09;21
Joseph
Well, that’s because they’re putting in a new light rail, right?

00;13;09;22 – 00;13;12;29
Michelle
Well, that’s that’s the train. That’s right are still.

00;13;13;00 – 00;13;14;14
Joseph
And that’s years away.

00;13;14;16 – 00;13;14;29
Michelle
Right.

00;13;14;29 – 00;13;20;03
Michelle
And the idea with the train is that the train would more than likely go to.

00;13;21;02 – 00;13;21;26
Joseph
Downtown business.

00;13;21;26 – 00;13;37;20
Michelle
To downtown, the down to Disney Springs area. So that’s where the train. But again, that’s still kind of far out. But there’s this second company that has now emerged with motor coaches. Same type of thing, you know, Mears is doing.

00;13;37;20 – 00;13;51;05
Michelle
You basically by either are one way or a round trip ticket. And you know, you get your own luggage when you get to the airport, but the bus will now take you, you know, so now you have more than just mirrors doing it.

00;13;51;16 – 00;13;52;10
Michelle
If you’re looking for.

00;13;52;14 – 00;13;54;06
Joseph
Did though, you always had different.

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Michelle
There were always right. You could, you know, and especially now with Uber and Lyft, right? You can even.

00;14;00;05 – 00;14;04;03
Joseph
Used to rent a car. You could get a taxi, you could get shuttle services, right?

00;14;04;08 – 00;14;06;07
Michelle
It’s not like you get to the airport.

00;14;06;07 – 00;14;07;10
Michelle
And Oh my.

00;14;07;10 – 00;14;08;10
Michelle
God, what am I doing?

00;14;08;11 – 00;14;16;02
Joseph
The problem? The problem with this is not that you didn’t have options to get from the airport to Disney. It’s that Disney provided this.

00;14;16;02 – 00;14;16;14
Michelle
Right.

00;14;16;14 – 00;14;19;08
Joseph
Free of charge and it wasn’t free of charge.

00;14;19;10 – 00;14;21;07
Michelle
No, you know you were paying rent.

00;14;21;15 – 00;14;25;06
Joseph
Is that all these things that Disney provided that were quote free?

00;14;25;06 – 00;14;25;19
Michelle
Right?

00;14;25;19 – 00;14;30;16
Joseph
We’re all worked into the price of the resort, the price of your ticket, the price of everything that you purchased.

00;14;30;16 – 00;14;30;26
Michelle
Right.

00;14;30;29 – 00;14;34;24
Joseph
So Disney ramps up all these prices. They raise their prices every.

00;14;34;24 – 00;14;35;27
Michelle
Year, right, to.

00;14;35;27 – 00;14;39;28
Joseph
Compensate themselves for the service. So whether or not you use that service or.

00;14;39;28 – 00;14;40;17
Michelle
Not, you.

00;14;40;17 – 00;14;40;28
Michelle
Were paying.

00;14;40;28 – 00;14;50;12
Joseph
So for instance, the last few trips down we drove. OK. So we didn’t use any of their services for transportation to get to and from the property.

00;14;50;15 – 00;14;50;26
Michelle
Right.

00;14;50;27 – 00;14;58;21
Joseph
We were still paying the full price for the resort, though, right? So they weren’t losing money on this anywhere along the lines.

00;14;58;23 – 00;14;59;03
Michelle
Yeah.

00;14;59;12 – 00;15;11;22
Joseph
And and the biggest reason I put this in here as one of the stories to review is it’s one more of the things that Disney is doing wrong now.

00;15;11;23 – 00;15;12;02
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00;15;12;09 – 00;15;14;22
Joseph
You know, this started a few years back.

00;15;14;23 – 00;15;15;02
Michelle
Right?

00;15;15;03 – 00;15;30;02
Joseph
When they started the nickel and dime you with refills on soda. OK, so it cost more for the cup than it did to fill that cup with soda? Mm hmm. That’s a that’s a very well known fact in the in the beverage industry.

00;15;30;07 – 00;15;30;19
Michelle
OK.

00;15;31;02 – 00;15;48;07
Joseph
So what did Disney do? So Disney didn’t want people going back and refilling their cups at their economy resorts. Right? So they decided to invest in this new technology that where they put a chip in all these cups, which took that really expensive cup and made it even more expensive.

00;15;48;08 – 00;15;48;16
Michelle
Mm hmm.

00;15;48;29 – 00;15;56;17
Joseph
So now you take that really expensive cup, you take it to a more expensive dispenser and they can tell how many times you’ve refilled that.

00;15;56;21 – 00;15;57;00
Michelle
Mm hmm.

00;15;58;13 – 00;16;08;08
Joseph
In an effort to what save money to stop people from getting refills again, that was one of the probably the first things I think that sticks out to me.

00;16;08;09 – 00;16;08;18
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00;16;08;21 – 00;16;21;21
Joseph
Followed by paying for parking, right? Free years you could park on Disney property free of charge. They didn’t have the best parking lots because everything was spread out from the resort. So you can get there early. You were walking.

00;16;22;04 – 00;16;23;24
Joseph
They didn’t offer shuttle services.

00;16;24;07 – 00;16;28;20
Michelle
Then all of a sudden, now this is just for the resort. They always charge tracking for the park.

00;16;28;27 – 00;16;31;14
Joseph
Just there because they charge enough money at the.

00;16;31;14 – 00;16;32;07
Michelle
Resort. Right?

00;16;32;19 – 00;16;38;07
Joseph
Try paying a 30 to 40% premium to stay on property at Disneyland. You would at an off property.

00;16;38;08 – 00;16;44;15
Michelle
I just wanted to clarify, though, if you were a if you were just going to the Magic Kingdom for a day and you were.

00;16;44;15 – 00;16;45;06
Michelle
At a restaurant.

00;16;45;12 – 00;16;46;00
Joseph
Chain, you.

00;16;46;01 – 00;16;46;20
Michelle
Get paid.

00;16;46;20 – 00;16;47;08
Michelle
For parking.

00;16;47;15 – 00;17;02;16
Joseph
But now at the resort, now that that for what, 15 years we’ve been gone, we didn’t have to pay for parking. All of a sudden you do. Hmm. They didn’t offer any new services. You weren’t getting security, you weren’t getting shuttles, you weren’t getting newer parking.

00;17;02;16 – 00;17;03;25
Joseph
You weren’t getting anything for.

00;17;03;25 – 00;17;04;06
Michelle
It, right?

00;17;04;11 – 00;17;17;12
Joseph
They just decided, Well, we can charge you for it. So we’re going to. And it was one more thing that they needed you, right? Mm-Hmm. And now they’re taking away a free service that they gave you that you’re already paying for because you’re paying the premium.

00;17;17;13 – 00;17;17;24
Michelle
Right?

00;17;18;03 – 00;17;20;06
Joseph
So it’s a spiraling thing.

00;17;20;08 – 00;17;20;15
Michelle
Hmm.

00;17;20;23 – 00;17;29;08
Joseph
And there’s no justification for it. They’ve provided no justification. And they make it very clear that they’re not going to answer questions about it.

00;17;29;09 – 00;17;29;15
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00;17;29;22 – 00;17;31;00
Joseph
This is just the way it’s going to.

00;17;31;00 – 00;17;31;22
Michelle
Be, right?

00;17;31;24 – 00;17;33;14
Joseph
Since the new CEO came in.

00;17;33;15 – 00;17;33;25
Michelle
Right.

00;17;34;21 – 00;17;48;23
Joseph
So then that leads us to our third story, which kind of compounds this in which Disney really took advantage of the COVID scenario to kind of really lock things down and really.

00;17;49;02 – 00;17;49;29
Michelle
Ride on Newstalk.

00;17;49;29 – 00;18;05;21
Michelle
Right? So this was that talking about how fast passes are gone and Disney Plus is coming. So since the parks reopened fast, past plus had been suspended, meaning that all guests needed to wait in a standby line for the attractions.

00;18;05;27 – 00;18;31;23
Michelle
And then Disney recently had announced that FastPass Plus would not be coming back, and that would be replaced by two new paid options being able to skip the lines. And that’s Genie Plus. Now, obviously, as everybody knows, we have not been down there since everything, so we really can’t speak to what Disney, what Genie and Genie Plus

00;18;32;06 – 00;18;32;24
Michelle
is like.

00;18;32;24 – 00;18;34;26
Joseph
We have from account firsthand accounts.

00;18;34;28 – 00;18;54;20
Michelle
Right? So it’s just from, you know, people that we’ve talked to or seen or or read and things like that. And it still has a lot of bugs. It is definitely not worked out yet, I think, in my opinion, from what I’ve seen.

00;18;55;24 – 00;19;15;20
Michelle
Again, here’s another nickel and diming thing where now to give Disney some. Credit on this, they were really one of the last amusement park companies, theme park companies to start paying for that. I’m sorry.

00;19;16;05 – 00;19;18;29
Joseph
I cannot give Disney credit for being the last.

00;19;18;29 – 00;19;19;10
Michelle
Person to.

00;19;19;10 – 00;19;20;10
Joseph
Rob me. I’m sorry.

00;19;20;11 – 00;19;25;26
Michelle
I’m just say it was a very small, very, very, very, very small.

00;19;26;01 – 00;19;30;03
Joseph
Thank you, Disney for being the last person in Florida to pick my pocket. I appreciate.

00;19;30;03 – 00;19;47;21
Michelle
It. Right? So, you know, unfortunately, people have been seeing this in other theme parks for four years. You know, Disney was one that they were kind of the first ones as far as I know, to even start any sort of fast pass idea.

00;19;47;29 – 00;20;06;04
Michelle
Now, for those again that are old enough to remember when fast passes started, you could only get them once you physically got to the park. And the idea behind the fast pass wasn’t necessarily to cut the line, but it was almost like a placeholder.

00;20;06;04 – 00;20;06;22
Joseph
Phrase like.

00;20;06;28 – 00;20;22;25
Michelle
Vacation. So the idea behind it was that when you went and got a fast pass, technically the fast pass time was the same should have been the same amount of time for if you had waited online. So if you got the same.

00;20;22;26 – 00;20;24;25
Michelle
Thing else, right, come back.

00;20;24;27 – 00;20;39;00
Michelle
So if the wait was 45 minutes, roughly when you would go and get your fast pass, it would be for a 45, you know, a time spot within 45 minutes and then you could go again, do something else and then go.

00;20;39;06 – 00;20;59;04
Michelle
And then once that fast past time. Hit then you could go and get another one. Then they kind of morphed it because the other thing too was that you would go and get a fast pass first thing in the morning and the fast pass time would be for like four hours later.

00;20;59;12 – 00;21;13;15
Michelle
So then it became you got your fast pass will. Now you couldn’t get another fast pass, but you had four hours to go do something else. You do something else. So maybe you ended up with three fast passes by the end of the day.

00;21;13;24 – 00;21;37;29
Michelle
Well, then they morphed it to a different, you know, as technology advanced. Then if you were a resort guest, you could actually pre-book your fast pass and you could pre-book three at a time. And then as soon as your third one expired on that day, you could make another reservation either on your phone, on the app or

00;21;38;08 – 00;21;56;21
Michelle
at a kiosk. So they kind of, you know, morphed it again and again, all these other parks, and they weren’t even offering really the same type of thing. In a lot of cases it was, you know, for like $30, you got to skip the lines on like six rides or something.

00;21;56;21 – 00;22;11;21
Michelle
So they all had their their different version of it. And for however long it seemed to work, there really wasn’t, you know, every now and then you’d get something where, you know, the system would go down or something.

00;22;11;21 – 00;22;26;08
Michelle
But all in all seemed to work. There were certain rides that had, you know, longer waits. And if somebody didn’t make their fast pass reservation, then you know, you waited online or you went back later on in the day when maybe the the line would be shorter.

00;22;27;05 – 00;22;38;01
Michelle
The one thing that did kind of stink was that, you know, for certain rides, you know, first thing in the morning, all the fast passes would be gone. You wouldn’t even be able to get a few.

00;22;39;16 – 00;22;43;00
Joseph
Which you couldn’t even get a fast pass on Pinocchio. Pinocchio.

00;22;43;01 – 00;23;02;00
Michelle
Not Pinocchio. Peter Pan. Peter Pan. Pam Well, Peter Pan was always one we would always try and get, and usually we did. But if you went to the park that day, you probably couldn’t get one. So again, you know, system seemed to work, didn’t really see a need to to not have it work.

00;23;02;06 – 00;23;15;14
Michelle
And then the other thing too, is that when the park opened after while COVID was still going on, it was shocking that they didn’t have it in place, right right away. Because why would you.

00;23;15;14 – 00;23;18;11
Joseph
Want be the best time to have in place so you don’t have people standing.

00;23;18;13 – 00;23;33;01
Michelle
Exactly like you give people, you know, five passes, you know? Yeah, yeah, I bet you do something more. So people were wondering what the heck’s going on? There was all these, you know, all these rumors. And obviously now this is what we have.

00;23;33;01 – 00;23;42;15
Michelle
So now we have the Genie Plus system, so you can have the free version that basically gives you suggestions on.

00;23;42;15 – 00;23;53;00
Joseph
Basically the Genie Plus gives you suggested times where you should go get in line because it does a statistical analysis on when those rides are least booked.

00;23;53;02 – 00;23;53;14
Michelle
Right?

00;23;53;14 – 00;23;55;04
Joseph
So get you on a fast break.

00;23;55;07 – 00;24;17;24
Michelle
Right, exactly. Basically. Oh, so instead of waiting 45 minutes, you’ll wait 30 minutes or whatever it is. So then they created the plus version of it. So for $15 per day per person, it’s gives you, I don’t even know, up to three or something Lightning Lane.

00;24;17;24 – 00;24;19;09
Joseph
Things that for certain.

00;24;19;09 – 00;24;20;00
Michelle
Right? Right.

00;24;20;00 – 00;24;35;12
Michelle
Exactly not every ride is under it. And basically, what happens? And as far as I know, I don’t think you. And again, I’m I’m not an expert, so I could be saying all this wrong stuff. So please don’t take this as gospel.

00;24;35;12 – 00;24;46;21
Michelle
This is just from, you know? So, yeah, you kind of put it in and it says, Hey, go to this line or whatever, and you know, you might have a five minute wait or something and you get on that.

00;24;47;00 – 00;25;07;17
Michelle
Well, then there’s the. Extra version of this, which is I believe I think that’s what the Lightning Lane is, where the the Genie Plus’s the other lane. And this is where now you can pay a premium, an extra fee to basically cut the line to get on right away.

00;25;08;13 – 00;25;26;25
Michelle
And it’s not the same. Not every ride is the same price. Some are $12, some are $15, and I think some are even $20. So along with your $15 that you paid to have the app, then there’s the extra 20 so that you don’t have to wait on any line.

00;25;26;26 – 00;25;32;04
Michelle
And for that, you can only do one per day that that’s definitely a 11 and.

00;25;32;04 – 00;25;34;06
Joseph
Down until Disney realizes how much money.

00;25;34;06 – 00;25;34;18
Michelle
They can make.

00;25;34;22 – 00;25;54;19
Michelle
Right? And again, not every ride is under that. And it’s, you know, rise of the resistance and the rat Tui ride. And, you know, so it’s your dream rides, your premium rides. So and then they got rid of rise of the Resistance virtual virtual queue, which.

00;25;55;14 – 00;25;56;18
Joseph
So let me rewind a.

00;25;56;18 – 00;25;57;24
Michelle
second. OK, sure.

00;25;58;08 – 00;26;07;12
Joseph
The whole reason you need it fast pass was because Disney, one of the cram as many people into the park, is physically allowed by law.

00;26;07;14 – 00;26;07;26
Michelle
Right.

00;26;07;29 – 00;26;21;23
Joseph
So they wanted to get as many people paying at the gate in the park as possible, and as a result, you wound up having lines that were just egregiously over too long to sit in.

00;26;21;26 – 00;26;22;05
Michelle
Mm hmm.

00;26;22;12 – 00;26;39;10
Joseph
So Disney started to come up with a whole bunch of different ideas on how to ease the pain of that. So you first got FastPass, so you could you could get through the line faster, then you got what they did with Dumbo, where they put a second Dumbo, right?

00;26;39;10 – 00;26;51;15
Joseph
Which Dumbo always blew me away, that you would wait 45 minutes for like a 45 second ride. It was insane. So they put a second one in and they gave you a queue like at a restaurant. You could get a little timer.

00;26;51;26 – 00;27;00;19
Joseph
You waited in queue. You go into the air conditioned area. You play with the kids in the play area. And when your timer went off, you got in line and it was fast to get in. That worked out really well.

00;27;01;06 – 00;27;07;17
Joseph
Then they came out with the virtual queues and the virtual queues were great, but he had to be in the park to get.

00;27;07;17 – 00;27;08;05
Michelle
Them right.

00;27;08;06 – 00;27;18;12
Joseph
Which was kind of annoying. But once you get in a park, you get into a virtual queue and then you get call at some point in time to of the day with an estimated time. So Disney generated this problem.

00;27;18;22 – 00;27;23;12
Joseph
It wasn’t the people that generated, it wasn’t the the customers that generated. It was.

00;27;23;12 – 00;27;25;00
Michelle
Disney. So this was Disney’s.

00;27;25;00 – 00;27;38;24
Joseph
Problem, and Disney came up with some creative ways to do it without it being too painful to customers. And they evolved it over time to make it better. And they had finally got when they got that, that virtual queue.

00;27;39;14 – 00;27;42;27
Joseph
I think that was probably the closest thing to perfection that they had.

00;27;43;01 – 00;27;43;09
Michelle
Hmm.

00;27;43;17 – 00;27;52;10
Joseph
And if they had stuck with that idea and giving it the ability to do two or three virtual queues a day and left the original fans past a place, you would have been fine.

00;27;52;15 – 00;27;52;25
Michelle
Right?

00;27;53;01 – 00;28;09;01
Joseph
Instead, they throw the whole thing out. They throw the baby out with the bathwater, and now they realize, well, how people don’t like to stand in line. After 50 years of the park being open, they realize that they don’t like to stand in line and they’ll paint and not stand in line.

00;28;09;16 – 00;28;25;15
Joseph
So now let’s just charge them for it, and they come out with this completely new system where it’s progressive levels of pickpocketing. Oh, you don’t want to stand in line here, here’s this free service that tells you when to get in line.

00;28;25;28 – 00;28;34;10
Joseph
Oh, you really don’t want to wait that here’s another service that you can pay for now that you can get through line all you really don’t want to wait. Oh, here’s more money that you can pay per riding.

00;28;34;18 – 00;28;48;17
Joseph
And it’s ridiculous what they’re doing at this time. And as a result, we haven’t been down. We have been down in two years now, partly because of COVID. I’ll give you that, but I don’t have no intention of going down.

00;28;49;07 – 00;29;05;13
Joseph
And we’re so leased. I am so turned off by this entire money graph from Disney. And this is why we put two articles in and recap here. We’re in the process of selling our DVC membership because Disney just isn’t worth it anymore.

00;29;05;13 – 00;29;17;08
Joseph
Between this, I would have put the Star Cruise around, but the Star Cruise of the the issues with the star cruiser and of cost with that were just so egregious. So I didn’t want to revisit it again.

00;29;17;10 – 00;29;18;27
Michelle
You didn’t want to give yourself a heart attack.

00;29;19;05 – 00;29;36;06
Joseph
Exactly like Disney has gotten to the point where they’re not, they’re not nowhere near as good as they think they are because you have you still have all these services that they’ve they’ve pulled out of service since COVID that they’re not putting in place.

00;29;36;07 – 00;29;36;14
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00;29;36;28 – 00;29;41;05
Joseph
They’re not reducing their ticket prices, they’re not reducing their resort prices.

00;29;41;06 – 00;29;44;04
Michelle
If anything, I think there’s a price increase that’s supposed to be happening.

00;29;44;05 – 00;29;48;14
Joseph
About to kick in a new price increase, and they’re putting all these new nickel and diming things.

00;29;48;15 – 00;29;49;11
Michelle
It seems like.

00;29;49;11 – 00;30;04;11
Joseph
You know what? Disney doesn’t want customers like me. We go down sometimes two and three times a year, and on average, we’ll spend five, maybe seven grand. At least I will on a lot of merchandise down there.

00;30;04;25 – 00;30;05;14
Michelle
So especially.

00;30;05;14 – 00;30;06;22
Michelle
With Galaxy’s Edge, so.

00;30;06;22 – 00;30;23;22
Joseph
We’re probably good for ten grand a year to Disney, and that’s not enough for Disney. So they’re not interested in getting people like me. They’re interested in getting people that can go down there that have a couple extra zeros in their income bracket than I do.

00;30;24;08 – 00;30;44;03
Joseph
And that’s fine because Disney can have those people Disney can take their money. The problem that you have is even though there are higher margin customers where you’re going to get more money out of them, there are significantly lower volume because Disney ever hear the term one percenters, so they’re catering to the 1%?

00;30;45;10 – 00;31;04;17
Joseph
Well, the one percenters, the money that you get from the one percenters is significantly less than the 99 percenters that you can be getting money from regularly on a recurring basis. Yeah, the one Percenters aren’t going to be going down there with the same level of recurrence that your middle income people are.

00;31;05;09 – 00;31;32;23
Joseph
So Disney made this mistake in the eighties. They corrected it in the nineties and 2000s, and they’re making the mistake again to the point that the new CEO Bob Chapek, there’s a petition from Disney customers over 80,000 signatures to get him removed because even though all of this didn’t happen on their hand, the most egregious portion of

00;31;32;23 – 00;31;37;04
Joseph
this has happened under him. And he’s done nothing to correct it.

00;31;37;05 – 00;31;37;17
Michelle
Right?

00;31;38;21 – 00;31;54;06
Joseph
I’m not a Bob Iger fan, but Bob Iger is many levels below. How did Bob Chapek at this point in time? So that was our recap of Disney bashing for the year.

00;31;55;12 – 00;32;02;18
Michelle
We’re going to say, I think we’re good. That’s what we need to call this segment going where Disney bashing by Joe and Michelle.

00;32;02;19 – 00;32;29;28
Joseph
We’re going to take a quick break and we’ll come back with a recap. A less bashing recap of our Star Wars for the year. For over seven years, the second Sith empire has been the Premiere Community Guild in the online game.

00;32;29;28 – 00;32;52;05
Joseph
Star Wars the Old Republic with hundreds of friendly and helpful active members, a weekly schedule of nightly events and your guild meet and greets and an active community both on the web and on Discord. The second season of Empire is more than your typical gaming group.

00;32;52;29 – 00;33;16;15
Joseph
We’re family. Joining us on the star forward server for nightly events such as operations, flashpoints, world boss funds, Star Wars trivia, the Old Lottery and much more. Visit us on the Web today and W W W start the second sip and fire dot com.

00;33;27;14 – 00;33;31;28
Joseph
So with only a little bit of Star Wars negativity here.

00;33;32;06 – 00;33;32;28
Michelle
Just a little.

00;33;33;00 – 00;33;46;03
Joseph
We’ll talk about our tales from the edge of the Galaxy Recap. So the first story that that we have in here is Gina Carano being removed from The Mandalorian when season two of The Mandalorian came to an end.

00;33;46;27 – 00;34;08;29
Joseph
It certainly looked as though Gina Carano character Cara Dune was preparing for her own spin off show, Rangers of the Republic of the New Republic. Then, in February, Lucasfilm announced that the former UFC fighter was no longer employed by the company and wouldn’t be returning to the role, which was surprisingly vague for the termination of a fairly

00;34;08;29 – 00;34;28;11
Joseph
known star in a new, successful series. This all came on the heels of Carano comparing quote hating someone for their political views to the persecution of Jewish people by the Nazi Party, of which she really had no basis on which to make that statement.

00;34;28;13 – 00;34;28;22
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00;34;29;21 – 00;34;45;27
Joseph
Previously, she had been accused of being transphobic and made remarks about alleged and repeatedly proven to be false voter fraud in the presidential election. Not surprisingly, it was later revealed that Rangers of the New Republic was no longer in development.

00;34;45;28 – 00;34;47;28
Joseph
Go figure and wonder why?

00;34;48;01 – 00;34;48;27
Michelle
Hmm.

00;34;49;02 – 00;34;58;09
Joseph
So this was, I don’t know. I think it kind of kicked off a whole atmosphere of accountability, I want to call it.

00;34;58;22 – 00;35;00;25
Michelle
You know, we’re yeah, we’re we’re people.

00;35;02;12 – 00;35;23;20
Joseph
Want to use their celebrity to promote their own priorities without understanding that when you do that, you’re representing the company that you’re working for? Right now, if I went out not being a celebrity, at least I don’t think I am at this point and and I use the platform of my employer to make statements that were contrary

00;35;23;20 – 00;35;44;10
Joseph
to my employer’s wishes or beliefs or stances. I would totally expect my employer to fire me. Because I at that point in time is I’m exploiting my my employer for the attention. And this is exactly what happened with Gina Carano and several other people.

00;35;44;21 – 00;35;48;27
Joseph
You know, several other celebrities throughout the year, and this one really kind of kicked that off.

00;35;48;28 – 00;35;49;07
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00;35;49;17 – 00;35;58;24
Joseph
And that just the shock on the on these individuals. Minds that somebody would actually hold me accountable for something I said or done.

00;35;58;26 – 00;35;59;06
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00;35;59;18 – 00;36;04;23
Joseph
Because I’m a celebrity and I’m supposed to be above the law. No one’s supposed to hold you accountable.

00;36;04;25 – 00;36;07;00
Michelle
I’m not their puppet, you know?

00;36;07;01 – 00;36;14;08
Joseph
Right. And it’s like Disney has a very proven history of having clauses in their employee contract.

00;36;14;08 – 00;36;14;16
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00;36;14;25 – 00;36;32;20
Joseph
Morality clauses and non-disparagement clauses and stuff like that that you’re well as a celebrity, as a as a member of their staff. You’re well aware of these clauses, right? When you sign that contract and you pledge to abide by the terms of that contract, do you violate that contract?

00;36;33;10 – 00;36;38;08
Joseph
If you go out, you say something negative and you have a non-disparagement clause, that’s the same as not showing up for the work.

00;36;38;10 – 00;36;38;19
Michelle
Right?

00;36;39;04 – 00;36;41;18
Joseph
And they’re well within their rights to get rid of you.

00;36;41;19 – 00;36;42;00
Michelle
Right?

00;36;42;04 – 00;36;44;00
Michelle
You know, look at what happened with Johnny Depp.

00;36;44;09 – 00;36;45;00
Joseph
Exactly.

00;36;45;13 – 00;36;57;23
Michelle
Yeah. On many fronts, not just with Disney, but even with Warner Brothers, with stuff that had happened. You know, in his personal life, unfortunately, that came to light.

00;36;57;24 – 00;37;04;02
Joseph
Because it reflects poorly on your employer, right? Disney is not saying you have to go out there and took the party line.

00;37;04;09 – 00;37;04;21
Michelle
Right.

00;37;04;21 – 00;37;09;28
Joseph
And and do messaging for their political beliefs or anything like that. You just need to shut up.

00;37;09;29 – 00;37;10;09
Michelle
Right?

00;37;10;10 – 00;37;14;21
Joseph
That was it. And it wasn’t like she hadn’t been warned. There were three incidents before that, right?

00;37;14;25 – 00;37;15;06
Michelle
Right.

00;37;15;18 – 00;37;26;17
Joseph
All you have to if you if you want to be that political and you want to be that vocal, you’re more than welcome to terminate your contract. Go off and be independent or find an employer that will allow you.

00;37;26;17 – 00;37;27;06
Michelle
To do the right.

00;37;27;06 – 00;37;32;16
Michelle
And supposedly there were other things that she had going on in the works. We haven’t really.

00;37;32;16 – 00;37;33;02
Michelle
Heard you.

00;37;33;02 – 00;37;33;19
Joseph
Haven’t seen.

00;37;33;25 – 00;37;42;19
Michelle
You know anything yet, so. You know, and then there were rumors that she was coming back to Disney that they had worked out something, but again.

00;37;42;24 – 00;37;44;14
Michelle
Nothing nothing came out of the.

00;37;44;14 – 00;37;47;01
Joseph
Massive image problem at that point in time.

00;37;47;02 – 00;37;47;12
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00;37;47;17 – 00;37;56;18
Joseph
And she had done a series of running while a show running wild with Bear Grylls for National Geographic, which again is another Disney property.

00;37;56;18 – 00;37;56;26
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00;37;57;15 – 00;38;02;06
Joseph
And that came out a couple of months after this controversy did.

00;38;02;22 – 00;38;04;03
Michelle
Yeah, because they didn’t even want to air.

00;38;04;03 – 00;38;04;27
Michelle
It for a while.

00;38;04;28 – 00;38;30;09
Joseph
They weren’t going to air it. Right? And they finally decided to air it. And I have to say it did wonders to humanize her, at least in my mind, because of the vulnerability that I could almost excuse some of the stuff that she said and done just as naivete and inexperience and seeing the world through rose colored

00;38;30;09 – 00;38;51;11
Joseph
glasses and not realizing that there’s a expectation. And that’s kind of how she came across in the show, and it almost thought I almost thought that after that. Now that you’re getting some good press and people are seeing that you really are a somewhat decent human being, Disney might change course and they have it right.

00;38;52;00 – 00;39;08;09
Joseph
So I don’t know if it was worse than what was made out in the press or what. But I don’t think she’s a horrible person. I think she’s made bad decisions and sometimes those bad decisions we have to be held accountable for.

00;39;08;10 – 00;39;08;18
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00;39;09;02 – 00;39;11;04
Joseph
You know, she had a great thing going and.

00;39;11;08 – 00;39;11;20
Michelle
Right.

00;39;12;01 – 00;39;28;16
Joseph
She’s got to find something else now. Mm-Hmm. But that kicked off the Johnny Depp’s and what was it? Who was who was a comedian that just had it? There was another comedian that just came out with an HBO special where he wound up taking heat for it.

00;39;28;17 – 00;39;31;05
Michelle
Oh, shoot.

00;39;31;27 – 00;39;33;09
Joseph
Chris now Chris Hart was it?

00;39;33;10 – 00;39;36;22
Michelle
No, no. Oh, why can’t I think of his name?

00;39;37;02 – 00;39;41;10
Joseph
I can’t remember his name either. Yeah, but anyway, there was a series of.

00;39;41;11 – 00;39;41;28
Michelle
Right, right.

00;39;41;29 – 00;39;47;05
Joseph
And and you know, you hear this term, oh, it’s a it’s a it’s the woke society.

00;39;47;07 – 00;39;47;13
Michelle
Right?

00;39;47;14 – 00;40;08;12
Joseph
It’s not. It’s it’s accountability, right? It’s when you do something that’s inappropriate that society now. Granite society standards change over time, and they evolve. If you fail to evolve with them. Thing you get left behind. You know, there are people out there that have changed society.

00;40;08;18 – 00;40;08;23
Michelle
Hmm.

00;40;09;28 – 00;40;28;24
Joseph
Richard Pryor is a great example of that. Richard Pryor is a type of person who, when he first emerged, was considered offensive. Eddie Murphy same thing. Offensive people didn’t like it didn’t. Didn’t want to hear it. And eventually he changed society to be more acceptable to his type of humor.

00;40;28;28 – 00;40;29;03
Michelle
Hmm.

00;40;29;04 – 00;40;29;26
Joseph
Both of those.

00;40;30;01 – 00;40;30;16
Michelle
Right.

00;40;30;17 – 00;40;32;11
Joseph
And they’re great comedians.

00;40;32;11 – 00;40;32;19
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00;40;34;08 – 00;40;40;18
Joseph
And that’s, you know, they recognize what the fallacy was and they learn how to make it work.

00;40;41;05 – 00;40;42;13
Michelle
George Carlin to George.

00;40;42;13 – 00;40;43;14
Joseph
Carlin is another great.

00;40;43;16 – 00;40;44;10
Michelle
Mm-Hmm. Yeah.

00;40;44;15 – 00;40;51;12
Joseph
You know, these are the people that made careers out of being offensive comedians, but they made it.

00;40;51;12 – 00;40;57;00
Michelle
But do it right. But doing it in a way that wasn’t hurtful, right?

00;40;57;09 – 00;41;01;15
Joseph
Like George Carlin was brilliant in throwing it back in our faces.

00;41;01;16 – 00;41;01;28
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00;41;02;06 – 00;41;12;19
Joseph
You know, he was the type of person that would look at how ludicrous society was and then make us laugh at ourselves for that. But ludicrousness?

00;41;12;19 – 00;41;13;00
Michelle
Right?

00;41;13;28 – 00;41;22;04
Joseph
So unfortunately. Gina did not approach that level yet, perhaps in time she.

00;41;22;04 – 00;41;23;01
Michelle
Will maybe.

00;41;23;16 – 00;41;31;20
Joseph
I don’t think her career is over with in the entertainment industry, and I think she’s going to get another shot. And, you know, hopefully it’s one of those you’ll learn from your mistakes.

00;41;31;23 – 00;41;31;28
Michelle
Hmm.

00;41;33;05 – 00;41;41;24
Joseph
So the next one that we wanted to talk about was the new Star Wars shows on Disney Plus, not Disney Republic, like I said during the read.

00;41;42;02 – 00;41;43;18
Michelle
That was really kind of funny.

00;41;44;22 – 00;42;03;03
Joseph
So we got a whole bunch of shows from from Disney. In fact, we got a whole bunch of documentaries about the new shows, which was also interesting, right? But the first one I wanted to talk about was the Bad Batch, and the Bad Batch was kind of foreshadowed in the final season of Clone Wars, and it was

00;42;03;03 – 00;42;21;20
Joseph
done in such a way that it was kind of strange, you know, they played no real purpose, I think, in the Clone Wars series other than to make cameos to set up the new show, which left me very cautious going into it.

00;42;23;12 – 00;42;37;15
Joseph
But this animated follow up to Star Wars The Clone Wars was set shortly after the events of Episode three and follows the team of Elite Clone Troopers as they seek out a new destiny following the end of the war and the rise of the Empire.

00;42;37;28 – 00;42;54;09
Joseph
And what was nice about this was the big they jump into it. In the middle of the action rant, the end of The Clone Wars, so you can kind of put little pinpoints as to where they are, so you know exactly what’s happening, where everything is.

00;42;54;28 – 00;43;11;06
Joseph
And you walk into it with a comfortable feeling. If you’re a Star Wars fan who watched The Clone Wars and watched the movie, the prequel movies and stuff, so that kind of help right off the bat. And then you wound up getting characters that are.

00;43;12;11 – 00;43;28;00
Joseph
Extremely well developed, which is really a characteristic of Dave Filoni. You know, Dave Filoni knows how to write a character and knows how to make you. Emotionally invested in that character, and he’s done it time and time again, whether it’s animated or live action.

00;43;28;25 – 00;43;48;10
Joseph
And you get a character in there, this this young clone Omega, who I thought was really going to be this quirky little sidekick like the jar jar of the series. And and they turn out to be one of the most pivotal people, and it makes it it’s so believable the way it happens.

00;43;48;28 – 00;44;01;16
Joseph
So they did a fantastic job with it. There’s another season coming up. I’m very interested in seeing how the next season comes out with it. The next show is Star Wars Visions, which again, I was very skeptical about this.

00;44;02;21 – 00;44;23;00
Joseph
So this was the other big project really began. I made a project of 2021, and this series features ten short episodes allowing various Japanese anime directors an opportunity to play in the Star Wars sandbox. And I’ve made no bones about the fact that I am not a fan of anime.

00;44;24;06 – 00;44;48;19
Joseph
I don’t like it. I don’t like the style to the point that it gives me a headache if I watch it for a period of time. And of the ten that were in here, probably for our keepers, OK, just because of the style, the story like everyone knows who’s a Star Wars fan that Star Wars itself was

00;44;49;03 – 00;45;08;04
Joseph
George Lucas was inspired by Akira Kurosawa. Samurai movies and it came out pretty much everywhere in the Star Wars movies, and there was one or two episodes of visions that literally look like Course our movies. They literally have.

00;45;09;18 – 00;45;21;17
Joseph
Samurais, you know, I mean, it’s done in Japanese villages, it’s some of these are done so well that at the end of this, you know, 30 minute episode, I was wanting more.

00;45;21;20 – 00;45;22;00
Michelle
Hmm.

00;45;22;22 – 00;45;28;24
Joseph
Now that’s a 40% hit rate for me for anime, which is very good.

00;45;29;01 – 00;45;30;11
Michelle
That’s high for you. I did.

00;45;30;13 – 00;45;31;23
Joseph
Not expect it to be that.

00;45;31;23 – 00;45;32;18
Michelle
High. Right.

00;45;33;08 – 00;45;49;02
Joseph
The other six are complete throwaways, in my opinion. I’m sure people will argue with me till they’re blue in the face. But I just couldn’t buy into the stories I couldn’t buy into the animation style, so it was just too goofy.

00;45;49;21 – 00;46;00;18
Joseph
It was too cartoonish. It was very OnStar was like. So for the ten, I think it makes it worthwhile to watch the whole series and form your own opinion.

00;46;00;19 – 00;46;01;00
Michelle
Sure.

00;46;01;25 – 00;46;04;28
Joseph
And the last one was one that we just got this week, as a matter of.

00;46;05;02 – 00;46;06;02
Michelle
Fact, the book of.

00;46;06;02 – 00;46;26;09
Joseph
Boba Fett. So we’re getting the first Mandalorian spin off in the form of Book of Boba Fett, which features Boba and his new right hand woman, Fennec Shand, as they take control of the late Jamas Criminal Empire. Now again, when we got that closing scene in the last episode of The Mandalorian and we see him take the

00;46;26;09 – 00;46;38;07
Joseph
throne, I almost gagged because it seemed so goofy, so far fetched. It just it was cool seeing Boba show up in.

00;46;38;26 – 00;46;39;15
Michelle
The.

00;46;39;29 – 00;46;40;27
Michelle
The couple of episodes.

00;46;40;28 – 00;46;41;09
Michelle
Couple of.

00;46;41;09 – 00;46;56;22
Joseph
Episodes of Mandalorian and I was content with that. I didn’t need to see a Boba Fett series. But seeing that scene where he comes in and he, you know, he storms in with the Spurs and he shoots out many takes over the throne, it was just a little too.

00;46;58;07 – 00;46;59;15
Joseph
To Old Western.

00;46;59;15 – 00;47;00;23
Michelle
I was going to say two spaghetti.

00;47;00;23 – 00;47;01;17
Michelle
Western for you, it.

00;47;01;17 – 00;47;06;24
Joseph
Was just it was too much and it didn’t hold out much hope. We all have only seen one episode so far.

00;47;06;27 – 00;47;07;03
Michelle
Hmm.

00;47;08;09 – 00;47;15;08
Joseph
And the one episode itself does a very good job of flashbacks of showing you how he got to that point.

00;47;15;09 – 00;47;15;22
Michelle
Right?

00;47;15;28 – 00;47;17;26
Joseph
Everybody wanted to know how he saw the.

00;47;17;27 – 00;47;19;01
Michelle
How he survived.

00;47;19;01 – 00;47;34;12
Joseph
The Sarlacc Pit. So you get to learn that you could learn a little bit more history about him. You get to find out why his face, you know, his body is so scarred and stuff. So I’m cautiously optimistic at this point.

00;47;34;14 – 00;47;34;20
Michelle
Hmm.

00;47;35;29 – 00;47;40;23
Joseph
The first episode did not wow me like the first episode of Mandalorian did.

00;47;41;00 – 00;47;42;16
Michelle
Well, because there’s no Baby Yoda.

00;47;43;05 – 00;47;47;02
Joseph
Or what was it? You think a Baby Yoda till the end of the first episode of me?

00;47;47;16 – 00;47;47;26
Michelle
Yeah.

00;47;49;10 – 00;48;02;27
Joseph
Grabbed you by the throat and just shook you into like the new era of Star Wars. This one, you kind of mosey down the street with with boba on and then somebody kicked you in the face.

00;48;03;08 – 00;48;05;17
Michelle
Well, because if he walks, he doesn’t. He doesn’t.

00;48;05;29 – 00;48;06;11
Michelle
You know.

00;48;06;20 – 00;48;07;23
Michelle
He walks on his two feet.

00;48;07;23 – 00;48;08;10
Michelle
So, yeah.

00;48;08;25 – 00;48;14;17
Joseph
But you know, he didn’t shop anybody’s head off with the door or anything like that like Mando did.

00;48;14;22 – 00;48;15;29
Michelle
Yeah, well, you know.

00;48;16;10 – 00;48;35;29
Joseph
But it has potential. Hmm. And my concern is that if it’s going to be like these other Disney series, these special, the Marvel ones where you get a very short season, six or seven episodes and they take four or five episodes to ramp up to really become.

00;48;38;03 – 00;48;38;26
Joseph
Quality.

00;48;38;29 – 00;48;39;10
Michelle
Hmm.

00;48;39;15 – 00;48;41;28
Joseph
You know, we just we just sat through Hawkeye.

00;48;42;03 – 00;48;42;09
Michelle
Hmm.

00;48;42;15 – 00;48;53;20
Joseph
And Hawkeye, it wasn’t until episode five of Hawkeye that I really started to enjoy it. There was just so much set up that they tried to do ahead of time and kind of overthought thing.

00;48;53;24 – 00;49;05;05
Michelle
And it almost makes you wonder if they had done like a three hour movie or, you know, to one and a half hour. Part one, part two. Right? Would it have?

00;49;05;09 – 00;49;16;12
Joseph
And that’s what I think with Boba Fett is. I don’t need a series, right? You give me an hour and a half two hour long movie of Boba Fett. And I think you sum up everything I need to know.

00;49;17;23 – 00;49;23;12
Joseph
And then if you want to come up with a series after that for continuing adventures and you think there’s something there, great.

00;49;23;15 – 00;49;23;26
Michelle
Right?

00;49;24;05 – 00;49;26;03
Joseph
But to drag out this.

00;49;26;16 – 00;49;35;18
Michelle
two hour long, and I think that’s what’s going to happen with with the other two series.

00;49;35;26 – 00;49;36;09
Michelle
Well, with.

00;49;36;09 – 00;49;38;27
Joseph
Alan, it’s not bad because, you know, it’s a mini series.

00;49;38;27 – 00;49;39;09
Michelle
So.

00;49;39;14 – 00;49;40;16
Michelle
Right. But that’s what I’m you’re.

00;49;40;16 – 00;49;41;29
Joseph
Only getting a couple of episodes.

00;49;42;00 – 00;49;45;00
Michelle
Right? That’s true. But then the the Cassian Andor.

00;49;45;00 – 00;49;46;18
Joseph
one, which doesn’t need to happen.

00;49;46;18 – 00;49;51;16
Michelle
Where you could have probably. You’re probably going to feel we could have done this.

00;49;51;16 – 00;49;58;00
Joseph
In Cassian Andor could have been done. His backstory could have been done as back flashbacks and Rogue one.

00;49;58;01 – 00;49;58;12
Michelle
True?

00;49;58;22 – 00;50;03;23
Joseph
Yeah. There is nothing compelling about that man that makes me want to see a series of them.

00;50;03;26 – 00;50;06;10
Michelle
Yeah. Well, if they wanted any.

00;50;06;10 – 00;50;10;23
Joseph
More than I wanted to see a Han Solo or a sequel that they’re planning on doing.

00;50;10;29 – 00;50;11;18
Michelle
Really?

00;50;11;18 – 00;50;12;00
Michelle
Yeah.

00;50;12;02 – 00;50;14;23
Joseph
Oh, there’s talk of a sequel or so.

00;50;15;10 – 00;50;18;28
Michelle
But now you’re really going to run out to see that one. Yeah.

00;50;19;24 – 00;50;25;16
Joseph
Anyway, that’s our flashback for our tales from the edge of the game.

00;50;25;20 – 00;50;28;07
Michelle
You still had your High Republic stuff?

00;50;28;13 – 00;50;32;02
Joseph
Oh yeah, that’s right. Yeah, see, I got so down on Boba there.

00;50;32;29 – 00;50;33;13
Michelle
So, yes.

00;50;33;29 – 00;50;57;17
Joseph
There are a third story to reflect on is the The High Republic kicking off. So publishing is one area where the Star Wars franchise is coming into the New Year, with Blasters firing January fifth mark the official beginning last January fifth not to coming January first of the High Republic, a multi-pronged publishing initiative aimed at shedding light

00;50;57;22 – 00;51;15;01
Joseph
on a previously unknown portion of the Star Wars timeline. Set roughly 200 years before episode one, the High Republic explores a period where the Jedi are still at the height of their power and the Republic hasn’t yet collapsed into tyranny.

00;51;15;19 – 00;51;35;16
Joseph
So what I really was focused on, they came out with a number of of comics, young adult novels, adult novels, and what I was really focused on was the adult novels. So there’s really three planned in the first series coming out, the first of which is later the Jedi, which came out January fifth, which I just finished

00;51;35;16 – 00;51;50;21
Joseph
a little while ago. This was by Charles Soul, and it was a good starter. It was a little slow starting off. You were introducing characters you didn’t know. The one concern that I had was when they announced the time period you knew that it was within Yoda’s timeline.

00;51;50;29 – 00;52;07;16
Joseph
OK. And I didn’t want them to basically make it a Yoda novel. So Yoda appears in the novel, but kind of in reference form. He never really plays a role in it. So you kind of get your your new array of Jedi that you, you get to see.

00;52;07;29 – 00;52;27;17
Joseph
And it’s interesting because you get to learn new things about how Jedi operate, what their organizations like, how they work with technology. So it was very interesting to to learn some of that stuff. The next one in line is Rising Storm, which came out June 29th, which I purchased, I haven’t started reading it because I’m reading The

00;52;27;17 – 00;52;46;02
Joseph
Expanse novel at the moment. I kind of got into this lane and I didn’t get into reading until the fall. I’m a little bit behind, so Rising Storm came out the 29th of June by Cabin Scott. Now I haven’t read anything by Charles or Cabin Scott before I was.

00;52;46;08 – 00;53;01;16
Joseph
They both done novels in the Star Wars universes as well as other things, and I was very impressed with the first one. The third one comes out January fourth, so it’s coming out next week. Mm-Hmm. And that’s fallen star by Claudia Gray.

00;53;01;29 – 00;53;14;19
Joseph
Now I’ve read a number of her books in the past while stars and Bloodline, and I think she’s a fantastic author, so I’m very much looking forward to that one. But I have to get through Rising Storm first, and they’ve got a lot of stuff planned for this.

00;53;14;19 – 00;53;26;04
Joseph
They’ve got a potential video game from world video game that’s going to be set in the High Republic. They have a tie in to the galactic star cruiser that’s going to have some High Republic story assigned to it.

00;53;28;19 – 00;53;47;10
Joseph
I was not enthusiastic about it because it felt very much like Disney gave up on their. Sequel trilogy, because it was terrible and they wanted to reinvent Star Wars, I like High Republic to me, is almost like relaunching of Star Wars.

00;53;48;03 – 00;54;06;00
Joseph
So I was very skeptical about this, and I’m still cautiously optimistic again to see where this goes. But so far, you know, the first novel itself, I think held it’s held its own. Okay, so that’s all for our flashback.

00;54;06;01 – 00;54;06;25
Michelle
Well, OK.

00;54;08;22 – 00;54;17;12
Joseph
And tales from the edge of Galaxy Road. Take a quick break. Come back with our entertainment news real quick and then sum up we’re actually pushing late right now.

00;54;17;13 – 00;54;18;08
Michelle
Oh my goodness.

00;54;18;16 – 00;54;19;23
Joseph
So we’ll be right back.

00;54;27;18 – 00;54;38;19
Michelle
Insights into teens. A podcast series exploring the issues and challenges of today’s youth. Talking to real teens about real teen problems.

00;54;40;13 – 00;54;43;01
Michelle
Explore issues from braces to puberty.

00;54;43;09 – 00;54;55;03
Michelle
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00;54;55;13 – 00;55;00;13
Michelle
How to cope with these issues and how parents, friends and loved ones can help.

00;55;00;13 – 00;55;02;09
Michelle
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00;55;04;24 – 00;55;14;02
Michelle
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00;55;14;02 – 00;55;17;00
Michelle
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00;55;19;04 – 00;55;22;17
Michelle
Or on the Web at insights into things dot com.

00;55;32;25 – 00;55;34;00
Joseph
Go for Entertainment.

00;55;34;00 – 00;55;54;21
Michelle
Recap. So here were our our top, I guess, you know, stories that we we wanted to just kind of go back over. So the first one was the Jeopardy host debacle. So who knew that the game show Jeopardy would be such a big topic of discussion in 2021, as long running series as the long running series look

00;55;54;21 – 00;56;17;05
Michelle
to find a new host after the death of Alex Trebek. It hired one in executive producer Mike Richards, but that didn’t last long after a series of sexist, racist, racist and homophobic homophobic. Wow, I can’t talk to the comments he made on a podcast between 2013 and 2014 were unearthed.

00;56;17;13 – 00;56;32;02
Michelle
He was removed from the job and since his departure. Big Bang Theory alum Maya Bialik and multiple time Jeopardy winner Ken Jennings have been sharing the duties of hosting back and forth.

00;56;32;16 – 00;56;39;12
Joseph
And this wouldn’t have been such a big deal if they had made such a big deal about bringing all the celebrities in.

00;56;39;20 – 00;56;40;23
Michelle
Right dining out for.

00;56;40;24 – 00;56;52;28
Michelle
Right. And that was the thing is, you had all these different people that came and were filling in and you had all these people that were like, Oh, this would be a great hosting and this would be a great host.

00;56;52;28 – 00;57;02;02
Michelle
And why don’t you have this one? And then they totally went with an executive producer who nobody really knew. And then all of a sudden, yeah.

00;57;02;13 – 00;57;03;27
Joseph
It was his decision to do.

00;57;03;28 – 00;57;21;16
Michelle
Probably, he was like, Oh, I’ll do the job. Yeah. So, yeah, so you know, so right now it goes back and forth between the two, and maybe that’s how they’ll they’ll kind of leave it because my mom was actually she was only supposed to do like the specialty ones, I think was what she had decided to do

00;57;21;16 – 00;57;41;03
Michelle
. And Jennings was kind of going to do the other. So I think they’ve been kind of going back and forth since then. So, yeah, so that was kind of one of the interesting stories of the year. The next was Meghan Markle, Prince Harry there detail of the royal family rift in the tell all interview.

00;57;41;04 – 00;58;05;13
Michelle
So that was kind of one of the big things was that Meghan and Harry had sat down with Oprah for a wide ranging interview back in March, which saw the couple make bombshell accusations about members of the British royal family, including that there were concerns and conversations about how dark their son Archie’s skin might be when he

00;58;05;13 – 00;58;28;16
Michelle
was born. Now, since that time, they their daughter was born Lilibet, and there, you know, you still hear about them in the news, but it was a very telling thing that you know that there were, you know, members of the family that were concerned because of Meghan’s racial background.

00;58;29;11 – 00;58;36;29
Michelle
And kind of, you know, you pretty much knew the royals kind of felt a certain way to begin with. And this just kind.

00;58;36;29 – 00;58;37;03
Michelle
Of.

00;58;37;18 – 00;58;38;10
Michelle
Added to the.

00;58;38;10 – 00;58;59;00
Joseph
United States tends to get a lot of bad press because of the racial tensions that we have here. And a lot of times it’s Great Britain that looks down on. So they have for three years, right? And to find out that, you know, the royal family of of Great Britain might harbor some, you know, racist tendencies himself

00;58;59;01 – 00;58;59;23
Michelle
. Right, right.

00;58;59;23 – 00;59;01;14
Joseph
It kind of brings him down a notch.

00;59;01;20 – 00;59;02;01
Michelle
Mm hmm.

00;59;02;26 – 00;59;07;03
Joseph
And they’re they’re a family that is not without controversy to begin with.

00;59;07;04 – 00;59;07;29
Michelle
Oh, absolutely.

00;59;08;05 – 00;59;13;20
Joseph
And they’re a family that is there. They’re an organization will.

00;59;13;20 – 00;59;14;24
Michelle
Say right that.

00;59;14;24 – 00;59;18;08
Joseph
Is struggling to justify their their continued existence.

00;59;18;09 – 00;59;24;26
Michelle
Yeah. And of course, people, you know, almost every member of the family has something going on.

00;59;24;26 – 00;59;28;16
Joseph
They got more skeletons in their closet than the Haunted Mansion House.

00;59;30;09 – 00;59;31;24
Michelle
It’s a good one, so.

00;59;32;25 – 00;59;54;17
Michelle
And then finally, our last story was revolving around Britney Spears and her conservatorship battle. So Britney Spears conservatorship drama was perhaps one of the most talked about controversies in Hollywood in 2021, after numerous documentaries covered the pop star’s legal and family drama.

00;59;54;24 – 01;00;00;14
Michelle
A judge? Lifted her.

01;00;01;14 – 01;00;02;09
Michelle
Relieved or.

01;00;02;09 – 01;00;18;09
Michelle
Sorry, relieved her from her 13 year court, ordered once and for all in October. I’m sorry in November, so this was something I didn’t even realize she even had in place. And I guess not that many people knew.

01;00;18;13 – 01;00;32;11
Michelle
But her father was basically in control of basically her whole entire life, everything who she could see. And, you know, even her her body autonomy, you know, was part of it, too.

01;00;32;18 – 01;00;47;24
Joseph
What really qualified this for this list, for me, was that at no point in time during Britney Spears life have I given a damn about her and reading about this. It actually caught my eye and caught my attention of.

01;00;49;08 – 01;00;51;26
Joseph
one, how could you do this to another human.

01;00;51;26 – 01;00;52;26
Michelle
Being, right?

01;00;53;09 – 01;00;57;14
Joseph
Not that I felt sympathy for her. I just felt, you know, humanitarian sympathy.

01;00;57;14 – 01;00;58;16
Michelle
For you, right? Right.

01;00;58;17 – 01;01;01;29
Joseph
But to how could your own father do this to you?

01;01;02;08 – 01;01;12;15
Michelle
Basically, she was a trained monkey, you know, and she had her leash and she’d have to go back in the cage and go out and perform when you know.

01;01;12;15 – 01;01;13;01
Joseph
And the fly.

01;01;13;01 – 01;01;14;03
Michelle
Would probably, yeah.

01;01;14;06 – 01;01;24;01
Joseph
These legal proceedings. There was a chance that the judge wasn’t going to write it right. This is like slavery, guys. Lincoln freed the slaves. Right?

01;01;24;11 – 01;01;41;15
Michelle
And it’s not like she was a minor. Right? I could understand. OK, you have it until you know, she’s 21. Even not even go 18. OK? 21 or 25, if you know it went on so much longer than it needed to really go on.

01;01;41;15 – 01;01;45;03
Joseph
So I granted it probably saved her life on a number of.

01;01;45;03 – 01;01;46;21
Michelle
Occasions, and that is true.

01;01;46;22 – 01;01;48;11
Joseph
Such a train wreck, right?

01;01;48;11 – 01;01;58;19
Michelle
And I could see where, you know, maybe there were times throughout where, OK, we’re going to yeah, we’re going to let her go from it. And then they didn’t because she is.

01;01;58;20 – 01;02;01;27
Joseph
There comes a point where there has to be some level of personal account.

01;02;02;00 – 01;02;08;17
Michelle
Absolutely. If you want to shave your head and be a wacko, then right, go right ahead.

01;02;08;26 – 01;02;09;09
Michelle
Do that.

01;02;09;19 – 01;02;25;14
Joseph
So so that was all we had for our entertainment recap. We’ll be right back with our, well, not our insightful pick. I guess that’s what the script says. It’s really not that it’s just a recap of our Ocean City Comic Con.

01;02;26;01 – 01;02;26;09
Michelle
But.

01;02;32;05 – 01;02;35;08
Joseph
So, OK, we went to Ocean City, we went to Maryland.

01;02;35;09 – 01;02;36;09
Michelle
Yeah, three weeks.

01;02;36;09 – 01;02;49;11
Joseph
Ago we did. And one of the highlights of that was I managed to trip and fall in the rain and crack a rib and suffer through that for the last three weeks, still suffering from it, which was why we didn’t do the podcast.

01;02;49;11 – 01;02;59;29
Joseph
I suffer through one podcast for insights into teens. But I do have some footage that we took. Let me run that. Let’s just talk about our impressions of the of the show.

01;03;00;02 – 01;03;00;16
Michelle
Sure.

01;03;00;21 – 01;03;02;01
Joseph
So what were your first thoughts?

01;03;02;18 – 01;03;26;25
Michelle
I thought it was very well-done, bigger than I expected it to be. I was kind of expecting it to be a little smaller. So again, bigger. A very nice venue. Very clean. It was very spaced out and they seemed to have safeguards in place.

01;03;27;08 – 01;03;32;06
Michelle
Probably the only downside was the amount of people.

01;03;32;06 – 01;03;34;00
Joseph
Yeah, I don’t think they were prepared for that.

01;03;34;00 – 01;03;34;20
Michelle
Number, right?

01;03;34;21 – 01;03;50;26
Michelle
I think that was one of the the downfalls. We lucked out because we were staying there overnight. We happened to be staying at a hotel that they had recommended. And it just so happened that the night before they were doing an advance ticket sales, right?

01;03;51;00 – 01;04;10;16
Michelle
So we decided, Hey, let’s just buy the tickets in advance. And that ended up probably being the best thing that happened because when we got there and we only got there a half hour after opening and there was this huge line outside, you know.

01;04;10;17 – 01;04;13;20
Joseph
It would have been a 45 minute to an hour wait to get tickets.

01;04;13;20 – 01;04;13;29
Michelle
Right.

01;04;13;29 – 01;04;19;02
Michelle
And that kind of reminded me of like Wizard World Line, like we’ve never gone through the.

01;04;19;02 – 01;04;20;13
Joseph
Years that they really ran that.

01;04;20;13 – 01;04;20;29
Michelle
Poorly.

01;04;20;29 – 01;04;44;22
Michelle
Right. We’ve never gone to a smaller Comic-Con that had such a long wait to get in. So that really was probably the best, you know, thing for for our buck. The only problem with doing that was we didn’t get any sort of like, Hey, by the way, here’s where the program is, because basically they just kind of

01;04;44;22 – 01;05;01;13
Michelle
we showed our wristband and said, Where do we go? And they said it was going on the side door. Right. That was kind of it where maybe if we had waited in line or if we’d bought tickets, we might have been prompted to, Hey, look, here’s the program type thing or here, you know, scan this and you

01;05;01;13 – 01;05;20;04
Michelle
have a virtual copy, and I understand why they weren’t handing out things like that. So that was probably the the one downfall is that we didn’t know what panels were going on or special events or anything else with that.

01;05;20;04 – 01;05;38;24
Michelle
So, you know, but it wasn’t, you know, you don’t always need to know because when I had looked at the panels beforehand, a lot of it was anime stuff your favorite. So I knew we probably weren’t going to be doing, you know, most of that, but it would have been nice just to, you know, have something to

01;05;38;24 – 01;05;41;03
Michelle
look at just as a as a reference.

01;05;41;10 – 01;05;58;19
Joseph
Yeah. And I think, you know, I agree. I think they were for what they were expecting. They were very well organized. I don’t think they were expecting anywhere near the number of people they wound up getting. And I think that was the result of just, you know, people jonesing to get out and do something.

01;05;58;19 – 01;06;06;02
Joseph
Since things have been shut down and you have such a high turnout, you had people from multiple states show up for this project. But anybody expected.

01;06;06;03 – 01;06;06;29
Michelle
Right, right.

01;06;07;05 – 01;06;24;25
Joseph
So as a result, everything that would normally be there as a resource was stranger. Your restrooms were crowded, your food court because they didn’t bring any supplemental food vendors. NZ only had the food court, which was strained. The one thing that I think they did have a problem was where they set everything up in a grid format

01;06;25;25 – 01;06;30;29
Joseph
. But your main entrance people walked onto the show floor was not wide open and.

01;06;31;06 – 01;06;33;07
Michelle
And right right backing.

01;06;33;07 – 01;06;42;00
Joseph
Up there and, you know, clogged up lanes and stuff like that. But outside of that, your aisles were nice and wide and spaced out, which is really nice.

01;06;42;00 – 01;07;03;02
Michelle
Yeah, because they definitely could have, you know, pre-pandemic squeezed, you know, a couple more more lanes together. So it was nice that they had it and there were, you know, kind of areas a little open so that if you did kind of feel claustrophobic, there was, OK, let me go, stand over here for a little bit.

01;07;03;16 – 01;07;05;19
Joseph
At the end ’cause you had plenty of room.

01;07;05;20 – 01;07;06;04
Michelle
Right?

01;07;06;05 – 01;07;17;02
Joseph
They had three main aisles that you could walk down. So it was it was decently well special, and they had a number of vendors that weren’t showing which kind of surprised.

01;07;17;02 – 01;07;32;08
Michelle
Yeah, because again, this was only done for the one day. So it wasn’t even like it was a multiple day. The one thing and this is every convention that we go to. It would be nice if they just had an area where there’s just a bunch of chairs, right?

01;07;32;15 – 01;07;44;00
Michelle
So that people, you know, so that you’re not in a food court area, you’re not taking up a table, you’re not taking up something, you know, for somebody that wants to just an area where you just line a bunch of chairs.

01;07;44;10 – 01;08;02;18
Michelle
So people that have been, you know, walking up and down can just sit and rest for a couple of minutes. So that’s always been. I think our biggest complaint about certain shows and events is that they just don’t have seating just for you to to sit and rest.

01;08;02;19 – 01;08;13;13
Joseph
I agree. And then all along, I think, you know, with the exception of breaking a rib, I think it was a great trip for us. I think I think this is a show that they could spread over two, even three days.

01;08;13;13 – 01;08;25;26
Joseph
You could start it on a Friday and run it because they had enough vendors there to keep you going. They had enough panels there. Once I went back and looked at the program didn’t do a lot of celebrity stuff, but that’s OK, right?

01;08;26;20 – 01;08;29;11
Joseph
That’s not something really that we do a lot of right.

01;08;29;25 – 01;08;30;07
Michelle
But yeah.

01;08;30;08 – 01;08;31;21
Michelle
Definitely a lot of.

01;08;31;21 – 01;08;41;24
Joseph
People want people to be there multiple days for short periods of time. Like you don’t come in there and spend the whole day there. You’re coming. You spend a couple of hours each day. You do different.

01;08;41;24 – 01;08;42;07
Michelle
Things, right?

01;08;42;07 – 01;08;45;21
Michelle
And a lot of people work was playing, you know, it was.

01;08;45;21 – 01;08;46;03
Joseph
A nice.

01;08;46;03 – 01;08;48;16
Michelle
Thought. Yeah, it was almost like every other.

01;08;48;16 – 01;08;49;04
Michelle
Person.

01;08;49;06 – 01;08;51;10
Joseph
Almost feel like I should have put my costume.

01;08;51;10 – 01;08;52;13
Michelle
On. Yeah, yeah.

01;08;52;29 – 01;09;03;15
Joseph
So but anyway, it was a it was a good trip for us. And, you know, assuming that it continues on, we might do it again as a nice little getaway next.

01;09;03;15 – 01;09;19;22
Michelle
Yeah. Yeah, it was close enough for us where, you know, it wasn’t that long of a drive to get there. The other thing too is there’s, you know, even though it was off season for Ocean City, a number of the restaurants are open.

01;09;20;09 – 01;09;27;28
Michelle
Even the boardwalk now granted, the border wasn’t wasn’t open very late, but the boardwalk had a couple of things that were opened. You know.

01;09;28;02 – 01;09;28;25
Joseph
Sina.com was.

01;09;28;25 – 01;09;29;25
Michelle
Good and it.

01;09;29;25 – 01;09;31;02
Michelle
Just brought Santa.

01;09;31;09 – 01;09;44;23
Michelle
Right. And it just so happened that the same weekend as this was SantaCon where was going on that we didn’t know about. So Santa Con is always done that weekend in Ocean City, where this was is normally done.

01;09;44;24 – 01;09;56;21
Michelle
What November? I think they’ve done it before. So we’ll have to say we’ll see, you know, when they decide to do it, it was definitely a big success for them. So I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t be doing it again next year.

01;09;56;22 – 01;10;07;14
Joseph
Yeah. So we’ll be right back with our afterthoughts thoughts, go with our animal thoughts that I didn’t cue any of them.

01;10;07;16 – 01;10;28;17
Michelle
Sure. So to get your calendar ready for next year, we have Zollo Con, which will be March fifth and March sixth, and that’s in Warminster, Warminster, Pennsylvania. That’s at the Fugu, which is one of our favorite venues to go to just for the sheer enjoyment of of that location.

01;10;28;25 – 01;10;43;04
Michelle
So it’s normally done like end of February, beginning of March. This was the one that they had postponed until the summer last year, so it’s only been a couple of months since they’ve done it before and they’re, you know, doing it again.

01;10;43;04 – 01;10;45;20
Michelle
So good that they’re kind of getting back on track.

01;10;45;20 – 01;10;46;19
Joseph
Take it to last time for.

01;10;46;19 – 01;10;47;01
Michelle
The right.

01;10;47;02 – 01;11;06;21
Michelle
Because it wasn’t you weren’t feeling well. So hopefully you’ll be feeling better for this one and you can join us for that. And then come April, there is the Delaware train show on Saturday, April second, and then the April Fools Toy Show, which is Sunday, April third.

01;11;06;21 – 01;11;23;28
Michelle
Another venue that we enjoy, which is at the Nerf Shrine Center in New Castle, Delaware. They had the show in October, but we didn’t. We weren’t able to go because of band marching band season, right? So this is one they do a couple throughout the year.

01;11;24;04 – 01;11;25;06
Joseph
This is one we can get to.

01;11;25;07 – 01;11;27;19
Michelle
This is one that we will be able to get.

01;11;27;19 – 01;11;28;15
Michelle
To ground.

01;11;28;15 – 01;11;29;25
Joseph
By marching around for this one.

01;11;29;28 – 01;11;47;18
Michelle
No, not yet. We don’t know what the marching band starts. And then finally, Fan Expo, which was formerly known as Wizard World, the new company will be at the Philadelphia Convention Center also in April, April eighth through the 10th.

01;11;47;21 – 01;11;54;13
Joseph
Now this is one that I’m very interested in seeing how they handle it, because it’s been a few years since we’ve seen The Wizard World.

01;11;54;15 – 01;11;54;29
Michelle
Right?

01;11;55;12 – 01;11;57;28
Joseph
But that’s what we used to go to quite frequently.

01;11;57;29 – 01;11;58;20
Michelle
Right, right.

01;11;58;20 – 01;12;15;00
Michelle
So they they were doing discount tickets, I think up until Christmas. I’m sure there’s probably some discount tickets on a discount, you know, going on. You know, this was one that was supposed to be at the Philadelphia, the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center, but I guess.

01;12;15;00 – 01;12;15;10
Joseph
It wasn’t.

01;12;15;10 – 01;12;15;22
Michelle
Great enough.

01;12;15;23 – 01;12;26;10
Michelle
It wasn’t because we were kind of excited about that because we were like, great, we don’t have to pay for parking and deal with, you know, the long, long walk. And now we’re like, It’s in Philly again. Yeah.

01;12;26;20 – 01;12;31;04
Michelle
So we’ll say, we’ll say, you know, April is still a couple of months away. So.

01;12;31;17 – 01;12;46;14
Joseph
So but I think that was it for today’s show. We went kind of long as one of our longest shows. So I’m not going to bore people with my show plugs at the end here. Just going to say, Happy New Year to everybody.

01;12;46;15 – 01;12;47;07
Michelle
Yeah, yeah.

01;12;47;07 – 01;12;51;24
Joseph
And hopefully we’ll have a better year next year and COVID won’t be nearly as much of an impact.

01;12;51;25 – 01;12;52;02
Michelle
Year.

01;12;52;02 – 01;12;53;08
Michelle
To 2022.

01;12;53;11 – 01;12;56;07
Joseph
Amen to that. That’s it. We’re done.

01;12;56;09 – 01;12;57;14
Michelle
Be safe, everyone.

01;12;57;16 – 01;12;58;15
Michelle
Bye bye.