02x06 - Hollywood

[bunniefuu]

Orson Welles wrote, produced, directed, he starred in it.

I am [Bleep] up.

[Groans and hiccups]

And Ub looks at him, and he says, what about a mouse.

And Walt Disney, he's like yeah, let's do that.

Nancy Davis, she knows I got... I got to talk to the President of the screen actors' guild, Ronald Reagan.

I've had a bottle of whiskey, so tell me what you want me to do.

[Patriotic music]

2x06 - Hollywood

Old Hollywood was like liberally glamorous.

It was innate in those people, and nowadays, it just feels constructed but super inauthentic.

All of those people had like a certain class.

And you didn't know anything about Jimmy Stewart, but you wanted to.

Whereas now, if he was on Twitter, you'd know everything about Jimmy Stewart and you wouldn't care.

This was before cell phones, it's before iPads, before people had other distractions. back in the day, that was the magic, that silver... what was on the silver-screen.

Bergie.

Waters.

How many beers will we have?

We'll have as many as it takes to tell a good story.

That's a many.

Oh, you've already been drinking.

Drippies.

I'm really drunk right now.

[Chuckles]

Yeah, is it bad?

Hello, today we are going to be discussing Orson Welles, and William Randolph Hearst.

William Randolph Hearst was the biggest media mogul in America.

Three out of five people read a Hearst paper.

He had owned 25% of the world's most valuable art, the second biggest private zoo in the world, he had started to build San Simeon.

The [bleep] property was like half the size of Rhode Island, man.

Not his wife, but this woman, Marion Davies, next thing you know she's living in San Simeon, loving it.

Meanwhile, Orson Welles, a boy genius prodigy, had just done "w*r of the Worlds."

Orson would say things like tonight at 7:52 P.M.

We spotted a craft entering Earth's atmosphere.

It lands on the white house lawn, yes, yes.

Hollywood came a-knockin', and they said Orson, babe, what do you want, babe?

You want a... you want a three-picture deal?

We don't say a word, all the money you want, babe?

Done. Green lit, done [Bleep] deal.

Orson's having some late-night, probably hammered, cocktails with a one Herman Mankiewicz, screenwriter, and Mankiewicz all of a sudden starts going like, yeah, I was... I was at San Simeon the other week, and Orson's like, you have inside info and... and like little juicy tidbits of what's happening at the Hearst castle?

He's like, oh, yeah.

He's like, oh [Bleep], I have an inside guy.

Do tell, do tell.

I partied there regular.

I'm having drinks, smoking cigs, drinking champy, having delicious appetizers with Marion Davies and Dougie Fairbanks and all those people, loving it.

He's witnessing this stuff first hand of [Chokes] hold on.

[Bleep]

Sorry, whiskey beard.

[Laughs and burps]

Oh, mama.

But then Hearst would leave these parties and go out and spread all his newspapers out and just lord over his powers, like I control media, which controls the world.

I am [Bleep] God.

And Orson goes stop.

I need you to write me a screenplay about this, and I am going to make it into a feature film.

Deal was made.

Orson Welles knew that we need to kind of keep this top secret, and keep it under wraps because of Hearst.

Mankiewicz would pound out the pages, Orson Welles kept on reading this stuff, he was like, this is amazing screenwriting.

This is gonna be the best movie ever, like I'm making a [Bleep] kickass movie man.

Capiche?

He wrote, produced, directed, he starred in it.

When the movie was complete, the most powerful gossip columnist of the time, she said to Hearst, they made Marion Davies look like a complete floozy, horrible person.

I mean the... the whole movie was basically trashing the Hearst name.

Hearst hears about this, and he sees red.

He starts threatening any newspaper out there if you put a review, if you put an ad out for this, you're done.

He told every movie theatre, if you run this movie, we will never place an ad for one of your films ever again.

So.

Hmm, um.

Oh, what was I talking about?

Citizen Kane?

[Laughs]

That was very general, um [Laughs] so, RKO called Orson Welles at two in the morning and said Orson, no one is going to show your film.

Wonderful, show it in tents. Put up a quote that says, "the movie that no one will let you see."

As fate would have it, Orson and William Randolph Hearst were in the same elevator.

Welles and Hearst never look at each other.

Orson says, so Mr. Hearst, did you see my film?

He said, no, and I never will.

And he said, Kane would've seen it.

Kane would have seen the film!

It got nominated for nine academy awards.

They won one Oscar for best screenplay.

William Randolph Hearst hated, loathed, and wanted to crush the movie, but that's where his legacy is remembered, as Kane. is the great [Bleep] movie, dude.

It is haunting and there's nothing like that movie at all.

There's nothing will ever be like the movie.

It is such a wonderful [Bleep] thing, I love it.

And he would... also did the voice in the Transformers movie.

[Laughs]

Are you [Bleep] kidding me?

This is... what?

No, I'm out of here.

[music]

Both: Cheers.

All right, let's... let's learn.

Hello, today we're talking about Ub Iwerks, the creator of Mickey Mouse.

So our story starts in 1919 in Kansas City, USA.

Walt Disney was a draftsman. Ub Iwerks was an animator.

Ub goes, hey Walt, what if we were to put a live action person into an animated frame?

Yes, that's it.

They create something called the Alice Comedies, but there's no money in it.

And Walt, though, is ambitious.

He goes off to California and he goes to the head of Universal Animation, Charles Mintz.

And he was like, this is amazing, I can use this, but the quality has to be as good.

Walt's like, Ub, get out here, ASAP.

Yo, this is better than being in Kansas City, 'cause Kansas City is like you could like give me the deed to the city and I still wouldn't even stay there.

And he drives the seven days to California.

He takes these... oh no, let me back up.

At this point, Ub came up with Oswald, the lucky rabbit.

So Oswald is great for Universal.

And Walt goes to Charles Mintz and he says, listen, we are [Bleep] k*lling it, time for you to pay us some more money.

And Mintz, Mintz looks at him and he laughs.

[Laughs] I'm gonna give you less money.

And Mintz goes, I have signed all of your animators, and I own Oswald, he's mine.

Walt Disney vowed from that day, not only will I ever not own any character I create, I will never not own them.

They-the [Laughs] I think.

He said to Ub, Ub, you with me?

And Ub, yet again, left with Walt Disney, and Ub said to him, what are we doing Walt?

And Walt's like, we need a character, Ub, what do you got?

What about a horse?

Nope.

What about a dog?

Nope.

[Sighs] What about a cat?

No, man, we got enough cats.

We got Felix the cat, there's a lot of cats out there.

What else you got?

What about a mouse?

Walt's like, yeah, let's do that.

But what happened next was all Ub Iwerks, okay?

So Ub locked himself in the studio, and he churns out 600 to 700 frames a day, unheard of.

He did two months of animation in two weeks, and he created a character, Mickey Mouse.

He sat down and drew that cartoon plain crazy, Walt loves it, but he goes you know what?

We need something bigger, and Ub was like, but what if we could sync sound to it?

What if we did our next cartoon where we could see the action happening in the time with the music, and Walt was like yeah, let's do sync sound.

So steambay... so steam mill... so Steamboat Willie comes out and it blows audiences away.

They went, I can see that mouse whistling.

I can hear the mouse whistling, oh my God, this mouse is whistling along with what his mouth is doing.

There's [Bleep] sync sound.

There were standing ovations.

Mickey Mouse became an icon overnight.

He was referenced in movies and songs, and it creates Disney.

Like this em... embellishes their mice to everybody.

They know that this is like the game has changed.

With the added pressures of Mickey doing really well, Disney, he wanted to oversee every bit of production.

Hey, you got to meet this timing sheet and we got to be here by then, and productivity and [Groans].

Now at a party in Hollywood, a little kid came up to Walt Disney, he's like, hey, Mr. Walt Disney, I love Mickey Mouse.

Would you draw me a picture of him?

Walt's like, sure, kid, I'll draw you a picture of Mickey Mouse, and he handed the paper to Ub Iwerks, and Ub goes, whoa, are you [Bleep] kidding me?

This is... what?

No, I'm out of here.

Okay, so let's go back.

So... where was I? Ub and?

Oh, Walt Disney?

And Ub starts Iwerks Animation.

Crazy stuff happened in his cartoons.

You know, girls dresses would blow off and, you know, animals would lose limbs.

Like, it was anarchy.

But the Hays commission comes in.

Those are the guys who were starting to put limitations on what you could and couldn't show, and they were like this is not gonna fly anymore, so that was the end of Iwerks Animation.

A friend of Ub's is working at Disney studios still.

He's like, Ub's out of work. You could use him.

Walt agrees to have Ub for lunch.

He says Ub, I want you back. Please come work for me.

And Ub looks at him and he says, Walt, I want to come back and work for you, but I will never work for you in animation.

I want to work for you in photographic effects.

And Walt is like, yeah, you're the guy for that, come and do that for me.

He was a rock star for Walt.

He... he... he built stuff so they could do Mary Poppins, the Penguin Dance. He wins a technical Oscar for that.

Ub Iwerks had his hand in every single ride at Disneyland, creating the special effects.

And Ub d*ed a Disney legend.

So this is a real Disney ending.

Or, as I like to think, as I like to think, this is an Iwerks ending, 'cause he was the man.

[Clinks glass] To Ub.

To Ub.

What the [Bleep] kind of name's Ub?

Hey, how are you?

How's it going?

Adam.

Derek.

Hi, Derek.

Nice to meet you Adam.

Hello.

So this is one of the things that old Hollywood had that new Hollywood still has?

Yes, very much so.

This is my g*n, this is what I use for...

That's just a door knob.

That's just a door knob, yeah.

And we can... if they cock it, if they... if they load b*ll*ts into it.

This is like bushes. This is what we fake for bushes 'cause we can't have trees in here and stuff like that.

Hey, what's that in the bush?

Yeah.

What do you do with this?

[Taps] It's just a can.

Yeah, I've cut myself many times.

Oh, cool.

You probably will as well.

Back off.

[Shing]

Am I like the classic cliché like, oh he's gonna be fascinated by that?

Everyone's... everyone's fascinated with the shing.

All right, let me try to walk like a lady in here.

[Footsteps] Sure.

That's... I'm a lady of the night.

Do you think I have what it takes?

I don't.

Thank you for your honesty.

You got it.

Hello, I'm Drew Droege. I've been drinking heavily, and I'm going to talk to you all about the Reagans.

Ronald, Nancy, and others. Get ready.

Hu... oh, hi.

So, it's 1949. A young actress named Nancy Davis somehow gets on a communist black list.

She knows I got... I got to talk to the president of the screen actors' guild, Ronald Reagan, because he's gonna help me.

He was in a movie called Knute Rockne, and he was in Bedtime for Bonzo.

A lot of people don't remember Ronald Reagan was very liberal.

This is a guy who's like, hey, I'm an actor, I'm the President of the... of the screen actors' guild, I love my life, I'm hot, and pro-union and all that stuff.

Then somebody said to Ronnie, like, this actress, Nancy Davis, wants to meet with you.

Ronnie saw Nancy and was like, she's hot, I'll meet her.

So they met for dinner afterwards, and Nancy walks in, and she is bangin'.

She's like got it all happening.

Spilt... I spilt on myself.

Do you have any drinks... do you have any glasses that are any smaller... smaller lipped?

We broke into this place, I don't know whose it is.

Where are we?

[Laughs]

During dinner, and you know, she was like, I'm on a black list of the communist party, and he's like... he was like, what?

And she was like, yes. Can you believe it?

And he was like, I can't.

You don't seem like a communist to me, and she's like, I'm not.

There was nothing communist about her, she was always rabidly conservative.

He got to the bottom of things and realized it was a clerical error, so he got her off that list.

And they were like, let's fall in love.

Boom.

Hollywood.

Honestly, like I'm wasted.

I'm beyond wasted.

Yeah, so just... pretend you're Nancy...

I've had a bottle... I've had a bottle of whiskey, so tell me what you want me to do.

Just pretend... like I'll do whatever the [Bleep] you want me to do, but I... I want... I want to make a good show.

[Laughs]

Okay, yeah. Okay.

The Reagans were married in 1952.

Nancy, you know, definitely convinced Ronnie, we're... we are has-beens.

Like we... we're not gonna make it in Hollywood.

You need to be more conservative.

Ow. Oh, [Bleep].

You okay? What'd you do?

I'm fine.

I stabbed my own eye out.

How did you s*ab your eye out?

What?

Let's be famous, you know, politically, and become the... the faces of conservatism?

She was basically like his manager.

You need to be the movie star that you are, always smile, and hold your head to a half, 45 degree right angle.

I think she, in her mind, ran her own studio, and... and... and she had one... one player, and that was Ronald Reagan.

Remember, busineth... business.

So it was 1964. Barry Goldwater was running for president, a hyper-conservative, a boring human being.

They employed Ronald Reagan, who was this famous, great actor to give the speech.

In the speech he said you can either go right or left.

But that's not what it is, it's either up or down.

And up, you ca... you can choose to be up towards individualism, or down in the depths of totalitarianism.

People were like, wow, I need to watch this.

He has a chiseled jaw, I trust him.

I like this guy.

And so like, then he got very popular with the Republicans.

So they were not successful actors as actors, but they were incredibly successful actors as politicians.

And Ronnie became the Governor of California.

Nancy was always about being famous on any level.

Like, if I'm not going to be a movie star, I'm gonna be, you know, in the White House.

All of sudden, it's the '80s.

He started to run for president. He made everyone feel good about... about being American again. And Nancy coached him.

Nancy was like, talk about the children, talk about, um, holidays, talk about booze, talk about all of it.

[Laughs]

Landslide won, because they wanted a hero.

She was in charge.

She did it, and it was... it was one grand performance, until the end.

Pfft, what are we... what are we talking about right now?

Just, well...

[burps]

The end... this is bad.

Hi, everybody...

I just burped on Comedy Central.

[music]

That's, we need to kind of keep this top secret, and keep it under wraps because of Hearst and...

[laughter]...Okay.

You're right, I agree.

Yeah.

100%.

Go back, do it again.