--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for Today Explained comes from Saks Fifth Avenue. Fall is here. Might be time to find some nice new pieces you can wear again and again.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: With Saks Fifth Avenue, it can be a breeze to shop for your personal style, like maybe a relaxed Prada blazer or Gucci loafers that are great for both work and the weekend.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is very Sean. This is very Sean-coated. Gucci loafers.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Saks says Saks makes shopping feel totally customized to you, whether that's from an in-store stylist or a visit to Saks.com, where they can show you just what you want to see.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They say they'll even let you know when arrivals from your favorite designers are in or when something you've been eyeing is back in stock.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can find inspiration for your personal style every day at Saks Fifth Avenue.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Not all journalism is the same. Take The Guardian. Our coverage has something unique. Fierce independence.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Nobody owns us or tells us what we can and can't say. So we're free to report the whole picture.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We connect what's happening in Washington to the rest of the globe. Expose corruption wherever we find it. And give first perspective on everything from wellness and soccer to culture, the climate and more.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Read, watch and listen to The Guardian for free at TheGuardian.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: On Thursday, Vice President Biden held a town hall as scheduled on ABC.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: At the same time, NBC laid a thirst trap for President Trump.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: One town hall was a thoughtful, cogent discussion of the issues facing our country.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The other featured President Trump.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We now present a rebroadcast of those town halls the way most Americans watch them, flipping back and forth, trying to decide between a Hallmark movie and an alien autopsy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is Dueling Town Halls! Yee-haw!
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is how this weekend's episode of Saturday Night Live kicked off.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Because it's now two weeks away from the election, the show seemed to have no choice but to satirize the biggest televised political events of last week.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Biden's town hall with Jim Carrey's already stale Joe Biden impression.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that brings us to 1939. A year when I went to the World's Fair and met the real Mickey Mouse.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Trump's town hall with Alec Baldwin's rancid take on Donald Trump.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that's why, that's why we're going to have a V-shaped recovery, a deep V with rippling pecs and a toned eight pack, a swimmer's body basically like I have after COVID.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it's going to be beautiful.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If the amount of live studio audience laughter is any barometer, the cold open was the latest in a long line of failed attempts to try and make something very serious and scary funny.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: For four years now, late night television has been trying to make fun of a presidency that already feels like an Onion headline.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: A presidency that makes Onion headlines a reality.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Back in March of this year, The Onion published a satirical article titled Man Just Buying One of Every Cleaning Product in Case Trump Announces Its Coronavirus Cure.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And just one month later...
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Right, and then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's really hard to satirize something that already feels like satire.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But that hasn't stopped TV from trying and failing.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: I think that comedy, especially in the United States, has a tendency to treat the world as having a sort of status quo, a sort of stability that can always be returned to.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Donald Trump inherently upends that.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Emily Vanderwerf is the critic at large for Vox.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He is this thing that points out a lot of flaws in our underlying ways we think about comedy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And in order to make comedy better in the Trump-less future, whenever that arrives, we have to really grapple with the ways that he points out flaws in our system of court jesters, if you will.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Our political comedy has a tendency, just like our political journalism, to be like, well, you know, both sides do it.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Both sides are equally at fault.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: But he puts a magnifying glass on the American presidency and the problems of sort of American empire, both domestically and globally, in a way that, like, makes us uncomfortable.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Excuse me, Mr. President, I'm heading home for the night.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Can I get you anything?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: No, thank you, David.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But hey.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How do you like working at the White House?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Are your parents proud?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I tell them I work at Applebee's.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's great.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: One more thing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know I love my daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They always keep me so calm and make sure I don't do anything too crazy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's true, sir.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So, quick question.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Are they gone?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yes.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They don't work on Shabbat.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Perfect.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When the Jews are away, the Goys will play.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Send in Steve Bannon.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: In America, political humor is, you know, we do impressions of powerful people.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: And like, there's no real underlying substance there.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: But Donald Trump's ridiculousness is so overt and on its face that a lot more people than normally would be are tuned into the ways that his administration is either uniquely terrible or terrible in a way that continues policies that they might not have agreed with, but were easier to ignore when somebody who was less overtly ridiculous was standing behind the podium.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: So you create this situation in which the only way to satirize him is sort of to satirize America.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: And that's a lot harder to do.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Because, you know, why is it that we're only mad about a thing when Donald Trump is doing it?
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Slash, why is it so hard for us to tell compelling humor about the fact that this man let a pandemic get out of control and then got sick with it himself?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Right.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that was the week the nation's quintessential variety show came back from a summer break and seemed to struggle with how to approach the humor in this sort of insane situation.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: OK, serious voice.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: While in the hospital, the president isn't allowed to see any guests, but he is expected to be visited by three ghosts, probably one from his past, one from his.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: OK, look, this is weird.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think the biggest risk you make is you don't have a comedic point of view.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Like comedy needs a point of view.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: One of the things I think SNL really struggles with is Lorne Michaels famously is like, we are making this for Republicans and Democrats.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We are making this for et cetera et cetera
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And like I honestly think that fine if you are in a world where America is not as polarized as it is right now
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But if you trying to occupy some sort of nebulous middle you end up trying to appeal to everyone in a way that just doesn't like work for anyone
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But you do that for four years every other Saturday night or whatever it is I think they do 20 episodes a season
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It gets wearing it wears you down
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It just like there's nothing more there
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Does anyone like SNL's Trump work?
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Does anyone appreciate Alec Baldwin's impression of Donald Trump?
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: And if not, why do they keep doing it?
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Alec Baldwin won an Emmy for playing Donald Trump.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: I suppose I should say, at long last, Mr. President, here is your Emmy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So it works, but certainly not for everyone, certainly not for you, I assume, based on an article you wrote earlier this month that argued Saturday Night Live is woefully unequipped for the Trump era.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: SNL just, the problem is it has to be made so quickly and on such a tight time scale that makes it almost impossible for it to do anything besides choose the most obvious impersonation of a president.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: You know, George W. Bush is kind of an idiot.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Let me make something very clear.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: There was utterly no legal or military justification for this strike.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Bill Clinton is a horny glutton.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Oh, and I actually did all that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean, I didn't.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Obama is kind of a boring technocrat.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Now I know I'm not perfect.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm distant.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm aloof.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's what SNL settled on for all of those people.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: And then just over eight years, it just kept playing that basic note.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: And I actually think that one thing that has been worse in the Trump era is SNL has now almost exclusively turned over Washington power player impressions to celebrities, and celebrities are rarely as good at building out these characters as, say, you know, imagine that Daryl Hammond used to do Trump.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He used to be their go-to for Trump.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Most of you know who I am already because I'm rich and I'm handsome.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you're a man, you want my life.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you're a woman, well, I've got what you want, okay.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: They replaced him with Baldwin, but like he's a master impressionist.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Like he would have been so much better in that role.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Right.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And part of the issue with Trump compared to all those other guys is that he's just constantly everywhere on Twitter, on TV, on the radio, on podcasts.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We don't need to hear or see more Trump.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: I think that is a thing that everyone who's trying to make fun of Trump has to bump up against eventually.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Where I think SNL has uniquely failed compared to some other programs, say, is it has never come up with anything to say about the circus surrounding Trump.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The ridiculousness of Trump makes him hard to make fun of, but that should be something looking for other targets, not just being like, oh, he shouts a lot and he has a big New York accent and he wears a lot of tanner and he kind of has a pout.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So yeah, for quite a while there, Alec Baldwin was being treated as like a hero of the second American revolution or something.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that's just not the case anymore.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But like, there is this weird reflex in the American media to be like, well, let's see what SNL had to say about it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And yet the news cycle moves so quickly now that SNL is almost an afterthought, yet we keep treating it like this thing that is trenchant.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Emily, what's like the funniest political television you've seen during the Trump presidency?
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Do you recall?
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: My long silence should be my answer.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: I will say this.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: I don't think this was a great television show, but I think it was a fascinating television show.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: And I think it had more to say about our times than just about any other satire.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: And I think that is the Comedy Central program, The President Show, which starred this guy who does an amazing impression of Trump.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Sir, people are saying you are mentally unfit for the office.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And we both know that's not true.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm incredibly mentally fit.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: My doctor said I had the most neurons of any person he had ever met.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I wish I had as many neurons.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And the basic idea of it was he was playing Donald Trump and it was kind of a sketch comedy show, but it was so smart about the ways that Donald Trump is not just sui generis.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Like he came from somewhere.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There is a reason he exists.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And like there is this tendency to treat Donald Trump as an aberration, I think, especially by a lot of political satirists.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And the President Show never did that.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: The final moment of its Christmas special, which I believe was its final episode ever, was everybody in the Trump administration singing Wise Up from the film Magnolia.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: But then it expanded to be like, oh, here's the Democrats singing this.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Here's other people singing this.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: And it's just like, it's all part of this broken system that nobody really wants to fix because the power within it is so entrenched.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: and like that show was the only show that really tried to make that point.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's not going to stop till you wise up.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: No, it's not going to stop till you wise up.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: No, it's not going to stop till you just give up.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: R.I.P. The President Show.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Anything else that works for you?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We got a shout out last week tonight with John Oliver, and people seem to really love Colbert, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: His jokes are very catered toward, I guess I'd say, your rich aunt who's really involved in certain political issues.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's broad humor, but it definitely has a point of view of Donald Trump is ridiculous.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And especially in quarantine, Colbert has been really good.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Like he's gone back to his offices and he's performing for, in essence, his family and his closest friends.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: We're facing a global pandemic that has killed 180,000 Americans.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Heavily armed Rambo wannabes are murdering people in our streets.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: The strongest hurricane in the history of the Gulf Coast is making landfall as I speak.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: And the RNC message is who up for four more years
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think Seth Meyers on NBC is always good.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's a little bit closer to the old Jon Stewart vein of you know we going to talk about the issues of the day
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We going to make jokes about them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I think he's also really smart about bringing in voices other than the traditional white guy who makes jokes about the news.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Amber, do you think Trump was mad when he saw that written on the street?
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: No, he doesn't know how to read.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: He thinks it says Blake Lively matters and he loves it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But I don't think TV is the place to find political humor.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What is?
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: I have just been so enamored with this Twitter comedian.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: Her name is Kylie Brakeman, and she makes these videos that are basically just taking various types that live in our political landscape.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: I think she's so smart about using the tools of Twitter, which is kind of the best place for political humor right now because it's the only thing that moves as fast as the news cycle.
--:-- Emily VanDerWerff: I think because often good political satire comes from people who are young and have something to prove and have nothing to lose, the internet's where those people are.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: After the break, Kylie Brakeman.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's Today Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for today's show comes from Adio.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What is Adio?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Adio is an AI-native customer relationship management system built specifically for the next era of companies.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They say it's extremely powerful, adapts to your unique data structures and scale.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: With any business model.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You'll see all your relationships in a fully fledged platform, they say, all enriched with that actionable data.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And they say you can build AI-powered automations and use its research agent to tackle some of your most complex processes to seize so that you can focus on what matters, building your company.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can join industry leaders such as Flatfile, replicate modal and so much more.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can go to adio.com slash today explained to get 15% off your first year.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's adio.com slash today explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This message is brought to you by apple card.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Subject to credit approval, Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Terms and more at applecard.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Kylie Brakeman.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I am a comedian and writer and actor.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Kylie, as you'll remember from before the break, was Emily's example of someone who's doing a better political comedy right now, all by herself for the Internet.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I guess I went viral.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I guess I'm a viral sensation.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't know.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I just started making front-facing videos in my room and I never expected them to super take off.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I was just sort of trying to prove that I was doing something creative during this time.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: Hello, my name is Suburban Housewife.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: My bio is seven random nouns and I, for one, will be voting for Trump.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: It's your phone on reverse mode.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: It's your phone on selfie mode.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: The people who are saying that we can't reopen schools are ignoring a very real problem.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: And that problem is that my children, Axel and McKenna Brentland, are bored.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: And it is a low production value character video that you shoot yourself.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: And for some reason, that's all people click on now.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: My name's COVID and I'm a little stinker.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: Me being in the president, it's just another one of my classic little pranks.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: I'm like the jokester of my friend group.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: I'm like always doing like hilarious gags.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: People kind of want something that's like immediate right now.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: They want something that's like, oh, it's your friend on FaceTime.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: Like they like and I get it.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: But also, come on, guys, let's just let's evaluate media a little bit.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: How refreshing to be hated by both sides.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: I didn't set out to be like, I'm going to trash liberals today.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: I'm a both sides comedian.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I think it resonated with people who are also online for 10 hours a day.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, then I had to go after the Trump bots.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hello, my name is Proud American.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: My job is America and my husband is a gun.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Good afternoon.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I am a stock photo of a person of color and I for one do not think Trump is racist.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: Who were, you know, it's just the classic person who's like, Hello, my name is former Democrat MAGA mom.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: My hobbies are being real and my interests are breathing.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: I, for one, will not be supporting the NBA.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: I've tweeted this 126 times.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: I am an eagle wearing a hat.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Just like these completely fake sounding people who tweet the same thing 1,200 times a day.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And there's so many fake accounts out there.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So I was just kind of making fun of that in a very heightened version.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that took off pretty well as well.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's really interesting.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So pre-pandemic, you're like this UCB improv theater comedian.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Pandemic happens, you start cranking out these more political videos on social media.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And now you've got what, like over 100,000 people telling you to keep going to make more of it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Do you consider yourself like a political comedian now three months after posting your first big video?
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: Well, I would say I like I enjoy doing it.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: I think that I do have a voice for it.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: And so it is fun to like occupy a role that I don't know if I see always, but I, it is, it's crazy to be recognized as like a legitimate form of anything because I am truly just on selfie mode.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean, I'm in, I'm shooting in 4k, but it is still selfie mode.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That being said, I'm curious, like, because you have found the success on your own, do those sort of more traditional or perhaps outdated forms of success still appeal?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Like, do you still want a big job on a late night comedy show?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Does that kind of visibility still mean something when you have your own online?
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: I mean, of course, I think I always want to be, you know, validated in the industry I want to go into.
--:-- Kylie Brakeman: And just by doing this alone, I've gotten some pretty big interviews, which was like really surprising and cool.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I think it is just about maybe if I were to be in that position, like shifting the narrative a little bit, not playing it so safe.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think it is a thing of, oh, I can't blame it on my team of writers or my producers.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Every dumb thing I say is from my own dumb brain and I have to take responsibility for that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But I think it is important to just own up if you make a mistake.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And if you say something slightly off or something you never even intended or something that could possibly be construed some way, it doesn't matter how you intended it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It matters how it was received.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I think I'm just going to try and remember that if it ever happens.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can just get canceled now and then move on.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, we should just cancel you right now on the show.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I should get canceled really early so that I can go on an apology tour.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That'll get me attention.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You're canceled.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thank you.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Truly, thank you so much.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You're so welcome.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Kylie, I really appreciate your time.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thanks.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Of course.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Kylie Brakeman is on the internet.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Her handle is Deadeye Brakeman.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: All one word.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Deadeye Brakeman.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Brakeman is kind of like, pump the brakes, man.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It looks like that, if that makes sense.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Ramos from This Is Today Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I just want to make sure your takeaway from today's episode isn't that, you know, impressions are bad.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I love impressions.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's just that Alec Baldwin's impression isn't very good.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Just today, my brother sent me a Trump impression from a comedian named James Austin Johnson that had me near tears for some hilarious reason I haven't figured out yet.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's an impression of Donald Trump talking about Weird Al Yankovic.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Enjoy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Folks, we love Weird Al.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We love Weird Al Yankovic.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Weird Al, an American original.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's got more money than sin.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: More money.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's probably, I don't know, maybe he's got more money than me.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't know if he's got more money than me, but he's got a lot of it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's got a lot of spunk and he's got a lot of talent.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I've never seen anybody who gets famous playing accordion.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I just don't see it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I just don't see it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Who's doing accordion?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We don't even know how it works.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Science doesn't even know how it works.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He gets the piano and he just, he squeezes it and it sounds really crazy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Weird Al figured it out.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: God bless him.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We think it's great that Weird Al figured out that accordion.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't even know how they do it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We don't even know how we do it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Does it need batteries?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We'll never know.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We'll never know.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And science doesn't know.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But Weird Al was very mean to Coolio.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Not very nice.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Coolio was very upset with Mr. Weird Al.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He didn't ask for the rights.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He just went and did Amish Paradise and he just didn't even ask for the rights.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He didn't even ask for it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Gangster's Paradise.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He had such a big hit with Gangster's Paradise.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And you know with Amish Paradise what they do is they take the music and they steal the whole thing they just steal the music and they write new words and it's a new song and everyone goes oh it's so great he writes new words to it and suddenly it's funny.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Best comedy album it'll never get best music never get best album breakout star it'll never do it it'll never get it it'll never get it to them no CMAs nothing but people buy it they like it because it's a good product and we love what Weird Al does.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, Weird Al has originals.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Night Santa went crazy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Albuquerque.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But they'll never like it as much as White and Nerdy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He was very mean to Mr. Chameleon Air.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And will never like the originals quite as much as the parodies.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We like the parodies so much.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He does such a good job with it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Really, really good job.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: eBay.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Backstreet Boys.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, he did eBay years after.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We totally forgot.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They come out with eBay and I had totally forgotten who are the Backstreet Boys I don't even know but we had an incredible conversation with Lou Perlman
