Most of the big blockbusters have already hit theaters and with the writers and actors on strike, most of Hollywood is at a standstill. Co-host Bruce Miller would normally be soaking up the sun of Southern California, interviewing the stars of the upcoming fall television series, but instead remains rooted in Iowa.
So instead we take a look at some streaming options that are out now or dropping soon:
- "Only Murders in the Building" and "Reservation Dogs" began began their respective third seasons. Both are available on Hulu.
- Season two of "Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty" just began on HBO.
- And the latest entry into the "Star Wars" universe — "Ahsoka" — premieres Aug. 23 with a pair of episodes on Disney+.
One show that has become a staple of summer programming is "American Ninja Warrior" on NBC. The 2023 season began on June 5 and will be wrapping soon. Bruce has an interview with Scott Behrends and his son Ben, who both advanced on the show. Their episode will air later this month.
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About the show
Streamed & Screened is a podcast about movies and TV hosted by Bruce Miller, a longtime entertainment reporter who is now the editor of the Sioux City Journal in Iowa and Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer for Lee Enterprises based in Madison, Wisconsin.
Next week
With no end to the strikes in sight, we plan to look back at the year so far. What are the hits? What are the misses? And what will stand the test of time?
Related episode
Artificial intelligence and how we deploy it is likely the top ethical dilemma the world is facing, and recent actor and writers strikes in Hollywood have put the issue in a bright spotlight. In a recent episode of The Ethical Life — How will artificial intelligence change how entertainment is made? — Richard Kyte and Scott Rada discuss how worried we should be about computers taking over more of what we watch and read, and whether live performances and sports will benefit.
🎧 The hosts discuss how worried we should be about computers taking over more of what we watch and read, and whether live performances and sports will benefit.
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Episode transcript
Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:
Welcome everyone to another episode of Streamed & Screened, an entertainment podcasts about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with the Ninja Warrior of the Cinema, Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. Did you come in all stealth-like, ready to sneak in and attack this episode?
I am all ready. I am so pumped. I actually I realized that I will never, ever be a ninja warrior and I don't have any skills. And I probably would slip on the first step. So I think I'm I'm out of it. But, you know, Terry, the the new season, the third season of only murders in the building starts this week.
And it's about podcasts now. Now, yeah. You are the biggest fan of Only Murders in the Building. I've watched one episode of season one and I don't remember why I stopped watching the show. I think it was one of those deals where my wife and I popped it on. She didn't like it, and then I just never came back to it.
So I feel like nobody wants to watch people do a podcast. Oh, it's so boring, that podcasting stuff. Podcast. Forget it. That's not a career track. That's not happening. People make a living doing that. I can't believe this is terrible. Well, in the third season now, it's been going three seasons, so you missed two of them. The third one brings in Meryl Streep and Meryl Streep plays the actress who's kind of not successful.
She's she's just hoping to get a part in a in a play directed by Martin Short and he's excited because he's back on Broadway again. Yes. And there's a part for a nanny and she gets his role as a nanny. And then they start kind of circling each other like there's going to be a relationship. But the leading man drops dead in the first episode.
So is the play going to go on? What happens? It starts this week, so you should be able to keep that all kind of condensed in one little nice package and honest. Don't spoil it at the end. Who? Who is responsible? Maybe I should go back and crush the first two seasons again, because that's Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez, is it?
Selena Gomez. Yeah. And it's weird because in the first two years they were together all the time, kind of doing the seek and destroy information thing to find out who was the killer. The third season, they're all kind of separate. So I wonder if it was a filming thing. Maybe Selena was on some tour or something or doing some other show, but she's not with the other two as much as she should be.
So it's not as much the trio, but they're all you know. Martin Short's nominated for an Emmy. The show is nominated. So we'll see when the Emmys are in 2027 or whatever, when they do start airing those things if they won for the second season. But, you know, I watched it all at once. I was able to binge it, so I felt good about that.
And then reservation dogs, are you a fan of that? No, I haven't watched that one at all. My God, my rez dogs. I love that show that is starting its third and final season. This week. And it's you know, these these kids who live on a reservation are kind of searching for something. And last season, they went to California to see that was their goal, was that they were all going to go to California to start this new life and everything.
And they realized when they got to California it wasn't what they thought it was going to be. And so now they're making their way back home in this third season, and you'll see what happens to them on that trip. They go on a bus. They thought they were going to call it a plane, but they couldn't afford the plane.
So they're riding in a bus and they stop somewhere along the way. And much happens. That's what I can say about as dogs. And then my high school musical, you know, I pitched that the last time and I was trying out that was that starts it's going to be a big thing. What's weird about this time of year is it's normally fall preview.
And if you were one of those hardcore TB watchers in your childhood, you always knew that you waited for the TV guide that would have all of the the new shows listed and you'd watch the ads that were coming and it was going to be like, Oh, I can hardly wait Thursday. And I'd memorize the schedule of all the shows are going to be on Thursday night, and then I'd be watching that.
Well, that's not happening this year because of the strikes that are going on and so there's a lot of built in material on the networks, a lot of game shows, a lot of shows that are coming from Canada that you'll see. So it isn't going to be a typical fall TV season. It's going to be, you know, kind of hit and miss.
The streaming services are still going ahead with their their programing lineup. So you'll see a lot of new shows in August, September and October that were planned to be rolling out and then they're hoping that everything will come back into shape, hopefully with the end of the strike. But we'll see what happens. It it could be weird, but it is for me, it's like withdrawal.
I'm going through those kind of shakes that I'm not going to get all my new fall shows. Oh, you sound like me right now. But. But I'm as a baseball fan. My my New York Mets have punted for the year. They traded and they traded half their team while I was out last week. And it's just it's not looking too good.
You know, you mentioned the streaming services. They're kind of secretive. We don't actually know what they have stored in the bank. I've read a few things saying that, you know, they probably have a lot more than you're aware of because they film some of these and then they just they just leave them there for a while. And then when they're ready, they they dust them off and bring them out.
They do the worst job of publicity. Can I just be honest? They really don't let you know far enough in advance what's coming. They also pick up a lot of stuff now from Asia, so a lot of Asian series because they can subtitle them and throw them out there and Paradise gave everybody that kind of confidence that let's go look at Asian markets and see what kind of shows are out there.
And then you had all the things on Netflix that they pulled out of Asian markets and there you go. Yeah. The only things that I'm really looking forward to at the moment is on Disney. Plus in the next couple of weeks, we will see the debut of the Ahsoka Ahsoka Tano spinoff, which is part of that ongoing Mandalorian book of Boba Fett Universe that takes place after Return of the Jedi.
So that's coming out on I think it's August 23rd. They've got two episodes that are going to stream that first night, and it sounds like it's going to be almost movie length, like, like 90 minutes straight of those first two episodes. And then the other one, it just came out, I think, this weekend, but I haven't had a chance to watch it yet and I don't even want to call it a good show.
But I got roped in on the first season because I'm a I'm a sports fan. Winning Time. The rise of the Lakers dynasty. It's like it's supposed to be a true story, but they they dramatize it so much. I think Jerry West, who was the GM of that those teams. Right. I think he threatened to sue because it made him look ridiculous.
So on one hand, it's kind of this oddball semi fictional account of the teams, but I just couldn't stop watching it because I found it so entertaining. You can tell it's a heightened version. You can tell that it's not you know, it's like the Weird Al Yankovic movie you could call that. That wasn't, you know, all this is exactly how it happened.
Well, it's the same way with that. With the Winning Time series, you could tell that there was a little goose there that kind of made it a little different. So I think it's fine to get that little extra something, but if you're featured in it, maybe you don't like that kind of stuff. Jerry West did not look good in that first season.
I mean, it made him look like a sociopath, but he's going around, he's throwing his MVP trophy against the wall. It may be kind of ridiculous. I don't know. Maybe it did. But, you know, it's nice entertaining. Yeah. You could be watching Kim versus Connor, the divorce series that's coming up. Yeah. So, you know, who knows? There's a lot of strange stuff going on and there are, you know, new sequels that are coming out, new kinds of series, animated series that are out there.
But again, it's not like you're not going to get a heads up on all of this. You need to do a little research. In fact, today I got a thing about a new Netflix series that I had never heard of, and I thought, wow, this is this is kind of odd that they would drop it that quickly. But, you know, there you are.
Archer's coming out with another see a season a let me ask you, though, about that Star Wars stuff. Do you like all those kind of morphing things that they've got that are coming out of the Star Wars universe or are you you know, like you say, is this too much? I'm kind of mixed. On one hand, it took them so long during that George Lucas period because he did the three movies and then he said he was done and then he did the prequels and then he said he was done and then they sold it to Disney.
And then once that happens, you know, you're going to we're doing everything. We're doing everything right. I think they've done a pretty good job with some of the shows where I want the good ones to keep on coming out. But, you know, I looked at the Emmy nominations and the Obi-Wan Kenobi mini series got nominations, and I thought that was me, you know?
Yeah, he was Ewan McGregor was a really good Obi-Wan Kenobi. I thought he he did a nice job honoring the legacy of Sir Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi. And I was really looking forward to that series. But it just it was. Yeah. And I can't believe it actually got nominated for awards. Now, Book of Boba Fett was okay.
It had some ups and downs. I think The Mandalorian has been generally pretty good, but it even this last season was it felt like a little bit of a downer to me. I'm looking forward to season two, which is supposed to be the final season of Andor because I thought that one was really good. And the funny thing is I still think that Andor was the best of all the series so far that they've done.
It's just been amazing to me. And the irony is, is I think Rogue, one of all the new movies that have happened is really been the best of the movies that they've done too. So it's just kind of ironic that that the same character arc is the one that I've been attracted to the most. I am looking forward to this.
So Kitano series, I know my daughter loves the character. She's she watches the Clone Wars episodes all the time and just loved it. So I'm looking forward to watching the show with her, but I don't know what we're going to get. And supposedly they're going to take these series and it's part of that theatrical release. They're going to tie up all the loose ends in one big movie that's going to bring Ahsoka, Boba Fett Mandalorian all together to tie up some sort of story arc and who knows when.
But that's still going up. Page from Marvel. Yeah, but they're just not doing a good job at it that, you know, you hear about people who are such hardcore Star Wars fans, but are they Star Wars fans of the original, the, you know, the classic three films and that's what makes them Star Wars fans and these other things are kind of dip in and out.
I don't know how that how that plays. It's interesting because of the generational differences. Also because if you talk to someone like me who's a Gen Xer, we don't really love those prequel movies at all. We love the three originals, but the prequel movies not so much. But my my youngest brother, who's a millennial, he was my age when the prequels came out compared to me when the original series came out.
So to him, he loves The Phantom Menace and he loves those three movies because that's what he grew up on. So I think there is a generational thing too. And then my daughter, who's 12 years old, this is all she knows. She knows the three newer movies that came out, the cartoon series, all that stuff. So I think I think it just depends on when you come into the series.
It's like your favorite animated film. It's when you were kind of in that, what, 10 to 12 age range, where that was the movie that came out. And so that becomes your all time favorite animated film. And I think when you look back on those original three, we've we've seen them here in concert versions with a symphony, you know, they show them on the screen and then the symphony plays underneath.
They do all the music accompaniment and you see all, my God, these are kind of slow or these are kind of like hacky. Yup. And that's the original ones that you thought were just like, the best ever. And when you see them in a different light, it's like, Oh, but so I don't know, you know, as one who isn't.
So I'm not a Star Trek person either, but I would am not sold on like, Oh, I've got to see the next one. That's going to be my, my future, my life. If I don't see that the world is ended. You know, I have no buy in like that for those kinds of things. And maybe it's because I think they're always dragging us around by a leash.
So I don't know. You know, you bring up before we kind of move in to the the main event, if you will, that I did want to bring up a little bit more just because the strike has created a few interesting things. You know, number one, it's it's shut down some production while shut down most production, you know, with some some exceptions here and there.
But I read recently The Little Mermaid, now it's made over $500 million globally, but it's kind of being looked upon as a failure for Disney. And they have since, you know, it's been leaked that The Hunchback of Notre Dame, notre Tom the the they were going to do a live version of that and it's done it's they've canceled it Well there's a hunchback Broadway show too that's been on the books for a long time.
So maybe they want to lean into that first before they do a film. But The Little Mermaid, they overhyped. Yeah, they they pushed that way too much. It got caught up in all of that kind of wokeness, if you will, that people were asking about. And I think that just just undercut it. I thought it had too much.
It was way too much, you know, like when they went under the sea, there was like, is it crowded down there? Is it that much stuff that you want to be like? No wonder she wanted to get out of that Sea World. She wanted it be a little less congested, but they tried to heart. And I think that's always where you go wrong.
Sometimes the simpler the better. And that's I think the Little Mermaid shot itself in the foot. Yeah. Or jail or whatever. I can't get into any of those live action remake. Oh yeah. The bunny rule. It's a mean it's all it is And I always believe that if you know, if you really loved like The Lion King, for example, rerelease it, you don't need to see a live action version where you go, Oh my God, that thing looks like he's going to kill you, right?
You know? Yeah. So it just it's my take on it, and I wish they would do that. There used to be a time when they would rerelease movies like the animated Movies, and you go, Oh my God, it's coming back. It's coming back. But see, then the DVD market just made it. Well, I got it in the closet.
We can watch it any time you want. Yeah, I don't mind. Yeah, I don't mind a remake in some cases. You know, I find it interesting is okay, you do Ocean's 11 in the sixties with Frank Sinatra, and now you want to do an updated version of it with George Clooney. You sure? I might check that out. Or, you know, The Manchurian Candidate, where you may you may want to update it for The Times.
And it's sort of the same movie and the concepts, but you updated for the modern times. I don't mind that, but if it's done well, but for something, if you're just going to do like a straight pickup of of the movie, I fell asleep during Mulan. I couldn't even watch that one. I, I went to a drive in theater to see The Lion King with the kids.
It was okay. I mean, I kind of laughed a little bit when John Oliver, he was doing the voice of of the bird, but it was I didn't need it. Yeah, there's way too much expectation and little delivered is what happens with that kind of stuff. And you know, they're looking for a money bag. It's if they can make a bunch of money off this and then they have more toys, you know, they came out with more Little Mermaid dolls.
So that's a whole industry in and of itself, I'm sure. And when Little Mermaid first came out, they as an animated film, they said they couldn't have a red haired era one because they never had one. She's got to be blond. And Ron Clements, who was one of the directors, had red hair at the time. And he said, No, I really like to see a redheaded heroine.
Well, that was like, though, the most difficult thing to bring to pass. And look what happened. It was a huge. So now they're looking to make sure that every segment is represented. And oddly enough, Barbie has done it. Yeah, Barbie, all of the Barbies in there, any kind of Barbie, you could have ever wanted. They're there and they're they're selling dolls like crazy.
$1,000,000,000 now. Yeah, it's it's huge. But I, I really caution them now when they do a sequel, if they're doing a sequel and I'm sure they're doing a sequel, that they use the same kind of sensibility. And if Greta Gerwig isn't doing it, then go with another indie director that has a different take on Barbie, you know? But if you're just trying to do more of the same, good luck.
It's just trying to merchandise, that's all. Interesting thing with Barbie, I did read that none of them are under contract to do another movie, so if they are going to do a sequel, they're going to have to get the gang back together. And, well, I feel like you could do Asian Barbie and Asian Cat and then you could do a story with that, and that could be a whole different thing.
And I'd be I'd be up for it. But you can't kind of, okay, we're going to put in, you know, Reese Witherspoon as old Barbie and all Barbie is going to be playing around with Ben Affleck as old man. I don't think that's going to work. No, no, no, no. Good luck. And I think sometimes those things should be left alone.
It's it's great to have a great idea and move on from there. You know what's interesting, The first big Black summer blockbuster and I think I've mentioned this before on the blog, the on the podcast, rather, is was Jaws 1975. I believe it was huge. And it kicked off this whole thing of summer blockbusters. We didn't do it before 75.
We didn't look forward to a film that was like going to be We must see this. And then we've had it ever since. Well, now this year they're doing a Broadway show about the making of Jaws and how difficult it was. This called The Shark. Some of it has to do with the shark. The shark didn't work or the shark doesn't work.
And all the kind of trouble they had, it's written by Robert Shaw's son and he's in it as his dad. And it's kind of weird that this comes full circle now with all this time. But yeah, there's still look they this year Meg to Meg too is another one of those kind of sea creature things that is trying to eat and destroy.
It's the same stuff they will repeat until tomorrow comes and we tell them no more and then they'll still repeat. They'll still do. I mean, you look at all those horror movies, how many times have they brought Freddy back or whatever, or Jason, and you think, Oh, good, he's dead now. And like Halloween, they just did a threequel with Jamie Lee Curtis.
And I don't know how they could bring that guy back again because they ground him up and everybody in town saw it. But hey, it could happen. Be ready. Those Fast and Furious movies, too. They keep bringing all their characters back from the dead to a well. And then it's not even a horror movie. No. And that they do all that kind of air stuff that you think, wait a minute here, now we don't want this.
Let's just go back and look at the past. And as I always use the Polar Express as my all example of why we don't need a guide, you stop right there. Not a fan of that. Oh, I hated that movie. That movie creep me out so much. I thought, it's a Christmas horror film. And those people looked all kind of dead and scary.
And even Tom Hanks, who was in it, looked bad. He did look terrible. Right. And he played so many characters so that I wouldn't show that to a kid. I'd read the book two of them before I'd show them that movie, because that movie was dreadful. Oh, yeah. So what do you have for us this week? You've got a little interview.
Okay. So you know, you know that I'm a huge fan of American Ninja Warriors. I would love that show because it's everything I can't do. And I love watching and I love cheering them on. And I think all if they only had done this or if they'd run faster, if they'd done this and they're getting near the finals.
And that's another thing I always worry about is I never get to see the finals. This year I am clued in because I talked to a father and son, the first father and son to make the finals of American Ninja Warrior, and they tell me it's the last week in August that the finals will be held and you'll get to find out who actually won.
So this is my my impetus for watching that. Scott and Ben Behrends are their names, and they have created their own Ninja Warrior gym, for lack of a better term, and they train you on each of the apparatuses or apparatus I that you would see on the warriors, so that then you would be able to try and do it because that always freaks me out is like, Oh my God, they threw in something.
Now that I've never I've never seen this thing, how do I grab it? What do I do? And I you know, I was curious about some of the kind of technical aspects of this. Like I said, do they wipe the equipment off after somebody has been through it? Because what if they were a real sweater and they were sweating up all of the equipment and then you have to come next and you slip because they didn't wipe the step up, but they do wipe the stuff off.
So there is your $0.02 worth on that one. But they do say it's hugely popular. They have little kids that are in their gym doing this whole kind of ninja stuff. They have a series of YouTube videos. If you want to follow them. You can see, you know, the techniques and the training things that they tell you. But it is, I must tell you, sorry, dear, it's a young man's game.
Scott The father tells me that kids have an advantage at this that we don't have. Although they did tell me, you know, Bruce, there is somebody at our gym who's 70 years old and about 70 years old. That's like, close to me. I don't like hearing that. That's old. But there they are. But yeah, so you'll hear them talk about what this is because it was fascinating to me.
If you're fast as fascinated as I am about this, you'll hear kind of the secrets of what it's like to be a ninja and what they go through and what's better. Should you wear long pants? Should you wear short pants? Should you go shirtless? All those things that you probably have wondered at some point, is that the advantage or the disadvantage that will keep you from being that big winner at the end?
So this is Scott and Ben Barons and they're from Cedar Falls, Iowa. This show is an obsession of mine. I love watching it. Awesome. I know that I could never, ever do it. And I think that it takes a special kind of person. Do you guys see that to get to a point? I think it's definitely the right kind of person.
But, you know, it's fun seeing all kinds of ages jumping in and figuring out, you know, what they what they didn't think that they could do that they can actually do. So, Ben Caplan, are there certain skills or certainly exercises that you need that you have to be able to do to be able to compete pull ups? I know that that's the trick.
I mean, obviously, like any sport, there's just a ton of technique that you learn over the years. And, you know, I it's definitely a up and coming sport that like anything, the more training you have, the more experience you have on the courses. I mean, it definitely pays off. It's I would say there's especially once you get to a certain level, there's no chance anyone that hasn't done this before could ever even keep up with.
But the early start, the faster you get better. So if you start young like you do, it's a good thing, right? Very much so. So are you better than Dad or not? Maybe. Maybe there's you know, there's no maybe there. He's competing pro and doing quite well where I'm in the Master's division. And that old timers. Is that what that means?
Exactly. Yeah. So I'm 82 and yeah, that's, I mean it's just a whole nother level, you know, it's like going from college to pro sports. Like it's, it's maybe even high school to pro it's, it's a huge jump when you're 42. How old are you? I'm 60. Is that kind of a good wheelhouse to be in or. Yeah, right.
Year or is five better? Yeah. Right now a lot of teens because they've, you know, been doing it for six years or so 6 to 8 years like me. So basically right now the best things in the world are, you know, 18, 19 years old and there's a bunch of young. So yeah, so again, we're aiming for that big that big prize you you're the first father son team to make it to nationals.
Is that right? Yes. Yep. On American Ninja Warrior. Yep. We're the first father son duo to make it to the national finals. Did you know that going in that you would be the first or did you just not even think about it? Yeah, I. I actually had no clue. We didn't really know until it kind of happened and they announced it and I'm like, Oh, I guess I never thought of that.
Yeah. So it's pretty exciting. So is there competition between the two of you? Do you compete and say, Oh, I did that one better than you did? Or I think the competition is if I ever beat Ben, it's incredible. There's a few things that I'm generally good at doing an obstacle. The very first try. Yeah. And that most people don't know this, but an American ninja warrior, you don't get to try anything.
They just kind of tell you the rules and you have to go. So generally it pays off. If you can be good at your first try doing something. And I'm I'm pretty good at that. But since I'm so old, I need to rest and recover between obstacles where he's just motoring through it, you know, keep sprinting. Yeah. You know, the thing that bothers me is do they wipe this stuff off after somebody's been on it?
Because I would think, what if you had sweaty hands in front of you? And then they they've touch things and you kind of slide off things. Do they do that. Yeah. So they actually have like grip tape on the obstacles. Nothing, almost nothing is just like a straight metal bar, right? There's usually tape or something on it that's grippy to help you.
And then obviously if you know it gets where splashed onto pads, it'll dried off and stuff before you run. Okay. Because I worried I could just see this sweater person that was in front of me who would go through the hole, Is that bad? So I throw that the forward part of me and then I would drop right away.
Yeah, there's some of that. But like he said, most of the top rob schools have like grip tape on them, so it doesn't really affect you as much. You're not allowed to talk on the show until the very last stage, if you will, for finals. So then in that can be a good thing, right? Because the course courses, number one looks cleaner.
And number two, sometimes charcoal after a while does kind of compact and get slick. When you are preparing for this, how do you know what kind of obstacles they might have when you get to, you know, the television stage? You know, you don't you really can't usually will go back and watch seasons before just to see what obstacles they've had, you know, what obstacles they thought up last year, because usually the newer ones will stay.
But, you know, we really have no clue whatsoever. Well, then which ones are your worst and which ones are your best, like obstacle wise? Yeah. Yeah, Which ones are you really good at? You go suck. I think I would say I'm I'm pretty good at any kind of big dynamic move that kind of throws you and like I said, I can generally hit an obstacle pretty well.
But it's the long grip endurance ones that really tax me fast. I just don't have that endurance as much as I used to. Oh, I would say mine is like I would say it's a lot of endurance, but also like change of direction. It's basically when you're like hanging and your kick, your swing is going one way and you got to change it and take a different direction.
I'd say that's probably one of the best that which are the ones that you can't do well. And you it's so hard to get consistent on balance. Like that's that's basically the thing that every ninja fears is falling on balance because yeah, so our to be consistent and on and on the show those are obstacles that are generally more sketchy balance I'll say where it's just kind of sprinting across these obstacle work.
Those are sometimes hard to set up in a gym, right? Because if you fall on those, you fall in the water. But if you would fall in a gym, you'd might like roll your ankle or how, you know. So I kind of all those like say a prayer and run across obstacles and you know, ninjas practice just sprinting through something.
Yeah generally it's not a slow slack line type balance. It's generally a sprint across. So but yeah, every, every ninja loves upper body and rarely do they like balance. What about the water? Is the water cold? Yeah. So obviously. Well a lot of people don't know is they film at night so it's you know in California it's still cause you know 40 degrees or depending on the time of year.
Yeah. Depending on the time of year. It's like 40 degrees at midnight, you know, that's an hour competing. So water's outside temperature. So it's not very not very warm, but usually you're zoned out if you fall. So you don't really feel it, but you start to dry off in the way the finals like that. Have you gotten hurt?
Neither of us have really gone out on the show. There's a couple people that have. But yeah, when you look, you know, sometimes when they fall, they'll hit like the wall. The the water wall. And I think, oh my God, they hit their head. Something is bad here, but I'm assuming it's really padded. So that yeah, the show does a fantastic job making sure everything's as safe as possible.
And, you know, I mean, even training kind of going back to obstacles and what what to work on for the show is like, we don't even know. But you have to kind of put yourself in these kind of big situations. Yeah. You have to figure out, right, that
 situation. So sometimes I'm less likely to do this because I'm 42, but sometimes you kind of put yourself big, huge moves like the show has and you know, if you fall off of that at a gym, like I don't care how much padding you have, it's you're going to feel it.
So a lot of ninjas have kind of been through in, you know, you almost practice how to fall. Yeah. So overall, I mean, like I said, the show does a fantastic job making sure everyone's safe. When did you first get interested in this? At what point and what prompted it? Yeah, so I think the first time I ever, like, fell in love with Ninja was actually not Ninja is gymnastics and P.E. and I just loved it.
And my dad made a course in our backyard. And your gymnastics course you're taught. Yeah. They kind of made, like, an obstacle teasing, just stuff. Yeah. And that's how back door indicated was born was offer making courses in our backyard and then we discovered snowballed from there. Yeah. So Backyard Ninja Kids is a YouTube channel. We started up shortly after they boys came home and we started making obstacle courses in our backyard.
Wanted to kind of become that positive influence on social media and teach my boys at a young age what that looks like. And then, yeah, a couple of years early, several months later, we went to our first ninja gym down in Saint Louis and it kind of snowballed from there. And then a couple of years later, we opened up our gym ninja view and yeah, boys were on American Ninja Warrior.
JR What cool thing was the gym wasn't even open, so they just had backyard experience and maybe one or two gym experiences really. So it's kind of cool to see. That was their very first ninja competition. Was this TV show. Wow, Really cool to see how they performed realistically, just using backyard, like not even really crazy or moves or anything and just but kind of talk.
Going back to what we said at the beginning, like they just knew the moves, they knew how to do peg boards. They knew how to, you know, do some dynamic stuff, but you put yourself in a position and you got to figure it out. When do nationals happen or have they happened in? You already know how it all worked out.
Yeah, yeah, it's already been recorded. And yeah, you just have to tune in and see what happens. I guess you have a date for the finals. You know, this is the other thing I get about this show. Okay? I'm sharing it with you so you can share with the others is they don't billboard enough. When the finals are, it's like suddenly it's like, wait a minute, I went away for a week and it's not there.
So they need to make a better attempted letting you know when the finals are. But would you we know when they they'll air We we know that our episode will be August 28. Okay. At least currently sometimes, you know, playoffs are different things than they go as it was. The Olympics can shift it right, that ours will be August 28 and yeah well, do they swear you to secrecy and then they'll kill you if you say anything is that.
No, that works. I mean yeah, it's it's a it's a, you know, a sporting event that's based on a reality TV show wrapped around it. Right. So of course, they don't want any I mean, just like American Idol, right? It's already done and recorded. But they you can't give away the winner otherwise. No, I don't know. So. Right.
You don't see that kind of thing. Yeah. I get about being quiet about it. I would be that would be tough. It is tough sometimes, but it's also like there's this exciting element, right? Like sometimes like even when I wasn't on the show, but my fellow gym mates were like, It's kind of fun to see them on the show, but it's like when you know the results, it's like not quite as fun.
Yeah, you don't so necessarily want to watch it. Like this season it's less fun to watch because I know how everybody does. Yeah, but like seasons before that. I love it. Yeah. Thanks Bruce, for that interview. I will probably have to go and check that out. I know the kids love to watch American Ninja Warrior, so probably have to tune in near the end.
And least I think I'm like you. I've never actually seen the end. I'll watch it periodically during the summer because it's on and it's just there and I need something, but I have no idea who's ever won or I'm counting on you training. I want you to be a warrior right down there on the sideline in the t shirt, cheering you on like crazy.
We'd call you. What would we call you? What would be a good name for you? Oh, man, the pod master that were there. I am. So they're pod master. Pod pod board. I would slip and fall immediately. I'd probably hurt myself before I even got on to something I'd be getting out of that year. Would they announce you and you come out and you stand there, Fall down, Break in there.
There we are. There we are. So we here at LA Enterprises produce quite a few podcasts across the company. Another one that I thought I'd bring up as we close out this episode, it's called The Ethical Life, and it's hosted by Scott Rodda, a colleague of mine who manages social media. And he he does it with Richard Kyte, who is a professor at a university in Wisconsin and their most recent episode of The Ethical Life.
It's called How Will Artificial Intelligence Change How Entertainment is Made? And they talk about the ethical aspects of the great debate as far as AI goes tied to movies, because that's one of the things that is holding up these negotiations with actors who fear that AI is going to come in and, you know, maybe take some of their jobs and and that kind of thing.
So you if you get a chance, go check out the Ethical Life. How will artificial intelligence change how entertainment is made? It is available on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Can you do a link? We will have a link in this episode. Show notes as well. Go ahead. Oh, that sounds great. Well, I'm counting on it, but I am an A.I. A.I. person because I can just imagine what they can do with that and how.
And so, you know, you're I'm I'm fully confessing that I don't like it, But maybe there will be that one instance where you say, I love that. That's so wonderful. It's the best thing ever. And Marilyn Monroe is back. But I don't think I want it. No, it's an interesting conversation if you get a chance to listen to it, because they do talk about just even the evolution of special effects.
And, you know, we as watchers, viewers of movies, TV shows, would we even notice it if if they used A.I. because we've gotten so used to seeing such crazy special effects. So, you know, they talk a little bit about the evolution of, you know, like a Christopher Reeve in Superman years ago, being hung with wires and all that stuff.
And now you've got, you know, all these movies being produced with A.I. and other other animation in ambition. Right. Right. You know, what happens is usually they work two weeks and then they're done and everything else is being done by an animator to make sure it looks like they've just done all that kind of stuff. I even question if sometimes the superheroes are wearing the costume.
I swear it's a stunt man who wears the costume. They throw him around a little bit and then if they need to, they superimpose the face of the actor on them. So, yeah, see what happens. But that sounds fascinating. That's what we want to watch next week. You know, what I'd like to do was that I'd like to look back at the the year to date and look at the things that were and the things that were misses and the things that will last.
It sounds good. Yes. Let's do that. All right. Make your list. All right. I'm going to start making my list. I will check it twice. We'll see. Oh, we know that Santa Claus. That Santa Claus. You're going to be a ninja. Remember? I am a die hard. But. All right. Well, on that note, we will wrap this show.
Thank you again for listening to this episode of Streamed & Screened.
