Episode 7

The seventh episode of Lecture Hall, uploaded on November 9, 2020. Recording likely took place on November 8th or 9th, as many people participated in various post-election celebrations on November 7 and 8th as the election results were more or less finalized for Biden.

recapped by Kevin on 10/17/21

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## Episode Summary

### Introduction

* B&D are experiencing a post-dancing in the street hangover
* Dylan is upset about a motorcycle, the first celebrity guest
* Broti manages to sneak in the word “circuitous” into conversation and Dylan doesn’t let her get away with it
* RIP to a Real One to the Funniest Person in Twitter (On Purpose) (*this was before the account was suspended in January 2021*)
* Broti’s Comedy Writer Career Corner
	+ Broti wishes Trump a successful comedy writer career, but only if he knows he must be a Staff Writer before Story Editor
	+ Dylan decides he should earn the promotion to Story Editor based on his “it’s called genes” tweet (*this link likely doesn't go anywhere fun because the account is suspended as of October 2021*)
* Broti and Dylan talk about their favorite Trump tweets
	+ Coca-Cola/garbage tweet is one of Broti’s favorites
	+ Dylan admires the Stewpat “like a dog” tweet for its incredible accuracy re:dog behavior
	+ Broti realizes she’s a big fan of his USE OF CAPS
	+ Broti gives it up for his funny nicknames
	+ Dylan mentions a tweet about Barney Frank’s nipples
* B&D agree that Biden is legally dead
* Broti is excited that Trump can now just be celebrated “as a poster”
* Dylan reveals she loved “The Apprentice” in the fifth grade
	+ Dylan imagines a sort of “The Bachelor”/”The Apprentice” combo that I would watch, honestly
	+ Broti suggests “The Bachelorette” meets “Shark Tank” and it seems that Dylan prefers this version
* “Weird Things You Had to Do in School” Corner
	+ Dylan mentions having to come up with a restaurant in fourth grade
	+ Broti tells a story about having to come up with a law in fifth grade and her teacher who actively paid favorites
* Dylan reveals that she misunderstood a very funny Model U.N. joke by Broti, thinking a girl in high school was named Azerbaijan
* Dylan sums up heterosexuality as “you’re kinda attracted to a guy, and then you see their mom be like ‘Finish your milk’”
* Broti decides Dylan will go first this week, continuing the alternating topic order
* Dylan doubts her topic is funny because she is tired and hungover, but instead is just something she is “genuinely interested in”, mermaids

### Dylan's Topic

* Broti decides “mermaid” should be spelled “mermxid” in order to be more progressive and Dylan excitedly agrees
* Broti realizes they have somehow returned to Freak Week as mermaids have a bird connection (not sure why that doesn’t mean Beak Week)
* It turns out Dylan’s topic is actually manatees since they are frequently confused for mermaids, and in a podcast first, Dylan must leave the room and forces Broti to vamp
	+ Broti decides she will sing Beyonce’s “Pretty Hurts” but cannot find the lyrics quickly enough
	+ Dylan has a hot take about “Pretty Hurts”, but this again leads into Trump/Biden talk as they imagine Biden dropping a surprise album
* B&D reiterate that Azerbaijan is a beautiful name for a teen in 2010
* Dylan claims mermaids were sometimes 2,000 ft long, leading Broti to imagine which part was the long part and uttering the extremely funny phrase “the tallest tits in the world”
* B&D ponder the dual nature of mermaids
* Dylan shares a misremembered lyric from Beyonce's "Flawless (Remix)" about propofol
	+ Broti says she appreciates "any song that rhymes…" but never finishes her thought here, just says she likes the sarcophagus/esophagus line in Kanye West’s "Monster"
	+ Dylan then says how funny the pharaoh/sarcophagus lines are dropping a “pussy” on the podcast for the first time
	+ Dylan then shouts out to Jeff Baena’s retelling of a Steve Martin joke with a second p-bomb (ok I’m going to stop keeping track of that)
		- Broti says she loves a double reversal, which Dylan then nicknames a DR or Dominican Republic
* Dylan imagines J.D. from Scrubs as a mermaid which makes Broti laugh pretty hard
* Dylan gives some meta-commentary on her lecture style before they devolve into funny bits about fruit
	+ Broti shocks Dylan by talking about fruits you could eat underwater
	+ Dylan feels like apples are not a good trade for treasure, and Broti agrees, adding they are often hit or miss
	+ Dylan animatedly agrees that apples are hit or miss, and they discuss other fruits in this category
	+ B&D disagree about avocados, which leads Dylan to ponder how their frequent “what animals are other animals” conversations (see Episode 5) never evolve to consider that avocados are fruits
	+ Dylan reveals that Koko’s sign for avocado was “butter vegetable”
* The Little Mermaid Corner
	+ Broti’s opinion on the movie (assuming they are discussing the 1989 Disney animated film “The Little Mermaid”) - it was fine, dress could have been more elaborate, not enough iconic looks
	+ Dylan felt like Ariel’s body was on display for her to want to emulate, and was the most desperate, relatable queen
	+ B&D agree Jasmine is the prettiest Disney princess, and had a great belly shirt
	+ Dylan starts to wrap up the Ariel conversation by mentioning “that bitch is thirsty”
	+ B&D then discuss animated Disney film easter eggs with what can only be described as distant apathy
* Broti admires Dylan’s subversion of the difficult actress trope by writing a Greek riddle into her contracts
* Dylan claims that if she saw a fish with the face of Jerry Springer she would worship it
	+ Dylan mentions an iconic episode of Maury where a person dressed like a cotton ball scared a cotton-ball-phobic person
	+ Broti then says that a person dressed like a pickle chased around a pickle-phobic person, but I don’t know if that actually happened (they just brought out a big plate of pickles but I will admit that woman did haul ass when she saw the plate of pickles)
* Rifle Corner
	+ Dylan loves measuring things in how many rifles it would take to take it down
	+ Dylan says it would only take one bullet, or even if it was just pointed at her
	+ Broti says she could just be hit with the rifle
* While discussing fathers and daughters, Broti becomes upset about Mh Zh closing and they decide if they were shipwrecked they would use their messages in bottles to ask that it be reopened
* Broti shares some incredible wisdom - “even the most gorgeous person is technically the ugliest dog” and Dylan agrees
	+ Dylan quotes Koko again and Broti realizes she worships her
	+ Broti then reminds Dylan Koko is dead, which maybe Dylan had forgotten
* Broti says she is jealous of the Starbucks mermaid (Dylan calls this a melusine but Starbucks just says it is a Siren)
* Broti has an idea for a joke about the Cusack family crest, involving an unnamed Harrison Ford/John Cusack film (there is no such movie) but Dylan saves the joke by mentioning how they were both in Spy Kids
* Dylan mentions an episode of House Hunters with a mermaid
	+ Broti then talks about the depraved mermaids hired for North West’s birthday
	+ Dylan moves on to talking about Stormiworld, which she thinks is likely the most culturally fucked up thing
	+ Broti then talks about an amusement park where every ride looked like Dylan, which she says would be an absolute nightmare worthy of a Blumhouse movie
* Dylan begins talking about Dorothy Dinnerstein, which reminds Broti of her incredible “Reese Moviespoon” flub
	+ Dylan reads a nice quote about mermaids but really they just riff on the name “Dinnerstein” for a while, which is a lot more fun
	+ After Broti suggests Doroty change her name to one of J.D.’s girlfriends, Tara Reid or Heather Graham, Dylan realizes it’s J.D. Week on the pod
	+ B&D share their affection for Scrubs and talk about what channels they watched it on
	+ Broti admits that she had a non-Tivo brand DVR, and they again appreciate how educational and informative the pod is
* Dylan wraps up by saying this is her last week of work so she will shape up in the future
	+ Broti thinks this is hilarious, first of all
	+ Dylan then reveals she was going to talk about the history of the high five, but it was not interesting enough, so Broti decides they should make some interesting events happen (re:high fives) so they can flesh out the wikipedia page
* Broti then abruptly reveals her topic - the circus

### Broti's Topic

* Broti promises this will be a blast
* Broti appreciates how horny ancient circuses may have been because of their progressive seating policies
* Dylan decides that 250,000 people is too many people, then says “that’s like the listenership of our podcast” which is either a burn on us (for being too many people) or just a silly joke about numbers
* B&D encourage Romans to remember all the good times they had and not focus on their “fall” so much, such as:
	+ Watching swimming horses
	+ Your wife giving you a handjob in a big theater
* Broti wonders if Philip Astley is a Cusack situation, re:Rick Astley, a nice call back to just a few minutes ago
	+ Broti credits him with the “collab of the ???”, bringing horse riding and clowns together
		- Dylan decides she will never forgive him for that, saying these two are like oil and water
		- Broti instead says they are the two best friends talking during class who distract other students
		- Dylan calls them a hat on a hat
	+ After Broti credits him with riding around in a circle, Dylan declares him “The Original Crazy White Boy”
		- Broti then said he inspired the character Tyra dates in Season 3 of Friday Night Lights, a reference she promises everyone will get
* Broti thinks the Super Bowl has something for men and something for women, because as Dylan says, they love ads and shopping
* Dylan thinks the London Hippodrome sounds like Epcot
	+ Broti thinks it is like the show at “MGM Studios” with the dragon but also could be a dream where a dragon accuses her of farting
* Broti is upset with the term “women comedians” because she does not identify as a comedian and Dylan says she is a “dramatist”
* B&D have their “first fight on the pod” when Broti tells an exasperated Dylan she has never heard of the term “bread and circuses” but it goes nowhere other than a sigh
* Broti makes Dylan guess where the first circus in America was. but leaves out the word “America“ so Dylan randomly says “Alaska” before Broti reveals it to be Philadelphia
* Dylan’s feud with Benjamin Franklin is briefly mentioned again
* Broti shouts out to UCB guy Dan Rice, who was the most famous pre-Civil War circus clown
	+ B&D agree that Dan Rice the clown is probably funnier than the imaginary improviser Dan Rice
	+ B&D agree that his two famous expressions “the one horse show” and “hey rube!” are real bangers and reveal they are pitching a cartoon called “Hey Rube!” right now
* Broti wins the best line of the pod again with “Barnum? I hardly even know ‘em”
* Broti thinks she would have been in a freak show, mostly because they are always looking for diversity
	+ She declares the NBC Diversity Program a modern day freak show, a joke so nice it made it into the official show notes for the episode
* Dylan becomes excited at the first mention of Bailey, a name she was clearly waiting to hear
* B&D suggest they merge podcasts with Pod Save America
* Broti pitches a freak show combined with the cast of Freaks & Geeks
* Broti decides that every straight couple is an unlikely animal friendship
* Broti wraps with some contemporary versions of the circus, like
	+ America’s Got Talent
	+ Dance Moms, a very successful reality show
	+ Cirque du Soleil, which could be its own category
		- Broti then says “this is like me ending on 9/11”, which we don’t need to really unpack because it’s a great Broti quote just on its face
		- Dylan suggests that on the next episode she cover “Cirque du Soleil” and Broti covers “Professional Mermaids”, or an “everything left on the table” episode, but they realize instead they will probably do “history of the high five” or “Broti Dinnerstein”
* Broti tells the listeners that she is going to Kentucky, something her mom asked her not to tell anyone
	+ Dylan first imagines Delta tweeting about Broti’s upcoming trip, then her boarding being announced excitedly like a late night guest
	+ B&D announce they are available for any Delta original programming
* B&D thank their sponsors - Delta, Oprah Magazine, and Dinnerstein