Episode 10

The tenth episode of Lecture Hall. As in the previous episode, the guest segment is brief but such a great combination of a horrible tragedy and incredibly funny premise, so the riffing is limited. Demi is a still a great guest, and Broti disappearing for 9 minutes leads to a lot of silly conversation. Broti has one of the earliest "here is a list of dumb things with less of a coherent story" topics, but it works because it is such an absurd premise.

recapped by Kevin on 11/4/21

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## Episode Summary

### Introduction

* Broti gives a very formal introduction, like a newscaster, trying to impress Demi
	+ Demi is harmed by the expectations
	+ Broti declares the podcast is Clif Flextible and encourages Demi to take a nap
	+ Broti also promises a lullaby from one host with a horrible wake-up song from the other, but doesn’t say who - Dylan compares this to Charlie Rose
	+ Broti imagines a Charlie Rose-James Lipton mashup, and Dylan claims she has an alibi for James Lipton’s death
	+ Demi claims his topic will be the location of James Lipton’s body and B&D are very excited
* Demi goes from great to good to fine rather quickly
* Demi’s Christmas corner
	+ Demi’s tree is up and he watched Klaus (2019) for the second time but was disappointed
	+ Demi’s idea of the holidays is being drunk, wearing a robe and drinking hot tea, so Mazel Tov I guess
	+ This is Demi’s first Christmas with his dog, who will not be receiving a present, by the way
* Broti reflects on the unfairness of dog ownership
* Broti ponders how a dog can play a PS5 without thumbs, but we learn that Clooney really wants to scalp the PS5 in order to buy more Greenies
* Shout out to Dentastix, Broti and Demi’s favorite knock-off dental treats
* Dylan reveals that at midnight, Broti will turn into a different 27-year-old Indian girl with a slightly huskier voice and a taste for Parliaments
* Demi asks Dylan about Luigi the dog, Karen’s dog who is a big fucking monster who is mean to everyone
	+ Broti says she would not have Luigi in the writers room but would have him on the stage
	+ At the vet’s office, Luigi takes the seat reserved for the vet, which is not something I have ever experienced at any vet’s office (everyone just stands up, right?)
* Broti reveals that she sometimes haunts writers room, but is unable to stop her roller skates so she gets stuck
* Dylan again mentions her love for The Apprentice in 5th grade
	+ She calls it The Bachelor with little projects
* Dylan’s loud neighbor interrupts the pod, or more accurately, Dylan reacting to her loud neighbor interrupts the pod
	+ Dylan’s neighbors are invited to come on the pod
	+ Broti imagines the entire family is doing performance art
* Broti has to go to the bathroom at the 9:20 mark, a podcast first, so Dylan and Demi have to vamp
	+ Dylan asks Demi his favorite song of all time
	+ Demi mentions “The Reckoner” by Radiohead but says he now like Chilly’s cover of “For Your Love”, a classic Twitter rec
	+ Dylan marvels at the rare instance when someone sends something funny or interesting on Twitter, instead people are just supposed to “like from a distance”
	+ Demi is a beautiful painting that should not be touched
	+ Dylan proudly says “Teenage Dream” is her favorite song, which Demi then sings beautifully
	+ Demi then tries to remember a Katy Perry song with a lyric about listening to Radiohead and Dylan guesses “The One that Got Away” correctly
	+ Dylan denies she is a big Perry-head, but says she did enjoy that album
	+ Dylan wonders what Snoop Dogg is up to, Demi then shares a pretty eventful day for him, which may have all been engineered by a marketing executive
	+ Dylan reflects on how long Broti has been gone at the 13:05 mark, so Demi asks her to tell him a secret about Broti, and she claims to not know her very well (it has been 4 minutes)
	+ Dylan’s made up (?) secret about Broti is that she doesn’t have a middle name, and so the Harry S. Truman thing comes back up (last episode) and Dylan repeats the myth that it doesn’t stand for anything
	+ SAG Corner
		- Demi makes a fun joke about Truman adding the S because he’s in SAG but he immediately realizes the flaw in his joke
		- Dylan and Demi discuss the presidents that have been in SAG
		- Dylan imagines a SAG “do not work” notice for Broti’s birthday party
		- Demi sadly reflects on why he is even in SAG since he doesn’t act
		- Dylan says they are a perfect union and she has no complaints
		- Demi and Dylan celebrate current SAG-AFTRA president, Courtney B. Vance, one half of a real “punching above his weight” marriage
		- Demi researches the ages of CBV and Angela Bassett and Dylan mentions A Teacher again but Demi misses the reference
	+ Dylan suggests going on without Broti at the 16:30 mark (7 minutes after she left) and Demi speculates she tripped and hurt herself
	+ Dylan then suggests pausing and editing but Demi is so happy with his earlier shit-talking that he leans in and asks Dylan for more suggestions
		- Dylan throws out Steve Zahn, somebody amazing
		- Demi starts having internet problems
		- Dylan realizes she has no juicy gossip for Demi
		- Demi is sad that he has no James Corden dirt to share
		- Dylan recommends Mike Leigh’s “All or Nothing” a movie she sounds genuinely passionate about
* Broti makes her triumphant return after 9 minutes away and she admits that she was assisting with a birth, since she is a midwife
	+ She named the baby Demi - a “pretty cute” baby with a really good personality
	+ Demi says he always notices what a baby looks like
* Dylan resets and she mentions the “guest sandwich” approach, which is quickly becoming standard

### Dylan's Topic

* Dylan asks if anyone is familiar with her topic, the Gombe Chimpanzee War
* A chimp named Leaky delights Dylan and Broti but Demi is stuck on how exactly this chimp got its name
	+ Dylan admits the names are made up by researchers, but the names are very important to her lecture
	+ Every time Dylan has to list some ape names, she is clearly very excited
* Everyone works very hard to find parallels between this event and the American Civil War
	+ Demi nails it by noting that while this is a funny topic, it’s also kinda sad that people just watched a bunch of chimpanzees murder each other and gave them funny names
	+ Broti admits that they all love drama, and sees Jane Goodall as a “famous seducer”, or a “honeypot to the gorilla community” per Demi
* The biggest laugh of the pod comes from the name “The Young Sniff”
* Broti is upset that “Willy Wally” got two names while the female chimps got nothing and she calls out Jane Goodall
* There’s a lot of calling out of Jane Goodall that I won’t repeat here since we don’t know how far her power reaches
* Demi says he will pen a movie about this event, and Katherine Keener will play the wife of a gorilla (however, this story is about chimpanzees)
* Dylan caps her lecture with speculation about bananas causing the conflict
	+ Demi disagrees
	+ Broti admits it was her first guess
	+ Broti returns to a conversation from Episode 7 about how unreliable fruit can be but Dylan is doubtful and Broti quickly makes it a race thing
	+ Dylan absolutely thinks it wasn’t about bananas, so Demi posits it was about a (unnamed) female chimp
* Broti pitches a movie musical, maybe called “A Far West Side Story”, but later they realize it would be a better as a comedy written by Demi
* Demi imagines a scenario where Jane’s hunger for bananas really started the whole war
* Broti calls out Dylan for making her topic up and Dylan admits that it was all a dream she had

### Demi's Topic

* Demi’s topic of Balloon Fest 1986 elicits a “Hell Yeah” from B&D, which is always a good sign
* Demi’s topic is quickly revealed to be the horrible fallout of 1.5 million loose balloons falling back down onto Cleveland after Balloon Fest
	+ Millions of dollars of lawsuits!
	+ The death of two people!
	+ The death of “multiple horses!”
	+ It is again a topic that is hard to laugh at because it is just so fucked up, but as Broti notes, it is an extremely funny premise for the second half of something so fun to have insane unintended consequences
* Demi has a couple of connection issues during his lecture so there are some blank spots
* Demi makes a great point that during the lengthy process of filling 1.5 MILLION balloons, someone should have thought about what would happen when they came down
* Dylan is just delighted by the name “Balloon Fest”
* Broti quickly realizes this topic is also made up and that is topic is also about bananas
* Demi wins for grimmest mental picture as he imagines two boaters (who later died) seeing the flurry of balloons surrounding the lake where they were waiting for rescue
	+ Dylan says if she saw that many balloons she’d probably think she is dead, which makes the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade terrifying
	+ Demi says it only about three balloons to scare him
* Broti then mentions pod-favorite Balloon Boy and imagines 1.5 million balloons being released that day as decoys
	+ This then involves into “the world’s most artful human trafficking ring” where the Balloon Fest is actually 1.5 million boys in 1.5 million balloons
* B&D thank Demi for his beautiful topic

### Broti's Topic

* Broti begins the tradition of “here’s a list of weird things” topics with Etiquette Rules for the Royal Family
	+ This topic was inspired by the latest season of The Crown, something that Broti and her mom are apparently very into
* Some rules include:
	+ Sitting rules are based on preventing panty shots
	+ The Royal Family does not play the hit family board game Monopoly, where you can be a car or a boot, supposedly because it gets too tense
		- Broti swears this is an official rule, according to Insider.com, and Dylan realizes that everything on this episode sounds made up
	+ No one can talk about getting up to go the bathroom, a rule Broti has already broken on this episode
	+ Descending the stairs gracefully, but Dylan notes this is true for all women
		- Sometimes when descending stairs, Dylan wants to do a funny one
		- Broti encourages the Royal Family to have a blooper reel
		- Dylan agrees any video of the Queen falling down would be really funny
		- Demi thinks a blooper reel would really humanize a group of very shitty people
	+ They cannot each shellfish
		- Demi says, “more for me” and Dylan says, “because they are Jewish” and honestly I don’t know which is funnier
		- The real reason is food poisoning which is not as funny
	+ Stop eating when the Queen does
		- Broti thinks this is a funny exercise in control, like a “musical chairs thing” per Demi
		- Demi imagines being super hungry while the Queen isn’t
	+ No voting - a rule that makes Dylan part of the Royal Family
		- Demi then reveals the original Jeff Foxworthy bit was “you might be Jewish but…” and B&D really enjoy it
		- Broti wonders if the Queen has ever seen a Jeff Foxworthy special
		- Demi then confuses Jeff Foxworthy and Jeff Dunham, a talented racist ventriloquist
	+ No signing autographs - a rule Megan Markle has broken already
	+ Women have to wear hats at formal events (or wide-brimmed yarmulkes)
		- Dylan thinks of all hats as big yarmulkes
		- Where’s the Lie? - Hollywood is controlled by Big Yarmulke
		- Demi calls his Persian Bodega guy “Big Yarmulke”
	+ Broti realizes the handshake rule is overly specific but also pretty much a general description of a handshake
		- Dylan and Demi both think you should look at your hands during a handshake so you don’t miss
		- The same is true for the utensil rules, except for an insane “balancing on a fork” rule that makes no sense
	+ Demi finally declares the Royal Family “a little out of touch”
	+ Demi is genuinely confused by the teacup holding rules, which Broti demonstrates visually on an audio podcast
	+ Dylan excitedly announces Helena Bonham Carter is on The Crown, which Dylan describes as “Game of Thrones if nothing happened”
		- Demi wishes The Crown had a blooper reel
		- Dylan reveals there is sometimes a Judd Apatow-style riff
		- Broti then shocks Dylan by revealing she has actually been watching “This is 40” this entire time
	+ Royal curtsies should be subtle, but then a few seconds later Broti says “the Queen wants squats”
* Dylan imagines the Queen getting a Bar Mitzvah, not a Bot Mitzvah (because guys are funnier than girls)
	+ To be clear, the entire Maggiano’s would not be booked for the Queen’s Bar Mitzvah

### Ending Segment

* Dylan proudly says that everyone knocked it out of the park by making up their topics
	+ Broti declares it a special “fictional Lecture Hall”
* Broti is excited to ask a friend about Balloon Fest 1986
* B&D both think the Royal Family killed Princess Diana because of her fashion choices
* Dylan imagines a Princess Diana hologram at the next Coachella
	+ Demi then says the hologram should be in the audience watching Dua Lipa
	+ Broti recalls that Diana was called “The People’s Dua Lipa”
* Everyone pitches a version of “Lifesize” where Princess Diana is brought back from the dead but she just has a normal person’s life
	+ She’s gotta wait in line for Coachella and has an unpleasant afternoon
	+ She goes to Good Luck bar and doesn’t love the cups
* Hot Take from Big Yarmulke: “Sometimes things that are offensive are also kinda pretty”
* The episode wraps with a reminder they do not edit even when the hosts make comments offensive to the Chinese
* Demi teases his return