SPEAKER_00 0:00

There's some scuttle butt going on off to the side of the stage. And then the before you know it, the lights go out. And you start hearing some rustling or whatever. And then I can see, because I'm again I'm like ninth row. I can see a figure coming out, starting to walk up the steps of the stage. It's Ebenezer Scrooge. And I'm like, okay, what is going on? And then all of a sudden I hear the voice. And I know immediately it's Johnny Depp. You're listening to the O Brother Podcast. Real Brothers, Real Talk. Welcome to the O Brother Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Smith. Alongside me as always, my brother from the same mother, Mike Smith. Hey.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Oh, oh, just a second.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Yeah, this was good. This once again, good for the audio audience to give me some Mike always wanted to give me something to edit up front. It was quick. Mike doing a bit. Even though I told him I had something up front and totally ruined the bit. So that ruins it. If that ruined it. It does because it was not a Comic Con reference, and Mike throws in a Comic-Con reference, and we're off to the races, folks. So I thought that's what this episode was. Here we it was, but the bit was a div anyways, it doesn't matter. So now that you've taken us there with the badge bit, uh that folks couldn't see, but they can hear. Can you describe the badge bit for the folks that are listening?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yeah, I we've been This is our first day back from we we came back last night, but this is our first day back from Comic Con San Diego. So I acted like you have to scan everything. To walk any to take a leak, you gotta scan. So I just, you know, scanned and go to the bathroom, maybe?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Clean it up a little bit. But all right. So uh yeah, I was gonna do an Odyssey bit, and so that's now been trash. But maybe this is good because there were I mean, we we both came back alive. That's uh that's a good thing. Uh we didn't murder each other. There were a few moments. Uh you know, people might be wondering. That's always been a uh a staple Leo Brother podcast here.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

I wasn't sure I was gonna get there. Worst flight ever. Just complete. It was like I was in a Star Wars movie flying through an asteroid field, and we were hitting every asteroid instead of ducking them. So a lot of turbulence is what you're saying. Five hours, no, six hours plus of turbulence. He went up. The pilot went down, he went up, down, nothing.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Pilot goes up, pilot goes down. Pilot goes up, pilot goes down. That's a Homer Simpson. And we will we will talk about the uh we will talk about the Simpsons, but not tonight. We're actually so we're gonna do this in a cup in two parts, because there's a lot to cover, so we thought we'd sort of split it, split it up and talk about, you know, getting to San Diego. Uh you know, there's some time spent before the first official Comic-Con thing that we participated in, which was preview night, because we had that as part of the badges that we got, the press badges that you held up. But we actually got there uh on Monday and y uh, I don't know where this beautiful, gorgeous San Diego weather went, uh, but it was on vacation because it wasn't one day that we were there that it was like, ah, this is what it's like to be in San Diego. I mean, we certainly look, you know, wishes and thoughts and all that go out to the people in Europe that are dealing with some crazy fires and things out there right now. So we're not dealing with that kind of heat calamity, but it was hot in San Diego.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

But when you were at when when we were at Seaport Village and how good it felt there, that's normally what San Diego weather is. Okay, but we got an obscure.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

That's not a good Yeah, that's not a good example because we were oceanside and we were in the shade and you know, it's just not it was still hot.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

It was still just drawing a difference between the heat we were we were also inland. If we had stayed closer. All kinds of excuses and defenses.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

But you're like we're trying to romanticize it in a way that just was not factual. It was not factual, right? It just was the It was when I lived there for 27 years. And it wasn't during the time we were there. No.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

And I asked the bartender, you know, like, is this like the new hot? And he's like, no, this is unusual. And they were also in a drought, which like you mentioned, a lot of places are dealing with that.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

I don't know about you. We talked to some people there. Uh was it was it Ashley X9 actually who we talked to? And she mentioned the term uh conbrain, I right? She Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:11

And we'll get to that.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

We we'll get to Ashley. But we um I I have that right now. I think it's hitting me today because as you said, we both flew in yesterday as of the recording, and you're gonna get this episode soon after. But I'm feeling the effects today for sure. It was a long, you know, long trip uh back.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

And Dan, today, and this will give you an idea of how exhausting it it was. I took a nap. Yeah, yeah. Probably the first time in 27 years I've taken a nap.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Right, right. Well, so yeah, so we get there, we get there last Monday, uh, so we have a little bit of time just to kind of settle in. I mean, by the time we got there, it was like early evening once we got the rent a car and got to the Airbnb. And shout out to Melinda, our host. We, you know, this Airbnb was um was a was it turned out to be a good option for us. It was really close to as we discovered the trolley station, and we pretty pretty much took the trolley into downtown every day for the con once we kind of you know got that all figured out. Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

We had a little hiccup the first couple of days, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

And so but but the first thing really that we did on the Tuesday, so you know, we get settled in, we just kind of like Monday's sort of a nothing, just getting settled in. And then Tuesday is when we went to get our badges. So talk a little bit about that experience of going to pick up these press credentialed badges.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Right. And it was supposed to be press only, goes picks up your preview night badges.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Um, we had a little hiccup getting there. We went because the trolley doesn't announce convention center, which is ludicrous.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Well, it's on the trolley map. It's on the map, as a but they don't say it.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

No. And they say every other thing. So we wound up going one stop past, which kind of got kicked it off to a little bit of chaos. Because we had to like we actually took an Uber like uh uh maybe half a mile back.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Yeah, we pay I paid for an Uber to take us back about a mile.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

And now, granted, when we went in, we happened, and again, there's our redepressed. Yeah, Mike, Mike is you're you're pointing that out for later conversation. But we you know, right up now, we had read about it the night before and it said, pick up your pass and your goodie bag and your goodies. And that was the first real yeah. It's a great bag, had a had a pin in it, and that's it. Now, that's not a really a goodie bag, that's like a bag. It's a bag with a pin in it.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

It's a bag with a pin.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

We should have probably put a pin in it at that point if we knew what was to come. But we yeah, we didn't. And so you're right. That was now getting in was smooth, yeah. Getting upstairs and there was like no line, we got right in, and and so that was that was a smooth process to get the badge itself. But yeah, it was a little bit immediately like, oh, this. Now I was like, well, you know, you get this bag, and you know, the it's a cool bag because it's got these straps on the back. So when you're you know, when you're looking to uh uh put a second mortgage on your house and you want to fill that with all kinds of Funkos and all kinds of nonsense that you're gonna regret that you bought later.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

And you're you just showed how big that bag is. It's huge. And we saw people with bags that were four times that big, jammed with stuff.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Multiple bags. Oh yeah. People, you know, and I'm sure people are collecting, people are buying and selling. There's a lot of stuff going on when you when you get uh into the exhibit hall, which we'll talk about. So yeah, we pick up the badges. That was really it. It was an opportunity for us to get in there and scope everything out to the best that we could, because we weren't able to gain entry to anything yet until Wednesday when we had preview night. So so we leave there and then we went to Seaport Village. So talk a little bit about the Seaport Village experience.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Well, yeah, we we was that the first day? I thought it was the next day. Yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

It's Tuesday.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Yeah, we we wound up. Dan said, you know, what should we do? We had some time. We were gonna go to a concert, which we did go to. We'll talk about that in a second. But Dan said, Yeah, what should we do? And I said, you know, Seaport Village. I used to go there on Sunday nights and kind of like get myself relaxed for the upcoming week. So we went out and took it in, and it was, you know, hot. Except for the shaded spots. So it was a good um Dan likes a cold beer. I'm jealous of that. I don't I'm a teetoller. Um, so but it was nice because we were sitting right on the water and looking at the yachts we'll never afford.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

And um you know, I it was very enjoyable. Yeah, you might not afford, but Yeah. Yeah, you got ten years. We had some Navy ships and things that we saw there, you know, driving into the or you know, coming into the harbor there. So yeah, it was very scenic and it was a cool little as it's as the tight as the name uh describes, a village. There's all these little stores and you know, places to eat and uh the Mike Hess Brewing, just you know, they don't sponsor the podcast yet, but that was where we ended up, you know, sitting for a while. And as you said, I got a beer and they had some awesome tacos. So if you're in San Diego, go down to Seaport Village and check that place out. It's great.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

You're gonna get a million comments of taco places because they're like some of the best tacos in the world, all over. These were fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

They were fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

So so we did that and we hung out there for a bit. Uh I thought we could have done a bit where, you know, if you are in San Diego and you come across an O Brother podcast business card, let us know where you found it, the date and time, and we'll send you a prize out of the goodie bag from Comic-Con. But uh, there may or may not be some business cards uh floating around uh San Diego area as we speak. But then we went down to the gas lamp quarter briefly, just to kind of check that spot out. We we did a little bit of a walk over that way on the way back from Seaport Village off the trolley. Talk a little bit about the gas lamp quarter that we saw that that first. Well, it was still light, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Right. So it wasn't quite the gas lamp experience because, you know, as you go further from where we we were like on the water at the convention center going, you know, towards downtown. And um normally the gas lamp, the first thing you know you're there because you can smell the gas lamps. It's literally litted by gas lamps.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

It's a con brain. Con brain. What did I say? You said litd. It was litd. It's conbrain. It's con brain. We're tired, folks. We're tired.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Yeah, that's different. It's double truck. Yeah. But you're right. It it it maybe it wasn't the same atmosphere that it would have in the evening, you know, because we were there, we were there about five o'clock, four o'clock. It was late in the afternoon at that point. So then we go north on the trolley line to uh UC San Diego Central Campus to see a concert, as you mentioned. We had tickets to um, and I want to think Impact 24 uh had provided us with these tickets. They were great. We're like in the fourth row at the Epstein Family Amphitheater at UC San Diego Central Campus. We had like fourth row tickets. It was great. And the name of it, Mike, was Shredding the Multiverse.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Shredding the Multiverse. So they were taking, I think, songs that are normally played as you know, ballads behind, and they were ratcheting it up to make it more kind of like a rock tempo. But that was that was a great concert. Yeah, maybe two parts.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Maybe a little bit, but I think these were the actual these were the actual scores. So what it was was three musicians, Mick Chicchino, Leo Barenberg, and Zach Robinson, who did this. And they were with in the amphitheater with a bunch of other studio musicians who were fantastic. They were awesome. They had a string section and horns and everything. Cushion. Oh, it was so so good. And they these are these are composers that have written scores for a lot of your favorite shows, like Cobra Kai. Um what were some of the other ones, Mike? They they did uh there was Spider-Man, the animated series. Yeah, your friendly neighborhood, Spider-Man, The Penguin was another one. And so that was really enjoyable. And there were some scores from some projects that I wasn't familiar with that I thought were great as well. So it was just a fun night.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Transparency, I didn't know a single song. I didn't recognize anything. Yeah, I did. But that doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

It was just I enjoyed it. Yeah, nothing below that. But they were having a great time. You could tell the the musicians were having a great time themselves. Now the weather during the concert was fantastic. That's what I was expecting. Was that beautiful breeze coming through and it was low 70s? That was that was super nice.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

So that was a good that's that was a typical day for me. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Yeah. Again, throughout Mike's gonna continue to defend the climate in San Diego. It's just like people who live there know that was like an anomaly. But who cares? What are you what are you trying to advertise more people to go there? You want less people to go there, not more people to go there. Yeah. No. Talking about how terrible it is. It's so hot. Don't waste your time, folks. You you know, San Diego's not for you. Well, that's not the reason not to go. No, no.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

I wouldn't make my decision based on the weather.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Well, I I I would coming from where I am now. I mean, like, I'm already dealing with that here. I don't need to get it there. But but yeah, it was a nice primer. That that concert was a nice primer to leading to set a mood. Yeah, to going into preview night, which was now Wednesday. So let's move into July 22nd, Wednesday, Mike, preview night. And we we get to the convention center, uh, which is huge, as you would expect. And this was an opportunity for us and anybody who paid to add this on to their Comic-Con experience. It was like the 75-80 bucks, I think, maybe to this on.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

I didn't know. Like, I was expecting this to be a press-only walkthrough. And when I found out that, you know, if you just had a regular badge, you could pay, and you know.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

And a lot of people did. Yeah, a lot of people did. Yeah, we looked that up and and discovered that okay, this is anybody can go to this if they pay. And so, like you said, that immediately was like, okay, we're in here with how many people are gonna pay? As you said, a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

And the only caveat was you had to have paid for the three or four days. Was it four? And then you got preview. So if you paid for four, you could pay for preview night.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

That's right. Yes, exactly. You had the honor to pay more for preview night. Exactly. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

But it was much more crowded than I was anticipating.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Well, and it this was, wasn't this when we we had to wait in line to go into preview night, right? Didn't we have to queue up? If I recall correctly, we queued and waited a while to get into preview night, did we not? Or am I mistaken that for day one?

SPEAKER_01 18:17

I don't recall queuing. I think we got right in. No, we got No, I think we queued.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Yeah, we queued where what would become the autograph area. Yes. We waited two hours in that line. Yeah. With press credentials. With press credentials. Did us zero good. Okay, I will say it certainly got us in the door. We didn't pay for the admission to the con. We paid in other ways. You'll you'll hear throughout this conversation in these episodes.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

But and you know, it's funny is I'm in the Nintendo area, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:54

There's a guy in front of me. We're not on the floor yet. Okay. I'm still a line. Yeah. Let's talk through the line experience. So we're in line cueing where the autograph area is. Maybe the only other than the wait, the only organized scenario that you're going to hear about in Comic-Con. And we'll get to Hall H when we get into our second episode of this recap of Comic-Con, because there's a lot to talk about there. But we're in line and we're noticing, you know, we're first of all, we're complaining. All right. Let's be honest. We're complaining about the fact that we thought these press badges were going to do more than they did. And we've had press badges before, and this was the same experience that we had then. Yes. And we're looking around, and people with professional badges are waiting in line as well. I mean, so unless you are literally talent, right? Unless you're the talent or you're an exhibitor, you're waiting in line, period.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

And you know, you you pointed out a thing. If you're a professional, there were what, three levels of press, professional, us, whatever that is.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Well, not the levels of press. There's just different badge options, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

But we were at the bottom. We weren't on the bottom.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Felt like it. What do you consider the bottom? An attendee? I guess so, yeah. That I would say we were equal with the attendees. Yeah. So yes, we were at the bottom. Yeah. Yeah. But uh but so that was the experience of the line. And we get finally get into the exhibit hall because that's the whole thing about preview nights. Really an opportunity for you to get a look at the exhibit hall, which is huge. From end to end, it's enormous. I forget what the dimensions were, Mike, but it's it's a big space. And frankly, there's too many, as has been my experience with other cons, there's too many vendors. There's just too many exhibitors. We don't need every single person that has every single tchotchke that may or may not have something directly to do with Comic Con. If some of them you're like, okay, what's the relevance exactly? Right. And I think it just adds to the feeling of it, the crowdedness, and that, and I had the expectation that preview night would at least be an opportunity to kind of, okay, loose, and they'll be handing out cocktails, and it was none of that. It was just, we were already in a sea of people at that point.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Right. And basically, what when you're in a crowd, this is any crowd, when you're in a crowd, it's like being in a pressure cooker. It's just the longer you're there, the steam just keeps heating, heating, heating. And if you don't pay attention to the valve and let out some steam, it's gonna blow. And we had a few where we didn't let out the steam.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Should we talk about arcade one up for Rexer's sake? Yeah. That was the first one. So we okay. So you've heard A little bit about what we went through to just get to this point. Okay. Right. And so it's a lot. I mean, we we had the whole thing, we're dealing with the temperature. We're going up and down, getting lost in San Diego on the trolley, taking an Uber, all this different stuff. And so here we are. Our first, we're waiting in line. We waited at least two hours in that line, Mike, to get onto the exhibit hall. We get into the exhibit hall, and the first thing that Mike wants to do is a bit for somebody else's channel. And so, Rexer, if you're listening or watching, yes, I was very annoyed and very frustrated, and Mike knew it. I was pissed off, quite frankly, that we waited all that time, and the first thing he wanted to do was go get some b-roll footage for you guys. I was beside myself.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

And the you know, the defense I have for that.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

And I demanded apology.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

No, no apologies. The defense was we walked in, and it was literally the first sign. I looked up at the signs, and there's hundreds and hundreds of signs. This is an exaggeration.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Just for the record, this is a bit of an exaggeration. So go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

I don't think it is.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Well, I took photos to document the experience. That is not the first thing that we saw. The first thing was the Mandalorian and Grogu exhibit. But but go back to arcade one up.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Yeah. So I wanted to get some footage for them. And I thought, well, I don't know if I'm going to be back here. So let's go do it now. And then it turns out like they were revealing these three new arcade cabinets that are all junk. Yeah. And there's the new ones, or two of the new ones. There's one more. Yeah, I'm holding up a photo from that time. And so I get there, and the two of them are covered up with like a black shroud of mystery. Yeah. So the next day I went over, I think we went kind of separate ways, and I went over to try to get some.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

We sure did.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

And I went over to try to get some picks.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

And when I looked at what they had unveiled, I was like, oh my God. This is junk.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

Thank you. And that's what you deserved, quite frankly. Yeah. I put the web in there.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

I did get to talk to these guys, and I I don't think I got it all to Rexer, but it was way different talking to them when and then when I hit record, the tune would change dramatically. And I was talking to this guy that had was filled with pride because he designed the two new cabinets. And he's like, Yeah, you know, that's my work. You know, and I'm like, I wanted to say to him, you're proud of it?

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Well, don't besmirch, you know, the guy's reputation.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

It's the same junk we're used to if if you've in that world.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

This is a different channel. Just keep that in mind. We're not going to go on a rant as much as I would like to about one arcade one-up.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

But I'm as big an arcade fan as I am a movie fan.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

I'm just saying that's not our wheelhouse. That's not what we do on this channel. But you can check out the Rexers show. That's what they do. But yeah, I was totally annoyed. So I was already I was already aggravated at that point, having got just gone through that line and everything. And, you know, and I guess there was a live stream happening. It was time-sensitive, whatever the case was. But I was pissed off, no doubt about it. So then, you know, there's again, we're just in the exhibit hall at this point. And the first thing that I recall was we saw this Mandalorian and Grogu uh sort of exhibit or booth, if you will. It was a pretty huge space. That was super cool.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Was that the three Grogu's or two? No, that was a different thing. There was multiple places where you could see Mando and the Star Wars universe.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Yeah, there were different like Star Wars areas, you know, but this was specifically Mandalorian and Grogu. And like here, for those watching, here's, and I'll I'll put this up, you know, on the edit, but um some of the figures and things that you would see there, uh here's the ATRT from the movie Mandalorian and Grogu, which I just pre-ordered, uh, my 4K Steelbook, and have like the Rod of the Hut Maquette, you know, and stuff like that. So that was a lot of what we were seeing. But again, we're in the middle of this huge crowd. Now, right after, shortly after that, Mike, one of the, I think for us, one of the uh neatest moments, if you will, was we are walking by this little booth, and this girl is there, and she's you know, handing out cards or something, and it's to do with like a horror comic or something. Yes. And I leaned into her and I said, I said, you know, we're not really, as we always say in the podcast, we're not really comic guys. Ironically, what I have up behind me in the studio here is, you know, some comics and Mike's holding them up, uh has them up behind him in his studio. But I said, we're not really comic guys. I said, so what are we doing here, right? And she goes, what are you into? What do you like? Do you like uh horror movies? I was like, well, yeah, we do. Well, very quickly we find out that but sitting behind her in the booth area is writer, director, producer Jordan Foss, and her name was Tiana Lay. And the next thing you know, Mike's doing this man on the street interview with Mike.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Well, you hand me a mic, and I'm like, oh, I guess I'm interviewing these people. And I saw that. They were fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

They were great, super nice. And you know, we're we're connected with them now on social media, but they have this horror movie that Jordan, uh, this independent horror film that's on Apple and Prime video right now. You can rent it or buy it there. It's called He's Watching You. And he's the writer and director. And director, yes, and she acts in it as well. And so it was this nice little two-minute or so conversation. You'll see that out on the YouTube channel by the time this airs, you'll already see that clip out on the YouTube channel. So check that out. So Joy and you know what I was weird, Mike, is I was looking Jordan up, and you know, it's only six degrees of separation type of thing. And he has a producing credit. This is watch this connection. He has a producing credit on the movie Father Stew, which starred Mark Wahlberg, and our good friend Johnny Durango, great cinematographer DP, was like a second unit DP on that film in Montana. Wow. And so, you know, they must have I don't know if actually they came in contact with each other, they know each other, but I thought that was pretty interesting that there was a connection there. Yeah. So that was a nice, and we we had expected to get a lot more of that.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

That's what we just didn't thought the experience was gonna be like. If we could, you know, grab a couple like that or a group, we would I think we would have had a very different experience.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Do you think we could have gotten Sam Jones if we had uh solicited him?

SPEAKER_01 29:42

I don't think we could have gotten anyone.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Well, Jordan and Tiana were were gracious enough to agree to do a quick interview and it was cool.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Thank to Tiana who really kept she was really pitching us.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Before we finally like, I think I'm sitting there like, um, and then finally you're like, we do movies. Yeah, there's a two, there's like a glimpse of of what you'll see.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

The interview, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

Super nice, and then we find out she's like a singer and you know, does all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

So I kind of joked. I said, here we are, we're just clueless, and we and sometimes, as I mentioned to you, that's better, right? That's better for you, it's better for them. You don't want to be totally ignorant, you still want to approach those situations with general curiosity, which we did, and you did, and you did a great job just on the fly, just w riffing and having a conversation with them. So that was that was very fun. And then we just from then on, it was just a a walk of the exhibit hall as much as we could take at that point. Because we had we had about two and a half hours to kill because we then had an appointment to make at nine o'clock downtown, which I'll talk about. Right. Um, and now some of the things, Mike, one of the first things we saw was these cool figures with the costumes for Marvel's Avengers Doomsday, which was wouldn't you say that was like the thing, right? That was the thing of the con. It was all about Doomsday.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

For people who look for footage, you know, that was the I think the Mike Drock moment, which we thought it would be. But I don't I don't think we're gonna talk about what it takes to get into that yet.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Well, no, we will when we get to those days. Yeah, we're not we're not at least when we get to those three, but we will, yeah, we will. Now I will say, just because it's relevant to this time, I think it was probably the next day when we get into day one. But so before we go there, I had the opportunity to get some reserved tickets for three panels, actually, three panels and an additional panel that Collider was sponsoring. So Steven Weintraub from Collider, if you ever watch Collider on YouTube, uh, we met up with him at a hotel there in San Diego and picked up some tickets.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

So that was a really fortunate opportunity because this is another sign of my ignorance because when I went there's an app, right, for Comic Con, and then there's a scheduling app for Comic Con.

SPEAKER_03 32:32

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

And I went in, and in the scheduling, you check off your events that you want to see. And here's my ignorance, Dan. I thought once I checked that off, that held me a seat. I didn't know, but you had figured it out, but I didn't know that you had to have another ticket to get into a lot of the whole, you know, the big events.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Well, yeah, it it wasn't not for these, it was just the opportunity to honestly to have a really good seat. And that's gonna come in handy when in a minute when I talk about one of the experiences of of the week that we had. But so we were able to pick up those tickets, and uh and I said it to Steve, and I and I'll say it now, uh, those I think were the most enjoyable, well organized panels of the entire con were the ones that collider.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

Yes. But you know, and we'll talk about the the whole H walk of shame later.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

But which many people have already been talking about. So if you've been on YouTube and watch any of the recaps on on Comic Con, you'll already see all of this commentary out there. But we know that you've been waiting for the Old Brother podcast commentary on the Comic-Con experience. And I think we're bringing you now.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

I think we're a bit more honest.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Well, st perhaps. Perhaps.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

Although, you know, I wasn't trying to make friends. I was trying to, you know, make content.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. But I I think there's others that that share our sentiments. But so so that then brings us into the official day one of the con, Mike. So we are now at Thursday, July 23rd, and one of the first panels that we went to, and it's funny, we kind of got into one as it was still going, which was droid builders. So it was all these guys that build droids and talk to you about if you want to get into building droids, how you can do it, and some of the do's and don'ts, and some tips and advice on doing this.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

And they had all these droids lined up in front of them that they had designed and created from WALL-E to BB8.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

R2 D2.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

R2 D2, really pristine R2 D2.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Yeah, and it was it was interesting because it was a guy that came in and he was in the back, and I guess he had been there previously to one of the cons and came back this year, had built his own droid, and he was like demonstrating the droid outside in the hall after this panel ended. But right away, that was.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

There are people really into droid making. I mean, it was hardcore, yeah. It was great. Yeah, they showed this picture of one of the clubs. They have like a couple of clubs. You can for free. Yeah. And they're very seem like the type of people that are happy to share. They're not worried about giving away a secret. How did you do this? How did they're they're like open books.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Absolutely. Which which I would expect, and I appreciate that. Uh, you know, if you're somebody who maybe doesn't have that skill set or that experience, and you're trying to get into this, and so they did a QA. And um, so we just we were just in there because we were actually waiting for the panel after that, which was Hollywood Game Changers, which was let me set this up. It was moderated by Marissa Hill, and the panelists were Shirley Song, Natasha Minor, Najla Zidey, Lauren Connolly, who we'll talk about, and um Karen Baker Landers, and then Alexandra Petkowski. And so essentially these were a panel of women who have various roles within the industry and how they have you know forged their way into what you could argue has been predominantly a male-dominated field and become successful at it. So uh we were right in the front row of this panel, too.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

And we both had picked this as an event we wanted to see, and it didn't let down. For that to be our first panel, right? We got pretty lucky.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

We did, we did. And and you know, when we heard uh a little bit about Karen Baker Lander's resume, it was like, whoa, you know, but all of the women here, um, even Marissa, who's an executive producer at Shade Studios, she's the one that moderated it. Um that just it was just great. And it and I felt, I don't know, I I felt, you know, like the fact that we here we are, two guys in the front row showing support, you know, hopefully that resonated in some way, that we were also trying to um champion that, you know, more women in the industry. We all we've been talking about continuing to want to put a spotlight on women in the industry, whether they're in front of or behind the camera. And that was the cool thing here. These are all women that are behind quote unquote behind the camera in some way. Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

And uh And we've had great fortune getting women uh with immense talent that have no business giving us time, give us all the time that we would want.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Well, we had press badges, so you know, clearly we're deserving of the time. But we did make a contact and hoping, you know, we usually don't talk about it until it's like set up, but we're hoping to have Lauren Connolly on the podcast, who's uh an editor, and she's actually nominated for an Emmy for season her work on season two of the show Beef, which is on Netflix. So hoping to you know find a mutually convenient uh date to have her on and continue that conversation um of how they ha her and others have become Hollywood game changers.

SPEAKER_01 38:49

And you know, talk about women that multitask. You know, sometimes they do sound, sometimes they do editing, sometimes they're directing. A lot of these women are just multi-talented. And it was fascinating and then it was fascinating. They it was all there were six was it seven counting the women who moderated yeah, seven. Uh-huh, yeah. And um yeah, you could that seven could easily make a five-star movie, and they were gover every base.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Right. You composers, editors, directors, writers, the whole bit, right. And um Natasha Minor, uh her she was fascinating because a lot of her commentary and a lot of the things that she was saying in response to the the the moderators' questions, Marissa's questions, were really highly intellectual in the sense not that they wouldn't be, but in the sense that, you know, this is a very passionate filmmaker who it clearly cares about the topic and the content and the message behind the art. And I found that to be pretty powerful. She was not shy about commenting on the state of the world and all of these different things that had come up. And so I found her to be very, very fascinating, as I did all of the women on that panel. So that was a great first official panel.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Right. And one of the things that stuck out to me was here's these women, first time at Comic-Con. Yeah. And you know, like Karen, what, 25 years in the business, two Oscars. You know, it's her first Comic Con. Yeah. But the connections they were making between each other while they were talking was that was wild. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

They would like one of them would be talking, oh, I composed the music for this film, and then Karen would be like, Oh, I I edited that film, or I did the sound design on that film, you know, the sound editing, which is uh And I think Blade Runner was because uh Karen had worked on the remastered version of the original um Blade Runner and the Bourne franchise.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

It was wild. It was wild. So kudos to to all the women on that panel and and for making it such a uh fascinating panel. Marissa was a great moderator, too. She just had that moderator thing that you need to keep it going and make it engaging, and uh so she did a fantastic job as well. So then for me, my next experience, Mike, is one of the collider panels, which was Producers on Producing. And this one was with Brad Fuller, Andrew Form, and Simon Kinberg. And I was in that one with you. You that one you were in. Okay, that was the one we I got a ticket for, yeah. And so this one was cool. Like Simon Kinberg supposedly is gonna be the guy helming the next Star Wars trilogy. That's the word on the street. I don't think that's been confirmed anywhere, but that that's the rumor, anyways. Um, but you know, the I mean, what can you say about this? Again, all these collider panels were great. You're talking some A-list producers here, and just to hear them talk about what producing is, right? And Mike, debunk some of the myth about what it is and what it isn't.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

And the killer is I've we've had producers on, and I've asked them, you know, and every time I get a different answer, which I think is is the reality of being a producer.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

I honestly thought that was always just a money thing. Well, I think they ask you for money, you give them money, and you're a producer.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

I think one of the the ones that we've had on, talk about a multi-talented woman, Michelle Lang. I think she did one of the best jobs at giving us an insight into what that is. You know, you're you're wearing so many hats, but one of the things that it isn't is what you just said, which most people might think it is, it's you're fronting the money. And maybe in some instances that's true to a degree, but that's not that's not what it is, you know, primarily speaking.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

Andrew and his collaborator have worked on some of the biggest movies in Hollywood, and they've never, ever put up a dollar.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

Well, I don't know if you can go that far.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

Well, that's what they said. They said nobody's ever asked us for money. We've never really. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

Yeah, it was on the panel.

SPEAKER_00 43:28

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that that was a that was a great panel. Um, you know, uh Fuller, yeah, Quiet Place, we were thinking about because he he was he was involved with the Quiet Place franchise. And so heavyweights, no, no doubt about it. Then we did some more walking of the exhibit hall on day one. Right. And uh, you know, we said just lots of cool things. There's too many things to mention that you see. I mean, think of it and it's there. You know, like one of the things I remember that we stumbled onto was this sideshow had a booth and they had all All these figurines, Mike, these like really top of the line incredibly detailed figures from you know any film franchise you can think of, any character you can think of. And um now this was where one of the highlights of the week comes into play that you unfortunately one of one of many that you didn't get to experience, and talk about what it has to do with this, Mike.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Yeah. People who have been you know watching us for a while, Night of the Living Dead, Dan's holding up this great book that he got, and he was lucky enough to actually meet her, have her sign the book, and she was like a spark plug. She's like 82 or something.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

Yeah, so you're talking about you're talking about Judith O'Day.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

Judith O'Day, who was in the film.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

Yeah, she played Barbara, you know, that famous line, they're coming to it. Yeah. And uh so she was signing the books, this brand new, beautiful book. It's super heavy, super big, and it's all about the making of the film. And and as Mike uh commented on, we did a deep uh dive with a Criterion Review. Criterion. Yep. Criterion Review. It's on the podcast uh channel, or you can listen to that episode if you uh haven't checked it out. And she was there signing copies of the book. So I was waiting, we were both originally waiting in line, and then Mike couldn't help himself and had to run off to uh play some Splatoon down at the Nintendo booth. So talk about your experience first, Mike, there.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

Well, first off, like I was totally jealous. I was like, I should have stayed in line. You know, I would have rather have met her. And to Dan, can what was the thing she asked you?

SPEAKER_00 46:01

The question she asked you. Yeah, it was awesome. So I got up there and and I said to her, first thing I said was, other, you know, other than you know, it's great to meet you, I said, you know, I don't know if this is a a good thing to say or share with you or not, but I just saw Night of the Living Dead for the first time a few months back. And she was like, whoa. She said, you know, with all of the things that they're doing in film today and with film today, I have to ask you, does the film still hold up? And I, of course, I said, absolutely. It was fantastic, and she was fantastic in it, and she couldn't have been a more gracious woman. And I told you, Mike, I shared with you that she was every time something she was taking selfies and not charging for them, you know, things like little things like that or big things.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

You also got a free button to go with that.

SPEAKER_00 46:55

Oh, I got an awesome Night of the Living Dead. It's a pin, Night of the Living Dead pin that they gave when you bought the book. Now, I paid a couple of shillings for that book, but it was worth it. It was worth it. It was worth it, yeah. And then she like would hop up on the table and turn around and take pictures, and I'm like, geez, she's just so like she had so much energy and she was so kind. So that was a thrill, having just done that episode and having just seen the film, and so to meet her. But meanwhile, you're down playing Splatoon for half an hour.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

Right. I get in this queue, and it's a game. I'm like, I'm gonna play the game like in a week or so, because it's coming out. But I get in the line and they're they like you can play 12 minutes of gameplay, and they had somebody with each person, so like if you killed yourself, they would be like, okay, let me give me the controller, idiot. You know, go left here. See that arrow that says left. So, anyways, I waited, I don't know, two hours to play 12 minutes. And we'll talk about at the end of this how you should value your time on this planet.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

Well, and and we will we yeah, we'll talk about that. We'll maybe wrap this episode transitioning into that point that you're making there.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

Cause I I But the funniest thing, Dan, is there's a guy in front of me and he turns around and I see him, you know, looking at my badge. And he's like, Oh man, you're press. Wow. And I'm like, dude, you notice I'm standing behind you?

SPEAKER_00 48:37

Yeah. There is no, you know, press I know that you get into a certain comfort level when I start hearing the dudes come out. Yeah, I was slipping out. Mike's like easy on the dudes.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

But you know, he he was fascinated by it. And I'm like, don't be, you know, and and I he I actually told him how to get in because he had credentials. He could have got a press batch. Yeah. Well, so and and then But meanwhile, Dan has the autograph.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

I'm down there getting my autograph, yeah. And then you go to the first mic drop of the So this was, and this will this will we'll start to kind of wind this episode down on this next segment. Here is I went to another collider panel. Again, thanks to Steven Weintraub. Shout out to Steven Weintraub, directors on directing. And so this was Zach Kreg, who you might know did The Barbarian and Weapons, which we did an episode on weapons. So if you haven't checked out that episode, go back and check that one out. We saw a lot of uh Aunt Gladys cosplay going on at uh at Comic-Con was funny. Jonathan Goldstein and um John Francis Daly. So these are the three directors that you have on panel, right? Again, another A-list panel of directors.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

And I would have made that panel had I not been waiting for the stupid Platoon game.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

Well, that it's not gonna get any free merch from Splatoon, that's for sure. But uh yeah, well, that's something you said earlier that I was starting to try to comment or correct, and I and I think I got sidetracked, which is you could have been in these. It's just I had a great seat. So I had a reserve seat. I was like nine rows from the stage for this panel. Okay. Yeah. And so at one point, Zach Kregger is and so there were there were like four unbelievable things that happened during this panel. The first one was Zach starts talking about his upcoming movie, Resident Evil. Now, Mike is an owner of the entire Resident Evil franchise. You've seen all the films. I haven't seen any of the Resident Evil films, I haven't played the game. And so one of the things he was talking about was that he himself hadn't seen any of the films, and he wasn't basing his film on a specific story in the games either. He was what I loved about this, Mike, the way he was trying to describe it was anybody that likes first-person shooting games, like Call of Duty and Halo, like so many others, there's this whole, you know, aspect to the game where it's like the survival sort of aspect, right? Where you start out with a revolver and one bullet, and then you have to graduate to like the shotgun and then the automatic weapon and trying to survive through all of these precarious situations. And that is what was kind of the the end for him in terms of the idea or his approach to the film, and that leads to them debuting the trailer for Resident Evil, which the sound in this theater, which was I think this one was in Hall H. Yeah. It was, I mean, talk about IMAX. It was awesome. I assumed you were hearing it outside. You said you didn't hear anything. Well, no, you were in for this one. Sorry, you were in there. No, which oh no, you were in the producers' one. Sorry, I wasn't in the directors. Yeah, you weren't in there.

SPEAKER_01 52:14

I wasn't in the room. You didn't hear this at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I didn't hear it. But it was found out later on in the week that you could sometimes hear the crowds next door. But yeah, that's true. Yeah. But yeah, that audio in Hall H, it just goes right through. So so good. But I wanted to say, yeah, I've had I have all five Resident Evil films. Mila Johanovich. Did I butcher her name?

SPEAKER_03 52:41

You did, yeah. Okay. Well, she was all five. Yeah.

unknown 52:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:47

I think it's uh Jovovich.

SPEAKER_01 52:49

Close enough. Close enough. Me and names. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:53

It's a running bit on the further podcast.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

But I watched the trailer when we got back. Right. And I was like, yeah, this looks nothing like A, the movies. And I've never played the game, but I've seen some.

SPEAKER_00 53:07

Right, right, right, right. Yeah, so that was that was awesome right off the bat to get like some trailer drops. I'm like, okay, here we go. Now I'm at Comic-Con. You know, we're getting some.

SPEAKER_01 53:20

There's trailer one.

SPEAKER_00 53:21

There's trailer one, exactly. So uh then they debut a trailer from a film called May Day, which is with Kenneth Kenneth, Sir Kenneth Branagh. And I got it, Mike, Ryan Reynolds. Not gonna make that mistake as I often. 50-50 at that one. It is, it's tough for me. Um and and that looks great too. And sometimes you don't know. You're seeing it in this format and the sound, it's incredible and all that, but it it did look great. The film May Day looks like it's gonna be a good one. Kind of like uh what did he say? Misery meets uh I forget how he put it, misery meets Battlestar Galactica. So I forget what the the description is.

SPEAKER_01 54:07

And again, you're in like the first ten rows. You've got the best shot, the screen.

SPEAKER_00 54:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 54:14

Each iteration back, the screen gets a little bit less. That's correct. By the end of it, it looks like a drive-in theater.

SPEAKER_00 54:22

That's correct. Now, that brings us to the highlight, I would say, of the con, probably for me, anyways. Well, it was the first mic drop. It was definitely the first mic drop. It's all over the internet by now. You know, it's been on our channel. Um, you've probably seen it, but there's this, I don't know, that I it was weird because I don't know what the conversation was right up leading to this, but they just showed those two trailers, and then there's some, you know, scuttle butt going on off to the side of the stage, and then the before you know it, the lights go out, and you start hearing some rustling or whatever, and then I can see, because I'm again I'm like ninth row, I can see a figure coming out, starting to walk up the steps of the stage, and it's Ebenezer Scrooge. And I'm like, okay, what is going on? And then all of a sudden I hear the voice, and I know immediately it's Johnny Depp. Right.

SPEAKER_01 55:25

And I'm playing Splatoon at this point.

SPEAKER_00 55:27

And Mike's playing Splatoon Splatoon. So it's even, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:32

And uh and as soon as we got home, you said they showed three trailers, and you said Ebenezer, and the first thing I said to you was, Don't tell me Johnny Depp was there.

SPEAKER_00 55:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:41

And of course he was.

SPEAKER_00 55:43

Right. And and that's the thing. He he does this bit. He comes out as Scrooge and he's got this whole monologue, he's riffing, and then he walks off, and then they show the trailer for Ebenezer, which was, again, just another mic drop moment, but that was all anybody was talking about because he then the next day showed up in the gas lamp quarter. He comes out of a storefront, this facade that they built, Mike, on in front of one of the buildings. They built it off one of the buildings, and I've since seen the inside. It was a whole like apartment that you could live in, basically. Really? Yeah. I don't know why they went to the that extreme. I'm not sure what they were using it for. But they did it multiple times, only you know, Johnny Depp did it once. Yeah, he did it once, and he so he comes out of the doorway of this thing and he starts engaging with the crowd. So that that was the talk of Comic Con for a couple of days at that point. And definitely the highlight.

SPEAKER_01 56:43

And I asked you, I asked you what he he looked at someone and he clearly saw someone, and he was like, and he made this reaction. Well, I've since found out it was a cosplayer as Jack Sparrow.

SPEAKER_00 56:57

Okay, that's good. And he looked great. Yeah, I do remember seeing uh at least one of those uh on the floor. So so that was that was just a spectacular moment. That was a definite con moment for sure. Right. And uh it broke the internet there for a while. Then we moved into um, I think we went into the Brad Bird panel.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

Well, we stayed in Hall H. I met you.

SPEAKER_00 57:26

Yeah, no, then you're right. The next one was the Lucas Museum of Art.

SPEAKER_01 57:30

Oh, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:32

We did that panel, which Jim Lee was there, uh, who's the head of the DC students creative head of DC Studios.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

This is the my first encounter with the Hall H walk of shame. And again, we're gonna get into it, but Jim Lee came walking out, and when he turned around to go back, like the security is like, I'm sorry, sir, that you know, the moose out front shouldn't have told you this is closed. He's like, I made the film, and he's got all his credentials like all over the place. Made the film. And he's getting turned away, so I'm like, okay, I got a good show.

SPEAKER_00 58:08

Yeah, but again, you've got volunteers, like I said, staff that they don't know. I I mean, I didn't know who a lot of the people that were there were. No, I know who Jim Lee is, you know, Comic Con. I know who Seth Green is. Right. And Seth Green was on this panel as well, as were a couple of other folks, and it was moderated by Kiki Palmer, who is in the Space Balls, which we'll get to eventually, talking about space balls.

SPEAKER_01 58:31

So I met you at this point.

SPEAKER_00 58:33

Yeah, yeah. So we're in here, and this was a panel about the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which is, of course, George Lucas' museum that's opening in September in Los Angeles. And this thing, wow, I can't wait to go. It looks, you know, now it uh yeah, okay, the building itself, the structure itself is fascinating enough to look at what they constructed. I mean, it looks like a spaceship, but don't go if all you're doing is going to think it's a Star Wars museum, because that's not what it is. It's it's really the history of narrative art and really celebrating narrative art. Because in Luke, for Lucas, it's all about the storytelling, of course.

SPEAKER_01 59:18

And I think it's heavy on like pop art and you know, most a lot of people don't won't know a Monet from whatever, but this stuff is stuff you'll recognize.

SPEAKER_00 59:30

No, whether it's no no no, it's air, it's everything. What we saw, we saw some clips that would maybe fall into that category. But that this is gonna be for everybody, I think, no matter what your taste are.

SPEAKER_01 59:42

No, I I I agree with that.

SPEAKER_00 59:44

But so so that that was another cool panel that we saw. Uh and then the last thing was the Brad Bird, uh, which we both went to. Brad Bird, My Cinematic Journey. And give some of uh Brad Bird's credits, Mike.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:03

God, well, I'll get him wrong, but you know, his biggest, I think his biggest film is The Incredibles, as far as money, if you're if you compare money. He did Ratatouille. If you're a fan of the Mission Impossible movies, he did Mission Imposse Impossible Ghost Protocol, which is a great iteration. The Iron Giant. The Iron Giant, which if you haven't seen the animated Iron Giant and you're an animation fan, go see it. It it's a fantastic film. And if you don't know the story of the Iron Giant, just do like a little research. It's fascinating. Yeah, it is. Um currently he's working on a spy movie um that's animated. He's mostly uh an animation guy. I think of him as an animation guy, but obviously.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:57

No, I think that's fair, but uh yeah, he's got a new uh it's it's like a a sci-fi noir animated series called Ray Gun, which looks really, really cool. And this was another opportunity. We got to see a nice segment from the first seven minutes. That's right, the first seven minutes, which was great. And one thing I didn't realize, I had no idea, I'm not even sure. Did you know that he had been an executive consultant on almost 200 episodes of The Simpsons?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:32

No, I didn't. Yeah. Oh no, I shouldn't say that. I did, I just forgot. Because when you said it, it didn't ring a bell. And then I'm thinking back, I'm like, for crying out loud, every F episode of The Simpsons when the credits roll, he's one of the first names after the you know, Matt Groening and the Founding Fathers.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

Right, right, right. So I just forgot. But he was there to promote Ray Gun, and he did drop a little bit of the fact that they're in pre-production for Incredibles 3. That's happening.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:04

Right. And he's gonna be what, the producer, executive producer?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:09

Yeah, I'm not sure what his credit is on that, but I I would imagine so. Yeah. I yeah. I don't know that he's gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:14

So for people, and a lot of people love those movies. They did fantastic at the box office. Yeah, that that's something to be excited for that's coming soon. Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:24

So that, Mike, that brings us, that takes us from our arrival in San Diego, our experience with getting our press credentials, our experience with preview night, and day one of Comic-Con for this first uh part one of our Comic-Con recap. Now, our part two, we're gonna dive into days two and three, and we'll comment on day four. But uh days two and three are gonna be the focus of the next episode. So, what else about the experience up to this point, Mike, that we haven't covered?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:00

Other than how exhausting it is, like at the end of the day, we would go back to this Airbnb, and I just had pains where I've never had pains before.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:13

And it was like, wow, what did where did I get, you know, this and and ironically, you had the opposite side of your shoulder was right.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:23

That's true, yeah. And of course, I have an issue with my feet, and they were just on fire. It's like Siamese twins we had, you know, sharing the pain. One other cool thing that I uh scored, we we one of the boots that we uh stumbled on for Comic-Con had this wheel that you would spin and you could win a prize.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:43

I spun it first.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:44

Yeah, and then I spun it and scored this awesome Comic-Con 40th anniversary book. Look at the size of this thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:51

Yeah, and I think I got a straw. I don't even remember what I got.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:55

Yeah, it's uh Comic-Con 40 Years of Artists, Writers, Fans, and Friends Forward by Ray Bradbury. But this is a super cool book. I haven't, you know, uh dived into it yet, but I'm looking forward to. So it's funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:09

The guy in front of me spun, got that book. I spin, I get like something that was left on the floor, and then you spin and get the book. I'm like, come on, is this the universe telling me something?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:24

Well, that's what you get for playing Splatoon for half an hour instead of meeting the uh the uh one and only Judith O'Day.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:32

Yeah, and you know, I love that movie. I've seen it many times. And you should have stuck it out. You should have stuck it out. I should have stuck it out.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:39

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:40

There's a lot of good, I was gonna make it to Splatoon and back.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:44

There's a lot of woulda, woulda, coulda, shoulda in this in these episodes for sure. But yeah, but you know, there's some highs, some lows, some good, some bad, some pros, and some Comic-Cons. Uh, and again, that's not even getting into days two and three. So we'll we'll be coming back with that on the uh the part two of our Comic-Con recap.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:06

And if you think I'm gonna defend San Diego as far as infrastructure, that's what I think. New.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:14

Yeah, yeah, that's what I think. So tune in for that. Tune in. Oh, hot take here from Mike. He's gonna be trashing his uh hometown, as it were. But well, there you go. There's the part one recap of the Yo Brother Podcast at San Diego Comic-Con 2026. Mike will be back for our part two recap covering days two, three, and beyond. That's gonna do it for another episode of the O'Brother Podcast. I've been your host, St. Alongside me as always, my brother from the same mother, Mike Smith, and we will see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:45

Bye, everyone.