The Space Race Vs The Animorphs

[00:00:00] Speaker A: The following is from Ghost Coast Studios, the world's first and only podcast network. [00:00:06] Speaker B: Now, wait a minute. Now wait a minute. [00:00:08] Speaker C: It's a dark day in America. Every day on the news right now, you see troubling signs for democracy. You might be wondering to yourself, what the fuck can I do about all this bullshit? Well, I've got good news for you, which is that there is a solution to our problems. It's right here in front of us right now, and it's called voting. And you could vote right now, today, right this minute by listening to, of course, once again, the most important election of our lives. [00:00:44] Speaker A: This election, which will be, I do truly believe, the most important election of our lifetime. [00:00:50] Speaker B: This is the most important election of our lifetime. [00:00:54] Speaker C: This is the most important election. Don't you you hear? [00:00:58] Speaker B: This is the most important election in our lifetime. I certainly think it's the most important. [00:01:02] Speaker A: Election of my lifetime. [00:01:04] Speaker C: This is the most important election of our times. [00:01:08] Speaker B: Politicians say every time, this is the most important election. This one's really that important. [00:01:14] Speaker D: It honestly is so good. You know, civic responsibility used to be very complicated. You had to wait in line, you had to look up a location, you had to be at. Forget about all that. You don't need to be educated. You just need to listen to this show and your specific responsibilities will be completely filled. This is easily the most important thing that any human being could be doing. [00:01:37] Speaker E: Listen, everybody. This is how Bernie could still win. Watch this podcast to the end and he has a chance. [00:01:44] Speaker D: Kennedy, is it legal for people who are from outside of the country? Are we breaking some sort of law because they are having their. Their voice heard? I. I guess the feds may just chase us. I don't know. [00:01:59] Speaker C: I don't know. Yeah, I. What about people from outside of the planet? We're going to be talking about some of those kinds of topics today. And we've got a wonderful guest here to help us fill out some ballots, as many as possible. [00:02:17] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:02:18] Speaker C: And also talk a little bit about the lore of a tiny little children's novel series that we'll get into. Tyler, the host of Anamorphing Time, or one of the hosts of Anam Morphing Time and Hate Speech. [00:02:34] Speaker B: Hello. [00:02:34] Speaker C: Two lovely podcasts. [00:02:36] Speaker B: Hello. How are you? I am having one of the worst days of my life. Mo. I don't. I won't get into too many details, but probably in the last 24 hours I've had diarrhea like 30 times. I've had 103 fever for like 15 hours. None of this is a joke, by the way. This isn't comedy. I'm dying. And when you, when you message me this this morning saying, hey, so ready for today? And I was hallucinating watching Severance. I was like, yeah, let's go. Ready. [00:03:06] Speaker D: I mean, for a lot of people the worst day of their life is a miscarriage. So when you think about it, you're not doing so bad. [00:03:13] Speaker B: I've kind of had 30 miscarriages today, so I understand what they mean. Probably 30 times over. [00:03:20] Speaker D: Yeah, sure. All right, no problem. [00:03:22] Speaker C: Yeah. I also have had the flu this week. I. It's going around. It's. It, it's not good. [00:03:29] Speaker B: It's real bad. It's really, really bad. I spend most of my time in hospitals for work. Not because I'm some sort of healthcare freak and it's real bad out there, but I'm excited to talk talk about a children's book from the late 90s to 2001. [00:03:44] Speaker D: I am a person that read a lot of Animorphs in middle school. So while I don't remember every single beat of every single book, I definitely read like the, like the first 40 plus of these stories. So I remember all of the characters. I know their general vibe. I'll just be a great participant in all of the action here, which is just great. [00:04:12] Speaker B: And I feel bad because I'm a big proponent of voting. I do it all the time, I do it often, I love to do it. And Animorphs is kind of the antithesis of voting because it's about deputizing children into like guerrilla war. So it's a little more direct than voting. But I guess, you know, flying a plane into a building as a 12 year old girl is a type of vote. [00:04:38] Speaker C: You know that, that gives us actually a great segue into our first topic of the episode that we were planning to address which is, you know, which of the five main Animorphs would vote? Because these are some rather anarchic teenagers and I think some of them would vote but I don't think all of them vote would vote. So you know, of course you've got Jake who's just, he's a pretty, he's a pretty feelgood moralistic kind of leader in a lot of ways. [00:05:09] Speaker D: Off brand Captain America. [00:05:11] Speaker B: Yeah Y the standin for the reader basically the self insert character. [00:05:17] Speaker C: I do think Jake votes. [00:05:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, he's a big time, big time voter, Jake and make the hugest. [00:05:24] Speaker C: Deal out of it. But he votes every election. [00:05:27] Speaker B: Later in the last book of the series, you find out that Jake joined the FBI to train Animorphs. [00:05:33] Speaker D: So yeah, that sounds like Jake rough. You know, I will say that the thing about Anamorphs is. And this is inevitable because of the volume of text that was written. If Animorphs was a trilogy, I don't know if they would have had to respect the premise as much. But when you write a story about, you know, 60 novels and the kids. I mean, if you've read Animorphs, the calls in every Animorphs book are brutally close calls. They have extremely close calls in every book. And if you go through 60 close calls, of course you're going to have extreme PTSD. You couldn't even respect the premise of the books without giving them just extreme PTSD from the fact that they were almost dying in every book. [00:06:25] Speaker B: And I feel like I should. Would you like me to give some context to the listeners who may not necessarily be. [00:06:31] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:06:31] Speaker B: Familiar with Animorphs and in fact with Animorphs? [00:06:35] Speaker E: Inform me. [00:06:36] Speaker B: Yeah, so here's your information. Rocket coming in. Let's see here. So these books were written from 1998 to 2001 by K.A. applegate. That. Which was a writing name for Katherine Applegate and her husband Michael Grant, who wrote, as Brandon said, About 60 of these books with a handful of ghost writers. And it's about a group of pre teens, 1012 year old and gets a little older as the series goes on. Five teens that stumble through an abandoned construction site at night. They meet a dying alien who gives them the power to turn into any animal they touch for up to two hours. And if they stay in animal shape for too long, they. They will stay as that animal forever. And the series itself is the war that they get sort of brought into is a group of brain slugs called the Yerks have sort of infiltrated the city and the world around them and they're trying to take over government. They're all over the place. [00:07:38] Speaker C: Republican Party, Kennedy. [00:07:41] Speaker B: There's. There's one of the books where they meet Boris Yeltsin who's drunk with no pants on. It is so crazy these books, but they're. They're basically trying to. They're guerrilla child soldiers who are desperately trying to stop the takeover. Takeover of Earth from brain slugs. And a lot of the themes in these books range from body horror, depression, war, like children's place in wars, how war and PTSD affect children. And I know they're for children ages 8 to 12 and there are 60 of them, but if you give yourself about four hours, you could read them all in a day because they are written for children. But there is some stuff in there that's really worth reading. You hit my DMs, I'll send you. Tell me what you like. I'll send you 6 to 10 Animorphs book that will fit your style. There's a hospice story. They. They torture a bully. There's one where one of the characters gets trapped and an evil yerk starts pressing his pleasure and pain buttons in his brain and it gives him a weird sort of feeling and he gets all horned up about it. It's great. Truly great stuff. [00:08:54] Speaker D: The thing about. And by the way, great transition from horror to. It's great. The thing about, about this, this series and Kennedy, you know, you and I used to run spaces on Twitter, spaces talking about writing. And one of my favorite points was that formatting is destiny. If you tell a short story, you've got tropes. If you tell a novel, you've got tropes. If you have a movie, you have tropes. There's. There's so much in Anamorphs that happens via virtue of the fact that there are 60 books, because the, the, the think of any book series you've read, never are there 60 of them. So these characters, by proportion go through way more danger than any Marvel character, than any Lord of the Rings character. Like, it's the battle of Helm's deep 60 times in the course of this. This story. And it's just. Wow, it's crazy. [00:09:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's. It's so crazy that they were able to get away with some of this stuff for. And just sell it to children, because one of the books, and pretty much the only way people remember these books are the covers of the children turning into animals. But in one of these books, one of the characters gets essentially appendicitis in their brain. Another character has to operate on them while they're telling them what to do. So they're like. They are extremely full of graphic, odd body horror. [00:10:17] Speaker D: It's. [00:10:18] Speaker B: They truly are a 90s oddity. One character flies a plane into a building. This book came out in the year 2000. And someone steals a commercial plane and crashes it into a building. The. The two people who wrote this were keying into something. And they're. They're not. They're not without their flaws. There is some like 90s American racism in it. Like, you'll get that pretty much anytime a white person tries to write for a Black child. And there's some like anti Arabic stuff in one of the books. So if you can handle all that, it's, it's nothing too egregious because it was for children. And they tend to pretty much, they tend to have a pretty fun, pretty good message every time. Except for the one where they kidnap and torture a child and then leave them stranded on an island screaming for help. But he kind of deserved it. [00:11:04] Speaker D: Is that kid was that kid David? [00:11:06] Speaker B: Sure was. That little kid had it coming. [00:11:08] Speaker D: I remember that book. I said, yeah, Justice. If you're not familiar with this series at all, if you think of like Power Rangers on one end of the spectrum, you know, this story of kids with attitude. And then you think of like a show like Gundam Wing as a darker part of that, that spectrum of kids with attitude during a war. And then you go even further in the kids. Like I'd say Anamorphs was about as dark as kids content is allowed to be. [00:11:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And sometimes even darker. The third book is about one of the characters, Tobias, who gets trapped in the form of a red tailed hawk. And that entire book is him debating whether or not he's going to kill himself because he's given up his life as a child and he never had much to live with. And he actually tries to kill himself because he's so depressed and he doesn't recognize his body in the mirror and he doesn't see who he, like he doesn't see who he used to be anymore and there's just something broken in him so he decides to kill himself. And like that's really, that's some deep dark ass for a kid to read. Myself especially as someone with some body image issues and childhood depression and ptsd. It's like, oh, maybe I'm not as alone. Maybe, maybe there is a chance that I can get better. And then rereading these as an adult there, some of them hit, still hit pretty hard. It's, it's crazy what they could do. [00:12:34] Speaker C: And I think it was like one of those things too where it was like it addressed something that was realistic about that. But like that a lot of things would go like, a lot of media properties would like probably gloss over like, like, you know, in a lot of things, a lot of children's media be like, oh, I got turned into a red tailed hawk. This is awesome. And it's like this is the thing where it's like, no, dude, this sucks. Like, like, like, like this person's having like true body dysmorphia. Yeah, this is a wild time. [00:13:08] Speaker D: So in terms of vote, Jake would vote. Cassie would vote Cassie would vote Rachel. Of course, Rachel would never vote to buy. [00:13:19] Speaker C: Rachel would vote for Obama one time. [00:13:23] Speaker D: No. [00:13:24] Speaker C: And then, and then after that she would always point to that whenever people be like, Rachel, you gotta vote in this election. This was important. She'd be like, remember that time you convinced me to vote for Obama? [00:13:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Be like, I tried it. It doesn't work. People, we have to kill them. [00:13:39] Speaker C: It doesn't work. [00:13:41] Speaker D: And Marco is sort of a swing person. I think Marco would probably vote. He's the person that would watch the Daily show especially during that era sometimes, like the early 2000s were a much less cynical time. [00:13:58] Speaker B: I got a hot take. Yeah, I think Marco would be a groiper now if he never met. [00:14:04] Speaker D: That's not a crazy take. That's not a crazy take. That's not a hot take at all. [00:14:08] Speaker B: He's the one like starter little Edge Lord in one of the books. He's like, oh, everything has to be a joke, otherwise it's a tragedy. That's why everything's always funny. They try to make this little turd the joker from the get go. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but it's good. Like those tropes, the were always just there. [00:14:28] Speaker D: Not every not. And we've talked about this Kennedy on our show in the past. Not every Edge, like Ed being an edgelord during that specific time was. Was an act of resistance, you know, that there was a large group of people who, you know, Bush ascendant being it or you know, with religious fundamentalism being ascendant. The edgelord was one of the, the barriers of defense against rising. [00:14:55] Speaker C: The case though that he's a sometimes voter, you know, like he turned out for Ron Paul. [00:15:04] Speaker B: I like what the. I like what this Andrew Yang guy says. I just want a hat that says math. That's. That's the Marco. [00:15:13] Speaker D: Yeah, I could see that for sure. All right, what else, what else do we got here? [00:15:20] Speaker C: Well, I think last but not least, of course is Tobias, who I would say wouldn't have voted before. He was a hawk probably. [00:15:30] Speaker B: Honestly, I think he and Cassie would be the ones who would vote the most. But Cassie would be. Cassie would be a hat marching girl running around. But I definitely think Tobias would have been the. It's like, oh, I'm a Bernie bro. But I can't really say that out loud because they might see me as misogynistic. Like that's what I think Tobias would Be really. [00:15:51] Speaker C: I get the vibe he would just. You would just never engage. [00:15:54] Speaker B: I don't know, maybe I'm just self inserting my. Like with Tobias. Yeah, you know what, we can move on. It doesn't matter. [00:16:03] Speaker C: What the show is for is to debate these topics. [00:16:06] Speaker D: Give me your hot take. [00:16:08] Speaker B: So, like they, these kids. Marco is definitely the gripper voter, the protest voter. Cassie, she's. She's. She's blue no matter who. And that makes me so sad. She would have been such. She would have had a coconut tree in her name. So. [00:16:24] Speaker D: Oh, yes, a thousand percent. Cassidy was a Kamala voter just now. [00:16:30] Speaker B: Yep. I don't know. I. I have a hard time with these because I think Jake would vote conservative more often than not and not tell anyone just because he's kind of a. Throughout most of the series, he's. [00:16:41] Speaker D: Do you think Jake would have voted. [00:16:42] Speaker B: For Trump first time? Yeah, I think so. I think. I think he would have voted for Trump the first time just because he's like, well, we've seen what these Democratic politic, what the, what the democracy is doing now. We need someone to shake it up. He strikes me as a very like, simple, like, I know a Trump voter in real life and it's probably the only person that's ever made a case for Trump that I kind of understood. She said, yeah, my husband's a forest engineer and there was talks of cutting. Like Biden was talking about cutting his job. So we voted for Trump and it's like, dang. I kind of understand that it sucks. You're wrong and you're stupid, but, you know, I kind of get it and I kind of think that Jake would kind of do something like that. [00:17:27] Speaker C: Yeah, I feel like Jake would be one of those unfortunate, rare, but unfortunately real Bernie to Trump voters. [00:17:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. [00:17:38] Speaker E: So I'm looking through the Wikipedia to get a better idea on this, and I just want to point out this one picture. The animorphs. Wikipedia, obviously, with Tobias saying, I'm the one person here who isn't going to be much help dealing with water. Besides, you guys all know how I'd vote. No, we don't. We don't know how you'd vote. That's why we're here right now. [00:18:00] Speaker C: That's. Yeah, that's what we're trying to figure out. [00:18:05] Speaker D: All right. What? Yeah, I love this. [00:18:09] Speaker C: So today we're gonna be talking about the animorphs, obviously, which we've already dived into a fair bit. We're also going to be talking about Some of the famous politicians of the space race era and how the anamorphs might fit into that era because, you know, first of all, the space race aliens. Duh. But also, it was a very conspiratorial era of politics that. That has still pervasively caused conspiracies to exist within our politics. So it made sense to choose a couple of the notable politicians from this era and focus in on them. And of course, I'm talking about jfk, Lyndon B. Johnson, and the third, of course, third most notable politician of this era, Strom Thurman. [00:19:01] Speaker B: Oh, God. [00:19:06] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah, of course. [00:19:09] Speaker B: Strong bomb, everybody. Let's go. [00:19:11] Speaker D: Strong bomb. Yeah. [00:19:15] Speaker C: Go ahead, Go ahead. [00:19:17] Speaker D: No, no, we don't know. We don't know if he's. We're pretty sure he's a member of the blackface cinematic universe. [00:19:22] Speaker B: Oh, God. Yeah. I. Yeah. [00:19:24] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:19:25] Speaker C: How is they not almost certainly a member of the. I'm gonna say honorary member, even if never could. [00:19:32] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. [00:19:33] Speaker C: You know, some people just give the vibe that they do blackface. [00:19:37] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:19:38] Speaker C: So strongly that even if it's never proven, they could still be an honorary member of the blackface cinematic universe. [00:19:46] Speaker B: Honestly, if I had to guess, I think Strom Thurman only ever was in blackface when he would actually cut a black person's face off. Like, he's that far. Oh, my God. Like, I think that's how Strom Thurman. That's how deep his racism goes. [00:19:59] Speaker E: I'm pretty sure this is kidding. [00:20:01] Speaker B: Like. And I. I'm sorry to sort of disrespect, like, that's Joe Biden's close personal friend. Like, I. I don't have to respect the man, but I respect the office of one of. [00:20:11] Speaker D: One of the worst people in all of history. Definitely. [00:20:14] Speaker B: Just not like. And you got me thinking, Kennedy. It's like, wow. Yeah. Our politics did used to reach for things, like trying to put people in space instead of, you know, stranding them in space or sort of aspiring towards some greater nature within itself. And man, I. I can't remember. Yeah, none of that. None of that's happened recently. Oh, God. I'm just spiraling our lifetime. I gotta vote harder. This is. [00:20:43] Speaker C: Yeah, we need to vote more, which is why we're here today. So. You know, Strom Thurman won initial. His initial race by write in, which just goes to show how racist America is. Right. Like, it takes effort to write people in. We've talked about this on this show. Andrew brought up, you know, the great story of Lisa Murkowski. And how she ran her whole campaign about how to spell her fucking name. Like that was her entire campaign, you know. So it just goes to show that a Strom Thurmond winning by writing. Not a good sign for America. [00:21:26] Speaker E: There's a few details about this. The South Carolina Democratic Party was going to get its incumbents. They needed to officially get everything done by September 3rd. He died September 1st, immediately after the private. The party had a very closed door secret. Shush, shush. And they selected their guy. And people were like, wait, that's not how it's supposed to work. And Strom Thurman, who was known as a Dixiecrat and already had his fans, was like, write me in. Instead, these party establishment people are. Don't like them. And he won. So he was very much an anti establishment figure who we already knew. [00:22:10] Speaker B: God, Dixie crap. I hate that phrase so bad. Every time I think of it, it's like, we're giving welfare to all the slurs. Like, that's what a Dixie crat is to me. I just don't. I hate those people, man. [00:22:21] Speaker C: Well, I'm glad that we had the chance to talk about him. [00:22:26] Speaker D: I'm glad. I'm glad the democratic process was able to be portrayed here. [00:22:31] Speaker B: I just. [00:22:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:22:32] Speaker B: Sitting over here looking at pictures of Strom Thurmond and I disassociate. It felt like I was on like evil ketamine. It's like, oh, this thing. This thing used to be part of the ruling class. Good God. [00:22:45] Speaker C: Now, the other two we mentioned, I think there's not crazy amounts that have to be said about them for a lot of people, especially JFK in particular, who of course is arguably like the most famous American president historically, I would. [00:23:03] Speaker D: Say maybe probably the most. Lincoln has a lot of sway and. [00:23:08] Speaker B: Yeah, jfk, arguably the most yerk proof president as well. [00:23:13] Speaker D: Why do you say that, no head? [00:23:15] Speaker B: Because they would have blasted that thing. That's it. That's all. [00:23:21] Speaker D: Yeah, sure. Yeah, he got there and in fact, I think that's gonna be. We'll talk about that later in the show. [00:23:30] Speaker B: Oh, goody. I can't wait. [00:23:32] Speaker C: Are we gonna talk about a known lover of the sloppy Toppy, but also a guy that got to have basically a perfect political legacy by dying? Yeah, right. Like, yeah, yeah, for sure. He promised to do all this cool. And then he was clearly not gonna do any of it. And then Lyndon B. Johnson did it, and then everyone was like, man, JFK did that cool. [00:23:59] Speaker B: We. We love that actress slang Catholic so much. What a cool guy. [00:24:04] Speaker D: Yeah. You know, I. I think that he checked out at the best possible time for his personal legacy, for sure. [00:24:14] Speaker E: That's such an interesting way to put that. [00:24:16] Speaker B: He checked out. He had a net. [00:24:18] Speaker D: He did it before he could become a disappointment. But also, you know, if you think about it in a historical perspective, we could go back. I mean, most people think of Nixon as the. The point of the Republican Party's war on democracy, but I would say the assassination of Kennedy also marks one of those points of. Oh, yeah, if we break out the history book and we'll say, oh, yeah, this, these. This was a problem dating back, way back. [00:24:47] Speaker B: And it, it's. It's another thing that. It's like, it just goes to show that never having any sort of forward momentum or progress, like, Americans can't have that because we have this mythos of JFK getting killed. It's like, oh, he was going to do so much, but he got stopped because he was just too popular and too powerful. And it's like, it used to be that, you know, politicians would get killed when they tried to do anything good, and now they just don't try to do anything good. It's like, I think. And I don't know. I don't know if this is. I'm allowed to say this, but we did. [00:25:25] Speaker E: The. The politically correct way to say is Luigi just. Luigi. [00:25:31] Speaker B: Oh, no. I'm gonna get a lot more graphic. [00:25:34] Speaker D: I'm thinking that this show is all about the voting process. [00:25:39] Speaker B: I just. [00:25:40] Speaker D: You. [00:25:40] Speaker B: You think, you think about the things that change from certain acts, and that's. I don't know. I'm just asking questions. I'm just asking. Just asking questions. [00:25:51] Speaker C: Luigi, there's many ways to vote, but, you know, I just want to say, okay, our. Our last politician here that we mentioned, Lyndon B. Johnson, I think probably one of the slightly more underrated American presidents, like, all American presidents are bad, but, like, I think we forget about him a lot when we're trying to think of, like, guys that didn't completely suck, like he sucked last year. [00:26:20] Speaker D: That whole Vietnam thing just gets. Gets all in the way of the legacy of passing bills through the House or whatever. [00:26:28] Speaker E: Get the president that would whip his dick out to try to get people to intimidate people to vote for his side. [00:26:35] Speaker B: Allegedly. You gotta respect the first. Yes, exactly. Like those tapes of him talking to his tailor about how his balls get trapped around his bunghole. I'll listen to those when I'm feeling depressed and just feel better about it. [00:26:53] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:26:54] Speaker C: I mean, Lyndon B. Johnson didn't handle a lot of stuff well, but he also was just inheriting problems for the most part. He didn't cause a ton of new problems, and he did legitimately try to fix a few, which. Not a great track record per se, but better than so many presidents. [00:27:15] Speaker E: Like when Lyndon B. Johnson finally. Finally got that passed, he knew the Democrat party was going to be over for about a decade because he pissed off too many Dixiecrats. Like he. It was an actual case of him doing what he knew what was right, even though it might not be politically the best. But yeah, when it comes to the space race, like as senator, he passed some bills to get it launched up. After Sputnik, as president, he was the one who called for people the first man on the moon. And as vice president, he actually did a thing. As vice president, JFK asked him to actually look into the feasibility of getting us into space. And he, you know, informal powers. Vice president still have informal powers. So, yeah, he was there a long time trying to get us on the moon. [00:28:09] Speaker C: A complicated fellow. Mr. Johnson. [00:28:14] Speaker A: You'Re tuned in to Ghost Coast Studios, the world's first and only podcast network built for creators, activists, and entrepreneurs with something to say. Gripping audio documentaries, conversations that spark change. We're here to bring your ideas to life. Ready for more head to Ghostcoast Video for shows that matter, tools to help you create, and a community that's totally redefining what a podcast network can be. Ghost Coast Studios, meet your dreams. [00:28:47] Speaker C: I think it's time to cast some votes. [00:28:50] Speaker B: Let's do it. [00:28:51] Speaker D: All right. [00:28:51] Speaker B: Let's do it. [00:28:52] Speaker C: Are you ready? You got your ballots in front of you? I want to ask first, would America ever be ready to elect? Elect Ax a milli esgaruth Ishtil. You know, I just kind of want to debate this idea of could Americans elect a blue horseman or. Or would the racism somehow kick up against him? [00:29:21] Speaker E: No, this puts a whole new meaning to Vote blue no matter who. [00:29:26] Speaker B: Vote. Vote blue no matter who. Oh. [00:29:34] Speaker D: The episode description somewhere. That's pretty good, I really think. You know, is Axie Malai that much weirder than Arnold Schwarzenegger when you really think about it? [00:29:47] Speaker B: Weirder? No. He definitely respects women's boundaries a little better than. Than the governator. Just a little, though. I don't know. The Andalite culture is a bit crazy. So. Yeah, you're talking about the sixth Animorph, the alien who joins them, the teenage brother of the alien who deputized them, eventually joins the main cast of characters. He's sort of for, for Star Trek, Next Generation watchers, kind of the data in the show. He's trying to figure out human culture, that kind of stuff. [00:30:22] Speaker D: And if you're a Justice League watcher, kind of the Martian Manhunter of the group, he's just a quirky alien. I think he gets into cookies or some kind of thing. [00:30:34] Speaker B: Cinnamon rolls. Yeah. [00:30:35] Speaker D: Which is it? [00:30:36] Speaker B: Cinnamon rolls. He loves Cinnabon. Like. [00:30:39] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. He got he. That Cinnabon hit him like crack. [00:30:43] Speaker C: That could make him relatable. [00:30:44] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:30:46] Speaker B: I know for a fact that Cinnabon sales took a huge bump after these books started coming out. How could they not? It's the only reason I ever tried it was these dumb books. [00:30:55] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:30:57] Speaker B: Species, like, they don't. He eats other candy like in the books, but he calls them like brown globules, you know, grease bombs, which is popcorn. But the only thing they get a specific call out is Cinnabon. And I think that rocks. Shoot your shot. Catherine Alice Applegate. Go for it. [00:31:14] Speaker E: Just like that. Sonic movies in Olive Garden. [00:31:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:18] Speaker C: Do you think she low key got like a. A lifetime gift card situation nobody's parents. [00:31:27] Speaker D: Would go take their kid to see? I mean, if you think of honestly, Ax was like an iPad kid for these Cinnabons. He was just, he was not polite at all when he got this stuff in his system. [00:31:40] Speaker B: And I can tell you from personal experience that Cinnabon has no personality because way, way back when I was running the Animorphs, like when we were ongoing, I think I tweeted at Cinnabon and said, hey, Cinnabon, sponsor my Animorphs podcast. And I sent them a picture of a gun and they blocked me. So I don't, I don't think they have a lot of fun there. [00:32:01] Speaker C: Damn, that's too bad. You know, based on, based on the fact that Cinnabon wouldn't sponsor the Animorphs, I don't think America's ready to elect Blue Horse Man. [00:32:11] Speaker B: I think he'd be a great, great president because he's dispassionate about everything except eating. Like my boy just would. There's one book in particular where the whole secondary B plot is how much chili he eats. And if that's not relatable to most of the like, mouth breathing Americans, I count myself among those, by the way. Like, I don't know what else you can do. [00:32:34] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, sure, yeah. The thing with, with him was he was. I think it just depends on how much you dislike the other guy. I mean, if you were to say that he's going against Musk or Strom Thurman or I mean, just name some of the worst people in America that these positions seem to self select for. I think a lot of people would say, eh, roll my eye, I'll roll my dice on the blue. The blue skinned alien horse. [00:33:05] Speaker B: And I mean, do any of you know how the Andalites eat? [00:33:10] Speaker D: You're gonna tell us. [00:33:11] Speaker B: They eat with their feet. They suck up grass while running and eat with their feet. So that sort of brings up the questions like because they don't have mouths, they communicate with thoughts. Is America ready for a president that gives head with their foot? I don't know. [00:33:33] Speaker C: I was not ready for that statement. Personally. [00:33:36] Speaker B: I am. I'm ready, but I don't, I don't know. [00:33:42] Speaker E: That's because you're more progressive than me every day. I'm not. [00:33:45] Speaker B: I'm trying to think of the 19,000 people in Pennsylvania that decide every election. I just don't know if they can handle it. [00:33:51] Speaker E: Oh, I lived in Pennsylvania. They're not ready. [00:33:56] Speaker C: What about. Okay, let's get into a more specific ask here. What about Visser 3? [00:34:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:04] Speaker C: Versus Strom Thurman? [00:34:08] Speaker B: Oh boy. One of them is evil incarnate, willing to just murder children and destroy everyone. And basically the other is just a. [00:34:21] Speaker D: Foreigner from a different planet. [00:34:23] Speaker B: See, that's where I was going with it. [00:34:25] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:34:27] Speaker B: At least like strom Thurman, like visor 3. I understand because he's just a Weeb. He's just a brain slug who became so obsessed with a different culture that he sort of took over the other culture's body and made that his identity. I understand that I'm wearing a Venture Brothers T shirt. Like that's. I get that. Stealing other people's identity as my own. That makes sense. I don't understand like all the N words. Like, like. [00:34:55] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:34:56] Speaker B: It's never. [00:34:56] Speaker D: Honestly. I honestly think. Yeah. Visser 3 is a strong contender here. [00:35:02] Speaker B: And it like, I should say like the great thing about Mr. Three, he's the villain of Animorphs, the villain of the entire series. He's got that sort of. Oh God, what's the right phrase for it? He's the over the top. He's like the Lord Zed for you Power Rangers watchers. He's like this over the top evil guy who at the end of the day is always kind of a joke. And that's why he rocks, because he's like this menacing freak. Like in one episode he Turns into a giant inflatable spear shooting monster, and they just pop him and he starts crying. I think we should be able to. [00:35:34] Speaker E: The camera like, this is the office. [00:35:37] Speaker D: Yeah. No, I mean, honestly, if you, you know, Americans, if you trace back what really motivates American votes, it's spite. Spite the great unifier in American politics. And I just think so many people would vote for. For Visser three out of just pure spite across the political spectrum that I think he beats Strom Thurman in almost any time. I mean, aside from that one time period that Strom Thurman was in there. Yeah, I think he's. He's. He's losing to a literal alien invader for sure. [00:36:12] Speaker B: What about. Oh, God, he. He holds the record for the longest filibuster, and that was trying to prevent the Civil Rights Act. Good God. [00:36:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:24] Speaker E: Fun unfun fact. The reason why the filibuster has a. It. It's. So the way it is now was to get the Civil Rights act through. You had the few racists that were filibustering everything, and they changed them. In a shocking twist, one of the weird things in modern politics was to help fight against racism and not to support racism. In a shocking twist. But that's the reason why our filibuster works the way now to prevent something like that. With Strom Thurman. [00:37:00] Speaker B: The more I learn about every single American politician, the more I want to blow my brains out. I was going along with these jokes like, oh, yeah, Strom Thurman. I know he's a noted racist. I don't really know why, but just coming through as a Wikipedia. [00:37:16] Speaker C: Yeah, no, he really does suck. Like he. It's not like he just said slurs like he also did everything he could to put racist policy into place. [00:37:26] Speaker D: Yeah, this wasn't just your regular twitch streamer, you know. [00:37:31] Speaker E: Hey, everybody, it's me, Strom Thurmond. I'm gonna play this new anti woke video game for you. [00:37:36] Speaker B: I'm gonna put out a content nuke of Strom Thurman. That's good. So it's gonna be good. What about. [00:37:42] Speaker C: What about David in rat form versus Strom Thurmond in an election? [00:37:48] Speaker E: Hey, which one is Omega Rat? [00:37:50] Speaker B: I can. [00:37:50] Speaker C: Tyler. [00:37:51] Speaker D: You. Tyler, you were. You were implying that David was unfairly persecuted here. So would you like to give some. You've probably read these books more recently. Would you like to give some kind of defense of David? [00:38:02] Speaker B: Yes. Oh, boy. Defensive David. Why don't I just stand. Why don't I make a Case for everything. I don't believe. Here we go. [00:38:10] Speaker E: Let's go. [00:38:11] Speaker C: No, you don't have to. You don't have to defend it. [00:38:14] Speaker D: Yeah, you absolutely do not, under any circumstances, have to give it to David. [00:38:19] Speaker B: I. I'm going. So I'm going to give it to David. And just like, kind of like how sometimes, like, oh, yeah, Freddy Krueger's funny. Try not to think about all the children he killed, but he's Donald Trump's funny. [00:38:32] Speaker E: Try not to think about all the. He does. He's funny. [00:38:35] Speaker B: So. So David was the animorph that joins about 20 books into the series. He finds the blue cube that lets you turn into animals, and the animorphs sort of integrate him into their group, and he turns out to be a real piece of shit. Like, this kid is a bully, he's manipulative, and, like, he comes from an abusive family. Or at least it's hinted that he's abusive in that his dad is a cop and. Sorry. And then he gets sort of thrown into this group with these kids, and these kids sort of impose their own will on him without any sort of grace or understanding or trying to make it easy for him. So in that regard, like, the kid was kind of in over his head without realizing it. He then, however, goes out of his way to try and murder them. He actually does kill one of the main character's cousin to try and take his body. So it's like, David's no angel, but I think he got. He's got strong Thurman beat, if I had to say. [00:39:35] Speaker E: Right. In Candidate David. [00:39:37] Speaker B: So, like, the animals do kidnap him, and they trick him into staying in rat form for two hours. And he's like, no, just kill me. Just kill me. Please kill me. And they're like, oh, we got to do something about this. So they fly him out to an island made of trash and drop him off there. And at the end of the book, they mention how kid, like, people will be on a boat going by the island and they'll swear that they can hear someone screaming for help nonstop. It's children's books, am I right? [00:40:06] Speaker E: You know, let's talk about. [00:40:08] Speaker D: David had a whole trilogy. He was like a special tril. Yeah. By the end of those three books, I was like, that kid. [00:40:16] Speaker B: Yeah, he was. He's a real monster. [00:40:20] Speaker C: I want to give. I want to believe that David can win this election, but, you know, the. The. The history that we have in front of us tells us that as high as a rat can go In American politics so far is appointed to transportation of secretary rat. [00:40:39] Speaker B: Right. [00:40:39] Speaker C: Or secretary of transportation. You know what I mean? [00:40:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:40:42] Speaker D: Sounds about right. [00:40:43] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:40:47] Speaker B: Until you love mayor Pete. We love him so much. Mayor Pete forever Or mayor Pete a hundred years. You want me to do the dance? [00:40:55] Speaker C: Yeah, let's all do the mayor Pete dance real quick. That's an important part of voting. I'll hear essential part. [00:41:01] Speaker B: I'll hear that song. And just like I'll be walking through the store and I'll try and like I run out of the store. It's like I will not be imagining any dragons. Thank you very much. [00:41:11] Speaker E: All right. Maybe the real mayor Pete was inside us the whole time. [00:41:15] Speaker B: Hey, now I'm not mayor Pete's husband chasing. All right, all right. [00:41:21] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. All right. What else I want to know? [00:41:25] Speaker C: I want to know if. If Tobias in hawk form could be Lyndon b. Johnson for u. S. Senate. I don't know if a hawk could be president, but I think a hawk could run for u. S. Senate. [00:41:41] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:41:41] Speaker E: If he was a golden eagle, that'd be. Or an eagle in general. That'd be a different story. [00:41:47] Speaker D: I think that maybe this hawk could beat a guy at the right time. You know, there's nothing in the rules that say a bird can't be a. [00:41:55] Speaker B: Senator, But I agree with Brandon. [00:41:58] Speaker D: Some had some tight family connections in Texas or something. He married somebody he did something or other to where he had a tight grip on that state. You know, they were pretty loyal to him. [00:42:12] Speaker B: And Tobias famously had no family connections other than, you know, his dad being the alien that drafted them into the war. As it comes to find out, Tobias is like the magic child. So they play with like the child of destiny trope, but as it turns out, that does nothing but make his life hell and it goes nowhere. And he just keeps trying to kill himself. It's really great. Let me see. I don't think. [00:42:36] Speaker D: What a great series. [00:42:37] Speaker C: Destiny Also in American politics. Don't we? [00:42:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Hold on. I think. I think I got something for it. Hawk two of the polls. Hawk two of the polls. [00:42:49] Speaker C: I don't know. I don't know. It sounds like a tighter and tighter race. I do think Johnson probably wins, but. [00:42:55] Speaker D: Yeah. I think Lyndon Johnson was a great candidate. We'd have to find a terrible candidate to lose to. A bird. Just being a bird. You're at a little bit of it. [00:43:04] Speaker C: Could any of the core animorphs be Lyndon b. Johnson for either senate or president? [00:43:14] Speaker B: Maybe Marco. He fights dirty. He would fight very, very dirty. [00:43:19] Speaker C: Really could. Could appeal to the American center. [00:43:24] Speaker B: I. I think that Marco would turn into a lobster and give that guy a double circumcision, thus severing his power, Samson and Delilah style. [00:43:33] Speaker E: Yeah, that would. [00:43:34] Speaker B: That's. [00:43:34] Speaker C: You know what, that. That's pretty compelling. [00:43:37] Speaker D: If we were to pick a state that Lyndon Johnson could never win in, like, let's say Wyoming or Mon. Maybe Montana or Idaho, we have to pick, like, a real hardcore Republican state and then somehow get one of the Animorphs through a primary. [00:43:55] Speaker B: I think we're all. How many dogs have been made mayors of small towns? I think a hawk could win. People just voting for a bird. I would vote for a bird. Have you seen some of these freaks that make it into winning elections? We were just talking about Mayor Pete. That guy was built in a lab to piss me off. I would vote for a bird over him. [00:44:15] Speaker C: I would vote for a bird. [00:44:17] Speaker B: Tobias. Tobias could be up there saying, we're gonna put all underserved populations into gas chambers. Like, you're all dead. All that's left are going to be, you know, Cis straight white people. And then he's up against Mayor Pete. I'm sorry, Mayor Pete. I'm punching one in for the birds. Like I don't care. Kill me. Kill me. [00:44:38] Speaker D: First of all, I love imagining this because Mayor Pete, you can imagine him very calmly saying, a bird is not qualified to serve in political office. There's a lot of things that involve use of opposable thumbs. And then just so many critical Americans. [00:44:57] Speaker C: Who are just contrarian are voting for the bird after that speech. [00:45:03] Speaker B: Yep, it's. I mean, it's got my vote. I think Rachel could beat Lyndon Johnson. She's the true cutthroat of the Animorphs. As. As life and the Animorphs proved, the most vicious character in all the world is an angry white woman. [00:45:20] Speaker D: There's no way that Rachel gets through an entire election without murdering someone she would need. [00:45:27] Speaker B: She wouldn't be able to survive if she didn't. That's the thing. [00:45:30] Speaker D: There's. You know, within a couple of weeks, she's gonna turn to a bear and at least threaten someone. She doesn't just, like, kill them right away. They'll be arguing or something. And then she'll turn into a bear and be like, what's. What's your answer for when I turn into a bear and bite your neck off or some. [00:45:49] Speaker B: Exactly. And there's one. [00:45:51] Speaker E: There's one of these books on rfk. Oh, you think you could kill a bear? [00:45:57] Speaker C: Huh? She would kill rfk? Yeah. [00:46:00] Speaker B: She would disembowel him so fast. I mean, there's one of these books where she gets so horny looking at Jonathan Taylor Thomas that she turns into an elephant and smashes her house. She can't be stopped. [00:46:11] Speaker D: That sounds right. [00:46:12] Speaker C: That's pretty. That's pretty lit. [00:46:15] Speaker D: We should do. We should do. Can you do Two Truths and a Lie about Animorphs? Tyler, sorry to put you on the spot here. [00:46:21] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, let me pick some real. Let me pick some. Some real ones. [00:46:32] Speaker E: By the way, don't mention the Hitler one. I already know that's true. [00:46:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I wasn't gonna. Everybody knows the Hitler one. In one of the books, one of the animals murders Hitler. He wasn't even the real Hitler. It's like an alternate reality, and the guy's like, I think that's Hitler. And so one of the animal, Tobias, kills him and goes, when you see a Hitler, you kill a Hitler. So. [00:46:53] Speaker D: Base. [00:46:53] Speaker B: See here. Two Truths in a Lie. Animorphs Edition. Someone calls Cassie a Slurpee, so she tortures them. The Animorphs prevent the explosion of the Eiffel Tower. Animorphs go to Atlantis, and it turns out they're all irradiated freaks trying to harvest DNA and have babies. [00:47:23] Speaker D: First of all, these are great choices because they're almost imperceptible. [00:47:28] Speaker C: I don't think the Animorphs prevented the experience. Explosion of the Eiffel Tower. [00:47:34] Speaker D: Yeah, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go with the Cassie slur because it seems less crazy than the other two. [00:47:41] Speaker B: Yeah, Kennedy is correct. The other ones definitely happened. [00:47:46] Speaker D: There you go. [00:47:47] Speaker B: So in one of the books, they travel back in time, and anybody who's ever, you know, seen that joke of why isn't there time travel stuff with black people? Because, you know, racism that happens in Animorphs. And she's like, oh, you're going to call me that? You want me to be white? I'll be white. So she turns into a polar bear and, like, murders this guy for calling her a slur. It's great. [00:48:10] Speaker D: Honestly. Base. [00:48:14] Speaker B: And. [00:48:14] Speaker D: And. And honestly, we do this show that involves a lot of traveling through history, and we've come to similar conclusions. All right. [00:48:25] Speaker B: No, the Atlantis one was great. Like the. The. It's the Orca book. So if you can find the Orca book, they go down to this underground. Like, they're like, oh, it's the lost city of Atlantis. But it's really just the, like, crash, wreckage, of all the war boats and nuclear warheads that have sort of mutated these underwater freaks and so they like sink boats and they take people, paralyze them, suck out their organs and try to diversify their gene pool with their DNA and they feed it to their queen. It's pretty great. [00:48:59] Speaker C: I knew the Atlantis thing was real. [00:49:03] Speaker B: Thank God. [00:49:05] Speaker C: Which I didn't love knowing, but it was okay. Could any of the Animorphs be JFK in the race for the presidency? Or is he just an unbeatable character compared to these guys? [00:49:19] Speaker D: Those people, those characters are all. And, and K. Applegate makes it extremely clear. Those characters are all child soldiers. They all have extreme PTSD. They've got too many emotional issues. JFK's got his too, but he was an expert at faking it. And I just don't know if the Animorphs could. Can keep their composure for a long period of time. We only see them in. In constant crisis. So I just don't see any of them calmly punching into work. And I think that was even kind of the ending of of the the series was that after all these events, like only one of them can even hold down a job or do anything normal. They're all kind of up. So I don't even see them clocking into work or talking, giving speeches, glad handing. I just don't see them doing anything in life consistently enough to. To. To beat JFK at anything. [00:50:16] Speaker B: I don't know. And this is another true Animorphs fact. They can be pretty effective when they want to be. Because in the Animorphs they kill Bill Gates or the Bill Gates stand in because he's, as you find out in Animorphs number 16 or 17, the Rhino Book. A tech billionaire has been eating people's brains, so he lives forever. So they blow up his house out. So I think they might be able to beat him. JFK famously not very good with brains. So I think there would be. [00:50:51] Speaker D: I do think they could, they could extrajudiciously assassinate jfk. But oh, is a victory of some kind. [00:51:02] Speaker B: I mean, it's happened once before. It could happen again. [00:51:06] Speaker C: Could happen again. Could happen again. Yeah. Okay, let's swap over. Now we've brought the Anamorphs into our universe, but what about bringing our universe into the Anamorphs? I don't know if I like that phrasing, but here we go. [00:51:26] Speaker B: Here we go. [00:51:27] Speaker C: I want to start with what is Lyndon B. Johnson's battle morph? And for listeners at home that aren't as familiar. The battle morphs are basically. You know, the animorphs characters can transform into different animals. So they have specific animals that they each like to transform into for certain uses. And battle is one of those, and flight is another one. They all have specific creatures they like to turn into to fly and things like that. So. And these reflect something of the character's personality and temperament, right? [00:52:04] Speaker B: Yes, they do. And it's also a sneaky way to teach children facts about animals. [00:52:10] Speaker D: Yeah. Gotta squeeze in some education through all this blood. And it's the only way for the Scholastic Book Fair. [00:52:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I was gonna say it's the only way Scholastic would let them do all that crazy they were planning to do. [00:52:23] Speaker D: So Lyndon Johnson's battle Morph, very uncontroversially, would be a bull. [00:52:31] Speaker B: I. I think bull is good. I was gonna say a rhino. [00:52:36] Speaker D: Is he gonna get his hands on a rhino? Is he gonna go to Africa? I guess he could go to a zoo. Did the anamorphs do zoo trips to load up on animals? [00:52:45] Speaker B: One of the. One of the zoos that they were always going to was called the Gardens. Cassie's mom worked there, so they had easy access to all the exotic animals they could want. Say what you will about animorphs, they thought of these plains. [00:52:57] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. They had a zoo plug. Yeah, for sure. [00:53:00] Speaker B: Yep. [00:53:01] Speaker D: Lyndon Johnson, you know, nothing like a honey badger. He'd want something big. He'd want something that could just walk up to you and. And kick your ass. [00:53:12] Speaker B: That's why I keep. Keep thinking rhino. It's big. It's got a big horn right on the front of it, Just ripping right through everything. [00:53:20] Speaker D: Something with some good stabbing power. [00:53:22] Speaker B: Yep. [00:53:23] Speaker C: Yeah, I like rhino. [00:53:25] Speaker B: What else? [00:53:25] Speaker C: Guy. Which is also very. It would be very ironic if he had a rhino, as his bull's pretty strong too. [00:53:32] Speaker B: That. The Texas connection. He's like, I'm a long. Yeah, I could see. I could definitely see bull. [00:53:37] Speaker D: A rhino. That's Paul Ryan's battle. More for sure. [00:53:42] Speaker B: Oh, God. All right. Battle Morph is going to be like a live little fox or something. [00:53:48] Speaker C: What about JFK's battle morph? What would JFK morph into? Battle. I feel like it's got to be something impressive. Like the. The obvious first choice that comes to mind for me is just a lion. Like, just like a mother, you know, Just a lion all. Yeah, I'm. I'm the. I'm. I'm a Kennedy. You. [00:54:10] Speaker B: I mean, that's. That's what he'd tell people. But It'd probably be something like a cassowary or something. [00:54:16] Speaker D: Yeah, I could see him trying to get a lion and screwing it up somehow. A cassowary is a great choice because. [00:54:23] Speaker B: It'S like, most people haven't heard of it. And it's like, oh, okay, I guess that's fine. But it's like, oh, it's really quite deadly when you think about it. And it's like, okay, jfk, head back to your Marilyn Monroe room by. [00:54:37] Speaker D: I honestly think a cassowary is an incredible choice for jfk. I find that extremely credible. [00:54:43] Speaker C: What about, like, a Komodo dragon? [00:54:45] Speaker B: Oh, that's a good one. [00:54:46] Speaker C: Like, deadly, but kind of nerdy. Like, oh, man, dude, you're going as the Komodo dragon again. And he's like, listen, it's like, I. [00:54:55] Speaker B: May not kill you, but if I bite you in two days, it's over for you. [00:55:00] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah, I love that. [00:55:03] Speaker C: What about Strom Thurman's battle? [00:55:05] Speaker B: More polar bear. It's. It probably be a taller, bigger white guy is what he would pick. Yeah, like. Like Sandow, the old, like, muscle man from the 20s with his triangular weights and his singlet. That's who he'd pick. Big old mustache. I just don't think he's got the brain power to work within an animal's body. [00:55:33] Speaker C: I think. I think he maybe could if. Depending on the animal. I mean, there's animals that are just horrible. Like, Strom Thurman could be a mink cobra. [00:55:42] Speaker B: Cobra could be good. He'd be like, I'm king. King cobra. Strom Thurman. I could. Sorry. I just. I pictured his face again, and it's like, oh, listener, I cannot. I cannot impress upon you how ugly this thing looks. This thing being Strom Thurman. God damn. [00:56:01] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. It's out of control with this guy's face. [00:56:04] Speaker E: He won, right? And he. People were like. [00:56:10] Speaker C: I don't. When they went, I don't love that. [00:56:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't. I don't love that either. And all the politicians who worked with him loved him, so. They say what you will about that. Good God, I feel better about the world now. [00:56:29] Speaker E: Democracy. Am I right? [00:56:31] Speaker B: I thought I was having a bad day before, but now it's like. And I know I shouldn't. You shouldn't make fun of people's appearances, but I swear to God, that man looks like what I've been putting in the toilet all day. Just made leather scabs. It's not good. Strom, I hope you're in hell, but you probably went to supply side heaven, so. [00:56:50] Speaker E: Oh, well, yeah, when they were voting on what to do with him, they. Damn it, they wrote in heaven. So he got into heaven. [00:57:01] Speaker D: This is a, this is a great time to remind you, especially if you've been here and you're listening to this, you got some entertainment out of the show. So please remember to vote for us on all of wherever you get, podcasts, itunes especially. You're listening to this when it just came out. It means a lot for the algorithm. Pocket cat, wherever there's an option to vote, vote 5 for us by any means. [00:57:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, like what I always say is you could write the nastiest shit you want in the comments, but please just keep voting at 5. That's all that matters. [00:57:33] Speaker C: I say vote your conscience, you know, Vote your conscience. [00:57:38] Speaker E: Your vote matters. [00:57:39] Speaker B: It was crazy. One of the, one of the worst reviews we ever got for the Animorphs podcast was. And this podcast covers every book. It's over a week's worth of time to listen to the entire series. And this guy reviewed it. He's like, I finally made it to my favorite episode, which is the next to last episode we put out. And he's like. And all they did was talk about video games. If I wanted a video game chat, I would have listened to a video game thing. And it's like he just goes on to talk about how much he hated me, how much he didn't like it. And it's like, you listen to over a week of this shit and you still put this review in. God damn. I respect the hate. [00:58:15] Speaker C: What a hater. [00:58:17] Speaker E: It's like how moist, critical. Watched hundreds of episodes of one piece. Hated it. [00:58:23] Speaker B: But eventually, yeah, it was still a three star review. So I was like, okay, all right, I'll take it. [00:58:32] Speaker C: Okay. I think it's about time to close out this fine day of voting with our final discussion, our most pressing discussion of all. This one's a little complicated, so bear with me. All right, ready? Imagine it's the Cold War and that the United States and the Soviets have each been given 10 years advance notice that the plot of the Animorphs is about to occur, more or less. So we've got the yerks, we've got animorphing. All of this is coming to the earth in 10 years. Alright? Both of these countries have already started to develop a space program. With this 10 year notice, can either country do anything meaningful to stop this? Or have the Yerks taken over our politics? Did they win in real life. Is that what happened in our politics? [00:59:29] Speaker D: I was so interested in hearing Tyler's thoughts on this because the human race can do some things with prep time, but also I guess we might need to know more about the yeerks from a. Are they willing to invest 50 years, 30 years? You know, the Heritage foundation invested a full generation into taking over America. How would the yeerks be able to adjust to a prep timed United States and Soviet government? And I imagine that, that the Russians in the United States would form some sort of peace, even if temporary. You know, if, if the, the Andalites say yeah, these yeerks are worse than the Nazis and they're certainly as bad. I mean they're space Nazis like many space Nazis before them. Yeah. Do we think that, that Tyler, you're the expert here. Do you think with 10 years of foreknowledge that humans could develop security protocols, hand signals? You know, the thing about the Animorphs books is that that it hits the fan immediately and the kids can't trust anybody if there's a 10 year window of there are no aliens involved and they're coming or are we just cooked? [01:00:45] Speaker B: We are so, so cooked. Because one of the things that they talk about in these books from the YERK perspective is how easy it is to manipulate human beings. Because in one of the books they start to explain the infrastructure and how they built what they did. And that involved creating basically after school programs for kids and adults. And it, it fed on the need of us people saying don't you want to be a part of something greater? Don't you want to come together with your fellow man and be a part of something greater? That's one of the main plots of the book is how they created this group called the sharing, where if you were part of the club, your life immediately got better. And it didn't matter that that was purely because an, an alien got into your brain and you lost all control over yourself, your body, your mind. You were just, you had been colonized in your brain. And there were a large sect of people who went along with it willingly and they were afforded other privileges like free time or just to have a good time when their YERK needed to regenerate. And that I think in my darkest heart, I think is alluring to a lot of people. Completely surrendering control of the day to day, just existing within their mind and not having to think about what they do. And so I think they would cook us, but not Soviets. Soviets would, Soviets at their peak would have totally washed the yerks. Easy. They just had the space stuff figured out way before we did. [01:02:26] Speaker D: You think that, that, I mean you're, you're basically saying the yerks would manipulate the incentive structure of human behavior. You think the Soviets could resist the. Just the, the Vichy humans? [01:02:41] Speaker B: You would certainly hope so, but honestly, probably not. At the end of the day, humans are very simple, needs oriented beast. And it's only with great brain, like undoing a brainwashing, that we move past that to care about anything outside of our immediate sphere of influence. And some people, you know, Strom Thurman, any sort of conservative, they never think past their immediate surroundings to anything around them, which is why we see a lot of what we do. Because it's a very fuck you got mine kind of thing. And if there was a fast track to the good life, lots of people would take it. At least that's what I think. And if all you had to do was give up your freedom completely and let some little slug slither into your ear once every three days, I mean, at least you're not going to the gym. Someone else is doing it for you. [01:03:32] Speaker D: How long did the yeerk invasion from in. In anamorph time? Was it a three year, two year? How long were these events of these six? [01:03:41] Speaker B: So they actually the first time the yerks come to the planet is during Desert Storm. And that's when they immediately start building their infrastructure and infiltrating powerful groups like one of like Visser one takes over the body of a young cocaine addict and seduces a movie executive until she forces the cocaine ad to kill herself and takes over the executive. So they have this huge windfall of cash and they start building these after school programs and like secretive groups and basing it on like, oh, you're chosen, you're one of the. [01:04:18] Speaker D: Yeah, I've heard enough. [01:04:19] Speaker B: We're cooked. You're part of the exclusive club and it just builds and builds and builds. Yeah, we're cooked. And I mean I'm even like not trying to portray it as nice as they did in the books, but even then it's like, you know what? This actually sounds. All right, sign me up. Put it. [01:04:35] Speaker D: Is there anything that the human race in your opinion could do? Let's say, Tyler, you were in charge of. You were given dictatorial powers, given this emergency, you're the world's foremost expert on yks. Is there, is there anything that can be done to save humanity? [01:04:53] Speaker B: Chastity, chastity cages for ears. We're always wearing them. Nobody's getting in there. Let's see, we would probably have to meet them at their level and provide the basic goods, services and pleasures that are offered by these aliens. Because if we can ensure a better way of life than the colonizers of the body, then maybe, you know, people won't choose that or won't be swayed or won't just not give a. [01:05:22] Speaker D: Only full communism now will give us any chance to defeat the ys, is what you're saying. [01:05:27] Speaker B: That's my personal goal or personal belief. But you know, I, I am. Yeah, that's. There's not a big group of us. Well, but we sure, but we sure are allowed. I don't know, I, I, we. We've been seeing the issues with climate change coming for how many decades now and have we banded together to try and fight it? That affects us a lot more directly than an alien brain slug. And no, we're not doing anything other than kicking the can down the street. But hey, at least now I have BlackBerry. Zero sugar Dr. Pepper. So maybe it won't be so bad when I die in an ice fire. [01:06:05] Speaker D: Tyler. Absolutely spitting. We love, we love having you here on the show. This is a just a classic episode and honestly, the Animorphs fit this, this show like a glove. [01:06:20] Speaker B: Well, thank you. It's been my pleasure. I love talking about this stuff. It's been in my life for decades now. In a way, I didn't think it would ever matter past when I was 11, but here we are. We don't get to choose what we do in life, but sometimes you're just the Animorphs guy on the Internet, which I'm 6, 7. There's also that, like I'm tall. Like it. I'm not just the, the child's book from the 90s guy. [01:06:47] Speaker D: So this, your, your series is complete now. You've done every episode. [01:06:53] Speaker B: It is all out there. We've done it. We, we've thrown it out there. We put it into the world and it really resonated with people. We, we. People really, from what I can tell, enjoyed it. Or at least we're not so vocal about hating. [01:07:09] Speaker D: Is there a new project that you're working on now? [01:07:12] Speaker B: Yeah, we actually have a podcast, ongoing right now. Kennedy was just on it and their episode comes out a week from Tuesday. We're working on what's called the Hate Speech podcast where we talk about something we hate. We know how that sounds. [01:07:27] Speaker D: Sure. [01:07:28] Speaker B: And it's fine. It's not what you think it is. [01:07:30] Speaker D: You're taking it back. I get it. [01:07:32] Speaker B: We sort of Deacon. We deconstruct things and place it on. Yeah, no, I. We are so far from taking it back. But, like, we've hated some stuff on there. Like, we. We. We talked about Hamilton with Tony Boswell for Minion. Death cult we brought down. We talked about Jon Stewart. We talked about big trucks with merit K. We talked about coffee. Sometimes we hate the thing. Sometimes we don't hate the thing. We talked about the Costco guys way before anyone was talking about the Costco guys because those little freaks annoyed me, and I needed to talk about it. We got some. We got some real heaters coming, too. [01:08:06] Speaker D: Honestly. You've got a show that's very easy and obvious, and so do we. So I definitely respect the grift. Yeah. [01:08:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. There was just not. And, like, there we get so focused on, like, oh, talk about the good things. You need to be positive, folks. Don't focus on all bad stuff. Like, no, I. Sometimes I want to be a hater. Like, I just want to hate on something. I don't need to know why I hate Hamilton. I just hate it. So then I watched Hamilton, and I really hated Hamilton. Like, I didn't like it. I hate it now. It's. It's fun. You got to let that hate out. Otherwise, you know, you'll get cancer or something. [01:08:47] Speaker D: Kennedy, you want to. Do you want to. You're on mute. You want to take us to the next level? [01:08:52] Speaker C: Yeah. Thank you, everyone, for listening, participating, voting today. It's been a fantastic episode. We've had a great guest, some great topics, some great ballots were cast, and now we all got to get out of here and get back to other kinds of voting that we must get up to in our lives. Thank you so much for listening. Don't forget to vote on Apple podcasts and Spotify and places like that and wherever you can leave us a nice little comment. We appreciate it. And until next time, we'll see you. [01:09:29] Speaker D: Bye. Bye. [01:09:34] Speaker A: Ghost Coast Studios. Thanks for listening.