I did inside NBA. Change once Kenny Chuck joined the.
Crew, it got worse, you know what.
Me.
I worked with Kenny first.
Yeah, and you guys know, there's just you either have that or you don't have to. You know, if somebody has to talk to you into being on TV, if somebody has to say, I really wish you would do this, you know, and you really you know, that's one thing.
But when you got it, you got it. Kenny had it. You know.
Kenny was late in his career. He was working his way through ten days, you know, like he'd be on the show one time. I say, hey, yeah, I was with Detroit, now I'm with so and so. You know so, but man, he just has a gift.
So you transitioned into media, you're able to join T and T. Did you have any idea what you're getting yourself into?
Somewhat?
I never wanted to be in media, but I just enjoyed it because I love the game. I mean, if you come to my house tonight, it's gonna be five of us sitting around. We're gonna be talking about the games, talking about whatever it is. That's what we did. So my brother always says, you know, he should get paid half my TNT contract because I use his stuff.
You know. My cousin says that.
We all do we do group chats, and like that's all we that's what we do. So but I did notice like that most people couldn't in thirty seconds explain that's important what was going on, and not only explain it, but explain it to you guys who at the highest level and also where my grandmother could understand.
I was like, oh, they can't do that.
I just had that knack, And I think, you know, if we're going to talk to talk, I think what makes me the best in the businesses.
I see the periphial like I don't.
See like when I walked in here, I could see the environment that's created, and I could feel the energy of what part of each team that you pull from just based off of like a five minute walkthrough.
I don't know. That's just a gift that.
God's given me, and it's just in life, Like I could see that in life. But I could see him like, oh that person is important to this process. I'm like, oh, my man had said like two common he jumped in. He's the only one who jumped in, and neither one of y'all said anything, he's important to the process. When he was, he like, y'all allow him to speak, and yeah,
but those are things I know. So when those are the things I bring to the show, I'm like, no, no, no, no. You know when this guy like it was a player that had an unbelievable game and great player, and I was like, I'm not sure if his teammates like him, Like, what do you mean? I was like, because I could tell by the reactions on the bench which authentic and what wasn't. Like if I had fifty, everybody on the team would be going crazy, I like, or one of
my teammates I would know. I'm like, but a guy ain't really feeling getting fifty. I'm like, yo, yo, I'm not. It's a different energy. Those are the things that I noticed, and I'm like, that's why they're gonna win. Well, that's why they won't win. And I think you know where Shock and Charles they come from. The always say Charles is he's a flashlight. And I know y'all had some beef. Everybody, everybody has some beef with you, but you could never
have beef for Charles in this way. I'll say, because he looks at life through a flashlight and not a flood light. So if he says, if you look at life through a flashlight, he's like, man, everybody in here god on Jordan's. No, I got on Jordan's. He's got the flashlight. He's correct in it. But when you put the flood light on it, everybody else. But sometimes the flashlight is super accurate because he's pointing it directly at you.
But sometimes he misses things.
My job is always to bring the flood light to the situation and go, nah, you're right, but it's not that only you know. So he has an accuracy point to it that will rub you the wrong way, because.
Or you would over love.
I think he gets too much credit sometime, and then I sometime I think he gets too much the other way.
But he's accurate all the time. But it's a flashlight.
Then when you get a chance, they have chuck on the shaw man, you know. And it looked for all the world like he's going to NBC. NBC was right here with him, and he said, you know, he had verbally agreed with you know, to go to NBC. And he comes down to Atlanta and goes out with the Turner folks one night. I don't know what that night was like, but it must have been good. Yeah, And
so he signs with us. And your only hope is that the things that made him an attractive, you know, option to be on your air is that he'll maintain that, that he won't lose that because look, in the course of my years there, we've had guys on the air who you thought, from watching him interviewed or that kind of thing, is said, well, this gout'd be great on TV, and then the red light goes on and they'd rather be getting a root canal.
Yeah, and you.
Know, and they don't want to kiss anybody off. I don't want to say this because this you know, and it's not yet.
Yeah. No, Chuck doesn't care, and that's great.
And that's the way Chuck's always been, you know, anytime he was interviewed as a players and then after his playing days, he's going to tell you what's on his mind. And if you don't agree, that's fine. But what he's not going to do is is back away from it and say no, I can't say that, right, And he's got that over me because sometimes there you know, there are times in a commercial break where I'll say something.
He said, oh, you got to say that on the air.
I said, no, I'm not gonna I'm not going to do that, so I'm stealing it.
I said, you go ahead, you take that.
Did you see I mean, obviously the transition. You may look seamless and fun, but did you see yourself? I mean, like you said, you're going on your twenty three of talking about basketball.
No, I had no idea. So when Dick ever saw called me one day, he says, Charles, you want to get together to dinner? I said, course, you guys. Y'all probably remember the NBA started on NBC. Yeah. I tell people all the time, it's so funny being all these motherfuckers think there's always been everybody had a cell phone. They think there's like, I'm so old. That was no ESP when we started, we flew commercial. My first three or four years in the NBA, we flew commercial.
Wow.
I mean, that's how crazy, that's how that's how long could go.
It was.
And Dick Ebersol said to me, what do you think about going on television? I says, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I said, obviously I got to play a couple more years, but I don't know. But he says, I think you'll be good on TV. He said, I think I think you'll be great on TV. He said, You're always gonna be in trouble. I'm like, what does that mean? He says, clearly, somewhere along the way you made up your mind you're always just gonna be honest
and deal with the ramifications. I said, well, that was actually interesting because when I first started becoming a star, I think I was my third at the end of my second year of my third year in the NBA. Because my first few years the NBA, nobody talked to me. It was Doc Moses, Maurice Cheeks, Andrew Tony, Bobby Jones. I was the rookie. Monthy didn't even mention me, didn't come to me. So when those guys started getting older, and then at the end of my second year, I
started having success. My third year, I think I made the All Star team and it was a so they started coming to me, and I really wanted everybody to like me. And then I was like, you know, I was trying to answer every question politically correct and blah blah, blah. And I pulled doctor jlside one day. I said, Doc,
I'm having a hard time. He says, yeah, it's a very Him and Moses probably were the two great influences for me, talking about like Moses got me in shape, but doct He says, Now this is a very slippery slope. Trying to answer every question and not make him or him or her make it, not making them mad. And he says it's impossible to do that. He says, so you're gonna have to figure out how you want to
handle this. He said, you can try to make everybody happy, or you can be honest, but would honesty come and repercussions? And I tried to do it the politically rate in the beginning, and I'm like, I'm still getting shipped from other people. And I'm like, I'm gonna be honest. He says, now they're gonna be coming for you. You better be great a basketball. But you can get away with saying what
you want to if you're great a basketball. If you suck at basketball and you honest, they're gonna come get your ass. And I'm like, okay, I better be great a basketball. So when I was sitting with mister Ebsall at that meeting, he says, you what happened to make you be honest? He said, I tried pleasing everybody and I realized I couldn't. You guys know it's.
Impossible about something if you do so.
I said, I'm just gonna be honest and straightforward. And people get mad. Fuck them, they get mad. And I made that decision to just be a straight shooter. And he says, you're gonna be great, but you're always gonna be in trouble because people gonna get mad at what you say. And that was kind of the turning point in this whole thing. And like I say, people get mad, and I've lost friends, and you know, people get mad. But I can say this, I've never said anything on
television personally about a person. I look at the situation. I try to be honest. I try to be fair. I've criticized the good ones, I've criticized the great ones, I criticized the bad one. But I actually feel say I can answer say, I think I've been very fair, especially as a player, even when I have to criticize the player, I try to be fair about it.
How did how did this dis this happened. How did I even have him with the big Fellow coming on?
I think I think everybody, look, when a big, a larger than life guy like that.
Is done playing, everybody wants him and a kid at that, a big kid at that.
World's biggest the world's biggest child. But if he's going to be out there and he's going to want to do TV, you got to be crazy not to make a run at him, right, you know, And so everybody makes a run at him. But I think, you know, there were some growing pains. I mean, I'll be honest, man.
You know it's like number one, you're switching careers, okay, so nobody expects you to jump from that into this seamlessly, like okay, but he's you know what endeared what he looked at with our show is the fun we had.
You know, Shack.
Just happens to be an all world basketball player. It wasn't because he's studied every player in the game or.
Is this great student of.
Of how to how to play and that's that's like, he just happens to be really good at that. So it wasn't like the breakdown of games that that had him saying, I like to be on that show. It was some crazy stuff happened on our show and he wanted to be a part of that. And so, you know, and that was from the you know, from the jump. You know, he'd get on there on that first show and said, push out Christmas Tree over on me. We'll get you know, a lot of YouTube, you know.
So he's down for fun. Yeah, we would.
And you know, it got to the point after the first couple of months where he was throwing out all these suggestions.
You know, you can taste me. I've been to Stone School, but I could just picture him all this.
Show and Kenny, and Kenny was like, Shack, take a step back. He said, big film, We're afraid you're gonna set set fire to yourself. And we're not even halfway through your first year here. Because I think what he had to realize that there's a lot of what is funny on our show is really organic.
Yeah happened.
Then what makes you guys such a great team? Obviously, so many different insights and perspectives and points of views with Ernie and Shaq and U Chuck, But what he thinks makes you guys.
We're the only show on television that listens that listens the only show. Yeah, everybody else has their written notes and they're gonna.
Like I write shit down, like I'm gonna write stuff down. I might.
I might say I'm gonna get this point out, but if Jack says something.
That makes me go another direction.
Not even on that point, I'm gonna stay with that because that's where the topic is. So we're listening instead of like, I gotta get this out about Kyrie tonight.
A lot of people listen to respond instead of listening to understand.
Yeah, like they are. It's like you've been in an argument before where the person who's already got their pre record you're telling them, no, I really was there at six o'clock and they're like they're waiting to get that point back.
Now I'm listening like, oh he was at six, Tell me how you were there six, Like explain it.
And well that's the only thing that separates us when that to me, And that's a hard job to listen, Like you can't just say Okay today, I'm gonna start listening. They just put three guys, four guys together that listen. We always in it and Shaq didn't listen at first and until he realized we were listening it, and I told Shaq he was terrible. Honestly, his first six months on the show, you.
Got into some little piece. So what was it, you guys went behind the scenes of inside.
Yeah yeah, like a documentary.
Yeah, ok, yeah, yeah it was terrible.
It was terrible. And two things happened that made him great.
You know, I don't know.
You know.
I went to him first and I was like, bro, the stories you say in the green room of Bananas, like the stuff you're saying about Kobe, and like, you got to bring that to this.
He's like, no, they don't. He's like, Shaq, that's one I said.
The first other thing is like this the first time in your life. You ain't the most dominant player first time, Like we might be better than you at this, so just be you and blah blah blah. And then the second thing happened. So so Shaq used to come in and be shack. Y'all know what Shaka Shaq is a movie. Shaq's I'm walking on. He's got ten people coming in. He created a hookah lounge, no in the no in the studio, and they made let him do this. They were like, he was like, I have to have my hookah.
So he has a hookah lounge outside. They make and they put a TV outside the studio. We got a green room, Like, yo, man, Chuck in the green room. We've been doing this for fifteen years together. This dude gonna come in. You're gonna build a hookah launcer. Like, what's going on?
Yo?
Like what's going on?
And then he's got entourage, he's got he got Jerome and all the long they driving, everybody's driving, the one driving, the Rolls, one driving the Betterley one, the Ferrari. It's like it's just a movie and me and Chuck is Chuck for sure, and Chuck is very sensitive.
He's like he doesn't like it.
I'm like, I'm used to that in a way, like I'm okay with dudes himself. But Chuck is not having it. So now he's not watching the game. He's literally DJ equipment, No kid, you not. He's practicing his DJ while the game is going on. They let him get away with all that because he's shot. So now he comes on the show and he's like he says something like yeah, DeAndre Jordan need it.
And DeAndre is not playing tonight.
So me and Charles like, because we sit next to each other, he's hitting me and I'm hitting up. We're gonna get his ass today. So we just lightening it to him. Oh and we're just gone, you don't know this. And so now we're saying stuff about the game because we know he didn't watch. So then our producer comes downstairs and he's like, what the is going on y'all giving him a hard time? Like that you embarrassing him on a national tea.
I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa? Since when don't we make fun of each other when you don't know shit?
Right? Because Matt Shug gonna.
Do anybody can get it.
And it goes like this, and then the producer goes like this, you're right, I can go get it. Get him, And from that day on he turned. He's like, I gotta be on shit. He got on point.
As players, like he spoke on earlier, when you hear certain people talk about you, it's that shit, okay, T and T the postgame crew? Is that for us as players? What was it like, you know, to transition into that and being a focal point with that team.
It came a year or too early because when I left you, I had a two year deal in Boston. I wanted to shock to her. I wanted it, but the Achilles came out. I wasn't gonna even try and come back. I was just gonna take your year off treble. And then they come to the house and say, hey, maybe want to hire you, and I'm like, so, I'm trying to be like Brian Gumba, I'm terrible, awful. And then you know, Charles gonna take up the whole second by talking. I only get a few seconds, right, So then.
The guys you off because he used to say it on the air, like, damn, mom, are you talking too much?
So then the guy came in and said said, man, we ain't bring you in for that. He wants you to be shocked and so okay. So once I started doing that, it's better. And you know a good thing about that show is they allow us to be ourselves. And I think from a basketball standpoint, we have a lot of experience. You know, the fans know that. You know, you got two Hall of Famers up there, and he got a guy that was a part of the championship team,
and you gotta earn it. So I think our respectability is up there.
With all due respect, within the context of your championships in kind of that era, that was a two year period that Mike had took off. How do you feel like you guys would have fared your two championships? So he didn't take off, excuse me, he went to go play he was playing for He came back as number forty five. Yeah, and the second one, second one, Yeah, he came back as number forty five.
And when he had fifty five in the guard and nobody was saying he was selling, he was.
He wasn't.
Mike, you know, we would have beat the ass because like dream was too much around it.
Think about this, there's a couple of things.
Michael was still the best player in the world and I've ever seen, but that means he would have had to win eight championships in them a lot.
It's not gonna win eight in a row. He's not.
Nobody's done it in the modern era, he wouldn't have done that. Secondly, there was no hardst grant he left, and they then they became way too small because even in there is regular season. In the regular season years we went seven and one against them, with six and two. They never beat us in the regular season. We used to go to Chicago, smack them, come back to Houston, smack them up.
You know, they like.
Bj and and and Packs and those guys were good players, but they were too slow for us in the parameter and No. One and Winnington and them couldn't guard him. And for some reason Scotty wasn't Scotty then he wasn't a scorer.
You need you need score.
So I think we would have got him because of that. There was no Rodman. Now when they got Rodmin, I'm like, oh different.
I don't know.
If the Rockets we would have got them, but they were too little. And that that's why shocking them got them, because when he came back, it wasn't he was coming back from baseball. They were too little to shock. They lost to a team four two that we swept. We swept shocking us back, so like, no, no, no, they would not have beaten us. And then if you if I didn't come in there and I'm not splashing with three, Sam could sell is coming in there giving you twenty five.
Rob Orrid was the new Scottie pitman.
Then he wasn't like standing outside and he was handling the ball otis was in the first one. Then Clyde like, Nah, they wouldn't have beat us. They would not have beat us because they were just too little, and they wouldn't have won eight in a row. Something would have happened, somebody would have left because of contract, somebody would have got hurt something.
They wouldn't have beat us. And I get picked number five by the sixers. It ain't broke, don't fix Yeah, that's right, but I'm not now I'm playing with real players. Can't play it that weight, don't know it. Just you know, I'm a rookie. Hey, rookie ain't playing a ton I'm playing some minutes, but then I'm not getting no quality minutes. And so Moses, Me and Moses happened to live in the same building. Moses lived in the penhouse. I live on like the sixth floor, if I remember correctly. And
I said, Mo, can I come see you tonight? And I said, he said sure, And I called him Dad even to the day. And one of the most bittersweet things people his family knew how closely were I got to speak at the dude the eulogy at his funeral. I love that dude. But so I go up. I said, big mode, why am I not getting to play? He's old, young fella, you're fat and you're lazy, playing it simple. And I'm like what he says, you're fat and you're lazy.
He said, Charles can't play at three hundred puns in the NBA, A young fella, you're too fat and too lazy. Can't work hard at three hundred pounds. And I put downstairs and cried, not gonna lie. And but he said, he says, you want to lose weight. I come meet you before practice, I meet you out to practice. I said please, And this dude says, and he did it in a way. It's how smart he was. He did in a way. He says, let's lose ten pounds together. Yeah,
he said, let's lose ten pounds. He met me before practice, met me after practice. I get to two ninety and I noticed, like even at ten pounds, I'm like, I can work a little bit harder. He said, Okay, let's lose ten more. I'm like, okay, I get to too eighty. Now I'm actually getting to play. He says, let's lose ten more. Now I'm at two seventy. Now I'm really getting to play. It's not because I can work. I mean, thirty pounds a lot. Get to two sixty now I'm starting.
Now I'm really can work. In my eyes out he says, I want to try something. I so he says, let's get to two fifty. I'm like, okay, shit working, I'm good. I get to two fifty. Now I'm really starting. Things are really starting to take off. I actually got to two forty, but I said, I don't feel strong. He said, two fifty is your weight. But he was so smart. If you had told me to lose fifty pounds, I was like, there's no fucking way I could lose fifty pounds.
There's no way. And I lost to fifty pounds and the rest is history. But for that guy taking me under his wing, first of all, he was already one of the best to ever do it. For him to take a little fat kid under his wing, it changed my whole life.
Your father of six two biological four adopted my father that very instant, because that's what my mom wanted to do, was adopt. But unfortunately she passed from cancer and O seven. So talk to us about just fatherhood, everything you fought through in your personal health life to still be here and be the father you.
Are and your children. For your children, I mean, chary Anne and I are blessed, you know. And and she you know.
You have a boy and a girl.
You know, you get married in eighty two, you got a boy in eighty four, you get a girl in eighty seven.
It's like, okay, we're set. Good, let's not let's not mess with that.
You know.
That's and that's you know, then the unscripted part of your life kind of kicks in because you know, my wife is just this has this wonderful heart.
But we know because you talk about it so highly on the show, we all feel like we know your wife.
I know, well, I apologize for doing but she's like, I come home from work one day and she says, you know what we need to do, and I'm like, chicken or.
Fish, whatever you feel like, you know, I'll eat anything.
And she's like, like, we need to go to Romania and get one of these kids out of an orphanage over there, because she had seen the ABC News twenty twenty about these kids just warehoused in this thing, and you know, and there's special needs kids. They're being forgotten and and so we wind up, you know, she goes, I stay here. I'm in Atlanta with our kids, who were like three and seven at the four and seven at the time. Yeah, so I'm taking care of them.
She's more worried about them than she is about her trip to Romania. She's like, man, I'm going to come home and those kids are not going to have had a vegetable for two months.
Yeah.
But yeah, so we had a lot of we had a lot of pizza and putt putt while she's over there. But she goes over there and finds this little boy who's got all these issues and and calls me from Romania and says, I don't know what I can we This boy is so much more than we can handle. He's three years old. He can't walk, he can't talk, and he said, but I just can't imagine going the rest of my life wondering what happened to this kid. It was like, bring them home and he was, you know,
he had issues, still does I mean? And then he gets diagnosed with muscular dystrophy and there's no cure for that, and most of the time a lot of times kids don't get out of their teens. Gots thirty two. Now, man, I got this thirty two year old miracle at my house and he he's on a ventilator, you know, can't do anything on his own.
But he's amazing, and you guys are amazing.
No, no, you know what, God's amazing, you know, but it's you know, there'll be adopted little girl from Paraguay, Carmen. She's twenty eight, adopted two kids out of foster care in Ohio who are now twenty.
And twenty one.
But we've you know, it's not because me and Cheryl are great and then we don't do this for any pats on the back.
It's just like everybody. There's value in everybody, Yes.
There if you will look for it. There's value in everybody, and they all and everybody deserves a chance to shine and a chance to be what they can be. And so I think that's what has always been at the root of our heart for adoption, is that let's give somebody a chance, you know that, you know, let's give
this Romanian kid a chance. That he was abandoned in a park when he was born, you know, the first time he'd been outside when my wife took him outside in that orphanage when he was three years older, and the first time he was outside since he was found in a park. And so I think we've just we've just tried to teach our kids and that there's value. Look for the value, don't look for the things that
tell you, oh this, you know. Shoot, the nurse who brought Michael out to sharel the first time that they met, said don't take this boy. He's no good. And so we you know, this boy who's no good has impacted so many people just with his life.
And so we got it good man.
And I got four grandkids now too, so Grandpa Ernie, we got Poppy, Poppy, Poppy Poppy, and.
My wife is good.
And that was.
But I can remember this vividly. I'm signing.
As soon as I get signed, mister West said, hey man, I just moved, Lottie. I don't know how I got this kid. I got a kid named Kobe Bryant. You and him, we're gonna get multiple championships. And I'm like, yeah, okay, whatever, because I'm looking at all the way. But yeah, he said that like he saw something in Kobe and nobody saw. And then and then in an interview, Kobe reminded me that he came to Orlando to see Penny, and Penny kind of blew him off, but he had this sad
look on his face, and I grabbed him. I was like, come on, man, I take a picture. I never knew that was him. Oh yeah, I never knew that was him. So he told me, you know, when we did that TAM two and everything, he said, you don't remember meeting me. He never told me that, Like, you know, through all the years that we played in there, he never told me that.
He told the story.
I didn't know that you Yeah, yeah.
I did.
You and cold connect and y'all robbed at the same time.
He was a guy that wanted it right away. And we all understand pecking order my team, that ain't about to happen right But I saw that he had something in them and he wanted.
It right away.
A lot of guys don't have that when they're coming. A lot of guys just like to go through the rope. But he wanted, he wanted it, he wanted it, he wanted he wanted it.
So its rookie year.
We let him do what he do make his mistakes, but the defining moment in his greatness was we were playing Utah. Nobody wanted to take the last shots. I'm not taking the last shot, shooting forty percent for the free throw line. Y'all ain't gonna be talking about me the shot closs game. So he takes three shots to air boss. If you can remember, and I hope you can show this clip. I was the one that grabbed him. Don't worry about it. One day people are gonna fear you.
And the next year he come in and we come in a little more. He wanted it, he wanted it, He wanted it, He wanted it, he wanted it. And this is where I wish I was a little bit more tactful. Egos getting away that word my team will mess you up, right, especially from big guy giving up to a little guy. I don't play that ship so instead of But fortunately it still worked out. We still won three out of four. But a lot of necessary stuff that shouldn't have happened happened because of the ego,
and it was probably my fault. But one thing I never do is I never disrespect nobody. I ain't got to like you. I ain't got to do what you do. But if you open in the corner, Matt, even if we had a fight the other day, I know you're gonna knock that down for it came it. So you know, even though we didn't hang out or do anything of that, I'm always looking for him first, and he's always looking for me. When he go into the hole, he get doubled and he dropped it off. So I think that'd help us.
You guys had the unfortunate duty of being live on air with the Kobe tragedy. What was the emotion like and energy like and how tough was it to be able to get through that particular night.
I've never been in a show like that. I mean, in thirty one years, it was the most unique show ever ever hosted. And because it was so fresh from I mean, it happens Sunday, We're in La Tuesday and we are in the middle of Staples Center empty just to talk about it. Shack had even talk to anybody about it at that point. Jerry West is on the show.
We just had other voices. I think Rick Fox was on that show at some point, and it was just, you know what, it was one of those days where it just told you that this job we're doing sometimes can can go above and beyond being just a basketball show, because everybody in the country was kind of coming to grips with how do you deal with this?
How do we.
How do we deal with these emotions we're feeling, And for Shack to be sitting there and just pour his heart out, Jerry West do the same thing, Chuck Kenny. I mean, I can't even put into words how impactful that was for us to do it, and just by gauging the reaction of people that it helps some people get through it too. And that's not to put it any self importance on us, like, oh look what we It was just it was good for us all to talk about it to lock eyes and say, yeah, man, it hurts.
I hope we never have to do another one.
Hard to talk about, right for me, right, you know, just thinking about it right now, man, it's still hard to even talk about.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean when Jerry was sitting there, you know, talking about what was going through his mind when he decided that he had to have Kobe Bryant, you know, and those first few years and how tight they were, you know, the tears start coming, and we're not there to stop them, right, We're just there to kind of put a hand on his shoulder and say.
We've got you right, this is what you're doing.
And you know, and you know who gets a lot of credit and you may not know this story. You know who gets a lot of credit for the way that show came off is the folks, you know, like our salespeople. Because we're supposed to do like a four or five segment show, our pregame show leading up to the game that we were going to show that night,
and we didn't take a commercial break. Maybe we took one, and so like our producer Jeremy was calling them and saying, I don't think I can't we can't stop this, we can't stop this, and then go to commercial and come back and they said, just go wow. And that's and that was one of those things where it said, I don't care what this does in terms of the sponsors in the bottom line, and we value the sponsors and all that stuff, and I know they're supposed to get this, but the recognition that.
This is special.
And we're not going to cut somebody off is because we've got to get to commercial and somebody may be struggling to get the words out, and we don't care if they're going to sit for thirty seconds and gather their thoughts. That silence was speaking right.
Alliums