Museum of Failure, Meaningful Risk + BBQ Oreos

No really, Hello, everyone, welcome. I sound like snackle plus, but I'm actually.

You always you come out of the shoot always every time it's you know, it's a different thing.

I I I somehow, I I channeled. I channeled Snackles. I think that people are of company. See your house right, okay? Hi, I'm Jason Alexander.

I'm here with my pal Peter Tilden, and this is our little podcast called Really Really, where we explore things that make us say really really Yes exactly ding, I say ding because they took away my bell once again. Peter is not wearing the patented really no Really shirt that I got him at my own expense. It wasn't a company right off, I actually put out money. Oh it will be I'm sure it's not going to get

We will look like the rest of the soccer team hasn't showed up yet. It's everybody's in their emblem.

My gift to you was an abject failure, and that brings us to our topic of the day, because here's our really no really Peter saw that there was a museum, a traveling installation, Museum of Failure, and it's a great success.

Really, no, really, we don't know. We'll find out how much of a success that actually is. But we wanted to have on oxy moron there. I don't you know, And I'm sorry, did I use a word You're not familiar with?

Oxymoron? Oh no, I know both of them.

Okay, oxy us stuff used to clean shirts, and moron I think goes without is.

What I take every time I have to work with you.

Being kids at home. He did not mean that, No, he did not mean that, don't do drugs. Yes, please gonna get to doctor West. So doctor West is the founder of the Museum of Failure. And what's great about it is he misspelled the word museum when he applied to register for the domain name. It's so so right on, right on point. But you're also you have you're a doctor obviously, so there is a a bit of psychology

Sir, thanks for inviting me.

It's a pleasure. And doctor West You're in Spain as we speak.

Right, I'm in Spain and I'm just thrilled.

Now, why are you in Spain? Is the museum over.

There or to No?

I just I live in Sweden. But I got depressed, so I went to Spain.

Okay, all right?

Wow, hang on, isn't Sweden where people go? In Spanish people are depressed, they go to Sweden.

Situation.

No, no, no, You've got it all wrong. People in Sweden go to Spain. I did not know that Spain is better than Sweden.

Well, looking boy, your hometown must be thrilled with you.

Yeah, I think so.

All right, Wow, So, doctor West, before we dive into the Museum of Failure, you had another venture. And I don't know if it was a success or a failure, but I'm equally intrigued the Museum of Disgusting Foods?

What was that all about? Well?

I started Musum of Failure in twenty seventeen, and I it was so much fun and it was so successful, ironically enough, so I thought I want to do something more. And I've always enjoyed I'm half Icelandic, and I enjoyed having tourists visitors come to Iceland and then I would give them rotten shark and I would tell them it's really disgusting. I give it to you know, friends and family and say, yeah, this.

Is traditional, real Icelandic food.

And as a kid, I would like, you know, give it to them and say I eat this every day. And they taste and they'd vomit, and I thought that was the most fun thing ever.

First of all, maybe it wouldn't we do what we do.

This is man is given.

You're asking me, I love this this?

Yes, of course, no, please, I didn't mean to interrupt. And and let's certainly set up a lunch date when this is done.

Shark.

It's actually called black death.

Is it an actual thing that people have to eat? Is sort of a fermented is A.

Yeah, it's it's it's twice fermented, so it's really rotten. And uh, they actually do eat it, or they actually ate it, I guess when they didn't have anything else to eat in Iceland.

So it's a real it's a real thing in Iceland. You should try it.

Anthony Bourdaine described it as the worst thing he's ever tried in his life. And it tastes like it has the consistency of a urine infested mattress and taste the same.

Jeez, how he put it on the menu?

We'll take to special does to make sure that the museum grew out of that?

Yeah, well that was a disgusting food museum, and then the Museum of Failure came before.

Discussing what other Just I swear this is going to be largely about the Museum of Failure, But I'm just found that what other what other major exhibits filled the Museum of Disgusting Food?

What was what? What was like the top ten must see?

We have stinky tofu, which is one of my non favorites.

It's it's basically tofu that has been fermented and the smell.

Have you ever unscrewed a sink and the bottom like the drain of a sink that's a kitchen sink?

Sure? Yeah, And there's like this.

Flimy brown greenish substance there right, yes, indeed, yeah.

Imagine that as stinkier than that, but the same consistency.

And you can put it on toast. That's the selling point.

I ate it, Kina, they fry it. It's actually pretty good. But when it comes straight out of the can or.

Well, there's a you know I actually eat all the time. There's a noodle that I believe is made from help. It has no calories whatsoever. So when you open the bag, because it's isn't some sort of liquid. When you open the bag, you go, this cannot be consumed. This is not It smells like a bad fish product. And then but once you drain it and rinse it and you cook it up, it's actually quite wonderful.

But by the way, segue here is so somebody for all of those horrible foods, some culture is used to that food and embraces that food. So a it's fascinating because I'm sure as you walk to the gross Food Museum you see different cultures.

Let's say that's it.

But same thing with failure, right, failures perceived differently in different places.

Correct, absolutely, I like you're trying to make the segway into museum a failure.

But I just want to stop.

Take a little bit more of a disgusting food.

Oh my gosh, the guy you're not going to it's called, by the way, what happened to this? I work hard, doctor, I worked so hard to get you off of gross food. And segue, and I handed it to you and you went not going you know what, we're here for you, sir, You go where you want to go?

Do you ride your segue? You want to go back to the Museum of Disgusting Food. Let's go there on, go ahead, yes, tell us.

I just wanted to say that, like, cause you imagine the different cultures of you know what this what's disgusting and what's delicious varies. Some of the American items in the Museum Disgusting Food Museum is, for example.

Root beer. Nobody outside the United States likes root beer.

Really, are you serious?

Most of the Europeans they taste root beer and they spit it and they said.

It's like, well, okay, okay, but we are comparing root beer to an unscrewed sink bottom. There's a bit of a difference there, you know, ones like a hazmat suit and the other is and maybe a beverage you don't like that. It's a whole different I'm done with this is what you're driving failure.

His own. So now we're back a man who doesn't want to promote the thing he's on to promote.

So so the museum, let's go, let's there's a bigger point in the museum about failure that we'll get to. But the items are in there. I think people would love to hear the specific items because they're fascinating these huge companies that invested so much money to come up with stuff that's just so wrong in retrospect. You look at him, Why don't you give us some of those Doctor West.

I mean we were talking about food earlier. We have Olestra. You remember that.

God David Leman did an episode we talked about a uxtra chips and he said the slogan was Elestra.

I'm sitting in it.

For those who don't remember Alestra.

It was a Procter and Gamble had developed a zero calorie fat substitute. So finally you can eat as much junk food as you want to without getting fat.

So yay, hallelujah. Good stuff. Except that it caused diarrhea.

Yeah, I believe that, And I believe the phrase was mild uncontrollable diarrhea, which was three words. I didn't book a good sign side by side in the same sense.

Any anytime I'm told do not eat this product and wear light colored pants, yeah, or eat or wear like colored or where like colored pants?

Do you go? Now?

I think I'm out.

I found it when I was doing research on it that someone had cleverly read because diarrhea is not something you really want to have associated with your food product, so some clever copywriters rebranded diarrhea and instead started calling it may cause quote, ain't no leakage?

Yes, which is highly preferent, you doctor.

What's fascinating? I wonder if it's going to be a theme in the other products you mentioned. I always picture the conference room when they're about to release that. They got ten people sitting around, and they go, how anybody's here? Why it's not ready yet? Ain't a leakage? Anybody else have a And then they weren't anybody have a problem with that? And they wouldn't know we're in I don't see. I don't see any reason to slow down production just

What that's out there? How do they have that?

What was that conversation?

What was that short?

And how many people are responsible for saying okay, let's get this out there.

In fairness, it only affected nine out of ten.

Years, So there's this one guy today going, I can't believe my favorite chip is no longer here, and I'm impervious. It's explosive diarrhea. As a matter of fact, I've been constipated for twelve years. This was the only thing that freed me up was a Leicester. So talk about your McDonald's, because Jason, you can a had a huge feel.

What's your what's your McDonald's fail we'll compare. I don't think mine is in your museum, but go ahead, give me.

You're a McDonald's fan, I'm curious.

Now, Okay, you go first, and then I'll tell you mine.

So the item I have in a museum is the Arch Deluxe, which was apparently one of the biggest failures in fast food, and McDonald's put you know, millions of dollars into developing it. It was a luxury burger for adults, and their advertisements were children eating the Arch Deluxe and spitting it out.

Oh that's interesting. Interesting.

Get do get emails every now and saying, oh, hey, whatever.

Happened to that? I want it back. I actually liked it. Yeah, I'm like you probably liked everything else at the museum.

Yeah, here's mine.

So I I was hired when I was in my twenties, I believe, because I still lived in New York to be the singing dancing spokesperson for a huge new McDonald's project product called the McDLT And what this was was it was a you know, pretty much standard McDonald's hamburger.

It was a disaster. Uh we we We released the product.

There was a song that lives on on the internet, the McDLT song in which I am and uh oh, I don't think so. It was uh talking, let us in to meadow on the cool cool side at the cool stays cool, the new mcd LT.

It was.

The song was the highlight of the product.

And I think it ran less than one full commercial cycle, so that's less than three minutes.

Everybody project. And I got a little call.

From McDonald's saying thank you for your service, and you thought it the time I'm retiring on I thought this is going to be I'm gonna be the McDLT guy for you know.

I was.

I was a little theater actor in New York and I thought I'm set for life. And it all, it all went with the Hamburger.

By the way, Jason loves oreos and always talks about amazing how many flavors there are.

The big failed.

Flavor was, well, we have oreos at the museum, a lot of the different flavors.

Not so much to say like hey and laugh and like which flavors failed, although I have a few, but more to show how they approach innovation, like they're just like, we're gonna try all kinds of crazy flavors and we'll see which of them, which woman stick?

You know which one.

So they're obviously creating crazy flavors to get publicity and get people to talk about it. But some of it is also you know, they're they're testing out new flavors, and that's a that's a great way to test the market.

I'm guessing the root beer one not such a big seller overseason.

The one, the one that's the most interesting is uh oreos with uh spicy barbecue chicken flavor.

No, come on, come on dinner and dessert one really dang a spicy barbie?

Yeah spicy.

They're actually they taste like you know when you you know those instant noodle, those cheap instant you know that the little package that comes.

With yes, I.

If you dipped your finger and that and taste it. That's what they tasted like.

And what are the is the flavoring all in the cream filling or or are they infusing it in the outer crust.

They're sophisticated. They keep it all in so you can fail that way.

So so now you have to add barbecue, chicken and sauce between two chocolate papers.

What association?

As I'm hearing that, I'm thinking somebody tried that and went, you know what, this is the thing?

Yeah, again, to be to.

Be fair to oreos, I bought those in shot and high, so they're real oreos, but they were geared towards the Chinese.

My favorite thing that I shall in your museum is the euro Club, the golf club that you can also urinate in. So if you're in the golf course and you have to go and you're in your in your but think about this. Yeah, you're seventy eight years old, you have all you can do, go on the green. Well, I think that's what I think. That's what messed this up. That people went to a tree in the corner and when you know, I don't want am my opinion a club. By the way, if I was going to say you're your urine.

A little bit. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, there's there's.

Nothing wrong with the europe It's a great idea, like you have to urinate you're on a big golf course.

Just unscrewed this this fake golf club and urinate in it.

What was interesting about it was the was the commercials which were sort of in between like funny and ridiculous and actually being serious, so you didn't really know are they serious are the joking?

And one of the things that that the golf the golf clubs, So it had like a little towel green towel with it. So in the ad it says, and if you're playing golf with lady golfers, you have to use the privacy towel.

You clip on this towel on your belt and then you fumble under the towel and urinate into the golf shop.

That's hilarious.

And by the time you get to use towel, I could have made it into the club.

I'm also thinking someone's going to criticize my grip, you know, yeah, it's not really a wood wow.

Before we move to the underlying if you're the big issue about failure and creativity et cetera. Any other items that stick out that people really love. I mean they're over one hundred and fifty items in the museum.

I mean people everybody has their own favorites. The Ford Edsel is popular. We have some medical misshap they're interesting in like a lobotomy tool. It's quite interesting. We have the Apple Newton, one of the sort of iconic failures of the nineteen nineties.

What was the Apple Newton? I don't recall that the.

Apple Newton was. I think it was like early nineties. It was the first personal digital assistant. So the kick ass feature, like the main feature of this device was that you could just write with a stylist onto the screen at the entry.

Dat oh oh like a Palm pilot is what I had? Yeah, yeah, way.

It was just the same sort of similar time there where. But Apple was like their device was awesome except for the fact that it didn't work.

Oh okay, and again made it to market.

May I say something about because you brought up the edgel and I knew we were going to segue from talking about failures into success and the need to have fail to get to success. So Roy Brown Junior, I want to see the guy designing the Edgele. He designed the Attel, but he also to the point they didn't not only didn't they fire him, but he was transferred to England, where he designed the Ford Cortina, which was

But the Edsel apparently was mostly a failure as I understand it because of edseel Ford, that that edgel Ford was the son of Henry and that somehow he was really the guy who was pushing for this line.

And I think the thing was too expensive. I think it it just didn't capture the public. Because even if that's for pushing it's the public doesn't like it. They ain't buying it, and they didn't buy it.

Boy, you guys, are you guys really are experts on everything, aren't you?

Well, well not, we're not experts on it. We haven't started talking about our own failure, you know what.

Well, I just want to add I was being ironic there about the Edel because you're probably sort of right, mostly wrong. The Edsel failed because mainly things. One was that people were just confused is it an expensive.

Car or is it a cheap car? There so many versions of it, and it was so overhyped.

They had a The Ford even had its own sort of entertainment TV show with Frank Sinatra.

Another big They really pushed it, they really hyped it. And then one of the most funny.

Reasons why it failed is because the grill on the episode is vertical rather than horizontal like a regular car.

If you can imagine that, yeah, turned on its side. And this is like the nineteen fifties in the United States.

So people found it indecent because it reminded them of female genitalia.

Oh sure, whoa wow and wow, sure, I got to check this out now.

Look and by the way, Chevy's watching this close it because they thought if if people look like we got to change the girl on every car, we did, that's amazing. But more amazing is he said, you guys are experts and then show us we were totally wrong.

Yeah.

Well yeah again, keeping on should be the criticism, right exactly, So so failure.

I know that you talk about that a lot.

That a big part of this museum is understanding failure and failure in our culture, correct, So why don't you dress that a little bit.

I mean, one thing that's fascinating is the paradox. On the one hand, society says, hey, we really want you to innovate. We look up to entrepreneurs who take risks. All this is fantastic. But then at the same time, society stigmatizes failure. So there's like, we want you to do it, but when it doesn't work.

Out, we're going to punish you in some way or judge you. So that's one element of it. The other is that there is something there's not really that many.

Companies that do actually embrace failure, but some companies are much better taking risks and being willing to accept that failure is necessary for any kind of innovation or progress. So that's also the aim of the museum to drive home that point that we have to accept failure if we want you gotta we gotta tak the bad and the good.

We can't just have the good.

But it's inherent, like in science, I know, by failure, right, it's all about eliminating what it's not to get closer to what it is. And you rely on failure after failure. As long as you learn from the failure and its you're getting closer to what the answer is.

Well, to that extent, doctors, do you are you aware of anything that began as a completely abject failure and was turned around to become a success? Is there anything that jumps out like that?

There?

There are the sort of examples that everybody knows about with the posted note and Viagra, which both were sort

Know, it gets boring after a while.

They're all the same, they're all identical and it's not interesting, whereas the failures actually they're authentic, they're real, they haven't been you know, there's no spin doctors there, corporate types trying trying to curate.

Well, and to your point what you just said, one of the things that bothers me about failure is that every guy gets up in the romanticience failure.

Yeah, it's the best thing.

I would have never gotten here if I didn't fail it. And they love telling that story, and I go, hey, we have a family of failures and it ain't so romantic. Okay, you know, my uncle was a failure and there is no success story there. So you don't want to romanticize it. You want to kind of understand it and understand how to move on.

Well, you know, I tell a story to in my own speaking, I was in a big failure. Well, what was considered a failure. My Broadway debut was directed by how Prince and was written by Stephen Sondheim, and you know, legendary figures of the American theater in the twentieth century. But the show Merrily We Rolled Along was a failure,

Because Sunday in the Parklin George is artist.

What what did did that experience give you an insight that you wouldn't have had otherwise?

So who knows?

But yeah, well, and then failures like Michael Tremino Heavens Gate was deemed one of the worst failures in movie history, and then they got a standing ovation just a couple of years ago at Venice with the Director's cut, and now it's lauded as this amazing film, So a failure that became in itself. And then Jason's if you want to talk about a failure, doctor the lowest scoring pilot in NBC history was signful. Yeah, you can't get can't

So Doctor West for when when when coch or Pepsi makes a product and it fails, we tend to recognize that because they have attained such a level of success that the misses make news. Is part of being a notable failure that you have to have that it is in the chain of a number of great successes.

Do you have to fall from a great height to be a notable failure?

Or is it? Or do are there are there casual, everyday failures that have become notable in and of themselves.

That's an excellent question.

What makes something a notable failure is often because either it's something that's famous is in and of itself, or a famous person or a reputable company, or sometimes it's because something is overhyped.

So it doesn't always have to be.

This fantastically successful Apple or Coca Cola or some super celebrity.

It can also just be something that has been hyped to gone viral.

There was a there was a I think it was last year somebody on TikTok launched got famous overnight for a pink sauce.

It's like a gravy or something.

And it's purple or pink, and it just went, it exploded overnight and became a massive success.

And all this is within a couple of weeks.

And then they had production issues and nothing worked and people were complaining, and it died equally, you know, as quickly as it as it as it. Yeah, So I mean nobody knew anything about that, you know, two weeks earlier. So so I think it has to do with expectations. And then obviously, like you said, how how far have they fallen?

Yeah, Before we go, I just want to ask you about the change in failure, because I think you mentioned it and you notice it in Silicon Valley. Every venture capitalist I've ever talked to my life goes, oh, our business, you invest in ten things, eight are going to fail, one's going to do okay, and then one's a huge hit. Their whole business is built on failure and fast failure, like the better it goes, I mean people go, well, how did serenos happen? And you go, cause people may

So what do you think about that?

The fast failure today and the whole Silicon Valley phenomenon.

But Silicon Valley is really good at embracing failure and not sort of holding it against you as a business person, so they're willing to give people a second and third and fourth chances. But the problem with Silicon Valley and is fail fast mentality, fail fast often and cheaply, is that they're not very good at learning from their failure, so they do the same mistakes and fails over and over again, and it costs them and everyone else a lot of money.

We do have their ends in the museum, but it's sort of borant.

It's fraud and it's also failure, and it's failure from the perspective of you know, like, what what were these the pharmacy chains and these big badass sort of a level investors throwing money at a product that didn't exist.

For a long time, for a very long incredible nobody said let me see it.

Let it worked?

Oh my god, yeah, I'm going to pay you five hundred million dollars. Can we at least see what we're investing.

In and the incredible board and all before we go. Spray on condom didn't work because.

Because you spray it on and you have to wait five or ten minutes to dry, you can figure it.

Can figure that one out yourself.

This would be a good time to wrap doctor. Thank you for being on.

Where's the museum right now? And is it coming to LA again?

I hope it's in New York right now. It's there for another couple of months.

It was already it's already been in Los Angeles, but it was so popular in Los Angeles.

I think it'll come back.

In your professional opinion, this interview success failure? What do you think?

I have?

Great success? I thought it was fun.

Well there, yeah we got My favorite part of that was the segue I'll never forget.

Then you just you just went for it.

It's the U turn, it's the you, and I'll give you this in the words of Conan O'Brien. Conan O'Brien gave a commencement at Dartmouth shortly after being fired as the host of tonight Show, and he said those you should not fear failure. You should do your very best to have avoid at all, which is a great way to go. Thank you for being on with US Soccer West.

Thank you.

So that was pretty fascinating. The Museum of Failure. We're joined now by Google Him, who correct.

Said David, Google him. He needs a theme.

I have.

What's your theme? I don't know. I have a theme. That's a thing. That's a diddy, that's not a thing. Are you guys doing? What do you die?

Anyway, He's here to correct and informs as we go on. But we wanted, we wanted. Now that the doctor has left, I want to just talk about the bigger, the bigger issue I think with failures that we do romanticize it.

Well you know, but you're you're talking about romanticizing failure where somebody gets up, who is currently having a success and because what it took me to get here, I thank the failures cultural to me, I don't think that's romanticizing. I actually think there is a sense of either true or false humility in that, because you know, when you're riding high, if you're smart, you don't want to You don't want to set yourself up for criticism at that level.

So you don't go, yeah, I'm hit it now, I'm an a plus.

So you go, yeah, this one worked out, But I gotta tell you, I've got twenty that didn't. And you know, I think it's a it's a it is true self humility, But I also think it's a little bit of a protective thing to go, yeah, listen, yes this one worked, don't don't.

Don't begrudge.

That may be true, but you never get to hear the guy going up going I've been a continuous failure.

I'm waiting hasn't.

Happened to you if I ever win an Emmy. And by the way, there are eight million books with failure in the title. Tell me if these are real books or fake books? Right, I'm read the Gift of failure truthful true? Yeah, yeah, the value of failure, uh, probably true. Fueled by failure, probably true. Ending failure. Yeah, you're failing just like your father and your uncle Harald's that's a Peter Tilden title.

Iver I heard.

Failure smailure, eat your eggs. Yeah, your rabbit. I'm not a failure. I'm not a failure.

I'm just unlucky.

Oh, I'm sure how to turn a failure into yet another failure?

Guarantee? Oh, someone's been up writing. That's why you didn't answer the pH There are so.

Many And this is the Tony Robbins thing about the implication is that you're not enough. Yeah, but you know what all that stuff is. We're not enough your failure. And if you just walk on hot coals yeah, or sit in a sweat lodge, you are going to go to the moon, friend and you go. Or I'm gonna burn my feet and have to go to the hospital. Yeah, which has happened. Well, I'm gonna pass out and die at the sweat lodge, which has happened.

So people are so they so want to success, they so want to change.

Well, they want to feel that they can be a I think that's more about people wanting to be a better version of themselves.

Not you cause you're a.

Well, not no because you feel incomplete. I don't know that that is directly tied to failure. Listen, I've watched enough documentaries about people like Anthony Robbins and their seminars. There there are a goodly faction of people who are doing quite well there who just feel they personally feel they.

Are not doing quite well. That's follow the years from now Here's what I love.

I think people enjoy a certain kind of failure because I cannot. When I go on YouTube. The first thing that comes up on my YouTube fail Army. That's the site fail Army, and every week, every two weeks they post compilation videos of people just just eating it, just.

Wiping out.

There's a whole the Darwin Award books that are given for people that and how tragic is this? People who have died in ridiculous ways, usually created by their own hand. The one that I remember so well was a gentleman who died because he he was living alone in a cabin. It was cold, he had a fire going, he was drinking heavily. He wasn't when he ran out of alcohol. He wasn't satisfied, so he looked at his kerosene lamp

I don't talk about soundly.

Must be waiting for somebody to ask here we go, wow, and you got so the other part of this is Broadway. I did radio and I get critiqued. Knows this TV. Yeah, but in radio it used to be got the rating book every quarter, then it was every week, then it was every month, then it was every week. Then it's our buyout. Yeah, so you can know if you're tanking, you're bad.

Now you're bad. Now, Oh you're bad again.

And I know a Broadway you told me that on opening night. If the review is good, you're okay. If the opening night review is bad, it's it's hell because you still got to do the show for another couple of weeks.

Well, there's nothing worse than opening your show and you know, not one bad review, although the New York Times is still you know, being a castle. But if you know, if the general response. I did a show in nineteen eighty four called The Rink. It was a candorin EBB musical and it starred Cheta Rivera and Liz Manelli. And it was one of the few and only times I was ever fooled on an opening night because I thought that I thought the show was really quite wonderful. I

And I'm telling you, people loved it. They loved the songs, They surely loved the ladies. You know, that was.

Unmistakable star power, yet standing ovations. We got to opening night and I'm telling you it was mixed to bad reviews. And the next audience came in the next night and things that had normally been giant laughs and huge applause and tumbleweeds because they had been told you don't like you don't like this.

And we did that show for nine months.

And if we had not had those two ladies who who had enough star power that they could pull an audience in that was at least curious to see them.

We would have closed that week I have.

I tell you there are shows that have closed the day after their opening night. There have been shows that have closed without getting.

To an opening night preview.

And that's the worst kind of failure because that's not a critique failure, that's the audience word of mouth going, I just saw this thing.

Do not spend your money there.

Tell the story. Tell the story of you doing a success. So Jason Warren a Tony Award, that's a that's a major thing, left the show as a conquering hero, and I'd never heard the story before recently, and the show needed you.

To come back.

Yeah, So this is this is just a lesson of when you think you're a major success, somewhere, you're a failure. So I do the show Jerome Robbins Broadway. I win a Tony Award. A month later, I'm out of the show. My contract is up and I had other things to do. I was replaced by a wonderful actor named Terry Mann.

Terrence Man. Terry takes over the show.

But about two weeks into his run, he got sick and he couldn't do the show and his understudy had only recently been hired and didn't.

Know the part yet.

So I get a desperate call from the Schubert organization, going, can you please get us through the weekend?

We need far shows? Five shows, just five shows. So I go back.

You know, the Tony Award winner returns. Oh, this audience, what a treat for them. Normally you hear there's an understudy one, there's a groan, you're.

Here, Terry's man is not here. But Tony Award and oh the excitement, the enthusiasm.

So I go back feeling I am all that and then some I do the Saturday night show and I have to go pick up my wife at her parents' apartment, which is Crosstown. So understand, whatever I tell you now three seconds of time one way or the other, and what I'm about to tell you doesn't happen. I have to get on a bus. I go across town. I have to then walk the three or four blocks from where the bus left me off to get to my

That's three seconds more. They're in their apartment. I never know.

That doesn't doesn't matter Googleheim.

Any final words, Yeah we said wrong? What needs clarification? The mcdeal t I loved it at the time. I don't. I always loved this parter system. I did. I was the guy.

Also for people interested in following up on the Merrily We Rolled All Along, there was a documentary made. It is called the best worst thing that ever could have happened? And so that you and that's quite romp.

Yep. Yes.

And I will also say that Merrily We Rolled Along has had many, many significant revivals over the forty years since we did it, and it is coming back to Broadway again while this fall in September of twenty three with a new cast.

And I I saw this show off Broadway when I was in New York.

And you know, it's essentially in many ways on show we did, but now it's a different time, a different expectation, and it has become I think it's become in arguably.

There's also.

The gentleman who filmed About a Boy where he shot it over eighteen years, right, he is doing because Merrily takes place over twenty years. He's filming a movie version of it over the next twenty years with Ben Platten.

Beanie felt.

So I got to write down it opens, Yeah, okay, I'll write it down the opening weekend makes Soon we'll be on the red carpet.

We won't know it, but we'll be on the red carpet. Thank you Google. Heeim. I want to thank doctor West. Why are you discussing? I'm grateful that.

You said that.

Oh, go ahead, there you go.

The one thing I wanted to get to was shodenfreude, which is basically when people get pleasure out of watching other people's failure.

I thought that was an important Yeah, yes, that's the whole entertainment marketplace.

Yeah, yes it is.

And because especially talking about the videos that Jason watches on a regular basis, there actually been a study published in Neuropsychologia that shows why we oftentimes laugh when we encounter people failing or hurting or falling or whatever it is, and it oftentimes has to do with brain confusion that our brain, as we're understanding or seeing facial reactions of people experience this, our brain is teetering between laughing and

Well, thank you, doctor Google. Thank you, sir. Well there you go there, I google that.

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Great success, mister doctor Sammy West. Look up the Museum of Failure. You'll get a real kick out of the items that are in there. And he does a great ted talk too, So thank you everybody, and thank you.

Producer Laurie crivile David, we'll see you next time.