The Nine Inch Nails of Hamlet's Toys

Intro Sketch

Rex (00:00:00 - 00:00:03): Let’s go! The True North Nerds are about to start!

Rex (00:00:03 - 00:00:08): I know! I’m trying to find the signal! Thank you, Monster Nerd!

Rex (00:00:08 - 00:00:10): No, that’s the wrong one.

Rex (00:00:10 - 00:00:11): Move over!

Rex (00:00:11 - 00:00:12): Let me do it!

Rex (00:00:13 - 00:00:16): If I don’t go to this nerd school, I’m gonna lose my mind!

Rex (00:00:16 - 00:00:18): Come on, come on!

Rex (00:00:19 - 00:00:21): We can’t go against that guy! We’re nerds!

Rex (00:00:21 - 00:00:22): We’re gonna miss it!

Rex (00:00:24 - 00:00:27): My fellow nerds and I will retire to the nerdery with our calculators.

Rex (00:00:27 - 00:00:28): Wait! I got it!

Theme Song

Kirby Crackle (00:00:29 - 00:00:58): Set your phasers to sexy. Hey you, reading comic books. Like the way you look. Like the way you always mess with your hair. Playing PS3. It’s just you and me in my dreams, and I want to go to bed.

Kirby Crackle (00:00:58 - 00:00:58): I like you.

Welcome and Overview

Brent (00:01:22 - 00:01:26): Welcome, loyal listeners, to another episode of True North Nerds.

Jen (00:01:26 - 00:01:27): Yay!

Brent (00:01:30 - 00:01:47): This week, uh, it’s a bit of a relaxed Fit episode because, uh, we all did different things, uh, but we’ll also talk about the news and geek picks and lots of other stuff. Oh, uh, to start us off with the people who are here, we have Kevin.

Kevin (00:01:48 - 00:01:49): Hi, I’m here.

Brent (00:01:51 - 00:01:55): And we have Jen. And we have Ryan.

Ryan (00:01:56 - 00:01:59): Have any of us ever asked why we’re really here?

Jen (00:02:01 - 00:02:02): I try not to think about it.

Kevin (00:02:02 - 00:02:06): Does anyone really know what time it is?

Ryan (00:02:06 - 00:02:07): Are we sure Kevin’s really here?

Kevin (00:02:09 - 00:02:11): I could be a very advanced AI.

Ryan (00:02:14 - 00:02:14): Could be.

Brent (00:02:15 - 00:02:15): Could be.

Kevin (00:02:16 - 00:02:18): You don’t know how many fingers I have.

Ryan (00:02:20 - 00:02:20): I don’t want to know.

Jen (00:02:22 - 00:02:42): I’ve been having a lot of fun playing with AI, and the one thing that I’ve noticed, and it’s like really encouraging, you ask it a question and it’s like, that’s such a good question. And I’m like, thank you, AI. It’s good for your confidence, but bad for the environment.

Kevin (00:02:42 - 00:02:43): Yeah.

News: Scooby-Doo, Warner/Paramount, AI, G.I. Joe and Awards

Brent (00:02:46 - 00:02:50): Uh, Ryan? Yes? What news do you have for us this week?

Ryan (00:02:50 - 00:02:57): Well, the first news item is I was watching something on the auction site and then just watching it go well past what I wanted to pay for it.

Jen (00:02:57 - 00:02:59): I forgot about the auction site.

Ryan (00:02:59 - 00:03:14): Nothing, nothing too exciting. It’s just looking at a couple, uh, adjustable microphone stands to have in my bag for when I go to Ed’s so we don’t have to hold on to the mics. It’s up over $45 now and I was like, yeah, I didn’t want to pay that much for something I don’t need.

Brent (00:03:15 - 00:03:15): Fair enough.

Ryan (00:03:17 - 00:03:32): Um, but in the real news, uh, I’m sure we’ve mentioned it before, Netflix, uh, they’re working on a live-action Scooby-Doo series and they have cast—

Kevin (00:03:32 - 00:03:33): I did hear that, yes.

Ryan (00:03:35 - 00:03:46): Um, so McKenna Grace of Ghostbusters fame, uh, will be, uh, Oh, Daphne in the Scooby-Doo remake or relaunch or reboot or whatever you want to call it.

Jen (00:03:47 - 00:03:48): Which one was she in Ghostbusters?

Ryan (00:03:50 - 00:03:50): The young girl?

Brent (00:03:51 - 00:03:54): Young Egon. Young Egon’s granddaughter.

Ryan (00:03:54 - 00:03:55): Yes.

Jen (00:03:55 - 00:04:02): Well, see, the nice thing about the revamp and the redo of Ghostbusters is that there’s more than one female character, so I can actually ask that question.

Ryan (00:04:02 - 00:04:03): True, true.

Jen (00:04:03 - 00:04:07): Instead of just assuming the female name is the one female character in the movie.

Brent (00:04:07 - 00:04:11): She looks completely unrecognizable in real life.

Ryan (00:04:11 - 00:04:12): Oh yeah.

Jen (00:04:12 - 00:04:14): Well, that’s movie magic, Brent.

Kevin (00:04:14 - 00:04:14): Yeah.

Brent (00:04:15 - 00:04:15): Yeah.

Ryan (00:04:15 - 00:04:18): When they don’t give her that bushy hair and those big round glasses.

Jen (00:04:19 - 00:04:26): Although I thought she was really cute in Ghostbusters. Good for her.

Ryan (00:04:28 - 00:06:12): Yeah. And there have been some reports coming out. I guess people went and asked Sarah Michelle Gellar, who was Daphne in the previous live-action movies, and she is all on board. She’s already says that she’s, you know, I think she’s called to congratulate her and hopes nothing but the best for her. Now, staying on this Netflix train, there’s been a new twist in the ongoing sale of Warner Brothers to Netflix. Remember we discussed there, oh, this deal’s going to have to happen. There’s a $2 billion kill fee. No one’s going to want to pay $2 billion just to walk away. Well, apparently the ever persistent Paramount, um, has come forth with, um, what Warner Brothers has finally decided is a better deal. Last week they gave Netflix, or, you know, because they already had a deal in place with them, they had 30, 24 hours or 30 hours or something like that to match. Or better. And Netflix pretty much decided Warner Brothers was a nice to have, but not really a must have at any price. So they decided to walk away. And Paramount has already paid out the $2.8 billion termination fee to Netflix on Warner Brothers’ behalf to terminate the Warner Brothers Netflix merger deal. So now it’s going to be a Warner Brothers Paramount acquisition. I mean, it’s the other way around. Paramount’s actually going to be acquiring Warner Brothers.

Kevin (00:06:13 - 00:06:14): And Paramount just went through its own merger.

Ryan (00:06:15 - 00:07:19): Mm-hmm. Um, part of me wonders, uh, if this whole thing with Netflix, especially after, you know, they made their deal, they were the first ones to the table. They’re like, okay, cool. We’ll get it for the, what we wanna pay. We wanna buy this stuff. Like they didn’t wanna buy CNN and the TV stuff. They wanted the studios. They were, you know, hoping that’s what they wanted and they had a good price for it. And they’re like, okay, cool. And then, you know, Paramount’s like, oh no, no, we wanna buy everything. We’ll, we’ll give you this. And they started throwing money in. It’s like, it just reminds me of being on the auction site and watching things go up. And up and, you know, you fall into those little, you know, habits of you’re like, well, it’s only another dollar. It was only another dollar. Well, there’s no way you’re getting it this cheap. I’m bidding another dollar. And the next thing you know, the thing you were trying to get for $10 is up over $100. And sometimes you’re like, you know, they can have it. And in the end, you get, you get to have it. For way more than you wanted.

Jen (00:07:20 - 00:07:42): Yeah, you got to be careful about revenge bidding. Yeah, I had a nemesis for a while and oh boy, that person, they wait until there was like 3 seconds left and then they bid. And I was like, oh, this should have been over like an hour ago, but you keep waiting till there’s 3 seconds and it resets to 2 minutes. So yeah, rage bid— rage bidding is real.

Ryan (00:07:43 - 00:07:46): Yes, I stopped doing that at all. At all levels.

Kevin (00:07:47 - 00:08:50): I’m of two minds about this merger. I wasn’t keen on the Netflix merger because I felt like that was going to, you know, end a lot of big budget films from going to the cinemas. But on the other hand, the people that own Paramount Skydance are Trump people. And it almost, you know, if as much as I love Star Trek, which is on Paramount, I can’t believe it’s still on Paramount because of its ideologies. But anyway, you know, part of it is now Paramount gets control of CNN. And if Paramount, if the Paramount people are in the right wing’s back pocket, then do we lose another moderate journalistic voice? And why do we live in such a terrible world?

Jen (00:08:51 - 00:09:21): So much of the news going into the States, I think, is already censored pretty heavily. Again, I watch a lot of TikTok, and there’s one content creator that just came up on my page. I don’t even follow them, but She was like, I know our news is getting censored, so tell me what the rest of the world says about the US and what the rest of the world knows about the US. And then her follow-up video to that was, wow, I had no idea we were censored that badly. So I don’t know if there is any truly impartial journalism left in the States.

Kevin (00:09:22 - 00:09:29): Well, is it Bezos that owns the Washington Post now and they just fired most of their journalists?

Brent (00:09:29 - 00:09:47): Yeah. Yeah, but the bright side is, is, you know, their, like, society is collapsing. So it may not actually matter. Society is collapsing. It may not actually matter very soon.

Kevin (00:09:48 - 00:09:50): Oh, let’s hope. Well, let’s—

Ryan (00:09:50 - 00:10:27): anyway. Well, let me just pull us out of this deep dive into how this is supposed to be people’s escape from all of reality. So let’s discuss the very, very important announcement that later this summer, Marvel heroes will be teaming up with the one and only Jay and Silent Bob for a special Jay and Silent Bob: Jays of Future Past one-shot comic written by Kevin Smith and drawn by Giuseppe— oh, I’m gonna— Comencoli. That sounds right.

Jen (00:10:28 - 00:10:28): Yeah.

Ryan (00:10:29 - 00:11:30): Looks great. It’s Jane, Sid, and Bob with the Marvel heroes. Apparently, Kevin Smith pitched something along these lines to Stan Lee back when he was filming Mallrats. And Stan Lee’s answer was, “Well, hey, if the movie’s a hit, we’ll talk.” And well, we all know how well Mallrats did in theaters. Which is why it’s taken another, like, 30 years before we see this comic. So, well, maybe only 25 years. Uh, but yep, so that’s coming our way this summer. Another great comic book coming to your local comic shops. Uh, we got some news out of the Highlander movie camp. Uh, Christopher Lambert, the original Highlander, Or one of the actors from the original Highlander movies, uh, will be returning alongside Henry Cavill in the movie. So there’s, uh, oh, I saw that.

Brent (00:11:30 - 00:11:34): That’s a nice little, yeah, he’s doing a cameo.

Kevin (00:11:35 - 00:11:35): Yeah.

Ryan (00:11:38 - 00:12:49): And, uh, the latest battle in the AI wars, uh, has Netflix joining with Warner Brothers Discovery and Paramount and Disney. In issuing cease and desist letters to ByteDance. They allege that the company’s Seedance 2.0 artificial intelligence platform is generating unauthorized works based on copyrighted studio content. Well, yeah, that’s what everybody is doing with their— every person in the general public that has now gotten access to AI video software or programs is using it to make stuff. I’m sure we’ve all seen the clips from where they are redoing the scene in Tokyo Drift where the guy comes walking out of the school and Han’s waiting by the car, but it’s like, except this time it’s the Undertaker walking through the hallways of the school and it’s Paul Bearer waiting for him with a casket on wheels, or it’s the Scooby gang waiting for one of the members to come out, or, or, or, or. Or am I the only one that’s seen these videos?

Jen (00:12:50 - 00:12:59): Uh, I haven’t seen those ones, but I have seen, um, Fixing Your Childhood Trauma, and they’re taking movie clips like The NeverEnding Story where—

Ryan (00:13:00 - 00:13:01): yeah, I saw that one—

Jen (00:13:01 - 00:13:23): they save Artax instead, and I’m like, I like this better. Yeah, but the thing with that is like, it’s got to be an interesting time to be a copyright lawyer because like, if it’s on the internet, AI scrapes everything that it can get its little claws into.

Ryan (00:13:23 - 00:13:25): So, well, that’s the problem.

Jen (00:13:25 - 00:13:33): What do you just not put anything on? Like, is AI going to be the death of the internet? Because people aren’t going to post stuff if they don’t want AI to get it.

Ryan (00:13:34 - 00:13:51): But why is AI, you know, the fact that just because it’s out there, It’s what they’re giving these things in their teaching models or whatever, telling them like the AI to access. Well, they’re not supposed to be using people’s copyrighted materials to teach their AI, right?

Jen (00:13:52 - 00:14:02): They’re not supposed to be, but a lot of companies like Adobe are saying, if you want to continue to use us, we have the right to use your content to teach our AI. So.

Brent (00:14:04 - 00:14:13): It may come to a point where like there will be a couple companies that develop software that are like the antithesis of that and people will just go to them.

Jen (00:14:14 - 00:14:36): I hope so. Yeah, I mean, I do. Okay, I, I’m a hypocrite because I do use AI a fair bit, but it’s, it’s a tool, right? It, and it’s garbage in, garbage out. So you got to use it for, I guess, like I use it at work a fair bit as a starting point or, or to help me get an idea or, you know, things like that, but I don’t— I never use it to create art or to create—

Ryan (00:14:36 - 00:14:46): you’re not using it to create videos and artwork or anything like that. You’re using it to help you get, you know, the groundwork for your new latest memo that you have to write.

Jen (00:14:46 - 00:15:13): Yeah. Or Brent and I are hopefully going on a trip to Montreal this summer, so I was using it to plan the trip, like find hotels for me in this area that are this price range, or, you know, stuff like that. Like, it depends on what you use it for. So the problem is, is that people are using it for, like you said, generating videos that— but they want it to be copyrighted because they want it to be something that is meaningful to them. So yeah, it’s a mess.

Brent (00:15:13 - 00:15:23): AI and robots are supposed to be doing the stuff that allows us to create art ourselves, not being the stuff that creates art and leaving us in the shitty jobs.

Jen (00:15:23 - 00:15:24): Exactly.

Ryan (00:15:24 - 00:15:29): Leaving us in the factory creating the robots while the robot gets to paint the Mona Lisa.

Jen (00:15:30 - 00:15:43): I want a robot to do my laundry and, well, and chores so that I can create art, not so that— not do art so that I have to do my laundry and chores. Anyway, that’s my AI rant.

Ryan (00:15:44 - 00:15:49): There you go. Well said. Uh, that’s it for me for news. Anybody else got anything?

Kevin (00:15:50 - 00:15:52): There was a trailer released this week for Toy Story 5.

Ryan (00:15:53 - 00:15:54): I did not see it.

Jen (00:15:55 - 00:15:58): All I saw was the emphasis on Woody’s bald spot.

Kevin (00:15:58 - 00:16:12): Yeah, I haven’t actually watched it either, but we are gearing up for Toy Story 5. You know, again, considering Toy Story 4 ended with the departure of Woody, I’ll be interested.

Ryan (00:16:12 - 00:16:14): Spoilers. I still haven’t seen that one.

Kevin (00:16:15 - 00:16:16): It’s a 5-year-old movie. That’s on you.

Brent (00:16:17 - 00:17:53): The one thing that I saw that like, oh, This is all sorts of like not great to it, um, was that, uh, Paramount is working on not one but two different pitches for G.I. Joe right now, um, like the movie. One, uh, written by, uh, Danny McBride, who has, uh, done a whole bunch of stuff, like a lot of comedies like The Righteous Gemstones and Uh, you may recognize him from like, uh, This Is the End and movies like that. He also helped shepherd in that new trilogy of Halloween movies. Um, some were good, some not so good. And the other script is, uh, apparently, uh, being written by Max Landis, who, uh, son of, uh, where, where does Where to start? Son of John Landis, did a couple movies, wrote a couple things, and then got himself MeToo’d in like 2010 when no less than 8 women accused him of sexually assaulting them. So yeah, that’s happening right now. Developing two scripts at once is not unprecedented, but it usually doesn’t work for anybody.

Ryan (00:17:54 - 00:18:45): I saw that online and it’s so early and the reports are so varied. Like there was even one where it’s like, apparently they want to totally embrace like a throwback to the ’80s action movies and have it be over the top and not be afraid for it to not necessarily be correct. I think that’s how they put it. So yeah, who knows? This isn’t the first time we’ve heard there being a G.I. Joe script in the works. There was another— wasn’t there supposed to be another Snake Eyes movie at some point? Or there was supposed to be a G.I. Joe movie at least after that Snake Eyes movie. Then there was talk of a Transformers G.I. Joe movie after Transformers. So I’m very much at the point where I will believe it when I see it.

Brent (00:18:46 - 00:19:03): Yeah. The only thing about it is like it goes to kind of Paramount, another like strike against like why Paramount owning Netflix may not be the greatest thing in the world is— Paramount’s not going to own Netflix.

Ryan (00:19:04 - 00:19:07): Warner Brothers. Paramount’s buying Warner Brothers.

Brent (00:19:07 - 00:20:00): Sorry. Yeah. Paramount in the last like 3 months has basically been going to the MeToo well and hiring people that— John Lasseter of Pixar is now the head of Skydance’s animation. Brett Ratner, who has a large amount of accusations leveled against him, and I will say they are accusations. Who most recently directed the Melania documentary, um, coming to a Razzie Awards ceremony near you. Um, his— he’s been brought in to, uh, fast-track a Rush Hour 4. It’s like, and now this.

Kevin (00:20:00 - 00:20:15): So it’s like, ah, So they’re still trying to get the Star Trek franchise back into cinemas. I don’t know how successful they will be at that.

Brent (00:20:16 - 00:20:20): Well, yeah, they got to hire somebody to do it.

Kevin (00:20:23 - 00:20:35): Excuse me, I guess, but there were, there have been some awards lately to move on to some happier topics. Would you like to know about some awards that were just given to films that people might be interested in?

Jen (00:20:36 - 00:20:36): Sure, sounds good.

Ryan (00:20:37 - 00:20:38): Yeah, which awards? Which awards?

Kevin (00:20:38 - 00:20:54): Um, 2025 Annie Awards were just given out. The Annie Awards are by the Animation Guild, so these are all about cartoons and, uh, animated things. What do you think was the best feature film of 2025 according to the Annie Awards?

Jen (00:20:54 - 00:20:55): K-pop Demon Hunters.

Kevin (00:20:56 - 00:21:01): Correct! It beat out Zootopia 2 and The Bad Guys 2.

Jen (00:21:01 - 00:21:04): You guys really need to watch this movie. It’s good.

Kevin (00:21:04 - 00:21:45): I’ve heard that. Best TV media for children was The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball. That beat out Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and some other shows that I’ve never heard of, including Spice Frontier and Wild Park. For mature audiences, the best TV media was a show called Common Side Effects. Which beat out Bob’s Burgers, South Park, and two shows I’ve never heard of, Il Baraccino and Ha Ha You Clowns. Do you know this? Do any of you know these shows?

Ryan (00:21:46 - 00:21:48): I’ve heard of Bob’s Burgers before.

Jen (00:21:48 - 00:21:50): Yeah, I’ve heard of Bob’s Burgers.

Ryan (00:21:52 - 00:21:58): I may or may not have watched a couple episodes of Bob’s Burgers this afternoon while I was sitting in the sunshine reading a book.

Kevin (00:21:58 - 00:22:01): But you haven’t been watching Haha, You Clowns?

Jen (00:22:03 - 00:22:08): I’m still taking Bob’s Burgers really slow. I think I just started season 16. Is that the most recent one, Ryan?

Ryan (00:22:09 - 00:22:10): I have no clue.

Kevin (00:22:11 - 00:22:59): They also have a category for best limited series on television. The nominees were Asterix and Obelix: The Big Fight, which was on Netflix, Eyes of Wakanda, Marvel Zombies, Star Wars Visions Volume 3. But the winner was Win or Lose, which is a very charming series by Pixar that is on Disney+. It’s about the kids in a Little League baseball team, and it all takes place simultaneously. Every episode overlaps with things that happen in other episodes. It’s very well done. If you haven’t watched Win or Lose, I highly recommend that. It’s on Disney+. Those are probably the only categories we’re interested in. There’s a lot of like best effects in a feature film, Zootopia 2, best character animation for television.

Ryan (00:23:01 - 00:23:13): How do you judge special, like best effects in a film, or when it’s, it’s all a cartoon? So is it just this one is the best drawn or best?

Kevin (00:23:13 - 00:23:13): I guess so.

Ryan (00:23:14 - 00:23:15): I don’t know.

Jen (00:23:15 - 00:23:26): Best animated or— yeah, because I mean there are some like terribly animated stuff still where you watch that and you’re like, nominated. Yeah, that’s true.

Kevin (00:23:28 - 00:23:37): Best Music in a Feature Film: K-pop Demon Hunters. Best Production Design for TV or Media: Love, Death and Robots.

Jen (00:23:37 - 00:23:39): Oh, I gotta finish watching that.

Ryan (00:23:40 - 00:23:46): Yeah, I think I did. I don’t remember. Rex!

Kevin (00:23:47 - 00:23:47): Yay!

Jen (00:23:48 - 00:23:48): Yay!

Ryan (00:23:54 - 00:23:54): Yay!

Kevin (00:23:56 - 00:24:12): Yeah, K-pop Demon Hunters won a lot of awards. And this show Common Side Effects. Common Side Effects has won a bunch of awards too. I’ll have to look that up. I do not know what Common Side Effects is.

Brent (00:24:13 - 00:24:13): Yeah.

Ryan (00:24:13 - 00:24:17): I feel like I’ve heard the name before, but I’ve never watched it.

Kevin (00:24:18 - 00:24:19): Me neither. Let’s see.

Brent (00:24:23 - 00:25:32): I just thought of something that we didn’t talk about, although we’re not sure what we’re going to be talking about in regards to this. So the Once We Were Spacemen podcast, which is Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk. Has started a series of very short videos on their Instagram where Nathan Fillion is showing up at various places where, at this point, 3 of the other Firefly cast members are at. And basically the overall theme of it is, it’s time now. A lot of guesses have been pointed out. They’re doing a convention, or perhaps this is an episode of their, their podcast, or some sort of crossover with The Rookie, because that, that could easily be a thing in, in some ways, because I think all of them other than the, the guy who plays the Doctor are on like cop shows right now or something, aren’t they?

Firefly Revival Speculation

Kevin (00:25:32 - 00:25:35): Yeah, Morena Baccarin is playing a cop on some show.

Brent (00:25:35 - 00:25:52): Yeah, uh, it’s called Sheriff County. Yeah, right. Ryan and I had the country, uh, Ryan and I had this whole discussion about because they’re like, what’s the other country? Because there’s fire country, sheriff country, doctor country, I guess.

Kevin (00:25:52 - 00:25:56): Earth country, air country, and wind country.

Brent (00:25:57 - 00:26:22): So to add a further wrinkle to this, on the latest video, uh, which, um, I can’t remember what his name is. Simon something, the guy who played the Doctor on Firefly. The Once Were Spacemen Instagram post has a caption on it saying, some of you have guessed convention, podcast, or crossover. You are wrong.

Ryan (00:26:25 - 00:27:21): So I watched a bit of, I don’t know if it was a clip, a reel, a video. I watched something today. Where they talked about this, where some— the person was talking about all these videos and what’s going on. And there are reports that Disney is possibly interested in a Firefly revival. Well, and that it may be a, a movie that leads into some kind of a limited series, or it may be a limited series that, you know, there’s going to be possibly something. And that’s what all this is building to, is an announcement, I guess. I still think that’s a lot of browncoats dreaming, but I would love to be proved wrong because I recently did a Firefly watch through again and it was great.

Brent (00:27:24 - 00:27:54): It’s a show that cannot die. No, in some ways it has never been completely let go. And like part of that is the fact that like it had a very short run and they managed to get a movie out of it, which like when that happened was very rare. But yeah, so well, you have to look at it too.

Ryan (00:27:54 - 00:28:47): It was, you know, look at the cast. They’ve all, almost all of them have gone on to do other stuff and become bigger names. So the fans that have been able to follow them and they just see them be successful and they’re like, well, of course, why wouldn’t you want a movie or a show with Nathan Fillion and Jewel State? And then, and you know, The other people whose names I can’t remember, um, except, um, you know, poor— his, his poor co-host from, uh, We Were Spacemen, um, uh, well, he doesn’t survive the movie, so he— yeah, unless he could— unless he’s back as flashbacks or he gets to be it. Maybe, maybe they get a robot and he can be the voice of the robot.

Brent (00:28:47 - 00:28:59): And unfortunately, he’s not the only one either. So what’s his name? Ron Glass, who played Shepard Book in it, he passed away a number of years ago.

Ryan (00:28:59 - 00:29:02): Well, yeah, but see, he passed away in real life.

Brent (00:29:02 - 00:30:10): Yeah. Now, there is one elephant in the room and one sort of elephant in the room. And the main one would be like, well, I guess let’s tackle the partial one. Adam Baldwin, who played Jane in the show, is pretty right-wing, very politically vocal on his social media. Yeah. The other cast members are notably like sort of known as either non-political or at least left-leaning. Which that doesn’t mean anything. You work with other people, but like he is like really like ensconced in that kind of world from what I understand. The other, it would be Joss Whedon, who is another guy who was at the end of the MeToo chair. Yeah.

Ryan (00:30:11 - 00:30:16): But so, you know, How much does he still own of it? How much does he— would he be—

Brent (00:30:16 - 00:30:22): oh, he doesn’t own any of it. Fox can do— Fox/Disney can do whatever they want with it.

Ryan (00:30:22 - 00:30:28): Well, unless now, because they’re bringing back Buffy. Yeah, you have that same problem now.

Brent (00:30:30 - 00:31:02): A number of the cast members on multiple occasions have mentioned that they wouldn’t— don’t feel that it would work without him. Which is fair. Like, it is like he was the creative guy behind it and like, and him along with his writing team. But that being said, um, you know, they’re, they’re also all, uh, older too. Like, don’t get me wrong, they all look good.

Kevin (00:31:02 - 00:31:02): 20 years.

Brent (00:31:03 - 00:31:40): It’s been a while. And like, like Ryan pointed out, the Wash character was killed off in Serenity. Uh, spoilers for a like 20-plus-year-old movie. Um, and you know, it’s that I don’t— I, I think Summer Glau is still acting. I haven’t seen her in anything for a while, but maybe, maybe they are all planning a trip to visit the Nathan Fillion civilian pavilion. Part of me wonders, so if it’s none of those things, it may not actually be Firefly. It may be something else.

Kevin (00:31:42 - 00:31:44): It’s Dr. Horrible.

Brent (00:31:45 - 00:31:47): Which is also a Joss Whedon project.

Jen (00:31:49 - 00:31:52): Has there been one of those short videos with Jewel Staite?

Brent (00:31:53 - 00:31:56): No, not yet. They’ve only gotten the three of them.

Ryan (00:31:57 - 00:32:03): But she was tagged in at least the first one, the second one, as like as shared.

Brent (00:32:03 - 00:32:22): And she has put comments on them. Like the latest one, she’s got like smiles and stuff on it. So she knows what is going on. And I assume she’s coming up. To which the Geek Hard guys are probably going to be shaking their fists a little bit because they just had her on their show like not too long ago.

Kevin (00:32:24 - 00:32:31): Summer Glau has not had a film credit since 2019.

Brent (00:32:32 - 00:32:35): She’s also a mom now, from what I understand, too, right?

Kevin (00:32:35 - 00:32:47): Yeah, she did. She did an episode of it, 2 episodes of a show called Wu Assassins. She was also on The Big Bang Theory in 2016. That was 2009.

Brent (00:32:47 - 00:32:47): Was it?

Kevin (00:32:47 - 00:32:49): So that was 17 years ago.

Brent (00:32:50 - 00:32:53): Just doesn’t feel that long ago due to the reruns.

Kevin (00:32:54 - 00:33:01): Firefly ran 2002 to 2003. Firefly is a 24-year-old TV show.

Jen (00:33:02 - 00:33:03): Oh, ouch.

Kevin (00:33:05 - 00:33:06): I know, I still think of it as new.

Jen (00:33:07 - 00:33:07): I know.

Ryan (00:33:08 - 00:33:14): Well, you can tell it’s an older show just when you watch it and see how young this cast all looks.

Brent (00:33:14 - 00:33:15): I know.

Kevin (00:33:15 - 00:33:29): Yeah, Summer Glau had a podcast called Control Alt Destroy. Which was a literary role-playing game podcast. That was 2021. That’s her latest credit on anything.

Brent (00:33:29 - 00:34:10): Yeah. So the other thing is it could be some sort of audiobook thing too. Like, like, yeah. Or, or, you know, as I, I don’t see comic because the right now, unless it’s like a, they’re making a big deal out of it coming up because nobody’s doing anything with that property right now. It was at Boom, but Boom kind of, from what I understand, let the rights lapse. So it, like, it was at Dark Horse, it was at Boom. Could it be coming back somewhere else? Yeah, possibly. Like, it’s, you know, it’s really—

Ryan (00:34:10 - 00:34:19): unless they were involved in the making of something, unless they’re all writing issues or something, the I don’t see why you’d have them, like, why they would be promoting it.

Brent (00:34:20 - 00:34:40): Yeah, excuse me. Like, before the, the latest video, I would have— it’s them either doing the podcast or like as a big group, or it’s a Firefly convention where they’re all going to appear at, or a fan expo or a Megacon. But apparently that’s not the case. So yeah.

Jen (00:34:41 - 00:34:47): As much as I’d like for it to be a reboot, yeah, I doubt it. They’ve all got their own things going on.

Brent (00:34:47 - 00:35:05): I, I kind of just, you know, that show, like, for what it is, is— and that’s part of why it’s— it continues to get brought up of like, oh, they should bring it back— is it was very good for the— what is it, Ryan? 10, 12 episodes?

Ryan (00:35:06 - 00:35:06): Yeah, something like that.

Brent (00:35:07 - 00:35:27): It’s like, you know, 3 3-disc DVD set. I think it all fits on one Blu-ray. But it’s like, and that’s why we like, because it ended so soon. That’s why in our memories, it’s, it was like, it’s so good because it didn’t get a chance to have a crappy season.

Kevin (00:35:27 - 00:35:28): Right.

Brent (00:35:29 - 00:35:37): And I almost kind of hope it stays that way because like there’s so many ways it could go.

Ryan (00:35:38 - 00:36:17): Well, it’d be interesting if they were able to come back, even if it just did like a, you know, like the old school made-for-TV movie, or in today’s, you know, a limited series of, you know, even if it’s like 6 episodes or something like that, where it’s, you know, 20 years have gone by, it’s the same, you know, maybe they haven’t been to, you know, and obviously they probably haven’t been together this whole time, and now something has come up that is from their past that, you know, would have been something, you know, maybe a character from that first season. So it would make sense to tie it all back in. And, uh, you know, Mal’s got to get the crew back together.

Brent (00:36:17 - 00:36:24): Or come to think of it, isn’t Shepard Book dead as well? Like, not just the real actor. Actor?

Ryan (00:36:24 - 00:36:25): Yeah, he does the movie too.

Brent (00:36:26 - 00:36:28): Yeah, I was gonna say, they killed him off as well, right?

Ryan (00:36:29 - 00:36:29): Yeah.

Brent (00:36:30 - 00:36:54): So the other thing they could do that is the one of those things that I’ve sort of lobbied for in this case, if they are going to do it, do like something animated. Like do like an in-between set of stories that we didn’t see. That way you can bring everybody back and nobody has aged. Like book obviously would be the hard one to do something with, but there are ways around that as well.

Ryan (00:36:57 - 00:37:10): Yeah, there’s lots of interesting stuff they could do and they may be doing. Or it may just be, like you said, just should be one big advertisement for, uh, something. Something.

Brent (00:37:11 - 00:37:59): Not a podcast, not a convention, not a crossover. So, and to be fair to, to, uh, Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk, I don’t see them fucking around with fans in terms of like saying it’s not those things and they’re like, oh, it’s an episode of the podcast. Like, I really don’t. They wouldn’t toy with the fan base that much. They’re already fucking with them a little bit with these videos. They’re not going to go that far and like outright lie to what it is that they’re promoting. So actually, what anniversary is the screening of What anniversary of Serenity are we at? The movie?

Ryan (00:38:00 - 00:38:01): Oh, I have no clue.

Brent (00:38:01 - 00:38:10): Because I could see maybe like, yeah, I could see like some sort of like bringing that back to theaters kind of thing.

Ryan (00:38:12 - 00:38:27): Hmm. Uh, came out in 2005. So we are at the 20— so if we keep out in 20, this is—

Brent (00:38:27 - 00:38:29): we’re not a round number now.

Ryan (00:38:29 - 00:38:58): It’s like the 21-year anniversary. So I think that kind of takes us out of the news portion of, uh, everything and chatting of sorts. It would be sports. And now here with our sports report, Jen, can you give us a recap of the Von Toy Show that we went to last weekend, you and I?

Vaughan Toy Show Recap

Brent (00:38:59 - 00:39:01): That’s not a sport.

Jen (00:39:02 - 00:39:03): It is for us.

Ryan (00:39:03 - 00:39:05): Yeah. Toy buying is a sport. Come on.

Jen (00:39:09 - 00:39:55): Yeah. So we last weekend we went to the Von Toy Show. Um, I can’t remember what the actual name of the toy show is, but anyway, it’s the one in Vaughn in February. Yeah. Um, so I had seen this toy show pop up like every year because I follow a lot of like vintage girl toy groups and Barbie collectors groups, and I was like, oh, you know, every year I’ve been meaning to go, and this year I’m like, I’m gonna go this year. So I dragged Ryan along with me. Um, And honestly, I was kind of disappointed because we— the ones, the shows that we go to in Mississauga and Burlington, the— I don’t even know what those ones are called either. We just call them the toy shows, but they tend to be much larger.

Ryan (00:39:55 - 00:40:02): Toy Expo or sometimes. And then, yeah, the Mississauga Toy Show, I think. Or yeah, who knows the names.

Jen (00:40:02 - 00:41:09): Yeah, but they’re like multiple rooms plus hallways. Like they tend to be much larger toy shows. So I was kind of expecting, based on all the hype that this toy show has been getting, that it was going to be at least one large room, or at least, or maybe two rooms. But it was one very small room, and we were packed in there. Um, and I didn’t really like— based on all of the, the buzz that it was getting on the groups that I follow, I didn’t really see very many, um, like I was really hyped to get Barbies and like see more girl toys because it’s really hard to find vintage girl toys at these things. They’re few and far between. So, um, yeah, so I was a little bummed. I did find the boot— the table of one of the people I follow, and I managed to get a couple things from her, and that was great. So I don’t regret going because I did get a couple good things, but based on all that hype, I was really expecting more. Uh, and then the next day people were posting what they found, and apparently, Ryan, we needed to be there right when it opened because in the first— like, we got there like it opened at 10 and We got there at like, what, 10:30, 10:45? Apparently in the first—

Ryan (00:41:09 - 00:41:11): yeah, closer to 11, I think. We didn’t leave here until 10.

Jen (00:41:12 - 00:41:15): So yeah, so I guess in like the first hour all the good stuff disappears.

Ryan (00:41:15 - 00:41:20): So if you’re gonna go, so what was the first hour that you were looking for that you missed out on?

Jen (00:41:20 - 00:41:26): Well, like there were a lot more boxed Barbies, there was a lot more, uh, Gem dolls, there was, um, like—

Ryan (00:41:26 - 00:41:41): well, we knew that the one guy said he had— that he had already sold a couple. Yeah, he only had the one left. I don’t know, but it’s the question would have been Even if you were there that early, would the prices— because the prices for the girl stuff that you did find that you liked was pretty high.

Jen (00:41:42 - 00:41:52): Yeah, that’s the stuff that was left, was the expensive stuff. So I feel like somebody, like people came in in the first hour and swooped down and got all the reasonably priced stuff, or everything was super expensive. I don’t know.

Ryan (00:41:52 - 00:42:13): Yeah, I was gonna say, from, from our experience of going to other toy shows and being there at the beginning, you know, without having gone in for the, uh, you know, through the early bird tickets and paying extra to get in or anything like that. It’s like, just because you’re there early doesn’t mean that you might see all the cool stuff, doesn’t mean you’re getting a good price on the cool stuff.

Jen (00:42:13 - 00:42:23): Yeah. So anyway, it was still fun. It was nice. And then we went to Von Mills, and that was fun too. And it was nice to hang out with Ryan. So I still had a good time.

Ryan (00:42:24 - 00:42:25): I found some toys.

Jen (00:42:25 - 00:42:28): Yeah, Ryan got some stuff. Why don’t you tell everybody what you got, Ryan?

Ryan (00:42:29 - 00:43:40): I will. So I have continued, if you listen to Tales from the Collectiverse and have been hearing the last few episodes there, my talk of my slow decline into collecting Mythic Legions and other Four Horsemen properties. I found two Cosmic Legion figures. For really good prices. Now each one of them is missing a few accessories and stuff. Now once I got home and looked them up and stuff, but it was like one of them was $20 and the other one was $30. So I was like, for $50, I got two Cosmic Legion figures. Most of these Mythic Legions, Cosmic Legion figures, you know, prices start around like $45 to $50 new. So getting two for that price was, was good. Uh, also found a G.I. Joe figure I didn’t have. I picked up Big Ben. So now I have one and Brent doesn’t. As you can ask Jen, that was one of the things I said as we were leaving the store. I’m pretty excited because I’m pretty sure Brent doesn’t have this one and I do.

Jen (00:43:41 - 00:43:42): Don’t make it a competition.

Ryan (00:43:43 - 00:43:49): No, it’s not. He has a classic colored Trouble Bubble and I don’t.

Jen (00:43:50 - 00:43:50): There you go.

Brent (00:43:50 - 00:43:51): And a Range Viper.

Ryan (00:43:52 - 00:44:11): And a Range Viper. And I don’t. So see, then you won’t let me forget it. But yeah, no, you know, there was a— we had an interesting conversation with a gentleman who had a bunch of cool buttons and like McDonald’s merchandise, like the promotional material type stuff.

Jen (00:44:12 - 00:44:22): Yeah, I’d seen him at other shows and he’s a talker. So Oh yeah. You have to be careful you don’t get sucked in because you could stand there for hours and he’d just keep going.

Ryan (00:44:22 - 00:44:23): But I picked up on that.

Jen (00:44:24 - 00:44:29): Yeah. Yeah. I really did like the vintage McDonald’s pins though. I think they were pretty cool.

Ryan (00:44:29 - 00:44:35): I was tempted. There was what looked to be a McDonald’s Employee of the Month type plaque.

Jen (00:44:36 - 00:44:36): Yeah.

Ryan (00:44:37 - 00:44:52): There was just a plaque with like a McDonald’s logo and it had like the plate for engraving on it. And I thought that it would say like, you know, Employee of the Month on it. but it didn’t have— it was a blank plate. I was like, oh, part of me wanted to buy it if it was cheap and be like, here you go, Brent.

Brent (00:44:55 - 00:45:00): Because you had to work. So, um, cool.

Ryan (00:45:01 - 00:45:01): Yeah.

Jen (00:45:01 - 00:45:08): So I’m hoping that— yeah, I’m hoping that, uh, in the future we’ll be able to go to some of those bigger ones again.

Ryan (00:45:09 - 00:45:16): Um, yeah, it’s just the drive all the way down to Mississauga and Yeah, that’s not that bad a drive. Burlington.

Jen (00:45:16 - 00:45:26): And not in February. Maybe in the spring and summer we’ll go when it’s like a nice— it’s not— yeah, when it’s nice and we don’t have to worry about snowstorms, possible snowstorms.

Kevin (00:45:26 - 00:45:30): And yeah, that’s why I enjoy taking the train to the city.

Jen (00:45:32 - 00:45:33): I do too, if the train goes to where we’re going.

Kevin (00:45:34 - 00:45:36): Yeah, it’s hard to get to the suburbs by train.

Jen (00:45:36 - 00:45:37): Yeah.

Ryan (00:45:37 - 00:45:40): So what have you been up to, Kevin?

Kevin Sees Eddie Izzard’s Hamlet

Brent (00:45:40 - 00:45:45): Yeah, I was going to say, speaking of doing stuff, you wouldn’t— I did Hamlet.

Kevin (00:45:46 - 00:49:27): I did. And I, you know, I’ve been involved with the theater all my life, and I believe this is actually the first production of Hamlet I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen movies and I’ve read the play, but of course, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen it done live on stage. And I saw it done in a very special way by a very special performer. It was a one-man show of Hamlet. One actor played all 23 parts, and that actor was Eddie Izzard. To those who do not know who Eddie Izzard is, they are a British comedian. They actually, in their personal life, go by Susie now. They are transgender. And but very funny. They always had sort of like a punk persona before their transition, and now they are very, very much definitely female presenting. But she did Hamlet as a one-woman show where she played all the characters. Her set was a pretty blank white box with two— they almost look like arrow slits in them that they could be lit with different colored light. I expected, knowing Eddie Izzard from their comedy, I thought this show would be— not that I went expecting comedy because everything I had read had said this is not a comedy. This is Hamlet, the tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. And but I expected them to do voices for each character. I thought there would be more vocal affectation, but there wasn’t. It was just through physicality and location on stage that we could differentiate the characters. Two of my favorites were the classic team of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who were basically just presented as hand puppets. And now By that I mean they were just hands. She would actually just talk to her hands, one as Rosencrantz, the other as Guildenstern, and she would make mouth movements with her hands. She had no props. She did entire sword fights with no swords. She did the “Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him,” Horatio speech without a skull. Everything was done with mime and movement. She was riveting. It was really spellbinding. Now, Hamlet is a 4-hour-long play. It was cut down to just over 2 hours with a 20-minute intermission for this production. It was adapted by her brother, actually. They worked together to craft the script. This was her last Last night was her last show in Toronto and the show’s moving on to Philadelphia next week. So it was just brilliant. It was utterly, utterly awedroppingly brilliant. And that just, I left thinking, fuck, if she can learn an entire Shakespearean play, not just one part, not just a couple of monologues, but the entire effing play, I should go home and learn my lines for Clue. But yeah, it was really wonderful. It was a really wonderful experience. I’m so glad I went. Cool.

Jen (00:49:27 - 00:49:49): I would have really liked to see that. I’ve seen— so out of curiosity, because I know that Eddie Izzard prefers Suzy, I saw an interview where they were saying that they still respond to Eddie Izzard and they still use Eddie Izzard, but like you said, in her personal life, she likes to go by Susie with she/her pronouns. But so was it billed as Eddie Izzard?

Kevin (00:49:50 - 00:49:51): Yeah, I think.

Jen (00:49:51 - 00:49:52): Or was it billed as Susie?

Kevin (00:49:52 - 00:49:53): Eddie professionally.

Jen (00:49:54 - 00:49:55): Okay. Yeah.

Kevin (00:49:55 - 00:49:57): Yeah. Because it was billed as Eddie.

Jen (00:49:58 - 00:50:11): Yeah. I don’t even— I don’t remember who was interviewing her, but yeah, that was a really interesting part of the conversation. But yeah. Anyway, Hamlet’s my favorite play. That’s why I named my cat Hamlet. I would have really loved to have seen that. I bet it was fantastic.

Kevin (00:50:11 - 00:50:22): It was wonderful. Wonderful. The madness of Ophelia. There were funny bits too. I’m not saying that she didn’t do comedy because there was comedy.

Brent (00:50:23 - 00:50:25): Shakespeare always has a bit of comedy in it.

Kevin (00:50:25 - 00:51:14): Yeah. I mean, it’s dark. I mean, Hamlet’s pretty dark. And so the play opens on the turrets and the ghost appears, the ghost of Hamlet’s father. It was done so effectively with just a change of lighting and a big loud booming thunderclap. And the couple of times that it happened, I jumped. I literally, I jumped. It was just, it was startling and very effective. Everybody who was at the show seems really into it. Nobody wasn’t taking it seriously. Yeah, I thought it was just brilliant. I really had a good time. Any questions?

Brent (00:51:17 - 00:51:18): No, not for me. I’m glad you had fun.

Kevin (00:51:18 - 00:51:31): Oh, I did. Yeah. Now, this is a very different show from the next show, which I’m going to see in 2 weeks. We’ve got tickets to see Lucy Darling. Have you seen Lucy Darling on social media?

Brent (00:51:31 - 00:51:34): Yeah, we looked at getting tickets.

Jen (00:51:34 - 00:51:36): I’m jealous you’re going to see this one.

Brent (00:51:36 - 00:51:44): Yeah. By the time I found out about the shows, I can get tickets, but Jen and I would not be able to sit together.

Kevin (00:51:45 - 00:51:49): Yeah. Oh, the Toronto shows sold fast.

Brent (00:51:49 - 00:51:52): And then she added more. They sold quick.

Kevin (00:51:53 - 00:52:10): Yes, they did. Mike jumped on it very quickly. He got a presale notification and jumped on it quickly. And we have third row center. Seats, and we bought tickets for her pre-show meet and greet.

Jen (00:52:10 - 00:52:11): I hope she picks on you in the show.

Kevin (00:52:12 - 00:52:34): I’m sitting with Mike, my partner, who is a Christmas elf, and his Christmas performing partner David, who looks like Santa, and we are sitting in the third row. Do you think she will talk to us, especially if she sees us at the meet and greet before the show? I have a feeling we could end up in her social medias.

Jen (00:52:35 - 00:52:38): That would be awesome. Yeah.

Kevin (00:52:39 - 00:52:53): So I’m so looking forward to that. So that’s 2 weeks from this weekend. We’re going to see that. There are so many fun things going on, but they all require money and time.

Brent (00:52:55 - 00:52:55): Tell me about it.

Ryan (00:52:56 - 00:52:56): Yeah.

Jen (00:52:56 - 00:52:57): Isn’t that suck?

Brent (00:52:58 - 00:53:07): And also traveling through snowstorms like I got to do a couple of weeks ago because I went and saw Nine Inch Nails in Hamilton.

Brent Sees Nine Inch Nails

Kevin (00:53:08 - 00:53:10): And what did you think of the venue?

Brent (00:53:11 - 00:53:38): It smelled like a new car. So I actually went to like a— this will be secondhand information, obviously, but your partner went, right? If I understood your— Oh yeah, he was there. Okay. Questions. One, does Mike like Nine Inch Nails, or was it because I know he’s involved in like knows people who knows people and stuff like that. Did tickets just came up and he grabbed them, or does it— is he like an active fan of the band?

Kevin (00:53:39 - 00:53:41): I’m pretty sure he’s a fan.

Brent (00:53:42 - 00:53:50): Oh, okay. Just like sometimes you get offered tickets and you just go to stuff, right? No, no. Where was he? Was he on the floor?

Kevin (00:53:51 - 00:53:51): No.

Brent (00:53:52 - 00:53:52): Okay.

Kevin (00:53:52 - 00:53:53): He was not.

Brent (00:53:53 - 00:54:20): So neither was I. The reason I asked that is the amount of fake smoke that got used during that show. By the end of it, like from my vantage point, you could not see the floor seats. You could just see this fake fog. Like I’m half joking that like if I get lung cancer in the next 5 years, it was probably from whatever that fake smoke was made out of.

Ryan (00:54:20 - 00:54:22): There goes the new car smell.

Brent (00:54:22 - 00:56:33): Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it had been renovated and I’m going to name drop for a second here. I was talking with Alan Cross about it because he couldn’t go to the show due to some other obligations he had. And he was like, tell me how it sounds. And I got to thinking about it and I don’t remember. The last show I saw at Copps before the renovation. Like, if I did, it was a long time ago. I thought it like, it sounded pretty good, but I don’t know what it sounded like before that either. So the show itself was spectacular. Like, it was really well done. And so I, I’ve told this story a lot, but I’m gonna tell it again. The first song of the, the Nine Inch Nails set is this like beautiful piano ballad, and I’m like, I know their catalog really, really well. I’m— am I the, the world’s largest Nine Inch Nails fan? No, but like I know their stuff pretty good. Like I pre-ordered the limited edition of the Tron Ares soundtrack. So that’s where I sit at. I like did not recognize the song at all. So when I got back to my hotel, I’m like, where, what is the song? Because like the music critic in me is also like, this song is a hit. Like if you give this to someone else that is not named Trent Reznor, like a Sabrina Carpenter or like a Beyoncé, somebody like that, this goes straight to number one on Billboard. It’s a beautiful ballad. But in kind of like the most Nine Inch Nails thing ever is this song was part of a score that they did for a movie called Bones and All, which is a love story slash horror movie about two cannibals that stars Timothée Chalamet that I have never heard of before.

Ryan (00:56:33 - 00:56:33): Wow.

Brent (00:56:34 - 00:56:43): Yeah, it’s in the end credits of it. It’s like, oh, of course you put your most accessible song in the end credits of a movie that nobody saw.

Kevin (00:56:45 - 00:56:47): Makes sense to me. Why wouldn’t you?

Brent (00:56:48 - 00:58:01): But the, the show itself was like, it was a, for me as a fan, a great mix of like the, the lighting and everything for it is amazing. Like they have two stages set up and it switches between the two, uh, for different sets. And the song lineup was a combination of, I guess, hits. Like, you know, Nine Inch Nails have had a couple large songs, but not anything like— not a lot of toe tappers to the general public. So like, you know, they’re singles, I guess, would be the best way of putting it. So a bunch of singles, some deeper cuts, songs that I have never heard them perform live, and I’ve seen them this is the fourth time I’ve seen them live, I think. Um, so it was fantastic that way. If I highly recommend, if you are a fan of the band, that you check them out if they hit a city near you. Because the only— my only complaint, and if I was asked this from Trent Reznor himself, I would say it, is the merch prices were insane.

Ryan (00:58:02 - 00:58:03): Yeah.

Brent (00:58:03 - 00:58:55): $65 for a t-shirt. Whoa. Yeah. Hoodies were $125. So that’s ridiculous. Yeah. Like, I’m sure they’re good quality, but at the end of the day, dude, it’s a t-shirt. And I just like, I know I’m getting a little cheaper as I get older, but it was like I just could not bring myself to pay that kind of money for a t-shirt. So I’m going to either A, wait it out until the end of the tour when they blow things out on their website, and/or B, I use the money that I had sort of earmarked for t-shirt stuff. I bought a record of theirs at a record store the next day while I was kind of tooling around Hamilton and Burlington.

Kevin (00:58:56 - 00:58:57): Did you stay in Hamilton that night?

Brent (00:58:57 - 00:59:04): I stayed in Burlington. Jen found me a good hotel, which was good because like the weather up here was garbage.

Jen (00:59:04 - 00:59:19): So yeah, it was like, you know, the concert’s going to be over. You know, I’ll just drive home. I’ll be home at like 3 in the morning. I’m like, no, dear, you’re old. Go get a hotel. I didn’t want you to die on your way home. And then we got a big snowstorm.

Brent (00:59:20 - 01:00:15): So and, and to be honest, it was kind of awesome. I love my wife and I love that she suggested this and I went through with it after the show. So the renovations of TD Coliseum, they include some restaurants and stuff like that. I was going to check out the pub that Maddie Mattson has opened there and it was rammed and I was there early. That was part of my plan was get there early, have a nice meal, go see the show, come go to my hotel room. So that didn’t happen. So I didn’t have any food until afterwards, but I did the most hotel thing that I’ve ever done is I got McDonald’s and I like laid in bed eating a Big Mac and a large fry as I watched like the Food Network on cable television.

Kevin (01:00:18 - 01:00:20): Nice. Yeah.

Patreon and Community

Brent (01:00:22 - 01:01:55): So we’ve hit an hour. Which means we should start wrapping up, uh, which also includes the shoutouts to our Patreon members. Patreon.com/TrueNorthNerds if you would like to help us out. $3 a month gets you some exclusive content. Uh, unfortunately, the latest episode of Listen to This has been delayed due to, um, uh, Alex’s computer deciding that it no longer wants to live. So he is in the midst of getting that repaired, and is slowing us down from actually doing an episode. But I’m— my plan is to record a solo episode, but some, uh, personal things came up that prevented that this week. Uh, but hopefully soon. So there’s Listen to This. There’s also, um, another show that is hopefully coming back soon if Nate and I can ever, uh, get our schedules together. But in the meantime, you can listen to the first season of Kung Fu Island, where myself and Nate Milton from Nefarious Media go through a bunch of kung fu movies in a humorous tone. So those are both, uh, on the, uh, on the Patreon, patreon.com/truenorthnerds. You also get a shout out. So thanks go to Drew, Karina, Alex, Team Woods, Mike Hammond, and our good friend. Thank you all for helping us out. It is appreciated. Thank you, Geeks Picks. Who wants to go first? Who wants to go first?

Geek Picks

Ryan (01:01:55 - 01:01:55): I’ll go first.

Kevin (01:01:56 - 01:01:56): Okay, go for it.

Brent (01:01:57 - 01:01:57): You go first.

Ryan (01:01:58 - 01:02:57): So my geek pick is a great geek pick. It is the return of Monarch. Season 2 of Monarch has dropped its first episode on Apple Plus or Apple TV or whatever it’s called nowadays. And it picks up right where season 1 left off. And you get all kinds of Kong in this episode. We get to see Motu X— or not Motu, what are they calling it? Titan X, some new monster, and set up for the rest of the season. So it’s a show I’ve been looking forward to because I enjoy me some Godzilla content. And that whole world universe they’ve been building. And, uh, yeah, I enjoyed this first episode. So if you haven’t watched Monarch yet, go watch season 1 and then you can catch up and start watching season 2.

Jen (01:02:58 - 01:03:03): That’s the one with, um, oh, those interviews we were watching, Brent. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ryan (01:03:03 - 01:03:04): Yes.

Jen (01:03:05 - 01:03:06): Yep. Their interviews are so cute.

Ryan (01:03:07 - 01:03:07): Yes.

Brent (01:03:11 - 01:03:29): Kurt Russell just seems like a good dude. Yeah, but also like a good enough dude that like I don’t want to find out what his politics are. Like, I know he like in the past he’s kind of libertarian leaning, and I just like, let’s stop there. I really hope he’s like a good human being.

Ryan (01:03:29 - 01:03:48): So it’s one of those things that makes you kind of wish back to when they were filming Goon 2 here in in town that we may have, you know, look at what he’s gone on to be in now, right? He’s in the MCU, he’s in Monarch.

Brent (01:03:48 - 01:04:07): Oh yeah. And so I think I’ve mentioned this on this podcast. They were staying at the hotel my sister was working at at the time. And my sister’s review on Wyatt Russell is very nice, tips well, smells good, if I remember correctly.

Kevin (01:04:10 - 01:04:11): Fun.

Brent (01:04:12 - 01:04:14): Cool. Uh, who wants to go next?

Jen (01:04:15 - 01:04:15): I can go, I guess.

Kevin (01:04:16 - 01:04:17): Who, me?

Jen (01:04:18 - 01:04:18): Yeah, go ahead, Kevin.

Kevin (01:04:19 - 01:05:12): I’ll go. Um, so as you folks, if you’re following us on Facebook, you see I post what comics I read each week. I can do that easily because I read mostly via the apps, and I can just take screenshots of the covers, and that’s how I upload them. If you’re wondering how I get such cool photos, pictures of the covers, that’s how I do it. But this week I read a lot of current— well, current for me, which is one month behind— Superman books. And I am— of all of the characters in the DC line right now, the Superman books I think are my favorite, specifically Superman and Action. In the Superman book, because Superman is sort of off the table right now because he’s out fighting in the DCKO tournament, the The lead character in Superman is Superboy Prime.

Brent (01:05:12 - 01:05:13): Yes.

Kevin (01:05:15 - 01:07:08): And he is just a fun character because he feels like he’s seen everything because he is a comic book fan and he’s read all the comics. And so he knows what a big crossover is and how things are going to end up. So he’s learning some lessons and he’s stepping up to sort of fill in for Superman. As things are moving forward. I hear in the upcoming solicitations that Superman is still off the table, and that, uh, I’m looking forward to whatever’s coming up in Superman books. Let’s just say that. The other book in the Superman line that I want to talk about is Mark Waid’s run on Action Comics, which is set, uh, 20 years, uh, prior to current times. We have a young Clark Kent who is making public appearances as Superboy. He doesn’t have all his powers yet, including heat vision. He does not have heat vision yet, and he doesn’t wear knee-high red boots. He wears a pair of Converse trainers, but he still has his red shorts over his blue tights. But I’m really enjoying this book too. It’s about Clark learning to use his powers responsibly. You know, General Lane wants him to be a tool of the Army, and he’s fighting against that. He wants to be helpful, but he doesn’t want to be at a government’s beck and call. It’s, it’s just really fascinating, you know. And, you know, when I was a kid and there were Superboy comics pre-Crisis, 20 years ago from the 1980s would have been the ’60s, which felt like a whole different time. But now, 20 years ago is 2006. That’s not right.

Jen (01:07:11 - 01:07:15): I just felt myself age like 5 more years since yesterday.

Ryan (01:07:15 - 01:07:22): A young Superboy was watching Firefly and Serenity in the spring of 2006.

Kevin (01:07:22 - 01:08:48): The X-Files was the rage. Yeah, so, but still, I’m enjoying these young Superboy stories and what Mark Waid is doing, staying true to the character while also staying true to current continuity and the whole, you know, really didn’t make a big public appearance until he was Superman. But it’s fun, and I can’t wait. I’m really excited to see what’s happening with the Legion. Too, because the Legion is playing a role in this DCKO thing because they are from the 31st century on an Earth where Darkseid has— is and always has been the ruler of the planet. So they are a dark, Darkseid-laced Legion who are doing their Dark Lord’s bidding. But there were some glimpses in the last issue that Saturn Girl may not be as on board as people think she is. So I think there’s something— I know I know they have solicited a new Legion title in the spring, so we’re going to get some new Legion stories. And I— long live the Legion. I’ve been a Legion fan since I was like 6 years old. So, uh, yeah, so the, the Superman line of DC Comics right now, super fun. Uh, go to your local comic book store like Big Beat Comics, go see, uh, somebody who sells comics like Ryan or Brent and say, hey, I want Superman comics.

Ryan (01:08:50 - 01:09:33): Just to piggyback on your Superman comics, I’ve been taking random glances at this latest run of Superman. We haven’t had enough shelf copies for me to do my lunchtime reading on Saturdays of this run, but every time I put a new one out, I look, okay, what’s Superboy Prime up to now? And it’s very much become the Superboy Prime redemption arc, which I love because ever since he showed up in Infinite Crisis when he was caused all the changes in the timeline by punching the walls of reality. I’ve always loved him as a villain and to see now that he’s getting a redemption arc. And it’s also been including that, I guess, what, that time trapper?

Kevin (01:09:34 - 01:09:35): Time trapper.

Ryan (01:09:35 - 01:09:36): Future Doomsday.

Kevin (01:09:37 - 01:09:37): Yeah.

Ryan (01:09:37 - 01:09:48): Doomsday in the future character, which is also an interesting character to me because of my love of Death of Superman and Doomsday. So it’s I’m tempted to pick this up as a trade when it comes out.

Kevin (01:09:49 - 01:10:01): The other thing that I can quickly mention is in Justice League Unlimited, there is a team of characters who’ve been grouped together because they’re sort of out-of-time versions of the characters.

Ryan (01:10:01 - 01:10:01): Yeah, that’s a good one too.

Kevin (01:10:02 - 01:10:53): And that team includes an electric blue Superman who has lost his hope. So he— yeah. —just so many interesting things happening with Superman right now. Not to mention Absolute Superman, you know, just good, good. We’re in a run of good Superman right now. I love the Supergirl book too, which is taking a lot of Silver Age influences. She’s got a gal pal who’s a Kryptonian from Kandor. Lena Luthor is on her team right now too, and she lives with her parents in Midvale, and she puts on a brown wig when she goes under secret identities. So if you want classic Silver Age-y type with modern sensibilities stories. Supergirl is good as well. Yeah, super books.

Brent (01:10:55 - 01:10:58): Jen. My turn. Your turn.

Jen (01:11:00 - 01:12:51): This past weekend, technically yesterday from the day we’re recording this, was my birthday, and my best friend came to visit and we watched the film Begonia from 2025. And this is a film with Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons. I had to pull up the Wikipedia to remember these names. And basically it was a movie about two young men who kidnap a CEO suspecting that she is secretly an alien who wants to destroy Earth. And I am not going to say anything more about the plot. Because you need to watch it. It is fantastic. You spend the whole movie kind of like a ‘is she, isn’t she,’ um, you know, it’s very much laid out in the framework of conspiracy theory, but it keeps you guessing. And it’s— it starts off slow, but give it time, it picks up, and the ending is phenomenal. So it’s one of those movies that makes you think, and, um, it makes you think— like, I was still thinking about it the next day. So that’s why it’s my geek pick. Uh, it was nominated apparently for 4 awards, uh, 4 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress. I don’t think it won because it would have said it won there in the Wikipedia, but, um, Yeah. So it’s 2025. It’s not that old. I think we watched it on Prime, on Amazon Prime. Yes. If you have that, you have it for free. So yeah, take the time to watch it. It was excellent. Also a little gory. So, you know, blood warning. Brent. All righty.

Brent (01:12:51 - 01:13:24): Well, for mine, I’m going to shout out a comic book that I have shouted out before, but it’s worth taking a look at, especially since the second series is coming to an end. And that is Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees. This book is great. And the main character, Sandy, is so versatile that she made it into DCKO this year. So have you gotten to the boss battle issue? Uh, no, that hasn’t been released. Oh, that hasn’t been released yet.

Kevin (01:13:24 - 01:13:26): DC Ultimate yet. Is this about the Teddy Bears Picnic?

Brent (01:13:27 - 01:13:31): Well, kind of. It’s that style of art. Okay.

Jen (01:13:31 - 01:13:34): Because I remember you talking about the Teddy Bears Picnic comic. Yeah.

Brent (01:13:35 - 01:14:40): And she’s like Dexter. But the, uh, the matchup with her in boss battle, uh, made me laugh out loud in the comic book store. It was fantastic. So, um, yeah, the, the Rites of Spring, which is the, the second series, it comes to an end this Wednesday. I know this because I got to unpack the issues today. Yay! Perks of the job. Perks of the job. So yeah, and I will also second Jen’s movie pick. It was pretty thought-provoking. And apparently the director and Emma Stone have worked together on a couple different movies. And now it makes me want to check those out even more. So yes, join us in 2 weeks when we come back with another episode. But before then, there’s plenty of other stuff. So Kevin, people can follow your comic book stuff on our Facebook page.

Closing and Collectiverse Update

Kevin (01:14:40 - 01:14:53): Please do. I’m posting about once a week. I’m posting the screen— the screenshots of all the comics I’ve read that that week. So I just, as we are recording, just uploaded my week’s worth of comics.

Brent (01:14:55 - 01:14:58): And Ryan, what’s going on with Collectiverse?

Ryan (01:15:00 - 01:17:10): Well, we had a recent episode come out last week, I believe it was, where Ed and I went over all the news worth reporting out of Toy Fair. So it’s been a quiet week this week on the toy front. But, you know, new month means there will be a new episode at some point this month. We are trying to do one a month this, this year, this season. But it all comes down to, you know, life permitting. Ed is on the road a lot with work. So we just got to see when we can fit in episodes. But you can follow along his toy hunting experiences when he’s on the road on our Instagram @talesfromcollectiverse. He has been posting pictures of stuff that he finds in his hunts. And some stuff he buys, some stuff he doesn’t. You have to wait and find out. He did post a picture today. He was texting me last night. So of course he got a deal on— I think it was off Amazon on the large YOLO Park Optimus Prime. You know, the one I’ve wanted to get. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The snap together, the air quotes, model kits. Yes. And he was, he got one, put it together and was playing with it and sending me all kinds of photos and told me he was pretty sure it is now his favorite Optimus Prime. So he posted a little reel on our Instagram today. He also told me he picked up one of those from the Blockies, the Blockies Wheels. So it’s like a vehicle. In this case, there’s Transformers in vehicle mode. He got, he bought the Optimus Prime one. Off of Big Bad Toy Store and had it put together. And it is pretty cool. The trailer opens up, it’s got, uh, the little, uh, this little bot, I forget the name of, that’s in this trailer with them. And, um, yep. So, you know, I’ve been, you know, I already told you about my toys I recently picked up, those Mythic Legions or Cosmic Legion stories figures. But yeah, we post pictures of all that stuff on the Awesome.

Brent (01:17:12 - 01:17:27): All right, so come back in 2 weeks. There’s a whole whack of movies starting to come out, so I’m sure we’re going to have a review on one of them. Hopefully, uh, some of us are going to go see Hoppers in the week or two. So yeah, it’s, uh, haven’t gone to the theater in forever.

Jen (01:17:32 - 01:17:42): Well, we saw Labyrinth That was the one, and that’s the one and only movie I’ve seen in theaters this year. Yes.

Brent (01:17:44 - 01:17:55): So, uh, yeah, come back for a movie review. Uh, until then, as always, Obamastay.

Outro

Rex (01:17:56 - 01:18:25): Thank you for listening to the True North Nerds. You can find us at truenorthnerds.com. .com. On Facebook, X, and Instagram at True North Nerds. To contact one or any of the nerds, email them at truenorthnerds@gmail.com. Theme music provided by Kirby Crackle. You can find more of their music at kirbycracklemusic.com. If you’d like to support the show, please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/truenorthnerds, or go to your podcast app of choice and rate and review us.

Kirby Crackle (01:18:26 - 01:18:31): I like you. I like you.

Kirby Crackle (01:18:33 - 01:18:50): I like you. So set your phasers to sexy. It’s the way you read your books that affects me. And when you whisper “Go Monkey” in my ear, you make me feel kind of funny.

Outtake

Ryan (01:19:02 - 01:19:11): Is it bad that when you said I have to go to the lint store, that I’m like, I didn’t know they had a store for pocket lint.

Brent (01:19:13 - 01:19:16): Oh, that’s an outtake I’m putting at the end of the episode.

Jen (01:19:16 - 01:19:18): Oh, I didn’t even know you were recording.

Ryan (01:19:21 - 01:19:22): Why does she need to buy lint?