February 5, 2026 • 35 mins
A beloved children's author. A spy. An ace fighter pilot, a notorious lady's man, and a strident antisemite: Roald Dahl was all these things and more. In the second part of this special two-part interview, the guys welcome back Aaron Tracy, the award-winning creator of The Secret World of Roald Dahl, to learn more about the man behind the author -- and get a few tips about writing along the way.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
(00:27):
fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
tuning in. This is part two two of our continuing
conversation with none other than Aaron Tracy, the award winning writer,
the founder of Parallax, a producer who's done pretty much everything,
including creating the new hit podcast The Secret World of
(00:51):
Roald Dahl. That is our super producer, Max the gob
Stopper Williams. Max, how are we doing.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Low, I'm doing well. I am excited for the second
half of this interview. It is absolutely amazing. It is
great to have Aaron on here with his excellent knowledge
and takes, and so yeah, excited for the second part.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
And our Pale Nol is on an adventure currently, but
we'll be returning very soon. So in the meantime, if
you haven't checked out part one of this interview, do
that first. We'll wait, We'll still be right here on
your app or on your phone or whatever, and then
get back to us and join us.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
We're going to dive right in.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
We also know and is the story of the Irregulars
is something you explore pretty early on in the podcast.
We also know that we can prove he was in
the regulars. But as you have pointed out, in the
(02:03):
course of your extensive research, you found that Dall was
first and foremost a committed, immaculate storyteller who maybe maybe
shures things up a little bit. What he's talking about
is past. Could you tell us, I'm trying to think
of a diplomatic way to say this, so just to
(02:25):
put it bluntly, because rule Dall is not with us
on the show today, how much of how much of
what he said about his past escapades was true? At
how much of it was more like a good story.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Yeah, I mean it's a great question and impossible to answer,
of course, but we know a ton of it is true.
We know sort of the foundation is all true. I
think when you get past the foundation into the specific details,
you're right that some of it might have just been
Doll's story telling. If you look at his first couple
memoirs about his childhood, they're written very much in the
(03:05):
style of his children's books, and so there's almost like
a kind of a wink wink, I think that you
know these are so so whimsical, so fantastical. It's like, yes,
these are memoirs, these are autobiographies, but come on, it's
not like every detail is true. So there's a bunch
of examples of him exaggerating. Like in his memoir he
(03:26):
talks about his crash when he's flying for the RAF
and he talks about being alone and the circuitry malfunctioning
and crashing in the desert. In truth, what we know
is that there was another pilot with him, and it
wasn't just that the circuitry and the plane malfunctioned. It
(03:50):
was that Doll had run out of fuel. But he
he likes the story, you know, And we see that
sort of throughout his life that he's always sort of
he'll never pass up the opportunity for a really good
story when he can.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Okay, So not necessarily lying or making things up entirely
out of whole cloth, but kind of painting himself perhaps
says a bit more of a heroic figure.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Yeah, Like, okay, here's another example. As a spy, Dall
was getting close to the Roosevelts. Eleanor was a huge
fan of that story that I mentioned that Doll wrote
The Gremlins and she used to read it to her grandkids.
And she invited him over to the White House. And
because everyone of Doll you know, as I mentioned, he
(04:45):
was charming and handsome and dashing and a great storyteller,
and he charmed the Roosevelts, and they invited him up
to Hyde Park their weekend retreat, and he went up
several different times. So we know that that's all true.
What we do I don't know for sure is everything
that Dall put in his memoir and talked about on interviews,
which is that FDR would ask him to mix Martini's
(05:09):
and FDR took him for a joy ride and his
specially made car, and that they just became like incredibly
close friends. Hard to know, right, but Dall definitely did
spend time with the Roosevelts, and definitely did write a
twelve page report after the first weekend that he spent
with them over the July fourth weekend in nineteen forty
(05:30):
and sent back to Churchill about, you know, everything Churchill
was dying to know about FDR, namely, does FDR want
to help us, does he want to enter the war?
What's his current thinking on the situation. So all of
that is absolutely true.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Okay, So then we have we so we know at
the core that that kind of initiative is successful, which
is great to hear. So the important parts, at least
in that instance are true. But I've got to say it,
it reminds me of something that I've seen happen in
Los Angeles where you know, somebody is at a restaurant
(06:08):
and they cite a celebrity in this, you know, across
the dining room, and then later they go to their
friends and they say, oh, Robert de Niro, Yeah, I know,
we have dinner together sometimes.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
So maybe that maybe there's a little bit of that
kind of showmanship.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Yeah, he's also twenty six years old, right, So who
doesn't boast and exaggerate a little bit when they're twenty six,
especially when you're in these kinds of when you're running
in these kinds of circles. There's a there's another story
where he he says that he went back to his
superiors after dating Claire Booflouos for a little while and
said he couldn't do it anymore, like she was just
(06:49):
too voracious, he couldn't take her anymore. And he makes
up this whole story about how the ambassador says to him.
Speaker 5 (06:59):
You got to go back, you got to do it.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Remember that Charles Latton movie about Henry the Eighth where
Charles Ltton sort of turns the camera and says, the
things I've done for England, you know, you got to
suck it up. You've got to do that yourself. I
have no idea if that's Sue or not. It feels
a little bit like Dolls just boasting about, you know,
sort of Claire's appetite for him. He would later go
(07:24):
on to put the things I've done for England line
into Sean Connery's mouth and James Bond. So you know,
these guys they like exaggerating, they like a good story.
I mean, I don't think it's a it's necessarily a
coincidence that the irregulars that I mentioned that Dolls hanging
out with are all creators. They're all creatives. They're Ian Fleming,
(07:45):
the writer of James Bond, David Ogilvy, who would go
on to write, you know, to create a whole cloth
like original, the most influential advertising campaigns, Noel Coward, the playwright.
These are all creative writers who are somehow caught up
in the spy game.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And I love the I also love the idea of
of Rolled as a reluctant lithario, you know what I mean,
like like Casanova with regrets. He's just so beloved, is
the thing. So uh yeah, this takes us to This
(08:23):
takes us to another aspect of his wartime years that
we have to return to because it's something that I
know obviously profoundly disturbs us, and it disturbs everyone in
the audience as well, we know, or I hope, which
(08:44):
is a strange contradiction in his ideology and his perspective.
One of the biggest questions I had is, Okay, this
guy fought for the Allies in World War Two again
against the Axis Powers, against the Nazis. He has that
(09:04):
infamous a series of infamous interviews where later, despite putting
his life on the line for the Allied Powers and
to combat the horrors of the Axis Powers, he does
later just because there's no way around it. He's inarguably
unapologetically anti Semitic, and he doubles down on it like
(09:28):
throughout his later life. What is there some context that
could explain this apparent contradiction. How did he go from
fighting Nazis to agree with their horrific ideology.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Yeah, I mean, I think you're right that they're connected.
He saw himself as well as everyone he was fighting
with the in the nineteen forties as sort of saving
the Jews of Europe. In later years, he he became
incredibly enraged at what Israel was doing, specifically what Israel
(10:06):
was doing in Lebanon. And so the most famous example
of Dolls bigotry coming out is this interview he gave
to the New Statesman in nineteen eighty three. And the
reason he gave that interview is because he had just
written a book review about the Lebanon War. And in
(10:27):
that book review he was really critical of Israel. But
what he did was this sort of classic anti Semitic trope.
He instead of criticizing the leadership of the Israeli government
and the military, he criticized all Jews everywhere. So he
(10:49):
said in this interview, there is a trait in the
Jewish character that does provoke animosity. Even a stinker like
Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason. He
did later say in an interview, I've become antisemitic. He
really he could not separate his hatred for what the
(11:09):
Israeli government was doing to the Lebanese with his his
feelings for Jews everywhere.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
This is such a tremendously important point. You know, history
is always closer than it looks in the rear view mirror,
we like to say. And I think you're you're bringing
to light something important and powerful that the government of
a place is, more often than not, not the representative,
(11:43):
not the full picture of the people of the place.
You know, most most people around the planet, they want
to know that they're going to eat something later that day.
They want to have a safe place to sleep, they
want their kids to have a better life, and they
want to be successful. And I think it's something that,
(12:05):
especially in these devisive times, we all could do well
to remember.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
It's it's it's.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
A shame that it's a shame that doll fell so
so hard. But this I agree with you that, at
least in my limited experience, not being a scholar in
this regard, in my limited experience, I didn't clock stuff
(12:34):
like that. I'm prob I was probably a in his work.
When I'm reading it, I didn't like you, I didn't
clock anti semitism. But also I was kind of a
dirt bag kid. So all the times I saw somebody
called fat or ugly, I thought it was hilarious. You know,
so maybe not the best judge.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
Yeah, no, I.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Guess there's something else we want to get to a
bit of a plot twist in our conversation here now, folks,
right now, you can check out the secret world of
Role Doll, available wherever you find your favorite shows. But
(13:19):
we don't want to end our conversation there. We have
been talking a lot about one writer, erin, but if
I could beg a little bit more of your time,
I'd like to ask you about another writer, a guy
named a guy named Aaron Tracy.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
You is that okay?
Speaker 5 (13:39):
Is that just imagine to talk about my writing? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Of course, awesome, Okay, thank you so much.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
So.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
One of the questions that I know a lot of
current writers or budding writers in the audience tonight are
going to have is how did you become a writer?
What drew and what draws you to the written word.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
So I've always been, I think, like you, a giant
movie buff and TV buff too, and so I wanted
to do that. It's not so much that I just
want to that, I just wanted to write. It's that
I wanted to be involved in movies and TV as
a kid, and so at first I thought I could
be an actor, and then, you know, quickly realized I
did not have the talent for that or the the
(14:22):
interest in that, and so the next best thing was
being the storyteller. So, just like just like Doll, just
like millions of other people, I moved to Los Angeles
after school and just sort of tried to make it.
And you know, there's no one way to do it, unfortunately,
It's it's not like a apprenticeship like in like in
(14:43):
the old days, or or even in a professional.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Like a trade.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Yeah, exactly, there's no clear path, and so everybody just
finds their own way. And for me, I just wrote
a bunch of scripts until I had a couple that
I was, you know, willing to to show people at least,
and then just got my first job and kind of
moved up from there.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
That's awesome and it's going to be inspiring for a
lot of our fellow ridiculous historians to hear about this journey.
Next question on this subject, okay man, what is to
the degree that you're comfortable sharing on air, what is
the strangest project you ever found yourself in. Have you
(15:26):
ever had one of those moments where you looked around
and thought, Holy smokes, how did I get here?
Speaker 5 (15:32):
Oh? My god? So many. I mean, anybody, anybody that.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
Spent enough time writing TV and movies is going to
have just bananas stories. I mean, the first one that
comes to me is a writing partner and I my
friend Andrew. We were working with Lionsgate on a project
(15:56):
and then they teamed up with a toy company and
they brought us the board game Risk to try to
adapt into TV, which was I mean incredible, right, Like,
it's got so much name recognition, it's been around forever,
people really know it. But when you think about it
(16:17):
for a few seconds, you then remember that there's a
pretty big obstacle, which is that there are no characters
in Risk, so you have to make up everything. I mean,
it's completely nuts. It's like the new you know, it's
it's not so much new anymore, but for for a while,
and still to a large degree, ip is everything. Can
you get a cereal box? Can you get a board game?
(16:39):
Can you get a comic book? Like what can we do?
That's already in the public consciousness, what can we take
and turn into a show and so so risk was
a truly crazy one for me. We spent a lot
of time on that. I'll say another could just kind
of totally surreal moment in my career was I was
(17:00):
I wrote a pilot for the USA Network and we
ended up making it, which was great. We cast an
amazing writer who was also an actor to play one
of the essential roles in the pilot, and that was
Tom McCarthy. And Tom McCarthy had just come off winning
the Oscar for Best Screenplay and so here I am
(17:25):
writing for this guy. I'm like, you know, I'm so
insecure about my writing. All writers are insecure about their writing, right,
but like, this is my first big pilot to get made,
and here I am trying to write dialogue for the
reigning Oscar winner for Best Screenplay.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
I was so humiliated.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I was just so insecure that that was a very
tough Hollywood experience for me.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
But you know, he was.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
He couldn't have been sweeter. And you know, he didn't
constantly tell me what an idiot or what a bad
writer I was. So I would check that up up
as a win.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yes, I would agree I think you're being a little
hard on yourself, my friend. I also, my spidy sense
is telling me that you probably have war stories for
days in the trenches of writing so much for TV
and film and thank you for thank you for sharing those.
(18:21):
I'm between us. I am convinced that there are probably
a couple of stories that are probably better not for
the air.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
Maybe we do it in the dark place, man.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
Yeah, it's tough out there.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
We can hang out, we can hang out in the
future and talk about some of this stuff. But I
love I love picking the brains of writers, of people
who have successfully successfully.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Journeyed in this field.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Right, And with that, one of the questions we always
like to ask when when we get together in these
kind of circles, is uh, who are some of your
favorite writers today? What are you reading? What are you
what are you digging?
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Are you?
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Are you at the point now after the Secret World
of Role Doll where you're saying I need a break
from this one author.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Yes, I'm definitely putting all of my roll Doll books
in the closet. I've got a stack of them in
front of me. But yeah, as soon as the show's
over there, they're all going away for a while. Yeah,
I mean I have so many favorite writers I've been reading.
In terms of fiction, I've been reading a lot of
mysteries lately. Patricia high Smith. I I recently discovered who's
(19:37):
just as extraordinary as everybody says. Uh, They're they're great
page turners and and and they make.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
You think uh.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
In in film and TV, I'm a giant Aaron Sorkin fan.
I love William Goldman, I love Nora Ephron. So many screenwriters,
but I love Marty Supreme. I love the screenplay there.
Noah Bombach is one of my all time favorite writers,
and he's got a new movie this year.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
Richard G. Linkletter too, He's got two new movies.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
Yeah, I mean, basically too many to name.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yeah, and that's a that's a great spot to be
rights as a as a reader, as a as an
audience member. That's that's the kind of stuff we love.
I I got I recently because I was on some
long plane flights. I recently got back into the phenomenal
short story writer Edgar Carrott. Pretty pretty hard.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
To me.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
He's he's like the next or the new Kurt Vonnegut.
So it's yeah, it's cool, snappy, just on the edge
of approachable surreal. I guess we could call it. I
don't know if that's an aesthetic. We're just making up
on the air, Aaron. One other thing that stood out
(21:04):
that I saw you mentioned often in conversation was that
just as Roald Dahl had heroes, you have heroes of
your own, one of whom is the legendary Rob Reiner.
We were We were immensely fortunate on one of our
(21:25):
sister shows, Stuff they don't want you to know, to
interview mister Reiner for a podcast he did on the
controversy and conspiracy surrounding the jfk assassination, and for my money,
it comes the closest to answering some of those unanswered questions.
Just because I think it would be fun for Rob
(21:48):
to have heard us fanboy a little and embarrass him.
Could you could you tell us about why this, why
this guy in particular is such a hero of yours.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
I mean, you know, we could start the podcast over.
I could go another hour just talking about Rob. I
absolutely loved him. He was such a great mentor figure
for me. He produced a pilot that I wrote, and
so I got to work in his office at Castle Rock.
They put me in the in the room next door
to his office, and so I got to constantly hear
(22:21):
him on the phone in the next room and got
no work done, of course, But he was he was
just so caring. He would take me and my co
writer Andrew out to lunch all the time and just
regale us with stories because he had you know, he
had been in the business for decades and decades and
decades and knew everybody, and everybody loved him. He was
(22:41):
also besides being I think one of the great directors
of all time, he was a fantastic producer. He and
his company produced so many movies that that people probably
don't even think of in relation to him, like the
Shawshank Redemption comes to mind. But you know, when I
talk about when I talk about Doll's time in Hollywood
(23:04):
in the podcast, I talk a little bit about the
various runs by great directors because Dahl worked with Hitchcock,
not you know, during Hitchcock's great run, and a lot
of people think that that was maybe the greatest run
by a director of all time, Hitchcock leading up to Psycho.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
But I think you could.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Argue that Rob Reiner in the late eighties to early
nineties actually had the greatest run of movies ever. I mean,
in this very brief period of time, in less than
a decade he made when Harry met Sally and a
few good men and the American President and stand by me,
the Princess Bride. It just the body of work is extraordinary,
(23:49):
and just how giving he was and how willing he
was to share his wisdom and encourage young writers. I
had him and the script that I wrote that he produced,
and it's one of my prized possessions, one of my
other prize possessions. And this says a lot about how
much doll or excuse me, how much Rhiner really appreciated writers.
(24:13):
In the basement of Castle Rock, where I used to
sneak down after after hours, he had a room that
was aligned with bookshelves from Florida ceiling, and on those
bookshelves he had every draft of every one of the
scripts he ever developed. And so there's like two shelves
that are just drafts of whin Harrimet Sally, for instance,
(24:36):
which is a movie I love all the way back
from what it was just called Words with Love that
was the original title, and I took that and I
went upstairs and I photo copied it, and I have
that in my drawer now too. I never told him
I did that, but it was Yeah, it was just
it was so nice to go down there and be
surrounded by the work of writers that Rob Shepherd did.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Wow, this is.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
A story that I was totally unaware of. And I
think it speaks to this practice of lineage because it
sounds like you, in that process, you were encountering something
very like an apprenticeship to a journeyman position. And I
(25:25):
think we could also compare Rob Reiner to Rule Dall
in that in that he also Dall also inspired countless writers,
countless countless folks who would go on to maybe write
their own young adult novels, or people who were so
(25:49):
just had their minds so rocked by the worlds that
Dahl created that they went out and creatively fed off
of that energy, off of that vibe with that, and
thank you for being so generous with your time here
With that, what do we hope our listeners take away
(26:13):
from the Secret world of Rule Doll, Like, we haven't
heard all the episodes yet, and we're not gonna ask
you to spoil them. But when the curtains close and
the credits roll on the podcast and we're walking away
after we've heard the very last episode, the very last word,
what do we hope the audience has learned?
Speaker 4 (26:34):
I mean, in the largest sense, I hope people just
get a sense for what an incredibly interesting, noisy life
this guy lived and how much he was searching for
his identity, And so I hope people will. You know,
they'll of course be somewhat turned off by the bigotry,
but I think that people will also have a lot
of sympathy for him. You know, what we didn't get
(26:56):
into today is all the tragedies that Doll experience, especially
with his family as an adult, which directly led to
him writing the children's books. So I hope people will
have some sympathy for him as well. But you brought
up something else as you were talking about Rob Reiner
that I hope people take away from this, which is
both Rob Reiner and Roald Dahl had great mentors. Rob
(27:20):
talks about Norman Lear, the creator and sho runner of
All in the Family, being his great mentor, giving him
his job on All in the Family, and then financially
supporting him when he made the Princess bride just like
absolutely essential to his life. And Roal Dall also had
a couple really important mentors. We talked about William Stevenson,
(27:41):
but Roaldall also had this guy named Charles Marsh, who
was an incredibly wealthy newspaper magnet who was instrumental in
Dall becoming a writer. After the war, when Dahl moved
back to England and moved into his mother's basement and
it looked like maybe that was going to be it
for Dall and nothing whatever, uh you know, come of him,
(28:02):
Charles Marsh said, no way. Charles Marsh had met him
in DC when he was a spy and brought Dall
back to New York, paid for Doll to be in
an apartment, and introduced Doll to Harold Ross, who was
the founding editor of The New Yorker, and really started
Doll's writing career in that way. And I bring these
up because you know, I teach. I'm on creative writing
(28:23):
faculty at Yale, and so this idea of mentorship is
super important to me. And I think right now this
idea of mentorship is more important than ever because we're
finally we're living in a period which you know, because
of AI, because of the chatbots, the barriers to becoming
a writer are fewer and fewer, Like we can actually
(28:45):
now just ask a chatbot to write a script for us,
and it won't be good right now, but at least
it will look like a script, and at least it
will have a lot of the elements of a script.
And so when you break down the barriers to what
it means to become a writer, mentorship becomes so much
more important. It becomes essential to help writers UH figure
(29:08):
out what their point of view is, to figure out
how to translate you know, their their their sensibilities into
UH into their words on the page. Because AI writing
can just be so flat and uninteresting, and so we
need mentors UH more than we ever have, I would argue,
And so I think, Doll and Ryner, are you know,
(29:31):
really good reminders about how important mentors are and that
you know, my hope, of course, is that people really
seek them out, and that people who are further along
in their career UH are more willing to to sort
of mentor younger writers.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Just what what a phenomenal way to bring everything together.
At the end of the conversation, uh this. Uh. I
paused for a second and hopefully Max cut out that
slight silence because I was just hypnotized, you know, when
you're making these points, and then I forgot for a
(30:10):
second that we are on Aaron supposed to be. But
this leads us all to our very last question. Where
can people learn more about your work outside of the
secret world of Rule Doll? And if your game for it,
(30:30):
could you give us a little teaser about an upcoming
audio novel called The Honeymoon Period. No.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
Yeah, so I'm writing a novel for McMillan. It's actually
going to be my first novel, so I'm excited about that.
And yeah, it'll never be available in print. It is
for audio only, so I'm writing it as a novel,
but we're going to have a full cast and record
it and so you'll be able to listen to that
wherever you.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
Get audio books. And that's very nice.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
If any he wants to know about my other work,
they can go to my website, which is my company
is called Parallax, and so it simply listened to parallax
dot com and people can see all of the audio
dramas that I've written with lots of different actors over
the years, for Audible and for iHeart and my novel
(31:20):
will Be will be up there too.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
And there you have it, folks, the Secret World of
Rule Doll with Aaron Tracy. This is available now wherever
you find your favorite shows. We would love for you
to check it out. We are on the edge of
our seats actually because we came in. I'll confess we
came in like some other folks, doubtlessly who thought we
(31:45):
knew a lot about Rule Doll. It's spoiler folks. You're
going to be astonished by how much you don't know
just yet, so tune in let us know your thoughts ed. Aaron,
thank you so much much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
Thank you so much. This has been truly a pleasure.
That's been great.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
And there you have it, folks, friends, neighbors, countrymen.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Max.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
There's so much we didn't get to, and there is
so much that I think you and I and the
audience alike learned just from talking to Erin.
Speaker 6 (32:22):
Yeah, there was so much to get to.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I mean, it would be you know, amazing if there
was another podcast for people to you know, go listen to,
or a guy like Aaron Tracy would break down these
details and much greater and you know, robust ideas. What
do you think about that? Wouldn't that be something you'd
want to listen to?
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Yeah, that's amazing. That's an amazing point, Max. It would
almost be like a secret world all its own, a
secret world of Role Doll. We should text Aaron with that,
we should pitch that name to him.
Speaker 6 (32:52):
I guess we'll just be wanting until until somebody doesn't.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Right it is available now. This is the kind of
show where you don't have to pay for the whole seat,
because you're only going to need the edge.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
We're excited to.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Hear about your favorite Role Dull books. Please hit us
up on our Facebook group Ridiculous Historians, et cetera, et cetera.
In the meantime, big big thanks to our super producer,
mister Max Williams, and tune in soon. The very next
week after this, we are going to bust some myths
(33:32):
about ancient history and the shape of the planet.
Speaker 6 (33:36):
Turns out this Earth is actually just flat.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (33:40):
The conspiracy is that it's round.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
No, no, no, that we're.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Talking about especial shout out to my actual facts quote
Lauren Volbelbaum, brother Alex Williams for this slapping baby you
are listening to right now.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
And big big thanks to doctor Rachel Big Spinach, Lance
aj Bahama is Jacobs.
Speaker 6 (33:57):
And oh do we have to thank him?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
The omnipresent villain of our podcast, mister Jonathan doesn't want
to ride the glass elevator, Strickland.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
He's our very own bond villain and actually just off Mike.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
He's the nicest guy.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
I know.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
We roast him at the end, but sometimes I feel
a little bad and I sent him a text to
check it.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Last time I saw him, we sat in the office
and we talked about video games.
Speaker 6 (34:29):
For an hour straight.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yes, well, every conversation with him is about an hour
street and between the.
Speaker 6 (34:36):
Two of us we have about twenty four inches of hair.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
So there's a reason that is hilarious. Folks will tell you.
We'll tell you when the Quizzer appears on the show
again in the near future. In the meantime, thanks so
much for tuning in. As Noel Brown, my brother in
podcast combat, always says, we'll see you next time, Folks.
(35:04):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
(00:27):
fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
tuning in. This is part two two of our continuing
conversation with none other than Aaron Tracy, the award winning writer,
the founder of Parallax, a producer who's done pretty much everything,
including creating the new hit podcast The Secret World of
(00:51):
Roald Dahl. That is our super producer, Max the gob
Stopper Williams. Max, how are we doing.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Low, I'm doing well. I am excited for the second
half of this interview. It is absolutely amazing. It is
great to have Aaron on here with his excellent knowledge
and takes, and so yeah, excited for the second part.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
And our Pale Nol is on an adventure currently, but
we'll be returning very soon. So in the meantime, if
you haven't checked out part one of this interview, do
that first. We'll wait, We'll still be right here on
your app or on your phone or whatever, and then
get back to us and join us.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
We're going to dive right in.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
We also know and is the story of the Irregulars
is something you explore pretty early on in the podcast.
We also know that we can prove he was in
the regulars. But as you have pointed out, in the
(02:03):
course of your extensive research, you found that Dall was
first and foremost a committed, immaculate storyteller who maybe maybe
shures things up a little bit. What he's talking about
is past. Could you tell us, I'm trying to think
of a diplomatic way to say this, so just to
(02:25):
put it bluntly, because rule Dall is not with us
on the show today, how much of how much of
what he said about his past escapades was true? At
how much of it was more like a good story.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Yeah, I mean it's a great question and impossible to answer,
of course, but we know a ton of it is true.
We know sort of the foundation is all true. I
think when you get past the foundation into the specific details,
you're right that some of it might have just been
Doll's story telling. If you look at his first couple
memoirs about his childhood, they're written very much in the
(03:05):
style of his children's books, and so there's almost like
a kind of a wink wink, I think that you
know these are so so whimsical, so fantastical. It's like, yes,
these are memoirs, these are autobiographies, but come on, it's
not like every detail is true. So there's a bunch
of examples of him exaggerating. Like in his memoir he
(03:26):
talks about his crash when he's flying for the RAF
and he talks about being alone and the circuitry malfunctioning
and crashing in the desert. In truth, what we know
is that there was another pilot with him, and it
wasn't just that the circuitry and the plane malfunctioned. It
(03:50):
was that Doll had run out of fuel. But he
he likes the story, you know, And we see that
sort of throughout his life that he's always sort of
he'll never pass up the opportunity for a really good
story when he can.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Okay, So not necessarily lying or making things up entirely
out of whole cloth, but kind of painting himself perhaps
says a bit more of a heroic figure.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Yeah, Like, okay, here's another example. As a spy, Dall
was getting close to the Roosevelts. Eleanor was a huge
fan of that story that I mentioned that Doll wrote
The Gremlins and she used to read it to her grandkids.
And she invited him over to the White House. And
because everyone of Doll you know, as I mentioned, he
(04:45):
was charming and handsome and dashing and a great storyteller,
and he charmed the Roosevelts, and they invited him up
to Hyde Park their weekend retreat, and he went up
several different times. So we know that that's all true.
What we do I don't know for sure is everything
that Dall put in his memoir and talked about on interviews,
which is that FDR would ask him to mix Martini's
(05:09):
and FDR took him for a joy ride and his
specially made car, and that they just became like incredibly
close friends. Hard to know, right, but Dall definitely did
spend time with the Roosevelts, and definitely did write a
twelve page report after the first weekend that he spent
with them over the July fourth weekend in nineteen forty
(05:30):
and sent back to Churchill about, you know, everything Churchill
was dying to know about FDR, namely, does FDR want
to help us, does he want to enter the war?
What's his current thinking on the situation. So all of
that is absolutely true.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Okay, So then we have we so we know at
the core that that kind of initiative is successful, which
is great to hear. So the important parts, at least
in that instance are true. But I've got to say it,
it reminds me of something that I've seen happen in
Los Angeles where you know, somebody is at a restaurant
(06:08):
and they cite a celebrity in this, you know, across
the dining room, and then later they go to their
friends and they say, oh, Robert de Niro, Yeah, I know,
we have dinner together sometimes.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
So maybe that maybe there's a little bit of that
kind of showmanship.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Yeah, he's also twenty six years old, right, So who
doesn't boast and exaggerate a little bit when they're twenty six,
especially when you're in these kinds of when you're running
in these kinds of circles. There's a there's another story
where he he says that he went back to his
superiors after dating Claire Booflouos for a little while and
said he couldn't do it anymore, like she was just
(06:49):
too voracious, he couldn't take her anymore. And he makes
up this whole story about how the ambassador says to him.
Speaker 5 (06:59):
You got to go back, you got to do it.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Remember that Charles Latton movie about Henry the Eighth where
Charles Ltton sort of turns the camera and says, the
things I've done for England, you know, you got to
suck it up. You've got to do that yourself. I
have no idea if that's Sue or not. It feels
a little bit like Dolls just boasting about, you know,
sort of Claire's appetite for him. He would later go
(07:24):
on to put the things I've done for England line
into Sean Connery's mouth and James Bond. So you know,
these guys they like exaggerating, they like a good story.
I mean, I don't think it's a it's necessarily a
coincidence that the irregulars that I mentioned that Dolls hanging
out with are all creators. They're all creatives. They're Ian Fleming,
(07:45):
the writer of James Bond, David Ogilvy, who would go
on to write, you know, to create a whole cloth
like original, the most influential advertising campaigns, Noel Coward, the playwright.
These are all creative writers who are somehow caught up
in the spy game.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And I love the I also love the idea of
of Rolled as a reluctant lithario, you know what I mean,
like like Casanova with regrets. He's just so beloved, is
the thing. So uh yeah, this takes us to This
(08:23):
takes us to another aspect of his wartime years that
we have to return to because it's something that I
know obviously profoundly disturbs us, and it disturbs everyone in
the audience as well, we know, or I hope, which
(08:44):
is a strange contradiction in his ideology and his perspective.
One of the biggest questions I had is, Okay, this
guy fought for the Allies in World War Two again
against the Axis Powers, against the Nazis. He has that
(09:04):
infamous a series of infamous interviews where later, despite putting
his life on the line for the Allied Powers and
to combat the horrors of the Axis Powers, he does
later just because there's no way around it. He's inarguably
unapologetically anti Semitic, and he doubles down on it like
(09:28):
throughout his later life. What is there some context that
could explain this apparent contradiction. How did he go from
fighting Nazis to agree with their horrific ideology.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Yeah, I mean, I think you're right that they're connected.
He saw himself as well as everyone he was fighting
with the in the nineteen forties as sort of saving
the Jews of Europe. In later years, he he became
incredibly enraged at what Israel was doing, specifically what Israel
(10:06):
was doing in Lebanon. And so the most famous example
of Dolls bigotry coming out is this interview he gave
to the New Statesman in nineteen eighty three. And the
reason he gave that interview is because he had just
written a book review about the Lebanon War. And in
(10:27):
that book review he was really critical of Israel. But
what he did was this sort of classic anti Semitic trope.
He instead of criticizing the leadership of the Israeli government
and the military, he criticized all Jews everywhere. So he
(10:49):
said in this interview, there is a trait in the
Jewish character that does provoke animosity. Even a stinker like
Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason. He
did later say in an interview, I've become antisemitic. He
really he could not separate his hatred for what the
(11:09):
Israeli government was doing to the Lebanese with his his
feelings for Jews everywhere.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
This is such a tremendously important point. You know, history
is always closer than it looks in the rear view mirror,
we like to say. And I think you're you're bringing
to light something important and powerful that the government of
a place is, more often than not, not the representative,
(11:43):
not the full picture of the people of the place.
You know, most most people around the planet, they want
to know that they're going to eat something later that day.
They want to have a safe place to sleep, they
want their kids to have a better life, and they
want to be successful. And I think it's something that,
(12:05):
especially in these devisive times, we all could do well
to remember.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
It's it's it's.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
A shame that it's a shame that doll fell so
so hard. But this I agree with you that, at
least in my limited experience, not being a scholar in
this regard, in my limited experience, I didn't clock stuff
(12:34):
like that. I'm prob I was probably a in his work.
When I'm reading it, I didn't like you, I didn't
clock anti semitism. But also I was kind of a
dirt bag kid. So all the times I saw somebody
called fat or ugly, I thought it was hilarious. You know,
so maybe not the best judge.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
Yeah, no, I.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Guess there's something else we want to get to a
bit of a plot twist in our conversation here now, folks,
right now, you can check out the secret world of
Role Doll, available wherever you find your favorite shows. But
(13:19):
we don't want to end our conversation there. We have
been talking a lot about one writer, erin, but if
I could beg a little bit more of your time,
I'd like to ask you about another writer, a guy
named a guy named Aaron Tracy.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
You is that okay?
Speaker 5 (13:39):
Is that just imagine to talk about my writing? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Of course, awesome, Okay, thank you so much.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
So.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
One of the questions that I know a lot of
current writers or budding writers in the audience tonight are
going to have is how did you become a writer?
What drew and what draws you to the written word.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
So I've always been, I think, like you, a giant
movie buff and TV buff too, and so I wanted
to do that. It's not so much that I just
want to that, I just wanted to write. It's that
I wanted to be involved in movies and TV as
a kid, and so at first I thought I could
be an actor, and then, you know, quickly realized I
did not have the talent for that or the the
(14:22):
interest in that, and so the next best thing was
being the storyteller. So, just like just like Doll, just
like millions of other people, I moved to Los Angeles
after school and just sort of tried to make it.
And you know, there's no one way to do it, unfortunately,
It's it's not like a apprenticeship like in like in
(14:43):
the old days, or or even in a professional.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Like a trade.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Yeah, exactly, there's no clear path, and so everybody just
finds their own way. And for me, I just wrote
a bunch of scripts until I had a couple that
I was, you know, willing to to show people at least,
and then just got my first job and kind of
moved up from there.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
That's awesome and it's going to be inspiring for a
lot of our fellow ridiculous historians to hear about this journey.
Next question on this subject, okay man, what is to
the degree that you're comfortable sharing on air, what is
the strangest project you ever found yourself in. Have you
(15:26):
ever had one of those moments where you looked around
and thought, Holy smokes, how did I get here?
Speaker 5 (15:32):
Oh? My god? So many. I mean, anybody, anybody that.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
Spent enough time writing TV and movies is going to
have just bananas stories. I mean, the first one that
comes to me is a writing partner and I my
friend Andrew. We were working with Lionsgate on a project
(15:56):
and then they teamed up with a toy company and
they brought us the board game Risk to try to
adapt into TV, which was I mean incredible, right, Like,
it's got so much name recognition, it's been around forever,
people really know it. But when you think about it
(16:17):
for a few seconds, you then remember that there's a
pretty big obstacle, which is that there are no characters
in Risk, so you have to make up everything. I mean,
it's completely nuts. It's like the new you know, it's
it's not so much new anymore, but for for a while,
and still to a large degree, ip is everything. Can
you get a cereal box? Can you get a board game?
(16:39):
Can you get a comic book? Like what can we do?
That's already in the public consciousness, what can we take
and turn into a show and so so risk was
a truly crazy one for me. We spent a lot
of time on that. I'll say another could just kind
of totally surreal moment in my career was I was
(17:00):
I wrote a pilot for the USA Network and we
ended up making it, which was great. We cast an
amazing writer who was also an actor to play one
of the essential roles in the pilot, and that was
Tom McCarthy. And Tom McCarthy had just come off winning
the Oscar for Best Screenplay and so here I am
(17:25):
writing for this guy. I'm like, you know, I'm so
insecure about my writing. All writers are insecure about their writing, right,
but like, this is my first big pilot to get made,
and here I am trying to write dialogue for the
reigning Oscar winner for Best Screenplay.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
I was so humiliated.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I was just so insecure that that was a very
tough Hollywood experience for me.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
But you know, he was.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
He couldn't have been sweeter. And you know, he didn't
constantly tell me what an idiot or what a bad
writer I was. So I would check that up up
as a win.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yes, I would agree I think you're being a little
hard on yourself, my friend. I also, my spidy sense
is telling me that you probably have war stories for
days in the trenches of writing so much for TV
and film and thank you for thank you for sharing those.
(18:21):
I'm between us. I am convinced that there are probably
a couple of stories that are probably better not for
the air.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
Maybe we do it in the dark place, man.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
Yeah, it's tough out there.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
We can hang out, we can hang out in the
future and talk about some of this stuff. But I
love I love picking the brains of writers, of people
who have successfully successfully.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Journeyed in this field.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Right, And with that, one of the questions we always
like to ask when when we get together in these
kind of circles, is uh, who are some of your
favorite writers today? What are you reading? What are you
what are you digging?
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Are you?
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Are you at the point now after the Secret World
of Role Doll where you're saying I need a break
from this one author.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Yes, I'm definitely putting all of my roll Doll books
in the closet. I've got a stack of them in
front of me. But yeah, as soon as the show's
over there, they're all going away for a while. Yeah,
I mean I have so many favorite writers I've been reading.
In terms of fiction, I've been reading a lot of
mysteries lately. Patricia high Smith. I I recently discovered who's
(19:37):
just as extraordinary as everybody says. Uh, They're they're great
page turners and and and they make.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
You think uh.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
In in film and TV, I'm a giant Aaron Sorkin fan.
I love William Goldman, I love Nora Ephron. So many screenwriters,
but I love Marty Supreme. I love the screenplay there.
Noah Bombach is one of my all time favorite writers,
and he's got a new movie this year.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
Richard G. Linkletter too, He's got two new movies.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
Yeah, I mean, basically too many to name.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yeah, and that's a that's a great spot to be
rights as a as a reader, as a as an
audience member. That's that's the kind of stuff we love.
I I got I recently because I was on some
long plane flights. I recently got back into the phenomenal
short story writer Edgar Carrott. Pretty pretty hard.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
To me.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
He's he's like the next or the new Kurt Vonnegut.
So it's yeah, it's cool, snappy, just on the edge
of approachable surreal. I guess we could call it. I
don't know if that's an aesthetic. We're just making up
on the air, Aaron. One other thing that stood out
(21:04):
that I saw you mentioned often in conversation was that
just as Roald Dahl had heroes, you have heroes of
your own, one of whom is the legendary Rob Reiner.
We were We were immensely fortunate on one of our
(21:25):
sister shows, Stuff they don't want you to know, to
interview mister Reiner for a podcast he did on the
controversy and conspiracy surrounding the jfk assassination, and for my money,
it comes the closest to answering some of those unanswered questions.
Just because I think it would be fun for Rob
(21:48):
to have heard us fanboy a little and embarrass him.
Could you could you tell us about why this, why
this guy in particular is such a hero of yours.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
I mean, you know, we could start the podcast over.
I could go another hour just talking about Rob. I
absolutely loved him. He was such a great mentor figure
for me. He produced a pilot that I wrote, and
so I got to work in his office at Castle Rock.
They put me in the in the room next door
to his office, and so I got to constantly hear
(22:21):
him on the phone in the next room and got
no work done, of course, But he was he was
just so caring. He would take me and my co
writer Andrew out to lunch all the time and just
regale us with stories because he had you know, he
had been in the business for decades and decades and
decades and knew everybody, and everybody loved him. He was
(22:41):
also besides being I think one of the great directors
of all time, he was a fantastic producer. He and
his company produced so many movies that that people probably
don't even think of in relation to him, like the
Shawshank Redemption comes to mind. But you know, when I
talk about when I talk about Doll's time in Hollywood
(23:04):
in the podcast, I talk a little bit about the
various runs by great directors because Dahl worked with Hitchcock,
not you know, during Hitchcock's great run, and a lot
of people think that that was maybe the greatest run
by a director of all time, Hitchcock leading up to Psycho.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
But I think you could.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Argue that Rob Reiner in the late eighties to early
nineties actually had the greatest run of movies ever. I mean,
in this very brief period of time, in less than
a decade he made when Harry met Sally and a
few good men and the American President and stand by me,
the Princess Bride. It just the body of work is extraordinary,
(23:49):
and just how giving he was and how willing he
was to share his wisdom and encourage young writers. I
had him and the script that I wrote that he produced,
and it's one of my prized possessions, one of my
other prize possessions. And this says a lot about how
much doll or excuse me, how much Rhiner really appreciated writers.
(24:13):
In the basement of Castle Rock, where I used to
sneak down after after hours, he had a room that
was aligned with bookshelves from Florida ceiling, and on those
bookshelves he had every draft of every one of the
scripts he ever developed. And so there's like two shelves
that are just drafts of whin Harrimet Sally, for instance,
(24:36):
which is a movie I love all the way back
from what it was just called Words with Love that
was the original title, and I took that and I
went upstairs and I photo copied it, and I have
that in my drawer now too. I never told him
I did that, but it was Yeah, it was just
it was so nice to go down there and be
surrounded by the work of writers that Rob Shepherd did.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Wow, this is.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
A story that I was totally unaware of. And I
think it speaks to this practice of lineage because it
sounds like you, in that process, you were encountering something
very like an apprenticeship to a journeyman position. And I
(25:25):
think we could also compare Rob Reiner to Rule Dall
in that in that he also Dall also inspired countless writers,
countless countless folks who would go on to maybe write
their own young adult novels, or people who were so
(25:49):
just had their minds so rocked by the worlds that
Dahl created that they went out and creatively fed off
of that energy, off of that vibe with that, and
thank you for being so generous with your time here
With that, what do we hope our listeners take away
(26:13):
from the Secret world of Rule Doll, Like, we haven't
heard all the episodes yet, and we're not gonna ask
you to spoil them. But when the curtains close and
the credits roll on the podcast and we're walking away
after we've heard the very last episode, the very last word,
what do we hope the audience has learned?
Speaker 4 (26:34):
I mean, in the largest sense, I hope people just
get a sense for what an incredibly interesting, noisy life
this guy lived and how much he was searching for
his identity, And so I hope people will. You know,
they'll of course be somewhat turned off by the bigotry,
but I think that people will also have a lot
of sympathy for him. You know, what we didn't get
(26:56):
into today is all the tragedies that Doll experience, especially
with his family as an adult, which directly led to
him writing the children's books. So I hope people will
have some sympathy for him as well. But you brought
up something else as you were talking about Rob Reiner
that I hope people take away from this, which is
both Rob Reiner and Roald Dahl had great mentors. Rob
(27:20):
talks about Norman Lear, the creator and sho runner of
All in the Family, being his great mentor, giving him
his job on All in the Family, and then financially
supporting him when he made the Princess bride just like
absolutely essential to his life. And Roal Dall also had
a couple really important mentors. We talked about William Stevenson,
(27:41):
but Roaldall also had this guy named Charles Marsh, who
was an incredibly wealthy newspaper magnet who was instrumental in
Dall becoming a writer. After the war, when Dahl moved
back to England and moved into his mother's basement and
it looked like maybe that was going to be it
for Dall and nothing whatever, uh you know, come of him,
(28:02):
Charles Marsh said, no way. Charles Marsh had met him
in DC when he was a spy and brought Dall
back to New York, paid for Doll to be in
an apartment, and introduced Doll to Harold Ross, who was
the founding editor of The New Yorker, and really started
Doll's writing career in that way. And I bring these
up because you know, I teach. I'm on creative writing
(28:23):
faculty at Yale, and so this idea of mentorship is
super important to me. And I think right now this
idea of mentorship is more important than ever because we're
finally we're living in a period which you know, because
of AI, because of the chatbots, the barriers to becoming
a writer are fewer and fewer, Like we can actually
(28:45):
now just ask a chatbot to write a script for us,
and it won't be good right now, but at least
it will look like a script, and at least it
will have a lot of the elements of a script.
And so when you break down the barriers to what
it means to become a writer, mentorship becomes so much
more important. It becomes essential to help writers UH figure
(29:08):
out what their point of view is, to figure out
how to translate you know, their their their sensibilities into
UH into their words on the page. Because AI writing
can just be so flat and uninteresting, and so we
need mentors UH more than we ever have, I would argue,
And so I think, Doll and Ryner, are you know,
(29:31):
really good reminders about how important mentors are and that
you know, my hope, of course, is that people really
seek them out, and that people who are further along
in their career UH are more willing to to sort
of mentor younger writers.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Just what what a phenomenal way to bring everything together.
At the end of the conversation, uh this. Uh. I
paused for a second and hopefully Max cut out that
slight silence because I was just hypnotized, you know, when
you're making these points, and then I forgot for a
(30:10):
second that we are on Aaron supposed to be. But
this leads us all to our very last question. Where
can people learn more about your work outside of the
secret world of Rule Doll? And if your game for it,
(30:30):
could you give us a little teaser about an upcoming
audio novel called The Honeymoon Period. No.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
Yeah, so I'm writing a novel for McMillan. It's actually
going to be my first novel, so I'm excited about that.
And yeah, it'll never be available in print. It is
for audio only, so I'm writing it as a novel,
but we're going to have a full cast and record
it and so you'll be able to listen to that
wherever you.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
Get audio books. And that's very nice.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
If any he wants to know about my other work,
they can go to my website, which is my company
is called Parallax, and so it simply listened to parallax
dot com and people can see all of the audio
dramas that I've written with lots of different actors over
the years, for Audible and for iHeart and my novel
(31:20):
will Be will be up there too.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
And there you have it, folks, the Secret World of
Rule Doll with Aaron Tracy. This is available now wherever
you find your favorite shows. We would love for you
to check it out. We are on the edge of
our seats actually because we came in. I'll confess we
came in like some other folks, doubtlessly who thought we
(31:45):
knew a lot about Rule Doll. It's spoiler folks. You're
going to be astonished by how much you don't know
just yet, so tune in let us know your thoughts ed. Aaron,
thank you so much much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
Thank you so much. This has been truly a pleasure.
That's been great.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
And there you have it, folks, friends, neighbors, countrymen.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Max.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
There's so much we didn't get to, and there is
so much that I think you and I and the
audience alike learned just from talking to Erin.
Speaker 6 (32:22):
Yeah, there was so much to get to.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I mean, it would be you know, amazing if there
was another podcast for people to you know, go listen to,
or a guy like Aaron Tracy would break down these
details and much greater and you know, robust ideas. What
do you think about that? Wouldn't that be something you'd
want to listen to?
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Yeah, that's amazing. That's an amazing point, Max. It would
almost be like a secret world all its own, a
secret world of Role Doll. We should text Aaron with that,
we should pitch that name to him.
Speaker 6 (32:52):
I guess we'll just be wanting until until somebody doesn't.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Right it is available now. This is the kind of
show where you don't have to pay for the whole seat,
because you're only going to need the edge.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
We're excited to.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Hear about your favorite Role Dull books. Please hit us
up on our Facebook group Ridiculous Historians, et cetera, et cetera.
In the meantime, big big thanks to our super producer,
mister Max Williams, and tune in soon. The very next
week after this, we are going to bust some myths
(33:32):
about ancient history and the shape of the planet.
Speaker 6 (33:36):
Turns out this Earth is actually just flat.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (33:40):
The conspiracy is that it's round.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
No, no, no, that we're.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Talking about especial shout out to my actual facts quote
Lauren Volbelbaum, brother Alex Williams for this slapping baby you
are listening to right now.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
And big big thanks to doctor Rachel Big Spinach, Lance
aj Bahama is Jacobs.
Speaker 6 (33:57):
And oh do we have to thank him?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
The omnipresent villain of our podcast, mister Jonathan doesn't want
to ride the glass elevator, Strickland.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
He's our very own bond villain and actually just off Mike.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
He's the nicest guy.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
I know.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
We roast him at the end, but sometimes I feel
a little bad and I sent him a text to
check it.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Last time I saw him, we sat in the office
and we talked about video games.
Speaker 6 (34:29):
For an hour straight.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yes, well, every conversation with him is about an hour
street and between the.
Speaker 6 (34:36):
Two of us we have about twenty four inches of hair.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
So there's a reason that is hilarious. Folks will tell you.
We'll tell you when the Quizzer appears on the show
again in the near future. In the meantime, thanks so
much for tuning in. As Noel Brown, my brother in
podcast combat, always says, we'll see you next time, Folks.
(35:04):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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