November 16, 2023 • 40 mins
He's the OG recapper . . . before TikTok even existed, he was telling MTV viewers what they missed on previous episodes of American Idol and Glee!
Jim Cantiello joins Jenna and Kevin to dish on the making of his musical "Glee-Caps," why he feels FOX borrowed heavily from him, and what he thinks of the Gleek fan base. . .
Plus, the trio trades stories on what it was really like working with Britney Spears on the set of Glee and The X Factor.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
And that's what you really missed with Jenna.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
And Kevin an iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to and that's what you're in the miss podcast.
This is a rewatch podcast. And in light of that,
we're having the one and only the Glee Cap Sir himself,
Jim Cantiello.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, the president of the Glee Recap.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
He started doing these back in twenty and eleven. He
invented the Glee recap maybe ten, you know, he really did,
like he did if if you weren't aware of this
at the time, back then, he worked on MTV News
and started doing these Glee recaps but in song h yeah,
(00:50):
and they would be like two two and a half
minutes and they were original pieces of music talking about
each episode. And he did it for so many seasons.
And just wait until this interview to hear the process
in which he had to do it. You're gonna my
jaw was on the ground.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I can't believe it. It's also so nice to like
reconnect with him because obviously we used to like run
into him and yes, around town and at different events
and things. So scrap in for the originator of the
Glee Cap. Truly, this is Jim Cantiello. Hell love Hi.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I am like floored that first of all, y'all like
found my weird recaps, and second I don't want to
talk to me about him. This is like truly full circle,
as Oprah says, full circle moment.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Are you kidding me? You're the exact person we need
to talk to.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yes, exactly please.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
You are the king of the Glee recaps.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
That's so much to you.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I was thinking, like I was watching some of these
again because obviously we saw some of the moment was happening.
But I was like, you would have just you would
have been the mayor of Glee Talk, Glee TikTok you know, yes,
you would have was happening now and you were on
TikTok was the thing back then. You would have been it.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
That's very sweet of you to say, and it blows
my mind that y'all were watching my crazy stuff back
when their show is airing. Are you kid?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
No?
Speaker 4 (02:17):
No, I was very critical of your show.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I need to be honest, Well, so were we. You know,
That's why I always loved you too. Get on the
red carpet. I was like, oh, Kevin and Jenna are
real ones.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, but it's also like we knew you from TV,
you know. So it's a weird thing to like that
weird dichotomy of yes, we're on TV, but we're also
fans of people and grew up watching people on TV.
And then you meet on a red carpet and then
you're doing something that involves the show we're on. It's
very surreal. Wow, you know.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Okay, where do we begin?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Even I don't mean that's you need to take us
to the beginning first of all?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Okay, like you Glee caps?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (03:02):
What was I?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Caps?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
I So I have the craziest story. I was an
intern at MTV and then the head of MTV News
at the time. One of the creative execs cross paths
with me and was like, wait, you've got a really
cool brain. You should not be a voiceover audio engineer,
which is what I was doing right out of my internship.
You should work for MTV News. So I got brought
into MTV News to do a bunch of wacky stuff
and just sort of like let my pop culture brain
(03:25):
run free. And one of the first things that really
connected was my American idol recaps. And I was doing
this thing called Idol in sixty seconds, which was sort
of my shtick.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
I talked really fast. Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Okay, now now I need to call out Fox right now,
because I know for a fact that a lot of
execs Fox were watching my Idol coverage. And I was
doing it for two or three seasons before Glee started.
So then when Glee season one started and you had
the first previously here's what you missed on Glee recap,
and it was really fast and kind of snarky. I
(03:57):
fully spittaped and was like, are they aping my MTV
recaps on this show? I'm just saying wow, not to
like give myself an ego boost, but I've always been like,
I know there are people that I mean, I don't
I doubt Ryan Murphy or his team were watching my things.
But if there was an exec that was like, we
need a snappy previously on, I'm just saying we should
(04:21):
find out. So after the Idol stuff got successful, my
bosses were like, well, Glee's a really big thing and
I love the pilot, and they were like, let's let's
do a new way to do Glee. Let's do Glee
in sixty seconds. And I was like, I'm so a
little tired of the sixty second recap, and also, it's
a musical show, let me do songs, not thinking that
then I would be on the hook to write a
(04:43):
song a week.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Oh my god, twenty two songs a season.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Well.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Also, to be fair, Glee and sixty seconds in for
one episode is not possible.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
There's a lot going.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
There were eighty storylines, eighty cast members, one.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Hundred percent especially, but I didn't really start recapping, I think,
until oh god, I should have done my research on
my own stuff. It was season one or season two. Ye,
it's season two of Glee, you guys. That was my
first Glee cap ever. So it was the premiere season two.
I had like a season to figure out how the
hell I would cover it?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
And then yeah, so it starts okay, Yeah, So I
started to recap Lee on a weekly basis via song.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So via song. So that was your idea, but then
got locked into it.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
You're the maniac that signed yourself up for that.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yes, you, it was your idea, Hubert, But you went
to Tish in New York, so you had a musical
theer background, I'm assuming.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Oh my god, y'all did your research. I was a
film nerd. I was a film student. In my class
was John Watts, who directed the Zendaia Spider Man movies,
and Jake Shreyer, Who's done a bunch of cool stuff.
He did a lot of GEF nominated for a bunch
of Emmy's. I have a lot of famous. I'm like
a little bit of like a forest gump of pop culture.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
I was like high school friend with Lynn Manuel Miranda.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Oh my surreal to like walk past magazine as I'm.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Going to the edit room reading ground of creativity genius
because I'm not.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Myself in the same universe as people.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
But anyway, anyway, I was a film nerd, and then.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
I so I yes, I did not really have musical
theater background a little bit. In fourth grade, my upper
middle class upbringing public school had a composer class for
like music nerds, and I had taught myself how to
play piano, and so I got weirdly with this composer
guy when I was in fourth grade.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
How old are you?
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Eight or nine years old? So I've always kind of
been making my own melodies up in some capacity, But
I'm not a classically trained musician by any stretch nor vocalist.
As you can tell by all of my Gleek caps.
I can't believe I sang weekly. You did?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
You sang weekly? And they were great? They were there
really make me, they make me giggle.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Maybe that film nerd training made you able to, you know,
dissect Idol in sixty seconds, dissect the finer points of
Glee to put to a song that's right.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I always came from like if I was an exec
noting the shows that I love, what what? Like? That
was sort of my energy, like I love these shows
so much, like why aren't they the best thing ever?
And here's my issue with them? And let me go.
And then the other thing I want to say about
Glee is you you know, the Gleek fan base was
so unreal. I had been dealing for years with the
Idle fan base and the Idol team peeps are their
(07:27):
own beast and one full in their own.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Way, but Glee was this whole other thing.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
And there was so much conversation around the show from
a week to week basis, especially like the heyday of
Twitter just really pop in, right. So a lot of
my job was sort of capturing that conversation and injecting
that into a song, because I will be honest. By
the middle of season two, I was kind of over
your show a little bit and was like, oh, classic
Ryan Murphy. No offense to your old boss, but like
(07:52):
he's really good with the first season and can't keep
that shit up in seasons two plus, and I was like,
the wheels are coming off, and it just was kind
of maddening to watch it, to send into madness, especially you.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Were a fan, like you were legitimately a fan of
the show, and so that way, yeah, oh my god,
though you watch something you're like, oh, this is almost there.
Why didn't it just do this? But you had like
a public outlet to talk about it, and boy was
wild to let me do that.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Honestly.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Well, it's funny because it's controversial, like season three. We're
on season three right now. We're recapping season three, and
it is I would say majority people's favorite season.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Okay, now here. So I was really into the cleaner scene.
Season three is when Claine really became a thing, and
I found that I was like a beacon of hope plotline,
like let's let's finally give Kirt something to do that's
not just like trauma, but for a while there was
like hope, like, yes, let's have this character be happy
and Darren Chris so charming.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Let's let's do it.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
So I love and I love the feedback I was
getting from cleaners, so I really leaned into that. Yeah,
as like the thing I told the storyline. It had
so much fun recapping that storyline in particular.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
So the original song was the one that was like,
it's one of your best ones and it's like a
fan favorite obviously because of the cleaners. Was that that
I thought that must have been the beginning of it all.
Was You're like they kissed and like that's and then
the cleaners were like, okay, we're in a turning.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yes they claims were mad at me. Yes, one the
cleaners were real mad at me. Because there was one
crazy recap with like a gong. I had just seen
Soup John Stevens do his Age of Odds tour, like
probably like the night before a good album. Oh my god,
it's so crazy, and he was just so great on
stage and was like really loose with his movement and
(09:51):
I'm like, oh, I'll just like ape Soup John for
this thing. But in that recap, I said something like
Glanes of Jerk, the worst the Clans of tourp the
worst kind of a jerk accidentally made Kirk think that
he likes him. It's also crazy that I remember these lyrics.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, I know, it's very impressive.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
You know my favorite wait, I'm like my adhd my brains,
go and stay with me with my favorite Glee lyric,
My gleecap lyric is the Britney parody where it to
the tune of every time I was calling out how
the tribute episodes never had plots, so it was like
Glee is structured like a porn. They talk and then
perform shoes are scenes are shoehorned. Who needs story?
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Baby?
Speaker 3 (10:31):
I was always so proud of that. That is very
good and make you buy more soundtracks, baby, I think
was another line something like a calling out box, just
being like, we don't care about the show anymore.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
But they give us the song, give us the give
us the.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
We had that realization when we were recapping the Brittany episode,
because like, oh yeah, this was not about anything.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Nohing happens here.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
It was fun, but it's Britney.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
You're like, okay, sure, okay.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Now looking back now that the memoirs out and Michelle
Williams is giving an award worthy performance.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
So don't you dare Okay, well, it's clear to everyone
that she was not in the best place emotionally or anything.
That I worked on the X factor with her, So
you know I am implicit too, we all are. I'm
just dying to know if you guys had any like
memories of like that episode being like, oh, okay, well, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
We did when we did talk about how I don't
know to say this in a nice way, because I
do think if you've read things, read the book and
all that where she had zero control over what was
happening and was so there was somebody always right there
with her, and I remember at some point the joy
(11:53):
of like, oh my god, our idol is here, being like, oh,
this is so weird. We feel so bad for her,
but had absolutely nothing to do. We're like, we can't
even believe she made it here. Like that, it felt
like is she going to show up today? And then
she did, like is she going to be able to
(12:13):
like speak? And then when the camera was on she
was it was like she snapped back to normal. She
was like a normal person and incredible and so like
when you see us on screen with her, those were
the only moments where it's like you're interacting with a
real human being, and she was present, and then the
camera would go off and then people yeah, and people
(12:35):
would form in and then she looked like lost in
the flood sort of thing, and it was it was
really disturbing, and everyone was honestly like happy that it
was over because like the press, you know, it was
a really joyful set. We were like a bunch of
kids who are obsessed with each other. The crew, we
were obsessed with it. Like everyone was very into each
(12:57):
other and very supportive, and we're singing these songs making
people laugh, and it's you know, we're not over there
curing cancer where it's a joyful experience most of the time,
and her coming in was abrupt switch to something else.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Well, everybody was really quiet, like it's not usually very
quiet on set. It was silent, and they're like, Brittany's
coming in, okay, and it's silent, and then you don't
see her until the cameras. It's right, like you literally
don't see her face until the cameras roll, and then
it's like there's there's nothing like and it's hard because
you're meeting your We were meeting our hero. Ryan put
(13:35):
us in that scene with Brittany, with Heather and Kevin
because he knew we were like probably the biggest Brittany
fans of the cast, and it was it was really tough.
It's really sad.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Because you also want to root for them, like he
was exited.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
It's like we were all rooting for her and it
was like, yes, no, she should be working, like yes, like, yes,
she wants to work, right, so.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
You want to see her alive and thrive.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I was happy though that she got to at least.
I was like, I hope she enjoyed the little time
that she was shooting on the show.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Like I.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
She looked like she was into it. She was interacting
with Ran like, oh is that good? Can I do
that again? I want to tay something different. You're like, oh,
you're and obviously you're naturally gifted performer, like you can act,
you can dance, you can sing, like you know how
to do this, and so seeing that was wonderful. But
it was, you know, for a few seconds at a
time exactly that you said you had a similar experience.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Yeah, working on The X Factor was wild.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I was part of a live pre show that we
were streaming and like helping the show, you know, trend
before it would go live on broadcast, and we would
often get live interviews with the judges, including Brittany and
I remember the first time when they were like, Britney's
going to do.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Your show, and I was like live because you know, I.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Wasn't at this point. I was an MTV host. I
had done so many interviews with big people like Beyonce,
Taylor Swift, and you know, anytime you get to a
certain level, it's very rare that they'll do something live
with you, especially on the internet in twenty eleven or
twenty twelve whenever this was so it was very like, wait,
what she's going to come do much She's going to
talk to me live backstage moments before she's going to
(15:13):
go live on television, okay, And it was very much like, well,
she needs to know every question you're going to ask,
and it was like, okay, fine, happy to do that.
We're not asking hard hitting questions for the PEPSI sponsored
X Factor, you know, pre show and my strategy, and
this was kind of something I always did as an
interviewer with MTV because I was always kind of like
a fan and like a I wasn't a classically trained journalist.
(15:34):
I was like, I just want my my heroes to
be normal people.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
I want it.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
It was right around Thanksgiving, so I'm like, Oh, I
want to spend the whole interview talking to her about
what Britney Spears does at Thanksgiving?
Speaker 4 (15:44):
What's on her plate?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Like that's it and she loves she came alive. And
actually by heard from a lot of fan base, a
lot of Britney fans that they loved the couple of
interviews I did with her because it was the most
like the real Brittany that they ever, you know, they
had seen in many years. Because it was like I
was like, oh, let me talk to your dog. She
had just gotten Hannah. I was like, can I just
talk to your dog for ninety seconds? And she was
(16:05):
like thrilled about it, but was so wild about the experience.
Was the whole operation around her was like a military thing.
It was like what time is the hit? Oh, she's
gonna okays. It takes her seventy four seconds to get
from her dressing room to this position. They like had
a time to the second and we're on a live
broadcast and it's like is she coming? Is she coming?
And she got like, I don't want to say wheeled in,
(16:26):
but she kind of got like whisked in maybe forty
five seconds before we were going live and was like
there and then as soon as we were off, it
was like she got whisked right.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Onto the stage and that was it. So that was
it was wild.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
It was interesting, but she had like her people around
her at all times, Like, yeah, anyway, man, I didn't
mean to derail that.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
No.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Original Sun Season three Oh okay, now wait a second. Yes,
Season three was when I was Simon Cowell hired me
away from him TV for three days a week to
work on The X Factor, and I taped several I
taped two Glee caps on the set of The X
Factor backstage one. Yeah. One of them is soft focused sexing.
(17:11):
The one about when clan and when clan actually do it,
they bone. Yeah, it's totally like the press area of Factors. Kevin,
you and I very briefly had moments where we crossed
backstage at the X Factor, and I don't think neither
of us were out of the closet at that moment.
But I had a moment where we like locked eyes,
and I was like, I had a moment of like
(17:33):
heaven and oh no, I think Kevin knows my Glee
caps or maybe he just thinks I'm hot. But wait,
I don't know if I like guys.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
It was very confusing.
Speaker 6 (17:41):
It was probably well maybe both, you know, we were
just it was like you gay, bro, Yeah, wait, you're
singing weekly recaps about Glee and so yeah, I was
obsessed with X Factor and then I was doing the
Pepsi commercials for X Factor because of some so Simon
liked us.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, you know, I didn't do anything with Simon. I
would like to know. Was there a specific process in
your creating of the Glee caps?
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yes, and what did that look like?
Speaker 3 (18:15):
This is so hilarious to me. Okay, So I just
never in my million years would think that anyone would
care this one until I asked if I got my process?
I got parody songs, Okay, my process? It started well, Okay,
so I was on the East Coast of the time.
I now live in LA but it was New York
and I did not work for Fox. I worked for MTV.
(18:36):
Which was a Viacom thing, and you know, corporate powers,
they don't know. So Fox was not giving me screeners,
so I had to wait every week eight pm or
nine pm whenever y'all were on. I'm sorry I forgot
watch the episode and then write a song. Then it
was the middle of the night because my bosses were like, oh,
it's the Internet. You've got to have it up the
next morning when people are waking up and are searching
(18:56):
Glee recap, we want you in the Google results. So, Jim,
you're working overnights forever. And I was used to this
at this point because my American Idol. That's how I'm
in my American novel recaps. I would work, I would
be a great I would be a vampire.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
And there was a wait a second, were you doing both? Yeah,
at the same time, because we followed American Idol for
a while.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Yes, I was doing both.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
So it's the same night I would do.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
No, Okay, wait, no.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Season two is different.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
I think maybe one after And that's probably why I
didn't recap season one, because it was knee deep in idle,
that makes sense. And in season two it was like
you guys started in September.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
I started sweating for you.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Yeah, I mean I did. I was working like forty
hour ships regularly. I gave MTV so many years of
my life based on my production schedule, truly, and I
had to tape them myself. I'd edit them myself. I
need to record, I had to do everything. So there
came a point overnight. So there came a point where
I'm like, well, I can't do this. So I started
(19:52):
to pre write some ideas for songs, okay, and then
I started to be like, you know, I'm not really
a song. So I kind of hit walls where I'm like,
how do I get around this? And I'm like, oh,
I want to do a Paul simon Ish song. Let
me take inspiration. I like, oh, let me try one
that sounds like a ben a Bad ben Fold song.
(20:13):
And then I was like, oh, let me do like
a weird do wop thing with like multiple people. It
was just keeping myself entertained and challenging myself. Can I
write a Lindsey Buckingham Fleetwood Mac song for Fleetwood Mac week?
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (20:27):
That was kind of my process, and so.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
You just could do whatever you wanted, like no one
was approving this checking up on you.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
No no, no, I had so I shout out my
MTV exacs.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
No, no, no.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
There were exacts at MTV who would at least like
look at my my lyrics to make sure I wasn't
saying something that would get them sued.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
They were so supportive.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
I met this one dude, Garth Bardsley was sort of
the he wasn't a supervising producer. He would whatever, he's
a senior producer to me at some point and I
remember him watching one and he gave me like one
little performance note because he was a musical theater guy,
and he's like, oh, you should really like whatever. And
then the next time I like did it, and he
was like keep going that route. Like he gave me
the word of encouragement, like really push yourself and performance
(21:10):
like live in the moment with your songs.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
I was like, thanks, Garth.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
So now there was someone checking in, and then someone
would have to give a check mark in the morning
when it was like nine in the morning and I'd
been up for like twenty four hours and like.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Is this good?
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Oh my god, and then srying that they're like there
was a big fight with whether I could say the
word erection. I had to. I was trying to rhyme
something election and erection, as you do, you know, as
I mean, you guys gave me such podder.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
In the Brittany episode, she doesn't Sue walk into a
kid jerking off.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
That's like problematic?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure it was.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Thank god she won an Emmy for this, right, I
shouldn't know that anyway.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Mmmm, give Jane all the awards. Jane's a lot of Emmys.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
Well.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
And then Josh Sussman, who played Jacob Venerzio, who was
the kid who actually was the one doing the deed.
He he got a lot of hate mail after that,
like really bad hate mail and more good. Yeah, it
was really bad. He came on the show and talked
about it.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
But did you get any blowback like for many of yours,
like talking to Josh talking about how he had to
like mentally deal with all these people going after him
as if he were the actual character. Did you, you know,
reap any of the blowback for any of your recaps?
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Thank goodness, No, I'm so thankful that I did not
exist in current day Internet, because my IDOL recaps, in
particular you know, I said some nasty stuff. I was
certainly capturing conversation, but as a society online we were
shockingly even nastier back then. I feel like interesting, So
there are certain jokes. Now if I watch a recap,
I'm like, oh, I know I'm coming from a certain
(22:55):
place of whatever, but out of context, this is work.
So at the time I was doing Glee, I had
been through the fire with crazy Idol fans. Not to
bring politics into this, but I learned so much about
dealing with Trump people. And this is nothing against who
I'm about to cite and his fans, but there was
(23:15):
a certain fan base on season eight of American Idol.
I won't even say their names because I don't want
more blowback, but dealing with the Glamberts, I'm saying it.
Dealing with the Glamberts was so intense, and it was like, oh,
these are cult members. There is nothing I can do.
There's no amount of praise I could give this person.
So having survived that, the Glee world was fine. I
(23:38):
would get fans of characters. If I said something nasty
about a character would get but I was like, relaxed, right,
Evin can handle this, like you know I was trying.
I did try my hardest to focus my ire for
the show towards the producers and not I answer you guys.
Speaker 5 (23:58):
Yeah, So, since you started the show as a Glee
fan initially, did you have like favorite characters and favorite
moments before the cleaners all came in and claimed you.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Oh, I love that. I thought the pilot was so glorious.
I thought that, like just everything about it was so
promising and the energy was just out of control.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
I loved.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
It's a really good question. I always really dug the
Kurt stuff. I just found Chris's whole the whole thing
about his character being on this major primetime show I
thought was really cool and radical, and for the most part,
although it was a pretty trauma heavy and they never
let the dude be happy, I still was like rooting
(24:59):
for it really cool way. I really did always like
the Artie stuff, Kevin. I'm not just saying that just because,
like I thought they used you really well. I would
have loved more from it, But also at the same time, like, eh, yeah,
I always I was like kind of friendly with Corey,
so I was always rooting for him to have really
good storylines. I'm sorry this is not a great answer
(25:23):
to your question, Jenna, It's good.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
This is good.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
I don't have like, I don't have like big number
moments where I'm like, I loved that.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
You know, a lot of Glee fans have the like
my cover.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
I was never into the soundtrack stuff like I love
it in the show, but I love the context of
the show. Kidspop for me, and I'm like, you know,
I was listening to like Deer Hunter and The War
on Drugs and like Indie.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah, it was It's shocking that you were even watching
the show in the first place, in the.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Show but couldn't take it outside my my yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yeah, And we needed the context.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
I needed to be in the context of the show, which.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Also makes sense why when we had sort of like
a juke Bucks episode that it was like, I need
the story. I really need this story because I don't
care about these performances.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
So now I have a controversial question for you. When
did you It's not really that controversial. You finished. I
think you stopped doing these after season four, right, So
did you leave MTV at that point where you like,
I'm done with Glee, thanks so much anymore?
Speaker 3 (26:24):
It was a little both so I left MTV after
my first season on The X Factor. I had a
real taste of making the sausage instead of talking about
the sausage totally. And I was married to a woman
at the time, and she got a job at USC
and I was like, yes.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
Let's move to LA.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
The stars are aligning, Like you're going to pursue this
like a may You're a professor now, like, yes, I
can work in TV. I'm we're going to work on
The X Factor season two. I can find other jobs,
so I separate. I you know, MTV very generously offered
me in a you know, a really nice deal to
continue my time there, but I was just kind of
over it.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
There was.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
I just felt like I had done what I could
do there. I highlighted a few shows for them that
I was really proud of that or I piloted one show,
but a lot of digital stuff too. And just like
I was like, Oh, the MTV that I grew up
on is not the MTV the tier. I don't have
the power to make it what I wanted to be.
I'll never get it. I'm too weird, I'm not attractive enough,
I'm not this, that or the other thing.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
I'm going bald.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
All of that stuff was factoring in, like I'm in
the Youth.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
Network and I'm losing my hair.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
What do I do? And I also had a lot
of imposter syndrome because I was like I was a
person who got thrown on air, like I was a producer.
I wasn't trying to be a person. And then now
I'm interviewing Taylor Swift after Kanye crashes her thing at
the VMA's like wait, I'm interviewing Madonna. Like it was
like I know I could do it. Of course I
(27:48):
could do it, but it was still I got a
lot of Facebook messages. Remember Facebook, Lol, I got a
lot of Facebook messages that were like how do I do?
Speaker 4 (27:55):
What you do? I really want to go to school?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
And I was like, well, I don't know what to
tell you, like I be at the right place at
the right time, like find your voice and whatever you do. Anyway,
So moved to LA. Then was in this weird moment
where I'm like, well, MTV owns my Glee caps as
a creative idea, what do I do? I started this
YouTube channel in three D because it was technology that
they could do, and I my agent at the time
(28:20):
I think somewhat at the time, was like, well, if
you're doing in three D, it's different enough. So I
was like, okay, So I kept it with the Glee stuff.
I needed a second, I think, to catch my breath
after working, you know, I need a moment. I had
not stopped working since I graduated, so.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
And not working normal hours, you were doing crazy things.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
I was working crazy things, and as I became more
of a host and less of a producer, I was
having to still do my things, and then I would
have to like only sleep for an hour because it's like, oh,
I have to interview David Archiletta after the Today Show.
Oh I have to like go do this thing across town,
to do this thing with this person with Sierra, Like
it was too much. And then at that point MTV
did throw me editors, thank god, but I still had
(28:58):
to like sit with them. You know. It wasn't the
kind of thing that I could ever just do my
thun you.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Were interviewing them and then editing in.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
I was doing. I was a one man band. I
was doing everything. Wow, oh my god. Wow. So I
reached my limit and then once understandably, yeah, doing it
on my own too was even I had even less infrastructure.
So then it really felt like I was doing it
because God blessed the like digital producers who I could
finish the video and then they would post it online,
make the thumbnail. Now I'm writing to do all that,
(29:26):
and I'm like, oh on YouTube, I don't want to
like learn YouTube. Strategically, it was too much for me,
and I didn't feel confident enough to pay someone to
do it. I probably could have back then, when you know.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah, but it was a different thing. Now it's like
there's a full economy basically, like you know how to
do that. You know you can hire people. I was
like five years too early.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
It was, Yes, it was. It was a lot of it.
So I just reached my limit and then I just
really didn't like the show anymore. It just got to
the point where I don't have any more songs than me.
It's a disservice to the fans. I'm phoning it in. Yeah,
And it became a when I'm inspired, I'm going to
do it. And then once I took that parameter off
of me, I got inspired often and I actually am
(30:07):
really proud of some of my last gleek caps that
I've ever done going back to an original song. At
that point, it was like I had put the stuff
on YouTube, on iTunes and Spotify, and every year after
the anniversary of the Kiss, we got like a sales spike.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
And I was like, that is really funny.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
It was really sweet, and I'm like, I love that
the Gleeks are keeping this alive for like five six years.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
After they are alive.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Oh, I love it. I mean, yes, your podcast is huge.
I love Hello Hello again, Gleeks.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
I know, well it's been amazing.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Yeah, who knew.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
It's like all this ancillary like creator economy that you
got swept up.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
I love it. It's it's it was my whole career Honestly,
when I was an on air personality was getting swept
up in using really fun ip that people were obsessed
with and like riff on it.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
That was like my whole thing.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Because you could not everybody can do that, you know,
like what you were saying, if you give advice to
people how to do what you do, it's like, well,
you were just able to. You're you had like a
specific you know, outlook on things, specific voice, so you
were able to not everybody can you know all of
a sudden, like, yeah, I'll do this on air. I'll
sing this sure, thank you, Kevin. No, that takes a
(31:27):
lot of confidence. Even if you're if it's fake confidence
and you have imposter syndrome, you still did it.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
I did the damn thing. Yeah, me and Angela Bassett.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
With no safety net. You know, you just did it
like it's like going on TV. Here we go.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
I fell flat on my face many times. I hate
my Lady Gaga recap, my Michael Jackson recap.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
There are a lot of them.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
I just didn't have it in me, and it's like, well, there's.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
A lot of episodes. You're gonna hit a clunker every
once in a while.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
That's kind of how I felt. I'm like, if y'all
are phoning it.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
In, yeah, yeah, yeah, uninspired, which is okay, it it happens.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Well. When I was inspired, it was fun. And the breakup,
I was like, I need to I need to do
the original song as a sad ballad, as an email ballad.
So I fully just like leaned and do it and
I had so much fun. I actually recorded that in
one take. At that point, I was real.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
So for a while with my gleek ups I was doing.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
It all live, and I would take myself in the
middle of the night, like two in the morning was
by the usually around the time that I was like,
had my song ready?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
And where I was filming this by the.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Twenty ninth floor of fifteen fifteen Broadway, which was the
former home of MTV.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
You'd go into the office of middle of the night and
film these things by yourself.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
I would usually get to MTV round four pm on
Glea days and I would like again, like kind of noodle,
some music, I would have dinner. I would get like
myself already. There were a couple of times when anytime
they try and onboard new producers, they'd be like, oh,
you like, glease it with Jim and he'll help and
like whatever. And then they'd get with me and then
they'd like it would dawn on them that I'd be
there till like ten am the next morning and they
(33:03):
would be like wait, wait, wait, wait, what when do
I leave?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
And I'm like, oh, glee this much.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
They didn't tell me now you have to stay?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Yeah, oh you didn't like, yeah, no, I do this.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
So it was like two in the morning.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
I would set up.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
I would literally set up a camera or they would
set up a camera for me before everyone went home
for the night.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Oh that's so nice of them.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Yeah, so generous. And then I would set up my
keyboard and then I would record myself live. I would
do probably like twenty takes because I wasn't a good singer,
and then.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
I would pee.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
I would know in my brain what I was covering
with footage from the show and what I needed to
be on camera for, and then was able to literally
audio edit my performance so that I was on key
for a whole song. But then there came a point
where I'm like, wait, garage van exists. This microphone I
recorded all I brought. I busted this out from under
my I don't podcast. I busted this up under.
Speaker 7 (33:54):
My bed to be like my Glee cap. I still
have my still my keyboard that I use us. I
have a daughter now, she's eight, and she's like noodling
on my keyboard, and I'm like, I can't wait till
she's old enough for me to show her that I
used to use this keyboard on MTV.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
She's like, what's a TV?
Speaker 4 (34:09):
That's so anyway craziness.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
So I would then yeah, So then I started to
just record them and then be able to audio edit
without video involved, and then just lip sync from my life,
and then that would make the shooting go way faster, Yes, God,
and then the edits would go way fast.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
You had the pandemic home shooting all set up before
anybody else did.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
But in the middle of Times Square and the Time
Square Starbucks, one of like five of them knew me
because I would always consistently on Idle season and I
was doing Project Runway recaps for a while, so I
was likely there.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
You're watching a lot of TV.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
I used to go to audition at fifteen fifteen Broadway,
a lot for Nickelodeon.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Oh yeah, we were all there, maybe each one logo
back in the day. There was the most surreal moment
of working on Glee caps.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Or it could have been an idle recap. I think
it was idle because my Glee caps were mostly on
MTV dot com, but my Idol recaps would air and
MTV news hits, and by the time I was a
host on MTV, this was not Kurt Loder, Gideon Jego.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
Probably ten to the.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Hour every hour, it was like you'll be on TV
twice between like two in the morning and six in
the morning was kind of where our presence was, which
was when I was in Times Square getting my coffee.
And there was one moment where I walked across and
I saw in Times Square my ugly mug sleep de Pride,
looking like a cokehead, like just you know, because I
(35:29):
barely had makeup. I was like, I was just like
and manic in my eye. It was an idolready got
like manic. Oh, I am watching myself and no one
was in Times Square. I like looked around and I liked,
you know, I had a BlackBerry with a terrible camera.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Get a picture of it. And I was like, I'm
just like, I.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Guess I made it. It's three in the morning. Dream
this is Let me get back to the edit room
for the published time.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Oh my gosh. People didn't know much. People didn't know
how much work you had to put into these.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
I had so much fun doing it, though I saw
like such a jaded bastard.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Now you have to you have to enjoy it to
an extent to put yourself through me that. Yeah, that's
why you didn't anymore.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
You stopped it is because you can't.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
You can't sustain that sort of schedule if you there's
not some sort of pleasure in it. Yeah, creative filment.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
I'm sure you guys can relate to having, But I
could only imagine what your schedule was like, Ugle truly,
and I, even when it was on the air, I
kept thinking, like, they've got a now go record soundtracks
and recording sessions, and like they have no time to
do anything. Thank god, there's seventy five characters on the show.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
But we didn't matter. We didn't know any better though.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
We were all there anyway, people.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
That were smarter than us, Like you could identify that
watching it and we were in it, and we're like
this is normal, right?
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (36:43):
How smart was I that I was letting, you know,
Sumon a Redstone tell me to be there till like
seven in the morning, on no sleep while he was
making seven hundred bajillion dollars and I was barely making
enough to pay for my cab home.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
That's like us in the Modern Family cast. We'd get
text from the Modern Family It's like I had to
work five hours today, Like.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
What sushep for lunch? Yeah, We're like we were getting
Costco like cheese, puffs and we're like there for fourteen
and a half hours and they're like you literally would
hit the pillow and you get home and you would
open your eyes and you'd be like time to go
back to work. It felt like that, you close your eyes,
you open your eyes, you go back. It was so crazy.
(37:22):
But we didn't we didn't have to do as many
overnights as you did. We did maybe a few of those. Yeah,
we didn't like that, but I wasn't like doing full choreo.
I would like full the gung up and like shimmy,
like come on.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
You guys were like yeah, but your brain had actually
work because you were creating something original, where we were
just like puppets out We could just like yeah, memorize
something and.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Put us out there.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Oh my goodness. Well, on that note, we're so grateful
for your Glee caps and for you coming on here
and sharing it all because I am I'm floored, I fled.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
I am flabergat it as well. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Also, I want to shout out the angels who have
uploaded all of my things to YouTube, because when I
was on MTV, I come was suing YouTube, so none
of my content could go on YouTube, and then MTV
dot Com stripped all of my content as soon as
I left. They like rebranded a bunch of stuff. So
if it wasn't for the angels on YouTube, my stuff
wouldn't be lost to the internet for it.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Wow whatever, So we need those as part of history
for forever in the Glee, you know, fifty years from
now when they've got to use AI to like piece
us all together and stary.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
So let's be real here.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
So like maybe there'll be new Glee caps with like
from the coffin, like John Lennon style and just like
piece me in and be like new episodes, new Glee caps.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Yeah, you in front of the keyboard at three am.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
You just chat, you know, type it into chat GVT.
You don't have to do anything. You'll be there for
an hour, you know, Ryan, mygad is a.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Name that's very easy to rhyme. So I was very
thankful for that.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
See, those are the things you learn.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
It is.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
I didn't even know that. Thank you, Thank you so
so much.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
It's good to see you again.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
I know I around town. Y'all know, if you're ever
on any of the Red carpets. That's my project.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Now I'm like, you know, you're running the red carpets
with a.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Host of magical people. I'm not the only one who's
a boss.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Now.
Speaker 4 (39:20):
I try, you know, we do, we do what we can.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
Oh my goodness, yeah, oh my god, this so fun.
Speaker 8 (39:26):
I thank you so so much for spending so much
time with us to talk about this. Sure, all right, bye, y'all,
bye bye. Let the people know Kevin, that poor man.
You know the amount he put himself through to get
these Glee caps to the people before and these other
(39:49):
Glee caps existed. I'm very like it's sort of like
doing an analog, you know, like you had to stay awake,
watch it while it was.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
On, and make it then.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Things are so much easier now.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
I mean much easier, and there's just a better setup.
He was really working here the Yeah, he was a trailblazer.
Well I hope you guys enjoyed that. And you haven't
seen his Glee caps. You gotta go see him, Jim,
can't yellow Go check them out. They're brilliant, very funny.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
He's brilliant. Thank you Jim for joining us and sharing
all of those insane memories. Also, I sort of just
like want to have him back, just to talk about
all of his most insane interest people. I know that
has nothing to do with Glee, but like I'm also interested,
Like let us.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Know, let the people know. Thanks for coming and listening.
You guys, we love you.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
This feels earned this time, because and that's what you
really miss. Thanks for listening and follow us on Instagram
at and that's what you really miss pod. Make sure
to write us a review and leave us five stars.
See you next time,
And that's what you really missed with Jenna.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
And Kevin an iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to and that's what you're in the miss podcast.
This is a rewatch podcast. And in light of that,
we're having the one and only the Glee Cap Sir himself,
Jim Cantiello.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, the president of the Glee Recap.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
He started doing these back in twenty and eleven. He
invented the Glee recap maybe ten, you know, he really did,
like he did if if you weren't aware of this
at the time, back then, he worked on MTV News
and started doing these Glee recaps but in song h yeah,
(00:50):
and they would be like two two and a half
minutes and they were original pieces of music talking about
each episode. And he did it for so many seasons.
And just wait until this interview to hear the process
in which he had to do it. You're gonna my
jaw was on the ground.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I can't believe it. It's also so nice to like
reconnect with him because obviously we used to like run
into him and yes, around town and at different events
and things. So scrap in for the originator of the
Glee Cap. Truly, this is Jim Cantiello. Hell love Hi.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I am like floored that first of all, y'all like
found my weird recaps, and second I don't want to
talk to me about him. This is like truly full circle,
as Oprah says, full circle moment.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Are you kidding me? You're the exact person we need
to talk to.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yes, exactly please.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
You are the king of the Glee recaps.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
That's so much to you.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I was thinking, like I was watching some of these
again because obviously we saw some of the moment was happening.
But I was like, you would have just you would
have been the mayor of Glee Talk, Glee TikTok you know, yes,
you would have was happening now and you were on
TikTok was the thing back then. You would have been it.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
That's very sweet of you to say, and it blows
my mind that y'all were watching my crazy stuff back
when their show is airing. Are you kid?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
No?
Speaker 4 (02:17):
No, I was very critical of your show.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I need to be honest, Well, so were we. You know,
That's why I always loved you too. Get on the
red carpet. I was like, oh, Kevin and Jenna are
real ones.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, but it's also like we knew you from TV,
you know. So it's a weird thing to like that
weird dichotomy of yes, we're on TV, but we're also
fans of people and grew up watching people on TV.
And then you meet on a red carpet and then
you're doing something that involves the show we're on. It's
very surreal. Wow, you know.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Okay, where do we begin?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Even I don't mean that's you need to take us
to the beginning first of all?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Okay, like you Glee caps?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (03:02):
What was I?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Caps?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
I So I have the craziest story. I was an
intern at MTV and then the head of MTV News
at the time. One of the creative execs cross paths
with me and was like, wait, you've got a really
cool brain. You should not be a voiceover audio engineer,
which is what I was doing right out of my internship.
You should work for MTV News. So I got brought
into MTV News to do a bunch of wacky stuff
and just sort of like let my pop culture brain
(03:25):
run free. And one of the first things that really
connected was my American idol recaps. And I was doing
this thing called Idol in sixty seconds, which was sort
of my shtick.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
I talked really fast. Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Okay, now now I need to call out Fox right now,
because I know for a fact that a lot of
execs Fox were watching my Idol coverage. And I was
doing it for two or three seasons before Glee started.
So then when Glee season one started and you had
the first previously here's what you missed on Glee recap,
and it was really fast and kind of snarky. I
(03:57):
fully spittaped and was like, are they aping my MTV
recaps on this show? I'm just saying wow, not to
like give myself an ego boost, but I've always been like,
I know there are people that I mean, I don't
I doubt Ryan Murphy or his team were watching my things.
But if there was an exec that was like, we
need a snappy previously on, I'm just saying we should
(04:21):
find out. So after the Idol stuff got successful, my
bosses were like, well, Glee's a really big thing and
I love the pilot, and they were like, let's let's
do a new way to do Glee. Let's do Glee
in sixty seconds. And I was like, I'm so a
little tired of the sixty second recap, and also, it's
a musical show, let me do songs, not thinking that
then I would be on the hook to write a
(04:43):
song a week.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Oh my god, twenty two songs a season.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Well.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Also, to be fair, Glee and sixty seconds in for
one episode is not possible.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
There's a lot going.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
There were eighty storylines, eighty cast members, one.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Hundred percent especially, but I didn't really start recapping, I think,
until oh god, I should have done my research on
my own stuff. It was season one or season two. Ye,
it's season two of Glee, you guys. That was my
first Glee cap ever. So it was the premiere season two.
I had like a season to figure out how the
hell I would cover it?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
And then yeah, so it starts okay, Yeah, So I
started to recap Lee on a weekly basis via song.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So via song. So that was your idea, but then
got locked into it.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
You're the maniac that signed yourself up for that.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yes, you, it was your idea, Hubert, But you went
to Tish in New York, so you had a musical
theer background, I'm assuming.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Oh my god, y'all did your research. I was a
film nerd. I was a film student. In my class
was John Watts, who directed the Zendaia Spider Man movies,
and Jake Shreyer, Who's done a bunch of cool stuff.
He did a lot of GEF nominated for a bunch
of Emmy's. I have a lot of famous. I'm like
a little bit of like a forest gump of pop culture.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
I was like high school friend with Lynn Manuel Miranda.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Oh my surreal to like walk past magazine as I'm.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Going to the edit room reading ground of creativity genius
because I'm not.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Myself in the same universe as people.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
But anyway, anyway, I was a film nerd, and then.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
I so I yes, I did not really have musical
theater background a little bit. In fourth grade, my upper
middle class upbringing public school had a composer class for
like music nerds, and I had taught myself how to
play piano, and so I got weirdly with this composer
guy when I was in fourth grade.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
How old are you?
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Eight or nine years old? So I've always kind of
been making my own melodies up in some capacity, But
I'm not a classically trained musician by any stretch nor vocalist.
As you can tell by all of my Gleek caps.
I can't believe I sang weekly. You did?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
You sang weekly? And they were great? They were there
really make me, they make me giggle.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Maybe that film nerd training made you able to, you know,
dissect Idol in sixty seconds, dissect the finer points of
Glee to put to a song that's right.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I always came from like if I was an exec
noting the shows that I love, what what? Like? That
was sort of my energy, like I love these shows
so much, like why aren't they the best thing ever?
And here's my issue with them? And let me go.
And then the other thing I want to say about
Glee is you you know, the Gleek fan base was
so unreal. I had been dealing for years with the
Idle fan base and the Idol team peeps are their
(07:27):
own beast and one full in their own.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Way, but Glee was this whole other thing.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
And there was so much conversation around the show from
a week to week basis, especially like the heyday of
Twitter just really pop in, right. So a lot of
my job was sort of capturing that conversation and injecting
that into a song, because I will be honest. By
the middle of season two, I was kind of over
your show a little bit and was like, oh, classic
Ryan Murphy. No offense to your old boss, but like
(07:52):
he's really good with the first season and can't keep
that shit up in seasons two plus, and I was like,
the wheels are coming off, and it just was kind
of maddening to watch it, to send into madness, especially you.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Were a fan, like you were legitimately a fan of
the show, and so that way, yeah, oh my god,
though you watch something you're like, oh, this is almost there.
Why didn't it just do this? But you had like
a public outlet to talk about it, and boy was
wild to let me do that.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Honestly.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Well, it's funny because it's controversial, like season three. We're
on season three right now. We're recapping season three, and
it is I would say majority people's favorite season.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Okay, now here. So I was really into the cleaner scene.
Season three is when Claine really became a thing, and
I found that I was like a beacon of hope plotline,
like let's let's finally give Kirt something to do that's
not just like trauma, but for a while there was
like hope, like, yes, let's have this character be happy
and Darren Chris so charming.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Let's let's do it.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
So I love and I love the feedback I was
getting from cleaners, so I really leaned into that. Yeah,
as like the thing I told the storyline. It had
so much fun recapping that storyline in particular.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
So the original song was the one that was like,
it's one of your best ones and it's like a
fan favorite obviously because of the cleaners. Was that that
I thought that must have been the beginning of it all.
Was You're like they kissed and like that's and then
the cleaners were like, okay, we're in a turning.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yes they claims were mad at me. Yes, one the
cleaners were real mad at me. Because there was one
crazy recap with like a gong. I had just seen
Soup John Stevens do his Age of Odds tour, like
probably like the night before a good album. Oh my god,
it's so crazy, and he was just so great on
stage and was like really loose with his movement and
(09:51):
I'm like, oh, I'll just like ape Soup John for
this thing. But in that recap, I said something like
Glanes of Jerk, the worst the Clans of tourp the
worst kind of a jerk accidentally made Kirk think that
he likes him. It's also crazy that I remember these lyrics.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, I know, it's very impressive.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
You know my favorite wait, I'm like my adhd my brains,
go and stay with me with my favorite Glee lyric,
My gleecap lyric is the Britney parody where it to
the tune of every time I was calling out how
the tribute episodes never had plots, so it was like
Glee is structured like a porn. They talk and then
perform shoes are scenes are shoehorned. Who needs story?
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Baby?
Speaker 3 (10:31):
I was always so proud of that. That is very
good and make you buy more soundtracks, baby, I think
was another line something like a calling out box, just
being like, we don't care about the show anymore.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
But they give us the song, give us the give
us the.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
We had that realization when we were recapping the Brittany episode,
because like, oh yeah, this was not about anything.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Nohing happens here.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
It was fun, but it's Britney.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
You're like, okay, sure, okay.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Now looking back now that the memoirs out and Michelle
Williams is giving an award worthy performance.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
So don't you dare Okay, well, it's clear to everyone
that she was not in the best place emotionally or anything.
That I worked on the X factor with her, So
you know I am implicit too, we all are. I'm
just dying to know if you guys had any like
memories of like that episode being like, oh, okay, well, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
We did when we did talk about how I don't
know to say this in a nice way, because I
do think if you've read things, read the book and
all that where she had zero control over what was
happening and was so there was somebody always right there
with her, and I remember at some point the joy
(11:53):
of like, oh my god, our idol is here, being like, oh,
this is so weird. We feel so bad for her,
but had absolutely nothing to do. We're like, we can't
even believe she made it here. Like that, it felt
like is she going to show up today? And then
she did, like is she going to be able to
(12:13):
like speak? And then when the camera was on she
was it was like she snapped back to normal. She
was like a normal person and incredible and so like
when you see us on screen with her, those were
the only moments where it's like you're interacting with a
real human being, and she was present, and then the
camera would go off and then people yeah, and people
(12:35):
would form in and then she looked like lost in
the flood sort of thing, and it was it was
really disturbing, and everyone was honestly like happy that it
was over because like the press, you know, it was
a really joyful set. We were like a bunch of
kids who are obsessed with each other. The crew, we
were obsessed with it. Like everyone was very into each
(12:57):
other and very supportive, and we're singing these songs making
people laugh, and it's you know, we're not over there
curing cancer where it's a joyful experience most of the time,
and her coming in was abrupt switch to something else.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Well, everybody was really quiet, like it's not usually very
quiet on set. It was silent, and they're like, Brittany's
coming in, okay, and it's silent, and then you don't
see her until the cameras. It's right, like you literally
don't see her face until the cameras roll, and then
it's like there's there's nothing like and it's hard because
you're meeting your We were meeting our hero. Ryan put
(13:35):
us in that scene with Brittany, with Heather and Kevin
because he knew we were like probably the biggest Brittany
fans of the cast, and it was it was really tough.
It's really sad.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Because you also want to root for them, like he
was exited.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
It's like we were all rooting for her and it
was like, yes, no, she should be working, like yes, like, yes,
she wants to work, right, so.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
You want to see her alive and thrive.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I was happy though that she got to at least.
I was like, I hope she enjoyed the little time
that she was shooting on the show.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Like I.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
She looked like she was into it. She was interacting
with Ran like, oh is that good? Can I do
that again? I want to tay something different. You're like, oh,
you're and obviously you're naturally gifted performer, like you can act,
you can dance, you can sing, like you know how
to do this, and so seeing that was wonderful. But
it was, you know, for a few seconds at a
time exactly that you said you had a similar experience.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Yeah, working on The X Factor was wild.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I was part of a live pre show that we
were streaming and like helping the show, you know, trend
before it would go live on broadcast, and we would
often get live interviews with the judges, including Brittany and
I remember the first time when they were like, Britney's
going to do.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Your show, and I was like live because you know, I.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Wasn't at this point. I was an MTV host. I
had done so many interviews with big people like Beyonce,
Taylor Swift, and you know, anytime you get to a
certain level, it's very rare that they'll do something live
with you, especially on the internet in twenty eleven or
twenty twelve whenever this was so it was very like, wait,
what she's going to come do much She's going to
talk to me live backstage moments before she's going to
(15:13):
go live on television, okay, And it was very much like, well,
she needs to know every question you're going to ask,
and it was like, okay, fine, happy to do that.
We're not asking hard hitting questions for the PEPSI sponsored
X Factor, you know, pre show and my strategy, and
this was kind of something I always did as an
interviewer with MTV because I was always kind of like
a fan and like a I wasn't a classically trained journalist.
(15:34):
I was like, I just want my my heroes to
be normal people.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
I want it.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
It was right around Thanksgiving, so I'm like, Oh, I
want to spend the whole interview talking to her about
what Britney Spears does at Thanksgiving?
Speaker 4 (15:44):
What's on her plate?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Like that's it and she loves she came alive. And
actually by heard from a lot of fan base, a
lot of Britney fans that they loved the couple of
interviews I did with her because it was the most
like the real Brittany that they ever, you know, they
had seen in many years. Because it was like I
was like, oh, let me talk to your dog. She
had just gotten Hannah. I was like, can I just
talk to your dog for ninety seconds? And she was
(16:05):
like thrilled about it, but was so wild about the experience.
Was the whole operation around her was like a military thing.
It was like what time is the hit? Oh, she's
gonna okays. It takes her seventy four seconds to get
from her dressing room to this position. They like had
a time to the second and we're on a live
broadcast and it's like is she coming? Is she coming?
And she got like, I don't want to say wheeled in,
(16:26):
but she kind of got like whisked in maybe forty
five seconds before we were going live and was like
there and then as soon as we were off, it
was like she got whisked right.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Onto the stage and that was it. So that was
it was wild.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
It was interesting, but she had like her people around
her at all times, Like, yeah, anyway, man, I didn't
mean to derail that.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
No.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Original Sun Season three Oh okay, now wait a second. Yes,
Season three was when I was Simon Cowell hired me
away from him TV for three days a week to
work on The X Factor, and I taped several I
taped two Glee caps on the set of The X
Factor backstage one. Yeah. One of them is soft focused sexing.
(17:11):
The one about when clan and when clan actually do it,
they bone. Yeah, it's totally like the press area of Factors. Kevin,
you and I very briefly had moments where we crossed
backstage at the X Factor, and I don't think neither
of us were out of the closet at that moment.
But I had a moment where we like locked eyes,
and I was like, I had a moment of like
(17:33):
heaven and oh no, I think Kevin knows my Glee
caps or maybe he just thinks I'm hot. But wait,
I don't know if I like guys.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
It was very confusing.
Speaker 6 (17:41):
It was probably well maybe both, you know, we were
just it was like you gay, bro, Yeah, wait, you're
singing weekly recaps about Glee and so yeah, I was
obsessed with X Factor and then I was doing the
Pepsi commercials for X Factor because of some so Simon
liked us.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, you know, I didn't do anything with Simon. I
would like to know. Was there a specific process in
your creating of the Glee caps?
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yes, and what did that look like?
Speaker 3 (18:15):
This is so hilarious to me. Okay, So I just
never in my million years would think that anyone would
care this one until I asked if I got my process?
I got parody songs, Okay, my process? It started well, Okay,
so I was on the East Coast of the time.
I now live in LA but it was New York
and I did not work for Fox. I worked for MTV.
(18:36):
Which was a Viacom thing, and you know, corporate powers,
they don't know. So Fox was not giving me screeners,
so I had to wait every week eight pm or
nine pm whenever y'all were on. I'm sorry I forgot
watch the episode and then write a song. Then it
was the middle of the night because my bosses were like, oh,
it's the Internet. You've got to have it up the
next morning when people are waking up and are searching
(18:56):
Glee recap, we want you in the Google results. So, Jim,
you're working overnights forever. And I was used to this
at this point because my American Idol. That's how I'm
in my American novel recaps. I would work, I would
be a great I would be a vampire.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
And there was a wait a second, were you doing both? Yeah,
at the same time, because we followed American Idol for
a while.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Yes, I was doing both.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
So it's the same night I would do.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
No, Okay, wait, no.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Season two is different.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
I think maybe one after And that's probably why I
didn't recap season one, because it was knee deep in idle,
that makes sense. And in season two it was like
you guys started in September.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
I started sweating for you.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Yeah, I mean I did. I was working like forty
hour ships regularly. I gave MTV so many years of
my life based on my production schedule, truly, and I
had to tape them myself. I'd edit them myself. I
need to record, I had to do everything. So there
came a point overnight. So there came a point where
I'm like, well, I can't do this. So I started
(19:52):
to pre write some ideas for songs, okay, and then
I started to be like, you know, I'm not really
a song. So I kind of hit walls where I'm like,
how do I get around this? And I'm like, oh,
I want to do a Paul simon Ish song. Let
me take inspiration. I like, oh, let me try one
that sounds like a ben a Bad ben Fold song.
(20:13):
And then I was like, oh, let me do like
a weird do wop thing with like multiple people. It
was just keeping myself entertained and challenging myself. Can I
write a Lindsey Buckingham Fleetwood Mac song for Fleetwood Mac week?
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (20:27):
That was kind of my process, and so.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
You just could do whatever you wanted, like no one
was approving this checking up on you.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
No no, no, I had so I shout out my
MTV exacs.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
No, no, no.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
There were exacts at MTV who would at least like
look at my my lyrics to make sure I wasn't
saying something that would get them sued.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
They were so supportive.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
I met this one dude, Garth Bardsley was sort of
the he wasn't a supervising producer. He would whatever, he's
a senior producer to me at some point and I
remember him watching one and he gave me like one
little performance note because he was a musical theater guy,
and he's like, oh, you should really like whatever. And
then the next time I like did it, and he
was like keep going that route. Like he gave me
the word of encouragement, like really push yourself and performance
(21:10):
like live in the moment with your songs.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
I was like, thanks, Garth.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
So now there was someone checking in, and then someone
would have to give a check mark in the morning
when it was like nine in the morning and I'd
been up for like twenty four hours and like.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Is this good?
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Oh my god, and then srying that they're like there
was a big fight with whether I could say the
word erection. I had to. I was trying to rhyme
something election and erection, as you do, you know, as
I mean, you guys gave me such podder.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
In the Brittany episode, she doesn't Sue walk into a
kid jerking off.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
That's like problematic?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure it was.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Thank god she won an Emmy for this, right, I
shouldn't know that anyway.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Mmmm, give Jane all the awards. Jane's a lot of Emmys.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
Well.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
And then Josh Sussman, who played Jacob Venerzio, who was
the kid who actually was the one doing the deed.
He he got a lot of hate mail after that,
like really bad hate mail and more good. Yeah, it
was really bad. He came on the show and talked
about it.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
But did you get any blowback like for many of yours,
like talking to Josh talking about how he had to
like mentally deal with all these people going after him
as if he were the actual character. Did you, you know,
reap any of the blowback for any of your recaps?
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Thank goodness, No, I'm so thankful that I did not
exist in current day Internet, because my IDOL recaps, in
particular you know, I said some nasty stuff. I was
certainly capturing conversation, but as a society online we were
shockingly even nastier back then. I feel like interesting, So
there are certain jokes. Now if I watch a recap,
I'm like, oh, I know I'm coming from a certain
(22:55):
place of whatever, but out of context, this is work.
So at the time I was doing Glee, I had
been through the fire with crazy Idol fans. Not to
bring politics into this, but I learned so much about
dealing with Trump people. And this is nothing against who
I'm about to cite and his fans, but there was
(23:15):
a certain fan base on season eight of American Idol.
I won't even say their names because I don't want
more blowback, but dealing with the Glamberts, I'm saying it.
Dealing with the Glamberts was so intense, and it was like, oh,
these are cult members. There is nothing I can do.
There's no amount of praise I could give this person.
So having survived that, the Glee world was fine. I
(23:38):
would get fans of characters. If I said something nasty
about a character would get but I was like, relaxed, right,
Evin can handle this, like you know I was trying.
I did try my hardest to focus my ire for
the show towards the producers and not I answer you guys.
Speaker 5 (23:58):
Yeah, So, since you started the show as a Glee
fan initially, did you have like favorite characters and favorite
moments before the cleaners all came in and claimed you.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Oh, I love that. I thought the pilot was so glorious.
I thought that, like just everything about it was so
promising and the energy was just out of control.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
I loved.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
It's a really good question. I always really dug the
Kurt stuff. I just found Chris's whole the whole thing
about his character being on this major primetime show I
thought was really cool and radical, and for the most part,
although it was a pretty trauma heavy and they never
let the dude be happy, I still was like rooting
(24:59):
for it really cool way. I really did always like
the Artie stuff, Kevin. I'm not just saying that just because,
like I thought they used you really well. I would
have loved more from it, But also at the same time, like, eh, yeah,
I always I was like kind of friendly with Corey,
so I was always rooting for him to have really
good storylines. I'm sorry this is not a great answer
(25:23):
to your question, Jenna, It's good.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
This is good.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
I don't have like, I don't have like big number
moments where I'm like, I loved that.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
You know, a lot of Glee fans have the like
my cover.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
I was never into the soundtrack stuff like I love
it in the show, but I love the context of
the show. Kidspop for me, and I'm like, you know,
I was listening to like Deer Hunter and The War
on Drugs and like Indie.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah, it was It's shocking that you were even watching
the show in the first place, in the.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Show but couldn't take it outside my my yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yeah, And we needed the context.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
I needed to be in the context of the show, which.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Also makes sense why when we had sort of like
a juke Bucks episode that it was like, I need
the story. I really need this story because I don't
care about these performances.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
So now I have a controversial question for you. When
did you It's not really that controversial. You finished. I
think you stopped doing these after season four, right, So
did you leave MTV at that point where you like,
I'm done with Glee, thanks so much anymore?
Speaker 3 (26:24):
It was a little both so I left MTV after
my first season on The X Factor. I had a
real taste of making the sausage instead of talking about
the sausage totally. And I was married to a woman
at the time, and she got a job at USC
and I was like, yes.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
Let's move to LA.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
The stars are aligning, Like you're going to pursue this
like a may You're a professor now, like, yes, I
can work in TV. I'm we're going to work on
The X Factor season two. I can find other jobs,
so I separate. I you know, MTV very generously offered
me in a you know, a really nice deal to
continue my time there, but I was just kind of
over it.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
There was.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
I just felt like I had done what I could
do there. I highlighted a few shows for them that
I was really proud of that or I piloted one show,
but a lot of digital stuff too. And just like
I was like, Oh, the MTV that I grew up
on is not the MTV the tier. I don't have
the power to make it what I wanted to be.
I'll never get it. I'm too weird, I'm not attractive enough,
I'm not this, that or the other thing.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
I'm going bald.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
All of that stuff was factoring in, like I'm in
the Youth.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
Network and I'm losing my hair.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
What do I do? And I also had a lot
of imposter syndrome because I was like I was a
person who got thrown on air, like I was a producer.
I wasn't trying to be a person. And then now
I'm interviewing Taylor Swift after Kanye crashes her thing at
the VMA's like wait, I'm interviewing Madonna. Like it was
like I know I could do it. Of course I
(27:48):
could do it, but it was still I got a
lot of Facebook messages. Remember Facebook, Lol, I got a
lot of Facebook messages that were like how do I do?
Speaker 4 (27:55):
What you do? I really want to go to school?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
And I was like, well, I don't know what to
tell you, like I be at the right place at
the right time, like find your voice and whatever you do. Anyway,
So moved to LA. Then was in this weird moment
where I'm like, well, MTV owns my Glee caps as
a creative idea, what do I do? I started this
YouTube channel in three D because it was technology that
they could do, and I my agent at the time
(28:20):
I think somewhat at the time, was like, well, if
you're doing in three D, it's different enough. So I
was like, okay, So I kept it with the Glee stuff.
I needed a second, I think, to catch my breath
after working, you know, I need a moment. I had
not stopped working since I graduated, so.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
And not working normal hours, you were doing crazy things.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
I was working crazy things, and as I became more
of a host and less of a producer, I was
having to still do my things, and then I would
have to like only sleep for an hour because it's like, oh,
I have to interview David Archiletta after the Today Show.
Oh I have to like go do this thing across town,
to do this thing with this person with Sierra, Like
it was too much. And then at that point MTV
did throw me editors, thank god, but I still had
(28:58):
to like sit with them. You know. It wasn't the
kind of thing that I could ever just do my
thun you.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Were interviewing them and then editing in.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
I was doing. I was a one man band. I
was doing everything. Wow, oh my god. Wow. So I
reached my limit and then once understandably, yeah, doing it
on my own too was even I had even less infrastructure.
So then it really felt like I was doing it
because God blessed the like digital producers who I could
finish the video and then they would post it online,
make the thumbnail. Now I'm writing to do all that,
(29:26):
and I'm like, oh on YouTube, I don't want to
like learn YouTube. Strategically, it was too much for me,
and I didn't feel confident enough to pay someone to
do it. I probably could have back then, when you know.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah, but it was a different thing. Now it's like
there's a full economy basically, like you know how to
do that. You know you can hire people. I was
like five years too early.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
It was, Yes, it was. It was a lot of it.
So I just reached my limit and then I just
really didn't like the show anymore. It just got to
the point where I don't have any more songs than me.
It's a disservice to the fans. I'm phoning it in. Yeah,
And it became a when I'm inspired, I'm going to
do it. And then once I took that parameter off
of me, I got inspired often and I actually am
(30:07):
really proud of some of my last gleek caps that
I've ever done going back to an original song. At
that point, it was like I had put the stuff
on YouTube, on iTunes and Spotify, and every year after
the anniversary of the Kiss, we got like a sales spike.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
And I was like, that is really funny.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
It was really sweet, and I'm like, I love that
the Gleeks are keeping this alive for like five six years.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
After they are alive.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Oh, I love it. I mean, yes, your podcast is huge.
I love Hello Hello again, Gleeks.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
I know, well it's been amazing.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Yeah, who knew.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
It's like all this ancillary like creator economy that you
got swept up.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
I love it. It's it's it was my whole career Honestly,
when I was an on air personality was getting swept
up in using really fun ip that people were obsessed
with and like riff on it.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
That was like my whole thing.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Because you could not everybody can do that, you know,
like what you were saying, if you give advice to
people how to do what you do, it's like, well,
you were just able to. You're you had like a
specific you know, outlook on things, specific voice, so you
were able to not everybody can you know all of
a sudden, like, yeah, I'll do this on air. I'll
sing this sure, thank you, Kevin. No, that takes a
(31:27):
lot of confidence. Even if you're if it's fake confidence
and you have imposter syndrome, you still did it.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
I did the damn thing. Yeah, me and Angela Bassett.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
With no safety net. You know, you just did it
like it's like going on TV. Here we go.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
I fell flat on my face many times. I hate
my Lady Gaga recap, my Michael Jackson recap.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
There are a lot of them.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
I just didn't have it in me, and it's like, well, there's.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
A lot of episodes. You're gonna hit a clunker every
once in a while.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
That's kind of how I felt. I'm like, if y'all
are phoning it.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
In, yeah, yeah, yeah, uninspired, which is okay, it it happens.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Well. When I was inspired, it was fun. And the breakup,
I was like, I need to I need to do
the original song as a sad ballad, as an email ballad.
So I fully just like leaned and do it and
I had so much fun. I actually recorded that in
one take. At that point, I was real.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
So for a while with my gleek ups I was doing.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
It all live, and I would take myself in the
middle of the night, like two in the morning was
by the usually around the time that I was like,
had my song ready?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
And where I was filming this by the.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Twenty ninth floor of fifteen fifteen Broadway, which was the
former home of MTV.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
You'd go into the office of middle of the night and
film these things by yourself.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
I would usually get to MTV round four pm on
Glea days and I would like again, like kind of noodle,
some music, I would have dinner. I would get like
myself already. There were a couple of times when anytime
they try and onboard new producers, they'd be like, oh,
you like, glease it with Jim and he'll help and
like whatever. And then they'd get with me and then
they'd like it would dawn on them that I'd be
there till like ten am the next morning and they
(33:03):
would be like wait, wait, wait, wait, what when do
I leave?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
And I'm like, oh, glee this much.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
They didn't tell me now you have to stay?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Yeah, oh you didn't like, yeah, no, I do this.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
So it was like two in the morning.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
I would set up.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
I would literally set up a camera or they would
set up a camera for me before everyone went home
for the night.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Oh that's so nice of them.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Yeah, so generous. And then I would set up my
keyboard and then I would record myself live. I would
do probably like twenty takes because I wasn't a good singer,
and then.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
I would pee.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
I would know in my brain what I was covering
with footage from the show and what I needed to
be on camera for, and then was able to literally
audio edit my performance so that I was on key
for a whole song. But then there came a point
where I'm like, wait, garage van exists. This microphone I
recorded all I brought. I busted this out from under
my I don't podcast. I busted this up under.
Speaker 7 (33:54):
My bed to be like my Glee cap. I still
have my still my keyboard that I use us. I
have a daughter now, she's eight, and she's like noodling
on my keyboard, and I'm like, I can't wait till
she's old enough for me to show her that I
used to use this keyboard on MTV.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
She's like, what's a TV?
Speaker 4 (34:09):
That's so anyway craziness.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
So I would then yeah, So then I started to
just record them and then be able to audio edit
without video involved, and then just lip sync from my life,
and then that would make the shooting go way faster, Yes, God,
and then the edits would go way fast.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
You had the pandemic home shooting all set up before
anybody else did.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
But in the middle of Times Square and the Time
Square Starbucks, one of like five of them knew me
because I would always consistently on Idle season and I
was doing Project Runway recaps for a while, so I
was likely there.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
You're watching a lot of TV.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
I used to go to audition at fifteen fifteen Broadway,
a lot for Nickelodeon.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Oh yeah, we were all there, maybe each one logo
back in the day. There was the most surreal moment
of working on Glee caps.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Or it could have been an idle recap. I think
it was idle because my Glee caps were mostly on
MTV dot com, but my Idol recaps would air and
MTV news hits, and by the time I was a
host on MTV, this was not Kurt Loder, Gideon Jego.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
Probably ten to the.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Hour every hour, it was like you'll be on TV
twice between like two in the morning and six in
the morning was kind of where our presence was, which
was when I was in Times Square getting my coffee.
And there was one moment where I walked across and
I saw in Times Square my ugly mug sleep de Pride,
looking like a cokehead, like just you know, because I
(35:29):
barely had makeup. I was like, I was just like
and manic in my eye. It was an idolready got
like manic. Oh, I am watching myself and no one
was in Times Square. I like looked around and I liked,
you know, I had a BlackBerry with a terrible camera.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Get a picture of it. And I was like, I'm
just like, I.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Guess I made it. It's three in the morning. Dream
this is Let me get back to the edit room
for the published time.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Oh my gosh. People didn't know much. People didn't know
how much work you had to put into these.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
I had so much fun doing it, though I saw
like such a jaded bastard.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Now you have to you have to enjoy it to
an extent to put yourself through me that. Yeah, that's
why you didn't anymore.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
You stopped it is because you can't.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
You can't sustain that sort of schedule if you there's
not some sort of pleasure in it. Yeah, creative filment.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
I'm sure you guys can relate to having, But I
could only imagine what your schedule was like, Ugle truly,
and I, even when it was on the air, I
kept thinking, like, they've got a now go record soundtracks
and recording sessions, and like they have no time to
do anything. Thank god, there's seventy five characters on the show.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
But we didn't matter. We didn't know any better though.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
We were all there anyway, people.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
That were smarter than us, Like you could identify that
watching it and we were in it, and we're like
this is normal, right?
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (36:43):
How smart was I that I was letting, you know,
Sumon a Redstone tell me to be there till like
seven in the morning, on no sleep while he was
making seven hundred bajillion dollars and I was barely making
enough to pay for my cab home.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
That's like us in the Modern Family cast. We'd get
text from the Modern Family It's like I had to
work five hours today, Like.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
What sushep for lunch? Yeah, We're like we were getting
Costco like cheese, puffs and we're like there for fourteen
and a half hours and they're like you literally would
hit the pillow and you get home and you would
open your eyes and you'd be like time to go
back to work. It felt like that, you close your eyes,
you open your eyes, you go back. It was so crazy.
(37:22):
But we didn't we didn't have to do as many
overnights as you did. We did maybe a few of those. Yeah,
we didn't like that, but I wasn't like doing full choreo.
I would like full the gung up and like shimmy,
like come on.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
You guys were like yeah, but your brain had actually
work because you were creating something original, where we were
just like puppets out We could just like yeah, memorize
something and.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Put us out there.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Oh my goodness. Well, on that note, we're so grateful
for your Glee caps and for you coming on here
and sharing it all because I am I'm floored, I fled.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
I am flabergat it as well. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Also, I want to shout out the angels who have
uploaded all of my things to YouTube, because when I
was on MTV, I come was suing YouTube, so none
of my content could go on YouTube, and then MTV
dot Com stripped all of my content as soon as
I left. They like rebranded a bunch of stuff. So
if it wasn't for the angels on YouTube, my stuff
wouldn't be lost to the internet for it.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Wow whatever, So we need those as part of history
for forever in the Glee, you know, fifty years from
now when they've got to use AI to like piece
us all together and stary.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
So let's be real here.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
So like maybe there'll be new Glee caps with like
from the coffin, like John Lennon style and just like
piece me in and be like new episodes, new Glee caps.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Yeah, you in front of the keyboard at three am.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
You just chat, you know, type it into chat GVT.
You don't have to do anything. You'll be there for
an hour, you know, Ryan, mygad is a.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Name that's very easy to rhyme. So I was very
thankful for that.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
See, those are the things you learn.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
It is.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
I didn't even know that. Thank you, Thank you so
so much.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
It's good to see you again.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
I know I around town. Y'all know, if you're ever
on any of the Red carpets. That's my project.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Now I'm like, you know, you're running the red carpets
with a.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Host of magical people. I'm not the only one who's
a boss.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Now.
Speaker 4 (39:20):
I try, you know, we do, we do what we can.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
Oh my goodness, yeah, oh my god, this so fun.
Speaker 8 (39:26):
I thank you so so much for spending so much
time with us to talk about this. Sure, all right, bye, y'all,
bye bye. Let the people know Kevin, that poor man.
You know the amount he put himself through to get
these Glee caps to the people before and these other
(39:49):
Glee caps existed. I'm very like it's sort of like
doing an analog, you know, like you had to stay awake,
watch it while it was.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
On, and make it then.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Things are so much easier now.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
I mean much easier, and there's just a better setup.
He was really working here the Yeah, he was a trailblazer.
Well I hope you guys enjoyed that. And you haven't
seen his Glee caps. You gotta go see him, Jim,
can't yellow Go check them out. They're brilliant, very funny.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
He's brilliant. Thank you Jim for joining us and sharing
all of those insane memories. Also, I sort of just
like want to have him back, just to talk about
all of his most insane interest people. I know that
has nothing to do with Glee, but like I'm also interested,
Like let us.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Know, let the people know. Thanks for coming and listening.
You guys, we love you.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
This feels earned this time, because and that's what you
really miss. Thanks for listening and follow us on Instagram
at and that's what you really miss pod. Make sure
to write us a review and leave us five stars.
See you next time,
Host
Jenna Ushkowitz
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