November 26, 2025 • 18 mins
It's Fandemonium! This week on Very Special Episodes, Dana, Zaron, and Jason respond to listener emails. They tell their Very Special origin stories, pick their favorite episodes, cast the movie version of the podcast, and preview the exciting stories coming this winter.
Happy Thanksgiving! Happy Thanksgiving Friday! And you can always reach us at veryspecialepisodes@gmail.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is an iHeart original.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome back to very special episodes, and this is a
very special, very special episodes because we're going to do
our first mail bag issue. We put out a call
for reader emails and you guys really came through, which
was very Not only just to get any emails is great,
but to get good questions that will hopefully make for
a good episode. I'm joined as always with Danish Swartz
(00:52):
and Zaren Burnette. Hey, yo, I'm going to start here.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hi all.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
This is from Katie. By the way, Josh, I don't
think this is your wife, Katie. It's not my daughter, Katie.
I think actual listener. Hi all, curious as to how
each of you got connected to very special episodes. Who
conceived of the idea of this my current favorite podcast
and flattery gets you everywhere in the mailbag segment. So
(01:18):
we'll take Katie's question first.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Jason, I feel like you should kind of take the
lead on this one.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah, I mean you were the mastermind.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, I'll tell you how this all came together. When
I started here in twenty twenty, we were making a
lot of limited series, which are great, and that's how
we both started working in podcasting. With both of you
doing Black Cowboys and Haleywood and Stealing Superman, and the
appetite for those series got a little bit less in
(01:49):
the years, but we had so many good ideas, and
our head of development here, a woman named Nikki Atore,
came to me at one point and said, well, could
you do one story per episode and just keep the
show on all the time. I thought, well, we had
note cards of ideas that we wanted to do. Maybe
we're not ever going to get to do the eight
episode version, but I'd love to still tell these stories.
(02:11):
And so I reached out to both of you, thinking, like,
no one cares about this podcast if it's just me
on here telling these stories. I need some proven commodities
in the podcast space, and thankfully each of you have
agreed to do this.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Jason, we sort of have an interesting origin story, which
is when I was a senior in college, I was
like really desperately trying to make money as a writer
and try to figure out whether I could be a
writer as a career. And I wrote to Mental Floss
with a few pitches of articles that I wanted to
write as like a freelance writer, and you mercifully I
(02:47):
think pulled me out of a slush pile, let me
write to Mental Floss articles that after I graduated, I
moved to New York and kept writing for Mental Floss,
and then our paths diverged and it was years later
that we reconnected in the podcast world. You've been my
guardian angel multiple times in my career.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I love that story.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
To describe your pitches as like one of many in
a pile. This is like you ever see those sports
movies where I scout see somebody just so outperforming their
peers and like, Woho's that person? That was my reaction
to reading your pages of pitches and just nodding like, yeah, yes,
(03:27):
how have we not done that before? We got to
do all these and so I have not been surprised
to watch your career blow up from your early days
Brown and Mental Floss.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Well, thank you, Jason, and it's been such a pleasure
of working with you Data. I mean, I didn't know
you before this show, but I'm so glad that I
know you now, because you are quite a talent. I
gotta agree with Jason on that.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Zara and I feel the same way. I'm honestly so
grateful to very special episodes for connecting me with you
this amazing group and getting able to like learn genuinely.
I love every time I record an episode because I
get to learn something that I didn't know about.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Same same It's such a fun experience of both learning
and then also the curiosity gets paid off because the
stories are so fun, but they're also emotionally compelling.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
It's been a blast, and zaren a similar experience with
you where we did not know each other. I had
a friend who really understands the digital media and what's important,
and I'll meet with her about once a year, and
there was a time, maybe twenty nineteen, she said, watch
what MEL magazine is doing. They're doing more interesting stuff
(04:29):
than anyone else. They're taking chances, they're writing stories nobody else.
And so I started reading Mel, and I started gravitating
to anything with your byline and just thought like, how's
he coming up with this stuff? And then very well written,
deeply reported stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
And so when I got here and was tasked with
let's go make some new shows, I kind of in
a panic sent you a blind direct message asking if
you'd ever thought about doing a podcast, and thankfully you
also responded to my plea and here we are years later.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Oh it was a great I remember we helped on
the phone call and I was like, this guy, that's dope.
This should be fun. Because I was a little hesitant
because I was like, you know, deep into journalism and
I didn't really know much about podcasting. But I loved radio,
and I was like, Okay, well it's basically the same
as radio, so let me just think that if I
can pull this off. But you gave me the confidence
that it would be fun, so I was like, all right,
let's try this a new adventure. All right.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Let's move on to a question from Carter, and again
the flattery's right to the top of the podcast. I
love your podcast. Your stories are interesting, well written, and
Dana is easy to listen to.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
After hearing all of your very special episodes. My favorite
is the Arctic Balloon, so that's a recent one. I'm
curious to know each of your favorite episodes. Keep the
stories coming. Anyone to have a favorite, I.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Think I do. I like Westward Hoax, which was the
one about Palisade, Nevada, about whether this town was faking
Wild West fights for tourists. I think because it's sort
of a double hoax. It's possible that these writers were
just inventing this sort of interesting story to dazzle I
don't know newspaper readers. There's a Mark Twain cameo. That's
(06:10):
my favorite episode. I think I just love a hoax. Obviously.
I have another podcast with iHeartRadio called Hoax exclamation Point.
We actually did do a very deep, deep dive into
Palisade and the Mark Twain several other Mark Twain hoaxes.
I love a good hoax.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
That was such a good episode. Actually, I had that
on my short list of favorite episodes. So I'm gonna
go with one of my other choices, which is the
attempted Sinking of the Titanic. It was our first episode,
and the story is the last day of filming Nova Scotia.
They had the whole cast and crew there and then
they get dosed with PCP and then the whole set
just goes wild, or basically everybody who was on the
set goes wild. And it's a mystery. You know, you
(06:46):
get this like who did it? Who would want to
even like dose everybody with PCP? And then the imagery
of like the wheelchair race to the Hospital, the James
Cameron to Bill Paxton grabbing beer just like you know,
like we're just gonna drink our way through this. I
just thought that one was a really fun one. What
about you, Jason Classic. Yeah, this is hard.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
This is like picking a favor child, which I will
do if that question comes up in the mailbag. I'm
going to go with an episode from last year. We
called it Et and Me, and it's the story of
the kid actor who was inside the ET costume for
some of the stunt work, and Jake Rosson got a
(07:26):
great interview with him, and you get some good movie history.
You get a lot of family, interpersonal, tragedy, drama, but
also just love spending time with him and reliving his experience.
And sometimes someone new will come on and ask for
(07:47):
sample episodes just to kind of get up to speed.
They can't go back and listen to everything they should.
I will send them that. I will send them Andy
the sneaker wearing Goose just topic selection wise, that's a
classic we did with our friends at Wonder Media, and
really like this could be the whole podcast, just me
(08:07):
listening out because they're all my favorites. That's a cop out,
but oh wait.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
I also want to shout out eleanor Roosevelt. Yes, Amelia Earhart.
Their flight, that's the one that I really love.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
I had that also my short list. That was, oh
my god, that was the best them in their nightgown
or the evening gowns rather but going up in the
plane top of the world, unobstructive view.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
I loved that one, especially because something that seems like
such a fun like tidbit and then you're like, everything
was a.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Pr move, everything's pr all right, Hi, very special people.
I started listening to the show earlier this fall, and
I'm slowly getting to the older episodes. One of my
favorite parts of the show is when Zaren casts the
movie version of the story you told me the episode
thank you. If you had to cast a movie version
(08:53):
of the Very Special Episodes podcast, who would play each
of you? Thanks for keeping me entertained at work?
Speaker 1 (09:00):
This feels dangerous.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Definitely, definitely dangerous. This is a great question from Jill.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Totally great question, and I promise I did give this
thought and really thank you again. That was a nice compliment, Joe.
So I was like, okay, let me rack my brains.
I want to have ones that both fit but also
are fun, and it's like, you guys go walk away
with going what why him? Why her? So I'll start
with you, Jason. I needed somebody who was smart and
kind and open hearted and decent. So I was like, okay,
(09:26):
that's kind of a heavy lift in Hollywood. But I
came up with two either Jason Sudeikis without the mustache
or Chris Pine. Both of them I thought were both
really like curious, decent, open hearted guys, and I was like, okay,
so those are my picks. Both of them obviously would
have to wear glasses, but I thought either one of
them would do the trick. I'll take it. That's good, Okay, cool. Now.
For Dana, I was like, okay, I need someone who's
(09:46):
smart and savvy but also has that great voice and
a good laugh. And so I came up with two.
I had Eva Green or Scarlet Johansson.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
What are you kidding me? Okay, Yig, sure? How much
did I have to pay you? And I'm sure Margot
Robbie too, Natalie Partman, but thank you.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I'm glad you'd liked it. No, for me, I had
to go with someone a little bit eccentric and kind
of odd and obviously care so I really only had
one choice. Just can jump right to the top of
the list, which was Lakeith Stanfield. Yes, we did that work, okay,
So first, that's perfect the producer, Josh, I also went
and casted you because I wanted to get a shout
out for you. So I had kind of a tough
one with this one because I was like, Okay, there's
(10:22):
Charlie Huntum from The Gentleman, there's Travis Fimble for Vikings.
But I thought again, I was like, you know what,
I think the best one because I need somebody who's
you know, intelligent, somebody who has obviously, you know, great ears,
but also has a great sense of the flow. So
I went with the rapper mac miller rip mac miller Ow.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Although, as you said, Charlie whun I'm like, I really
see that, right, I think that's like a really good pull.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
So there you go. That's my cast for the crew.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
That's pretty good, Dana, you break the screenplay for that. Yes,
I'm on it all right, Dear Dana's Aaron Jason and
team love your show. I hope one day you'll take
the show on tour. Are there any plans for a
live event that's from Blaine. Tour is probably a little
bit more. I think that would be overshooting the size
(11:09):
of the actual audience. But maybe a live events. Aaron
and I did something in Venice, lest I guess I
was earlier this year at the lighthouse there. They have
already invited us back, Dana. Maybe we can get you
to come over to the West side for that. Yeah,
then the same tour can follow us. Have you done
Noble Blood or Ridiculous Crime tours yet?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
No? No, we've talked about it.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I would have no idea how to do that. No
one has talked to me, and that the idea seems
very intimidating. But if you are someone who knows how
to do a live tour or has an idea for
how Noble Blood should be alive, or please let me know.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Hello, VS, I'm writing the week before Thanksgiving. Do your
families have any unique holiday traditions? Your answer can relate
to any holiday, not just Thanksgiving. Thank you Carolyn for
giving us some leeway here. You guys have any Thanksgiving
or other holiday traditions.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
We watched the parade, we watched the dog show. Those
are classics. I would say the only like sort of
like weird unique tradition we have that it comes to
mind is for Passover, where we used to make like
a home video version of the Passover story every year
and like cast each other. Like my older sister and
I would swap whose nepher Titi and who's Miriam and
(12:25):
then my little sister. Even as she got older, my
baby sister, Hallie was always baby Moses getting hold from
the bathtub. So yeah, I love that she was like
too big to still be naked into that.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
So in my family, when my sister and I got
out of college and were having families of our own
and everyone started kind of moving away, my mom did
a very smart thing, which was plant a flag on
Thanksgiving Friday. She branded it and the idea was like,
I know, everyone's pulled in a bunch of directions and
(12:59):
the time might not work out on Thanksgiving, But on
Thanksgiving Friday, I'm going to get a tent. We're going
to put up big table in the backyard. We'll get
it catered, and everybody came. No one had excuses for
many years, but the only time I saw many of
my relatives on that day, my Aunt Laura's kept up
the tradition, we'll go see her on Friday this year,
(13:22):
So I staunch advocate for Thanksgiving Friday or slightly alternative
holiday schedules.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Catering is clutched because no one will want to cook.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Yeah right, not two days in a row, super smart
and better than I mean, no offense to leftovers. But
you have that to look forward to too, you know.
Now you guys have like a double dipping on the
deliciousness we'll see. For my Thanksgiving family tradition, there was
always the question of who will Zreon bring to Thanksgiving,
because like every year I'd bring some friend or somebody
from college or somebody who was like a roommate who
(13:51):
just couldn't either make it home or didn't want to
go home, but they wanted some family time. And my
family's very accepting, and also there's just kind of like
some odd characters and their fun folks to hang out with.
So it was always like, who's there going to bring
this year? And then I also have another one, which
is at for Christmas, I have to go to church
with my mother. Then I have to have her priest
guilt me about never seeing me in the flock the
rest of the year. So there's that as what huh?
Speaker 2 (14:13):
All right, let's see. Okay, this from Anna. I heard
you were doing a mail bag episode and decided to
write in with a question, why do you call it
a mail bag episode? I'm not saying I don't understand
the term. What I'm saying is everyone calls their listener
email segment a mail bag. Shouldn't you come up with something?
(14:33):
Dare I say special or at least original? So Anna
taking us to task? Good question. I spent a little
time on this, and I'm still scrambling to try to
come up with anything to say.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
A letter sec I'm trying to think of, like basically,
I mean, she really pretty intelligently identified something that I
think is called a retronym if I remember correctly, which
is like, it's not actually a physical mail bag anymore,
but we still use it. Why don't we just call
it an email dump?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Oh? I love email dump? You know. Also, I was
thinking we could either include very special listener letters or
listener can But then I had more fun with the
idea of our pandemonium episode. It's pandemonium but with fans. Oh,
I like that we can brand that.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Well, I'll run that by Anna and see, he says,
if she'll accept that this is from Maura, I'm a
very special listener. I've listened to every episode since you
asked for questions, I'll ask this, what topics will you
be covering this winter? We got a lot packed schedule.
Josh and I were just going over the calendar for
(15:37):
the next few months. We've got some Olympics stuff, We've
got Super Bowl. We've got some variations on the format
where Dana and Zara have gone into the field to
do some original historical reporting. If that's a term that
makes us, Zara or Dana anything stand out that we've
(15:58):
recorded recently.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
I mean, I'm very very excited for the very special,
very special episode that I'm working on now. I don't
want to spoil too much, but I, as Jason said,
it went into the field, took some pictures, did a
little investigating, and I hope we can do more of
this type of episode in the future.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Ooh nice. Well, in line with the Titanic PCP episode,
I took on another great drug inspired urban legend, which
is what I knew urban legend. I guess you's very
much factual, which is the picture of Doc Ellis pitched
a perfect game, or rather a no hitter on Acid
and I went and talked to a bunch of people
about that, including his wife, and got the inside story.
(16:37):
So that one's a fun one. I think, Joshua have
a lot of fun with it.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Good next few months. All right, Well, I think that
wraps it up here for our initial Pandemonium episode. I
want to thank everyone for seriously, for anyone who's listens
to the show, that's amazing to listen and take the
time to write in also even more amazing, and I
want to thank you Dana Zarin, josh everyone behind the
(17:02):
scenes here. This is a dream to get to work
on this show. And I'm very proud of all the
great stories we've been able to put out into the world.
More to come, Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving Friday, and we
will see you here next Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Thank you so much. It's such a privilege to be
able to do this show.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Yeah, completely, thank you for the listener emailed and all
of the kind words, and just happy Thanksgiving and happy
Holidays to everybody.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
And thank you for putting me in the same sentence
as Ava Green.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people,
including Danish Schwartz and Zaren Burnett. Senior producer Josh Fisher.
Today's episode was edited by Josh Fisher. Original music by
Alisa McCoy, Show logo by Lucy Cantonia. Thanks again to
everyone who wrote in. Sorry we didn't get to all
your questions, but they're now preserved in the Pandemonium Google doc.
(17:58):
I just renamed it Reyese, Gail Matthew, Derek Lydia. We're
going to get to yours next time. I promise, Happy Thanksgiving.
Very Special Episodes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
This is an iHeart original.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome back to very special episodes, and this is a
very special, very special episodes because we're going to do
our first mail bag issue. We put out a call
for reader emails and you guys really came through, which
was very Not only just to get any emails is great,
but to get good questions that will hopefully make for
a good episode. I'm joined as always with Danish Swartz
(00:52):
and Zaren Burnette. Hey, yo, I'm going to start here.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hi all.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
This is from Katie. By the way, Josh, I don't
think this is your wife, Katie. It's not my daughter, Katie.
I think actual listener. Hi all, curious as to how
each of you got connected to very special episodes. Who
conceived of the idea of this my current favorite podcast
and flattery gets you everywhere in the mailbag segment. So
(01:18):
we'll take Katie's question first.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Jason, I feel like you should kind of take the
lead on this one.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah, I mean you were the mastermind.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, I'll tell you how this all came together. When
I started here in twenty twenty, we were making a
lot of limited series, which are great, and that's how
we both started working in podcasting. With both of you
doing Black Cowboys and Haleywood and Stealing Superman, and the
appetite for those series got a little bit less in
(01:49):
the years, but we had so many good ideas, and
our head of development here, a woman named Nikki Atore,
came to me at one point and said, well, could
you do one story per episode and just keep the
show on all the time. I thought, well, we had
note cards of ideas that we wanted to do. Maybe
we're not ever going to get to do the eight
episode version, but I'd love to still tell these stories.
(02:11):
And so I reached out to both of you, thinking, like,
no one cares about this podcast if it's just me
on here telling these stories. I need some proven commodities
in the podcast space, and thankfully each of you have
agreed to do this.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Jason, we sort of have an interesting origin story, which
is when I was a senior in college, I was
like really desperately trying to make money as a writer
and try to figure out whether I could be a
writer as a career. And I wrote to Mental Floss
with a few pitches of articles that I wanted to
write as like a freelance writer, and you mercifully I
(02:47):
think pulled me out of a slush pile, let me
write to Mental Floss articles that after I graduated, I
moved to New York and kept writing for Mental Floss,
and then our paths diverged and it was years later
that we reconnected in the podcast world. You've been my
guardian angel multiple times in my career.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I love that story.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
To describe your pitches as like one of many in
a pile. This is like you ever see those sports
movies where I scout see somebody just so outperforming their
peers and like, Woho's that person? That was my reaction
to reading your pages of pitches and just nodding like, yeah, yes,
(03:27):
how have we not done that before? We got to
do all these and so I have not been surprised
to watch your career blow up from your early days
Brown and Mental Floss.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Well, thank you, Jason, and it's been such a pleasure
of working with you Data. I mean, I didn't know
you before this show, but I'm so glad that I
know you now, because you are quite a talent. I
gotta agree with Jason on that.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Zara and I feel the same way. I'm honestly so
grateful to very special episodes for connecting me with you
this amazing group and getting able to like learn genuinely.
I love every time I record an episode because I
get to learn something that I didn't know about.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Same same It's such a fun experience of both learning
and then also the curiosity gets paid off because the
stories are so fun, but they're also emotionally compelling.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
It's been a blast, and zaren a similar experience with
you where we did not know each other. I had
a friend who really understands the digital media and what's important,
and I'll meet with her about once a year, and
there was a time, maybe twenty nineteen, she said, watch
what MEL magazine is doing. They're doing more interesting stuff
(04:29):
than anyone else. They're taking chances, they're writing stories nobody else.
And so I started reading Mel, and I started gravitating
to anything with your byline and just thought like, how's
he coming up with this stuff? And then very well written,
deeply reported stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
And so when I got here and was tasked with
let's go make some new shows, I kind of in
a panic sent you a blind direct message asking if
you'd ever thought about doing a podcast, and thankfully you
also responded to my plea and here we are years later.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Oh it was a great I remember we helped on
the phone call and I was like, this guy, that's dope.
This should be fun. Because I was a little hesitant
because I was like, you know, deep into journalism and
I didn't really know much about podcasting. But I loved radio,
and I was like, Okay, well it's basically the same
as radio, so let me just think that if I
can pull this off. But you gave me the confidence
that it would be fun, so I was like, all right,
let's try this a new adventure. All right.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Let's move on to a question from Carter, and again
the flattery's right to the top of the podcast. I
love your podcast. Your stories are interesting, well written, and
Dana is easy to listen to.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
After hearing all of your very special episodes. My favorite
is the Arctic Balloon, so that's a recent one. I'm
curious to know each of your favorite episodes. Keep the
stories coming. Anyone to have a favorite, I.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Think I do. I like Westward Hoax, which was the
one about Palisade, Nevada, about whether this town was faking
Wild West fights for tourists. I think because it's sort
of a double hoax. It's possible that these writers were
just inventing this sort of interesting story to dazzle I
don't know newspaper readers. There's a Mark Twain cameo. That's
(06:10):
my favorite episode. I think I just love a hoax. Obviously.
I have another podcast with iHeartRadio called Hoax exclamation Point.
We actually did do a very deep, deep dive into
Palisade and the Mark Twain several other Mark Twain hoaxes.
I love a good hoax.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
That was such a good episode. Actually, I had that
on my short list of favorite episodes. So I'm gonna
go with one of my other choices, which is the
attempted Sinking of the Titanic. It was our first episode,
and the story is the last day of filming Nova Scotia.
They had the whole cast and crew there and then
they get dosed with PCP and then the whole set
just goes wild, or basically everybody who was on the
set goes wild. And it's a mystery. You know, you
(06:46):
get this like who did it? Who would want to
even like dose everybody with PCP? And then the imagery
of like the wheelchair race to the Hospital, the James
Cameron to Bill Paxton grabbing beer just like you know,
like we're just gonna drink our way through this. I
just thought that one was a really fun one. What
about you, Jason Classic. Yeah, this is hard.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
This is like picking a favor child, which I will
do if that question comes up in the mailbag. I'm
going to go with an episode from last year. We
called it Et and Me, and it's the story of
the kid actor who was inside the ET costume for
some of the stunt work, and Jake Rosson got a
(07:26):
great interview with him, and you get some good movie history.
You get a lot of family, interpersonal, tragedy, drama, but
also just love spending time with him and reliving his experience.
And sometimes someone new will come on and ask for
(07:47):
sample episodes just to kind of get up to speed.
They can't go back and listen to everything they should.
I will send them that. I will send them Andy
the sneaker wearing Goose just topic selection wise, that's a
classic we did with our friends at Wonder Media, and
really like this could be the whole podcast, just me
(08:07):
listening out because they're all my favorites. That's a cop out,
but oh wait.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
I also want to shout out eleanor Roosevelt. Yes, Amelia Earhart.
Their flight, that's the one that I really love.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
I had that also my short list. That was, oh
my god, that was the best them in their nightgown
or the evening gowns rather but going up in the
plane top of the world, unobstructive view.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
I loved that one, especially because something that seems like
such a fun like tidbit and then you're like, everything
was a.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Pr move, everything's pr all right, Hi, very special people.
I started listening to the show earlier this fall, and
I'm slowly getting to the older episodes. One of my
favorite parts of the show is when Zaren casts the
movie version of the story you told me the episode
thank you. If you had to cast a movie version
(08:53):
of the Very Special Episodes podcast, who would play each
of you? Thanks for keeping me entertained at work?
Speaker 1 (09:00):
This feels dangerous.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Definitely, definitely dangerous. This is a great question from Jill.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Totally great question, and I promise I did give this
thought and really thank you again. That was a nice compliment, Joe.
So I was like, okay, let me rack my brains.
I want to have ones that both fit but also
are fun, and it's like, you guys go walk away
with going what why him? Why her? So I'll start
with you, Jason. I needed somebody who was smart and
kind and open hearted and decent. So I was like, okay,
(09:26):
that's kind of a heavy lift in Hollywood. But I
came up with two either Jason Sudeikis without the mustache
or Chris Pine. Both of them I thought were both
really like curious, decent, open hearted guys, and I was like, okay,
so those are my picks. Both of them obviously would
have to wear glasses, but I thought either one of
them would do the trick. I'll take it. That's good, Okay, cool. Now.
For Dana, I was like, okay, I need someone who's
(09:46):
smart and savvy but also has that great voice and
a good laugh. And so I came up with two.
I had Eva Green or Scarlet Johansson.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
What are you kidding me? Okay, Yig, sure? How much
did I have to pay you? And I'm sure Margot
Robbie too, Natalie Partman, but thank you.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I'm glad you'd liked it. No, for me, I had
to go with someone a little bit eccentric and kind
of odd and obviously care so I really only had
one choice. Just can jump right to the top of
the list, which was Lakeith Stanfield. Yes, we did that work, okay,
So first, that's perfect the producer, Josh, I also went
and casted you because I wanted to get a shout
out for you. So I had kind of a tough
one with this one because I was like, Okay, there's
(10:22):
Charlie Huntum from The Gentleman, there's Travis Fimble for Vikings.
But I thought again, I was like, you know what,
I think the best one because I need somebody who's
you know, intelligent, somebody who has obviously, you know, great ears,
but also has a great sense of the flow. So
I went with the rapper mac miller rip mac miller Ow.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Although, as you said, Charlie whun I'm like, I really
see that, right, I think that's like a really good pull.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
So there you go. That's my cast for the crew.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
That's pretty good, Dana, you break the screenplay for that. Yes,
I'm on it all right, Dear Dana's Aaron Jason and
team love your show. I hope one day you'll take
the show on tour. Are there any plans for a
live event that's from Blaine. Tour is probably a little
bit more. I think that would be overshooting the size
(11:09):
of the actual audience. But maybe a live events. Aaron
and I did something in Venice, lest I guess I
was earlier this year at the lighthouse there. They have
already invited us back, Dana. Maybe we can get you
to come over to the West side for that. Yeah,
then the same tour can follow us. Have you done
Noble Blood or Ridiculous Crime tours yet?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
No? No, we've talked about it.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I would have no idea how to do that. No
one has talked to me, and that the idea seems
very intimidating. But if you are someone who knows how
to do a live tour or has an idea for
how Noble Blood should be alive, or please let me know.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Hello, VS, I'm writing the week before Thanksgiving. Do your
families have any unique holiday traditions? Your answer can relate
to any holiday, not just Thanksgiving. Thank you Carolyn for
giving us some leeway here. You guys have any Thanksgiving
or other holiday traditions.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
We watched the parade, we watched the dog show. Those
are classics. I would say the only like sort of
like weird unique tradition we have that it comes to
mind is for Passover, where we used to make like
a home video version of the Passover story every year
and like cast each other. Like my older sister and
I would swap whose nepher Titi and who's Miriam and
(12:25):
then my little sister. Even as she got older, my
baby sister, Hallie was always baby Moses getting hold from
the bathtub. So yeah, I love that she was like
too big to still be naked into that.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
So in my family, when my sister and I got
out of college and were having families of our own
and everyone started kind of moving away, my mom did
a very smart thing, which was plant a flag on
Thanksgiving Friday. She branded it and the idea was like,
I know, everyone's pulled in a bunch of directions and
(12:59):
the time might not work out on Thanksgiving, But on
Thanksgiving Friday, I'm going to get a tent. We're going
to put up big table in the backyard. We'll get
it catered, and everybody came. No one had excuses for
many years, but the only time I saw many of
my relatives on that day, my Aunt Laura's kept up
the tradition, we'll go see her on Friday this year,
(13:22):
So I staunch advocate for Thanksgiving Friday or slightly alternative
holiday schedules.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Catering is clutched because no one will want to cook.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Yeah right, not two days in a row, super smart
and better than I mean, no offense to leftovers. But
you have that to look forward to too, you know.
Now you guys have like a double dipping on the
deliciousness we'll see. For my Thanksgiving family tradition, there was
always the question of who will Zreon bring to Thanksgiving,
because like every year I'd bring some friend or somebody
from college or somebody who was like a roommate who
(13:51):
just couldn't either make it home or didn't want to
go home, but they wanted some family time. And my
family's very accepting, and also there's just kind of like
some odd characters and their fun folks to hang out with.
So it was always like, who's there going to bring
this year? And then I also have another one, which
is at for Christmas, I have to go to church
with my mother. Then I have to have her priest
guilt me about never seeing me in the flock the
rest of the year. So there's that as what huh?
Speaker 2 (14:13):
All right, let's see. Okay, this from Anna. I heard
you were doing a mail bag episode and decided to
write in with a question, why do you call it
a mail bag episode? I'm not saying I don't understand
the term. What I'm saying is everyone calls their listener
email segment a mail bag. Shouldn't you come up with something?
(14:33):
Dare I say special or at least original? So Anna
taking us to task? Good question. I spent a little
time on this, and I'm still scrambling to try to
come up with anything to say.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
A letter sec I'm trying to think of, like basically,
I mean, she really pretty intelligently identified something that I
think is called a retronym if I remember correctly, which
is like, it's not actually a physical mail bag anymore,
but we still use it. Why don't we just call
it an email dump?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Oh? I love email dump? You know. Also, I was
thinking we could either include very special listener letters or
listener can But then I had more fun with the
idea of our pandemonium episode. It's pandemonium but with fans. Oh,
I like that we can brand that.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Well, I'll run that by Anna and see, he says,
if she'll accept that this is from Maura, I'm a
very special listener. I've listened to every episode since you
asked for questions, I'll ask this, what topics will you
be covering this winter? We got a lot packed schedule.
Josh and I were just going over the calendar for
(15:37):
the next few months. We've got some Olympics stuff, We've
got Super Bowl. We've got some variations on the format
where Dana and Zara have gone into the field to
do some original historical reporting. If that's a term that
makes us, Zara or Dana anything stand out that we've
(15:58):
recorded recently.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
I mean, I'm very very excited for the very special,
very special episode that I'm working on now. I don't
want to spoil too much, but I, as Jason said,
it went into the field, took some pictures, did a
little investigating, and I hope we can do more of
this type of episode in the future.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Ooh nice. Well, in line with the Titanic PCP episode,
I took on another great drug inspired urban legend, which
is what I knew urban legend. I guess you's very
much factual, which is the picture of Doc Ellis pitched
a perfect game, or rather a no hitter on Acid
and I went and talked to a bunch of people
about that, including his wife, and got the inside story.
(16:37):
So that one's a fun one. I think, Joshua have
a lot of fun with it.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Good next few months. All right, Well, I think that
wraps it up here for our initial Pandemonium episode. I
want to thank everyone for seriously, for anyone who's listens
to the show, that's amazing to listen and take the
time to write in also even more amazing, and I
want to thank you Dana Zarin, josh everyone behind the
(17:02):
scenes here. This is a dream to get to work
on this show. And I'm very proud of all the
great stories we've been able to put out into the world.
More to come, Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving Friday, and we
will see you here next Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Thank you so much. It's such a privilege to be
able to do this show.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Yeah, completely, thank you for the listener emailed and all
of the kind words, and just happy Thanksgiving and happy
Holidays to everybody.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
And thank you for putting me in the same sentence
as Ava Green.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people,
including Danish Schwartz and Zaren Burnett. Senior producer Josh Fisher.
Today's episode was edited by Josh Fisher. Original music by
Alisa McCoy, Show logo by Lucy Cantonia. Thanks again to
everyone who wrote in. Sorry we didn't get to all
your questions, but they're now preserved in the Pandemonium Google doc.
(17:58):
I just renamed it Reyese, Gail Matthew, Derek Lydia. We're
going to get to yours next time. I promise, Happy Thanksgiving.
Very Special Episodes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Host
Jamie Loftus
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