June 21, 2025 • 60 mins
Marty sits down with Jonny Vance, co-founder and writer/director of Tuttle Twins, to discuss creating educational content for children that teaches Austrian economics and libertarian principles, the crowdfunding model through Angel Studios, and how they're competing against mainstream Hollywood's propaganda while preparing the next generation with critical thinking skills about money, freedom, and economics.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You've had a dynamic where money has become freer than free.
(00:10):
If you talk about a Fed just gone nuts, all the central banks going nuts.
So it's all acting like safe haven.
I believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their
currency, Bitcoin wins. In the world of fiat currencies, Bitcoin is the victor.
I mean, that's part of the bull case for Bitcoin.
(00:31):
If you're not paying attention, you probably should be.
Johnny Vance, welcome to the show.
Thanks, Marty. So great to be here.
I don't know if this is bigger for me or for you, because you have had a direct impact on the education of my two children, particularly my older son.
(00:54):
But the younger son picks it up, too, as a writer and director for Tuttle Twins, an incredibly educational and based cartoon that as a parent, I feel comfortable allowing my children to watch.
So thank you for doing that.
Thanks for having me, man.
I mean, we just make this show in a dinky little office.
(01:15):
And so the fact that it's in people's living rooms is always a surprise to us.
We just see numbers on a screen.
And so we're like, wow.
So, yeah, an honor to be in your living room, Marty.
Well, that's what I'm curious.
I mean, it's such a great idea because I think that's a big topic, particularly in Bitcoin circles, but even more broadly with millennial parents.
(01:39):
And obviously a big topic is screen time, whether or not you give a kid an iPad, whether you let them watch TV, if you do, for how long, what shows.
And I think over the last couple of decades, the spectrum of content available for kids has become incredibly woke or incredibly dumbed down.
(02:03):
And it's hard as a parent because sometimes you do need a 30 to an hour break to get something done.
And sometimes the screen is the best thing to do if they're tired playing for the day.
and it's hard to find good content and when Puddle Twins first came out we immediately became
guild members and and felt very comfortable putting the boys uh in front of in front of
(02:28):
a screen to watch this content because it's incredibly educational and more importantly
uh its values align with what our values are as parents what we'd like to convey to to the boys
about values and things they should be learning about at a young age.
That's so awesome. Yeah. I mean, I make the show and I limit screen time for my kids. And so I'm
(02:53):
right in the same boat with you. But it's like, who would you rather have babysit your kids? You
know, Elmo or Mises, you know, and if they can learn something that can help them in life,
That's been sort of our guiding North Star is let's make this as fun as Phineas and Ferb, but let's put in lessons from these Austrian economists or, you know, anti-Marxist lessons or kind of reveal things.
(03:21):
So kids are equipped with critical thinking skills for the real world.
So it's really cool to see you found value in what we're doing.
well i mean to that point too i think there's a mass misunderstanding of the ability for
children to pick up these topics because was it last week or two weeks ago i was sending you
a video of my son just um for some reason he was like daddy take a video i want to talk about
(03:46):
bitcoin and he was just spitting out facts that he learned from the two bitcoin focus episodes of
Tunnel Twins. And as a father, as a Bitcoiner, I was incredibly impressed at how well he picked up
on the themes and the facts around Bitcoin. To me, I truly believe he has internalized them and
(04:07):
intuitively understands the concepts where most people think you need to put your kids in front
of like Hot Wheels or Paw Patrol, whatever it be, something that's at their level. But I think people
really underestimate the ability for young children, specifically my son's five, to pick
up pretty complex topics if it's portrayed in a fun and educational way.
(04:30):
Kids are incredibly smart. I think, yeah, we've just dumbed them down or, you know,
underestimated them. My kid was, my son is six now and we were out fundraising, going door to
door. He was selling some cookies that he'd made and this woman tried to pay him in cash.
and he was like, I'd prefer not. And I said, sorry, he's worried about inflation.
(04:58):
And she's like, she was laughing. She ended up being a Tuttle Twins fan, but it's just so crazy.
Yeah, these kids can pick it up so fast. And I don't know about you, Marty, but like, I didn't
learn many of these principles until post-college. And so the fact that these kids are being set up,
Like just seeing that video of your son rattle off all these these truths and facts about Bitcoin and inflation is awesome.
(05:24):
Like these kids are miles ahead of where I was growing up and they're they're so set.
Yeah, my wife, one of her favorite sort of TikTok clips to send around or Twitter clips is the clip of the man on the street interview on the college campus where somebody from Tuttle Twins is asking about inflation.
(05:45):
and you have a bunch of 19 to 22 year olds who can't answer the question and you're going to
kids age six to 12 that can answer it pretty eloquently and on the spot.
It isn't, it's insane when, when you think about just how dumbed down society has become. And
again, going back to this idea that I think people really underappreciate that children
(06:08):
have the capacity to learn and actually want to learn. Um, I remember how excited the boys were
when the second Bitcoin episode came out, they sat down, they watched it once. And I think they
watched it like two or three times the days after that, but they were like excited to learn more
about Bitcoin and really, again, internalized it. And I guess, how did you get into
(06:34):
cartooning and how did you decide on this particular sort of medium and Tuttle Twins
of the show specifically. Yeah. So Daniel Harmon and I, we co-founded Tuttle Twins TV show.
We'd been at an ad agency called Harmer Brothers. That's where I started right out of school.
(06:56):
And so we were known for viral internet ads. So if you remember like the pooping unicorn for
squatty potty or like purple mattress or Lumi deodorant, we'd blown up a lot of brands and made
them a lot of money. But we were just kind of sick of doing it for other people. And we were
sick of not being able to do storytelling. We kind of had this itch for we want to tell stories.
(07:17):
And we had a good friend named Connor Boyack. And at the time, he'd written these books,
the Tuttle Twins original series. And we approached Connor and we're like, Connor,
we think we can crowdfund a TV show. We don't know. We don't know what the demand is like. But
you know, we have these storytelling chops, we can explain things, complex things like the
(07:38):
puerilectalis muscle in three minutes. You know, we can explain things really simply and we can
make them funny. What if we made a kids TV show about Tuttle Twins and, you know, basically made
it the MCU of Tuttle Twins. And Connor loved the idea. And then we launched a crowdfunding campaign
like 2019, right before the pandemic. And we were shocked to see all the demand that parents had
(08:03):
for the show. And we ended up raising $4.5 million from the crowd. We broke a record for
the most crowdfunded kids show. And we were just blown away by, oh my gosh, there's demand.
Parents want this. And so that, you know, season one was finished or was funded.
(08:23):
And it's been a grind ever since, but we've now, you know, completed season two, season three,
and we're going to be launching season four in the fall. And it really is all due to these parents
who crowdfunded it and continue to support us. And, uh, and, and we continue to be beholden to
them. I think that's a key part is we're serving this audience. We're not serving some agenda or
(08:48):
some other like metric or some kind of woke checkbox kind of thing. We are serving these
parents and we're here as a tool for you to teach the principles you already believe in
to your kids in an easy and fun way. And I think the model of Angel Studio is really cool too.
Like I mentioned, we're guild members. And I think in this day and age where you have
(09:12):
the behemoths like Disney, Netflix, Nickelodeon, Amazon as well, and like finding a unique way to
compete and provide optionality for parents looking to get their kids away from the slop is
extremely important. Totally. Do you want me to talk, go into the angel model?
(09:33):
Yeah. So like let's describe like the angel list or excuse me, the angel studio model.
So, so traditionally in Hollywood, you have kind of this top down, very centralized model where you
have this room full of executive producers, the Kathleen Kennedys of the world, green light,
what they think your kids need, right? It's very central planning. And then you get, you know,
(09:57):
you get the acolyte is what you get from that. And you get Snow White. And eventually Hollywood
has a reckoning, you know, several years down the road when they have box office bomb after bomb
after bomb. Angel's system is different where it's a bottom up decentralized kind of executive
model, a bit like Bitcoin, where nothing gets greenlit at Angel unless it passes the Guild.
(10:24):
Now, the Guild is a group of 1.2 million, basically, subscribers to Angel, but they're
also kind of executives.
And how it functions is it's the wisdom of the crowds kind of principle, where if you
read the book, The Wisdom of the Crowds, it basically shows that crowds, when they're
not in a mob, when they can think independently, they get things right much better than experts.
(10:48):
So you look at who wants to be a millionaire and ask the audience is more right than ask,
you know, call an expert. And it's the same principle here where, you know, you can show
something to these, the 1.2 million members of the Angel Guild. And if they like it,
it's probably going to do well in theaters. It's probably going to do well over the long term.
(11:09):
And it's just completing this feedback loop that Hollywood has just totally destroyed.
And so the end result is, I think this last year in 2024, Angel was top 10 in the studio box office.
And their Rotten Tomatoes popcorn meter, the audience score is a 95% on average.
(11:32):
And I think Disney's something like a 74 or something like that.
So they're the number one in the industry and it's all because they kind of create created it bottom up to listen to the audience.
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense to me because, again, going whether it's Tuttle Twins or any of the other content on on Angel, I think it's it's information and immediate different types of mediums and storylines that people are are thirsting for.
(12:04):
I think it was funny seeing the – I'm sure you've seen the trailer for Spaceballs, too.
And just the – they've made 32 Marvel Universe movies.
They've made how many Star Wars movies over the last three decades.
Like it's just a repeat.
You can tell there's really no creativity in Hollywood anymore,
(12:28):
which is ironic considering they're supposed to be one of the major creative forces in the world.
They've got sort of lazy, complacent, and I guess really industrialized in the sense that they know
what inputs will produce certain monetary outputs or at least did for a period of time.
But as you mentioned, that impact seems to be waning as people are like,
(12:51):
all right, I don't need another superhero movie. Let's go on to something new here.
Yeah, I, you know, in thinking about it, it's hard not to kind of step out of the Bitcoin mindset of fiat ruins everything. But I think there's a lot of weight to the idea that fiat has ruined film, where you look even like a decade or two ago, and movies were just much more high quality, like the VFX holds up way better than some of these, you know, most recent movies.
(13:23):
and you look at the kind of macro picture these studios operate on razor thin margins
they're beholden to wall street they're beholden to esg scores they're beholden to oscar kind of
quotas diversity quotas and um they have to operate at such short you know term thinking
(13:44):
such high time preference where i don't know about you my favorite trilogy is the lord of the rings
and just looking at the Lord of the Rings,
like even back then,
granted they had some subsidies too
to lessen the economic pressures,
but they could spend years preparing for that movie,
for all three movies.
Like there was like chain mail artists
(14:04):
who literally spent two years
making 80 million little chains for the armor of the movie you know and you just don have the time or the money the attention to be able to do that today Um and so I think as a result
we do get lots of, you know, really low risk bets, like sequels and reboots and everything.
(14:28):
And you can't tell original storytelling anymore. Yeah. It's like the, one of the
themes on X over the last week has been people making fun of the CGI of the new Superman movie.
It's just like incredibly piss poor. And that's like I've talked to,
got a couple of buddies in the film industry and that are becoming Bitcoiners and they're
(14:51):
like really interested to see how like Bitcoin as a treasury assets on the production company's
balance sheet could help them really reorient and get back to low time preference movie making,
which makes a lot of sense. If you have a long-term view, like four years, I don't know
how long it takes to make a movie from beginning to end, but if you have a production company,
(15:14):
it's going to make many movies. Deciding to put Bitcoin on your company balance sheet so that you
can actually create quality over the long run makes a lot of sense to me. And there's
really interesting ways that you can finance productions with Bitcoin now as well,
the early days. But that's something that excites me, like equipping production studios,
(15:36):
directors, writers with hard money that allows them to focus on their craft instead of being
pushed into this high velocity burn and churn sort of model just to get things out there to
to get revenue to make sure that you're outpacing inflation is incredibly exciting.
It's wild.
(15:56):
Yeah.
Angel announced this a few months ago, but they have a Bitcoin treasury.
So Angel Studios, I think to my knowledge is the first, you know, studio to have a Bitcoin
treasury.
So I think it's like 300 Bitcoin and counting so far.
But the long-term vision for that is exactly what you said, where they can have, they're
(16:16):
calling it an endowment for the arts where you could have your operating company, but then you
can have the Bitcoin treasury. So then you can really just, you know, tell stories that matter.
I think a lot of people from the angel crowd know angel from the chosen or from sound of freedom or
Tuttletons, but they don't. And then they look at the Bitcoin play and they're like, what it doesn't,
one of these things doesn't make sense. But the, the, the angel founders are big Bitcoiners.
(16:40):
They see the future of this. They see that, you know, Hollywood was built on the gold standard
and now you know we can go back to that renaissance of good storytelling when you have the time and
when you have you know the the money that appreciates faster than inflation so yeah it's
exciting just to see you know even in the next 10 years disney's operating i think last year they did
(17:04):
like 91 billion in revenue their their their profit was like 5 billion so they're operating
and most of that's coming from the parks it's not even coming from their movies like snow white
didn't help them with their profit margin so you know it's for us for bitcoiners just seeing where
(17:24):
this is going it's not i mean it might sound crazy now but having a bitcoin backed movie studio
surpassing a fiat based uh you know turd maker uh studio um that's not too far-fetched
no it's really not i didn't realize hollywood was built on the gold standard
(17:44):
yeah back in the day uh yeah bank bankers um well i think actually it was built on investment
before they started taking out debt right so the the movie makers had actually they owned their own
studios they owned their own theaters and then that was broken up but then they they uh leaned
into to gold as well yeah what uh what is the most rewarding part of of what you're building
(18:12):
at total twins and because it is i i think for another example um my sister-in-law uh she's in
the industry as well and she went to um she went to her my nephew's class for career day
and she had to explain Bitcoin and she actually just used a three minute clip from Tuttle Twins
(18:35):
to sort of convey the message of Bitcoin to my nephew's class.
And she said it was incredibly impactful.
And so it's like little, and that's the beauty of the guild and just what you build
because you can produce the show, launch it, and parents like myself, my sister-in-law watch it
and are like, oh, this is actually valuable.
(18:56):
And then you get it out to other kids at career day.
And I imagine there's many other examples of similar types of interactions that parents have had with other parents and children who have not been exposed to total twins.
Yeah. I mean, I was saying this before, but we just make this in a vacuum where we're just in a dinky little office.
(19:18):
And so it's those stories that definitely make me realize, oh, my gosh, we might be doing something here.
you know we've heard of kids uh asking their parents for allowance in bitcoin and the moms
being like i don't know how to get you bitcoin but having to figure it out we've heard of of kids
(19:39):
standing up to their their principals and teachers um we had a total kid who who had a gadsen flag on
his backpack and his teacher said that's a sign of slavery and the kid knew his history and said
no, it's not. And, and the teacher, the principal absolutely got roasted and the kid was in the
(20:00):
right. We had kids during the pandemic who saw our civil disobedience episode and decided not
to wear a mask to school and went to the principal's office. And so it's like those kinds of stories
where we actually see in practice kids building businesses, like acting out what they see in the
show, that's the fuel for us. It's just, wow. You know, maybe we could change the future of the
(20:24):
country with kids who are so much more prepared than we were and that know, frankly, a lot more
than many politicians. So yeah, it's, it's those little stories that, that really fuel us.
Well, to that last point, I think that's something I've become, or I've really been drawn to.
(20:47):
Is it better now?
Better now.
Yeah.
There we go.
To your last point, it's something I've been really drawn to since my first son was born.
In Bitcoin, we think about fix the money, fix the world.
And my day-to-day is focused on trying to educate as many people about Bitcoin, why it's important, how it works, and how they can use it.
(21:08):
And our core demo here at TFTC and in the newsletter is, I believe, 45 to 50-year-olds.
So we're talking to Gen X and then our second biggest demo is like 55 to 65 year olds.
So like eeking into the boomer reveal sort of landscape.
(21:29):
And I think I've become more convinced that I think the highest leverage, biggest return we're going to get in terms of Bitcoin education is Gen Z, younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha, our children.
And that's another thing, just resigning myself to the fact that, hey, this is going to be a long haul. And actually, the biggest impact we can have is teaching our children these principles from the get go.
(21:56):
And then they grow up internalizing that and applying it to their lives.
And maybe I could see a future where the biggest impact in terms of ushering in a Bitcoin standard is the kids who are five and six today actually applying that to their lives and demanding it because they understand these concepts.
(22:18):
Yeah, it's wild.
I think it's so much easier to teach these principles to kids who have not had to unlearn anything.
Like my son understands Bitcoin, no offense, but way better than my father-in-law.
Because he could just clearly see the emperor is naked and doesn't have to backpedal and say, no, but the clothes are there.
(22:42):
They're just transparent or, you know, whatever fiat games adults have to jump through.
Inflation is necessary.
Anyways, so it's, but I mean, it's so intuitive just to be first principles focused.
And kids get it. They totally get it.
Yeah. And you guys, you're I mean, you're obviously in Angel Studios now and anybody who's downloading Angel has access to Tuttle Twins.
(23:07):
But you've got something big working with the country of Argentina, which I mean, when you think about the potential impact you guys could have with this deal.
I'll let you describe it. That's when things get really exciting.
Yeah, so I'll choose my words carefully because we've had a massive hate campaign from the socialists in Argentina.
(23:31):
But yeah, we've been working with the country of Argentina to get Tuttle Twins on air.
Originally, when Millet won the election, he wanted to privatize the public TV in Argentina.
And keep in mind, this public TV channel called Paka Paka literally showed Marxist propaganda.
(23:52):
They have like something called La Asombrosa Karl Marx, where he's just going around with kids and Karl Marx is just awesome.
And so literal Marxist propaganda.
Mele wanted to shut it down.
The opposition wouldn't let him.
And so the second best thing is to put Tuttle Twins on the air.
So, which right now has, I mean, we've just gotten whole hit pieces written about Tuttle Twins.
(24:19):
They say, you know, they use Milton Friedman.
They use Hayek and they mention a cryptocurrency that Bukele likes.
That was supposed to be a dig.
And anyway, so they've done, they're doing their worst.
And we thought, you know, maybe the worst case scenario is that we privatize Argentine television.
great, but second best is we can get Tuttle Twins and these principles of freedom out to
(24:43):
millions of Argentine families. Well, this gets to a very interesting conversation. You mentioned
the term Marxist propaganda, and that's a whole other concept that I would love
the boys to really understand. I think you guys have touched on it too, is this whole concept of
propaganda. We grew up to learn that propaganda is a bad thing, which when used improperly,
(25:08):
It certainly can be. I would argue that Marxist propaganda is bad because it propagandizes people to do things that are not in their own self-interest or the self-interest of the collective.
But propaganda is a tool that needs to be wielded successfully and meticulously and in a very focused way by people who want their ideals and their principles to be conveyed and adopted.
(25:36):
And so that's something I focus on. I wear it on my sleeve at TFTC. Like, yes, I'm putting out propaganda.
Propaganda is effective when utilized and executed correctly. And it's something that we need to embrace.
Like I'm trying to propagandize my children via the Tuttle Twins. I'm not afraid to admit it.
(25:58):
Like, I think that's where those fence sitters lose the war. It's like everyone is propagating ideas.
if you're not going to propagate slash teach ideas to your kids, someone else will. Like
they're going to learn from the public school. They're going to learn from whatever garbage is
on Disney plus. Um, somebody is going to propagate. It might as well be the ideas that you believe in
(26:18):
and that you believe will set them up for success. I think we will do an episode on propaganda
and, and maybe talk, you know, Ed, uh, it was Edward Bernays or something who was kind of the
father of modern uh pr slash propaganda and how they uh you know got people to join world war one
through some of those films before movies in theaters bring full circle yeah it's something
(26:44):
that needs to be embraced more when like and the way to level the playing field to say hey like you
just mentioned you're going to be propagandized everywhere except that fact and join what uh
these days would be referred to i think the the propaganda wars are more commonly referred to as
meme warfare yeah these days and that's something i think bitcoiners have done an incredible job of
(27:06):
embracing and leaning into and thoughts of bitstein come to mind probably one of bitcoin's
best propagandists that exist out there i think what separates us from the propaganda from the
other side is we're very open like the writings on the packaging we're not trying to hide anything
(27:27):
from parents we're not trying to trojan horse kids where you know with some of the most recent movies
you can go in and just get bombarded by messages that were not on the packaging you know so yeah
what are some examples of uh subversive subversive propaganda in mainstream i mean you had that whole
debacle about the proud family reboot on Disney. Um, yeah, I mean, I feel like they're very common.
(27:55):
I don't want to maybe throw too much mud, but, uh, yeah, there's many, you just look at the
lineup of the past kids movies and probably 50% or more have something that was kind of,
they snuck in there. Yeah. Have you noticed any, um, any other writers, directors,
(28:17):
cartoonist for seeing what you and the team have done at Tuttle Twins and saying, Oh,
wow I should get into this Do you think you inspiring others to to get into this type of genre of of cartoon or or child programming Yeah I mean we we heard from many behind the scenes We love what
(28:38):
you guys are doing. We can't kind of publicly come out and say that, but keep up the good work.
Angel is kind of building this island for artists that just want to do art. And it's interesting,
Like you can't make it so divisive that none of the good talent from Hollywood will come over.
(28:59):
But there are many causative libertarian slash conservative actors, producers, directors in Hollywood that want to make great films with great messaging.
They just can't.
They get blackballed.
And so Angel is that escape valve.
And there's room for good stories.
There's room for conservative or libertarian or freedom thinking messaging.
(29:22):
And there's certainly appetite for it. It's just you can't go through the traditional gatekeepers. You can't go through Kathleen Kennedy. You have to go outside of that.
yeah and it's never been when you think of i wrote about this there's like a lot of doomerism
out there and times certainly aren't as best as they could be a lot of the fiat rift has leaked
(29:44):
into many parts of our lives but i like to look at the positive side of things the silver lining
like the the technology that we have today what we're doing right now different parts of the
country, recording a video, using mics. We'll distribute this over RSS, YouTube, Rumble,
and we'll get it out there, our newsletters. And you think of platforms like X, while they're
(30:10):
double-edged swords, they can feed you the algorithmic slop, or you can find signal if you
know how to filter through all the noise. It's never been easier for an independent creator to
put some hard work and passion into the project they really care about and then get it out to
the world, which makes me incredibly optimistic because I would not have probably if these tools
(30:36):
didn't exist, I probably wouldn't have learned the total twins because I was completely unaware
of Angel Studios until I started seeing Bitcoiners talk about total twins on X. And I was like,
yeah, I'm going to check this out.
It's incredible.
The modern day, as it stands in 2025,
it's never been easier to access the right information.
(30:57):
I think the focus needs to be on educating people
how to filter through all the noise
because there's a ton of noise and very little signal
in the noise-to-signal ratio.
But if you can find the signal, it's out there,
and people just need to be better equipped to find it.
yeah it used to be the signal was very very strong three channels johnny carson if you can
(31:22):
make it on that show everyone in america knew you right but now i guess the the benefit of it not
being so centralized is uh government can't control the public narrative nearly as much
and uh yeah i think the the disadvantage is yeah the good signal is a little bit harder to find
You have to weep through it.
(31:43):
I'm having flashbacks to TV Guide.
I remember TV Guide.
I remember going to my grandparents' house,
and when you try to plan your Friday night out at your grandparents,
it's like you get a TV Guide, and you look through what's it going to be on each channel,
and you're going to find it.
Thinking about how manual of a process and antiquated that seems today is insane.
(32:05):
Yeah, it is.
Yeah.
the uh what um so you guys are working on season four right now what are some that you mentioned
propaganda something you might want to touch on like what other what other topics like you guys
have covered a lot already in um the first three seasons but what like how how much more do you
(32:27):
think you guys have to dive into i mean as long as there's appetite our goal is to just have one
more season than the Simpsons. So just a small goal. But yeah, for season four, I think one thing
we've been conscious of is we don't want to black pill kids. And as we've gone season by season,
(32:48):
we can go more out on the branch for some of these topics. We can go down the rabbit hole.
and yeah so some of the topics that we're working on for season four is one is the overpopulation
myth we want kids to feel that the world is big enough for all of us and that more people more
(33:10):
problem solving so there was a clip I saw recently from Captain Planet back in the day and it's they
was so like they were just reading the population bomb and and spitting it out there towards kids
It's how damaging, like you shouldn't have big families because the world will end and,
and, um, the opposite's been true.
(33:31):
So we're really excited about that one.
We have some amazing guest stars that we haven't yet announced for its season four.
We have one on the, uh, uh, bad effects of charity, where if charity done wrong can just
totally create dependency of a nation and cripple entire industries.
And so it must be done correctly.
and, you know, teach a man to fish kind of message.
(33:54):
We have one on the food industrial complex that we're so excited to launch.
And to kind of go into both the cronyism that's happened behind the scenes.
And I think we'll have an anthropomorphic food pyramid that just finds out that she's a lie.
It's a food pyramid scheme of sorts.
(34:18):
Yeah, let's see what else.
Yeah, we have one on DEI. We're going to kind of, we're going to debunk it. We're going to have Thomas Sowell in the episode and just show kids, you know, equity versus merit. Let's focus on merit. So just, just stuff that hopefully they'll have the anecdote for a lot of the poison that they're going to be exposed to, you know, in the coming years in school.
(34:42):
Is Thomas Sowell going to do his own voice or?
So Thomas Sowell is a recluse
And so we're going to do a younger Thomas Sowell back in the day
But if we could get old Thomas Sowell
He only comes out for book signings
The Hoover Institute
That's right
Yeah
Those interviews are incredible
We'll see if we can get him at least a cameo
Is the goal
It's just it's kind of like pull the teeth to get him
(35:04):
Well it's like modern day
You can use like 11 labs to create his voice pretty accurately
Yeah
Most of the time, if somebody is living like Thomas, I mean, we just get the person. He is one of the greatest thinkers of our time and the most reclusive too.
And he's getting old. He's in his 90s, isn't he?
Yeah, he's 90s.
(35:25):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's fascinating.
I was thinking of the population. It is.
It's population that typically gets tied in with climate change and all that.
But I'm just thinking through my mind, I'm sure you guys are already well on your way to the lining.
But like you touch like Japan, like what's going on with their demographic.
(35:48):
Because it is something that kids really need to internalize, like our generation.
Yeah.
Like when you think about when we get older, there's going to be a problem with there already is a problem with Social Security.
But like you have many more people aging out than are coming below them.
And that's something I care deeply about is like later in life, like thinking like when my parent, my mom gets older, when my wife's parents get older, like how do we take care of them?
(36:16):
Like I don't want to push them into into a home like you need a strong economic foundation.
And I think more importantly, social foundations, really, that's what I would like to instill in my boys is like, hey, don't put us in a home when we're older.
Like we should live in a multigenerational house.
is something I would like to see.
(36:38):
I would like to see that trend come back
where we're not just dumping our own stuff.
Because I've had the incredible experience
of three out of my four grandparents have passed,
but each one of them died in their own home
and hospice surrounded by my aunts, my uncles,
my cousins, myself.
And that was an incredibly special experience
for all of us.
(36:59):
But it's something that's being lost today.
And part of this population bomb,
terrible propaganda is feeding into it.
Right, right.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I think I'm hopeful we return to that.
And I know, you know, people are saying,
well, robots are coming.
And so robots will take care of the old
with the inverted pyramid, you know, population problem.
(37:21):
But that would be a terrible way to go.
Just holding the hand of your robot.
Just looking into the eyes of your robot.
Yeah, it's going to be really important that we do it right and try and fix the problem.
I think for China, for South Korea, for Japan, it's like generations too late where we will see population collapse.
(37:47):
They really like looking backwards.
China internalized the population bomb much more than the U.S. did, even though it came.
Paul Ehrlich wrote, you know, he was a U.S. biologist.
um so yeah we're hoping paul sees our episode i think the last status on south korea specifically
(38:08):
is within two generations they'll have like a 90 population collapse if they don't turn things
around yeah which is i mean this gets a broader point like to your point like the population bomb
whether dei whatever it is like the the propaganda on what i think we would both agree is
built on the wrong set of principles and the wrong sort of perspective on the world has
(38:35):
strongly affected society broadly globally to the point where countries like China, Japan,
South Korea, the U.S. even to a certain extent has shot themselves in the foot and are doing
things that are counterproductive to the flourishing of their societies. And I just
(38:59):
thinking this part of my head, like, so I think what you're doing is extremely important because
we need mechanisms to turn the tide socially and psychologically to let people know,
no, humans are good. Uh, we, we were meant to be here. Like there are certain ways we should
interact in a society, in an economy to do things productively and that are beneficial
(39:21):
for the individual and the whole.
And going back to like the doomers and like I was a big doomer until I found Bitcoin because
it feels like there's no way out.
Bitcoin gives you that way to opt out via your financial life.
But I think it's really important to have an opt out option for sort of educating kids
(39:44):
about these big ideas.
And that's one of the most insidious things about Hollywood
and the messages they've been putting out for many decades now.
I mean, it's not every movie or every show,
but a lot of the popular movies and shows are sort of cataclysmic
(40:04):
and really strike fear in people
and have a material effect on how people view the world.
yeah it's very clear that art is informing life and life is informing art or at least people's
perception of life right um yeah and we've had to sort of grapple with that as we've gone through
this episode too because in many senses you know life is getting better than it ever has before
(40:32):
but then you have that battle between innovation and inflation.
And, you know, we look at just prices on the surface,
but when you dig down to time price,
what people can buy with an hour of their time,
we can buy far more eggs now per hour worked
than we could back in 1900.
(40:53):
They may not be the best quality eggs.
So that's another discussion,
which we talk about the food industrial complex episode,
But like, you know, we don't have people mass starvation like Paul Ehrlich was forecasting.
We have obesity problems.
Right.
And so, but I think, you know, I think what we've realized is the thesis of more people,
(41:16):
more problem solving still checks.
You have people like Satoshi Nakamoto who invented, you know, this escape valve, this,
this hope that can help so many people.
and that all came through you know somebody deciding to have a kid
yeah it really did and
that's i'm just thinking now too like because we just launched an app a tftc called opportunity cost
(41:47):
and um which helps you price everything in bitcoin and this is something i've been doing
a lot of internal reflection on like we've had ideas for apps and i think as a bitcoin focused
media company we've always thought like ah we need to get um some bitcoin product in the hands of
people and for the longest time it's like all right like something that involves a wallet being
(42:09):
able to send receive bitcoin or get access to bitcoin directly but i think we settled on this
informational tool because it's relatively low lift something that we could actually build and
something that we don't have to worry about broader point being so there's when there's
a lot of Bitcoiners out there saying I want to do something I want to do something to help
Bitcoin or help the broader freedom movement and they think they need to do something very
(42:33):
complex or build something grand and and sort of complicated and very futureful but I think there a ton of low fruit in the information war which we settled on opportunity costs And I think
Tuttle Twin's the great example. You don't need to build some sort of financial app.
(42:55):
You need to build a mechanism for education, particularly for younger people in your case.
And I think that's one thing, because I could, I don't want to blow smoke up your butt, but
But I think people severely underestimate how impactful sort of things that are unintuitive can be for having an impact on this movement.
(43:17):
Like cartoon.
Yeah.
Like thinking of a Bitcoin cartoon is so creative.
And as I've been mentioning, it's already impacted my children, my niece, my nephew, and now their classmates to a certain degree.
And so I think it's incredibly inspiring what you all are doing.
With with Tuttle Twins and Angel Studios more broadly, and hopefully others out there listening, thinking about how can I help?
(43:45):
How can I help these small little things that that may seem unintuitive on the surface?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's humbling to hear, man.
Yeah, we're just we didn't anticipate, you know, the success.
It's definitely not come all in a night. It's been a grind all throughout.
So, but yeah, as, as we've gotten sucked more down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, you know, most of our audience are Bitcoiners, but they are freedom minded people.
(44:15):
And they started questioning the public school system and they started questioning now the money.
They started questioning a lot of things.
So it's, it's been beneficial to not just be a Bitcoin focused company because we can bridge to so many other topics that, you know, people care a lot about.
and we can mix Bitcoin in there too.
(44:36):
So for those thinking like,
oh, I just have to be focused on Bitcoin,
I think you can triangulate to Bitcoin
from a lot of different places.
Yeah, and that's,
you're mentioning it before we hit record,
but we've branched out
outside of Bitcoin only content
and sort of covering tangential topics
(44:57):
with people that align ideologically
but may not grok Bitcoin.
And I think that that's been in terms of TFTC, orange pilling our guests, that's been the most impactful way is like, hey, I agree with you on this thing about bodily autonomy or geopolitics or macroeconomics.
Let me just sprinkle some Bitcoin into the conversation and get you thinking.
(45:19):
If you think this way, then Bitcoin makes a lot of sense for you.
And I think that is another incredible attribute to Tuttle Twins to cover such a wide spectrum of Austrian economics and freedom oriented topics that I think just via osmosis, people, parents watching the show with their kids are like, oh, yeah, I agree with all this.
Why wouldn't I agree with the Bitcoin stuff, too?
(45:39):
It sort of makes sense.
yeah we i there was this comment from a few months ago where someone was like
you guys are spot on with all your episodes but this bitcoin thing is a total miss
it just was so funny to me if you think if you trust us with 99 of this stuff
(46:00):
like could you learn a little bit more about bitcoin
it's uh and their kids are like no daddy this makes sense uh this makes sense
what's the process like for for making an episode yeah so it takes about as long as making a child
it's much harder i'm just kidding my wife's pregnant right now she'd kill me
(46:20):
oh nice congrats congrats to you thanks so uh yeah about nine months uh and we spend we kind
of came outside of hollywood so we didn't know how hollywood tells us we should do it but we just
took what we did with ads. And so we just spend about six weeks writing an episode. And we'll do
(46:41):
lots of brain trust with, with experts and with just cool writers that we know and, and like,
and just refine the script over and over and over. I joke around with people like half the jokes in
the show, we just write for ourselves and they go way over kids' heads and then half the jokes we
write for kids. And we kind of intend for each Tuttle Twins episode to be that family viewing
(47:03):
experience, kind of the original Pixar stuff where, where the adults can be laughing alongside
their kids. And then from there, yeah, we make the animatic, which is basically just like the
storyboard version, the animated storyboard version. And then we work with our animation
house. We're using a animation house in Ireland, um, who, who makes the final animation. And then
(47:26):
we, after nine months, kick out an episode every month.
So it was a bit tricky.
We have, being a principled show, we don't take subsidies.
So it takes us a long time to find an animation house
that doesn't get huge film subsidies.
So, and it's been kind of frustrating too,
(47:47):
but yeah, the film industry is just swimming in
government contracts and subsidies.
so do you have a go-to one or do you have the shop yeah i mean with ireland we found one that
would do without without uh taking government subsidies so it's a hand-drawn uh no they
use something called toon boom so it's like puppeting basically kind of puppet like animation
(48:12):
um i wish it was hand-drawn that would be awesome to go back to the the real you know
long-term thinking short you know high low time preference way of doing things yeah and since
since you mentioned it i have to ask is grandma gabby the uh is she the the mechanism for getting
the uh the parent jokes out there typically yeah i'd say grandma um can you know say uh you know
(48:38):
places to go people to see communists to offend she can say stuff like that a lot of times she's
the one who does hit for parents um yeah and uh uh yeah we'll just throw in you know lots of
different uh jokes for parents how um how can anybody who's listening to this help you guys out
(49:00):
outside of watching becoming a guild member yes so yeah if you want um uh just watching the show
is the first step go to angel.com slash Tuttle Twins um uh three of our seasons are free the
season four will be guild locks so only uh paying guild members can watch it when it comes out
(49:21):
uh but then we release lots of clips on social media I think to date we've had like 300 million
views across episodes of the show and uh and clips and so if you see a clip that resonates with you
please share it, you know, and spread Tuttletons with your family and friends.
That really helps. Just word of mouth is the biggest thing.
(49:44):
And what would you say to parents who may be a bit apprehensive to
throw their children into the deep end of some of these concepts?
I'd say watch it first. Yeah, I don't encourage any parent to just like, trust me, like verify,
go and watch what we put down. There may be a topic like the military industrial complex episode
that you're like on the fence with or something.
(50:06):
And that's, that's fine.
Each of our episodes, like I was saying before,
it passes the guild only when the parents pass it.
And so if you join the angel guild,
you can actually tell us
and we read every single comment early on.
That joke was offensive
or I think you guys are getting this wrong.
And we listen to those comments.
(50:26):
And if we see like a pattern,
we definitely make some drastic changes.
but the point is like we don't make this without parent approval and uh you shouldn't show this to
your kid without watching it first i would say yeah uh as a parent the uh the mlk episode i think
(50:47):
you guys handled that that topic uh very very uh meticulously and it handled it with class and it
was uh i was i was watching i was like oh wow they're touching this and this is this is incredible
which one was that the uh uh we mentioned him in a couple episodes imperfect people or was that the
(51:07):
perfect people okay yeah yeah yeah how can you say an affair in a way that kids that goes over
kids heads um but yeah yeah yeah well you guys are crushing it um i can't wait for season four
and yeah if there's anything we can ever do here at tftc to help you guys out let me know because
(51:28):
I think, as I said, we're in a meme warfare, a war for minds, if you will, or battle for
minds.
And I think it's important.
And you guys are an incredible example of good educational content that I, as a parent,
feel comfortable putting in front of my children.
And we need more of that.
And I will reiterate to anybody listening out there with young children, do not underestimate
(51:53):
their capacity to learn and really understand topics, complex topics, economic topics at a very
early age. And you mentioned the allowance in Bitcoin. Our oldest son, he demanded it in Bitcoin
too. So I set him up with an eCash wallet and he eagerly does chores so that I can send a Bitcoin.
(52:16):
And he's obsessed with watching his wallet balance go up after completing chores. And
it's worked out well for us. He's storing his, his chore money and hard money. And he's actually
eager to do chores and help around the house, which is incredible.
Man, we got to get a tutorial of that. I'm sure like tons of our parents would love to see what
(52:37):
you're doing on that side. Maybe, yeah, maybe we could, uh, maybe I will do that. Maybe there'll
be a newsletter. All right. Here's how. Yeah. We'll, we'll, we'll hit up our audience with it
too. Yeah. Cause there's so many parents are like, where do I start? You know, it's so over my head.
um well marty man what you're doing here with tftc and rabbit hole recap um everything you're
(52:59):
doing is such high signal and uh for our audience we'll send this out to you guys too like check out
his stuff uh it's really great way to dive deep on bitcoin but also freedom related topics and i was
joking around with you before coming on the show like uh you find some of these great freedom-minded
(53:19):
voices way before I hear about them elsewhere. And so I actually listened to this show sort of
to think of potential guest stars for future episodes. Oh yeah. I love that. Oh yeah. This
person is, or sometimes to question the guest stars that we're talking to, uh, in the case of
food industrial complex, we were talking to, I won't, I won't name names, but, um, anyways,
(53:41):
yeah, it was just good to get to, yeah, just pure signal here. We've, uh, thank you. Thank you for
that we're becoming a bit of a Rogan, a Rogan, uh, warmup show. A lot of, uh, a lot of recent
guests over the last couple of years, they'll show up on TFTC first and then a year or two later,
they'll end up in Rogan. That's something we're very proud of here. And, um, that's,
(54:03):
that's what I'm going to do. Just, and it's, it's, uh, for me, it's just following my own
curiosity and having done it for so long, like not afraid to be like, all right, you're saying
some interesting stuff let's have a conversation about it so thank you for listening and for the
kind words it's uh yeah i'm just some dude following his curiosity likewise we just some
(54:25):
dudes just making cartoons for our own kids and uh if it works for others great well johnny i meant
to mention um we are doing an episode uh with safe adine moose um and canes so that'll come out
season four we're going to be debunking keynesianism for kids so we'll have to yeah get you an early
(54:47):
screening of that but uh we don't hold punches and we went light on we cut the pedophile joke
that we had about canes just because it is a kid show no no scenes set in morocco i guess yeah no
no but yeah it is a kid show we we did play around with grandma putting him in a protective bubble
the whole time but you know we wanted to tag canes on on not just his behavior but on uh you know
(55:12):
the ideas so but yeah i'm excited for you to see it so the debt doesn't matter we're gonna teach
the kids that the debt doesn't matter the debt doesn't matter yeah yeah well johnny thank you
for what you're doing freaks if you're listening to this you have children even if you don't have
children. You'll check out the Tuttle Twins. Um, incredibly refreshing cartoon that exists. Uh,
(55:36):
and it will set your kids on the right path to understanding principles that if you're listening
to this show, I assume you're, you're aligned with at least to a certain degree. And it's a
hard thing as a parent too, to try to, uh, um, um, the, the newsletter I write is probably at,
I don't they tell you in content particularly on social media right at a fifth grade level
(56:01):
I don't know how to do that and so I'm like trying to get very complex
concepts out there but I explain them at a higher level and when I go to try to explain this stuff
to my kids it's like all right how do I dumb it down I have a problem doing that I have a hard
time doing that and so having a resource like the Tuttle Twins where you guys are really good at that
(56:21):
and being able to be like all right son sit here watch this then I'll answer any questions
you have after it's incredibly beneficial and impactful for me as a parent
man yeah likewise thank you so much for having me on and i'm excited to kind of see where the next
(56:41):
uh joe rogan guest stars come from um a couple years in advance
might be you johnny it's gonna be you well you said it marty i didn't say
All right.
Thank you so much, Johnny.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
Peace and love, freaks.
You've had a dynamic where money has become freer than free.
(00:10):
If you talk about a Fed just gone nuts, all the central banks going nuts.
So it's all acting like safe haven.
I believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their
currency, Bitcoin wins. In the world of fiat currencies, Bitcoin is the victor.
I mean, that's part of the bull case for Bitcoin.
(00:31):
If you're not paying attention, you probably should be.
Johnny Vance, welcome to the show.
Thanks, Marty. So great to be here.
I don't know if this is bigger for me or for you, because you have had a direct impact on the education of my two children, particularly my older son.
(00:54):
But the younger son picks it up, too, as a writer and director for Tuttle Twins, an incredibly educational and based cartoon that as a parent, I feel comfortable allowing my children to watch.
So thank you for doing that.
Thanks for having me, man.
I mean, we just make this show in a dinky little office.
(01:15):
And so the fact that it's in people's living rooms is always a surprise to us.
We just see numbers on a screen.
And so we're like, wow.
So, yeah, an honor to be in your living room, Marty.
Well, that's what I'm curious.
I mean, it's such a great idea because I think that's a big topic, particularly in Bitcoin circles, but even more broadly with millennial parents.
(01:39):
And obviously a big topic is screen time, whether or not you give a kid an iPad, whether you let them watch TV, if you do, for how long, what shows.
And I think over the last couple of decades, the spectrum of content available for kids has become incredibly woke or incredibly dumbed down.
(02:03):
And it's hard as a parent because sometimes you do need a 30 to an hour break to get something done.
And sometimes the screen is the best thing to do if they're tired playing for the day.
and it's hard to find good content and when Puddle Twins first came out we immediately became
guild members and and felt very comfortable putting the boys uh in front of in front of
(02:28):
a screen to watch this content because it's incredibly educational and more importantly
uh its values align with what our values are as parents what we'd like to convey to to the boys
about values and things they should be learning about at a young age.
That's so awesome. Yeah. I mean, I make the show and I limit screen time for my kids. And so I'm
(02:53):
right in the same boat with you. But it's like, who would you rather have babysit your kids? You
know, Elmo or Mises, you know, and if they can learn something that can help them in life,
That's been sort of our guiding North Star is let's make this as fun as Phineas and Ferb, but let's put in lessons from these Austrian economists or, you know, anti-Marxist lessons or kind of reveal things.
(03:21):
So kids are equipped with critical thinking skills for the real world.
So it's really cool to see you found value in what we're doing.
well i mean to that point too i think there's a mass misunderstanding of the ability for
children to pick up these topics because was it last week or two weeks ago i was sending you
a video of my son just um for some reason he was like daddy take a video i want to talk about
(03:46):
bitcoin and he was just spitting out facts that he learned from the two bitcoin focus episodes of
Tunnel Twins. And as a father, as a Bitcoiner, I was incredibly impressed at how well he picked up
on the themes and the facts around Bitcoin. To me, I truly believe he has internalized them and
(04:07):
intuitively understands the concepts where most people think you need to put your kids in front
of like Hot Wheels or Paw Patrol, whatever it be, something that's at their level. But I think people
really underestimate the ability for young children, specifically my son's five, to pick
up pretty complex topics if it's portrayed in a fun and educational way.
(04:30):
Kids are incredibly smart. I think, yeah, we've just dumbed them down or, you know,
underestimated them. My kid was, my son is six now and we were out fundraising, going door to
door. He was selling some cookies that he'd made and this woman tried to pay him in cash.
and he was like, I'd prefer not. And I said, sorry, he's worried about inflation.
(04:58):
And she's like, she was laughing. She ended up being a Tuttle Twins fan, but it's just so crazy.
Yeah, these kids can pick it up so fast. And I don't know about you, Marty, but like, I didn't
learn many of these principles until post-college. And so the fact that these kids are being set up,
Like just seeing that video of your son rattle off all these these truths and facts about Bitcoin and inflation is awesome.
(05:24):
Like these kids are miles ahead of where I was growing up and they're they're so set.
Yeah, my wife, one of her favorite sort of TikTok clips to send around or Twitter clips is the clip of the man on the street interview on the college campus where somebody from Tuttle Twins is asking about inflation.
(05:45):
and you have a bunch of 19 to 22 year olds who can't answer the question and you're going to
kids age six to 12 that can answer it pretty eloquently and on the spot.
It isn't, it's insane when, when you think about just how dumbed down society has become. And
again, going back to this idea that I think people really underappreciate that children
(06:08):
have the capacity to learn and actually want to learn. Um, I remember how excited the boys were
when the second Bitcoin episode came out, they sat down, they watched it once. And I think they
watched it like two or three times the days after that, but they were like excited to learn more
about Bitcoin and really, again, internalized it. And I guess, how did you get into
(06:34):
cartooning and how did you decide on this particular sort of medium and Tuttle Twins
of the show specifically. Yeah. So Daniel Harmon and I, we co-founded Tuttle Twins TV show.
We'd been at an ad agency called Harmer Brothers. That's where I started right out of school.
(06:56):
And so we were known for viral internet ads. So if you remember like the pooping unicorn for
squatty potty or like purple mattress or Lumi deodorant, we'd blown up a lot of brands and made
them a lot of money. But we were just kind of sick of doing it for other people. And we were
sick of not being able to do storytelling. We kind of had this itch for we want to tell stories.
(07:17):
And we had a good friend named Connor Boyack. And at the time, he'd written these books,
the Tuttle Twins original series. And we approached Connor and we're like, Connor,
we think we can crowdfund a TV show. We don't know. We don't know what the demand is like. But
you know, we have these storytelling chops, we can explain things, complex things like the
(07:38):
puerilectalis muscle in three minutes. You know, we can explain things really simply and we can
make them funny. What if we made a kids TV show about Tuttle Twins and, you know, basically made
it the MCU of Tuttle Twins. And Connor loved the idea. And then we launched a crowdfunding campaign
like 2019, right before the pandemic. And we were shocked to see all the demand that parents had
(08:03):
for the show. And we ended up raising $4.5 million from the crowd. We broke a record for
the most crowdfunded kids show. And we were just blown away by, oh my gosh, there's demand.
Parents want this. And so that, you know, season one was finished or was funded.
(08:23):
And it's been a grind ever since, but we've now, you know, completed season two, season three,
and we're going to be launching season four in the fall. And it really is all due to these parents
who crowdfunded it and continue to support us. And, uh, and, and we continue to be beholden to
them. I think that's a key part is we're serving this audience. We're not serving some agenda or
(08:48):
some other like metric or some kind of woke checkbox kind of thing. We are serving these
parents and we're here as a tool for you to teach the principles you already believe in
to your kids in an easy and fun way. And I think the model of Angel Studio is really cool too.
Like I mentioned, we're guild members. And I think in this day and age where you have
(09:12):
the behemoths like Disney, Netflix, Nickelodeon, Amazon as well, and like finding a unique way to
compete and provide optionality for parents looking to get their kids away from the slop is
extremely important. Totally. Do you want me to talk, go into the angel model?
(09:33):
Yeah. So like let's describe like the angel list or excuse me, the angel studio model.
So, so traditionally in Hollywood, you have kind of this top down, very centralized model where you
have this room full of executive producers, the Kathleen Kennedys of the world, green light,
what they think your kids need, right? It's very central planning. And then you get, you know,
(09:57):
you get the acolyte is what you get from that. And you get Snow White. And eventually Hollywood
has a reckoning, you know, several years down the road when they have box office bomb after bomb
after bomb. Angel's system is different where it's a bottom up decentralized kind of executive
model, a bit like Bitcoin, where nothing gets greenlit at Angel unless it passes the Guild.
(10:24):
Now, the Guild is a group of 1.2 million, basically, subscribers to Angel, but they're
also kind of executives.
And how it functions is it's the wisdom of the crowds kind of principle, where if you
read the book, The Wisdom of the Crowds, it basically shows that crowds, when they're
not in a mob, when they can think independently, they get things right much better than experts.
(10:48):
So you look at who wants to be a millionaire and ask the audience is more right than ask,
you know, call an expert. And it's the same principle here where, you know, you can show
something to these, the 1.2 million members of the Angel Guild. And if they like it,
it's probably going to do well in theaters. It's probably going to do well over the long term.
(11:09):
And it's just completing this feedback loop that Hollywood has just totally destroyed.
And so the end result is, I think this last year in 2024, Angel was top 10 in the studio box office.
And their Rotten Tomatoes popcorn meter, the audience score is a 95% on average.
(11:32):
And I think Disney's something like a 74 or something like that.
So they're the number one in the industry and it's all because they kind of create created it bottom up to listen to the audience.
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense to me because, again, going whether it's Tuttle Twins or any of the other content on on Angel, I think it's it's information and immediate different types of mediums and storylines that people are are thirsting for.
(12:04):
I think it was funny seeing the – I'm sure you've seen the trailer for Spaceballs, too.
And just the – they've made 32 Marvel Universe movies.
They've made how many Star Wars movies over the last three decades.
Like it's just a repeat.
You can tell there's really no creativity in Hollywood anymore,
(12:28):
which is ironic considering they're supposed to be one of the major creative forces in the world.
They've got sort of lazy, complacent, and I guess really industrialized in the sense that they know
what inputs will produce certain monetary outputs or at least did for a period of time.
But as you mentioned, that impact seems to be waning as people are like,
(12:51):
all right, I don't need another superhero movie. Let's go on to something new here.
Yeah, I, you know, in thinking about it, it's hard not to kind of step out of the Bitcoin mindset of fiat ruins everything. But I think there's a lot of weight to the idea that fiat has ruined film, where you look even like a decade or two ago, and movies were just much more high quality, like the VFX holds up way better than some of these, you know, most recent movies.
(13:23):
and you look at the kind of macro picture these studios operate on razor thin margins
they're beholden to wall street they're beholden to esg scores they're beholden to oscar kind of
quotas diversity quotas and um they have to operate at such short you know term thinking
(13:44):
such high time preference where i don't know about you my favorite trilogy is the lord of the rings
and just looking at the Lord of the Rings,
like even back then,
granted they had some subsidies too
to lessen the economic pressures,
but they could spend years preparing for that movie,
for all three movies.
Like there was like chain mail artists
(14:04):
who literally spent two years
making 80 million little chains for the armor of the movie you know and you just don have the time or the money the attention to be able to do that today Um and so I think as a result
we do get lots of, you know, really low risk bets, like sequels and reboots and everything.
(14:28):
And you can't tell original storytelling anymore. Yeah. It's like the, one of the
themes on X over the last week has been people making fun of the CGI of the new Superman movie.
It's just like incredibly piss poor. And that's like I've talked to,
got a couple of buddies in the film industry and that are becoming Bitcoiners and they're
(14:51):
like really interested to see how like Bitcoin as a treasury assets on the production company's
balance sheet could help them really reorient and get back to low time preference movie making,
which makes a lot of sense. If you have a long-term view, like four years, I don't know
how long it takes to make a movie from beginning to end, but if you have a production company,
(15:14):
it's going to make many movies. Deciding to put Bitcoin on your company balance sheet so that you
can actually create quality over the long run makes a lot of sense to me. And there's
really interesting ways that you can finance productions with Bitcoin now as well,
the early days. But that's something that excites me, like equipping production studios,
(15:36):
directors, writers with hard money that allows them to focus on their craft instead of being
pushed into this high velocity burn and churn sort of model just to get things out there to
to get revenue to make sure that you're outpacing inflation is incredibly exciting.
It's wild.
(15:56):
Yeah.
Angel announced this a few months ago, but they have a Bitcoin treasury.
So Angel Studios, I think to my knowledge is the first, you know, studio to have a Bitcoin
treasury.
So I think it's like 300 Bitcoin and counting so far.
But the long-term vision for that is exactly what you said, where they can have, they're
(16:16):
calling it an endowment for the arts where you could have your operating company, but then you
can have the Bitcoin treasury. So then you can really just, you know, tell stories that matter.
I think a lot of people from the angel crowd know angel from the chosen or from sound of freedom or
Tuttletons, but they don't. And then they look at the Bitcoin play and they're like, what it doesn't,
one of these things doesn't make sense. But the, the, the angel founders are big Bitcoiners.
(16:40):
They see the future of this. They see that, you know, Hollywood was built on the gold standard
and now you know we can go back to that renaissance of good storytelling when you have the time and
when you have you know the the money that appreciates faster than inflation so yeah it's
exciting just to see you know even in the next 10 years disney's operating i think last year they did
(17:04):
like 91 billion in revenue their their their profit was like 5 billion so they're operating
and most of that's coming from the parks it's not even coming from their movies like snow white
didn't help them with their profit margin so you know it's for us for bitcoiners just seeing where
(17:24):
this is going it's not i mean it might sound crazy now but having a bitcoin backed movie studio
surpassing a fiat based uh you know turd maker uh studio um that's not too far-fetched
no it's really not i didn't realize hollywood was built on the gold standard
(17:44):
yeah back in the day uh yeah bank bankers um well i think actually it was built on investment
before they started taking out debt right so the the movie makers had actually they owned their own
studios they owned their own theaters and then that was broken up but then they they uh leaned
into to gold as well yeah what uh what is the most rewarding part of of what you're building
(18:12):
at total twins and because it is i i think for another example um my sister-in-law uh she's in
the industry as well and she went to um she went to her my nephew's class for career day
and she had to explain Bitcoin and she actually just used a three minute clip from Tuttle Twins
(18:35):
to sort of convey the message of Bitcoin to my nephew's class.
And she said it was incredibly impactful.
And so it's like little, and that's the beauty of the guild and just what you build
because you can produce the show, launch it, and parents like myself, my sister-in-law watch it
and are like, oh, this is actually valuable.
(18:56):
And then you get it out to other kids at career day.
And I imagine there's many other examples of similar types of interactions that parents have had with other parents and children who have not been exposed to total twins.
Yeah. I mean, I was saying this before, but we just make this in a vacuum where we're just in a dinky little office.
(19:18):
And so it's those stories that definitely make me realize, oh, my gosh, we might be doing something here.
you know we've heard of kids uh asking their parents for allowance in bitcoin and the moms
being like i don't know how to get you bitcoin but having to figure it out we've heard of of kids
(19:39):
standing up to their their principals and teachers um we had a total kid who who had a gadsen flag on
his backpack and his teacher said that's a sign of slavery and the kid knew his history and said
no, it's not. And, and the teacher, the principal absolutely got roasted and the kid was in the
(20:00):
right. We had kids during the pandemic who saw our civil disobedience episode and decided not
to wear a mask to school and went to the principal's office. And so it's like those kinds of stories
where we actually see in practice kids building businesses, like acting out what they see in the
show, that's the fuel for us. It's just, wow. You know, maybe we could change the future of the
(20:24):
country with kids who are so much more prepared than we were and that know, frankly, a lot more
than many politicians. So yeah, it's, it's those little stories that, that really fuel us.
Well, to that last point, I think that's something I've become, or I've really been drawn to.
(20:47):
Is it better now?
Better now.
Yeah.
There we go.
To your last point, it's something I've been really drawn to since my first son was born.
In Bitcoin, we think about fix the money, fix the world.
And my day-to-day is focused on trying to educate as many people about Bitcoin, why it's important, how it works, and how they can use it.
(21:08):
And our core demo here at TFTC and in the newsletter is, I believe, 45 to 50-year-olds.
So we're talking to Gen X and then our second biggest demo is like 55 to 65 year olds.
So like eeking into the boomer reveal sort of landscape.
(21:29):
And I think I've become more convinced that I think the highest leverage, biggest return we're going to get in terms of Bitcoin education is Gen Z, younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha, our children.
And that's another thing, just resigning myself to the fact that, hey, this is going to be a long haul. And actually, the biggest impact we can have is teaching our children these principles from the get go.
(21:56):
And then they grow up internalizing that and applying it to their lives.
And maybe I could see a future where the biggest impact in terms of ushering in a Bitcoin standard is the kids who are five and six today actually applying that to their lives and demanding it because they understand these concepts.
(22:18):
Yeah, it's wild.
I think it's so much easier to teach these principles to kids who have not had to unlearn anything.
Like my son understands Bitcoin, no offense, but way better than my father-in-law.
Because he could just clearly see the emperor is naked and doesn't have to backpedal and say, no, but the clothes are there.
(22:42):
They're just transparent or, you know, whatever fiat games adults have to jump through.
Inflation is necessary.
Anyways, so it's, but I mean, it's so intuitive just to be first principles focused.
And kids get it. They totally get it.
Yeah. And you guys, you're I mean, you're obviously in Angel Studios now and anybody who's downloading Angel has access to Tuttle Twins.
(23:07):
But you've got something big working with the country of Argentina, which I mean, when you think about the potential impact you guys could have with this deal.
I'll let you describe it. That's when things get really exciting.
Yeah, so I'll choose my words carefully because we've had a massive hate campaign from the socialists in Argentina.
(23:31):
But yeah, we've been working with the country of Argentina to get Tuttle Twins on air.
Originally, when Millet won the election, he wanted to privatize the public TV in Argentina.
And keep in mind, this public TV channel called Paka Paka literally showed Marxist propaganda.
(23:52):
They have like something called La Asombrosa Karl Marx, where he's just going around with kids and Karl Marx is just awesome.
And so literal Marxist propaganda.
Mele wanted to shut it down.
The opposition wouldn't let him.
And so the second best thing is to put Tuttle Twins on the air.
So, which right now has, I mean, we've just gotten whole hit pieces written about Tuttle Twins.
(24:19):
They say, you know, they use Milton Friedman.
They use Hayek and they mention a cryptocurrency that Bukele likes.
That was supposed to be a dig.
And anyway, so they've done, they're doing their worst.
And we thought, you know, maybe the worst case scenario is that we privatize Argentine television.
great, but second best is we can get Tuttle Twins and these principles of freedom out to
(24:43):
millions of Argentine families. Well, this gets to a very interesting conversation. You mentioned
the term Marxist propaganda, and that's a whole other concept that I would love
the boys to really understand. I think you guys have touched on it too, is this whole concept of
propaganda. We grew up to learn that propaganda is a bad thing, which when used improperly,
(25:08):
It certainly can be. I would argue that Marxist propaganda is bad because it propagandizes people to do things that are not in their own self-interest or the self-interest of the collective.
But propaganda is a tool that needs to be wielded successfully and meticulously and in a very focused way by people who want their ideals and their principles to be conveyed and adopted.
(25:36):
And so that's something I focus on. I wear it on my sleeve at TFTC. Like, yes, I'm putting out propaganda.
Propaganda is effective when utilized and executed correctly. And it's something that we need to embrace.
Like I'm trying to propagandize my children via the Tuttle Twins. I'm not afraid to admit it.
(25:58):
Like, I think that's where those fence sitters lose the war. It's like everyone is propagating ideas.
if you're not going to propagate slash teach ideas to your kids, someone else will. Like
they're going to learn from the public school. They're going to learn from whatever garbage is
on Disney plus. Um, somebody is going to propagate. It might as well be the ideas that you believe in
(26:18):
and that you believe will set them up for success. I think we will do an episode on propaganda
and, and maybe talk, you know, Ed, uh, it was Edward Bernays or something who was kind of the
father of modern uh pr slash propaganda and how they uh you know got people to join world war one
through some of those films before movies in theaters bring full circle yeah it's something
(26:44):
that needs to be embraced more when like and the way to level the playing field to say hey like you
just mentioned you're going to be propagandized everywhere except that fact and join what uh
these days would be referred to i think the the propaganda wars are more commonly referred to as
meme warfare yeah these days and that's something i think bitcoiners have done an incredible job of
(27:06):
embracing and leaning into and thoughts of bitstein come to mind probably one of bitcoin's
best propagandists that exist out there i think what separates us from the propaganda from the
other side is we're very open like the writings on the packaging we're not trying to hide anything
(27:27):
from parents we're not trying to trojan horse kids where you know with some of the most recent movies
you can go in and just get bombarded by messages that were not on the packaging you know so yeah
what are some examples of uh subversive subversive propaganda in mainstream i mean you had that whole
debacle about the proud family reboot on Disney. Um, yeah, I mean, I feel like they're very common.
(27:55):
I don't want to maybe throw too much mud, but, uh, yeah, there's many, you just look at the
lineup of the past kids movies and probably 50% or more have something that was kind of,
they snuck in there. Yeah. Have you noticed any, um, any other writers, directors,
(28:17):
cartoonist for seeing what you and the team have done at Tuttle Twins and saying, Oh,
wow I should get into this Do you think you inspiring others to to get into this type of genre of of cartoon or or child programming Yeah I mean we we heard from many behind the scenes We love what
(28:38):
you guys are doing. We can't kind of publicly come out and say that, but keep up the good work.
Angel is kind of building this island for artists that just want to do art. And it's interesting,
Like you can't make it so divisive that none of the good talent from Hollywood will come over.
(28:59):
But there are many causative libertarian slash conservative actors, producers, directors in Hollywood that want to make great films with great messaging.
They just can't.
They get blackballed.
And so Angel is that escape valve.
And there's room for good stories.
There's room for conservative or libertarian or freedom thinking messaging.
(29:22):
And there's certainly appetite for it. It's just you can't go through the traditional gatekeepers. You can't go through Kathleen Kennedy. You have to go outside of that.
yeah and it's never been when you think of i wrote about this there's like a lot of doomerism
out there and times certainly aren't as best as they could be a lot of the fiat rift has leaked
(29:44):
into many parts of our lives but i like to look at the positive side of things the silver lining
like the the technology that we have today what we're doing right now different parts of the
country, recording a video, using mics. We'll distribute this over RSS, YouTube, Rumble,
and we'll get it out there, our newsletters. And you think of platforms like X, while they're
(30:10):
double-edged swords, they can feed you the algorithmic slop, or you can find signal if you
know how to filter through all the noise. It's never been easier for an independent creator to
put some hard work and passion into the project they really care about and then get it out to
the world, which makes me incredibly optimistic because I would not have probably if these tools
(30:36):
didn't exist, I probably wouldn't have learned the total twins because I was completely unaware
of Angel Studios until I started seeing Bitcoiners talk about total twins on X. And I was like,
yeah, I'm going to check this out.
It's incredible.
The modern day, as it stands in 2025,
it's never been easier to access the right information.
(30:57):
I think the focus needs to be on educating people
how to filter through all the noise
because there's a ton of noise and very little signal
in the noise-to-signal ratio.
But if you can find the signal, it's out there,
and people just need to be better equipped to find it.
yeah it used to be the signal was very very strong three channels johnny carson if you can
(31:22):
make it on that show everyone in america knew you right but now i guess the the benefit of it not
being so centralized is uh government can't control the public narrative nearly as much
and uh yeah i think the the disadvantage is yeah the good signal is a little bit harder to find
You have to weep through it.
(31:43):
I'm having flashbacks to TV Guide.
I remember TV Guide.
I remember going to my grandparents' house,
and when you try to plan your Friday night out at your grandparents,
it's like you get a TV Guide, and you look through what's it going to be on each channel,
and you're going to find it.
Thinking about how manual of a process and antiquated that seems today is insane.
(32:05):
Yeah, it is.
Yeah.
the uh what um so you guys are working on season four right now what are some that you mentioned
propaganda something you might want to touch on like what other what other topics like you guys
have covered a lot already in um the first three seasons but what like how how much more do you
(32:27):
think you guys have to dive into i mean as long as there's appetite our goal is to just have one
more season than the Simpsons. So just a small goal. But yeah, for season four, I think one thing
we've been conscious of is we don't want to black pill kids. And as we've gone season by season,
(32:48):
we can go more out on the branch for some of these topics. We can go down the rabbit hole.
and yeah so some of the topics that we're working on for season four is one is the overpopulation
myth we want kids to feel that the world is big enough for all of us and that more people more
(33:10):
problem solving so there was a clip I saw recently from Captain Planet back in the day and it's they
was so like they were just reading the population bomb and and spitting it out there towards kids
It's how damaging, like you shouldn't have big families because the world will end and,
and, um, the opposite's been true.
(33:31):
So we're really excited about that one.
We have some amazing guest stars that we haven't yet announced for its season four.
We have one on the, uh, uh, bad effects of charity, where if charity done wrong can just
totally create dependency of a nation and cripple entire industries.
And so it must be done correctly.
and, you know, teach a man to fish kind of message.
(33:54):
We have one on the food industrial complex that we're so excited to launch.
And to kind of go into both the cronyism that's happened behind the scenes.
And I think we'll have an anthropomorphic food pyramid that just finds out that she's a lie.
It's a food pyramid scheme of sorts.
(34:18):
Yeah, let's see what else.
Yeah, we have one on DEI. We're going to kind of, we're going to debunk it. We're going to have Thomas Sowell in the episode and just show kids, you know, equity versus merit. Let's focus on merit. So just, just stuff that hopefully they'll have the anecdote for a lot of the poison that they're going to be exposed to, you know, in the coming years in school.
(34:42):
Is Thomas Sowell going to do his own voice or?
So Thomas Sowell is a recluse
And so we're going to do a younger Thomas Sowell back in the day
But if we could get old Thomas Sowell
He only comes out for book signings
The Hoover Institute
That's right
Yeah
Those interviews are incredible
We'll see if we can get him at least a cameo
Is the goal
It's just it's kind of like pull the teeth to get him
(35:04):
Well it's like modern day
You can use like 11 labs to create his voice pretty accurately
Yeah
Most of the time, if somebody is living like Thomas, I mean, we just get the person. He is one of the greatest thinkers of our time and the most reclusive too.
And he's getting old. He's in his 90s, isn't he?
Yeah, he's 90s.
(35:25):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's fascinating.
I was thinking of the population. It is.
It's population that typically gets tied in with climate change and all that.
But I'm just thinking through my mind, I'm sure you guys are already well on your way to the lining.
But like you touch like Japan, like what's going on with their demographic.
(35:48):
Because it is something that kids really need to internalize, like our generation.
Yeah.
Like when you think about when we get older, there's going to be a problem with there already is a problem with Social Security.
But like you have many more people aging out than are coming below them.
And that's something I care deeply about is like later in life, like thinking like when my parent, my mom gets older, when my wife's parents get older, like how do we take care of them?
(36:16):
Like I don't want to push them into into a home like you need a strong economic foundation.
And I think more importantly, social foundations, really, that's what I would like to instill in my boys is like, hey, don't put us in a home when we're older.
Like we should live in a multigenerational house.
is something I would like to see.
(36:38):
I would like to see that trend come back
where we're not just dumping our own stuff.
Because I've had the incredible experience
of three out of my four grandparents have passed,
but each one of them died in their own home
and hospice surrounded by my aunts, my uncles,
my cousins, myself.
And that was an incredibly special experience
for all of us.
(36:59):
But it's something that's being lost today.
And part of this population bomb,
terrible propaganda is feeding into it.
Right, right.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I think I'm hopeful we return to that.
And I know, you know, people are saying,
well, robots are coming.
And so robots will take care of the old
with the inverted pyramid, you know, population problem.
(37:21):
But that would be a terrible way to go.
Just holding the hand of your robot.
Just looking into the eyes of your robot.
Yeah, it's going to be really important that we do it right and try and fix the problem.
I think for China, for South Korea, for Japan, it's like generations too late where we will see population collapse.
(37:47):
They really like looking backwards.
China internalized the population bomb much more than the U.S. did, even though it came.
Paul Ehrlich wrote, you know, he was a U.S. biologist.
um so yeah we're hoping paul sees our episode i think the last status on south korea specifically
(38:08):
is within two generations they'll have like a 90 population collapse if they don't turn things
around yeah which is i mean this gets a broader point like to your point like the population bomb
whether dei whatever it is like the the propaganda on what i think we would both agree is
built on the wrong set of principles and the wrong sort of perspective on the world has
(38:35):
strongly affected society broadly globally to the point where countries like China, Japan,
South Korea, the U.S. even to a certain extent has shot themselves in the foot and are doing
things that are counterproductive to the flourishing of their societies. And I just
(38:59):
thinking this part of my head, like, so I think what you're doing is extremely important because
we need mechanisms to turn the tide socially and psychologically to let people know,
no, humans are good. Uh, we, we were meant to be here. Like there are certain ways we should
interact in a society, in an economy to do things productively and that are beneficial
(39:21):
for the individual and the whole.
And going back to like the doomers and like I was a big doomer until I found Bitcoin because
it feels like there's no way out.
Bitcoin gives you that way to opt out via your financial life.
But I think it's really important to have an opt out option for sort of educating kids
(39:44):
about these big ideas.
And that's one of the most insidious things about Hollywood
and the messages they've been putting out for many decades now.
I mean, it's not every movie or every show,
but a lot of the popular movies and shows are sort of cataclysmic
(40:04):
and really strike fear in people
and have a material effect on how people view the world.
yeah it's very clear that art is informing life and life is informing art or at least people's
perception of life right um yeah and we've had to sort of grapple with that as we've gone through
this episode too because in many senses you know life is getting better than it ever has before
(40:32):
but then you have that battle between innovation and inflation.
And, you know, we look at just prices on the surface,
but when you dig down to time price,
what people can buy with an hour of their time,
we can buy far more eggs now per hour worked
than we could back in 1900.
(40:53):
They may not be the best quality eggs.
So that's another discussion,
which we talk about the food industrial complex episode,
But like, you know, we don't have people mass starvation like Paul Ehrlich was forecasting.
We have obesity problems.
Right.
And so, but I think, you know, I think what we've realized is the thesis of more people,
(41:16):
more problem solving still checks.
You have people like Satoshi Nakamoto who invented, you know, this escape valve, this,
this hope that can help so many people.
and that all came through you know somebody deciding to have a kid
yeah it really did and
that's i'm just thinking now too like because we just launched an app a tftc called opportunity cost
(41:47):
and um which helps you price everything in bitcoin and this is something i've been doing
a lot of internal reflection on like we've had ideas for apps and i think as a bitcoin focused
media company we've always thought like ah we need to get um some bitcoin product in the hands of
people and for the longest time it's like all right like something that involves a wallet being
(42:09):
able to send receive bitcoin or get access to bitcoin directly but i think we settled on this
informational tool because it's relatively low lift something that we could actually build and
something that we don't have to worry about broader point being so there's when there's
a lot of Bitcoiners out there saying I want to do something I want to do something to help
Bitcoin or help the broader freedom movement and they think they need to do something very
(42:33):
complex or build something grand and and sort of complicated and very futureful but I think there a ton of low fruit in the information war which we settled on opportunity costs And I think
Tuttle Twin's the great example. You don't need to build some sort of financial app.
(42:55):
You need to build a mechanism for education, particularly for younger people in your case.
And I think that's one thing, because I could, I don't want to blow smoke up your butt, but
But I think people severely underestimate how impactful sort of things that are unintuitive can be for having an impact on this movement.
(43:17):
Like cartoon.
Yeah.
Like thinking of a Bitcoin cartoon is so creative.
And as I've been mentioning, it's already impacted my children, my niece, my nephew, and now their classmates to a certain degree.
And so I think it's incredibly inspiring what you all are doing.
With with Tuttle Twins and Angel Studios more broadly, and hopefully others out there listening, thinking about how can I help?
(43:45):
How can I help these small little things that that may seem unintuitive on the surface?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's humbling to hear, man.
Yeah, we're just we didn't anticipate, you know, the success.
It's definitely not come all in a night. It's been a grind all throughout.
So, but yeah, as, as we've gotten sucked more down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, you know, most of our audience are Bitcoiners, but they are freedom minded people.
(44:15):
And they started questioning the public school system and they started questioning now the money.
They started questioning a lot of things.
So it's, it's been beneficial to not just be a Bitcoin focused company because we can bridge to so many other topics that, you know, people care a lot about.
and we can mix Bitcoin in there too.
(44:36):
So for those thinking like,
oh, I just have to be focused on Bitcoin,
I think you can triangulate to Bitcoin
from a lot of different places.
Yeah, and that's,
you're mentioning it before we hit record,
but we've branched out
outside of Bitcoin only content
and sort of covering tangential topics
(44:57):
with people that align ideologically
but may not grok Bitcoin.
And I think that that's been in terms of TFTC, orange pilling our guests, that's been the most impactful way is like, hey, I agree with you on this thing about bodily autonomy or geopolitics or macroeconomics.
Let me just sprinkle some Bitcoin into the conversation and get you thinking.
(45:19):
If you think this way, then Bitcoin makes a lot of sense for you.
And I think that is another incredible attribute to Tuttle Twins to cover such a wide spectrum of Austrian economics and freedom oriented topics that I think just via osmosis, people, parents watching the show with their kids are like, oh, yeah, I agree with all this.
Why wouldn't I agree with the Bitcoin stuff, too?
(45:39):
It sort of makes sense.
yeah we i there was this comment from a few months ago where someone was like
you guys are spot on with all your episodes but this bitcoin thing is a total miss
it just was so funny to me if you think if you trust us with 99 of this stuff
(46:00):
like could you learn a little bit more about bitcoin
it's uh and their kids are like no daddy this makes sense uh this makes sense
what's the process like for for making an episode yeah so it takes about as long as making a child
it's much harder i'm just kidding my wife's pregnant right now she'd kill me
(46:20):
oh nice congrats congrats to you thanks so uh yeah about nine months uh and we spend we kind
of came outside of hollywood so we didn't know how hollywood tells us we should do it but we just
took what we did with ads. And so we just spend about six weeks writing an episode. And we'll do
(46:41):
lots of brain trust with, with experts and with just cool writers that we know and, and like,
and just refine the script over and over and over. I joke around with people like half the jokes in
the show, we just write for ourselves and they go way over kids' heads and then half the jokes we
write for kids. And we kind of intend for each Tuttle Twins episode to be that family viewing
(47:03):
experience, kind of the original Pixar stuff where, where the adults can be laughing alongside
their kids. And then from there, yeah, we make the animatic, which is basically just like the
storyboard version, the animated storyboard version. And then we work with our animation
house. We're using a animation house in Ireland, um, who, who makes the final animation. And then
(47:26):
we, after nine months, kick out an episode every month.
So it was a bit tricky.
We have, being a principled show, we don't take subsidies.
So it takes us a long time to find an animation house
that doesn't get huge film subsidies.
So, and it's been kind of frustrating too,
(47:47):
but yeah, the film industry is just swimming in
government contracts and subsidies.
so do you have a go-to one or do you have the shop yeah i mean with ireland we found one that
would do without without uh taking government subsidies so it's a hand-drawn uh no they
use something called toon boom so it's like puppeting basically kind of puppet like animation
(48:12):
um i wish it was hand-drawn that would be awesome to go back to the the real you know
long-term thinking short you know high low time preference way of doing things yeah and since
since you mentioned it i have to ask is grandma gabby the uh is she the the mechanism for getting
the uh the parent jokes out there typically yeah i'd say grandma um can you know say uh you know
(48:38):
places to go people to see communists to offend she can say stuff like that a lot of times she's
the one who does hit for parents um yeah and uh uh yeah we'll just throw in you know lots of
different uh jokes for parents how um how can anybody who's listening to this help you guys out
(49:00):
outside of watching becoming a guild member yes so yeah if you want um uh just watching the show
is the first step go to angel.com slash Tuttle Twins um uh three of our seasons are free the
season four will be guild locks so only uh paying guild members can watch it when it comes out
(49:21):
uh but then we release lots of clips on social media I think to date we've had like 300 million
views across episodes of the show and uh and clips and so if you see a clip that resonates with you
please share it, you know, and spread Tuttletons with your family and friends.
That really helps. Just word of mouth is the biggest thing.
(49:44):
And what would you say to parents who may be a bit apprehensive to
throw their children into the deep end of some of these concepts?
I'd say watch it first. Yeah, I don't encourage any parent to just like, trust me, like verify,
go and watch what we put down. There may be a topic like the military industrial complex episode
that you're like on the fence with or something.
(50:06):
And that's, that's fine.
Each of our episodes, like I was saying before,
it passes the guild only when the parents pass it.
And so if you join the angel guild,
you can actually tell us
and we read every single comment early on.
That joke was offensive
or I think you guys are getting this wrong.
And we listen to those comments.
(50:26):
And if we see like a pattern,
we definitely make some drastic changes.
but the point is like we don't make this without parent approval and uh you shouldn't show this to
your kid without watching it first i would say yeah uh as a parent the uh the mlk episode i think
(50:47):
you guys handled that that topic uh very very uh meticulously and it handled it with class and it
was uh i was i was watching i was like oh wow they're touching this and this is this is incredible
which one was that the uh uh we mentioned him in a couple episodes imperfect people or was that the
(51:07):
perfect people okay yeah yeah yeah how can you say an affair in a way that kids that goes over
kids heads um but yeah yeah yeah well you guys are crushing it um i can't wait for season four
and yeah if there's anything we can ever do here at tftc to help you guys out let me know because
(51:28):
I think, as I said, we're in a meme warfare, a war for minds, if you will, or battle for
minds.
And I think it's important.
And you guys are an incredible example of good educational content that I, as a parent,
feel comfortable putting in front of my children.
And we need more of that.
And I will reiterate to anybody listening out there with young children, do not underestimate
(51:53):
their capacity to learn and really understand topics, complex topics, economic topics at a very
early age. And you mentioned the allowance in Bitcoin. Our oldest son, he demanded it in Bitcoin
too. So I set him up with an eCash wallet and he eagerly does chores so that I can send a Bitcoin.
(52:16):
And he's obsessed with watching his wallet balance go up after completing chores. And
it's worked out well for us. He's storing his, his chore money and hard money. And he's actually
eager to do chores and help around the house, which is incredible.
Man, we got to get a tutorial of that. I'm sure like tons of our parents would love to see what
(52:37):
you're doing on that side. Maybe, yeah, maybe we could, uh, maybe I will do that. Maybe there'll
be a newsletter. All right. Here's how. Yeah. We'll, we'll, we'll hit up our audience with it
too. Yeah. Cause there's so many parents are like, where do I start? You know, it's so over my head.
um well marty man what you're doing here with tftc and rabbit hole recap um everything you're
(52:59):
doing is such high signal and uh for our audience we'll send this out to you guys too like check out
his stuff uh it's really great way to dive deep on bitcoin but also freedom related topics and i was
joking around with you before coming on the show like uh you find some of these great freedom-minded
(53:19):
voices way before I hear about them elsewhere. And so I actually listened to this show sort of
to think of potential guest stars for future episodes. Oh yeah. I love that. Oh yeah. This
person is, or sometimes to question the guest stars that we're talking to, uh, in the case of
food industrial complex, we were talking to, I won't, I won't name names, but, um, anyways,
(53:41):
yeah, it was just good to get to, yeah, just pure signal here. We've, uh, thank you. Thank you for
that we're becoming a bit of a Rogan, a Rogan, uh, warmup show. A lot of, uh, a lot of recent
guests over the last couple of years, they'll show up on TFTC first and then a year or two later,
they'll end up in Rogan. That's something we're very proud of here. And, um, that's,
(54:03):
that's what I'm going to do. Just, and it's, it's, uh, for me, it's just following my own
curiosity and having done it for so long, like not afraid to be like, all right, you're saying
some interesting stuff let's have a conversation about it so thank you for listening and for the
kind words it's uh yeah i'm just some dude following his curiosity likewise we just some
(54:25):
dudes just making cartoons for our own kids and uh if it works for others great well johnny i meant
to mention um we are doing an episode uh with safe adine moose um and canes so that'll come out
season four we're going to be debunking keynesianism for kids so we'll have to yeah get you an early
(54:47):
screening of that but uh we don't hold punches and we went light on we cut the pedophile joke
that we had about canes just because it is a kid show no no scenes set in morocco i guess yeah no
no but yeah it is a kid show we we did play around with grandma putting him in a protective bubble
the whole time but you know we wanted to tag canes on on not just his behavior but on uh you know
(55:12):
the ideas so but yeah i'm excited for you to see it so the debt doesn't matter we're gonna teach
the kids that the debt doesn't matter the debt doesn't matter yeah yeah well johnny thank you
for what you're doing freaks if you're listening to this you have children even if you don't have
children. You'll check out the Tuttle Twins. Um, incredibly refreshing cartoon that exists. Uh,
(55:36):
and it will set your kids on the right path to understanding principles that if you're listening
to this show, I assume you're, you're aligned with at least to a certain degree. And it's a
hard thing as a parent too, to try to, uh, um, um, the, the newsletter I write is probably at,
I don't they tell you in content particularly on social media right at a fifth grade level
(56:01):
I don't know how to do that and so I'm like trying to get very complex
concepts out there but I explain them at a higher level and when I go to try to explain this stuff
to my kids it's like all right how do I dumb it down I have a problem doing that I have a hard
time doing that and so having a resource like the Tuttle Twins where you guys are really good at that
(56:21):
and being able to be like all right son sit here watch this then I'll answer any questions
you have after it's incredibly beneficial and impactful for me as a parent
man yeah likewise thank you so much for having me on and i'm excited to kind of see where the next
(56:41):
uh joe rogan guest stars come from um a couple years in advance
might be you johnny it's gonna be you well you said it marty i didn't say
All right.
Thank you so much, Johnny.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
Peace and love, freaks.
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