#13 The Show Is Lava! with Anthony Carbone

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:20

All right.

Thank you so much for that amazing introduction. As always, this is Episode 13 of the Jeff Dwoskin show. Lucky Episode 13 and we are lucky to have Anthony carboni with us. That's right. The executive producer of that hit Netflix game show floor is lava is with us and we'll be talking to him a little bit later. But right now a quick word from the street. The July 4 weekend. I with my family, very safely masks, social distancing all that we traveled up north Michigan to Mackinac Island. Mackinac Island is a beautiful beautiful place but here's where it gets interesting. What was happening July 4 weekend national bowling competition. No, no. If you guess bowling, you are wrong. National croquet. You would be wrong. Wrong. If you guess croquet. Why would you guess croquet? national hopscotch? No. Why would I spend time with national hopscotch? Come on. You guys aren't even trying. You're not even trying. The answer is the over July 4 weekend. I was front row to the 2020 Stone skipping championship. That's right. If you would guess stone skipping championship. Give yourselves a high five right now because you're the coolest. You guessed it. That's where I was. Front and center on ESPN three. One Pass on it to pass on it. Three grabbed it. He has been three grabbed it didn't make it all the way to the Oh, Joe. Nope. didn't make it to the Oh Cho. Stone skipping is on ESPN three. Because it's the real deal. Let me tell you, it was a nail biter. As far as stone skipping competitions go. Both the top contenders Kurt Steiner, and Jeff MC nutty. That's right. His name is Jeff MC nutty, and Kirk Steiner. Both stone skipped 20 times they tied. But here's the thing. You can't tie in stone skipping, there is only one winner. You probably knew that. But I needed to make it abundantly clear. So what did they do? They went back to their second best skip. And you know who won? Kurt? mountain man Steiner. That's right. His nickname is mountain man. Not pebble man, which you would probably think but it's mountain man. He won, because he had 19 as a second best. And Jeff MC nutty, had only 18. I know. It's insane to lose by just one at that level of high, intense stone skipping, but there was there we were. There was on gorgeous makena Island. And that's the sporting report. Boom, ba ba boom. And now a word from our sponsor. Stones. Yeah, the things on the ground that you just walk over. Did you know that if you picked us up and threw us just right, you could become a world champion, Skipper. That's right. That's all you got to do. have water stone, throw, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, and it's all you the glory awaits you. Pick up a stone today. All right. All right. Well, definitely support all our sponsors. Every week, you know, they're the ones that keep the lights on, make the Jeff Dwoskin show possible. All right. Well, I wanted to do a social media tip bah bah, bah, bah, bah. Anyway, so here we are with the social media tips. The one I wanted to talk about this week, I usually do Twitter but I wanted to talk about Facebook because Facebook's getting kind of lit lately with all the politics and stuff. I just want everyone to know instead of getting into a big fight on Facebook, there's like a snooze 30 day button and you can just snooze the people annoying you that gives you time to not unfriend them and kind of just relax. So that's it. Just snooze. Don't lose. And that was Jeff's social media T. All right. Well, we do have a great guest for you this week. Anthony carboni executive producer of floor is lava. He's done lots of other great stuff. Now that you just sit back and enjoy this conversation with Anthony, here comes that interview. All right, we are here with Anthony carboni Emmy Award winner. He's been on TV making a difference for over 20 years his executive producer and showrunner. Most recently, an amazing show on Netflix floor is lava, amongst other shows have his nails on CBS. Welcome to the show, Anthony.

Anthony Carbone 5:29

Thanks for having me. I'm very excited to be here.

Jeff Dwoskin 5:31

Yeah, I'm excited to this is a result of a different episode we did. We were talking about stuff to stream Jeff Dwoskin show superfan and floors lava fan, Paul boxall tweeted at both of us. Yeah. And here we are the magic of Twitter

Anthony Carbone 5:47

guy. It's my favorite thing about Twitter. It's just like you can connect with random people all over the place.

Jeff Dwoskin 5:53

Oh, yeah. I've connected with like all these people. And then I've go to meet them and then they're like, where they'll be like, Oh, yeah. Jeff Dwoskin Yeah, we're Twitter friends. It's like it's just it's just it's just crazy the world that we live in in terms of the connections that we make even more so now with the whole COVID thing so when when Paul connected us it was primarily before floors lava, which is a new game show streaming on Netflix right now. Yeah. Which my and I think I told you this my daughter had just insisted we watch days prior like she was obsessed with the show she loved loved it's

Anthony Carbone 6:31

it seems like kids are the like touch the thing that pointing their parents to it. Oftentimes, kids and then stoners kids and stoners are the two things

that's our wheelhouse Do you

Jeff Dwoskin 6:42

want explain the show and kind of how you came up with it. And like

Anthony Carbone 6:46

you're it's a very simple concept. I mean, floors Love is a kind of universal game that we played as children, which is don't touch the ground. People play various versions, obviously, like some people play. I've heard all sorts of version people are like there's crocodiles or whatever it is quicksand but you know floors love it Don't touch the ground. So our version is giant rooms full of quote unquote lava, which is our own goopy concoction that teams of three people try to make their way across it's very comedic, very simple. Make it across you get a point team with the most points wins. And that's it and and so these big rooms get across the room. That's in a nutshell.

Jeff Dwoskin 7:27

So if you haven't seen it, which definitely stop what you're doing right now and go watch it but like it's the idea is like it's set up like there you're in the basement and it is it's all lava and you have to like jump if you think it's like being a like an a live action Dora the Explorer video game just being in a video. It's a

Anthony Carbone 7:42

video game in many ways. Yeah. That's kind of what we were going for.

Jeff Dwoskin 7:45

Where do you get the people with the personalities? I mean, like,

Anthony Carbone 7:49

I mean, it's like it's

Jeff Dwoskin 7:52

a it's all for me. It's like these people are like it. I mean, that's part I have this. It's like, what fun fun.

Anthony Carbone 8:00

What's great about the show is okay, so it's like people have to jump swing, do all sorts of things to get through. What's great about it is you know, our whole goal was not make it you know, we don't want Ninja Warrior people. We don't want it to be like, because those shows you can only cast from a certain pool, right? Because it's people who are athletic or whatever, Titan games, those type of things. What's great about Flores love is we could cat we wanted to make it almost universal, anyone could do it. And so which means you have a wide pool to cast from so we can we can cast any age. You know, we have people from 18 up to someone over 60 we will and you know I we live in LA there's a lot of eccentric people out there. So we got a great casting company that cast a wide net and found amazing people do

Jeff Dwoskin 8:42

they practice? Or is it the first time they see it? That's the first time they see that that's the

Anthony Carbone 8:46

first time they see it. They they're they're given a little bit of insight very barely any insight of what's going to happen basically push pull tug everything that's there, like interact with but when they walk into that room that's the first time they see that room that you see the lava they see everything.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:03

It's so funny, it just so do they take do they have to go through acting classes or anything like that, or no, no, no,

Anthony Carbone 9:07

no. I mean, we would like my whole thing is whenever you know whenever we get a new cast and I always prep the cast, I was like Hey, how you doing? I'm sure right now let me and I want my whole thing is like you were cast in the show because you are we saw something in you that was funny interest or whatever. Be yourself. Be yourselves at a party is what I usually say be yourselves at a party like you know, you're on a little bit but you are yourself. We don't want you to be some sort of like we didn't ask you to be like oh be act like this. Like we saw something in you. So be yourself.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:36

I get that. I get that. Yeah, doing stand up comedy. My brother was is onstage Jeff he's sure he always says you know, I'd love to be friends with onstage chef.

Anthony Carbone 9:47

You're turning on to a degree but it's

Jeff Dwoskin 9:49

still you. Right, right. Right. Okay, so that's awesome. And then I'm curious like what what is what does an executive producer do? Or a showrunner do like what is it all

it all it all berries. I mean, if you look at credits, there's always a lot of like executive producers. It's like, ah, and so like, you know, the way I came to the show is, it was created by two people at a smaller company who had never really done anything of this ill like challenge competition stuff. And Netflix was like, you need to partner up with someone who can actually, you know, like, has experienced with this, and I've had experience with this. I've done Fear Factor way in the past, I've done I did a little white, but I've done tons of challenge shows competition, and so weird skill set to have, where it's like, you know, people bounce it off stiff and swinging as the showrunner, exec producer, you know, my role was everything top to tail, right. So they had an idea, it had to kind of be, you know, like, we pitched the format to Netflix had to kind of shape it for what is actually producible. You know, you're hiring all the department heads, hiring all the people in charge of who's your director, who's running challenges, and then all of a sudden, like, all these, you know, things are coming to you, oh, this is what the challenges are, you know, what do they look like, they're gonna, you know, you're just being like, that's great. Let's do this. And then on top of that is, you know, you're dealing with a network and making sure all they're being taken care of, and they're happy with what's going on, then it comes, that's pre production, and then you go into production, and then that production time, you're just like putting out fires, right? You're shooting the show, you have a plan of action, but really, it's putting out fires and be like, What the hell are we going to do this is not working, or whatever these contestants are. And then so that's just the day of shooting and also making sure you have all the materials you need for post, then you go into post production. And then it's like all the editors, What's the story? Who the you know, who's doing all the writing? Like, what can we fix? What can we not like, what's the cuts look like? Etc. And the whole time also, they're dealing with a political strata, because it's like, making sure the network is happy and making sure their notes are being attended to but also trying to make the show you what you want it to be. That's awesome. Yeah. Cool. So it's a fun job.

How do you get to the point? So like, you have three players, right? Yeah. So it's like, there was pastures or there's families like some kind of cosmic triplets. Like, yeah, so some kind of like, where they're all connected in some way, or have some good dynamic dynamics. Yes. Yeah. So how do you figure out like, oh, three was the right number versus you know, I mean, like, $10,000 is the right is, you know, he's what gets people excited. Yeah. Right. How do you how do you like figure, like, we had one point was there like, oh, we're trying to with four people. It was like, no, it's like, you know,

Anthony Carbone 12:21

comes to like experience to a degree, but like, it's a weird. Three people. It's kind of an anomaly. There's not a lot of shows that have three people. Our theory was I did a lot of small group communication classes in college, I remember it was always like, group dynamic shifts, right, two people, someone's in charge, and then someone is, you know, subservient. Like, there's always going to be two people, someone's always going to be the leader. So it was always gonna be the father. And then with three people, you know, it's always like, well, someone's a leader, someone's a follower, and someone's an outlier. So we were like, that might be a good group dynamic. We want the rooms to be big. Let's try to be fit to be frank. Like, it's kind of rolling the dice on a first season of a show. Oftentimes, you're trying things in your life. Hopefully, this plugin works because we don't sorry for swearing. I don't know how we Yeah, we're not we don't get to make pilots on these shows, because there's very expensive to build these sets and stuff like that. So the first season is kind of its pilot. So you know, we kind of use our best experiences being like oh three will be interesting, because someone will might be a leader, but someone might be an outlier and a group dynamic. There might be like arguments or like, do working together. Also, on top of that, we wanted people to fall and we thought for people just too many, but three people were like if you lose someone, you can still make it across the room. It just gives you more opportunity to footfalls but more opportunities for people working together.

Jeff Dwoskin 13:39

And there's some good some good files. There's some good face plans and it has a little bit of Wipeout in there.

Anthony Carbone 13:45

Sure. Yes, absolutely. Well, I mean, all my challenge team and my EIC my executive treasure production who dealt with a budget of that all come from Wipeout they all they are, that's their experience, and I've known them for the past from Wipeout. And so they brought their expertise to bear on fourth lava.

Jeff Dwoskin 14:01

Alright, so the the lava, okay, it's theirs. I get anxiety every time I watch them fall in and disappear.

Anthony Carbone 14:09

A lot of people, a lot of parents have had to explain to the children like no, no, no, it's just a TV show. Everyone's fine.

Jeff Dwoskin 14:15

Where are they going? Do they like fallen like

Anthony Carbone 14:18

that? Just that we have been sworn to secrecy? There are certain things Netflix have asked us not to discuss. I will say everyone's fine.

Jeff Dwoskin 14:27

No, yeah.

Anthony Carbone 14:30

But, you know, we we walked into this one of the first things when it was like presented me is like, we need to make sure that we sell the idea that they're falling into love. And like most shows, they splash and swim away. And we're like default a lot. But we want the stakes to feel actual to a degree. So while Netflix would never you'll watch if you watch all 10 episodes, we never used the word die because we're not allowed to use that the fact that it would die, but they allowed us to let people just disappear, which was kind of the charm of it. It'd be like and we told everyone like you know, you know Not we didn't tell them to like act or sell anything or whatever but like you're falling into lava when you're falling for the love of your fall into lava so and I don't think it was hard for them to imagine it once they were in the room because it felt so alive

Jeff Dwoskin 15:12

yeah that's that's the only thing the lava is not is that like just know there's red water I mean this thing is like saying it's a it's a mixture it's

Anthony Carbone 15:20

a it's a scientific little mixture we did we did a lot of experimentation to find out the right balance of the ingredients that are in it. It's a little slippery, slimy I always say it's the closest to Panda Express orange chicken is what that like that sauce. That's that's what it's closest to. And then yeah, it had bubblers and burrs or thing that bubble and we could control them we had a guy who that that was literally his job and like my challenge had would be like, you know, perfect now, like, you know, like, we would like try to like screw with them while they're on set like make it splash stuff and make stuff slippery and stuff like that. But it's uh, it's like, you know, took us a while to find out the right thickness, right color, the right viscosity of the whole thing because also, you know, this was a substance that we needed to have trucked in be stored be pumped into in pipes, we had to create a whole plumbing system. You know, he has to be emptied out tank. Yeah, like all the stuff to like, rechange thing. So it was a bit of a Yeah, it took a while to figure out whatever you did. You did it looks great.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:24

Did anyone? Yeah, anyone? Did anyone just, like freak out and just couldn't do it? I mean, like, he had to like, they were there any contestants you just couldn't even put on? I mean, no,

Anthony Carbone 16:34

no one no one ever freaked out to that degree. But I will say I mean, people were pretty stunned by its magnitude, if you will, like, you know, because they didn't know what happened when they felt either. Like, what kind of like is what's gonna happen is, you know, I had some control over the intercom, there was an intercom system. So I was in like, video village, and I could like talk to the contestants and be like, you know, do to like, allay their fears or be like, get moving, or whatever. Whatever you wanted to say to them. They were freaked out. But no one ever, you know, gave up which I've been on lots of shows where people have been like, I'm not doing this. Everyone did.

Jeff Dwoskin 17:14

I feel like when you watch and you're like, just jump, just jump. But you know, when you're there and like, you know, if you slip? Yeah, your brain is not letting you jump. I mean, it's like, it's it's like Why not? I mean, it's like, I'm just to jump into this thing. And if I don't, I'm gonna go headfirst into this other thing. Yes, it's a real mind game.

Anthony Carbone 17:32

And it's noisy. I mean, it's noisy as hell because there's all this lava bubbling around, and then it's slippery, because the substance itself has some slippery gas. And it was like, Yeah, and it's and it's a little smelly to I'm not gonna lie. So like, it is a bit freaky. They're just like, I don't know how I'm gonna make it because like, we don't, we're not accustomed, especially as adults just jumping like, distances for the hell of it. You know, just to paint a picture for those

Jeff Dwoskin 17:57

of you who haven't seen it, it's, it's like an element, you walk into a room. And then like, one part, there's this this thing you jump on, and then you grab this painting, and then it becomes a bridge. And it's like, you're, it's a real video game ish type thing. How do you design that? And then and then how do you test it to make sure that it actually works for like, normal people? Like what do you said is the target so the any, any skill level,

Anthony Carbone 18:18

it's complicated, so we I, you know, again, it's a weird skill set that I we just know, people who have this weird skill set, because for decades, they've been doing these shows like Wipeout and whatnot. And so basically, what happens first is, you know, we design a room, you know, and it's, we get all the approvals and whatnot, because all this stuff needs to be built, sculpted, painted. Like there's, there's, there are hundreds of people working on the show, where we had a whole meal where people just saw and things all the time, we had a sculpting department, we had like a, you know, like a painting department, like all these different departments. But so once the blueprint is approved of what the room is, and they're taping it out, right, there'll be like, in a regular room, and they'll just like put tape on and do the measurements and be like, Can I jump from this to this, that kind of works? Okay, so then we implement the building of everything, once everything's built, we had a pool in the back that the they could like, try items individually to figure out like certain things like how distance or you know, we can tilt things more or less. And then it's putting a tank. And here's the hard part is like we don't have a lot of time. So we put in the tank and we can adjust things a little bit here and there. It will it is kind of put them in a tank. Practice it a bit be like or I don't think this is working. Let's move this here. We bring in regular people who have never seen it before it testers to test it. And then we kind of make our guesstimate based on that. And you know, it's because you want it to be six, you want it to be doable, but you want people to fall so it's this weird skill set. We're like, is this gonna work? You know, let's remove that crate because that makes it too easy. But now is it too hard? I don't know. Sometimes you just like hoping it's gonna work. So there's a lot of testing but it's a lot of using a little bit of your expertise in the past and be like this, this should work this this will work. You know, and they're great at my challenge team and they're just great at it. So

Jeff Dwoskin 20:03

yeah, I mean the sets are amazing it's there's nothing funnier than people sitting on their faces.

Anthony Carbone 20:10

I 100% I mean, when you're shooting it all I all you do is laugh and like, Listen, like everyone no one got hurt. Everyone is safe which is or that's the other thing like when you test these things, you need to make sure your locks on safe we never want anyone to get hurt. But it is so funny to watch people hit things like always net universal

Jeff Dwoskin 20:29

to this day when I think about my my young daughter walking into a glass one of those glass doors. California Pizza Kitchen and she just like boom, because you Erica, and when they cuz it's funny because that noise right? Yeah, I did. They didn't see it coming. And it was like, oh my god is a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. And this is the Wipeout shows like wipe out is like it's it's hilarious to watch like them get hit by a giant thing and just

Anthony Carbone 20:58

go punch him in the face all of a sudden. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 21:01

you did American gladiators.

Anthony Carbone 21:03

Yes, I did. Yeah.

Like something. I was a young

Jeff Dwoskin 21:08

pup. Those are like to me like though that is set up. And it's completely mentally different. Like you're watching that and you're like, you want them to succeed. Like when they fall. It's like or like where they slip it right. You know, I mean like that.

Anthony Carbone 21:20

Yeah, it's every show has its different, like this show clearly was, you know, have people feel attempted boom, and you want most people to fall, but you want some victories? Yeah, some other shows are like you want people to look like heroes, you know? Yeah. And so how do you establish a challenge that they can look heroic, but still seem challenging? Yeah. So again, it's a weird skill set to have, but somehow I haven't at this point.

Jeff Dwoskin 21:43

So when do you find out about Season Two? Or did you already Florence lava?

Anthony Carbone 21:49

No, I mean, you know, the interesting thing about Netflix is they don't really work at that pace. They're not they're not like this is a success. Let's make 1000 they're like this weird. Like, you know, streaming service that has my my, I always liken them to like working at a Las Vegas buffet. Like we're all making a big fancy buffet, we all get to make our little food, but like they have a lot of food. Oh is coming. So when you run out of crab legs, they're like that, but we got prime rib coming so we can hold them the crab legs. Hopefully soon. I have a call with them. Next week, I believe to go over a 30 day numbers all indication is that it's been very, very successful. At least getting some eyeballs. Netflix is very big on also people watching the entire series, which on a show like ours is difficult. It's 10 episodes. It's standalone. It's a fun show, but like you know, is everyone gonna be like I'm watching all 10 episodes. It's not like Stranger things where you have to, like react, you have to watch all 10 episodes. So there's a you know, they have different things to look at when they decide but they have all the information. They'll be like, oh, people watch this many episodes and turn it off here and fast forward here. So we'll know what else soon enough. You know, it's obviously we're in a weird world as well. Well, there'll be like, Okay, if we make more, how do we make more because with how production is in a post COVID world? You know, we don't know quite yet. Everyone's attempting it. Like everyone's starting to dip their toes in. But hopefully soon and we can just like go you know and do something.

Jeff Dwoskin 23:14

Your structure though may work to the benefit of like a stay at home thing because it's meant to be three people who know each other not strikers. So if they've already been staying at home together, right, and then that could be it. But now explaining that to the people at home so that they don't Well, that's another thing. Yeah, cuz there's that whole thing. We're now where people say like what's going on?

Anthony Carbone 23:35

Yeah, why they touching?

Jeff Dwoskin 23:36

Yeah, why? You can't do that. This was shot 20 years ago. Oh, okay.

Anthony Carbone 23:43

I mean, the biggest thing is not even a shooting. It's kind of the crew. It's like, how do you how do you set up these little five thumbs where like the people building can get into the sculptors can get it to the painters, but no one's interacting. That's but that's what everyone's setting up right now. They're figuring out protocols for that. So

Jeff Dwoskin 23:58

So it's interesting. You said like, do they watch the whole series of Netflix watches? Because it made me think it's I mean, there's like, I feel like there's like two kinds of streaming shows. There's Stranger Things like you said, or Tiger King where like, you watch it, and then they go at the very end, they go, Oh, my God, they just hook you. Right? And then you have to watch that next episode. But then like to me like there's there is series like Flora zaba, which is like that filler series, right? where it's like, you watching Tiger King, but you need a break. And so I watch a couple episodes, the floor is lava or show like that where you don't need it can be standalone, you know, right? Like we just kind of like that. I mean, they don't rely on each other. Right? So it's like a show where you can kind of squeeze in between the good in between all the other shows, which is how people do it anyway. Now,

Anthony Carbone 24:41

I think a kid audience also helps because kids tend to binge things and watch everyday and rewatch things like they do cuz kids are kids, like my kid can rewatch things a million times. So like, that helps us as well. I know we I mean, we've had a lot of eyeballs on the thing. It's been it's been amazing how it's been everywhere, and people are like kids are building their own courses in their backyards and like just having fun.

Jeff Dwoskin 25:03

That's awesome. That's a you know, it's a success. Yeah, exactly, you know,

Anthony Carbone 25:07

precisely. Exactly. You also

Jeff Dwoskin 25:08

have another show tough as nails, right? Yes.

Anthony Carbone 25:10

Yeah, that's a CBS series. It's been on for two weeks now it's on Wednesdays at 8pm on CBS which is fun it's a different type of show it's like a challenge arct competition show I've done a lot of like game show II things that I've done like art competition art competition means like, you know, someone's gonna win after 10 hours like survivor like Amazing Race type thing. And that's about like blue collar workers like competing to who's like the toughest it's pretty fun. And then I also like prior to this did encore on Disney plus, which is more of a musical theater doc thing. Like I I try to diversify what I do all the time. Like it's just fun to like, try to dabble like not only do game shows not only do challenged stuff, but sometimes do like more feel good stuff and those type of things.

Jeff Dwoskin 25:52

I watched it I saw the first episode of encore I saw legit and not because we were talking.

Anthony Carbone 25:58

What was it?

Jeff Dwoskin 25:59

Annie? Annie? Yeah, Annie. So with Kristen Bell. So when Dustin bell so here's here's the fine. So you also did king of the Nerds? I did

Anthony Carbone 26:06

a little bit of way back. Yeah.

Jeff Dwoskin 26:09

Curtis Armstrong and Robert Carradine. Yeah, you had a picture with Curtis. Yeah. He hooked you up with Lynn when Well, that's pretty. Yes,

Anthony Carbone 26:17

sir. We went to see Hamilton and got to hang out with Lin Manuel afterwards. It was pretty cool. It's very

Jeff Dwoskin 26:22

cool. But so here's the connection. The connection is Curtis is from Detroit. Kristen's from Huntington woods, which is a suburb just outside of Detroit. So you've worked with many, many Michigan people? Well, I live No, Grant.

Anthony Carbone 26:33

I live in Grand Rapids. And yeah. President Ford red. Yeah, I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan for six years to seventh grade. And I always feel Michigan has a warm place in my heart for me a lot of friends still there and I always love going to I love I still I still am a big fan of U of M is like but I'm always like, let's go blue. That's like you go

Jeff Dwoskin 26:55

Yeah,

Anthony Carbone 26:55

I remember what the Tigers wanted. 84 I was a little kid. That was like the best bad like that was that was awesome. So yeah, yeah, but Curtis is great. He's Uh, yeah, he's such a Michigan man. Like Detroit guy. Like he's, he's awesome.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:11

Yeah, he's awesome. And Kristen Bell is also big with frozen.

Anthony Carbone 27:15

Yeah, she's she's gigantic. But um, but ya know, to me, it's been I've been lucky that I just get to try to do shows that are fairly big. I always say like, I've done every type of show except women and wine. And men like digging for oil. Or catching fish. Like those are the two shows I haven't done and I don't want to do because I don't like being like in. I don't want to be in a boat. Yeah.

No, thank you shared your own path.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:47

Okay, besides floors lava. Yeah, it's tough nails, which will everyone should watch?

Anthony Carbone 27:52

Sure. It's a great show. It's really heartfelt

Jeff Dwoskin 27:54

that one What are like the top five Anthony must stream shows.

Anthony Carbone 28:01

Well, I you know, one of my favorite shows is king of the Nerds like I will I will say like for anyone who hasn't seen it I we did three seasons of it. It is probably one of the closest shows to my heart like it was well, everyone was making those kind of nerdy I was kind of a nerd as a kid. What I love most about it though, was it's like these guys. It's like a 12 nerds. I can't remember exactly how many compete nerds is a catch all phrase competing to be king of the nerds. And all the games were like, you know, sometimes mathematical, sometimes pop culture. But what I loved about it is the contestants. Usually I do a show and I'm like, we're smarter than these contestants. Don't worry. We got like King of the Nerds is one of the few where like, you're like oh man, these contestants are smarter than us like what the hell we're gonna do because we had like NASA scientists and like all these interesting people on it. I love king of the nerd I did a show called Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, which was Jamie Oliver is a chef and we took over a school in West Virginia and tried to make their school lunches better and dealt with child nutrition which was a pretty dark kind of series. That's what I want Miami for and that series was just great season one of that series was amazing like just watching Jamie try to tackle what school lunches in this country which is kind of an abomination. So I love that show. I love making fear factor. I always enjoyed making that show. And then you know it's hard for me to pick all my babies you know. Trying to remember my other shows. I've done a lot of shows I've been lucky I'm trying to like look around

Jeff Dwoskin 29:31

you because you've done well gladdie

Anthony Carbone 29:32

American gladiators you know I was a lower level producer editor I came up as an editor by the way Mike my the way my path to this business was is like I was I knew how to edit and I was editing on season one a fear factor and quickly realized I didn't like being alone but I'm always always been very good at it. So what happened was people would hire me to like cut their pilots and stuff as long and I was like as long as I'm in the field learning how to produce edit. So that's so gladiators. I was literally on the way to my Wedding we're getting married in Italy was like 2007 the guy who was running and called me is like merican ladders is coming back. Hulk Hogan is gonna be the host. He's like, but I live in New York City at the time. And he was like, but you have to move to LA, you know, two weeks after your honeymoon, and I just turned to my wife and I'm like, I'm moving away after. My wife had to stay in New York and like, literally, we got married, came back did our honeymoon. Two weeks later, I flew to LA to work on that show, because I just loved it as a kid. Like that was just a dream. That's awesome.

Jeff Dwoskin 30:26

That's awesome to hear that me I'm a celebrity you Oh, that was glad to hear you involved with Are You Smarter Than a fifth grader Dancing with the Stars?

Anthony Carbone 30:35

Yeah, everyone has some problems.

What's great about that is like and that's the last time I felt the like where the world was watching something because it was the season with Bristol Palin and like it was just like the you know, every night was like 30 something million people will watch it it's really rare now to have anything on network have any sort of impact like that. It's just not how network TV functions anymore. It's very niche. Which is what's nice about lava lava was the first time in a while I was like, holy crap. Like, like people everywhere watching this thing. Like it is it is like, you know, infiltrated the world. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 31:14

it's amazing. It's amazing. So how can how can people find yours? It was a good way. I mean, my

Anthony Carbone 31:19

I wouldn't What is my like, what's my Twitter handle? I think my Twitter handle is is a gang of wolves, too. I believe that what my Twitter handle is like I'm gonna look at it right now. Yes,

Jeff Dwoskin 31:31

it is. Okay. number which

Anthony Carbone 31:33

is a company I started with my partner

a few years ago and and floors lava was our first series. Regrettably, like if you see the first episode, you'll see there's a memoriam. for him. He passed away before we finished shooting from a battle of cancer has sucked. So like, It's weird. When I think about making love. It was a lot of fun. But there's also like, it has this like, thread of like, what, like PTSD, you know, sadness, but he was an awesome guy who, you know, which is the bitter sweetness of its success. It's like, he doesn't get to do the victory lap. I mean, his family's happy his wife is, you know, like, everyone's like, this is awesome. You know, we just all wish he was here to do But anyways, Ganga wolves. That's a sad way of talking about my Twitter handle. Gang of wolves, too. Is my Twitter handle. If anyone wants to say hi, ask me a question. Say, can I be on lava? Yeah, and then, you know, if we get a second season, that's where I'll be announcing it at some point. And you know, we'll be hopefully then casting and then I'll put in casting materials on there and people can try out. I imagine it will be much easier to cast this go around because everyone wants everyone wants. I feel like I could charge people to do the show at this point.

Jeff Dwoskin 32:43

I think I think you're my daughter wants on my daughter wants on she's already picked her two friends. Just me. Let me know. How old is she? like, Well, wait. Well, hopefully we'll be on for a while. She's 20

Anthony Carbone 32:56

Oh, well, she's perfect then.

Jeff Dwoskin 32:57

Right. Exactly. You're gonna cute

Anthony Carbone 32:58

a kid, young man like I'm looking at?

Jeff Dwoskin 33:03

Yes. When I was 20 I hadn't. Yeah, very cool. All right. Well, this is awesome. So much. All right. A lot of TV homework for the audience. Anthony, I can't thank you enough.

Anthony Carbone 33:20

Thanks for having me, Peter. Thanks for and yeah, and watch for his love of watch. If you watch four or five, you have to watch all the episodes or Netflix gets my my executive ethics gets very angry.

Jeff Dwoskin 33:30

And you'll be helping Anthony get us season two.

Unknown Speaker 33:32

Exactly. Exactly. And a lot of other people. Thank you so much. Have a good day, man.

Jeff Dwoskin 33:36

Thanks, man. All right. How fun was that? floors? Yeah. Anthony carboni. And again, super. Thanks to Paul for hooking us up. totally appreciate that. You're gonna get a special note in the show notes. That's right. That's right, Paul. Look for that. All right, wanted to tie in a pretty cool hashtag Roundup, check out hashtag roundup online those are Twitter hashtag games that I'm constantly reading on the show. And you can be part of it like the theme so there was one back in May hashtag if life for like a video game with ash games account. fun game weekly game on the hashtag Roundup.

Alright, so what do we got here? #IfLifeWereLikeAVideoGame? I would definitely have to cheat to win. Alright, right. Sarah is a cheater. up down left, right, right, right, right. And that's left Cheat Codes away. That would be an easy way to get through life. I guess in golf. They're Mulligan's. Anyway, doesn't matter. Jan, if life were like a video game, we could just plug our controller into recharge. When that'd be nice. I guess the real life version of that is $100 massage. Darrell says if life were like a video game after a few years, you get sidelined for a new version. Oh, that hurts. That hurts, but it's true. It's true. Everyone's always looking for the next best thing. All right, flashy if life were like a video game. Loading the dishwasher would basically be like Tetris for adults. This one hit a little close to home a little close to home for me. Here's one if life were like a video game everyone would be eating all the time. wakawaka wire wire wire wire wire, that was my Pac Man. If life were like a video game jaywalking would come with its own jaunty tune. If life were Frogger Yes, it would be Christian. #IfLifeWereLikeAVideoGame, we'd all be overcoming obstacles and always trying to get the coins. Wait a minute, that is life. Right? All right, all these are gonna be on the at Jeff Dwoskin Twitter handle. So check that out. And you can follow them and retweet them and do all that good stuff. definitely follow us at at Jeff Dwoskin show on Twitter.

You can find us on Facebook, run Instagram, we're in all the places. So give us a follow and also find us on Apple. We're an I Heart Radio now and Stitcher and Spotify and Pandora. Give us this like, subscribe to the Jeff Dwoskin show. Tell your friends tell everybody. And until then. We'll see you next week.

Announcer 36:24

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Jeff Dwoskin show with your host Jeff Dwoskin. Go repeat everything you heard and sound like a genius. catch us online at the Jeff Dwoskin show.com or follow us on Twitter at Jeff Dwoskin show and we'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai