#282 Comedian Glen Tickle Against the World Crime League

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:28

All right, Penny, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You get the show going each and every week, and this week was no exception. Well welcome everybody to Episode 282 of classic conversations. As always, I am your host, Jeff Dwoskin. Great to have you back for what's sure to be a tickling good episode with my guest comedian Glen tickle. We're talking about his dry bar special which is over 1.1 million views. His brand new comedy special Glen tickle against the world crime League. So much goodness coming up in just a few seconds. In these few seconds. Just want to make sure you did not miss my conversation with Jay towers, co hosts of the cape wonder Superman podcast. We talk Christopher Reeve Superman super fun chat. Do not miss that. But right now do not miss my conversation with a comedian that's just taking comedy by storm. We're talking about Jurassic Park, his obsession with Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the eighth dimension is brand new special using comedy to cope with grief so much coming up with Glenn tickle are right now. All right, everyone, I'm excited to introduce you to my next guest. He is definitely not from Pennsylvania. You may have seen him on the dry bar special where he can boast 1.1 million downloads and counting. You may have heard him on Sirius XM, seen him on Amazon Prime, the Travel Channel, cozy TV I don't even know what that one is. But it's impressive his house he's a competitive Dr. Mario player. He's got a new special out called Glen tickle against the world crime league available on Youtube. Welcome to the show, Glenn tickle.

Glen Tickle 2:23

Thank you for having me that most people aren't familiar with cozy TV, but I genuinely would have assumed that you would be because it's all like reruns of old NBC shows Oh, where it's like they did a comedy contest years ago be like four hours of Andy Griffith three runs then they filmed a set of mine at a comedy festival. They play that and then just more Andy Griffith three runs but no real explanation for why I was interrupting Andy Griffith marathon

Jeff Dwoskin 2:49

you know off to check it out. I have like to be and freebie like all those and I do one episode of like I had Kathy Garver on sissy from family ties. I was watching something on Family Ties Kathy Garver from family affair. So I watched some family affair episodes. And now it just thinks that's all I want to do. It's why

Glen Tickle 3:11

Yeah, I have that problem with kids stuff it like any any algorithm based streaming service is ruined for me, because it's just like, Oh, do you want to watch weird sci fi from the 80s. But then also a bunch of My Little Pony for some reason, like we don't we haven't caught up yet. And you would think that they would like it would somehow know like, alright, well, this is for five year old. But I do also watch like, I guess a lot of old cartoons and stuff. So I don't know, music recommendation doesn't work. Because it like every week, I use Apple Music and it makes a little playlist of like songs that things are my favorite songs. But it is like a pretty good mix of songs. I do actually like a ton of like jazz and bebop, which I put on in the background when I'm doing stuff. And then it'll just be like songs from Adventure Time, or whatever music my children like to listen to. And it's like, well, not this doesn't work together. But like, You got to break this up into three lists.

Jeff Dwoskin 4:00

That's really funny. I remember when my first child was born, and I bought a huge big screen TV like 55 inches, but this was big, but it wasn't like the flat ones. Now it was because I'm going back a couple of decades. So it was like huge and deep. And you know, I was like, and I remember thinking it's gonna be amazing. And then all that was used for was Elmo and Sesame Street or baby.

Glen Tickle 4:27

It was a lot easier with when my first daughter was born. She's 10. Now we only showed her the Muppets. We made the decision where like she's gonna eventually latch on to something and want to just watch that thing. So let's pick a thing that she'll probably like, but also we like and it worked for a while. She just thought the TV was a machine that showed you muppets and it was great, but we can't do that with the younger one is now we have both so she's found other shows. Once she figured out how the remote works. She showed them to her little sister. Like I can't just have the Muppet Movie on on a loop for three days. Right a golden age,

Jeff Dwoskin 5:01

you can control more the first one, but then the second one wants to do with the first one is doing and the first one has already moved on from some of those shows. So then they kind of miss that and they kind of glob on to the whatever the older sibling is doing at that time. Yep. Now they're both just pretty into weird YouTube videos that they found. I know. It's like a whole different world once once they my kids never had a TV in the room because they just had no screens. Yeah, I remember growing up it was like the biggest deal in the world. When I had a TV in my room. It was like

Glen Tickle 5:35

it was I got one after the put to use the money from First Communion for was I bought a I think it was a 13 inch TV. And it was collar because we my older brother and I shared a room and we had a TV in the room, but it was black and white. So we would like hook the Nintendo it'd be hooked up to that. And so I when I got Dr. Mario 9090 I was still playing Nintendo on a black and white TV, but it's a color based game. So we would like set it up in the living room on the color TV sometimes, but I would try to play it black and white. And I think that's why I've gotten very, very good at just that one game. Like I'm not good at other video games. Just that one.

Jeff Dwoskin 6:11

I was good at Atari 2600. I have one of those. Yeah, that was my jam.

Glen Tickle 6:16

I don't remember being very good. At any games, there was a target and arcade game called Bosque Aronian that I don't ever remember until college a roommate had it was like a little arcade stick. You plug into the TV with like the RCA cables. And it had Pac Man and a couple other games. My best friend and I would competitively play this spaceship shooter game bosconi And that we had never heard of and we got so competitive that we had to like, we had to come to an agreement where like we can't do this. This is taking up too much time because we got so good at like each person's turn would be like three hours long. It's a we got we have to like write papers and stuff. We're in college. This is ruining our lives. This game we'd never heard of for the past 35 years. We got to move on. So far. I haven't touched it since but it's out there somewhere.

Jeff Dwoskin 6:59

So go ahead. Comedies here. Thanks. When did you know you're a funny? When did you decide to become a comedian? I know you're a teacher at one point. Yeah,

Glen Tickle 7:09

I worked as a sub for a long time. I've always liked comedy, like my grandparents had a couple episodes of The Muppet Show on tape. So when I would go to their house like that's what I would want to do. I'd like watch. It was the the Steve Martin Episode, The Star Wars Episode. And like a couple of other ones, those I just watched those two over and over again. And even with that, like it took I was I think was 27 when I started comedy, because that's when I realized like, oh, you can just go you can just go do it. I did one open mic in college that went badly because like I didn't really understand that you're supposed to prepare, like I had, I think what is still kind of a common misconception for people. It's like, Oh, you just go up and talk. It's like, well, no, there's actually quite a bit more to it than that. But yeah, it was a couple years out of college. And I went to school for film wasn't getting hired to write things saw that stand ups where it's like, oh, well, I don't mind standing in front of people. I love attention. I know how jokes work. Let me just go do that until I get a writing job. And I mean, it worked. I've had various writing jobs over the years, but almost immediately, it's like, oh, this is way better. Actually, like, I like this a lot more. Because I've done movies and stuff where you know, you write a script for something, it can be years before you find out if an audience likes it. But I mean, you know, you could be standing on stage, have a thought, say it in the moment and just immediately find out if people like it, and that immediacy is hard to beat for someone with ADHD who loves attention from strangers. So I've stuck with it since then.

Jeff Dwoskin 8:35

It's awesome. And you know, I listened to your dry bar especially. You're really really good. You're very Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. And I mean that because I it's hard sometimes just to listen to something recorded. I really enjoy live comedy. I think there's something Yeah, the energy.

Glen Tickle 8:50

I was listening to one of your other episodes. And you said that I think I enjoy watching live comedy more maybe than watching, like recorded but I love having a little project to work on. Like I've been I've been working on the new special since April. And it's like it gives me something to do during the day where I don't feel like I'm just sitting around. It's like, No, I have a project. I have to open Final Cut and get some work done. I love like I love making recorded comedy.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:16

Oh, yeah. I mean, there's something about it. And I don't I think it's because I've been in so many shows. And I know the energy that you give out you get back. So I think when I watch it as a comedian, I know that's part of that's missing from the experience. And so when I can thoroughly enjoy something, then I find that extremely impressive.

Glen Tickle 9:38

I do think bad live comedy is way worse than bad recorded comedy.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:43

But you're still experiencing it. There's still Yeah,

Glen Tickle 9:46

the ceiling versus floor on that is

Jeff Dwoskin 9:49

for sure. For sure. So I'm not knocking recorded comedy. I'm just saying I think there's a now you've been very clear that you would hate it. There's no energy you know, it'd be like it's a difference if we

Glen Tickle 9:59

ever comedy album should get thrown into a river. That's what you said, I heard it, it's on the record, which should also get thrown in a river.

Jeff Dwoskin 10:06

If you were to watch like, I love Billy Joel. So if I were to watch the recording of Billy Joel, there is not the same level of enjoyment as if I were at the concert watching Billy Joel. Right. My point was, I thoroughly enjoy listening to you and really would find myself laughing a lot. So I was saying, you transcended that that was gonna be that was gonna be my point.

Glen Tickle 10:30

I appreciate it. I mean, the music example, i People make fun of me a lot, because I don't actually I'm not a big music I and I have friends who were in bands and stuff in college, and I would go see them and like, I could just listen to the CD. Like, it's I don't want to be I love being onstage in a crowded room where everyone's looking but like being just in the audience isn't and live music like this? I don't think anyone's ever figured out the correct volume. For live music. It's always too loud. I think like comedy. It's easy to address, because it's just one person talking to a microphone usually. But I don't know. It's too loud. I'm too old. To quote Airheads,

Jeff Dwoskin 11:06

how many hours of material do you have? I mean, like workable usable, because you've had multiple specials that you've done

Glen Tickle 11:13

a few, I would say there's some overlap between my first album and the dry bar special because dry bar, like the only thing they care about is it just has to be cleaned to their standards. When I submitted it, I just sent them that album. It's like, here's an hour of clean comedy. Can I come tell jokes in Utah, and the application process is apparently more rigorous now. Because I've told that to a couple of people. They're like, Oh, no, I was like, back and forth for a while before they approve the set. I was like, Oh, they didn't ask me once. What jokes? I was gonna tell I had to run a couple by them. Because like, I think it's clean. But like, Is it like the joke about naming my daughter tests? I was like, Is this gonna Is this okay? And it was right before the show. I like dry, ran it for the producer backstage. And she's like, well do it for the first show. And if the audience doesn't like it, don't do it for the second show like that tell you'll now it's like, I'd really rather you just thumbs up or thumbs down this joke, but played surprisingly well. I mean, there's a longer version of that joke that isn't quite as clean, because it's fun to do live because all the tags get like a little. Each one's a little grosser, because it gets like more anatomy specific. And it's fun to do live, because you can feel out with the audience, like where should I bail on this one. And very rarely do I get to like the last part of it. Because it's usually like, once I feel like half the audience is like pushing back, I will just move on to the next joke. But it's I mean, to your point about live versus recorded, like I do like that you can adjust things on the fly in a live performance in a way that despite my best efforts over the past couple of months, you can't change that much stuff about a recorded set. It's been a lot of like trying to move jokes around just like fix the order. Or there's a weird sound got on the recording from the first show that I'm hoping isn't on the second and and I'm trying to work that in seamlessly. But when you're doing it live like that is one of the more enjoyable parts of it for me to be like, I got to figure out what these people like. And then based off of the material I have, what can I do to entertain them, because I've never been one of the one of those guys who's like, Oh, you got it, you should be able to crush in any room like, I'm like I don't, I don't want to actually like I want. I want to go to different rooms and find the people who like what I want to do anyway, which is probably a slower way to do it and like accumulate an audience. But I feel like it's worth the extra effort of being like, if I find out if I'm in a room with an audience and I find out oh, these people are all insanely racist. I'm not going to start doing racist jokes, entertain them an extreme example. But I'm like, I just want to talk about like Jurassic Park and my kids, which I understand. You know, some people don't have children. And for some reason, I've never seen Jurassic Park. So I have to figure out like, Well, how do I make this relatable to people who don't have the exact experience that I'm trying to talk about? Because a lot of my material is just stories of things from my life, where it's like, well, yeah, these people weren't there when you know, when I took my daughter hiking, and she pointed out all the dead animals in a room full of taxidermied animals, but it's still like the job of it is like, Well, how do I make this story entertaining for at least most people? I'm not trying to necessarily get it everybody. I just need enough. Yeah, it's

Jeff Dwoskin 14:23

it's a numbers game. I got it. Yeah, but what about what about Jurassic Park? I didn't have kids when I saw Jurassic Park. No. Opening weekend.

Glen Tickle 14:34

I saw it a couple of weeks after opening weekend because my mom's friend walked out when the kids are pin by the T Rex in the car. And she told my mom that she shouldn't let me see it. Because kids get eaten by a dinosaur. And I'd read the book. I was like a big nerd and I was like, I was very like she knew to warn my mother about this movie, specifically because it's probably all I was talking about with my parents friends. for like six months, and she walked out, so she didn't see them get away from the T Rex. She just told my mom, and I'm like, I read the book. It was like, I know things are different in movies sometimes. But that would be a big change, honestly, like those characters are pretty pivotal to the rest of the story, I don't think and then I found out that she walked out was like, No, I'm like, I don't want to ruin it for you. They get away from the T Rex, Mom, it's gonna be okay.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:23

Plus, it's a Steven Spielberg film. What did you think? He's not gonna have like a guy who made et, it's gonna be fine. I was obsessed with Michael Crighton. And all his books. Around that time, I was obsessed

Glen Tickle 15:34

with Jurassic Park. And then I tried to get into the other ones, and I just couldn't.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:38

I loved his books. The Jurassic Park is basically just a rework of Westworld. Yeah. Yeah. Which he also wrote, he made the movie,

Glen Tickle 15:46

but that one didn't have the dinosaurs in it. Or at least not as many. I don't remember what

Jeff Dwoskin 15:50

didn't have Daniel, it was the same idea was robots in a Yeah, Westworld. There's robots in park. Yeah. And then they cause havoc. And then this is dinosaurs and up.

Glen Tickle 15:59

And then what the follow up for it. I forget the last world. No, for Westworld. There was like the

Jeff Dwoskin 16:08

HP. Yeah,

Glen Tickle 16:09

there was like another think there was a sequel of the movie. I think there was another you'll brand or one, if I remember correctly. I might not. So

Jeff Dwoskin 16:16

I'll have to we'll have to dive into that separate. Yeah, that one. I don't know. One point over a million views on your drive are special. Now million views is amazing. How is that compared? In the drive our world.

Glen Tickle 16:28

I mean, there's some that have just way bigger numbers. There's like a couple a couple that are like huge. And that's just from the YouTube upload that they did. Like, I don't see numbers of like views from their platform. So unless it is something like YouTube, or they put it on Facebook, too. And like you can see the number of views there. It's like, Oh, I know it's doing well. I know people are watching it. I've had people reach out, they find me after they see it and telling me they enjoyed it. And I know people are watching it like it was released, I think July 2021. And then a couple of weeks later, they put it up on YouTube. And then that's where like, I could see that it was doing well, as opposed to before I would just sometimes they email you with like a breakdown of how it's doing. But without I don't care like how much money it's making. I just want to know how many people have seen it. Like that's the information I'm interested in. But it's wild because that's the I think that's the most views any of my comedy has gotten. But I started using Tiktok. During the pandemic, one of the videos that I did about potty training, my daughter got 3 million views. And then I have a joke about it on the news special about that being a wild thing that happened. So I wanted to post that clip to promote the new specials. So like, oh, I should repost that potty training video so that people like find it easily then the repost of it got, I think it's up to 3.3 million views. And like the point of the joke is that's too many views. For this dumb video about potty training my kid I just I hit the same video hit a million on Facebook, I'm like tick tock is ruined my perception of like what it means for a thing I posted on the internet to do well, because before that, if I put something up on YouTube, and it gets like a couple 1000 views, I'm over the moon. Like I had a couple clips that did pretty well on, like stand up clips that did pretty well on YouTube. And then just like I edited the boat scene from Nosferatu to the lonely islands on a boat. And like that got I think 20,000 Something views like this is incredible. And then but I spent like three days making that edit. And the 10 seconds I spent making a dumb potty training joke has gotten a cumulative seven something million views. And it's like, I don't understand, like I've had clips that do well on YouTube to like standard up clips, but nothing approaching that level. I have like a few that have like a couple 100,000. So now I've been getting ready for the release of the new special and it's like, Alright, I need to like set a number in my head. That means that it's going okay, it's obviously if 200 people watch it, that's not enough people, like I'll feel bad. But then it's like, well, I can't set my goal at 1.1 million, like I don't have the following or marketing budget that Dr. R has. So um, like, it's I don't know what I don't I've never settled on an answer for this. But I'm like, It's between 200 and a million. Somewhere in there is a number that will satisfy me. I mean, there will never be enough attention, right? Like you're a stand up, but if you understand that impulse, but you know, I want it to feel like time well spent the past couple of months, you know, recording and working on this thing. So hopefully we will get more than 200 and probably less than a million it would be great if it did, but I don't I don't know that that's a realistic expectation.

Jeff Dwoskin 19:44

I'm sure you'll fall somewhere between 200 and a million I have

Glen Tickle 19:48

my parents would watch it 300 times just to pump the numbers up I'm sure

Jeff Dwoskin 19:54

so funny. Sorry to interrupt my conversation with going check off what we have to take a quick break, when thank everyone for their support of the sponsors. When you support the sponsors, you're supporting us here at Classic conversations. And that's how we keep the lights on. And now back to my conversation with Glenn Jayco. We're gonna dive deep into how he prepares for a comedy special. How long does it take to prepare for each one of your specials? If you're going to do an hour, do you year building that up?

Glen Tickle 20:25

Well, the first one, I was thinking seven years, six or seven years into comedy before I had been headlining a bit at that point. So I'm like, I have an hour but having an hour of material versus like having an hour for a special is different. I was trying to get booked at more colleges, and one of them asked me to send them the hour that I would do. And I'm like, Well, I don't I don't have that recorded. So I'll do that. And if I'm going to do it, you know, I'll do it. Right. You know, I have a friend who is a sound recorder, I don't know his actual job title. He runs like a recording studio outside of Philly. So I'm like, let me I'll have him come record it so that it sounds nice. And then I ended up self releasing it and starting a record label to do that. And so that was like seven years of the hits from the beginning part of my career of just stuff that I thought a college would want to hear so that I get books. And then the next one took a couple of years. That one was good grief, which is a special that I put out after my brother died. And it's all material about like dealing with grief. That took a couple of years because it's like a tough topic to make jokes about. So it took a while that came out the beginning of 2020. And it happened like a couple weeks after I ordered my first album in 2016. So like three and a half years, I think. And then I ended up recording that one thing was like two weeks before the drive are set. So it was like December 2019 an hour a very sad comedy and then fly to Utah to do like regular comedy again. It was there was like I said there's stuff from the first album but then it was also just you know, newer bits about my kids joke about Jurassic Park that doesn't work on that special like it's if I had to pick like a real law. It's that one. I feel vindicated because back when like Twitter was the thing people use randomly some Genesis Elijah Genesis Genesis Elijah, I think his name is he's a rapper in the UK, just randomly tweeted, I mean, he's like, you know, Chronicles Jurassic Park joke is under appreciated. I was like, Thank you, stranger.

Jeff Dwoskin 22:28

I've never met the best jokes are under appreciated.

Glen Tickle 22:31

Yeah, it's I don't know, if Utah didn't get it, you would think because they found a lot of dinosaurs there. So there would probably be some interest, but it just falls completely flat to that audience. It could have sweet and they kind of sweet. Yeah. And then this last one is probably about three years to just because it's, it's been there's a pandemic, and I've been home. So like, a lot of that time I wasn't actively touring. I did a lot of zoom shows, though. And that's not really the best way to develop material. Because there's like a weird internet delay and like people are muted. So it's like a, you know, I'm trying to find out if a joke works that half second pause of like well Did, did it bomb or is your internet slow, is like really detrimental to the process. So for probably the first two years of the pandemic, it was like me mostly doing just basically the dry bar set. And then a couple newer bits or sometimes older bits to fill out the show. And late 2021 was when I started like actually going out regularly again. So from there, it was probably about a year before I felt like it was ready. That's when I like called the venue that I recorded that to set a date. But then you know, I was I was changing it up to the day of like, what jokes I want to include, because once I got back out on the road and was doing more shows like Oh, I'm that's how I generate material basically. Alright, so like I had a bunch of jokes. So it's like, well, now I gotta figure out what ones fit in the hour because I don't want to like chappellet and just put out like a three hour superblock of dad jokes. You know, it's like, I gotta cut this down and then maybe I'll save some of them for the next one. Or they just sometimes there's just ones that you do live that you don't need to record.

Jeff Dwoskin 24:13

I did question on Good grief. And yeah, so I'm sorry, your your brother died. Thank you. I was trying to listen to the versions that you didn't want to hear people say things you don't Yeah, I just wanted to prove I listened to it. Yeah, that's I was listening to a bunch of it a lot of it and it struck me that this would be really a good thing for people to listen to who lose someone really close or family member Do you get that kind of feedback when people see this discovery?

Glen Tickle 24:39

Yeah, like I pretty consistently like every couple of weeks or months I get a random email from somebody that found it and said that it was like really helpful and I talked about it in the special like because I when I started touring the show after like live after shows people would tell me that they thought it was really helpful because they lost somebody and like that's great. That's not the goal, though. Like I didn't set out out to like, help anybody which I should have, but I, you know, I'm a narcissist who just wants attention. And it was 100% Just like for my own benefit, because when I started doing comedy again, I'm like, Oh, I can't ignore this. I can't not talk about it. I mean, the reason most of my jokes are about stuff like my kids in Jurassic Park is because like, I spend most all my time with my children. And I really like watching, you know, Jurassic Park and Star Wars and Buckaroo Banzai. So that's what I ended up writing about. So when I was grieving my brother, it's like, well, I'm thinking about this all the time. I can't, I can't not talk about it. And I also couldn't stop myself from making jokes about it. I have had people tell me that I'm going to hell, because I'm making fun of my brother for dying. And I'm like, Ah, I don't I don't know that that's,

Jeff Dwoskin 25:50

I don't think you were making fun of your brother. I

Glen Tickle 25:51

don't think so. And like, that wasn't the goal.

Jeff Dwoskin 25:54

I know, it's probably people are listening in it's out of context, as I was, I would almost say it was in it was in respect to the situation. You know, I mean, there was nothing egregious, right? You didn't take advantage of that situation. To make a joke. You were doing what we all would do in that situation, or especially comics, which is internalize the event that you had no control over and add context to it that hopefully others could understand and hear and relate to, and make them feel better about things that happened in their lives as well.

Glen Tickle 26:25

Yeah. And that was the thing that I heard from people were like, and not comics, just like normies were like, hey, you know, when I was at my uncle's funeral, this hilarious thing happened. Or like, I heard so many stories from people who were not comics about people making jokes after somebody died. And it's like, so it's not just me, like that was the most like, directly helpful. Part of it for me was hearing that from other people, because like I talked about in that special the first thought I had when my mom told me, my brother died was a joke. And I'm like, I don't like that's not an exaggeration for the special. That's, that's how it went down. My mom called said your brother died. And my 31st thought was We come from a big family. I have spares. And it's like, well, that's I that shouldn't have been the thought, right? Like it should have been, Oh, no. And then maybe a couple hours later, a job. But it was like, it's so immediate. And I felt bad. But I'm like, It's good line. Like I wrote it down.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:22

I think it's a defense. It's a defense mechanism.

Glen Tickle 27:25

Oh, no question.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:26

It was a way for your brain to handle that moment. And as a comedian, that's how you handle it. And

Glen Tickle 27:34

it's how I handle I mean, it's how I handle good emotions to for the record. It's not just the bad ones, but it is like, I think the line in the special is humor as a defense mechanism. I've weaponized into a career, which is true is like, there's a joke on a couple jokes about my daughter broke her arm during the pandemic, and I talked about it in the new special. And it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, it's scary. I was walking, I think I say I was there when it happened in the special, I was walking to my daughter's soccer practice where the playground was, but it's not worth explaining that in the joke. So there's like, oh, yeah, she fell off. And then we went to the hospital. But like, it's scary when your wife calls to say that she thinks your kid broke your arm and you're a 15 minute walk away. And it's like, well, do I run there? Do I go back to the house and get the car like what? And it's, it's like, really stressful and immediately, it's like, yeah, what are the jokes about this? It's again, it's like, well, it's not helpful in the moment to tell people who aren't comics that you thought of a really funny thing about the tragedy you're all currently going through. But

Jeff Dwoskin 28:34

I'd recommend against that. Yeah, you wait, you hold, you gotta hold that.

Glen Tickle 28:40

I ended up I had to fly to Omaha the day after it happened. And I was on the fence. It was for a comedy festival. And I almost ended up not going because we were in the hospital for like a day and a half because it was during the pandemic. So like, we were waiting forever to get a room. Everything was taking way longer than it should have. You know, it wasn't like a quick trip to the hospital. We were there. We got moved from one hospital to another. We were there overnight. And then it's like, Well, I think we ended up in home like 2am The next day after she broke her arm. And then I was supposed to, like get up and fly to Omaha in the morning. And like I went to bed and we got back in like, I don't know, I don't know if I'm going like my mother in law was coming over to like help. So I wasn't like just abandoning my, my wife with our two children. And one of them now in a cast. So like, help was around if anybody's listening and thanks to my monster, but I ended up going and then the whole set that I was like doing it most of the shows was just about my daughter breaking her arm and one of the columns. She's like, Oh, when did she break her arm? I'm like, two days ago, I said, and he's like, Yeah, but I thought it was like comedy two days ago, when you say like, oh, this thing happened on the way that I'm like, No, it was like, it was like, I think the festival started on Thursday. So I'm like, No, this was probably this was Tuesday night and then I would spend all Wednesday in hospital then I got on a plane and I'm too tired to like talk about something else. So it's just going to be these jokes.

Jeff Dwoskin 29:59

Alright, let's Talk about your impact on me and your greatest influence to you creatively, which is the adventures of buckaroo. Banzai. Crossy Yeah, dementia.

Glen Tickle 30:09

I love it so much.

Jeff Dwoskin 30:10

It's no secret you love this movie. I never saw this movie until recently. I did watch it cuz I knew we were going to talk about your special blend tickle against the world crime lead. Yes. Against the World crime League is a reference to that movie as well. Alright, so let's talk about the adventures of Buck rube. Happily. Do you want to set the table for everyone? Let them know what this 1984 Classic is?

Glen Tickle 30:39

Sure. So this is my absolute favorite movie of all time. The special the title references the never made sequel to Buckaroo Banzai, because it was a huge flop in 1984. But they really thought they had a franchise on their hands. So they did that thing movies sometimes do. We're in the credits. It says watch for buckaroo. Banzai is next adventure Buckaroo Banzai against the world crime League, but the movie lost, I think like $16 million. He never made that movie. So when I was doing the special, I was editing Good grief. And I was doing in the credits. I thought, I'm like, Oh, that'll be funny. I'll put in a special watch for Gleneagles. Next adventure, glinted go against the world crime league. And then when it came time to do and title and other special, it's like, well, I don't have a better title. So I'll just, I'll run with the bit. I'll just keep using it. But now that like, I'm promoting it, and people I'm hearing and other people say it and everyone messes it up. And like I should have just called it any other any other title.

Jeff Dwoskin 31:31

Stay strong, glad and take all stay strong. I gotta commit for the record. I was a budget of 17 million, of which 2 million of that is visible on screen and in a box office take of 6.3 million. You know, it's funny when I was watching this, my memory of this movie was it starred Adam Ant, which, by the way, Adam Ant is not in this movie. However, however, Peter Weller stated that his inspiration for his character was, among other people, Jacques Cousteau and Adam Ant. Yeah, so included my memory of it being at a mat because probably how we visually looked completely wrong, but has some merit. So let's talk about this cast for a second. Just so yeah, this is one of those.

Glen Tickle 32:19

This is the thing where when people tell me they haven't seen it, and I start listing who's in it, they're like, how have I not seen this? This is the best 1984 had to offer.

Jeff Dwoskin 32:27

Oh my god. This said Peter Weller, who everyone knows as Robocop John Lithgow Jeff Goldbloom delivering a line that clearly they saw him delivering and they said we need him in Jurassic Park. There's like a line right out of it where he's explaining the science is Yeah, buckaroo, Ellen Barkin, Christopher Lloyd, who else we got. Danna data. Danna, Jr. We have Jonathan banks who most people would know right now is Mike from Breaking Bad. Yeah,

Glen Tickle 32:56

a very young Jonathan but he's got hair and everything. Oh,

Jeff Dwoskin 33:00

wait, that one guy from Clancy Brown from Shawshank, and he's actually in a sleaze.

Glen Tickle 33:05

Rawhide. Lewis Smith. Yeah. Pepe Silva.

Jeff Dwoskin 33:09

You are right. It's a luminary guy, but I could not play some at all.

Glen Tickle 33:14

I had somebody else was I had the same conversation with somebody the other day. And like, why is he look so familiar? He has to just look like someone else. Because he's not done like a ton of hugely notable things.

Jeff Dwoskin 33:25

Now it's like the heavenly kid and I was just like, now that wouldn't be it because I don't think Yeah, and that either.

Glen Tickle 33:30

No, that's I think I he doesn't have coming. Services. But yeah, I watched it. And it's, it's a weird one. So like, he dies in like a car race and then comes back to earth as an angel decades later to like, help. I think it ends up being his son. There's a kid in high school is like getting bullied and he has to like help this kid and then you find out that it's his kid. I think it's not a good one. Oh, that's a two as well. Lewis Smith. Wade is perfect Tommy in bucker bonds is tremendous is

Jeff Dwoskin 34:00

tremendous. So this, Peter Weller is Buckaroo Banzai he was I didn't know this word before. He's a polymath. That means Yeah, he's, he's excellent in many different things. He's a physicist, a neurosurgeon, a test pilot and a rock star. Yeah. And interestingly enough, I read that Tom Hanks and Michael Keaton, were considered for the role of which of those two I really could only see Michael Keaton pulling that off. I can't, I can't see. Yeah,

Glen Tickle 34:27

yeah, I know. They did really want Hanks and I don't know, I don't know how far it went beyond them being like, he'd be great at this. Like, I don't know if he if there was ever like a screen test or anything. The movie also has kind of blanking on her name. Ellen Barkin. Yeah, but that's not what I mean. She's cut from the movie. Oh, Jamie Lee Curtis. Jamie Lee Curtis is buckaroos mom in a flashback scene that got cut and the movie flopped. And I do think it would have done a lot better if they hadn't cut that scene. So it was the original opening for the movie was old. As they explained it as like archival footage from the Banzai Institute and it's like a young buckaroo, his parents Dr. Aqeedah, who we see as like an old man for most of the movie are working on an experiment and then it goes wrong and the car blows up and his parents are killed Batman style, but it's also it's a reference to the world crime League and Hanoi Shan like the leader of it, who he's responsible for Booker's parents death, but he's like the villain of the movie who got cut out entirely like he gets he helps Lazaretto break out of the mental institution to go get the oscillation overthrust are these words mean nothing if you haven't seen the movie, yeah, but it's they started because of Jedi the year before. They're like, Oh, sci fi movie. We need an opening crawl, buddy. So lose this flashback scene and just give us yellow words on a black background. And that's what they did. But it doesn't do a very good job of setting up anything. I watched this movie for the first time, like five years ago. And it took like a good 20 minutes before I figured out who on screen was Buckaroo Banzai, I genuinely thought it was Jeff Goldblum for like, before I'd seen the movie. I just for whatever reason. I knew he was in it. I thought he played the character Buckaroo Banzai, probably because he's dressed in a ridiculous cowboy outfit for half the movie. But I'm like, I don't understand. He's got like a weird surgery mask on for the first part of it. And then he's got a helmet on because he's going in in the jet car. You don't see his actual face for like the first 15 minutes. And everyone's just talking about this character. Buckaroo Banzai, there's a bunch of people on screen, it's a little hard to follow what's happening. But it starts after the opening crawl of he drives a jet car through a mountain by traveling through the eighth dimension. And that's the experiment that his parents were trying to do when they got killed. And then later, we also see that is the experiment that John Lithgow was trying to do with Professor Akita when he partially crosses into the eighth dimension that's possessed by the alien leader, John warfarin. And then when they pull them out of the dementia, His hair's a different color, and he's just yelling, but they don't explain that he would like there's no scene that explains the possession of it all. It's just he goes halfway through a wall, pull him out. He looks different. And he's yelling now. And it's a hard movie to describe and assure people that you do genuinely love it because it is kind of a mess. I'll admit

Jeff Dwoskin 37:25

this is I started watching it and I'm like, What is Glenn tickle recommending here? And so I kept but I kept watching it. Okay, it's an hour and 42 minutes this movie, so it's yeah, it's not a very long movie. It's doable. Tell me if you think this is a fair description. The reason probably it is called classic and people endear to it it looks and feels and plays like a movie that your best pals who are into Movie Making made in their basement and backyard and just put it on film. And I that's fair.

Glen Tickle 38:00

Yeah, I think that fits. Because they did Earl Mac raps guy wrote Buckaroo Banzai did put out the sequel against the world crime league as a novel. And I think it came out in 2021. And it is that feels like your buddies from eighth grade. All just like Exquisite Corpse doubt a novel with every reference to like, whatever eighth grade boys with like a slight interest in, you know, conspiracies in the occult would want to put in a book. It also feels like he's just been writing it since 1984. Because it's very long. And it is. It's so it was a tough one to get through. I don't love it. As much as I love the movie. It's getting re released in paperback soon. If anybody wants to pick up a copy. There's also a 24 hour long audiobook version.

Jeff Dwoskin 38:45

Oh, I think there's a rush. I think everyone's not so say anything you want to say.

Glen Tickle 38:50

I think there was a chance tome,

Jeff Dwoskin 38:52

they just wanted to get the book. Have you seen the special edition DVD, which contains 14 deleted scenes and an extended introduction?

Glen Tickle 39:00

Yeah, the extended introduction is that flashback scene. And it also has it as one of my favorite DVD features I think of all time and I only love it in the context of this movie. It would drive me nuts for any other type of media, but it is like a pop up video style DVD commentary but in character from the character Pinkie Carruthers some reason barely in the movie played by Billy Vera of Billy in the beaters, but it's all just like he's chiming in with additional story facts in like little pop ups on the screen. And I'm like this, it would drive me nuts if I was trying to watch any other movie and that happened I'm debating whether I want to do that for the comedy special like go through.

Jeff Dwoskin 39:42

Twit Patil video, this video thing.

Glen Tickle 39:45

It's great for three minutes when it's about a song that you've heard 100 times but when you're like trying to follow a story, and just every 30 seconds, there's a new paragraph on screen about what in the world of the movie. It's not like trivia facts. It is just like, oh, that character After six months ago did did this on this other adventure. It's like none of that happened. This is all pretend WD Rector, the guy who wrote it, directed it. He wrote Big Trouble in Little China as since promoting the movie originally been talking about it as a docu drama. He insists Buckaroo is a real person that they got permission to do the movie. And he's I've never seen an interview or anything with him where he breaks that bit. And it's one of those things where it's like, they talk about the producers, Sidney Beckerman was like really just writing them the whole production. Like they credit all the problems with the movie to him. And it's like, I thought some of it might have been you guys. Like, you seem kind of weird, honestly, like, I love your movie. But it seems like you're maybe a little difficult to work with. I think you got to take some responsibility for some of the problems with your movie.

Jeff Dwoskin 40:49

Yeah, it's there's a lot of problems with it. But like you said, if you if you take it for what it is, and kind of keep

Glen Tickle 40:56

the thing that I love about it is that it feels like the third or fourth movie in a series, because when I was watching it the first time, it's like, oh, there must be like 10 of these because I don't know, they're all talking about these characters and events. Like we all know what happened. It's like just watching Return of the Jedi first were like, I get that there's stuff going on before this, but like you can follow the story. But there's not there's no other. There's no other material. Now until the sequel book came out, they wrote a ton of scripts and stories about Buckaroo Banzai before they made the movie. And then they just kind of picked one from the middle. It's not an origin story, except for that flashback scene that got cut. It's like all the characters are well established. They've been around you know, a while it's not how the team got formed, or whatever. It is just a kind of middle of the road adventure for this guy. The thing that made me love it is the it's the line that everybody knows who knows anything about this movie is no matter where you go, there you are, which is delivered shortly after my actual favorite line in the movie, which is don't be mean, you don't have to be me. And it's because they're the Hong Kong Cavaliers Buckers band are playing a show, and he shuts it down because someone in the audience is not having a good time. So they're up there wailing away. And then he just literally like puts his mini trumpet down and says, Hey, stop, is someone out there not having a good time. And as a comedian, I don't think I've ever related to anything harder than seeing somewhat like, because you're not like if you're at a show, and everyone's into your stuff, but there's one person just like arms folded in the front. That's who you're gonna pay attention to. And it's like, well, yeah, why? Why aren't you having a good? Like, that's what I I've never stopped a show to figure it out. Unless they're being disruptive. But it's like, I want to know, like, I want to, I want to stop telling jokes and get to the bottom of this. Like, what is it about this that you're not enjoying? Is it because I'm talking too much about a movie from 1984? You probably haven't seen is that the part that you're not related to? That's usually what it is when it's done. Like they're like we don't we haven't seen out. We don't know what you're talking

Jeff Dwoskin 43:02

of. They haven't seen Alpha that's on them. Very cool. I so we gotta we got a lot of homework. For those of you out there. You gotta go watch the adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the eighth dimension. And of course, you need to head over to YouTube. Is it a free watch gland or do we pay and watch Glen tickle against the world crime league on YouTube? Also, you can watch Glen's other specials dry bar and Good grief. Yeah, grief, I

Glen Tickle 43:28

think is up on that's on YouTube, too. Yeah, I

Jeff Dwoskin 43:30

think they're all there so you can get it. There's so much if it's not I'll put it up to so much tickle in your life. Watch the dry bar. Bash all you does 20 minutes on his last name, which is amazing. And so there that's all the incentive you need. I think, Glen Where are your socials and all that where can people

Glen Tickle 43:49

it's just at Glen tickle one in in Glen and tickled just the way the word is spelled. You can follow me on Tik Tok. And you can join the millions of people who have watched the dumb video about the potty training my daughter by giving her stickers. I still can't believe how many people have seen that. Certainly.

Jeff Dwoskin 44:07

Amazing. All right. Everyone knows who you are that clearly from all these years, so it's it's all good. So thank you so much for hanging out with me. Thank you

Glen Tickle 44:17

for having me. Absolutely.

Jeff Dwoskin 44:19

Delight indeed. How amazing was comedian Glen tickle? Y'all have a lot of homework and Rania get a little tickle in your life. Glen tickle is comedy specials are all linked in the show notes. You can also Google up or go to Glenn tickle and calm. And also check out the adventures of Buckaroo Banzai if you haven't enjoyed that classic in a while. Can't believe it. The interview is over. That means we have come to the end of yet another episode episode 282 has flown by one more huge thank you to my special guest Glen tickle and of course a huge thank you to all of you for coming back week after Week means the world to me, and I'll see you next time.

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