Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I’m Link. And I’m Rhett. Oh my gosh. And that’s one of my cards. Hey Rhett. Who is this? Who are you? I’m an imposter. That is the best me costume I’ve ever seen. Just in case you might think it was a caveman, you’ve got a t shirt to clarify. I’m telling you. So, so Rhett, uh, what you been up to? Talk to me. Just working. Just working. Can you see me right now through your hair? Yeah, I can see you. Okay. Alright. Did you fall off of a train? Uh, more like a bus. Mm hmm. Oh, you travel by bus. Yeah. Are you riding underneath the bus? Well, in the compartment up underneath it. I really appreciate the work you’re doing to get the word out about Link and his dad’s podcast. Yeah. I appreciate that, Rhett. Yeah. What, you talking to yourself? I’m talking to myself, yeah. Um. Yep. What is it? Tell them about, uh, yeah, tell them about my podcast with my dad. Rhett. Dispatches from Myrtle Beach with Charles Neal and Link from Good Mythical Morning. Okay, yeah, I’ve heard of them. How does it compare to Ear Biscuits, the podcast with Link and his best friend, you? Well, I mean, I don’t know if I can compare with Link’s best friend, but it’s pretty good. But you are my best friend. It’s up there. But you’re not my dad, right? No. You’re, you’re Rhett. I’m Rhett, yeah. Link’s best friend. This podcast is, it’s, It’s almost as good as the one that I do with Link. That we’re about to do right now. Yeah. Okay, there we go. Well, it’s good to see you, Rhett. Yeah, good to see you too, Rhett. Boy, I’m confused. Yeah, I’ll explain it later. Okay, yeah, um, so watch my, or listen to my other podcast with my dad, Dispatches from Myrtle Beach. Well, that was Rhett. And, uh, this week at the round table of dim lighting. We, whoever I am now, uh, we’re going to be talking about Wonderhole. Wonderhole, we, we, we poured so much of ourselves into, uh, this show. We’ve been so excited about it coming out. Now that the whole season one is out, uh, we’ve taken some of your questions, and we, we just want to talk about it. I think, um, in a lot of ways it represents, it represents a lot to me personally. So. Hey Rhett and Link, it’s Marla from Minnesota. I just got done watching the last episode of Wonderhole, and I loved it. I love that you released it once a week instead of all at once. It just made it, like, more fun to look forward to. And now that your passion project is out and public and available for anyone to watch, how do you feel? What are the vibes? Let us know, I’m so curious. Cheers. Anyway, you guys are great. Love you. Say it back. Bye Love you marla from minnesota. Love you marla from minnesota right back at you. Yes. Yes. Yes How are we feeling now that it’s out? Um, i’m feeling Similarly to when I was asked this question at the premiere episode of Wonderhole, well the premiere screening, uh, we had an event where, where, um, special people and journalists who are also special people, we invited people to, uh, watch them in a theater with us. And that was a great experience. We got up there on stage afterward and, uh, we were asked questions. The first question was, did you set out, did you accomplish what you set out to accomplish with this? And. When I heard that question, I noticed that I got emotional, like I noticed it. I try, I almost started crying a little bit because I was experiencing joy that the answer that I can honestly give was yes, we set out to accomplish what we wanted to accomplish, especially. Given the timing of the question was before any of it had come out on YouTube I’ve done a lot of work in therapy in in in talking about Wonderhole. It’s been a great object of Exercising who I want to be as as a creator and how I want to interact with the things that we’re we’re creating And so I was able to say that You We accomplished the main things I set out to accomplish. Even before it came out, because it was an expression of our creativity and us taking, um, shedding a lot of the parameters that we take into account when doing things before or trying to do projects. But in this case, we were following, I mean, I appreciate she called it a passion project because I mean, we’ve been very passionate about it and channeling. So much of our enthusiasm and our creativity into something and creating an experience along the way that was rewarding, even if, uh, the reception wasn’t, didn’t match our, our enthusiasm. So at that point in the process, before anybody saw it. I felt very happy to be happy about it. I think there’s more there that I can talk about but that’s like My preliminary. So I was in this in the same place with you. Uh on the premiere I I was It was very difficult for me to enjoy the premiere because I was just thinking about, uh, the response, well, just evaluating like what I learned and wanting to like, hold on to like what we don’t get to watch our stuff in front of a live audience. Right? And we did. And so you’re trying to parse through the BS things that people say about liking it. And then the genuine things people say, right? Um, But here on the on the back end of we so now the thing that we made that was the thing that we wanted to make is out there and we have seen like the response across episodes to individual episodes. We’ve seen the things that people have said about it. Um, I would say the overwhelming feeling is still gratitude, right? I’m still very grateful because we got to like we’ve we. We finally convinced ourselves, it was difficult for us to convince ourselves, just to get to the point where we were going to do something like this, where we’re just going to make something. Uh, so I’m feeling very grateful to have done that, and to have had such a good time doing it, making it, and also getting to work with our team, like, this was a, you know, we’ve got people on the team who’ve been with us for a long time, we’ve got people on the team, Who just started working basically before this started. And we have an incredible team that is really small, small, but powerful. And just being able to be like, Hey guys, we did something. We made this thing that has connected with a lot of people. And there was a lot of people that seem to connect with it in the way that we connected with it. When we were like envisioning how you might feel out of the things you might think when you were watching it, there’s been a good amount of people. Who have responded in a way that’s like, I see that. I see you guys. I’m connecting with it in this way and the way that our team feels about it. So I think my overwhelming sense is one of gratitude and yeah, and just happiness that it resonated that, you know, you can make, you can read comments and it can be about specific things, but I really have cherished the comments where people go out of their way to talk about. The work as a whole to talk about even well, they talk about not just an episode from episode to episode. They don’t just comment on it, but they comment on. What it means for it to show up on YouTube and how it’s different and what they appreciate about it by zooming out and especially with it all coming out and they’re being more of a it being tied together, I really have appreciated the fact that people have evaluated it as something that is a milestone for us and potentially for, you know, For YouTube in a lot of ways in terms of like what they’re used to experiencing on the platform and Saying that this is something that really Surprised them and and took them in a lot of places. Yeah emotionally and and folded right in there with the gratefulness is Uh a restlessness, right? almost equally powerful maybe More powerful for me at times is a restlessness with like You All of the lessons that we feel like we have learned in our learning, which we’ll talk about later on, we’re not going to start out with that, wanting to immediately apply those moving forward. What I, what I, what I try to do is I try to, because we have a lot of things we want to do the same. We have a lot of things that we want to do differently, but I’m grateful. Again, I come back to the gratitude because I’m grateful that we get to do that. Because when we. Write a pilot when we write a screenplay when we just make a pitch We just don’t learn anything like you you might learn a little bit by going through the process But you learn so much more by doing by getting something out there Yeah, when you take it all the way through you completely make it and then an audience completely digest it Um, yeah, i’d like to talk more about the therapy part of it because i’m curious What you brought there? I know that at different points in the process You We would bring up our therapy discussions. So I know that we were both taking the Wonderhole experience back to therapy. For me, when we first conceptualized the idea, like when we came out with that we’re done video on the Rhett and Link channel, And it got a lot of traction, because, you know, are they following suit with other YouTubers and taking a step back? Right. And so, yeah, okay. We surprised you. We had a little bait and switch. Which, ironically, is what we try to do with every episode of Wonderhole. As well in in a sense maybe bait and switch is too strong of a term. I think it is but Um, especially for the we’re done video. That’s certainly what it was but us saying We are deciding not to ask permission But we’re going to do Everything we can within our power to make something and put it out there. Um, period behind the scenes. What I would talk about in therapy was how this is a new approach and there’s some, this is, there’s some trepidation there. The main thing I talked about was what did I want out of this? And it reflected a lot of conversations we were having at the time, which was process over. If we can’t create something that is, if, if you, if you slice the process down from start to finish and you look at any one part, I was, I had this high hope that I could squeeze enjoyment and fulfillment out of each step of the creative process for its own value. Not just this is a step to get towards making something. That boy when that comes out or when it comes together or when we realize our vision That’ll be the point of satisfaction and that’ll feel so good. You know, we’ve learned enough of our careers To know that it’s it’s hard to do that and it’s also a shame to look back on something And realize that you were you were focused so much on the end goal that You short shrifted the the process So the way that I started to talk about it in therapy was as a playground Like that was kind of the analogy that we used um of Okay, we’re having fun doing this and out of play You I trust that we can have like more creativity, that we can have more surprises for each other and for the team and that focus on experience is something that I continue to talk about in therapy because I had to keep reminding myself of that being kind of the highest hope of have a good time doing something with the team. People that I enjoy creating with you being chief among them in a way that like just trusting that that good time will come through Right in the in the final product. It was it was it was hard to keep remembering that Well, it was much easier for me to remember that before it started coming out So for me, I mean even edit points. We’re not saying it was easy. I’m just saying it was much easier Before it started being seen by people to be able to be like, Hey, man, the process is important. And like, I’m having a good time. And the reward is in the doing of it. And the response is the cherry on top, right? It’s easy to say that. But for me, once it started coming out, I could not divorce myself from the results, right? And I think that there were it’s multifaceted because one thing is just The unhealthy thing is wanting to be validated, right? Like that’s I want to I have attached some part of my personal value and self worth around the reaction to this thing that we have made. That’s not healthy. It’s easy to do, and it’s in the business that we’re in largely drives that type of. Interaction as you begin to look at your relevance and performance, and then you evaluate yourself or we’ve done this long enough to know that we’ve done a lot of things that haven’t worked, and we’re still we still feel personally valuable to ourselves into the world. And so we’re gonna so but then there was this sort of secondary thing for me, which was, well, I want to keep doing this. I’m having so much fun doing it. I feel like I’m learning so much doing it. I feel like this team Along with us. We’re kind of getting our mojo We’re figuring out how we’re doing this and we’re only going to get better at it now that we’ve begun doing it Boy, I want to keep doing it and Feeling like, well, if nobody likes it, it’s really hard to keep doing something, you know what I’m saying? Because we don’t live in some world where we’re just So did you take anything to therapy before that, or was that the point where you really started bringing it up? No, I would talk about it quite a bit, because I would, through the process, I would be like, I’m, this is what I’m trying to do, I’m trying to be present when we’re doing it, I’m trying to, Remember that I am in the good old days when you think about Wonderhole the thing you’re gonna think about is not the views You’re gonna think about the process of making it gonna think about being it on that island in Florida Taking the boat out to the island and then you know, and then or you know skydiving for the first time ever going to that Neotropolis festival and seeing yeah, you’re gonna think about those places Pieces that came together and then the time that we had with our team, you know? It’s not just when the camera’s rolling, but it’s when it’s not rolling. Even to the point where we tried to build in the experience into the process. Like, as we were watching cuts, instead of it just being sent out by email so that we could leave notes, we instituted screenings where we would all sit in the room and we would watch it together. And then What we discovered was the moment we watch it together, that’s fun. But then right after it’s over, we just start ripping it to shreds. Cause that’s the point is to give notes on what we’ve seen to make it better. But like we, we talked to TJ and then he came up with this system where we’re going to, I can’t remember what he called it, but he had a name for it. It was an acronym. And we screen, oh gosh, he would. He would say, All right, here’s the steps. We’re going to watch the thing. It’s like the mace. Yeah, I think that sounds right. Mythical something, something, something. But you basically, the first thing you have to do is you have to find something that you like and talk about it. Yeah, something that you’ve a positive thing that you like. So everybody, the first thing you say out of your mouth has got to be something you liked. Right? And then After we talk about what we like, then the people who have had a hand in the edit directly Give some context. They give more context about what they’ve already learned from the screening. So it’s not, no need to give them notes that they’ve already, that they’re already given themselves. Right. And Because Ben and TJ Have seen Right. That edit. And Dylan, of course, working editing as well. They’ve seen the cut and they probably are like, they’re going back and forth and trying to make some decision and they’re like, we’ll see how they respond in the room. Yeah. So there was valuable information for, for Ben and TJ to observe our reactions in the room and then. I observed that this didn’t work. I want to change this, that type of thing. That was the second point. And then the third point was then we each start giving our notes of what needs to change. Or what we need to experiment with. Or find improvement. And so that came from an emphasis on experience. We’re sharing space, watching something, laughing, hearing each other. React to it and that was that was rewarding and it was a different experience than we’ve had on most anything because we Instituted that it was still hard not to just not to just get down to business and get down to the notes, right? But well because there’s a lot of people I think I speak for both of them in it that it’s like it’s a little fragile I speak for both of us when I say I, I can’t tell you, I don’t remember any point in my career where I watched the first cut of something and didn’t feel like my heart was sinking. Like I, all, every single time I watch something, I’m just like, oh shit, this sucks. I, just, just, it’s, it’s my, It’s much more likely to feel that. Because, You always have this idea of this is how this is going to come together. And then I just get super critical of, of myself, of my performance, uh, uh, of if so many things, right. And so I’m, I’m grateful for the system too, because it was like, Hey, let’s, you know. We’ve got something positive to say. And also we’ve got time to make changes. I mean, I don’t want to go into too many details, but like episode one, there was an absolute monumental change made to the episode after the first time we watched it, right? And, you know, we don’t have to get into everything, but there was a very huge shift that occurred in that episode that I think made what I felt was a broken episode into a great episode. Knowing that you’ve got some really talented people all trying to figure this out together and like having this like Okay, we can figure this out. We can figure this out We can figure it out in the moment and we can figure it out once we’ve shot it too Like we’ve got we’ve got a lot of tricks up our sleeves. So I’m feeling good I and so you started to bring more I mean, I started bringing things in therapy once it started to come out because then it became a real test of Did I accomplish what I want to accomplish and do I need to stick how do I stick to my guns of like? It doesn’t You know, it doesn’t matter how it’s received because that that’s kind of a lie. It does matter how it’s received. It impacts a lot of things. Our ability to build on it and do it again versus have to move on because it tanked. You know, it’s like we were, we’ve been very attentive and looking at the response. And so that was something that I, that I took to therapy just to get you to kind of keep a clear head when. Navigating all those comments and from episode to episode, the performance being wildly different in terms of the view counts well in the performance going down and down and down and then way, way up, you know, and we’ll talk about lessons learned and later. Okay. Because I think we’ll get into, like, how we’re thinking about some of that stuff. We got a lot of more, a lot more questions. Learning a new language really comes in handy when you’re traveling. Also, if you’re watching shows in a different language, that’s fun. Or just to improve your brain. In any of those scenarios, in comes Rosetta Stone, the most trusted language learning program available on desktop or as an app that truly immerses you in the language you wanna learn. They’ve used trusted experts for 30 years with millions of users and 25 languages offered, some of which include Spanish, French, German, Korean, Japanese, Dutch, and Arabic. It’s designed for fast language acquisition with an intuitive process so you pick up a language naturally. First with words, then phrases, then sentences. Their built in True Accent feature is an awesome addition that gives you feedback on your pronunciation, so you truly learn to speak like a pro. A lifetime membership has access to all 25 language courses Rosetta Stone offers at an amazing value of 50. 50 percent off. Do not put off learning that language. There’s no better time than right now to get started. You can get Rosetta Stone’s lifetime membership for 50 percent off. Visit rosettastone. com slash ear. That’s 50 percent off unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your 50 percent off at rosettastone. com slash ear today. Let’s hear the next thing. Hi Rhett and Link, um, congratulations on Wonderhole Season 1. I’m really glad that you guys got to make something like this in the way that you envisioned making it. Um, I was wondering, since you’re endlessly creative people, and we know you must have had a million ideas for what to put into Wonderhole Season 1, how did these six stories end up making the cut? I know we sat in a room and we like, we put like, just one line or ideas on a, on a, On a board, which we probably have a picture of that because we’re a lot more ideas than six because we’re making it for YouTube. We knew that we had to at least have some reason to believe that people might be interested in it in a YouTube context. And so a lot of the pitches were simply a title and then maybe like one line of context. Now, as you know, if you’ve watched the show, there’s not really an episode that the thing that you clicked on is exactly the thing that you get. It’s not like other YouTube videos in that the thing that you click on is just, Oh, these guys say they’re doing this. Now I’m watching them do this. Well, everyone else does that on YouTube already. So, we want you to click on it, but then we want to Actually make you feel something different right make you think something different we want to tell a story of some kind that’s kind of the loose way to describe the show and so we kind of had some stories and themes that we wanted to hit on that we had in sort of a loose list and then we would be like okay this seems like a fun idea this seems like the thing that we could do in this episode but what kind of thing like I think about. We drank a cloud, or whatever we ended up calling that, it was like we went to extremes to drink a cloud, I think we tried real hard on that one to get people to click on it, it kind of worked. Um, but we thought it would be fun to document the process of us trying to drink this cloud. But, we had this other idea rolling around in the back of our heads which was, for some episode it would be really cool to do some flashbacks. To us as kids and I hire some kid actors and do some little vignettes and we could actually find a way to tell the story in this way, um, which clicked into place when it became an exploration of the longevity of our friendship and the creativity. That’s not a word of it. And an illustration of the fact that we kind of get to do the things that we, that we wanted to do as kids. Like it’s kind of our lives now. And it was a bit of a celebration of that. Like how many people get to sit around and have ridiculous conversations as 12 year olds that they then get to grow up in. We thought that was going to be episode 2 for some reason. But then what became episode 2 is another good example of, like, that brainstorming process. Right, because we had the, well, TJ knew about Neotropolis, which is all the sci fi stuff you see in episode 2. That’s not our set design, right? The only thing that’s our design is the costumes. And it was Daniel Salon who did that. Who’s worked on GMM in the in the past and he’s he made those costumes, but everything else is just a Festival like a cyberpunk festival that happens once a year out in the desert And we knew that we could get production value by shooting there and could probably get permission to shoot there, right? But we didn’t have an idea that we that we connected with right for that Yeah, and totally separately. Yeah, there was a You have the like a buried treasure idea and when I pitched that the the time capsule idea the first time my pitch was we will be sitting on a porch in Elderly makeup like because people always talk about one of these days You guys are going to be old together just hanging out and we’re going to do like two old men sitting on a porch reminiscing about the time they Buried this time capsule and you can but then we did the thing with the kids And it was kind of too similar to that and then I was like, well, what if we’re just old? You And we’re looking for it, but we didn’t we weren’t thinking like cyberpunk. We were thinking like 20, 30 years from now, but then when TJ had this neotropolis idea, we’re like, Oh, well, you could bring these two things together. And what if the future is literally this futuristic thing that we have? And let’s go all the way to 200 years in the future because it’s a cyberpunk set. Right. So that’s how that one came together. So they all came together differently, but at one point there was probably like 40 plus ideas on a board. But we only greenlit five. So it’s not like we fell in love with it. Until we broke the story, I think that’s what we’re saying. Until it, there’s a certain point when you break the story and it becomes, in our minds, an episode of Wonderhole. And I think both of the examples we just walked through were those turning points. Where everything clicked into place for those two. That happened for five at our initial thing. So we were actually short and then we had to come back. We were like, the red and blue thing was kind of hanging out there, but that was the one that we didn’t have. It wasn’t hanging out there. It didn’t. It didn’t exist. It didn’t exist. It wasn’t on the board. Oh, it wasn’t on the board at all. Yeah, it came up later. So, yeah, we were actually, we didn’t have an embarrassment of riches here, you know, because we were, we didn’t. Yeah. Yeah. Those things, they would click into place, but we were pretty picky about it. You know? Yeah. And so it took a while. Yeah. And that’s why Red and Blue came about later and was the last one we shot. In fact, the day after we had the premiere screening, the next two days is when we shot Red and Blue in its entirety. Right. Um, but I think that answers that question. Did we answer the question? Yeah, I think we did. Let’s hear another one. Hi, Rhett and Link. This is Robert from, uh, Kelowna, B. C. in Canada. Calling about your Wonderhole prompt. Um, the only question I had from the entire show was, when you convinced that guy at the shoe store to hold your envelope with your clue for 200 years, did you convince him to do that before he knew that it was going to be for a TV show? Because if you did, that guy is my new hero. Anyway, love the show, love you guys, have a great day, bye. He is our hero, too. He is one of my favorite aspects of the series, and it just, it, it makes us want to do more of that, because More of bringing just everyday people into the show. Everyday people, because It scratches that commercial king’s itch, you know, he just like working with People and we like you knowing that okay. This guy is a a real guy He was really the shoe shop owner and i’ll tell you what he knew when we walked into that shop I don’t know what he knew. I know what he knew So I didn’t want to know so I don’t know anything that he knew. Well, i’m okay Well, you’re in this guy’s boat. Yeah, tell me what did he know? Uh, he knew that we were making A YouTube video that featured Burbank businesses, which is not untrue, but we did not want him to think that he was like, because we wanted when we said, we’ve got this thing that we want you to hold on for 200 years. We wanted it to be like, how is this guy going to actually react to this? So. The general idea is, it is a YouTube video about Burbank businesses, business, that features a Burbank, I think maybe TJ was like, that features a Burbank business. Right, in other words, TJ went to him and asked if we could film with him and basically it was like a bit of a casting exercise. He was like, yeah, he’s, you know. He’s happy to be in the video and, um, he’s, he was, seemed very cooperative and into it, but the entire exchange, everything where he talks about the treasure box and he’s like, you want me to hold on this? Who’s gonna pick it up? You’re gonna pick it up. Treasure box. Yeah. Can we, the first take treasure box, just the conversation that happened there was not, and we didn’t do anything else and. It’s almost all of the conversation because I remember when it was over and we went outside We were like, well, do you what what do we did we miss something? Do we need to go in and talk to him some more? Do we need to pick anything up and Ben was like we got it Ben was like we got it I was like, oh, okay. It was just I mean, it was edited down, but it wasn’t edited down that much. No. And then So it was very, what you saw was like very real. Like once we started rolling, we came in, we met him for the first time on camera. We had the conversation that you saw in a slightly longer version without any edits. But There were no, there was no stop downs, there was no cuts, there was no direction in the middle, there was nothing. It was like, from the time we walked in the door to the time we walked out, they rolled and that was it. And then we asked Ben, and he was like, we got it, that’s awesome. And then, the original plan was not to have him play, which you may be like, well, damn, that’s, again, My favorite part of the whole video is the fact that he plays his great, great, great, great grandson in the thing. I’m just gonna be honest with you, that was not plan A. Plan A, because as you can see throughout the series, we’ve tried to incorporate, uh, other people that you might know from other, other things into each episode. Um, we, I can’t remember who we were trying to get to do that. It just didn’t, it wasn’t really coming together that we could have somebody do, do the future, future role. Mhm. And then, I don’t know who, who said this. It might have been TJ who was like, what if I think Ben and TJ that the idea was hatched in their conversations. Yeah. And pitch to us. And as soon as they said it, we’re like, yes, this is actually, yes. Why didn’t, why didn’t we plan this from the beginning? Because this is perfect. Because obviously his grandson would look like him. We just weren’t thinking to be honest with you. We’ve changed our view on this. And we’ll talk about this when we talk about lessons learned, but like that was shot very early in the process and we were seeing a very big difference in the modes that we were in for when we were in present day Burbank going around and laying the clues and then the anamorphic lease film cinematic sci fi fully scripted futuristic part right and we thought that those parts would feel incredibly different but then we started realizing As we started making the show that, oh, I don’t know how much people are going to differ. People obviously know that the sci fi thing is like happening in some futuristic fictional place. Yeah, it’s fictionalized. But, The tonal shift between those two isn’t something that is going to be this giant, isn’t going to register in this giant way. And so we, that’s why we never thought that he, he needed to be the guy in the movie because we needed him to act or whatever. But it turns out him acting just like himself and saying those lines in the way that he did. It’s by far my favorite part of that episode. It might be my favorite part of the whole series. Because I especially like it when neither of us are the reason that the scene is good. It goes back to that commercial kings thing. I’ve always liked it when we Position somebody else to be the funniest person. So we yeah, I mean he showed up and um, of course that scene wasn’t in Neotropolis it was on a set somewhere. It was the same set where we shot. Uh, I was waking up from this the beginning of that the 2024. Yeah to 24 and the um, the the person who I can’t remember, like, Jenna, who, uh, who was the person, your person? Uh, it Jenna was the actor in the, the repair Oh, Draven. The repair shop, Draven. Uh huh. The repair shop, that was Jenna. Um, and then Felicia Day did a voice, did the voiceover. Um. That was also shot in the same place. So those are the three things we shot there. So we, so we brought him out and then he was asking us, he was like, why didn’t you give me a script? I could have memorized this. But the way that we wanted to do it was just like, feed him every line, which we did. Every single line was fed to him off camera. But then when we filmed our part, he just like watched and reacted. And they got some of that too. When we ate that hot pepper, it was like really a hot pepper. For some reason, which was for some reason, which is, I mean, which works for the behind the scenes on the mythical society, but it slowed us down a little bit. I don’t know if it actually did anything for the actual thing because we had to act like it wasn’t. So we just made it really hard on ourselves to act like we just didn’t need a hot pepper. Yeah. When I muted my nano taste buds, I was like, shit, my taste buds are not muted. They are not muted. I don’t know why we did that, but that was, I’ll blame TJ for that. Yeah, so Sam is the star, man. Sam is the star. And Sam recently replaced the soles on Shepard’s, uh, boots. Really? And he did a great job. Okay, of course he did. He’s gonna be there forever. Next one. Hi, my name is Ripley. I’m from Baltimore, Maryland. And I had a theory on Wonderhole that I’m interested in your take on. Uh, I was chatting with a friend after we had both seen the first episode, and he mentioned that he had expected a literal, physical hole. So, naturally, the topic became, well, what? Is the wonder hole. I thought the wonder hole was essentially a brainstorm wonder hole seems to be a behind the scenes play by play of just how you guys come up with stuff, how it’s not even really voluntary. I’d love to hear your take on that. Okay. I love the fact that you’re talking about this and trying to figure things out. I think a big part is. We raised so many questions for ourselves as we were making it about how are people going to take the genre shifts and all the different, all the different choices we made raised a lot of questions that then again, in therapy, as we were getting these answers, Oh, that didn’t work. Oh, that did work. Oh, that was confusing. People love that. I was just trying to say, well, if I don’t get the answer that I wanted, I, the main thing that I wanted was an answer. And so I was trying to approach it with curiosity and not be so invested in everybody liking or understanding everything. Um, and this question in particular, um, I appreciate your theory. Uh, I don’t, that’s not, that’s not, I don’t think of it. When I think of the wonder hole, I do think of it in terms of the actual content of the episode. I think, yeah, I. I think it would serve to talk a little bit about how we came up with the name, because there were, we had names for the show that were thrown around that were more descriptive in terms of the fact that it’s us going out and doing things or whatever, right? What was the sexual one? Rhett and Link are doing it. So doing it was the name of the show. And then in smaller letters, Rhett and Link are And so the reason we didn’t ultimately go with that name and other names that were kind of like it is because, and again, I don’t know if this was the right call from like a marketing standpoint. Let me just say that up front. I’m just saying that like, I’m I’m happy with the fact that we did it, and I’m, it’s consistent with how we feel about it. But it doesn’t tell you anything about the show, other than maybe there’s a hole, and if there isn’t, you’re gonna be like, why isn’t there a hole? Rhett and Link are doing it was just a reality show. Right, right, right. So, a docu reality show. That’s why we didn’t like it, because we were like, well, that is what we would call it if we were like, you know, Conan O’Brien goes, or whatever his name of his show is, where he, like, travels, right? Like, because that’s what he’s doing. Right. But we had always envisioned the show as something that would elicit, uh, a sense of wonder. And it would make you laugh, it might make you cry, it might make you think, it was going to be unexpected, it was probably going to take a left turn that you couldn’t anticipate. So we had this idea of wonder, right? And there was this I found this German word, I think it’s wunderkammer, which is like wonder chamber, and it was something that back in the day before there were museums, people, a lot, you had to be probably a wealthy person, had a literal cabinet of curiosities inside of their homes, and so it was like a room, or a shelf, or a literal cabinet, where you were like, this is the stuff that I’ve never seen before. Collected throughout my travels. Let’s sit down and let me tell you about each thing. Yeah, and wonder Comber the wonder Comber The cabinet of curiosities was a precursor to what we now have is museums Sometimes rich people have a bunch of stuff and then they just turn into museums. Sometimes they’re publicly funded or whatever But this is how we experience incredible things that people have discovered now is by going to museums And I really like that wonder Comber. So we started talking about Wonder something like wonder what wonder or something wonder So we put together a list of like 75 Wonders and something bread was taken. Yeah, wonder bread was actually Once you start you disassociate from like existing brands and stuff You’re like, I think we came up with wonder bread by accident didn’t realize oh wonder bread is a thing but I had On my list, I had Rabbit Hole because we had this idea of taking people on a journey that you didn’t know where it was going and you could never predict where it was going. Keeping people guessing, surprising and delighting an audience on a trip, uh, going down the rabbit hole. And then nobody really, nobody liked, nobody liked Rhett and Link’s Rabbit Hole as much as me. Because it also implied something that we didn’t like, which I can’t even remember what that was. It can be like a conspiracy thing or whatever. We didn’t want people to think this was like us going, uh, investigating something. Investigating something. Uncover, like, yeah, uncovering something. But then, when we have wonder plus another word, That’s when Cole came back around and then when you put it together, it’s like Rhett and Link’s wonder hole It just kind of makes you you laugh a little bit. It’s a little embarrassing and there also is a place called the wonder hole In South Africa, two words, Wonderhole, which is a cave where this like purported giant serpent lives or whatever, you know. Folk, sort of like a folktale or whatever. Yeah, so we like that vibe. Um, so anyway, that’s how we named it. But then, now first of all, I, I would say there are no wrong answers to this question. Because when we named it, it was, oh, this is also kind of, paying homage to the very first video that followed this, this general structure. We dug a medium sized hole. Uh, this whole like vlog meets some fictional elements kind of thing that incidentally we called Wonderhole season zero was the 2023 videos on the Rhett and Link channel. And so we were like, oh, this is kind of cool because that video, making the decision to make that video in that way is what led us to this place, so Wonderhole kind of completes the circle, but we see it as there’s a, there are moments or a moment in which the video becomes something different than you could have anticipated. Right. And that’s when we are starting to go down the Wonderhole, but that was actually You’re not getting what you clicked on. That was a retrospective idea. You’re going down the Wonderhole. We, we always talked about left. Turns in surprising people. We hadn’t broken a story if we hadn’t done something that surprised. Yeah. And so that became the wonder hole for me at the moment when you realize that this is more than I bargained for. Now you’re going down the wonder hole. Come on, go all the way down. And we like the fact that it was something that’s ownable that like, when it becomes something that you can associate with it, like Rhett and Link are doing it or Rhett and Link’s rabbit hole. These are words that exist already. Yeah. It can shape too much expectation. Um, and we’ll come back to expectations, but let’s hear another. Hey Rhett and Link, this is Alex from Colorado. I was thinking about Wonderhole and I loved it, but I really started wondering what So often people talk about the best parts of making their projects, but I want to know what was really hard. What moments served as good learning opportunities? What parts of your process do you think wouldn’t carry on into the second season? Perfectionism is a beast that’s really hard to conquer, so I think this could give a lot of good insights for people who might want to take a crack at their own projects without fear of hitting roadblocks. Let us know. Great question. I’ll tee this one up and let you take the lesson learned. After whoa. Like I said, we were calling it what we now call season zero, the previous year of eight videos or whatever they were it in deciding what we wanted to do next, we decided to formulate, uh, approach it as a show and have X number of episodes and the show have a name and cadence every so that we could put more of the, Like, we can make a bigger deal out of it from a marketing standpoint. Okay? And also separate it from our own noise. We create so much content. We create a lot of noise. That is difficult for us to break through our own noise. When you make 10, 11, 12 videos a week. Every single week you’ve got all this shit coming out that just has our faces on it. It’s very difficult to break through your own noise. And so that was a part of making it a show. Was to kind of put a tip to the spear to can kind of see if it can break, break through not only our own noise, but the noise of the internet, you could focus on it, you can focus on the different phases of it and make it what we wanted it to be, put it out there and then promote it, get the benefits of that. But then also do what we’re doing now, which is. Learn from it and then retool and have a reapplication for moving forward with the second season or whatever it is that we’re planning on doing. So, uh, that was a good idea in my mind. Even now. I still believe in that idea and I think that was the right call. I think that we made some mistakes in how we applied that specifically in terms of marketing. Well, what I learned, and I don’t know exactly, Aspects of this, but when you call something a show you set necessarily an expectation and when you don’t clarify that it is more anthology than episodic, you know. Major arc being, you know, unveiled over the course of multiple episodes. A leads to B leads to C in the episodes. Um, when you don’t clarify that. And you can just watch them in different orders. Then people are just left to draw their own conclusions based on the expectations that we’ve left you with no choice but to draw some sort of conclusion. And then I, and so, and then I think we added a little bit of fuel to that expectation fire when we made our trailer. Which basically was hey, let’s throw all the best moments. We’ll do what you do with the trailer, which is throw all the most compelling visuals together into one trailer. But again, it was out of context. It was really just a teaser trailer. It didn’t give you any information about what the show, but we format, but we couldn’t have done like without being like, right. What I’m saying is, is If I could go back with the way we would talk about it is I would be like just so you know, everything, you know, every episode kind of stands on its own. There is a way that all the episodes are tied together and you will be rewarded if you watch all six episodes, but I’m never going to say that. Yeah, yeah, I know. So, but the other part, it wasn’t just was it serial or episodic, but also what genre are we in? Is this fully is this scripted? I think that when we released a trailer that was just. Yeah. Teaser footage and a montage and a name that meant nothing to anybody without filling in the gaps with information about what it was. We, we left you to fill in those gaps with your own assumptions and. When it’s a sensational trailer, your expectations go in a certain place. It’s the it’s, it’s heightened and it’s also a little specific. And then we made, in order to get people to watch the trailer, we contextualize it with a YouTube title, we found a hole in our office. And then it starts with something you would expect of us looking at a hole and then it goes through there and it’s just showing you the trailer. That was just a device to get you, to get more people to watch the trailer than just putting out the trailer and saying, Wonderhole Season 1 Official Trailer. No, you put, You wouldn’t, you won’t believe the hole we found on our office or whatever we called it, but then again, once you click on it, we didn’t tell you that it was a trailer that much or anything at all. There isn’t really a hole in our office and that has nothing to do with any, this is just a device for the trailer. So you thought, Oh, there, this is, they are going to find a hole in their office. And then that’s going to be this narrative is what a lot of people. And also there was an article written for like variety that said Rhett and Link to release scripted. Series right so and and another thing that we did that again. This is a lesson learned This is these are mistakes that we made in from a marketing standpoint. We made the we’re done video and We talked about all the things that we had tried to do and people have said no and we were like now we’re gonna do What we want to do We didn’t really explain that the thing that we’re going to do isn’t anything that we’ve tried to do in Hollywood. It wasn’t a script that we wrote that they rejected. Yeah, because some people were like It wasn’t a pitch that we made that they rejected. Yeah, some of the more critical comments were like, I can see why Hollywood rejected this because it sucks or whatever. Oh, yeah. It’s like, we didn’t, like, everything that we’ve pitched to Hollywood has been like an intact, like Universe, you know, like a sitcom or a screenplay or whatever that they rejected. Uh, they did reject it. Don’t you don’t want it wrong about it? Uh, but and I think this kind of gets back to the I’ll just talk briefly about. Just because we’re talking about that aspect of it right now, a lesson that we also learned is that, which is something we anticipated, but I think the lesson was so much more visceral than we could have anticipated. And that is YouTube currently, as it exists, rewards, a certain type of video. And that video is not one that tells. Uh, scripted or preplanned fictional story. And so, we knew that going in. That’s why we didn’t put Wonderhole episode 1 in the first video. Because everything that we’ve learned about the internet is that if you call The thing that you’re making a show then people are being asked to make a different type of decision than they usually make when they’re deciding to watch a YouTube video, which is everyone makes a decision to make a YouTube video to make a watch it. Everyone makes a decision to watch a YouTube video based on it popping up and them seeing a title and thumbnail and deciding if they think that that is worth their time in that moment in that moment. And we thought, well, the people who know this as a show, they’re going to find this. They know when it’s coming out, they know what channel it’s on. They’ll find it, but we have got to put these things out into the YouTube ecosystem in the best way for them to have a chance of actually breaking through. Right. But we were like, we don’t need every single episode to be a completely tried and true concept. We’ll do some stuff that’s YouTubey, but not necessarily a definitive point of reference. So, for instance, we took the world’s most expensive first class flight. This is something that I don’t know who started it. It may have been Casey Neistat, but that was many years ago. And since then, many different YouTubers have done the same video. It is a genre. And so we were like, well, people click on this type of video. So let’s title and thumbnail our video in that same way. But let’s do something different that uses that concept to get to something that we actually want to say. But then there was something like. We cut down a tree with a peanut butter axe, which is not a genre. It’s not a genre, but there are people who’ve done like videos weird There’s the guy John. I did a thing who I love his channel. It did a I cut down a tree with a tree Uh, and so it was kind of reminiscent of that, but as you can see from the views, like it didn’t break out, it didn’t connect, click through was low, impressions were low, and then of course, episode 5, we spent 24 hours locked in red and blue rooms, is the most, the best performing episode of the entire season. Now that’s not, An existing exact video title that exists out there, but the two color rooms next to each other and the we spent 24 hours locked in. Those are very YouTube y things and it just caught the algorithm in a really significant way. So that, so basically the lesson learned there is that our intention to use a really clickable title and thumbnail. To almost trojan horse our way into being able to make the video that we want to make on the platform that lets us freely Distribute it that worked but the but the the How important that is is something that we were hit over the head with and in You know, I wish it was a little bit different, obviously. I wish you could just be like, Hey, we’re making a show on YouTube, episode, Wonderhole episode one, and that’s all it says, and everybody will watch it. Uh, that’s not the environment that we exist in right now. Maybe we will someday. Maybe we can be a part of that changing, where it’s like, you can tell stories in this medium. But this is, that is what we learned. Yeah. That was the question, and that’s why different episodes go farther, some go farther than others, into the genre. Yeah. So that we could have more data to learn how we wanted to move forward. I would think, I would say that another miscalculation that we made was again, back when we were like editing and releasing trailers and promoting the show before, before, and as it was premiering, it became clear to us. In interviews that we didn’t we didn’t fully know what the show was It you know, we never pitched it and it got rejected But we never would have pitched it I think it was interesting because we because that we’re done video and say we’re not We’re not creating something with the first question being what will a network buy? Yeah, it was more of what will? A YouTube viewer click on to a certain extent, as we just said. And we started building what we wanted to do. And it had all the element. We knew all the elements we wanted to put into it, but we didn’t have a completely cohesive concept for a show. I mean, we just didn’t because I still experiment in one or two. I’ll even say three sentences. Tell someone who was interested, like a journalist, or, um, you know, someone asking a question in the AMA on the Mythical Society, if they, you know. You did say in that one interview, Wonderhole, every episode takes an established YouTube genre and turns it on its head because we had kind of come up with that. I was experimenting with one or two episodes. It wasn’t the true, but it was, um, you know, it was an interview. Who cares? It was, it was a, you know, it was a LA local LA morning show clip. I was like, well, this is a good place to test out this one liner that, uh, isn’t really completely what the show is about, but it, it just. It exposed that we didn’t have a tagline. We didn’t have, you know, we didn’t go, we didn’t talk to Jimmy on the tonight show this time around, but we would have had to clamor to figure out what to say. And I think the reason we didn’t do that is we completely underestimated how much. The context that we were creating for the show and the expectations that we were setting for our audience mattered because we were like we’re doing this to create buzz around this But really it just comes down to that click will people click on this But the thing we underestimated and I think this it’s it’s Ultimately, a good thing that this is the case is that there are a lot of people who are like, guys, when you talk about it being a show, when you, like, it seems like you’re saying that there’s some sort of cohesiveness and there’s some way I can describe this and I can talk about it and I can anticipate it. It’s actually good that that’s the feedback that we’ve gotten because it shows that people are, there are people who are hungry for that. And it also really informs the way we think about. Season two in terms of being able to say this is what it is. Yes, definitely. Um, and I feel like I’m really glad that we did it the way we did it. I’m not saying it was a mistake. I’m saying it, it was, it’s a lesson learned, but the way that we learned it, It was so much more of an open ended question that we’ve learned. We now have answers where we can narrow it down. The show is being developed in front of your eyes. And that’s why we’re calling it season That’s why we call the previous year season zero. Because it was a development process in front of you to get to where we’re going. And I think where we get, when we get to where we’re going, then we’ll probably do something different, but we now know that we’re not there yet, which is why. We are happy to announce there will be a season two. Yeah. Can I just make a big deal out of that? Yeah. I know we said it a number of times, but we’re doing a season two of Wonderhole. If we haven’t said it officially, I mean, you, you try it on. Say it officially. It’s fun. We are officially doing season two of Wonderhole. In fact, we’re already doing it. We’re already doing it. You will be waiting a while, probably as long as you waited for season one. Yeah. We do a lot of other things, but Unless you’re my therapist and then you’ll hear all about it. Um, all along the way, but there will be a season two. And, uh, if you like season one, I think you’ll love season two. That’s, that’s the way I feel about it. But we still have things to learn. But the thing is, is like, who knows? We could be wrong about things we’re saying right now. Who knows what thing we are already wrong about for Season 2? Oh yeah. And that’s the wonderful thing about putting it out there and doing it. I didn’t learn anything else, did you? Yeah, I think there’s a, I think people might be interested in this, but also it’s a big lesson learned for the way I’m thinking about our approach. Um, Again, back to, I think episode two is the perfect example of this, right? Uh, you’ve got the stuff that was happening in the present day of us bearing the time capsule, and then you’ve got the stuff that’s happening 200 years in the future. 200 years in the future, very cinematic, fully scripted, like every single word was written on a script that we were reviewing before. That we wrote and then reviewed and the writing process was really collaborative with the team And then we are reading it and like memorizing lines everything that was happening in present day Burbank was very loosely outlined like we were like, well, okay We kind of need to do this in this scene and I think what we have found is that Speaking of expectations is when you have been on the internet for a really long time or when people people’s number one Person Point of reference for your work is you operating in a very particular mode. And in our case, that is totally off the cuff, totally unscripted saying, the first thing that pops into our minds, just being good friends together. And you’ve got literally like a thousand X. Times that of any other format It can be very difficult to see somebody in a different setting in a different format and still think that it’s good I’ve seen this happen with stand up comedians. I’ve seen stand up comedians who are like their podcast I think they’re super funny on their podcast and then I see their stand up special and i’m like Oh, you’re funnier on your podcast than you’re on your stand up special. Another thing that happens is somebody’s a really good stand up Then they do a movie and you’re like, oh, you’re really good stand up, but you’re not a great actor Actor. And so I’m first in line to say that this applies maybe more so with us than it does with any example that I’ve given because most people come into our world through Good Mythical Morning or Ear Biscuits or something where we’re just being ourselves, right? And then when we take out a script and start memorizing lines and start acting, sure, there could be some incredible moments. I think You had an incredible moment in episode two, when you, right before you fell off of the cliff, right? It was like a passionate, really believable moment of good acting. Well, thank you. And, uh, there were, uh, I really fell, too, by the way. There were like, there were like flashes of things that was like, but I’ll just be honest with you, I remember watching that episode in We got up in front of the group that we premiered that that there was two we did episodes one and two at the premiere And like I was just like like kind of cringing at my performance in the the future part, right? I was like, oh some parts kind of were okay. Some parts really didn’t work. Um, And I think that we you know One of the things that we’ve sort of realized is that we thought that there would be this really big differentiation between these two things. But when we started realizing that people weren’t seeing us in the future parts and us in the present parts as different modes. Right. Because they, the audience began to understand that. It’s all fictional. It’s all made up like the story from the beginning and where we’re going with it Even though we may be improvising the things we’re saying right we know where we’re going We know at the beginning of we drank a cloud that well We’re gonna do it this way and then we’re gonna do the drone and we’re gonna do this and we’re gonna do this and then We’re gonna end up at the end of this thing. We’re gonna be on a Ferris wheel with a you know, a helmet with a Machine filling it up because that’s the way we want to tell the story once people started being like, it’s kind of like it’s a little bit like the office or it’s a little bit like fictional vlogging. Like, once the audience has bought into that, we’re like, oh, they actually want they actually are embracing the fact that we’re leading them on a journey. Right. I think the thing that a big lesson learned for me is that when we put ourselves in that situation where we’ve got this tight script, you know, never took an acting class, never been trained, never had an acting coach. We don’t really know what we’re doing. Sometimes we have these moments, right? We’ll be like, Oh, that really worked. But I think that we’ve kind of recentered and been like, Oh, you know what? We could do all of that same, that kind of scene work based on ideas and outlines and interact with each other in that way. In the quote unquote scripted parts in the same way as we do in the unscripted parts and it kind of all becomes a little bit more curb your enthusiasm approach than it is like, right? And I, I tend to agree that I think it, we, the expectations are, are high. Much more magnified with us than with the other examples you gave of a comedian actor that type of thing Because in this instance even in the same piece we were we were playing the same character which is ourselves And doing in different modes and that was kind of something that people weren’t interested in Looking for that and and it so it didn’t make sense. Well if you already If you like watching us because we’re being ourselves and then we’re acting like ourselves but not actually being like ourselves, how are you gonna like that? Not as much. There’s no way you can like that as much, right? Now, I think, first of all, there’s a huge part of the audience that was like, Oh, well, I know you guys are acting in that situation and I’m sort of overlooking the fact that you guys are not. Like particularly gifted actors to Enjoy the whole thing. I’m not saying that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, this wasn’t like something It’s just something it’s something that we that we learned by doing it. Yeah It you know, it was more of a hang up for some people and it was it’s it would be a hang up for me personally I’ll just say that like if I was a fan of us, it would be a hang up for me and so I think that we And it became more clear. I’m excited about where we’re going. Seeing how people process it. And now we can build it into where we’re going. Let’s hear another voicemail. Hey guys, this is Sarah and Colin calling from Tennessee. And we just finished this week’s episode of Wonderhole. And both of us are very concerned that you might have accidentally or somehow crushed Link’s actual car. We’ll Um, because we’ve both been emotionally invested in the story of Link getting his car back. So, yeah, we just kind of wanted to call and get maybe a confirmation from you guys that that wasn’t his actual car, that you found another replica and used it for the video. Because if not, we are both going to be very sad. Um, thanks, bye. Yeah, it’s, um, just a replica of my 1987 Nissan pickup and it wasn’t, there wasn’t even a motor in it. It wasn’t, it wasn’t, it wasn’t, no, it was real. I mean, that was, that was my truck. I crushed my truck. I told you the reason why, um, in the, in the video. And then you saw it get crushed. I mean, most people were taking issue with, if it really upset them, it was, you know, It was people who have connections with cars. You know, I, I know we did a really good job of establishing my connection to my truck. Like the home video and all that stuff. Um, that’s why it was so exciting that like, how, now you have to reckon with how you feel about it. Just like, I had to reckon with how I felt about it, and my family had to reckon with how they felt about it. I reckon they did. The exciting thing for me was transferring that experience to you. And I know you’re not happy with us for really crushing, as many people said in the comments, that hard body. They don’t even make them like that anymore. I severely underestimated the amount of people who were just in love with the fact that this truck was still salvageable and clean. Uh, so even if you didn’t connect with the sentimental value that I had, just the fact that it was a In I’ll say in quotes perfectly good running truck. It wasn’t perfectly good It wasn’t it required a rake to start it and can you just replace the starter? Yes, but there was also a fuel leak and there was also It it was my truck to do with what I wanted and i’m really glad that that’s what I did for the reasons that I gave in the piece and also as a producer of the show, I wanted to create an ending that moved you, that meant something, that made you think and feel, and I, I just felt like all of those interests came together in such a way, on screen and off, to create something. Make me not only willing, but ready, emphatically ready to destroy this truck. That still means the world to me. I would argue that in parting ways with it, the way that I did, it means even more to me than if every time I went back and visited my mom, um, for Thanksgiving or Christmas, and I looked out her back window, which I’d done for two years and saw it just parked there on it, it wasn’t runnable. It wasn’t drivable, and it was, it was kind of a sad ending. Leaving it up on blocks for every year that we didn’t do anything to it. It would have just died a slow death out there. That is the fact. So I’m really glad. I think it served a much greater purpose. I memorialized it in a way that now I can do something that I couldn’t do with the truck, just walk up to it and say, well, I wish I could drive it, or I’m going to give it to somebody to fix it once again. And can I just add that for the people, for the people, uh, for the people who said things like, this is such a waste, destroying a perfectly good truck. You could have given it to a young person. You could have given it to someone who wanted to, I, I need a truck. Okay, let me, I’m sorry, but do you watch The Fast and the Furious? Do you watch any movie ever where they destroy a car? And have you ever? While watching one of those movies, said to yourself, I can’t believe they’re destroying all these cars for entertainment. We destroyed a 1987 pickup truck. That was a piece of shit. To you. For entertainment purposes. I do not have one ounce of remorse for this act. And if you feel that way, great. If that’s the way you feel, great. Please stop watching. Because I know if you’re really into hard bodies, you’re probably watching. And you know that hard body is a thing, you’re probably watching Fast and the Furious. You probably watch like, Smoky and the Bandit, too. You probably were a fan of Dukes of Hazzard. Do you know how many Of those cars they went through, do you know how many of that car they destroyed? Do you know how many? Crown Vicks? Oh, I’d love a Crown Vic. I could use a Crown Vic. Do you know how many Crown Vicks get destroyed on a daily basis in this town? Come on guys. Come up with, thank you for saying that. ’cause I come up with something else to comment. I’ve been feeling really bad that, or just think a little bit. Before commenting just every once in a while. I’m, sorry I’m not I think the thing that makes you upset is that people apply They applied something to our video as if it were of I mean it was of it was reality That was really my truck and I really did destroy it for the reasons that I gave plus the reasons I didn’t give which were Making it ain’t making a show and I think what you’re feeling is that the part of The reason that was, in making a great, a moving finale episode, You, I, we, that feels overlooked, and like, there’s this double standard that, like, You don’t see what we made as a legitimate show. And so that hurts my feelings. Maybe it’s a testament. Maybe it’s a testament. Maybe here’s the positive. I’ll come down off of my soapbox. Maybe it’s just a testament to people really getting attached to it because I’m not talking about the person who just called. They seemed upset because you destroyed your truck, but there was sentimental value. I get it. We wanted you to be upset. We wanted you to feel like, oh man, he destroyed this truck that he taught his kids how to, yeah, we wanted you to feel that. That was the whole point of it. But for the people who just feel for the truck, Do you feel for all vehicles that get destroyed in movies? I think they do, yeah. No, they don’t. I don’t know. I’m not one of those people. Or TV shows? Maybe you’re just like, well, y’all aren’t making, is it in real TV? It wasn’t, it wasn’t fiction. But, yeah, even in fiction, real cars are destroyed. But it was fiction. It happened, but, so, to pull the curtain back, Okay. Like we said, I’m confused. Is that every single decision that we make in the show is something we have planned to make. It’s a decision that we know how the story will unfold. Now, we, like, for instance, when we were making those gummy versions of ourselves I, I get uncomfortable when you say all of this for some reason. Well, that’s, well It’s very, it is obvious if you think about it, but the people who don’t like to think about it, and they just want to think that everything we did was, like, more real than it was, I, I feel like I’m spoiling it for them if you, if you tell, if you go into this. Yeah, but Yeah, but it’s just, but the fact that so many people, the top comment on the second episode, at least for a while, with like 6, 000 thumbs up, was fictional vlogging. It’s like, you guys are doing fictional vlogging and I like it. And so I was like, oh, good, because that’s exactly what we’re doing. Did we really make molds of ourselves? Well, of course. Did we really run into a problem and we were not able to get that giant mold out of that thing? Yes. Did we also know that, uh, That we weren’t going to be able to take these things to North Carolina and that we were going to have to get ballistics dummies and we were going to have to cut the faces off and then put the new ones on. Yes. Not at first though. Did we really hope that we were going to be able to recreate your wreck? Yes. Did we look into doing it at the site? No, because that’s, you can’t do that. Did we look into doing it at an actual test track? Yes, we were in conversations with a test track to reenact the crash at full speed. We had, we’re trying to figure out how you get the car to go. It’s a myth buster ship. Were we going to ship the truck to California for that? Yes. Were we, were we going to ship the gummies? To North Carolina assuming that we could make them at a certain point. Yes. Yeah Oh, yeah But what but when we would find out that it couldn’t work we had to make it part of the story and what I’m saying Is that right? We we knew from the beginning regardless of how this episode ends regardless of what happens your truck gets destroyed and It’s got to at one point. We were gonna pull it up by a crane And get it to drop straight down and it was going to reach the velocity that we anticipate that we estimated it had gone when it hit the ditch and it was just going to hit the ground and be destroyed. And then that eventually that all got turned into, we’re just going to go to a record service in Anger or Benson or wherever it was and just get it crushed. Right. Um, so yeah, I, well, I appreciate the fact that that makes you feel uncomfortable. That when people find out that we are. Essentially taking them on a journey right from the very first frame of the show And I think some people do feel a little bit duped by that right if you’re new to the show Then you’re like what’s real and what’s not real but I find the thing that makes me Engaged by it theoretically since I made it as hard to be engaged by it in that way is figuring out What is planned and wasn’t it? what what isn’t planned like they plan to do this and then this thing went wrong and then they made it part of the story like I think that’s part of it. That’s part of the wonder hole. Yeah, you’re left wondering. Yeah, right. All of this is the reason why we’re continuing it, because it, it’s really fun to raise questions and to create something that you, you, you don’t even know the, completely the experience you’re creating for an audience. That’s very exciting for me, that like, their response is information. Not of, did this joke work? Did this idea work? Even more fundamental questions. That was really fun for episode one. I think the fun now for episode two is applying season Season two is applying What we think we learned, you know, and that’s where we’re that’s where we are right now I think I think the biggest difference for me is like I felt like in season In season zero we were it was all guesswork just throwing things at the board and seeing what stuck season one was You Taking what we thought had worked and applying it, but also still. Experimenting quite a bit with our like titling, thumbnailing approach, but also our storytelling approach, like what parts are scripted and then how do you put fold those together? And is it like parallel? Is it like a break to something else in the middle? But because so two is about putting it together a little bit more cohesion, like more intentional, doubling down on the right things, smoothing out the rough edges, applying what we learned, but it’s kind of like To me, I think the word is cohesion. Because it becomes more of a show. Yeah. Than it has been. I think I’ll leave it at that. But I don’t want to set the wrong expectation. Because we’re still doing this on YouTube. And so long as we’re doing it on YouTube, And so long as YouTube is a place that makes it difficult to tell a story that requires you to watch multiple videos in order to get, each episode of Wonderhole will always stand on its own. I’m not saying it won’t be a part of a greater whole, but if you happen to watch episode four as your first episode, it’s going to be okay. And you don’t, you’re not going to feel lost because we just don’t feel like, we don’t feel like we can do that yet. We don’t feel like we can do that on this platform. Right. Um, But let’s get back to, let’s get back to the positive place, the hard body thing always gets me upset. Um, uh, I was back at a positive place. I am, I am like really, really excited. And again, I’m still back to that place where I, I’m super appreciative of the people who really connected with it. And the people who’ve like gone out of their way and maybe said the most expressive and effusive and descriptive things they’ve ever said about our work. Yeah. The people, the way that some Mythical Beasts are talking about the show, uh, It’s super encouraging. Is like, okay, I have you in mind. You know, when we make this show, we have you in mind. We needed that. Thank you. Cause we needed that confirmation to say, we are, this track that we’re on is the right one that we’re gonna stay on. And that doesn’t mean that we did it exactly the way we wanted it to do. It doesn’t mean that it was, it was great. It just mean, it was, it was, So, Season 1 was the best that we could do with what we knew and what we were capable of. And Season 2 And I do believe that it’s the best that we’ve done. I think so. Yeah, I’m very happy with it. And Season 2 will be, from our standards in terms of what we’re trying to do, will be that much more dialed in. And I think that, if you connected with it already, you’re gonna connect with it. That much more and maybe if you were somebody and again, it’s this isn’t the point. We’re not trying to win you over That’s not the point of it. But if you happen to be the kind of person that was like The lack of identity the lack of cohesion Some of the things like maybe some parts Kind of threw me out of the moment or like the acting was a little bit in some parts like if that Was your issue with it? Then I think a lot of that is being Taken into account as we move forward because we agree that those were issues that needed to be resolved So we’ll see what happens We’re gonna be working on it for a while Yeah All right, pardon us as we go back down the wonder hole Thanks for watching All your interest, all your support, all your, uh, curious engagement. Let us know what you think. 1 888 EARPOD1. And, do you have a rec? What’s the rec, Link? Watch it all. It’s in a playlist. Together. All six episodes. Uh, throw a party. Watch it with people. Send them the playlist. And yes, the channel Now that it’s all out, you can kind of The channel is currently called Rhett and Link’s Wonderhole. We didn’t even get into that. That may not always be the case, but we have our reasons for that. Um, that may change. And if it changes, then with season two, it’ll probably, but it’s over there. Rhett links, wonder hall, there’s a playlist. They’ll come up. You can watch them all six back to back to back to back to back to back. Talk to you next week! Hi guys, it’s Bailey from Ohio. I just got home from work. It is 10 p. m. And I just want to say I am so glad that you guys do Good Mythical Morning. Allows me to watch something and eat my dinner. And it doesn’t even have to be morning. And I just get to have a fun thing to watch. So thank you guys so much. Love you, bye!