240 - Candide

The way AJ says “BUT WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR ASS!?” is exactly the same as Marshall in HIMYM, “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE PINEAPPLE!?”

Genuinely was brought to tears by the interstitial

If AJ did not exist, it would be necessary to create him

It's too bad you couldn't hear me clapping after your interstitial. So here are some emojis instead: 👏👏👏 Just imagine the sound they would make.

Oh my gosh, what an amazing interstitial. Although it would be pretty crazy if it was the first one you ever heard. genius! And I wasn’t expecting the harmony, wow!

The absolute chaos of how Candide the musical came to be with the number of people involved makes it a perfect namesake for this podcast. I love then in the same episode. I can get musical theater jokes and confusing philosophical digressions. Happy five year anniversary and thank you for all of the entertainment and happiness.

I liked your Emiril joke, AJ

Five *straight* years? Not buying it

You’ve sent me into a spiral of forgotten memories with the Kirk Cameron banana bit

God damn I love this podcast. Happy anniversary lads!

Fun fact part of the original lyrics of Candide's lament was "Everybldy betray me, I fed UP with this world"

Based on the interstitial, I'd kick money into a production of A.J. Ditty's "Dare to Dobson"

I'm Cool Cioran.

If you say "neither Holy, Roman, or an Empire" three times in front of a mirror Eleanor Janega will appear from behind and hit you with a steel chair

This intermission is incredible

that was the Best Worst intermission y'all have ever done. I hate myself for getting all the references and spit-taking my juice across the kitchen. Congrats. I hate you.

I'll have to re listen to see if it was mentioned in passing but was wondering what the lads thought of the 1980s "final" Bernstein revision, I think dramatically it is more of a slog but King's Baracolle is one of my favorite songs from Candide!

Ergo my Eggo 😊

yes well that is all well and good, my dear pangloss. but let us tend our garden

Guys!! Conveying boredom without making you bored? Clerks! (In my ass-ish amateur opinion)

Oh my god they're doing The Thing

I just realized that I have been missing every single episodes final thoughts because I stop the episode during commercials.

Voltaire really strikes me as a person who believes in nothing and just wants to criticize everyone around him but never himself. "The world is shit, but I'm not interested in trying to make it any better, because I don't believe it can be". He's incredibly self-centered, as if because nothing matters only satisfying his own desires to be right does. You know what he reminds me of? He reminds me of modern day liberal critics like Bill Mahur or Matt Stone and Trey Parker. He's the prototypical embodiment of this sort of asshole centrist who "criticizes everyone and everything" except for how the system actually works and in a way that might change things, because in truth they're deeply conservative and just want to punch down. This is an incredibly caustic, horrible kind of person and mentality. It is rotten in a rotten world, and just makes everything more unbearably mean and nasty. It is completely lacking in value because it doesn't do anything and desires to change nothing. It's cynicism completely consuming the self. There is no compassion, no love, no point. I hate this sort of mentality with my whole being, because it is fundamentally anti-life and anti-progress. Art that promotes this kind of nihilistic pessimism has no value and should not be made. Art is fundamentally life-affirming, it is creative and growing. Something that just says that there is no point in doing anything might as well not be said at all.

it's been a really long time since I read Candide, but I've always thought of, "Let us cultivate our garden," more like, according to what you said, Hellman saw it. The overall feeling I got from reading Candide, whether Voltaire intended this or not and he probably didn't, was that one's awareness of the cruelty of the world and its systems should not paralyze you into inaction or pessimism. There is immediate good you can do for yourself and others in your "garden", growing your community and seeing your commonalities, doing the best you can while you can. Idk maybe I'm just less of a misanthrope than Voltaire. :)

"Sussudio" is what Phil Collins shouts when he cums inside of Josh Boerman

Making my day 👏 realizing so late we are all theatre kids lol

As someone with absolutely zero theatre background, when I watched yalls original videos I loved the overture intro because it felt very python and I for one think it should come back

This podcast is just getting better and better. That interstitial had me actually crying laughing at my desk.

I've been waiting for this ever since I started listening to this podcast, because I got to learn all about Candide in school. Took the elective class and this was one of the books we covered. We ALSO got a little bit of the musical, so I was humming along with the song.

Okay so, there is a lot of academic debate about Candide’s ending. I went to see it last year in Cardiff with the Welsh National Opera. My dad is a music historian and he explained it to me like this. There are essentially two ways to interpret the ending of Voltaire’s Candide. The sort of libertarian don’t tread on me interpretation and another that’s more about tending to society and such. Something my dad really hammered in to me is that Bernstein makes it very clear which interpretation he believes by the very fact that the show ends with everyone singing together in harmony, which in musical terms is a blaring red sign. This plays into Bernsteins own philosophy about human nature. Sorry about the long comment I just really love Candide!

YES!!! HAHAHA YES!!! Finally!!

We are all of us cool Voltaire

This Voltaire guy sounds like a real jerk.