Talking Dad (Season 1 After Show)
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You're about to hear, for the very first time on the main feed, an episode of Talking Dad, which is our Patreon aftershow where we discuss each episode a week after they air. On this episode, we go over the entire Season 1 of Dungeons & Daddies, talk about the process behind our characters and the story, the challenges and joys of using D&D as a storytelling system, and offer some tantalizing glimpses into what might have been and what's to come with Fetch Quest and Season 2 of the show.

We've been doing this for just about the entire season. So if you like what you hear, head on over to patreon.com slash Dungeons and Dads to subscribe to our Patreon, where you'll also be able to get an extended edition of this episode where we answer listener questions and you can hear exclusive, never before heard audio of Beth dunking on my grandma. That's just one of the many Patreon perks available. So take a look at patreon.com slash Dungeons and Dads and consider supporting this show directly. Thanks so much for listening. And without further ado, Talking Dad.

Welcome to Talking Dad, a podcast about a podcast that if you're hearing this, you probably just listened to the season one finale of. Yeah, just listen to it again. A podcast about a podcast that was. So that's it. First of all, we're going to continue doing the show. That was

season one that you heard and we're going to do a season two actually freddie do you want to go through the whole schedule what the next few months is going to be yeah here's what's going on please freddie will is going to be taking on dm duties for a three episode mini series called fetch quest about three dogs and one cat from our world flung into the forgotten we heard your requests and we are going to start trying to make fetch quest happen wow

While Will does that, Anthony is putting final touches and prepping for season two of Dungeons and Daddies. Same universe, same universe, continuation of the story. I like to imagine that Anthony has like a beta testing group of like his like other improv content. People I respect exactly like 14% less than I respect you. And that you're trying it out with them to like see how the system works before you upgrade to the major leagues. If this is your first time listening to Talking Dad, like you're not subscribed to our Patreon or whatever, uh,

This is basically just a show where we talk about the episode that we just did, the episode at large, and honestly, about 70% of it is just us bullshitting about movies and stuff that we like. Oh, and it's after, like, The Talking Dead, like, get it? Like, from The Walking Dead, they have The Talking Dead on AMC. Yeah, it's that. It's funnier, like, three years ago when we started this podcast. It was, like, really funny when we started it. Very hip, very cool. I guess we'll get to change the name for season two. That's true. If we want to.

Oh, people still because people don't know who are playing for season two. They don't in the discord. I did let loose that we're not playing the same characters. I did not give any spoilers about who we're playing or anything like that. But I thought it was fair because a lot of people got really I saw on the discord. Quite a few people got excited. Cool. I can't wait to see the dads. Dads are coming back. You should definitely be clear that dads because the continuation of the story element seems like we're

Yeah. I don't know if you can say the dads aren't going to come back because actually I don't think we know if our specific dads are coming back. But the story is continuing, but we will be playing different characters. I would like to ask this question to the group because I don't actually think it's a spoil to say basically, generally speaking, what kind of people you are in the next season and what the concept is.

I think it'd be fun to say. I'd kind of be excited. I don't want to go into details about who our characters are or what, because I'm still working on mine. We'll say it in the version that gets released on the page now. No, no. But I think we should. I think we can say what the. Yeah, go for it. Okay, let's count on one, two, three. Wait, what are we going to do? Simultaneously? Yeah. Actually, let's try this. Let's see how close. Let's see how we all describe the group that we're playing. And then Anthony will describe it for real. Freddy's editing this because no. But we're doing it. All right. Okay. Three. One, two, three.

We're playing our parents' grandkids. We're skipping one generation. We're skipping one generation.

And we're going to be playing the kids of the kids in the show. Yeah. So Lark and Sparrow and Grant and Terry and little Nikki, their kids are going to be the player characters for next season. They're the dads. Now those characters are precious to Anthony. He refused to let us play them. He said, he said, Terry, they're mine. Yeah. But that's in the future. Let's talk. I'm playing a daughter. I am. I'm playing a left-handed woman now.

Very brave. Which is great because we get to blame the second season being bad just on that. Yeah. But yeah, this is an episode that's about not just the finale, but sort of the series as a whole. And something that we do on each episode of Talking Dad is like, hey, what was your favorite moment of the episode? Which I want to do, but I think also we can open it up to like, do you have like a favorite moment or maybe a least favorite moment of the series? So just some little things I want to just lay out just because this is something I was thinking about today. We started this podcast...

In 2019. Yes. Pre-pandemic. We were talking about it in 2018, the end of 2018. We did a test for this show about three years ago. After Trump's election, we said, we need to do some brave political art. We need to do something about escaping to another world. And then what was crazy to me is half of this show was recorded during the pandemic remotely and apart from each other, which is crazy.

Boy, oh boy, what a journey this has been. And then half of that time, Glenn was in a prison cell separated from all the other characters. It's been a wild ride. So I just want to throw that out there in terms of like, I mean, you know, we've all taken on various creative projects of various sizes and scales. This is definitely one of like the larger single contiguous ones, right? This is the first one we've done people gave a fuck about. People cared about Borderlands. And Borderlands. No. People cared so much about it, they hate you. Yeah.

Yeah, we never got that good. That's not why they hate me. Yeah, we're not even there yet on this podcast. You don't make it big until you got a real hate group. I mean, I'll just start with the... I don't want to think about the specifics of the show or my brain hasn't figured that out yet. My brain hasn't figured that out yet. I don't have a least or most favorite moment. But my least favorite moment in terms of like...

the process was definitely like the first time we had to record remotely yeah for a whole as anybody could probably understand for a whole variety of reasons like that was just a tough time of the year and i definitely remember simultaneously being relieved that we had something that we could still do remotely but just like it really felt like the world was ending yeah i saw in the discord and then on the twitter people like wow you know this show has helped me through something i was like you know what this show helped us through some stuff too because this was like our

creative rock through the pandemic that was like the old reliable thing and i i i really didn't like it during pandemic yeah it was especially being able to just see you guys and have a way to make myself laugh like just to have a group of people that i loved hanging out with and just that we could go have fun and then talk to the talking dads but also just like the live listens and like feeling plugged into the community was like a big part of that like again we dropped a

Rocks Rock during pandemic. Oh my God, you did. We recorded and dropped Rocks Rock. Holy shit. I remember thinking right at the beginning of the pandemic, I read that thing that was people were like, well, you know, Shakespeare wrote King Lear during quarantine. You're like, I can do better.

And then I literally like I had the two weeks of feeling like completely miserable and freaked out. And then I was like, fucking rocks, rocks shall be my king. I was like, I will. I'm going to throw myself at this because if I don't, I'm going to go crazy. And then Taylor Swift had to drop two albums. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Come on. Did she drop 30 episodes of it?

just a drag podcast, though? No, but if she had... She would fucking love to listen to Taylor Swift. Taylor, if you're listening, we want you on this show. Taylor, we know you're listening. What? You should name your character Taylor Swift next. Holy shit. Oh, yes. That's really good. Taylor Swift is so good. Fucking manifest that shit. You heard it here first. Olivia Munn manifest that shit. I'm going to just...

I mean, yeah, you're my best friend now on the show. Oh, that's for sure. My character is just going to love you. I can't because I won't be able to say Taylor Swift without like smiling and wanting to be your friend. So until you meet your nemesis, Katy Perry, also a man. Letter K. Yeah. Kyle Terry Perry.

It's been really wild to, like, enjoy something consistently over three years. Like, this has always been a thing where whatever else was going on, like, the end of Democracy slash The World, knowing that, like, hey, once every two weeks, I get to, like, do this very weird thing with my friends and Beth. Like, that's...

That's like invaluable. So if we could, if we could have like, if we could give you a little bit of that, like, Hey, every two weeks we get to listen to four funny people and Anthony do some shit. Then I, I hope, I hope we could do that for you. Cause I got a lot of mess. I like my Instagram started being like, Hey, this person put you in a real, this person put you in. I think it's just them thanking all of us for like the show or whatever. Don't thank us. Thank you for listening and being kind about that stuff. I mean, you should thank us. Cause we put on pretty good show. Yeah.

You thank us just by listening. You don't have to ever thank us for anything. By listening or Patreon. Actually, if you really want to thank us, Patreon is a fantastic way to do that. I always felt from episode one that we had something. I don't know if it was any good, but I remember the twist that you threw in there where it's like, okay, Grant's skin is going to be eaten by...

Which is like so violent and like... So like over the top, like a grotesque even. But I was like, ooh, real consequences for us fucking around. Like, I just felt like so happy with that. I remember just being on cloud nine. Now we recorded episode one. We did the intro a couple of times to try and like settle into it a little bit to try and find a good way of just very concisely and quickly getting into everybody's character stories and getting into the sort of interpersonal relationships within the characters. But I remember very much being like,

Yeah, there's something here. I felt very satisfied with that. I was very happy that you were involved in this from the get go because at no point during the beginning of this process was I like, this is actually a good idea. Like, ha ha.

freddie and i were just hanging out one time and like we were talking about ha ha ha what if you know uh dnd archetypes were dad archetypes and freddie was like that's a good idea i'm like is it and then we started doing the thing and he's like we have something here i was like i don't think we do the first like six times freddie explained the concept to me i was like so they is it like so they're dads and they play dungeons and dragons like we're like well how do they have magic they're dads like it is a testament to freddie's ability to pick one because i was like what the fuck are you talking about

Yeah, because, I mean, Freddie says that about a lot of ideas. Hold on. No, no, no, no, no. Hold on. Hold on. Everything I think is a good idea is a good idea. It's a world that's wrong if they don't go. But here's the thing. I'm ready to back off from it. If it was a bad idea, then it was his good idea to call it a bad idea. Exactly. Here's what's a good idea. Knowing when to stop. That's true.

Honestly, out of all the things in the episode, getting a little tiny stud stampler cameo was my favorite. Oh my god, yeah. Man. On the main feed. So actually just like backtracking a little bit, just because you guys are all saying important stuff about the show as a whole. I feel like, I don't know, I've had a lot of jobs and I've had a lot of stuff that I've worked on. And compared to every other thing that I've worked on and gotten money for, I'll make that caveat, is that...

Even when this was hard or frustrating or even if I felt shitty about myself or something or whatever, the job never sucked. And that's like way more than I can say about anything else that I've ever been a part of. This episode was interesting because it's, you know, our first two-parter and we got them, got them with the... That was a Beth special, right? That was Beth's special. Parts of that, because it was also Beth had the dad joke was your idea, too. Yeah, so all the stuff that got guessed. But, you know, I feel like it's an honor to get guessed twice.

If something gets guessed, that just means that it made sense and therefore was good. That's what I take it as. I thought it was a good cross section of like, I think all the little bits and bobs that I like about the show. It's combat that gets kind of, you know, undercut by something clever. It's weird character things that kind of go off to the side, you know, and it's

I thought it was, you know, just sort of a fun, entertaining sort of way to get everyone back together. I remember the record for this one was the longest record we ever did. This was one of the funniest things ever because I was like,

oh boy, this record took six hours. And then we hear from our friends who are like, oh yeah, that's a typical D&D session. That's a light session in D&D. How? But you know, it's a little bit different obviously if you have like miniatures and you're not trying to be funny. I was thinking about that, but I thought the feeling of it was weird. It's fun listening back to it. One, it's been so long since we recorded it. And then two, I do think this is one where, not to say it wasn't fun to record, but it was definitely... It was not fun to record. But it was fun.

because it wasn't just six hours because that's like one thing it's like oh six hours no no it was three days with a lot of recording like like many hours each day and in between that time it was also like it reminded me of like a film shoot where like we're just so exhausted that i didn't feel like the end like you'd be like oh it's fun like we had like beth posted those nice pictures of us but like you can see how wiped we are it was like one o'clock like there was no like real it was like hey good job everybody like we we did it and then like go home it's just exotic like it was

Honestly, like listening back to this time, that's like when I finally was like, oh shit, it's over. Yeah, it really kind of hit me like not till now that like it was actually like the end. To talk a little bit, just very briefly for those of you who don't know for the recording process, we basically, it was everything.

from... Five episodes were all... Did we do five episodes? Including this two-parter, so four, but yes, five complete episodes were done in a batch. Five episodes. So basically, we rented an Airbnb to do basically a ginormous batch record. Normally, we record once every two weeks, but we were like, we're going to do a big run of these because we thought this ending was going to be gigantic. We're going to want to kind of have the momentum of it. Also, like...

three of us are disappearing on a film shoot for like two months. So it was like, yeah, we wanted to get a lot of that stuff in the can, so to speak. So you guys can have the bandwidth to do that. Should we just go to the end? This is a little scattershot, but you know how it goes. So I, in contrast to what Freddie was saying, I fucking hate this episode, generally speaking. Or I did. I did until...

I don't want to say it was talked down from the ledge, but basically my experience having finished DMing, you know, all of the stuff that we did that weekend, I was like, I fucked that up so badly. Oh, that makes me so sad to hear. No, no, no. It's not like it made me upset. I was just like, oh, well, you know, it's the next thing to try to fix in going forward. For me, like the ideal...

in terms of a big fight. Like, what you want out of a big fight, or at least what I want out of a big fight, is people you care about getting really, really close to death or dying and, like, really big dramatic moments and, like, oh, shit, you know, Independence Day does a great job of this where it's like, cool, all we gotta do is get the shields down. Oh, fuck, why aren't the shields down? Okay, cool, they're down. Now we just gotta fire missiles at it until it goes down. Oh, fuck, it's not going down and we're out of missiles. Oh, well, one guy has a missile. Thank God. Wait, it's the drunk guy. Oh, okay, well, he's not drunk right now. Oh, shit, wait, but he won't fire from his thing. Like, there's all these, like, butts. You gotta finish the scene.

I'm on the edge of my seat. Holy shit. And then he says, up yours and it's fun. We didn't have any of that. Everything you did worked the first time and everything was great and everything was totally smooth and like just purely from a game design-y D&D session like setting up. Ups and downs. There's no ups and downs. It's all ups. Everything goes perfectly according to plan, which to me makes it dramatically inert and kind of suck. The thing that makes the episodes a whole work for me though, which I think Will may be more aware of in our Discord chats afterward, was like the fact that

Everything being sunshine and roses during the fight.

really well against like the literal end of the world in the epilogue. And so I'm like, I have come to peace with the finale itself as an episode, but I still think like if we ever do do a big fight at the end again, I want it to be, you know, serenity. There's a sense of anxiety that I knew I went into this like bachelor core with that. I, I think you actually scared me too good. I think, I think that like, I scared you into learning D and D. I mean,

In narrative storytelling that you're, like, controlling, you have some sort of sense of, like, how close to the sun you can get. But, like, with this, it's like... That's a really good metaphor. Okay, actually, the only time I've ever, like...

on a roll and this wasn't even cheating. Go on. I want you to admit it once. We were all knocked prone that one time and I knew that I could do uncanny dodge to half the damage but I had no damage by that point so I was like, yeah, no, I'm knocked prone and I get 17 damage or something. Well, you lied. You cheated to do more damage. You lied to make it worse. Oh, that's better. That's awesome. Um...

That's great. Because he wanted to use a D&D ability. That's how you know we weren't in real danger. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, I think we're all being so careful to just get out alive and to make things like work well that we've kind of let some of the other larger suspense maybe. I honestly thought like just as an episode, like I thought pretty much in between mommy's arriving and us having our scene with our wives, like that part kind of drags versus us trying to pierce. Yeah. Because there's a bunch of people trying to put a bracelet on a dragon. Exactly. Like,

Oh my God. That was so frustrating. Imagine if the fucking, if the climax of Star Wars was just Luke trying to like ear, ear, start Vader's ear. Do the same thing a bunch of times. Imagine, imagine Luke shoots 20 torpedoes and the first 18 miss. And then you're just listening to be like, damn it. This will sound weird for a second, but it's like the same problem. I think that rom-coms or comedies have in general, which is like the third acts often suck or they just feel so different because like once you get close to the end, like,

The demands of the ending of a satisfying narrative often are like counter to like what you're there for in the first place, especially like straightforward, goofy comedies. It's like you're watching like Pineapple Express, like, yeah, this is funny. And then it's like, well, then it's got to be dramatic. And then it's like ignores everything that was fun about beforehand. So like D&D is fun because you don't know what's going to happen. But then like endings have this finality. So like your disappointment is still just down to like.

the dice rolls, like, yeah, it could have gone better. And like, if it wasn't the ending, you wouldn't think anything of it. Like, oh, that combat could have gone better. It could have been more interesting or whatever it is. But like what you set up in terms of like the conflict, in terms of like the three dads are there, we got to get our kids out. There's like the portal, like all that stuff was like really exciting. And then like, you know, how much,

specific narrative elements. It's up to the dice roll or you make them not up to the dice roll and then it doesn't feel like D&D anymore. There's a middle space though, which is like, yeah, there's die rolls, but it's like, I also could have just not let you roll the die to try to throw the grenade out of the van type stuff. Like there's a lot of stuff I was doing by just DM Fiat that somebody in the discord put it pretty well where they're like, Anthony is the dad who's like, hey guys, I'm serious this time. I'm everybody goes to bed early in the 30 minutes. They're all eating pizza and watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Like I couldn't be as mean as I wanted to be.

It could be just as redundant because like me getting blown up or whatever could have turned into just another gameplay loop of us trying to get something pierced in the ear. Like you never know like what's going to happen. I also think it's weird. I don't know why this is kind of just hit me, but in fiction, we love watching our favorite characters like fuck up. They make the wrong choices and stuff like that. But then I think that there's this element of listening to people play D&D or you want them as players. You want us as players to do a good job. It's like a sport at that point.

Yeah. Like in a weird way, D&D has this almost sport element because you're rooting for characters in the way, knowing that there's an element of this that's not written, knowing that there's an element out of control. Yeah, there's rooting for what happens to the character, but there's also like rooting for the player to play the game well. Yeah. Yeah. So there's this weird kind of sport elements so that the characters are beyond just fictional characters. They are players in this framework. Yeah.

And in that context, you want them to do well. But then the problem is that they just continually do well. There's actually nothing interesting about that. I mean, I think one of the biggest takeaways for me from just the show as a whole is how interesting a storytelling medium D&D is. It is kind of a way of exploring a narrative space, exploring a character space in a way that

Generally, writing fiction just doesn't touch because all of you folks are in the room, right? Like we've talked about this a little bit in the past, but you know, one of the people in the room is working against you. Yeah, exactly. It's actively antagonistic. And what you want and you might have in your head, this really perfect narrative of like, oh, this is like, I want to talk a little bit about this, which was what were my thoughts for Glenn at different stages throughout this show? You know, so like what was cool was just having that shift all the time. Like I had had thoughts prior to Glenn's courtroom altercations.

arc. And by the way, someone had done the math on that. It's staggering to consider how many different directions this show could have gone. Like if I could have a, like a reality bending time machine thing, one thing that I would love to see just out of selfish curiosity is where would the show have gone if the pandemic didn't happen?

Like, what would have happened if we were still recording in person through that pivotal middle part? And then very specifically, someone had done the math on this on the subreddit. Glenn, based on the roles there for his trial, was more likely to have been getting a not guilty verdict, basically.

Based on that, right? So there was a bad roll. Yeah. There's a bad roll there. So it's like, it was a lot of bad rolls. I think when you rolled for your defense, you never got a number that was above a 10. Yeah. Could you imagine like Marvel's what if, but not if the pandemic didn't happen, but what if the pandemic didn't happen for this one podcast? They say opposites attract. That's why the sleep number smart bed is the best bed for couples. You like a bed that feels firm, but they want soft, stable.

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So, like, I had had plans for Glenn in terms of just like, oh, here's how I might want to explore this. Like, I think for I'm trying to think of the specifics. So, like, to me, I think one of the endings that I had had in my head early on, which, of course, did not come to pass because, you know, the narrative shifted underneath my feet. But I was like, oh, I think that Glenn's ending is confronting the death of Morgan with his kid.

with Nick and like the end scene in my head was them going to like visit her grave. I want to set up that he had not gone back to it or like was avoiding it, visiting it with Nick and,

And then the end of that was him being like, you know what? Let's go. Let's go to Universal. Like that would be like the dumb character. Like my cry is very cute. Of the little cute character growth, which was playing the idea that it's like, oh yeah, he's come to meet Nick halfway and has come to sort of confront some of the parts about him. And, you know, hey, the dice do what the dice does. And we got what we got. And I'm very happy with the way that Glenn's arc went. I think it's really satisfying. I'm very happy with the Christianity joke, which, you know, I just crack up every single time I think about because I was

I'm also very happy with the Christianity joke. There's a thing you hit on a good, not paradox. I don't know what to say, but like the conflict of playing and doing storytelling is like for Daryl is very much like coming into this, like more like an actor being like, it's not in my control. Like it's Anthony. Like I don't want to think ahead of time because I think as a storyteller, you're thinking about what's most interesting for the story. So your motivation is,

often should be running counter to what a character motivation is like the person who's writing frodo has a different want for frodo than frodo and i want to only think about what daryl wants like yeah that's one of the things you're really good at like daryl wants something whereas like the more accurate thing as a story would be like well i as a writer want daryl to like you know have a bittersweet thing and like suffer and like do this but like in the moment like i want to be like daryl so it's like i never quite really thought of until you're saying it like that but

It's like, as a writer, your motivation is one thing. As a character, your motivation is the other. So I feel like a lot of this is just like a balance. So you didn't have the same kind of experience Freddie had of like, I have a long-term ending? No. I didn't either. I never thought about what... Matt was really interesting because I remember talking to him about some of this stuff and just sort of like,

kicking some ideas around and like I was asking him about sort of his prep and he was like I do not want to be thinking about this show until we are I'm sitting in front of the microphone and we're starting the intro and then I'm in the show and that's where I'm going to react to which I thought was again totally works I mean that's why Daryl doesn't do as much like I don't know I think it's actually I think we have a good balance of different approaches because I think like because Will will send me anxious texts on the weekend being like what about this for a week

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I backseat DM fucking Anthony all the time. I remember doing the most stressful part of the campaign for me was during the Glenn stuff. We broke the pattern completely where every other dad had three or four episodes to get your little time and then we're going to move. And it was like we had the trial. And then the trial turned into the Jody thing, which was still kind of the Glenn thing.

And then we had to go get Glenn. And then it was like this whole, and I was like, how the fuck are we going to write Jimmy off of the shelves? Glenn hogged the arc for sure. So I was like, they were just keeping me up at night. I'm anxious. I can't help but try to break the story. So I was sending Anthony fucking texts all the time. He was very patient about putting up with me. Be like, what about this, that, or the other? A little sneak peek of Fetch Quest for a second, because this is what it made me think of, like playing with all four of you. Which we've already recorded. Which we've already recorded. Because it was interesting being on the other side of the table and seeing how you guys are as players in terms of like,

how you're feeling about your character, what you're doing. And one thing that I, like Anthony had this moment where like, I was laying out a plot thread and then like you were in your doggo mode. Like you were like, but it's like, I could see another writer brain at work being like, oh yeah, I'm going to pick this thing up and play with it as my character to help Will move the story along. It was like, oh, thank you.

thank you so fucking much. I was like, oh my God, if we, cause it's like, you want that, I don't know. I just think to me, the classic moment of this is when we go back to Neverwinter with the pyramid, Anthony has set up the pyramid is where like the fucking mommy twist happens. There's like the whole, like you got to go back and face what you did. And we get to the gate and it's like this very hard moment. Cause it's like David Boreanaz wants the dads to come in and face their crimes or whatever. And,

And then Daryl's reaction is very much like, fuck no. Like, I'm not doing that. Like, I'm out of here. Absolutely not. We have to save our kids, which is totally natural. And then, like, for me, as Henry, there was a bit in my head where I was like, I could totally justify Henry being like, no, I'm not going to. Like, I'm going to agree with Daryl and just leave. But, like, I was thinking, like, I really want to see what's in that fucking pyramid. Like, as a player, I wanted to go there. So I made this move.

with Henry to make it about something else where it's like he feels guilty. Oh, that's interesting. It felt very of his character. It didn't feel like you were like metagaming at all. I was walking into that. And actually that was the reason I set up, I think I have the dad fact about the parrot at the beginning and the parrot getting killed and like his sort of guilt over that happening. And it was like, even then I was thinking like, oh, maybe this will be something that can come back when they talk about the pyramid. There was kind of a positional move. And then it leads to this ginormous blow up between Henry

Henry and Daryl. Like, it was this big irresistible force meets immovable object moment, which was really intense. But I think it was good drama. Like, I texted Matt afterwards. I felt really bad yelling at him. Wow, really? Yeah, I was like, I felt awful afterwards because it was like, it was one of those things where it was like 90% Henry and Daryl, but it was 10% Will and Matt being genuinely frustrated. Oh my God.

And so, like, I was like, are we okay? Which I think a lot of the listeners picked up and they're like, ooh, this is a little real. I remember that episode, too, because I think that was the episode where I had Ron just, like, walk away from the group. Yes, exactly. Which is my favorite thing that you do. Well, and, yeah, again, like, that was...

I don't even know when we recorded that, but I would say that my approach has changed a lot. And I'm actually trying to get back to maybe my original approach thinking about season two where it's like, yeah, like Matt, I came in and I'm just like, I am not going to think ahead of myself. I'm not going to interrogate like the character. I'm just going to fucking feel it out and then see what the room needs at the time or whatever. And then I feel like as I...

became a little more confident you know just as a as a performer and then as a writer especially just like doing this with you guys for a couple of years i think i was able to see the machinery working in a way that i wasn't able to before and prepare more of the writing elements of ron's sort of arc although i never really thought about like what the end of it would look like for him but

But I definitely felt that during like the last chunk, I found myself thinking way more in writer brain and in terms of like in satisfaction of the arc and stuff like that. And there's a part of me that's chill with that, proud of like how it all ended up. But there's like a part of me that kind of really wants to prioritize being a little bit more, more in the moment about stuff like that. Because I, you know, again, thinking about that conversation with the pyramid and stuff like that, I was really bored. Yeah.

And I think that Ron would be bored too. And so it was just like, I don't know. You definitely 100% made the right call for the finale though. Because it's like, we know we're wrapping up and so you're going into writer mode so that you know the cool thing that Ron is going to say to his father when he gets rid of his father. I think it elevates, it doesn't hurt the moment. Because you feel...

not only yourself but Ron the character getting confident in a way that feels like a really satisfying culmination of our... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Even in a meta sense, I think my favorite part of this episode is like... So if you've seen Edge of Tomorrow and or Live, Die, Repeat, it's a Groundhog Day movie and every loop, the first thing that happens is Tom Cruise wakes up with a guy kicking him and going, get up, maggot! And looking at him like he's a piece of shit. And then like...

90% of the way through the movie, he's been through so much shit and he's feeling existentially, like, completely changed. He's a different person on the inside that the guy kicks him and he goes, get up! And then, like, Tom Cruise just gives him this fucking look and he, like, silences him and it's like, oh my god, this guy has changed. That exact moment was Beth saying, I'm gonna use my uncanny dodge. And, like, there's...

There's something in the confidence that the way that Beth says it, I'm like, this is a different person. Like, I've never felt a character arc in my soul in the same way that I did when Beth has that confidence for playing D&D. And there's a part of my innocence that I crave and I want back.

Honestly, I think one of the things that's great about this just as a creative thing for me is just like you get into cycles and this was something different. Like I haven't done like a podcast. I haven't like done acting before. And like when you get struggle over something over and over again, it's nice to break free of it. I think it's natural. Like as we get farther along and we're approaching the ending, obviously there's more of our character that we've already developed. So we kind of know, you know, essentially when it got to my arc, like I more or less would think about it. I probably texted Anthony like once per arc.

I was like, hey, I know I'm going to be talking to Grant soon. Like, what do you need to know about Frank? You know, it's like, I know we're approaching this. Like, obviously, like, as I got to, like, something I knew was going to be about Daryl, there'd be, like, things that I just wanted to make sure I internalized and knew. But, like, I think it's good as we start season two to, like, not be in, like, that writer mindset as much because I think that

the magic of it is that we had no idea what the fuck we were doing and you let the game create it and most of it's just like i feel like i'm often like overbearing so like i was just telling myself to like trust anthony like this is anthony's story i will be the character in anthony's story and do like the thing and not like try to it's tactics versus strategy and it's natural too because right it's the arc of a narrative when something starts the possibilities are

infinite right and i remember very much feeling like that sometimes where there's so many iconic aspects of the show that were just digressions right pay then and bully wugs was oh my god yeah right like the joke of there is like what if there's like a apple bees or a chilies in this world which is a total fucking ridiculous stupid lark right and as you approach an ending it's not that it's you don't still have possibilities but the feeling is that okay doors are closing

Possibilities are closing, right? You're approaching an end point. So naturally you're starting the realm, the web of possibilities gets narrowed down. You're heading towards an end point. So I think that is something to keep in mind, which is just when we start again, we will once again are in a world of whatever the fuck interests us or that we find funny. In that case, we're in a good situation because we already recorded a test for the next season to see like, you know, do these characters work? Do they bounce off each other? And they were like, ah! So the fact that we're already like, ooh,

and feeling a little bit uncomfortable as I think probably it's a good place to be honestly. I was doing all this work and all this stuff trying to do prep for season two. And then I went back in the process of coming up on the big anniversary of like the three years we've been doing the show or whatever. I went back and saw like, what was the prep I did?

for season one and it was like not a lot very little and most of it was playing off of like riffs that you guys did again Bullywogs, Payton the blood pact was just like in the moment Daryl being so confident in the way he could lie about this and be like okay well it's fun to just say fuck you and then make it a thing that you have to deal with so my hope is that we can be a lot more on our toes and a lot funnier and getting back to that

Honestly, I think that was one of the things I learned, not to bring it back to Fetch Request again, I'll stop doing this, but as a fellow DM, I've done three episodes of this show. Because it was a one-shot, I was like, I pretty much baked the whole thing going in. Like, I had a plan for basically everything you guys did. And I would love to do even a one-shot where that wasn't the start. Like, it was like, I'm going to have one thing planned and fucking figure it out from there. Like, it's like, I think the...

it's a rookie DM thing to want to really over prepare. You told me that after the first day, you're like, you're going to do this for the first one. And then like, you're going to want to never do this again. I was like, that's very true. But, um, I agree with you. I think actually like having the core concept, figuring out what the core concept is, figuring out everyone. Again, I think it's basically just coming up with a character that you feel like you can have fun playing with for, you know, a good run and then go from there and just keep it loose. I think is a great idea.

As I say, you don't want to do the DC mistake, but almost everybody's mistake since Avengers, which is like everybody's like, I want to do the Avengers and they forget. Like it took a lot of smaller movies to get to the Avengers. So like, I think you get this high. Like, honestly, we all love like fucking going through like Ron's, you know, past memories. These are all these like high moments. So then the instinct is like season two is like, ooh, all right, get to that high moment. Like, no, that high moment takes forever.

50 episodes of fucking around and like building the characters and doing all that fun stuff. Like, I feel like once you get that high, you try to start that high again. It's like everybody after the Avengers, like, great, we're just going to do the mummy. It's going to be the universal, like, it's like, no, it's like, you got to start over, which is hard. The Avengers parallel is even wilder. Cause like, where did that come from? It came from Iron Man, a movie that was like 45% improvised on the day. Like, and was all pretty much just a comedy and like, whoops, turns out that's really charming and fun if you do it correctly. Yeah. And one at a time.

And it's also like, this is probably some scientific principle or something, but like by observing something, you change it. And I think by knowing that you're observed as a performer, you accidentally... That's true. That's crazy. That's like a totally new scientific idea. I don't like you at all. The May Uncertainty Principle is I think what we'll call it. It may be there. It may not be there. It may be there. Basically...

Once we all sold out and I got a bunch of followers on Twitter, then I lost all the magic that made me special in the first place. And that's my...

That's your art. It's your cross to bear. That's my devastating cross to bear. I think that's what's going to be fun about playing like teens. It's already nerve wracking because it's like you're like holding. Yeah, there's just I can't really rest on a lot of it. It's funny because I'm not a dad. I was like, I'm playing dad. No problem. He's a teenager. But I'm like, how am I going to be a teen? I'm a 35 year old man. What am I doing? That trick is we all were teens once. I know. I went back and I was like, I'm going to read my old high school journal. Did you? Oh, my God. I booted it up and I got a page and I was like, I can't.

I'm going to. I'm going to read some of it because I was like, I journaled pretty much every day. Oh, that's so cool. Junior year, senior year. And then I started petering out during college. But I'm so glad I did because it was like this fascinating document to look at. Like, I was so horny and so frustrated. Yeah. And I was like angry that I didn't have a girlfriend. And it was either that or me talking about video games.

Holy shit. But anyway. Man, I got to go find some of my old fanfic. Yeah. I've shown mine. You need to show yours. Yeah, I do. Even recording Fetch Quest and then these other miniseries and stuff like that, I think that I come to expect a certain amount of quality or whatever from whatever we do with Dungeons and Daddies to transfer over. And I forget that, you know, like it does, but it takes a second. It takes a second to find it. I think what we have is really special. We just naturally have a very good chemistry.

Like Matt, Will and Freddie have worked together for a really, really long time. I knew you guys for, you know, a couple of years. We're going to rocket up the show. Did you know any of these folks before we started doing stuff? I went to a bunch of parties over at your sister's house and Freddie was there a few times. Right. Yeah. Like I am constantly flabbergasted by how much we lucked out.

at the fact that you and I have melded with these three that have melded with each other and like all of our guest stars and all that kind of stuff. You know what's funny? I'll let you guys in on something behind the scenes right now. All of us have great chemistry together. Anthony and I have zero chemistry one-on-one.

It's totally like, Anthony will go and open the door and be like, hey, and then come in and then we walk up the stairs to Freddie's door in silence. That's not true. This time I said, this time I said, literally everybody. Yeah, it's hard to do that. I complimented his pants because I didn't even know what to talk about the last time he let me. I was like, I love your pants, Anthony. The last time he did that, I was like, oh, so Will doesn't like my pants. I'm sorry.

No, but it's fine. Literally, it's just a function of that stairwell because when we bring people up into Freddy's room, there's a small stairwell that's not long enough to have an actual conversation about. And there was a real conversation going on in Freddy's apartment next to the stairwell. So like, I can't start a proper conversation because then we're going to have to stop and we... It's a function of the stairwell. I'm just going to leave Will fucking hanging for 15 excuses. Yeah, dude. I answered the question.

through the door and i was like hey freddie's playing piano in there and will went oh yeah so you gotta talk about someone else it doesn't matter though it's just about the chemistry here we've done uh ad reads that were fine just will and i did them they were okay all right i knew we were gonna be fine because anthony was a fellow guardian for a while so i knew our chemistry bad that was a sure about but then like you know pretty much after the first spot i was like oh great like that's awesome

Beth was on Story Break a couple of times before we did Dungeons and Daddies. It's like, oh, she's fantastic. I didn't know you were on before Dungeons and Daddies. I was. Oh, that's where I was like, she's a fan of our stuff, so that's how I know we'll work well together. She worships the Grand Diwokon. Yes. Yeah, I was on an episode of Story Break that I am more proud of than anything else. And you read, you were like at...

Our agency, when VGH... Like, she read the first book of VGHS. Oh, yeah, do you guys know about this? Do you guys know about the VGHS connection? No. Okay, so I was interning at your guys' agency. Used to be called The Collective. The Collective. It was a management company, yeah. When they were first, like, introducing me to their clients or whatever, it was just a bunch of, like... Cool bros. It was a bunch of cool bros. Thank you. And then I read a few scripts for VGHS, and I loved it. And then one of my last weekends in LA before I went back to college, I was, like...

on some sort of like promo shoot or something in Burbank and you guys were there. Wait, really? Yeah. I didn't know this. I just know that you read the script. So we like were in the same room at some point. Yeah. I didn't think about it again until I met Freddie like later and I was like, oh dang. I was there. That guy was an asshole when I met him.

Can we talk about our favorite bits from the season? Please do. Yes. So for me, let me start. It's Beth's double throat singing Silent Night. Good choice. So here's a couple of things that happened there that I realized. One, the Christmas music zag. Because originally Glenn wasn't a Christmas music cover band. Is that where it happened? Yeah, around there was when we were like, I forgot about that. Because originally it's Forever a

thing no because that was the only thing that i could sing with my dumb voice right and then after her i was like oh it'd be funny if if glenn gets showed up yeah it's like oh that's much funnier that's crazy so that's special because originally it was that as far as glenn was concerned he's in a cover band if i could change one thing about this show i would have gone back and done dumb dad jokes and like puns that we eventually landed on for every title like i think we started off our titles like a little too serious and then there was a moment where i was like

Is there a world where every title is like the title of a dad rock song, which is obviously very, very restricting. But I was like, okay. I was looking around at dad rock playlists on Spotify to see if there's any titles of songs that match. So that was as far as Glenn went. It was cover band rock and roll guy. And then...

after that particular episode, I was like, this specific specificity, which was like, I think really cool. And also it's just something I think to even keep in mind, which is these big character details. You don't have to have it baked. That's true. That's very true. Up until the moment, you're right. Like it was one of those ones where like,

Even the flip of, oh, Glenn secretly DJs, right, is another one that was not part of it from the beginning, which then, in retrospect, makes certain things really weird and funny. Like the idea then that he would like is so against that. Yeah, that he would, you know, let the jewels go because he doesn't want to be the Linkin Park cover man DJ during the whole scam likely bit. So that particular episode was probably the first one.

where there was like a real significant amount of time spent in the sound design and music side of it to land that beat specifically to you know to have that and I remember Beth right you came over it's actually one of our first Patreon video bonuses I think the first video bonus which was the video recording of Beth coming over to do just for that little blip of a track on there and

I think that prior I'd done some music stuff here and there for YouTube videos or friends' movies and stuff like that. And always I've liked doing it. I have all the software for it. It's just not something that I have... It's not like my full-on career. I'm not focused on music composition. So I was like, oh, cool. Every time I get a chance to flex those muscles...

I really enjoy. And I remember putting it all together and like timing it out. And that was a really weird specific one because like we're going off a recording and then we're going to use a song that we record and the tempo needs to fit. That's just sound good enough that you buy that the crowd is blown away by it. Yeah. Cause we're, we're playing a game. So it's not like an audio drama where it's like, Anthony's a narrator of a book, reading a thing. It's one of those things where it's like, we're laughing at jokes and stuff. And so those got really detailed in terms of like, Oh, what am I cutting out of the jokes so that the timing fits all this up.

I remember having that hit and then playing for it and just like cracking up by myself in my place just because I was like, it's such a weird zag that this natural 20, maybe the most consequential natural 20 for the show at that moment in time. It was electrifying in the room when you got the natural 20. I remember screaming. You were like, I got natural 20. I was like, oh!

It was also one of those ones where it was like, it's fucking Glenn's arc. And then the whole scene is being set up for Glenn to play a song with his fucking son. And then Ron can come up with this stupid plan with two bands and this whole fucking thing. And we're like, we're going to go be bad so that you guys look good. And then Ron fucking did this. Upstage is Glenn. And then, yeah, so it becoming one of the iconic Ron moments. Then you guys run away and go to Bullywugs.

And that's where we find Peyton. Oh, man. Oh, wow. Yeah, Melinda Peyton. Yeah. And that also has Willsworth's Check, Please, that fucking. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think actually that's my favorite stinger ending out of all the endings is Check, Please. That was just such a hacky joke. No, but I feel like that's when we knew we were allowed to. Yeah.

It was also literally like, how often do you actually get the opportunity to do the check please joke at a restaurant when they're all sitting down? I was like, oh my God. I have to say it before someone else does. I will say that without check please, there would have never been a who's your dad now. Yes, yes, yes. There started to be a bit of it. It was like, oh, the stinger joke is like a thing. And it felt like there was definitely like a bit of who's going to get the last joke now. I felt like it was like, Whistleang's really good and then like every movie tries to copy it. There's like a moment where it felt like every episode like should have ended, but then like we were all kind of like,

can't we just have like a serious ending? It's fine to just like end on a cliffhanger. And then it would be like just me being the most toxic person ever. Like, well, my stinger was funnier. I don't know why I got cut. Looks like I'm not in the Easter egg either. Looks like it's just some dumb guy.

The number of times during that era of episodes 10 to 40 where people would all make end jokes and be like, do we have an ending? I'd be like, yeah, those were all very funny. What put a stop to the Zinger era was the episode that ends with Ron asking Willie, do you love me? And then they just be like, you wake up. And I was like, shit, that's even better. And that's when the sad boy series of Dungeons and Daddies ending started. Yeah, that's when you know the show stops being fun. The funniest I've ever felt was being like,

oh my God, I've set up a Disney joke. That's why I avoid non-Disney rides. Oh yeah, that was also, that was a killer one. It was maybe the highest two minutes of my life being like, I have the strongest joke. It's ready to go. Which joke is this? Where the moms die. And we're reading all the notes and crying. Oh, and he's like, that's why I go to Disney. He's like, that's why I don't go to Universal Studios. Yeah, it was just like. And the sadder it got, the funnier I felt. It was like, ooh. You had the grenade cooked in your hand. You could feel it ticking away in there.

I'm going to release this. More troops are lining up in front of you. More and more troops. Yeah. As you guys were fucking bawling in the room, I was sitting in the corner just like, this is going to kill. Whenever I'm even remotely close to that situation, Freddie, I always like barf it in the worst way. I'm always like, I'm always like, that's what she said. And everybody's like, what the fuck? Why would you say that?

Why would you even say that? Oh, my God. My favorite joke overall is the intro where Will is like, I bet you're wondering how I got in this crazy situation.

I don't remember that one. That was the second intro. I don't remember that one. I just thought that was so funny. And then the howl after one-on-one time with my son, or should I say one-on-wolf time in the back of the answer. Oh!

I fucking died. Yeah, the intros. The intros is a very strange thing. So here was the original idea with the intros, which was, you know, having had friends and promo cutting and stuff like that. It's like, it's an art form to be like, what is a quick summary of the previous episode? Adventure Zone does a great job of this, you know, with the previously on and they're doing like little clip thing. 24 does that too. I was like, I don't like the 24 style previously on.

because it spoils what's coming. It has to, right? The needs of that is to be like, oh, this is going to happen. So here's a quick scene of this. So you know that, oh, this is going to be a story that touches on. So it was one of those scenarios where I was like, okay, the goal is a little reminder for everyone coming in, you know, after every two weeks, which is enough time to forget about what happened previously. Just a reminder of like, okay, what happened?

How can you do that as entertainingly as possible? So the first one that I did was Hotel California parodies. And that was an in-universe one. Foolishly opened the door to all of us to pitch you song parodies for the next three years. The song ones took so much fucking time. And by the way, evidence that Glenn was not a Christmas guy, right? Because I'm like, oh yeah, it's a dad rock song, Hotel California. So...

That was where it started. And then it just fucking... Every fucking dumb thing I've ever done on YouTube, it just spirals out of control and becomes these crazy, huge-ass things, which, yeah, I think are probably some of the most fun. Was there ever a week where it was more work on the intro than the episode itself? No. The episodes are long enough for it, but definitely some of the music ones were incredibly involved. That was the Jolene cover is the one that fucking melts my brain still, where I was like, oh, we should do a heavy metal Jolene. I banged out some lyrics, and then...

It's like just with the fucking drum kick and the harmonized vocals. And I was like, what the fuck happened? The Jolene one probably was the most work in terms of time. I think I very distinctly remember that, which was like I woke up on a Sunday and I sat at my computer on the Patreon. There's a video of this where I just I had the feeling I'm like, OK, I know how to approach this. So I'm like, I think I should record it just because I think it's gonna be really fun to watch.

I remember looking up and be like, oh, it's nighttime now. It was basically an all day affair for that one. I think where the intros really took off is once we actually, weirdly enough, stopped worrying about them recapping. Because I think the whole recapping. They still all do kind of. I mean, it's like it turned into like us doing like audio fan art of the previous episode.

It's like a celebration and a reminder, like a nostalgic, oh, that was fun. Like, remember that episode without trying to explain it. It was just like a cold open for the show, basically. Yeah. It's a week making fun of what you did the week before. It's just like, it's just really fun because it's like this weird, because it kind of became that. It became like, oh, what happened previous episode? Oh, it'd be fun making fun of that episode. Yeah, it's just like, how do we parody what we did last week? Yeah, which is like, it just became really fun. This might be recency bias. It might not. When NotBee is talking to Ron about,

And it's like, so why do you feel so anxious about your father? And I was like, I don't know. That's kind of personal. I don't know if I want to talk about my father right now. And he's like, okay, that's fine. Well, how are you feeling right now? And he goes, scared about my father. Like scared about my dad. Scared about my dad. It's just like such a, I felt like I was the backboard in a game of one-on-one where there was no other player. And it was just Beth passing and assisting to herself and then slam fucking donkey. Just alley-ooped to herself. It was fucking so good.

Dungeons and Dragons is brought to you this week by Bespoke Post. Hey, Summer. Bespoke, my heart. I fucking love Bespoke Post. Bespoke. It's summertime. And they got a new premium lineup of Box of Awesome Collections. Oh, my God. Okay, so, like, you know in Dune they have the Box of Pain? Yeah. That's, like, the opposite.

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What's your favorite peaceful post, dude? Hey, can I tell you about the one I just got, bro? I just got a whiskey nosing kit. It's like you could burn stuff and get your nose up to date with whiskey, dude. I didn't just get a fucking gift. I got an opportunity. That's what they gave me. That's what they fucking gave me. They gave me the reason, finally a fucking reason to buy two

fucking watches because I got, check this out, I got a little drawer that's got two little poles on it to hold watches and then an acrylic cover to protect those watches. The mahogany. And I got it. I was like, this is the most beautiful fucking thing I've ever seen. I don't have watches, but I need watches. Was it in black or mahogany, Bernie? It was, it was,

It was mahogany. You got the mahogany drop. And that fucking decided what sort of watches I bought. And I don't want to say how much I spent on watches, but it was thousands. But it was fucking worth it to make this beautiful case. The display case, dude. You can't have that case and not let it fucking do what it was born to do. You can't let that beautiful fucking piece of boutique furniture just sit there on your fucking counter without watches on it. My God.

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See store for details. I'll talk about two things. One is like a group thing. And one is just my favorite thing I got to do is Henry. So for the group thing, the deck of many things episode. Yeah. Yeah. I think that to the Glenn stuff, that was the turn from like, okay, now the doors are closing on the show. Cause that was like to me, like almost like the midpoint of the show. It probably is. Yeah.

Because it was so fucking wild. It's 44, I think. A little bit over past the midpoint, but it was such a daredevil move. And it was like, I remember being terrified. Like, what are we going to pull? How's it going to go? The fact that we got well actually out of it, like in that insane turn of like Scam Likely showing up and then doing the thing and then him drawing the card that makes him go away right away. Everyone getting fucked over and then Glenn getting more and more powerful and

until in his fucking hubris, he draws, we're starting with him killing the squirrel. Yeah, and immediately leveling up. And then getting a tank. Whenever Freddy says his human gun, I just fucking love it. And then all of that building up to him fucking yeeting himself, like he's going to square down with death. And then, yeah, so they're like, oh shit, he drew death. It cannot get worse than this. And then he draws the one that throws him into a quest. So then Doug starts running after him.

It was just crazy. I loved it. People may or may not believe that. Like we did not script that. If we had tried to script it, it would not have been nearly as good. And that's a perfect example like to your Cousin Broth finale. That episode could have been fine. Yeah. Very easily could have just been whatever. To go all the way back to the finale, I think the finale was six bad dice rolls away from being

a barn burner of suspense and that is out of your control it's like the end of mountains of dadness I think we all want the finale to always be as good as the finale of mountains of dadness where it came down to the most clutch thing of all time but you can't ask for that every time that's fair so my favorite thing I got to do was Henry I mean I love doing all the emotional stuff like it was really empowering and exciting to do that as an actor like his run in Oakvale like I'm really really proud of that work I think my favorite thing to do was the courthouse I

I am a law and order boy through and through. I grew up watching court stuff. I never did mock trial as a kid, but I always daydreamed about it. And so to get to do like the objections and the cross exact getting to do like, are you winning son? Have you ever been winning? Like to get to do like the, all that's like bringing air force one and all that, like the, like,

Air Force One is evidence. I mean, like, it was a literal dream come true to get to do a closing argument. Like, I was so, it was so fucking fun. You were super exceptional at that. Yeah, you were really into that. You really shone. You could feel the electricity that Will's like, I get to do Defender stuff. It was fucking great. It was a game that you were all incredibly generous to let me do that.

Like it was also one of those ones where I think like I must have just been vibrating with excitement and getting to do court. It was all remote. That was a total delight. And I also love that the punchline to all of that is you did an amazing job. And then the verdict was the exact opposite of what you were doing. I did not kill my friend. I did dismember him.

My favorite episode to record, I think, in the room was the House of Riddles episode. I just had a blast with that. The House of Riddles? The Scam Likely one. Scam Likely. Oh, where they gave you all the options to lose your soul or whatever? Yeah. Scam Likely's House of Riddles or something?

This game likely won an even the book one, the book castle. No, it was when we were in person. The book castle one, I was too stupid for. Okay, that's the one where Ron can't wear pants anymore. Yes. Holy shit. Yeah. Yes. That was another saving grace because that pants meme was going to take over. It was like, okay, let's get Ron a new thing. Because again, the I hide in my pants was another such a fucking out there crazy good joke from the beginning of the season. You know, it just seemed like what to do. Yeah.

At the time. So that was funny because not only did that, I hide in my pants, right? And also one of the best, like, Beth moments in the show, which is, you know, hi, hungry, I'm dad. Figuring that out. That was right. That episode is fucking full of really good shit. I love that episode. Not only that, but there's a great thing. The pyramid that you confronting Sparrow and turning him into a love wolf. The frogs, yeah. The frogs. Yeah, you want to talk about clutch D&D things affecting the story. That literally is because I ran after Sparrow to jump on the thing and Lark was downstairs and

which is how Larkin Sparrow essentially became different characters, which was then led to what we wound up setting up season two with. Yeah. Holy shit. It turns out I switched those names at some point on accident, but who cares? But that's funny. That whole episode, I think, is everybody firing. And also there's like even Matt being like, even Matt. I mean, because

Because it's not Daryl's episode. Daryl has nothing to do in that episode. He's the least relevant character. Because at least Freddy is like, I'm going to try to get this out. And he fucks up and it's funny. But Daryl's like, I'm going to grab both of these kids and I'm going to fucking mama bear and dissolve this shit. And it's just like you understand Daryl a lot better after that episode. Especially because it's also right after he sees all the people having sex. He's like, I don't know what to do with it. When he walks into the pit? Yeah. It's just like everybody's characterizations really solidify. What was that? Episode three?

three, four. Why might as well than I was just going to say my favorite moment, which is the pyramid. On other Talking Dads, I don't think I've ever done favorite moment as like myself because when I don't even usually remember what I do or care what I do, it's just like, I think specifically. I'm so humble, you know. Otherwise, I'd go crazy. You would. You'd be like me and Beth. I don't know.

what you're talking about no i think about myself all the time but it was the pyramid because it was um two things the pyramid and then the because i don't care about compliments the only compliments i care about from anthony because he doesn't give compliments when anthony said matt i know they're working yeah when anthony said matt knows what an episode needs so i think the pyramid to me that's essentially became the one where i understood like how i could play the game because it became oh interesting honestly like i want to try to be funny i want to like

move the game forward. But like me, like being like a fucking comedy fanatic and living chaplain and like character driven stuff and like a writer, like it was,

the thing daryl would do would be throw like a million things dnd would have been like i jumped down and like i'm a barbarian so i use my attack my double attack to yeah yeah something within character that i think will change the way things are going but make sense for the character and work for the gameplay thing and like the moment the pyramid and that whole episode was just like already fun in the first place your decision to throw the

bag of beans. I decided to throw the bag down. I was like, I think that when we all heard about the bag, it was like, we got to dump that fucking bag out. But it was the moment that happened and then everything spiraled and then it just all became really funny. And then like everybody got like the frogs and like the crazy stuff with the kids are trapped underneath them. Yeah, and I was like, oh, like I shouldn't be concerned about like winning D&D. I should be concerned about like playing the game in a fun way that works for my kids. Winning comedy against your friends.

Playing in a fun way that worked for the character specifically. So like I tried to, because it's not about not being aware of the game. It's about like thinking about like what would be fun and also what would Daryl do? And then like from that moment on, I was like, I know what I'm supposed to do or I know what I'm in for. The pants thing out of that episode came out of like, I was talking to somebody about like playing D&D and they're like, well, what kind of character? I'm like, I'm a rogue. And they're like, well, that doesn't sound like a rogue. You sound like a stepdad. I'm like, well, like, yeah, I don't know.

You never talk to that friend. Great job, friend. I'm just like, well, I don't know. Like, what is a rogue supposed to do? Just be like, cool. And they're like, no, they're supposed to be like sneaky. And so I'm like, well, I got to do something sneaky this episode. And so that's where I hide in my pants came from. I just thought it would be a sneaky thing to do. I think one of the fun things about the premise in terms of how it lets us interact with D&D, because they're dads, they're not from this world. They have a plausible deniability about their actions.

as players that you wouldn't if you were in like if you were playing an actual barbarian who like was in the forgotten realms and knew what a bag of beans was like you wouldn't be able to convincingly role play that he dumps the bag of beans open yeah like so then i throw it to freddie i don't dump it on purpose yeah but it's like being like four dads who aren't from the world and not really understanding what's going on like i think especially in the early episodes that fish out of water element like had big dividends on a comedy level

because it let us do things that felt authentic to the characters that wouldn't necessarily be things that like a normal D&D character would do. Matt, when you settle into it, I think some of the hardest times that I've laughed because you come up with some of these jokes that are like so from the perspective of the character that it shocks you. It's like, yeah. It shocks you. You're like, well, infuriating. Then like the stinger of like, oh, do you think they need DJs in the Forgotten Realm? It's just like, yeah, that's what Sarah would say.

That's 100% what Daryl would say. Daryl just snapping the neck of Glenn's dreams. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because I think I'm going to stay. Do they need DJs? DJs here. What's great about that, you can, after the fact, map the thought process. And it's so obvious in retrospect. He's looking out for Glenn. He wants to make sure Glenn can have a fucking job. But he's not emotionally present enough to realize what that will do to him in the moment. He is so...

fucking good. The stuff with the World War I pee garments. Oh my god! This is what my favorite Elvis made in a hardcore history. Oh my god, and Freddie's intro in that was like, he quotes directly from the transcript what Matthew said. That's right. As I recall, he said, I think

I read that. Shit. Did he react to that online? Or no, it was the History of Rome guy. Yeah, the History of Rome guy, which was fantastic. Very similar. He was like, yeah, because we blew up his Twitter basically because people were like, oh, there's a shout out to you on the show. He's like, oh, dope. He's too big now. Now he's got two New York Times bestsellers, so he wouldn't do that again. We did the inverse with You're Wrong About where we got that You're Wrong About bump before the show went away. So we have to treasure that for the rest of our days. Yeah. Just because we're on the topic of intros on that. I think that like one of the

things that gives me the most joy is taking the artistic and formalistic framework of something and creating

trying to match it as close as humanly possible and then doing something absolutely absurd in it. It's like one of my favorite videos that we ever did on YouTube was pimp my horse, which was like pimp my ride with a horse. But like, I remember digging through like sound libraries online and I bought a pack of like production ready, non-scripted music. Cause it was really important for me. I was like, it has to be this kind of music.

So anytime we did a podcast parody, like I think the Radiolab parody I had so much fucking fun with in terms of just like the way that they talk about things and they like intro and they like, I don't know, it's just like to me the formalistic. Your Robert Prolwitch is very good. But playing with the formalistic elements of something is like so fucking fun to me. The fucking part in the Radiolab one that specifically takes me out is when it fades down on Jimmy's voice. Like, it's like, he runs a shop. I don't know why.

that copy just kill and then you just want to break something in the background it's so fucking chaotic because that's the best part of that video i went to it's just like really you have to paraphrase like what were they saying that yeah you gotta come in on shop it's like they do that all the time it's like i do it's like he does this like why the fuck did he cut out in that moment freddie is extremely detail oriented when it comes to editing and specifically when it comes to hitting like aesthetics like that and i was like man this seems like a lot of effort for blah blah blah and then

a friend of mine who I worked with who listened to the show was like, dude, that Radiolab intro, the part where you say Ange instead of and, like at the beginning of Radiolab where she says Ange, I fucking died. I was like, okay, Freddie's right. Dungeons and Ange daddies. Dungeons and Ange daddies. And it's like...

That fucking kills. This is more recent, but the audio design of Glenn having sex with that woman and like him going up and getting some water and being like, like him scratching his belly while you hear the audio going on in the background where I think Beth's doing Sarah Koenig or something. Yes, Beth's doing the Spotify lady. The Spotify lady. Fuck you. You just listened to a song.

I promise you talking to us is not just us laughing in our own shows. It's a lot of that. It's a lot of that. The only thing we haven't done is talk about other movies and stuff, which is what we do. That's true. The fucking Payton See You Again rap. Yeah, very good. I think maybe the biggest reaction we've gotten to an intro. Because of that intro. I think it was like, we can do Rocks Rock. Yeah, I remember you came over. Unlike Matt, you got it in one take.

Matt got it in the course of about four hours. Is punching down when I openly admit I'm terrible at something? Yeah. But my point is I'm trying to elevate. I'm horrible at music. I'm elevating Will by saying, I was like, oh shit, Will, hey, we could do a rap album here. No, it's okay, Matt, because I'm elevating Will. You're elevating Will by tearing you down. For one of you to go up, the other one has to get hurt. I'm going to fucking write that down as a way to devastate people.

I'm not hating on my dad. I'm elevating my mom. That was so fun putting that together. And again, I love everybody's verses on it. I recorded mine in a closet with no metronome and only me thinking about what my verse would be in my head. And so the fact that Freddie was able to edit it, I was young then. I didn't know.

I'm trying to think of the comparison, but that was like, I remember coming over here and Freddie being like, and not to tell. It was like the whiplash scene. I remember you telling me that at one point. Oh yeah, but no, it was specifically because I was like, I had my verses like, I practice, I can't rap. Freddie's going to find out, like I literally cannot hold a beat whatsoever. And then he's like, oh man, this rap's pretty tough. But you know, I mean, you could tell Bessa Poet because she wrote something that's like really clever, but like it doesn't fit the tone of the rap at all. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, that sounds tough. He's like, I don't know how I'm going to edit it. It sounds really tough. I'm like, oh, that sounds really hard. He's like,

Anyways, Matt, let's do you. I'm sure you'll be easy. The whole time he was complaining about Beth, I was like nodding along, being like, oh shit. He was just trying to build you up. I'm just building you up by putting her down, Matt. I was like, he's about to kill me. That'd be wild if you really leaned into it. Like, yeah, Beth fucking sucks. That's fucking terrible. Let me hear it. Oh my God. You call those bars?

I'm going, I'm going, I'm going, hold me, put me in the headphones. It's okay. Cause you've written yours to the beat. I'm like, yeah, the beat. Let's do this. And I can just, I just remember distinctly Freddie's face when I first went through. He's like, that intro is such a relic of my previous life. Cause I remember I wrote my verse like at work.

Yeah. Between phone calls and then recorded it in a closet. My two personal favorites would probably be when it was like my dumb idea that I was able to bully everyone. It's letting me do it was the Aaron Mankey lore intro. Oh God. Yes. There were people complaining of where they were like, I switched podcasts like three times because I kept thinking it was Lord.

And that made me very happy. And then at the end when you're like, this is Will Campos impersonating Aaron Mayke. That's my favorite Futurama joke that Rich Little does during his Howard Cosell impersonation. Like, he just introduces himself like, I'm Rich Little impersonating Howard Cosell. Um...

And then the other one that is like, it was such a, cause I've been listening to so many audio books. Like I got into this whole thing. Oh God. Yes. The Tantor audio. So we did the Tantor audio book for the snake. That one was so funny. It's so fucking stupid. But I was like, cause I, again, that's like my favorite little bit that you never think about is like that little Tantor audio presents. Yeah.

And there's always the phrase like holds the copyright to that too. So I was like, we got to do it. And then it was just like this fucking guy we got was so good. That was a Fiverr special. Yeah. That was me going on Fiverr being like, I need a British gentleman to read an audio book. I remember saying, I remember being like, the message on Fiverr, I was like, okay, so this was a little weird.

here's the text. And then I need you to just hiss like a snake for like 30 seconds. He's like, oh, I got this. And then he, it was like literally just perfect. I was like, this guy rules. I was watching taken a couple of months ago and I remember our taken intro. I really liked doing our taken intro because of Anthony. Just be like, good luck.

Oh, and can we talk really quick about how blessed we are to have such fantastic guest stars? Oh my God. Yes. Holy shit. I constantly think about how good Radicus made that entire trial thing because how good Jenna was at being a genuinely intimidating foil just from her confidence and competence.

Jenna comes in and Radicus is like very intimidating, but also you're like, Radicus is better, a better person than any of you guys. You feel like you're double screwed because this is a really good prosecutor, but also like a much better human being than the dad. Jenna does what every good guest star does, which is she made me feel like a guest star on my own show. Like,

I came in, I was like, oh shit, this is Jenna's like law show and I'm here. Oh, she understood the tone going in like instantly. She knew how to be antagonistic in a way that was playful and still made her likable, but also made it very clear that you were not on the same level as her. Yeah. You have to act really fucking smart to get onto Radicus's level. Yeah. Her performance alluded like confidence and professionalism, both as like a performer and as a human being that I will never forget.

never happened. I just really respect her. And then, of course, Ashley Burch. I feel like all three guest stars, we gave them the hardest possible curveballs to come in with. This is like the dark souls of being a guest star because you have Ashley coming in and she's just like, I've been here the entire time and then Dennis fit like a fucking glove. I felt so bad about it in the moment. She rolled that natural 20. I was just like,

hey, give us that classic Dennis catchphrase. And then she's like, just happy to be here. I was like, god damn it. She did it. She fucking somehow pulled it out of nothing. Came up with Dilf on the spot. Oh, was that a her special? I forgot about that. What do you mean? Dedicated, involved, loving father. Oh, yeah. Was that her? That was her. Oh, my God. She should get a cut of that. I was going to say, we owe her some merch money. But yeah, no, she was absolutely fantastic in that episode. And then James. Fucking Jimmy. James Wan.

Probably the most pumped I've been on this podcast was the moment that you revealed that you had been talking to Jimmy. Oh, that was incredible. That's true. We did not know. I was so happy with that. I was beyond chuffed.

This is what I think is probably the funniest moment of the entire series is you versus Jimmy trying to, I don't remember the context surrounding it, but you were one word at a time trying to like cast this like spell or whatever. And you won't let each other have the fucking last word. And you're getting angrier and angrier at each other. As somebody who's probably been with Jimmy and Freddie more than almost anybody other than like your family. I love Jimmy and Freddie's special relationship. We have weird dynamics.

There's no way you two should have fucked that up. Like, it's the easiest thing ever. You guys didn't finish it. It was so easy not to fuck up that you actually completed it. Well, they clearly knew what they were doing. No, no, no. Jimmy knew what he was doing. No, no, no, no, no. I disagree because they had it and Freddie gets annoyed for no fucking reason. And he doubles down. And then Jimmy, I disagree. Jimmy got annoyed. And then it's just like, they literally self-sabotaged. Jimmy didn't like the idea that Freddie was implying Jody should do something. He's like, I'm taking this back. They self-sabotaged.

So hard. It was great because it's one of those things where the performer's problem mirrored perfectly the character's problem. So it's just Jimmy and Freddie sabotage each other in the same exact way that Glenn and Jody would have. It was so funny. The sense just becoming prepositions was funny. Just so furious that they won't let it fucking end. I remember Jimmy kept throwing these trailing purposes. I was like, what the fuck?

What are you doing? It's that thing Matt does where Matt knows how to make bad improv funny. You can crumble good improv, but then you also not really upset people with intentionally bad improv. You're not my girlfriend. Hey!

Henry, what are you doing in that tree? It's just like antagonistic energy. I was going to say, the other sibling rivalry moment is Mark Light, the fan fiction duel. Oh my God. She was screaming. That's basically us doing a vaudeville, like let's take the show on the road because we already did that kind of gag in Rocket Jump the show and we're like, well, nobody saw that so we can just do the same thing where we hecked each other about fan fiction in this context. Did you guys have that prep beforehand? Did you talk about it? No, no, no. It was just a moment. We realized that in the moment I was like, oh, I could just do the fan fiction thing again and it'll fucking kill in this context. There's even a line where she's like, this was in Rocket Jump.

rocket jump the show i'm like nobody fucking listen to the rock show just keep going yeah i didn't realize in the moment but like oh if i have my sister on and the end boss is me in high school this is gonna get very you walked into the wrong room i built the room for myself and then walked in and went oh my god who put all these traps here we should talk very quickly about the body swap episode because again a lot of people listening haven't heard talking dads that was i don't know that was fun i loved playing henry it was a brain man yeah it was like right you being in

good at Henry, like gave me an existential crisis. I was like, what the fuck is happening? And then you were great as Daryl too. I've evolved enough that comments don't normally get to me on Reddit anymore, but like there was one where it's like, I could tell Beth has no respect for Matt because it's just, and I, and I,

It fucking crushed me. I was like, oh, fuck. Matt wrote that comment. But I listened back on it. I wasn't super happy with how I had diminished Daryl to his least desire. It's fine. I just fucking I would do a

barbecue with cops. That made me laugh very hard. Every once in a while, I'm like, I don't ever need to get Beth a birthday present because Will and I doing a conversation between Ron and Beth May is probably present enough for a few years. Oh my God, you're right. Oh my God.

Can we talk about the Maxon's acoustic version of All Right? Yes, absolutely. You cried, right? I did fucking cry. I didn't cry like listening to it in the context of the episode, but like I want more of that, which is things I didn't know were happening and then they're suddenly done and available for me. Oh, well, that's a treat. Yeah, it was like in the Discord, like, oh, All Right acoustic version. Okay. So Max is such a fucking secret weapon. Like he's incredible.

We've worked with him for years with a bunch of Rocket Jump stuff. He did a ton of the music on Dimension 404. He's just a machine. You can throw anything at him, like, and he will fucking knock it out of the park. Again, he did all of the backing tracks on Rocks Rock, which were just absolute bangers. It made it so, it was like good. The swing version of All Right is such a fucking, very cool. I love that. I remember when Freddie first played All Right to me, it was like, I've been talking to Max, this is what I'm thinking about for the theme of the show. I was like, it took me by surprise because I very stupidly was like,

oh, when we do the theme, it should be like a kitschy Lord of the Rings thing. Like that's what I assumed the theme was going to be. And then he was like, no, I want to do like this rock thing with it. And I was like, oh, I don't know about that. And I listened to the song and I listened to it again. I'm like, this is fucking great. Like this is really, really good. And yeah, the acoustic version just broke my heart. I love that the acoustic version is probably going to be the last time you hear like, because I think for season two, we should have a different song. Yeah. So the idea that it's like playing itself out in this very personal, a

That's tough, dude. It's weird because unlike VJ Chess or ending a show, it's like we're still continuing. Yeah, no, no, no. But the song hit me in terms of on our live listen, which is the first time I listened to the full episode. I scanned through it to see if there's any pickups I wanted or whatever. But the live listen to the acoustic and then I was like, oh, this is the acoustic. And then I was like, oh, shit. I was like, yeah, this show's really over. I was like, damn. I will say I didn't choke up at the song in the live listen, but hearing the curtain call got me.

Yes, that's actually the closest I got to watery eyes. I think that if the curtain call had happened over like where Freddie normally talks over the song, like I would have lost my life. It was the weirdest part. But when I heard Jenna's voice, because like Freddie reached out to everybody just separately. So for me, it was the same thing of like, oh, I didn't have anything to do with him to just show up. I was like, oh, my God, they even got Jenna. Yeah, that's us. What am I talking about?

I was the same. I was hearing the other people's voices. It's the closest I'll ever to feel to what Frodo felt when he was sitting in the bed and then everyone kept coming to the door.

I literally cannot see that scene now and not think of him not knowing Legolas' name. Because he says everybody's name and then he looks at Legolas and he's like, ah! Legolas is like, that's right. And you're like, you buy it! They weren't in the event!

adventure back together. No, they weren't close at all. You can imagine him like he's almost going to say the elf. He's like, no, no, no, that's not what I'm going to do. I shouldn't say that. That'd be bad. You have a friend group of eight friends that you just met. You're going to forget one. Yeah. So,

Thank you for listening to this retrospective on season one of Dungeons and Daddies. We really hope you stick around for not only Fetch Quest, which again, we've already recorded. It was a lot of fun to record and I'm sure it's going to be even better once, you know, it's all edited together. And I hope you stick around for season two and that you enjoy it. And.

Even if you don't do any of those things and you just listen this far, thank you so much. Yeah, absolutely. It's been wild to have something that had this degree of positive feedback and that people actually seem to give a shit about. Like generally, you know, you get to choose, does it do well? Is it actually good? Do people like it? Yeah.

Two out of three, right? Fuck, marry, kill. Yeah, we get to fuck, marry, and kill this podcast because of you. So thank you so, so, so much for listening. It truly means the world to us. And at least for me personally, this is the most creatively satisfying thing I've ever worked on in my life. So thank you again. Thanks very much, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. See you in season two.