205: Cops Redesign

Hey, hey, hey, watch, watch Hey, hey, hey, watch, watch Hey, hey, hey.

Watch, watch Hey, hey, hey, watch, watch Hey, hey, hey, watch.

Watch You're watching Podlandia.

Hi, I'm Carrie.

I'm Fred.

And this is AO Rewatch.

It's a Portlandia podcast where we look back at all our episodes.

Today we are talking about Cops Redesign from season two.

So this is Cops Redesign, this episode. But before we start, I want to say that this is not that important, but we're wearing the same, Carrie and I are wearing the same shirts we were wearing for the previous episode In this podcast.

Right, because we keep discussing, and we will keep discussing, but perhaps not doing anything about it, wearing a uniform. So we're going to dip in and out of this uniform thing.

Yeah, we want to be wearing a uniform.

But we haven't settled on a uniform.

Yeah, but this is the closest we've come to it.

This is the closest we've come to it. So if you see these blue jacket shirts repeated, it's because we're dabbling in uniforms.

Yes.

Dabbling in the idea of uniforms.

Yes.

We're comfortable. Yes.

And it's not like those dummies, they didn't change their shirts.

Yes. Please don't level that at us.

Don't.

Yeah. Or do, but just know.

It's not fair.

It's intentional.

Yeah. Okay. Speaking of clothes, Cops Redesign is about uniforms.

That's a really good segue. You know what? We're going to get better at segues like that. Yeah. That was like a real pro move you just did.

Can you imagine the people who worked at Segway?

I haven't thought about them for a second. I can't believe a whole day went by and I hadn't thought about Segway. I used to think about them every day.

Every day.

It was crazy. I was so excited. Oh, I was so excited. I was like, the future is here. I never have to walk again. Yeah.

Yeah. They're still a company, but they're not making anything. They just sit there like, oh, man, no one wants these.

Well, they still do Segway tours, I think, around cities. Oh, really? I think. Don't fact check me, but.

I won't.

I feel like they do. The novelty, again.

Cops redesign. This episode starts with the cold open of the dream of the 1890s.

Which is a rare thing we did, which is to be self-referential.

Yes.

I feel like one thing is Lorne Michaels, our executive producer, I feel like that being self-referential is a little anathema to him. I think, and I feel like when we came up with this idea that You might have even said like, oh, Lauren, like there are certain things that we just knew that Lauren wouldn't necessarily.

Yes. That he wouldn't approve of. Yeah.

And not, and he was very supportive and very hands-off and weighed in really judiciously and effectively when he needed to. But he never would have told us not to do this. But I think we did sometimes have his voice in the back of our minds in a good way because I think he is very wise. But I just want to point out that this is something that we did not, we didn't do very often.

Yeah, self-reference, he was, yeah, usually not into. That said, he also visited set a lot. He came up to Portland.

Oh, so supportive.

Yeah, I remember it was, Like, just always a nice visit.

Yeah. And also, I just thought, like, this is such a place that I don't imagine Lorne Michaels in.

Yeah.

You know, like, I think of him as a New York guy.

Right.

You know, hung out with him in L.A. That all makes sense.

Yeah.

Originally, he's from Canada, but, like, Portland, I was like, oh. Like, it was very … It was really nice for me to show them around this place I'd lived a long time. I should also say that like I, when we shot Portlandia, I was already living in Portland. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest.

Yeah.

And like we talked about earlier, we didn't necessarily assume the show would be filmed in Portland or that even would have the name Portlandia. So it was always a little bit, it never wore off to me, just the excitement and how rare it was to be able to shoot film a show in a place that I lived and that place was not LA or New York. So it was really nice and sweet to have people visit.

From all over.

Yeah.

Including Lauren. Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway.

Um, dream of the 1890s. The idea of this is like, just like the dream of the nineties. Like there is this aesthetic that, um, It was in Portland, but it was in many places where that had a sort of 1800s vibe to it, especially with like sort of butcher shops and barber shops that just had that look to it.

Yeah. This kind of... I mean, it exists now. I mean, in like the world of like trad wives or there's just these sort of like movements or trends that kind of look back. I think not always in a good way. You know, sometimes people are nostalgic for a time that was not great for most people. This is sort of in these, in Portland, I think it was a little bit more about like, well, we want to go back to a time sort of pre- technology when things were less automated or there was a carefulness and sort of a curation to how we made things, you know, and the conceit was like, we, Oh, we got it wrong with the 1990s. The dream is not the 1990s. Like, you know, it's the 1890s. That was sort of the idea.

Like we're, this is the footnote where we've edited this to make it actually correct.

And the locations we found were easy because there would be some restaurant or something that did look very sort of 1800s. Yeah.

And we're like curing their own meats and like.

Yeah, there was a lot of that, but there was like a little bit of a misconception at the time where people thought it was a very sort of vegan, uh, culture. And it wasn't, there was a very sort of like, let's get back into meat.

Yeah. Yeah.

Back into me.

Yeah.

And in this video, um, I've got this long beard and it's, I've got that look, everyone's wearing suspenders and things and handlebar mustaches. And I'm, I've got this ice pick and I'm picking away at this big block of ice. And that was a, just whoever's idea that was of like the 1800s always seems to me like, you know, I just picture a truck with like one big block of ice.

Right. Like before refrigeration existed. Yeah. Yeah. That was a kind of a thing in like mixology for a while where it was like, that comes up with a cube of ice. You know, like the shape, the size of ice in the glass was like really said something about your drink. Said something about the establishment. We're not doing like crushed ice or cube ice. We're doing a big block of ice.

It's almost angry at the invention of cube ice.

Absolutely.

It's very like, why did we decide to do that? Back to the big block of ice. Yeah.

Like, you know, why mess with perfection?

Yeah. Yeah. I really like this song. And I remember like in the performance of it, I was thinking of the band Lungfish.

Oh, Asa.

Because Asa had this big beard. That's right.

I will say, watching this, I thought you looked very handsome in this.

Thank you, Carrie.

You're very welcome. I just want to throw you that compliment.

Oh, I appreciate that.

You know, I hadn't seen this in a while. And I was like, this, it really, the color of the beard, which was a fake beard.

Yeah.

Really brought out the color.

Of your eyes. That's so, by the way, I'm very good at taking compliments.

You really are. I've always thought that about you.

Yeah.

There's like a sort of, I'm gracious. And then I move on from the moment. Like I don't linger in it. I sort of take it, accept it. So, so thank you.

You're welcome.

Um, but yeah, I thought there was like, I re I remember at the time when, when the, the, the season came out, um, Wait, were you waiting for a compliment back?

No. Oh my God. Even you saying that, that's like the anti-compliment. Like you saying that implies that I'm someone that's like, just wait, what if I just was mad the rest of the episode? Like, wow, Fred, I said something nice to Fred and you didn't say it back. No, I hope you never comment on how I wanted the show.

How dare you?

Also, whatever came next would be so- And disingenuous. Just so you know. No, you know what?

I'm never giving you another compliment again. Let's make a rule.

How about that that was- The last- The last compliment. And it will stand this test of time. Yes. I will always remember it.

Yes.

And appreciate it. Dream of the 1890s, written by Davin Wood and John Kreisel. Well written. I really like the song.

Me too.

I was enjoying it. And then I forgot that we hear a longer version of the song.

Yes.

And then in the editing. It dips down.

You know what I really like in the song? The bridge. A good bridge is a tricky, it's not a guaranteed good part of a song.

No. Sometimes it's a throwaway. This is the one where it goes, it's a long way back.

Yes. I thought it really soared there. Especially in a song for TV. Mostly people are focusing on chorus. Just get to the chorus. In just regular songwriting, a bridge is really important, but I was very pleasantly surprised that this had a great bridge. And this was another one where just like Dream of the 90s, meaning the 1990s, I sort of show up at the end. Um, so it was another one of those days on set where I show up and you guys have built this world and then I only get to.

You're off a little.

Yeah. I mean, I'm in the, the talking parts, you know, the, where you're telling me about this city, but in terms of the music.

Yeah. You do the Charleston at the.

Yes. Which I think if anyone is, uh, whatever, if anyone's studied the Charleston, I'm probably not doing the Charleston. So sorry for all those Charleston academics out there.

For anyone who's 110.

Yes.

Listening.

Yeah.

When the season came out, I remember Tina Fey telling someone else about this sketch. And I just felt that was giving me a good feeling. I was like, oh, she watched it.

That's nice. That's a good feeling. Yeah. I didn't know that. Maybe you told me at the time.

No, I definitely did.

I can go back through my records.

I definitely told you that.

In fact, in some ways, like I remember... So when... when the show comes out, like in general, it felt like we had a good reception, but Portland itself, I think always was unsure about like, they embrace the show in some ways. And then in other ways, it made them feel self-conscious because they were like, it's not a city that's used to seeing itself on screen. And even though we were like, well, it's just, it's a stand in for many cities and it's a show about, relationships and ideas and it's a silly sketch show, there was always a little bit of, it was fraught sometimes. You know, some cities are used to seeing themselves on screen. New York, London, Chicago, Los Angeles. And those shows don't have to be the

end all. Like Sex and the City is not the only show about New York. If you don't like Sex and the City, you can pick any other show about New York and decide like that's your show. But what I remember with Dream of the 1890s was that they liked it. There was something specific about this and I felt relieved. It felt like a love letter to the city, even though it wasn't exclusively about the city. And we gleaned so much joy from shooting there and from being creative with so many denizens of Portland that I was grateful in the moments that the city was like, yeah, this is, you guys get it. Like there were certain moments where I felt like they, they sort of got it.

And that was like a good kind of, um, synchronicity.

Yeah. Yeah.

I was, I was just the sort of like, you were like Tina Fey liked it. And I was like, and I also liked it.

No, but that's a really good point.

I like, um, we were in conversation with the city the whole time, which I think is not always the case with shows. I mean, certainly if you're shooting in, New York or LA, and you're not even, you know, a show isn't necessarily set in those places, you're not necessarily having a discourse with the city itself. But I felt like this was an ongoing conversation with the city.

And it was a conversation that had many iterations.

Season to season.

Season to season, you know. And yeah, and I think the way that Portland is um, thoughtful and self reflective is, is part of its charm. And then it's also a burden sometimes because it is, it's just a thinking city. It's a city that's like grappling with its identity a lot. There's not like, well, this is who we are. You know, like you have cities like that, that are like, of course it's, it's just New York, like get over it, you know, where it's like, you know, Portland, it's, there's kind of a mercurial kind of fluid fluidity to it. And, um, Yeah, so it was interesting to sort of be sometimes at the mercy of those fluctuations, I thought.

I feel like Portland doesn't have that ambition to be known in any particular way in the way that, say, New Orleans does.

Right.

That, like, for lack of a better word, there's like a sort of shyness or something. I mean, that might be too much to describe it, but I'm just saying that it never seemed like Portland was like trying to like get like, I wish people knew what we were about.

Right. And also I think in the way that like, it's, it's very telling that I think Portland doesn't want to be labeled. It like doesn't want to have like a, it's like we couldn't all agree on who we are, what represents us. And that is part of what Portland is, is to not, is to just not be able to have like one coherent identity. It's more like, we just want to be considered good or kind, which are, you know, more abstract. And that's a hard, you know, to try to drill down on abstraction is I think really hard for a city. It's like, it's admirable, but it's, it's like, they won't just settle on, well, Statue of Liberty or, you know, like the Red Sox, you know, it's just like, it's harder when you're just like, we want to be

a vibe.

But that's what, is lovable about it. That's so attractive about it. Yeah.

Because it's like, okay, we were capable of changing. We're not yet there. And that I think carries an optimism and hopefulness to it, which are traits I do like, you know, associate with Portland is that kind of hopefulness. And like, we will, we are continuing to, we're not there yet. And that's interesting. I think for a city, because it sort of shows like, okay, we can still be better than we are now.

Yeah.

But it is very different than that kind of like fixed identity.

Yeah. Yeah. This is our cuisine. This is our dish. Yeah.

This is our dish. Yeah. Anyway. So cops redesign is the wraparound is the through line sketch of this episode.

It's about redesigning the cop uniforms because this is, based on the mayor too. The mayor is dealing with a crisis. Yeah.

Which is usually I would say every season we had three or four episodes that were revolved around the mayor played by Colin McLaughlin, who was game to come back year after year and who we always wrote for. Always.

Yeah.

And so we usually gave the mayor, the city sort of a crisis or some kind of obstacle. to overcome. And this one starts with the cops coming in and mucking up a Star Trek in the park performance, which is a real thing in Portland, Star Trek in the park. In fact, I believe that is the real Star Trek in the park cohort that we see on screen. And the cops come in and the mayor decides that the cops need a rebrand.

Yeah.

Which is very real.

Yeah.

I mean, in this version of it, it's silly, but we've made it silly.

Yeah.

And why he would ask Fred and Carrie to help is beyond me.

Maybe he thinks we're kind of stylish or something or more connected to that world or something. Yeah.

No, I mean, this is a, this is the nature of the show is that we are his, you know, sort.

Of go-tos for stuff.

This is something I was talking about earlier though, that I want to point out. So there's a joke at the beginning where the mayor is showing a negative headline and Fred cannot identify what the negative headline is, even though it's the main headline. And I was saying that the Fred and Carrie of Portlandia are, more naive and guileless.

And this is a good example of that. I feel like I just want to make the assumption that you would have been able to identify the proper headline.

I think so.

If I showed you a newspaper, but the Fred of Portlandia.

Just picked whatever was closest to him.

Yes. Yeah. Which becomes one of the jokes in the beginning, as well as a joke that you definitely improvised about Keystone cops, which is one of your solutions that you come up with.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then you imitate a Keystone cop.

Yeah.

Which is a great, great impression.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Wow, a lot of 1920s. I wonder if we knew that there'd be so many 1920s references.

I think that is coincidence. Also in this, Sam Adams plays Mayor Kyle's assistant. Sam Adams was the real mayor of Portland at this time.

At the time. Yeah. And we were shooting really in.

In his office.

Yep. That's the real mayor's office.

Again, this is one of the weirdest... At the time, it seemed completely normal. But the access that we were given to municipal buildings in Portland, you know, I'm driving a real police... That was not... Later on, I'm driving a real police car. That was not a picture car. Like they... But yeah, we shot in City Hall. I remember hanging out with Kyle... just all over city hall.

And yeah, the mayor.

The whole crew was there, all that equipment. Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

So Sam Adams was the guest star for season after season.

And he's really funny in it.

He's very funny.

He sort of appears in the doorway. Yeah. And will sort of answer. And this one, they had a joke where, I think it was a real mistake that they kept where a picture frame falls out of, from the wall.

Yes. And we keep going back to that.

And we keep going back to it and it keeps falling.

But this ends basically with, we decide that a way to rebrand the cops would be to redesign their uniforms.

Yes. To upgrade those.

Yeah. And that falls on us.

Yes. The next sketch is zero packaging rats. And it came from a real news item in Portland where they had a new grocery store that's going to have zero packaging. Meaning all the food is just out. And I think I made a joke going like, Oh, the rats are going to be happy. And then in the writer's room, we just came up with this idea of like rats reading the same article. I mean like, Oh my God, we have to go to this place. Yeah. And somehow it became an animated piece. Yeah.

Which is highly ambitious.

Yeah.

Because it obviously animation is painstaking and time consuming, but yeah, we had these stop motion.

Yep. Um, Rats.

I feel like a bug just flew into my, did you see that?

It didn't fly into your face. It flew into your hair for a second, but now it's gone.

Okay, great. I'm glad you saw where it went because it felt like it went up my nose. Okay, great.

It didn't. It was just in your hair.

Okay.

Yeah.

So anyway, so we have this animated sketch and we end up doing this a couple of times, but this is the first one. Yeah.

Another thing that I learned about only because I thought this would be quick and easy, and it turns out to be expensive and difficult.

Yeah.

So we recorded the audio for it, and it was sort of after, we'd have to, you know, we'd wait a long time for it to be included in the episode because they had to make it. The other voice is John Levenstein, who's a friend of ours, a friend of John's, very funny person.

Very funny person, wrote for Arrested Development, which is one of my favorite shows of all time.

And he goes on to play a judge in Portlandia.

Yeah.

But yeah, he was the other rat. Yeah. And it's just us discussing how are we going to get in there and steal his food.

Yeah.

And the rats kind of look like us. And I, I love those pieces. It's a nice break.

It is. I think it's a nice visual break.

Yeah.

On the show. And also something that we never, we, we didn't set out like when we were pitching the show. Oh, and there'll be animated segments.

Yeah.

Even though that's, somewhat traditional in sketch. I mean, there's precedent for it, you know, on SNL and shows, but we, yeah. We also made it more difficult. I mean, stop motion is pretty tricky, but it's great.

I guess now it would be, they would do a digital version of that, right?

Yeah. Rats was animated by Bent Image Lab in Portland and their group of creative folks. And they, and we, this was not the only rats we did. We go on to do a couple others in later, later seasons.

Yeah. And with John Levenstein playing that third rat.

Yeah.

Then we go on to, oh, okay. So now we do another Brendan and Michelle at school.

Yes.

Having an argument about, with the school.

Yes. So we're at Shooting Star Preschool. Yeah. Janet, the head of the school.

Yeah.

Is running a PTA meeting essentially.

Yeah. And there are parents there and we have a, real discussion, a serious discussion about records, what records they're listening to. And I love this sketch because I could tell that whatever we're improvising is really how we feel.

Yes.

I think you bring up can, right?

I do. And noi.

Yeah.

No, no, no.

It's noi I think you bring up.

I bring up krautrock.

Yeah, yeah.

I bring up krautrock. Which I did in an earlier podcast episode, which I really must be trying to say something. But yes, I had the exact same feeling. I was like, oh my God, I can hear the real versions of us.

Yes.

Coming through in Michelle and Brendan. Yeah. Like our real music snobbery, like poking out here.

And also how important it is.

Yes. And we don't take it lightly.

No, no.

If I was having a conversation at a school, I would be concerned for what they were listening to.

The tone of the whole discussion, the whole argument, there's this tone where I think you say like, no, that's pablum. That's like, there's this very like, I'm angry, but respectful. It is my turn to speak.

Yes. And I really, there's the other couple.

Yeah.

They talk about Mike and the Mechanics, and the guy gives a very earnest retort to how amazing Mike and the Mechanics were, that it was like 80s dream pop or something. There's an earnestness.

And validity.

And validity. I was actually like, good point. As Carrie, I was thinking, good point. Michelle, I was not having it. But yeah, it was a really fun sketch. And I think... We basically took, I think, a conversation, an argument that we've had not in that context. Yes. And put it in, you know, sort of in a place where it wouldn't normally happen. But these are the kinds of conversations I think growing up, like in high school and definitely when I was living in Olympia and playing music. I mean, these were conversations, like make or break conversations. Like, what was your opinion on this album?

There's no politeness. there's a real, like, this is really what I'm, this argument, I'm going to win this argument.

The stakes felt very real. Like if you, you know, there were, it was like Beatles or Stones was like a legitimate, like beef. And then people, there was always someone that would just say the kinks.

Yes.

There was always that person that threw the, you know, but these were, this is kind of how you, like, this was the currency with which you use to like move through you know, the, the community, like the, the punk and indie rock community was like, what, who, what was your favorite album by this band? Yeah.

And don't say the wrong one.

Don't say the wrong one with television. Is it adventure or Marky Moon?

Right.

You know, it's like, yeah. And it was like, do you want to choose the more obvious one? The one that you maybe know is a little bit better, or do you want to choose the more obscure one? Like what gives you more credibility? Yes. And this was vexing. Like this was tricky as a young person to, to navigate like what to like and what to know, like how much information, you know, I was just always like collecting this information. I was voracious and like wanting and feeling like I needed to know this and to know the right things.

Yes. I think the thing that's happened over time though, not though, is that Now I hear the Clash argument, which my whole life has been like, there's the Clash. Okay, they had their hit singles on Combat Rock. We talk about that in the sketch. Now enough time has passed that that is no longer an issue where now it's all been shrunk down into like, do you even know who the Clash are?

Yes.

Unfortunately. I'm just, just as time has gone, now I've had to sort of tell people, you know.

Oh, it sounds ridiculous. I mean, this sounds just absolutely trivial in some ways. And it's hard to kind of stress like how serious it felt, you know, to err on, you know, you didn't want to be wrong, but yes, there is that conflating, that flattening effect. I think that technology and the internet has had on these kinds of things. Whereas, you know, like where there's just a list of songs, you know, it's like, if you're listening to a streaming service, it's like, the clash radio or like this is the clash.

And then it decontextualizes all the music. So it's, it doesn't matter if should I stay or should I go was on combat rock and whether you think that's peak clash, that's just one of the many songs it doesn't like provenance origin, you know, like even, you know, what was happening in the world when the record came out, like those things really don't matter, nor do like personnel, like the, the people who played on it, you know, people used to legitimately ask like, you know, your favorite band member, who's your favorite Beatle or like Mick Jones, Joe Strummer, like even in, you know, punk bands. But now it's like, people don't care, which is fine, but it, it just, it's so different. You know, that, that kind of like, it's, yeah,

it's just all kind of being sucked through a very narrow straw. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a perfect description.

Yeah, it's just such a different kind of listening experience for a lot of people. But this sketch really distilled, I think, how intense the stakes felt and how your identity was so married to what your opinion was about music and what you knew.

Including bringing up a band like Mike and the Mechanics, where in our sometimes you do try to bring up a pop band as a sort of like this is even cooler than what you think.

Is cool oh like and i like it's ironic.

It's ironic and they're like no let's really appreciate what this yes for in a different way yeah which is so realistic when people argue.

For sure. And then with time, there's reassessments of bands that, you know, people, you know, dismissed and then realized later, you know, because we were all falling prey to, you know, this kind of like music snobbery or, you know, knee jerk reaction to something that ends up being really, you know, brilliant or interesting or seminal or something. But yeah, there is something, I think for us, this sketch is just, it's very real, despite it taking place in this preschool.

Like, I don't think any of us memorized anything. I think we just knew what to say. This was a case of like, not like, what should we, what is our argument? It was just start talking.

Yes, exactly.

Start talking.

I mean, some, again, at this point we're season two. There's definitely things that are more scripted. And again, every sketch had an outline and specific beats. And we didn't necessarily even adhere to those. Sometimes on the day, you need all that stuff so that you can get a location and costumes can do their work and production design can do and art department can do their work. But often we would discard the script when we got there.

And as, as we go further into the seasons, we do follow the script more. And sometimes you need it to like rats, which we were just talking about. There's a script you have, we have to read and follow the script because somebody is going to animate that. Um, but this was definitely one that I agree. Like I doubt, I bet Jana is saying at the top what was in the script to introduce the setups. But after that, you know, I don't think Mike and the Mechanics was mentioned in there, or Cannes, or Noy, or Krawack, or anything like that.

They were good as the other couple, too.

Yes.

You know, their tone was perfect.

And then at the end, Isaac Brock, singer, songwriter, Modest Mouse, comes in, and he's donating albums.

Yep.

And I think he templed the dog, right? Yeah. Yeah.

He's great in it, too. Yeah.

There are always more musicians than I remember being in. That's one thing in rewatching. I'm like, oh, my God.

Right.

We had this guy. Again, Portland has a very rich music scene. But also when people were coming through, we'll get to other episodes where people would be on tour. And if they had a day off before or after, we would have them on the show. And, you know, for us, that was such an extension of our of our world. Our real life world was to be surrounded by.

music people yeah it was a comfortable yeah and in addition to obviously you know comedians and stand-ups and stuff the the music community felt just as intrinsic and innate to the show like i didn't i didn't really differentiate between like having a you know a musician act on the show or yeah comedian act on the show at all yeah the same.

Yeah definitely yeah i want to say i'm enjoying this.

Yeah me too um but yeah i enjoyed watching that and this is a sketch that i see people reposting because I think it, it, it does, it is an extension. I think of whether it's about music or something else where people are just so impassioned about something that almost takes you by surprise, like, you know, for the context or that.

Yeah. I, I've had some experiences recently, whatever the last five years or something in this zone. And I can't really bring it up because I don't want to talk about any artists in any way, but I just want to say, I've had recent discussions about bands and pop artists where I'm still trying to make that, even though I've gotten older, I'm still like, there's some things I've held on to. Some things I've let go of. Thankfully. Yeah.

Couple little things where I still kind of hang on and I'll just leave it at that.

For me, I have that. similar experience but my journey is more like when I first discovered punk and alternative music and by the way I think it predated alternative music because that term came about post Nirvana like when I anyway so when I was first listening to punk it required a forced rejection of all the pop music that I actually loved when I was in elementary and middle school you know I really listened to a lot of I mean it was like peak MTV and, you know, I knew kids on the block and Wilson Phillips and it was just, you know, stuff that pretty cheesy. Um, and I went back, I think as I got older, um, some of that music, not all of it, but I was like, no, I love Van Halen 1984, you know,

but that was the kind of stuff that was like too mainstream.

Oh yeah. Yeah. I was there too. Yeah.

And now I'm like, okay. I like a lot of that stuff or Madonna who, I mean, I was obsessed with as a kid and there was sort of a moment of like, well, I'm, you know, not listening to Madonna now. Now I'm listening to like Lena Lovitch and like, and now it's like, of course I like love the Madonna album or something, you know? I mean, some musicians transcend that like Prince, always cool. I could listen to Prince in elementary school and I never had to You know, artists transcended it, you know. Zeppelin was another band. Although Zeppelin was on the bubble. There was definitely, like, it was too indulgent. So much punk music was a reaction.

Exactly that.

To the grandiosity and all that, like, you know, guitar stuff. Sure. I love that guitar stuff. So it's like this whole, like, indoctrination, right, into these subcultures where you're like, as part of your new membership, you must.

You have to.

You have to get rid of anything that was there. it seemed uncool. And then, you know, slowly you let that, you don't care. You stop caring.

Yeah.

And you're like, I, I like all this stuff. Um, yeah.

You know, it was a good place to see it because now a lot of those artists know each other, meaning like I've seen pictures of Bob Weir and Joe Strummer together.

Right.

And I'm like, of course, they all like.

In our minds.

Oh my God.

They're grateful dead. And the clash, they were like diametrically opposed.

So sometimes on Instagram, um, a rock star will comment on an other rock star. And you think that they're from different planets, but I'm like, oh no, they all know each other and are like trying to support each other.

Wait, it's a narrative that other people came up with. Yeah.

And they're all like, hey, good show or whatever.

Because it's more interesting to think that like, especially when genre was really important, that, you know, there was no relationship. You know, a good example of that when Jimmy Buffett died and people think of Jimmy Buffett, you know, very in a reductive way, you know, Um, and all of these songwriters, Paul Simon, you know, like, um, people were like everybody. Yes.

Everyone.

Like anyone who's sort of still alive from that era was like, Oh my God, Jimmy Buffett, nicest guy.

Great.

So, and, and it had that same effect on me where I was like, of course they just know him. Sure. He has some hits that people, you know, think of as a little bit corny, but he also has an extensive catalog. And he was a guy that held on to a fan base for decades, which is.

A huge fan base.

A huge fan base. Like an ardent, fervent fan base. And that's what these other people are respecting. And in addition to his songwriting and musicianship, it's like, no, to last, to have not just a moment, but a career, hats off to you. And know him as a person and all of the sort of noise around this person is only this kind of artist. That just goes away.

Yeah.

And so, yeah. But that was really one where all these people came out of the woodwork. Yeah. And were just like.

Yeah. Paul McCartney had this long statement.

Yeah. And I never would have guessed. Yeah.

Anyway.

Anyway. What a detour.

Cops Redesign Part Two. Is the fashion show.

Is a fashion show.

On a table in a meeting room.

Yes.

And the chief of police is there.

Who is just looking at us like a bunch of idiots.

So we, Carrie and Fred, are sort of doing the fashion show.

We're treating it like a full fashion show.

Yeah, the commentary.

Yeah, there's three models.

Yeah.

One of them is Annie Clark.

Yeah, aka St. Vincent.

Another huge part of the... list of musical guests. Yeah.

And she actually comes back and is in other, other episodes.

So they've got all these, I think those are well-designed.

Yeah. This is a sweatshirt. Yeah.

Cop uniforms.

Yeah.

So I just, I enjoyed watching that.

Yeah. And in some ways it's like, we're, yeah, we're, we're trying to like defang this, you know, it's like, and it's the, the cops, you know, we're sort of like, okay, you know, what if it was more like this? And, Yeah, the guy wants nothing to do with us. But we're really proud of our designs.

I will say, I do sometimes look at the military of North Korea and go, guys, it's 2026. Like, update this. They have these balls. hats that are from like another time come.

On have you have you told them this.

I want to i want to i want to get in touch with them like do you Read the planet.

If anyone listening has... Yeah, if you.

Have connections to the North Korean military.

Yeah. We would love a chance to redesign that. Yeah.

Let's heighten it up.

Oh, watch this episode. I mean, see, our work speaks for itself.

These long winter coats that just look bulky. Take a look at the French military. That's all I'm saying. Yeah.

I think you're onto something. Yeah.

And I'm sure they're listening. Except, I don't know if these, we might have to, do we dub this in other languages? Anyway, so that's a, that has a good cliffhanger in that the chief of police is like.

Oh, well, he's like, okay. He's sort of like, he dares us. He's like, really? Yeah, you police the city then. Yeah. Yeah.

So that's a good.

It's a cliffhanger.

Yeah. Okay, wow.

This is a real music one because now the next sketch is Do You Know, which is kind of a take on Did You Read, which is from season one, where our characters are kind of one-upping each other, which is very apropos of this episode, I guess, and the conversation we were having earlier about music. Did You Read was, of course, like how many articles have you seen, trying to drill down on who's seen more, who knows more, and this is with people.

Yeah.

And what our characters do essentially is we end up riffing on all of the musicians we know in Washington, D.C. And it's real.

And it's real. These are all real people.

These are real people.

Who we really know.

Who we really know. And so really, this was not a sketch at all. This was just us and Wigs asking each other, do you know this person? And you really were like, yeah, I do.

But also... I think we have had that discussion.

We have had this discussion.

We name a city and it's always like, well.

Yeah. Who do you know from that city?

Where did you play? Oh, well then Minneapolis becomes.

Yeah. And it's not just who you know, but like, do you know the bands from there?

Yeah. Yeah. And the people who ran the clubs, all that stuff.

Oh gosh. Yeah.

I mean, Olympia.

Don't get me started.

San Francisco. Yeah. So yeah. So that was, DC seems to be like the most.

I don't know why we, we, picked that one but that one.

It's maybe that when neither of us are from there so it's easy to.

Yeah right no and there's no cheat like if it was you know chicago if it was chicago for you you and you would win yeah yeah um so yeah so that's the sketch and again weirdly i wouldn't call it self-referential but i think as as we look back i realize there are just tropes like oh this is that kind of sketch yeah you know um anyway so this is that kind of sketch um.

Bad art, good walls is from the observation that coffee shops have bad art on the walls always. It's always some, just some painting that is just very amateurish, but not students, not art students, something like adults who are trying to make art. And it's just an observation from that. And then the company that is making this.

Right. The joke is that instead of it actually being, you know, someone's attempt at, you know, a painting or photography that there's just a company that's providing bad art for every coffee shop.

Yeah. And like, this is bad. This is all, this one's terrible. Let's get this out here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And, uh, we have, um, there's an improvement.

I wish Sean Hayes is in it.

Sean Hayes is in it. Great. And he comes in kind of late. Like, I remember that Sean was in this as I started the sketch starts and I'm like, wow, he, Kind of a late entry into this.

Yeah. Yeah.

And weird characters. Although these are recurring characters for us. Yes. Rarely, but they, they reoccur a couple of times.

An improvement I would have made on it is that I wish we referenced the order of what coffee shop it's going to. Like this is going to, you know, Billy's in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Right.

We've got to send these out, get this out to, but now it's too late.

Yes, it is too late. I, I, I have had that experience where I just think, oh, there would be a better button here. Like, you know, a better ending. Um, I do like the moment where we all, this is a common thing that we do because I think it makes us laugh on the day, but it, it did make me laugh rewatching it just where we repeat each other's lines in a way that's very silly. And Sean gets in on that too.

Yeah.

Um, yeah. And then, uh, that was our, uh, AD at the end. Jay.

That's right.

And, uh, Sophia. who had a myriad of roles on the show, but costume and.

Yeah, she's in a bunch, yeah. And also art-wise, I think legally, we're not allowed to use art that's out there.

Yeah, so we created... We had to have.

People make all those paintings.

Yeah, exactly.

Which is, yeah, its own task.

Which is its own task, yeah. I would say that the photography was worse than the... When I was watching, objectively, I thought some of that Like the frets. Oh, yeah, yeah. F-holes on the guitar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was really, yeah.

Bad stuff.

Yeah.

But I liked describing to an artist, like, you've got to make this bad. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. All right. We're coming to the last part of Cop's redesign.

Part three. We are at the skate park, a real skate park in Portland.

Yes.

Under the Burnside Bridge.

Yes.

With real skaters.

Yep.

And we are in our redesigned uniforms.

And we have some makeup on, I think. Some sort of pink lines or something.

Sort of like Bowie kind of. Yeah. I mean, David Bowie. I mean, it's ridiculous. I mean, we have shoulder pads. I think we mentioned shoulder pads earlier on. And now we're wearing shoulder pads.

It looks like we're cold.

Oh, you know what? I mean, yeah.

I think that might have been a cold day or something. Or maybe it's the makeup that may look that way.

Yeah. There's another episode where I know that we're really hot.

Okay.

But I know that, yeah, we might have been cold. Yeah. And basically we fail terribly.

Yeah. Yeah. And we're chasing people around. A lot of sound effects.

And Keystone Cops.

Keystone Cops. Yeah.

And so they speed up and sort of cartoony and we're chasing.

Yeah.

These skateboards around and they're mocking us and mocking the police. And yeah.

And then the cops really did let us use their car. Yeah.

And then they let us burn. Like then there's a cop car that's graffiti and up on blocks and basically totally messed up and destroyed. So yeah. Um, which is yeah. Good on them for just being like, sure.

Yeah.

Um, And that was it. And then we're trapped in the back of the car.

That's it.

And then, yeah, that's the end. And we've failed.

But we succeeded in making a good episode.

I liked this episode. This episode made me laugh. And yeah, I remembered. I was actually shocked to see myself actually driving. I was like, right, they let us use that car.

I think about that all the time.

It's crazy.

I remember we did scenes where I was driving and I remember really thinking if I hit someone on a bicycle, because there's bicycles everywhere. That's a real thing. So I felt kind of nervous that there was.

I did a lot of my own stunts on that show.

Oh, yes, you did.

And I think I'm not saying that driving is a stunt, although technically it is actually. But there were two things. John Kreisel, again, he always was like, oh, and Carrie, you'll just fall off the couch.

Yeah.

And I would just say, okay. Or jump or do things. And it was very physical. I did hurt myself a couple of times. I do remember having to have a massage therapist come and work on my back. I hurt myself numerous times. I think we rarely, if ever, had stunt doubles.

Interestingly, he didn't do that much with me. He must have known how fragile I am.

Yeah, how brittle your bones are.

How brittle I am with you. It was just like, you go do it. The only stunt person I had was because I'm afraid of heights. And I was at the top of this prison building. And I was like, I can't go to the edge. So we had someone from a distance who looked like me.

You know what? There was some motorcycle stunts where Lance, my character Lance, is driving a motorcycle. That's obviously not me.

Oh, okay. But.

I often had to ride on the back of a motorcycle and we were not up on a rig.

You're right.

We were not on a trailer.

And that wasn't me.

That definitely wasn't you.

Yeah.

That was Aaron, Danger Aaron.

That's right.

He was a stunt guy and motorcycle rider and part of the Jackass crew happens to live the show and movie Jackass that he lives in Portland. Yeah. And they would just throw me on the back of a motorcycle and I was wearing a helmet, but Yeah, that's scary. I think. I don't know if I always. Anyway, that was really. Yeah. At the time, it didn't feel scary.

But when I think about it now, I feel scared. even somehow like retroactively it seems dangerous but yeah yeah um yeah it's sort of a blessing and a curse to be.

Yeah operating so loosely.

Yeah so loosely um you you get away with a lot of stuff which can be exciting but also maybe you want more rules yeah Yep. Anyway, that's Cop Redesign.

That's right. Thank you all so much for listening and watching, I guess. Thank you for watching.

Thank you for watching.

Thank you for listening to me.

Thanks for listening to me. Thanks, everyone. We watch.

205: Cops Redesign

Kapitelklicken springt direkt hin

Shownotes

Transkriptvom Podcast bereitgestellt · Zeitmarken springen hin