MuggleCast 109 Transcript
Matt’s Birthday Party
Andrew: Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to MuggleCast Live. We’re entering our third hour here on MuggleCast and let’s see, it’s 2:05 PM here on the East Coast. A beautiful sunny day in Medford, New Jersey. Jamie, how are you doing?
Jamie: I’m very, very good. The kettle is just boiling. I’m going to make a lovely cup of tea, and sit back and get back to what I enjoy the most: podcasting.
Andrew: Isn’t that adorable?
[Jamie laughs]
Laura: Awww, that sounds lovely.
Andrew: [laughs] Okay, we’re trying to get – well, sort of, not really. We’re trying to get a couple of MuggleNet staff members involved here in today’s show program…
Laura: Oh, I know…
Andrew: …thing.
Laura: …who this is.
Andrew: And someone…
Matt: Hi!
Andrew: Hey! Matthew Britton, a MuggleCast transcriber.
[Jamie gasps]
Andrew: And…
Laura: Hey, Matt!
Jamie: Matthew, Matthew, Matthew.
Andrew: How’s it going, Matt?
Matt: Jamie! I’m good. How are you guys doing?
Andrew: We’re good. You had a big birthday party last night. I’m kind of upset…
Matt: Yes.
Andrew: …I wasn’t there.
Matt: Yeah.
Andrew: How did that go?
Matt: It was a lot of fun.
Andrew: Yeah?
Matt: A lot of – well, let’s see, who came?
Andrew: Well, Mikey was there. [laughs] Do you remember?
Matt: Mikey? Oh, Mike. [laughs]
[Laura laughs]
Matt: Yeah, I forgot Mikey went. Yeah, Mikey was here, so was Alex Carpenter and a whole bunch of our Harry Potter peeps.
Laura: Awww.
Andrew: Matt, you are such a celebrity! You had Alex Carpenter at your birthday party? I’m so jealous!
Matt: Yeah, it’s LA, dude.
Andrew: [laughs] No, but at your [emphasis on “your”] birthday party. [laughs]
Matt: Oh, yeah.
Jamie: Matt, I asked him to come to mine and he moaned about something called the ocean.
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: I was like, “Come on, Alex.”
[Laura laughs]
Matt: Yeah.
Jamie: “Come on, come on, you’re…”
Matt: You can’t really drive across the ocean this fast.
Jamie: No, but you can swim and that is a lack of dedication from him, I think.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: If he can road tour cross-country, he can swim the ocean, I think.
Jamie: Yeah. Awww poor, very poor.
Andrew: And then brand new Go-Daddy [laughs] girl, Lauren was also there.
Matt: Oh yeah, Go-Daddy girl was here.
[Andrew laughs]
Matt: She just left though.
Andrew: Awww.
Matt: Yeah.
Andrew: And I hear Go-Daddy guy was invited, but turned it down.
Matt: Yes, our Go-Daddy guy did not come because apparently Arizona and California is still kind of a long drive.
Andrew: If I was in Arizona, I would have went. It’s not that far.
Matt: Well, [unintelligible] Arizona, I would have actually driven and dragged you back.
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: There you go.
Andrew: Well – yeah, there you go. Cool. Well, I hear you guys are on – well, by hear, I mean you told me – you guys are running off to another party tonight. So that’s what the MuggleCast transcribers do… [laughs]
Matt: Yeah.
Andrew: …if you are wondering where the transcripts are. [unintelligible]
Laura: Yeah, big party. It’s all work for the hosts.
Jamie: What else is on…
Matt: What?!
Jamie: …your mind, Matt?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Matt: Laura, I did not just hear that from you.
[Laura and Matt laugh]
Andrew: In all seriousness, the transcribers do put a lot of work into the…
Laura: Yes…
Andrew: …MuggleCast transcripts.
Laura: …they do.
Matt: Yeah, they do.
Andrew: Although, I got an IM from Sam earlier saying you’ve been a little slow on the upkeep. Any comment on that? [laughs]
Matt: Umm, I kind of have a life, Andrew. And…
Andrew: Oh, okay! [laughs]
Matt: [laughs] Yeah.
Andrew: Perfectly understandable.
Matt: I’m not saying that the other transcribers don’t have lives because I – oh my God, they’re going to kill me.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: But to be fair, you are the only guy. Or are you not?
Matt: Yeah, I have been – well, technically the only guy.
Jamie: [laughs] Technically?
Andrew: [laughs] What is that?
Matt: No. I mean, Micah is still doing it, isn’t he?
Andrew: Well…
Jamie: Yeah.
Matt: Yes.
Jamie: Yeah.
Matt: Yeah. Micah, you’re still doing it, right?
Andrew: He’s not here.
Jamie: “Technically,” Matt, is something you aren’t meant to say…
Matt: No, I know he’s not here. I’m not that stupid.
Andrew: Oh, okay.
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: Well, he doesn’t actually transcribe. Or…
Matt: No…
Andrew: …am I the only one who knew that?
Matt: …he just posts it.
Andrew: Yeah, there you go. [laughs]
Jamie: Andrew, Andrew, I have a new idea for transcribing. Do you know those programs that you sort of speak into them and then it writes it down? What we should do is hook those up to microphones that then plays MuggleCast over, and then the program can just write down whatever you want to say. Would that work?
Andrew: No, probably not. It’ll probably be flawed because…
Jamie: I think we should try.
Matt: Yeah, it doesn’t really work because I tried it.
Andrew: And…
Jamie: Really?
Matt: [laughs] Yeah.
Andrew: Did you really? [laughs]
Matt: [laughs] Yeah, I did.
Jamie: That’s awesome.
Laura: What a cop out.
Jamie: Well, that’s a great idea. It shows…
Laura: That’s a terrible thing, Matt.
Jamie: …initiative and drive. I love it.
Matt: It’s all good.
Andrew: Matt wins points for being clever.
Matt: Yeah.
Andrew: So your birthday was the other day. Happy Birthday, by the way.
Matt: Oh, thank you.
Andrew: And yeah…
Jamie: The big 22.
Andrew: 22.
Laura: You’re not old. You were complaining to me about how you were old.
Matt: Awww. Well…
Jamie: No, Matt. I disagree, Matt. You’re old.
Matt: I’m older than a lot of you guys.
Jamie: Yeah.
Matt: That’s sad.
Andrew: Yeah, we’re a bunch of teenagers.
Matt: Yeah…
Laura: We love you.
Matt: …shut up, Andrew.
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: We’re young and hip.
[Laura and Matt laugh]
Andrew: Although – yeah. So – and Go-Daddy girl and I called you the other day, and that was fun. [laughs] For a birthday song.
Matt: Yeah, that was interesting. That was so nice.
Andrew: We sang like…
Matt: Yeah.
Andrew: …dumb people. It was…
Matt: Yeah, you guys – and you sang pretty loud, too. My roommate could hear it across the room. He was like, “Who is singing to you?”
Andrew: Okay. Well, it was supposed to be joyous, so we had to sing loud…
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: …and proud.
Matt: You guys were laughing. I could barely hear what you guys were saying for the first three minutes.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Ooh, it’s all coming out now, Laura. Listen to it.
Andrew: Okay. Well, you know what? Whatever, okay? So…
Matt: Okay.
Andrew: Yeah. And you’re welcome for coming on…
Matt: Oh.
Andrew: …my show, okay?
[Jamie laughs]
Matt: Your show?
Andrew: My show.
Laura: Oh, it’s your show now, Andrew?
Andrew: Yeah, it’s my show.
Jamie: God, Laura, it’s his ticket to the…
Laura: Yeah, really.
Jamie: He thinks it’s his show?
Laura: You know what? I quit, I quit.
[Jamie and Matt laugh]
Laura: I’ve had enough of this. This is ridiculous.
Matt: Awww.
Andrew: Anyway, let’s get back to my show here. So…
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: So Matt, I announced to everyone that I secured tickets to Kelly Clarkson.
[Matt gasps]
Andrew: And you happen to be one of the people going.
Matt: Are you serious? Oh.
Andrew: You knew that, didn’t you?
Matt: Are you serious? Am I actually going to Kelly Clarkson?
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Let me look at my chat here. Yeah, yeah, you are actually going to Kelly Clarkson. [laughs]
[Matt sighs]
Andrew: What’s the problem? Wait, wait, wait, what’s the problem here?
Laura: I don’t think that was a problem.
Jamie: No, I think it was a “Ahhh, yeah!”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Matt: Oh, yeah.
Laura: Yeah.
Matt: Yeah, I accidentally muted myself. You didn’t hear me scream out, “Yay!”
Andrew: [laughs] Okay, this is kind of weird now. I wasn’t aware you weren’t a fan of Kelly Clarkson. But anyway – hey, is there anything…
Matt: Yes…
Andrew: …Harry Potter…
Matt: …you did!
Andrew: …you want to talk about? Huh? What?! What?! [laughs]
Matt: Yes, you freaking did.
Andrew: [starts singing] “Since you’ve been gone.”
[Matt laughs]
Andrew: So Matt, anything Harry Potter you want to talk about? Because…
Matt: Let’s see. I’m in a house full of Harry Potter stuff, let me look.
Andrew: Oh, whose house are you ñ oh, you’re at Tasha’s?
Matt: Tasha Carter, yeah.
[Tasha says “Hi” in the background]
Andrew: I was just going to say, why hasn’t she yelled into your microphone yet? [laughs]
Matt: Yeah. Well…
Andrew: Tell Tasha I said hi. Or we said hi.
Matt: Yeah. Alex was about to yell in it but he…
Andrew: Oh, wait a second, Alex is here? Alex is still there?
Matt: Yes. He’s asleep.
Andrew: Oh.
Matt: I don’t want to wake him up.
Laura: Oh, who cares?
Andrew: I was going to say, heck with you on the microphone. I want to talk to Alex. He’s a real star.
Matt: Oh geez. It’s my – okay, it’s my computer.
[Andrew laughs]
Matt: I do whatever – it’s your show but I can disconnect at any time, so dude…
Laura: Actually, Brittany from Connecticut says that it’s my show.
Andrew: What? You mean Laura’s show?
Laura: Yes. “Laura, I think it’s your show.”
Jamie: What has she done for the show?
Matt: Wait, isn’t she your roommate?
Laura: No!
Matt: Oh.
Laura: Brittany from Connecticut? No.
Matt: I don’t know!
[Laura laughs]
Matt: One of the small states in the East Coast.
Andrew: I think what everyone is forgetting is that all I have to do is hit the power button on my computer and the whole show is gone.
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: So whose show is it now, huh? Whose show?
[Jamie laughs]
Laura: Whatever.
Matt: Ha ha ha.
Andrew: But [laughs] in all seriousness, Matt, let Alex know we want to talk to him later on.
Matt: Okay. No, well, you guys just call me and tell me when you want him on so…
Andrew: Are you hanging out with him today?
Matt: Yeah, we’re all going to another birthday party tonight.
Andrew: Oh, I thought ñ okay.
Matt: Dude, Alex goes wherever I go. Come on.
[Andrew and Matt laugh]
Andrew: I have a feeling that’s not so true but…
Matt: Yeah.
Andrew: And then, where’s Mikey?
Matt: He left last night because he had to work.
Jamie: Awww.
Andrew: Oh, he left last night?
Matt: Yeah. Well, this morning actually. I think it was like 3:00 AM.
Andrew: Oh. It was really funny, your voicemail that you left me last night – I’m pretty sure it was him. You were talking to me, and then he yells in the background, he’s like, “Is that Andrew?!” [laughs] It was just so funny.
Matt: [laughs] Yeah, we made – we were going to make a birthday video for – well, my birthday, but we made a video for everybody and I guess it didn’t work, so I was sad.
Andrew: What do you mean? What, for a Blickle? Or…
Matt: Yeah. Or something.
Andrew: Oh. Well…
MuggleCast’s East Coast Tour with The Remus Lupins
Matt: Oh hi, Alex. Do you want to say hi?
Andrew: Is Alex ñ yeah, put Alex on and then we’ll get on with the show here.
[Sounds of a microphone being moved]
Andrew: Good audio they have over there. Alex!
Alex Carpenter: Hey. Morning.
Laura: Hey, Alex!
Jamie: Hey!
Andrew: What’s going on, man? You just woke up. Sorry.
Alex: I just ñ yeah, they just woke me up to come talk to you guys.
Andrew: [laughs] Awesome. We’re actually doing a live twelve hour podcast here and…
Alex: I heard you guys are mounting the marathon podcast.
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, we’re not messing around. This is all live, and it’s going to be sweet.
Jamie: We add twelve hours every week, Alex, so it’s going to be twenty-four next week.
[Alex and Andrew laugh]
Jamie: And then forty-eight.
Alex: We were hanging out last night, I was talking to Mikey about things you guys should do on the podcast.
Andrew: Yeah? What were your ideas?
Alex: I’m not going to say them now, because you have a lot of time to fill.
Andrew: Oh. Fair point.
Alex: I’ll get back on and…
Jamie: Oh yeah.
Alex: …give you ideas over the course of the time like, “Hey, you guys should do this.”
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah.
Alex: And then you’ll have to do it right then.
Andrew: [laughs] Okay. Yeah, I think Mikey is supposed to be on later tonight, and then he told me he was going to try and get all you wizard rockers on. But…
Alex: Somebody just handed me a Red Bull. [laughs]
Andrew: Oh, nice.
Alex: It was Tasha. [laughs]
Andrew: Tasha Carter. Hey, we were actually talking about the tour and how much fun it was earlier. I miss you, Alex.
Alex: Yeah.
Andrew: It was a lot of fun, man.
Alex: Dude, I miss you too, honestly. I was saying – again to Mikey – that every fourth thing that the guys in my band say to me is like, “We miss the guys from MuggleCast.”
Andrew: Awww, really? [laughs]
Alex: Yeah.
Andrew: Awww, that’s a bummer.
Jamie: Awww.
Andrew: Darn.
Alex: It was the best.
Andrew: It was.
Alex: It was the best part of the summer, man. It was awesome.
Andrew: Definitely, and we’re up for doing it again. I’m going to cry too. Let’s…
Alex: Awww.
Andrew: East Coast Tour. Let’s announce it right now.
Laura: Yeah, I’m jealous now. I want to go on a tour.
[Andrew laughs]
Alex: Well, you should have come. Other than Ben Schoen crashing cars and stuff…
Laura: [laughs] Yeah.
Andrew: Ben Schoen did not crash any cars. [laughs] We tried to have fun one day.
Jamie: [laughs] Yeah.
Alex: And that’s what happens.
Andrew: We left a mark on the car, that’s all.
[Alex laughs]
Jamie: And by small, you mean massive.
Andrew: It wasn’t that big.
Alex: Well, you guys know what happened with our car, right?
Andrew: No, what happened?
Alex: Did you hear anything about that? Okay well, again – so I guess I should say for the people who don’t know, my friend Brandon basically coaxed Ben into crashing into a cone, and it left a serious mark on the car.
[Andrew laughs]
Alex: On the MuggleCast rental car. And later, the last day of tour, we were driving back from Arizona to California and there were these gorgeous sand dunes.
[Jamie laughs]
Alex: Like Tatooine crazy sand dunes.
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: I can see where this is going, Alex.
Alex: Oh yeah. Brandon thought it’d be cool to drive into the dunes. Now, I maintain I said this was a bad idea. Maybe I didn’t say it loud enough, but – so he drove off of the road into the sand dune, and we’re in a fifteen-passenger van loaded down with gear, and we just sink immediately into the sand.
Andrew: [laughs] Oh my God.
[Jamie laughs]
Laura: Oh my God.
Alex: [laughs] And so we’re like twenty feet from the concrete and just stuck in the sand, running late as usual for our show. It was pretty gnarly. It was a good time because we had to push it.
Jamie: That’s awesome.
Andrew: How deep did the car sink? Was it like really, or was it just…
Alex: No, no, no, it was like – the tires were probably like a foot and a half deep.
Andrew: Oh okay.
Alex: So we had to keep…
Jamie: That’s quite a bit though.
Alex: Yeah. Well, it’s a big van too. But we had to keep digging the tires out and pushing the car…
[Andrew laughs]
Alex: …about a foot forward.
Andrew: Wow.
Alex: Yeah. It was good times.
Andrew: That sucks. [laughs] That’s like – did you take pictures or anything?
Alex: Yeah, Matt from The Whomping Willows filmed the whole thing.
Andrew: [laughs] Oh awesome. We’ve got to see that.
Alex: Yeah, it was great. He didn’t help at all.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Matt is a great guy, too. So do you guys – are you on break for a while now in terms of touring?
Alex: Yeah, we’re just relaxing a little bit. I was actually recording some new stuff with Toby yesterday.
Andrew: Oh awesome.
Alex: My drummer. And yeah, I mean, we’re still working on stuff. There’s a lot going on but not in terms of touring.
Andrew: Okay.
Alex: There’s a big…
Jamie: Alex, we have some live feedback for you.
Alex: Oh.
Jamie: We have an e-mail from Sarah, from New York, who says in capital letters:
“ALEX, WILL YOU PLEASE HAVE WEREWOLF BABIES WITH ME?”
Andrew: What?
[Laura laughs]
Alex: As long as they’re color-changing.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Alex: That’s my stipulation.
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: I agree with that. Fair enough.
Andrew: So you’re working on some new songs and…
Alex: You guys ñ I really think that all your shows should be live. I think that’s really cool.
Andrew: Yeah.
Alex: Live feedback on MuggleCast.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s going well. We can take calls too and stuff. We just need to all be in one place, then we can do a serious radio show. Right now it’s just hack – it’s a big hack over Skype. But…
Jamie: [laughs] Yeah.
Alex: It is kind of funny that this whole thing is just moving towards what’s normal radio already.
Andrew: Yeah.
Alex: [laughs] Like this is so cool for us right now, but people do this all the time.
Andrew: Yeah. [laughs] Yeah, exactly.
[Alex and Jamie laugh]
Andrew: So next summer…
Alex: I miss you guys. Sorry, I keep saying it.
Andrew: Dude, I miss you too. There’s rumors ñ I can’t confirm anything, but there’s rumors that we’re going to be…
Alex: Well, it’s just us talking right now. Nobody is listening to this.
Andrew: That’s true. There isn’t…
[Alex laughs]
Andrew: There isn’t 767 people listening right now.
Alex: Hey.
Andrew: But we may be seeing you in, say New Years, for, how do I say…
Jamie: A gathering.
Andrew: …Vegas? [laughs] Right? Tell me you’re going to be there.
Alex: Oh, I didn’t hear what you said.
Andrew: Vegas, Las Vegas.
Alex: You mean in a month, or two months?
Andrew: No, no, no, it wouldn’t be until – New Years. Vegas, New Years.
Alex: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: Okay, cool.
Alex: You’re talking about this year not…
Andrew: Yeah.
Alex: …next year.
Andrew: Oh no. Yeah, this year.
Alex: Yeah.
Andrew: Okay, awesome. [sighs] So I guess I won’t see you until then. That’s kind of a bummer. But…
Alex: It is.
Jamie: That’s sad.
Andrew: Whatever. So – hey, thanks for coming on, and we’ll definitely talk to you later on with Mikey or something?
Alex: Yeah. Well, I’m going to think of some trouble for you guys to get into.
Andrew: Okay, cool. And we got a couple of songs cued up for our breaks. We take breaks here on the show.
[Alex laughs]
Andrew: And we’re going to play a couple of your songs in between. Are you laughing?
Alex: No.
Andrew: What, you expect us to – sorry, I haven’t seen any…
Alex: I thought you guys are a little harder-core than you are.
Andrew: Excuse me? I haven’t any twelve-hour concerts out of you guys yet.
[Jamie and Laura laugh]
Alex: That’s next.
[Andrew laughs]
Alex: Is that a challenge?
Andrew: Yeah, it’s a challenge!
[Alex and Andrew laugh]
Alex: All right, guys. Have an awesome time with your marathon.
Andrew: All right. Thanks for calling in.
Jamie: Buh-bye!
Laura: Bye!
MuggleCast 109 Transcript (continued)
Mexican Independence Day
Andrew: Is he switching back over to Matt? Matt, are you coming back on?
[Prolonged silence]
Andrew: Okay, we’ll hang up for now. All right. Well, that was good. That was good.
Jamie: It was fun.
Andrew: Alex and Toby, Brandon, and Tyler, great group of guys in The Remus Lupins. We encourage you to check them out over at FightEvilReadBooks.com. That redirects them to – that redirects you to your Myspace. I want to read an e-mail here. I actually – well, I’m going to start off by saying Happy Mexican Independence Day to everyone.
Jamie: Yes.
Laura: Awesome.
Jamie: Happy ñ yes, I agree.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Jamie: But actually, Andrew, it’s tomorrow. No, no, it’s tomorrow.
Andrew: No, it’s today.
Jamie: No, it’s not. The e-mail says that ñ well actually, it’s from the sixteenth, but the celebration starts the day before.
Andrew: Oh okay. Yeah, so O Rodriguez from Mexico writes:
“You have to be joking. September 15th? It’s the Mexican Independence Day! I’m sure I’m going to totally miss it. I wish you could change the date but since I’m probably the only Mexican writing to you guys about this and since I’m sure you wouldn’t care even if I wasn’t, then, well, there’s my complaint.”
Jamie: Awww.
Andrew: [continues]
“So Happy Mexican Independence Day, MuggleCasters. Greetings from that weird country south of the US.”
[laughs] That’s funny…
Laura: It’s not a weird country!
Andrew: I was going to say, that’s funny, because actually that’s what I always call it.
Laura: Oh my gosh.
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: Andrew…
Andrew: What?
Laura: …you’re terrible. Did you just say that you call it a weird country?
Andrew: No. It’s just the weird country south of the US.
Laura: Oh my gosh.
Jamie: Awww. I have a question. I have a question to everyone listening, please e-mail it in to the live feedback form, which wizard rocker would build a bridge to the other side?
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: I don’t know.
Jamie: No, no, you aren’t supposed to answer. Wait until they – wait until the first person e-mails in.
Andrew: Oh.
Jamie: I’m sitting here refreshing, F5, F5, F5. Come on, everyone. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.
Andrew: Yeah. Okay, so let’s do some stuff here.
Jamie: Go for it.
Andrew: So a couple of months ago – actually, sorry, let me get to an e-mail quick, from Lenna Blazer of Baltimore, Maryland. She does clear up the J.K. Rowling ticket thing. She quotes Scholastic:
“All winners will be selected by random drawing. Winners will be notified on or about September 14th, 2007. Odds of winning are determined by the number of eligible entries received. Scholastic is not responsible for late, lost, stolen, misdirected, damaged, mutilated, postage due, incomplete, or ineligible entries or mail.”
“We still might have a chance,” says Lenna.
Jamie: There you go, then. Two people have e-mailed in. Matt says, “The Remus Lupins.” No, Alex did not do it. Lexi says, “Paul and Joe DeGeorge.” No, not Harry and the Potters. But Mary says, “Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls”…
Andrew: That would be it.
Jamie: …which is preciously right. We encourage you to check them out as well at myspace dot com slash – it is “Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls”? I think. If not, use your best friend Google.com and type in “Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls” because Google can find anything. Isn’t that right, Andrew?
Laura Mallory
Andrew: Yes. Laura, could you update us on the Laura Mallory situation, please?
Laura: Well, I’m not really living in Georgia anymore, so…
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: …I haven’t been paying tons of attention to her. But…
Andrew: I mean, what was the last thing you heard? Has she been laying low, or…
Laura: Last I heard, she wasn’t getting as much media attention as she had been. I know that she was talking about how she was going to appeal again. But to be perfectly honest, I mean, it was actually a pretty hot story in our area, because I only lived about half an hour from her. But it got to the point where people were just like, “Oh, we don’t care anymore.” You know, Laura Mallory, everybody knows who she is and she’s lost like six times now, so no one cares.
Andrew: Right. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, as far as I know, she’s still working on her case. I don’t know exactly if she has another date set or not.
Andrew: Yeah. Let’s try to give her a call. One more time. People – we’ve been getting a lot of flack about calling her, like as if we’re going to harass her, but we…
Laura: No, not at all.
Andrew: Yeah, we want to honestly ask her questions.
Jamie: Like, “Why are you so weird?”
Andrew: So if she does answer, Laura, you can talk.
Laura: [laughs] Oh, why do I have to talk?!
Andrew: Because I’m…
Jamie: Can I talk?
Andrew: …going to be star-struck. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Anyone can talk.
Jamie: I’m going to be like, “Hi, Mrs. Mallory. I’m John Smith from the New York – sorry no, from The Wall Street Journal. I’ve got a question about…”
Laura: Oh no, that’s terrible!
Jamie: No, it’s fine.
Andrew: Another thing we can do now – apparently this feature was added to the Ustream thing when it crashed, so I don’t think we’re on the high-speed Ustream anymore. But we can do poll questions now, live poll questions through Ustream, that those listening can actually vote on. And then we’ll get the results instantly. So anyone have a poll question we’ll start up real quick?
Jamie: Yes. “Who would get the ticket to…”
Andrew: Oh.
Jamie: “Whose show is it?” first of all, and the “Who would get the ticket out of you and Laura if you had a fight?”
Andrew: Well, we can only ask one question at a time, so to start we’ll do “Who deserves the ticket to JKR’s book reading more -” excuse me, I just passed some gas.
Laura: Ewww.
Andrew: I burped! I burped! That’s what I’m trying to say.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: Vote for me!
Andrew: “Andrew or Laura?” Oops, I typed “Andrew Sims.” “Andrew or Laura?” Start poll. Okay, so the poll has started. Visit MuggleCast.com and go to the live page. And what can you do? Oh yeah, the button update. There’s a little checkbox on the Ustream window, you can click on that, and then click on the poll. That is cool! I like Ustream. That’s a cool feature. So I’m going to go and vote for myself here.
Jamie: Ooh!
Andrew: So far…
Jamie: If Andrew doesn’t talk for the next twenty minutes you know he’s just pressing…
[Laura laughs]
Jamie: …and voting over and over and over and over again.
Andrew: Yeah. Votes are coming in quick. Right now, 80 for me – oh gosh, they’re going up really fast. We’re going to have to wait…
Laura: Haha.
Andrew: We’re going to have to go wait a few minutes. Anyway, let’s call Laura here, Laura Mallory. Get her in the chat. I’m really – if she answered I’d probably be star-struck. I don’t know what I would say.
[Phone rings]
Jamie: [laughs] Star-struck.
Andrew: No, seriously. She’s – I’m really scared!
[Phone continues to ring]
Andrew: We should play “Living on a Prayer” for her.
Jamie: [laughs] Yeah.
[Phone continues to ring]
Andrew: Come on, come on.
[Voice message plays]
Andrew: Ugh! Oh, why – okay, that’s it. We’re leaving a voicemail, I’m sick of this. Hi Laura Mallory, this is Andrew Sims calling from MuggleCast. It’s a Harry Potter podcast on the Internet. We basically talk about Harry Potter and the effect it has on children’s literacy which is huge, quite frankly, and also we discuss and analyze the books. We would just like to call you and have a short interview with you for the show because we’re curious as to your thoughts on the series and where you think it’s going now. And also we want to know if you plan on taking your case to court any further now that all the books are out, or if you’ve just straight up given up. So give us a call back. It’s 1 – our number is 1-218-20-62442, 1-218-20-62442. Okay, thank you very much. Buh-bye.
Jamie: I was going to prefix that – sorry, I was going to suffix that with, “Yeah, it must be quite tough being taken to court how many times and being turned down.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Jamie: “When do you people know when to give up?” but I felt that could have been provocative, Andrew, and you did it so well.
Andrew: Well, thank you. I wanted to come across as professional first and then while we have her live on the air, that’s when we’ll rip her apart. [laughs]
Jamie: Yeah, I agree. Exactly, yeah.
Laura: [laughs] Oh my God!
Andrew: No, we wouldn’t rip her apart.
Jamie: Yes, we would.
Andrew: Just at the end after we get everything we need from her.
Jamie: Yeah, exactly.
Andrew: But if she doesn’t call by midnight tonight we’re going to call again and really tell her how we feel about the whole situation. Is that okay, Laura? I mean, I don’t want to – since she lives close to you, I don’t know what…
Laura: Well, she doesn’t know where I live, so… [laughs]
Andrew: Oh. Okay, I’m looking at the poll, it’s been running for two minutes, forty-five seconds right now. I’m kind of actually ñ well, we’ll get to the poll later. Let’s get to the listener challenge.
Laura: Wait, wait…
Andrew: What? No, it’s not ñ it’s nothing.
Laura: Wait, where can I access this poll?
Andrew: It’s still – no, you can’t. It’s just me.
[Jamie and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Okay, I’ll be honest. 254 votes right now for Laura, 214 for me.
Laura: Keep voting. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
Jamie: Ooh.
Andrew: I’m kind of surprised. I have this button here called – it says, “Stop Broadcast.”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: What would happen if I press that right now? I wonder what would happen?
Laura: You wouldn’t.
Andrew’s Listener Challenge: Winners
Andrew: What’s fair is fair. If you guys want Laura to have the ticket, it’s fine. Unless we can manage to get two. Okay, so now we have the winners to my listener challenge. You guys may remember that back on Episode 107, I challenged the listeners to go out and promote MuggleCast in the pickle area of their store, of a shopping store or – you know what I’m saying. So we had quite a few entries and they are all available now in the MuggleNet galleries. I just realized I actually haven’t posted a link on MuggleCast.com, I’ll do that in a second. We got some great entries and I have to be honest, guys, I had a hard time picking one winner, because there were quite a few people.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: So we are going to award five winners today and each winner will be receiving a Pickle Pack membership ñ [burps] excuse me. Again, sorry. [laughs] Live radio, folks. I have to burp. We have five winners here and two of the winners are actually made up of three people, one group is made up of four and another group is made up of three. So really there’s going to be…
Jamie: About twelve winners.
Andrew: Yeah. No, ten. Ten winners.
Laura: Very nice.
Andrew: First up: Emma, Katie, Becca, and Holly. They created a video ñ they’re all in the UK. They created a video going around and promoting MuggleCast [laughs] and Pickle Pack. And the one girl walked around with a Pickle sign on her, and it was on the front of her and it was on the back. It was a gigantic sign. And they walked in the stores and promoted MuggleCast, Pickle Pack. And it’s a whole video on YouTube, it’s hilarious. We’ll put a link to it on MuggleCast.com during the next break. So they win first prize because it’s actually hilarious, the stuff they do to promote it. They took pictures with people. So great job to them. Emma, Katie, Becca, and Holly. Next, Calanth A. spelled out “MuggleCast” – I don’t know how she did this. She spelled out “MuggleCast” with pickle jars in an entire aisle…
[Jamie laughs]
Laura: Oh my God. [laughs]
Andrew: …of her food store. And I don’t know how that’s possible to get away with unless you work there, or you know someone who works there, or you plead with them. But it’s awesome, so check that out. Third, Abby Carlson dressed up as a pickle in front of the pickles in Deli Market. That was pretty funny. She has a whole pickle costume on. So congrats to her. Vivian F. made a very cool cardboard pickle sign that looks great. And final group of winners: Jackie, Katie, and Kristen also made some great signs, so congrats to all of them. They’re all winning Pickle Pack memberships. I will be in touch with them maybe tomorrow or sometime this week. If you already are a Pickle Pack member in this group of winners, then we’ll mail you a T-shirt or something. So congrats to them. That was a really great challenge. Jaime and Laura, I encourage you guys to check out the gallery because…
Laura: Oh, definitely.
Jamie: I saw some of them. I got an e-mail forwarded to me – or I got one – and the effort that some of the winners put in and everyone else was incredible. I couldn’t believe it. So yeah, I agree. Very well done.
Discussion: Things We Expected to See in Book 7 But Didn’t
Andrew: Yeah. So that is that. No listener challenge today, not any new ones at least. Let’s move along now. What else have we got, guys?
Jamie: I – well, why don’t you do your “Huh?”…
Andrew: Oh no, that’s not – no, I’m saving that until 4:00.
Jamie: Oh.
Laura: Not to backtrack here, but I think I’m seeing that we had a little discussion for the 1:00 hour that we missed.
Andrew: Oh, really?
Laura: That red highlighted one.
Andrew: Oh, you’re right! You’re right! Harry Potter stuff.
Laura: Yeah. That is what this show is about.
Andrew: It is, yeah, and we’ve been…
Jamie: Is it? How come I’ve missed it all?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: So okay, let’s start up a Harry Potter discussion. [laughs] What was one major thing we expected to see – I guess – can we say in the series? Well, no, I guess the final book.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: Or…
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: Let’s start with the final book and then – we expected to see, but didn’t end up seeing? Someone else start.
Laura: For me, it was the Department of Mysteries. I really, truly thought that we were going to see that again in the seventh book. It seemed like you would just have to go there again because there was so much about that place that seemed like it needed explaining. So that was the one thing about the seventh book that I was kind of sad that we didn’t see. I was like, “Wow, I really thought that they were going to go back there.” Did anybody else feel that way?
Andrew: Yeah, especially since there was so much emphasis on it in Order of the Phoenix. But even…
Jamie: Yeah, there was.
Andrew: To extend upon that, the veil.
Laura: Yeah!
Andrew: It’s something that’s bothering so many people now. I just – and I think we talked about this during the live thing right after we recorded – or right after we read. It’s just the veil! What? It went completely unexplained!
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: What? Seriously!
Laura: Yeah, I…
Andrew: Ugh! [laughs]
Laura: I mean, even if we didn’t go back and see the veil again, I was expecting some sort of explanation as to what it was. I mean, we know that it’s apparently where dead people or some dead people go, but there was no clarification as to whether or not everyone goes there or what exactly is behind that, if that’s where Harry’s parents are. Like we just don’t know.
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: So it’s…
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: It’s all very confusing. I would really like to have that cleared up. I think we should ask her if we go to the reading. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah. Oh, if that doesn’t get answered by the reading…
Jamie: Well, you can ask, Laura. I think you’ll be getting the ticket.
Andrew: Yeah.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: You’re still thirty votes ahead of me right now so – [sighs] I’m kind of sad about that.
Laura: It’s kind of like when we were reading the book. I was consistently fifty pages ahead of you.
Andrew: [laughs] Oh yeah! That’s because you started before me. I was working on an e-mail, and you started before me.
Laura: Yeah. Every two seconds you’d be like, “What page are you on?” and I’d be like dadada, and you’re like, “Ugh, I’m still fifty pages behind!”
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah, yeah. We read at the same pace though. That was pretty good. So Jamie, something you expected to see but didn’t?
Jamie: Awww, I don’t know. I – this is probably just a personal thing, but I wish we’d heard more about Sirius. I know he died, and I know he died. [laughs] I know he’s dead, but I wanted the mirror to be something related to Sirius, and I’m glad Harry found it, and I’m glad he remembered it, and I’m glad he used it to contact Aberforth and it helped him save the day. But Sirius was my favorite character bar none, so I wanted to see more of him. And – what else? What else? I don’t know, that really. I really enjoyed the seventh book, so there wasn’t really much for me.
Laura: Oh, I loved it too, but it was just – there was stuff that I was really expecting to see and then I didn’t, and so it came as a surprise which is a good thing. On a level.
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: We really had a lot of expectations of the book, and I can just – looking back on some of the theories we made, I can tell that we were kind of like, “Oh yeah, that’s got to happen. That’s got to happen.” And then…
Jamie: It didn’t happen.
Laura: …we get this book and it didn’t, [laughs] and she completely just threw us for a loop. So I think that’s great, but…
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: …I still think that there’s some question that we need answered.
Andrew: Claire wrote in via the feedback at MuggleCast.com/Live. Claire from Alaska, actually. She wrote:
“I don’t think Jo wanted to explore where we go after we decide to ‘go on,’ and that’s why the veil isn’t in Book 7.”
Jamie: That’s interesting.
Andrew: It is interesting because – I think even Jo has said before that death is a very touchy subject, and if she did go into explaining death that could cause… [sighs]
Laura: It could upset people. I understand that.
Andrew: I want to say it could cause controversy.
Laura: Mhm.
Andrew: Because, of course, it is a very important subject, especially when you get into terms of religion. But I think – Jo could have been able to find a way to explain the veil in a little more detail. Maybe she is still, who knows.
Jamie: But perhaps it’s like the veil symbolizes death because death is the unknown. She can’t talk about it since no one really knows what happens to you after you go on.
Laura: That’s true.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: I don’t know. Clutching at straws.
Laura: It’s feasible.
Andrew: Yeah. And let’s see, I guess there wasn’t really anything else I could think of. Want to take some callers now? See what they…
Jamie: Yeah, let’s take a couple of calls on the subject.
Andrew: Okay. Let’s get this guy in. Hi, what’s your name? Where are you calling from?
Caller: Hi, this is Emily.
Andrew: Hi, Emily.
Caller: Hi.
Andrew: Do you have any…
Jamie: Where are you from?
Andrew: Yeah, where are you from?
Caller: I’m from Michigan.
Andrew: Awesome. Do you have – was there anything in Book 7 you expected to see but didn’t?
Caller: Yeah. I really wanted to see the veil, actually. I was really disappointed about that. So that was pretty much it. But I also want to let you know that I do know a school that does a Harry Potter class.
Andrew: Oh, really?
Laura: Oh, really?
Caller: Yeah. My cousin goes to a high school in Indiana, and they were supposed to start this a couple of years ago but the teacher had a baby so they couldn’t, and I think they said they started it.
Andrew: Oh, awesome. Do you know what they’ve taught?
Caller: I think they were going to read all the books throughout the year, and take tests on it and stuff like that.
Andrew: Oh okay.
Caller: And I also want to say Gak [laughs] for all of them.
Andrew: Oh gosh. Gosh, stop.
Laura: Oh geez, another one.
Andrew: Why doesn’t it all stop?
Caller: [laughs] Sorry.
Andrew: That’s all right. Thank you for calling in.
[Jamie laughs]
Caller: [laughs] Yeah. Bye!
Jamie: Funny.
Andrew: Bye. Let’s get Lucas in here. Lucas.
Caller: Yeah, hi.
Andrew: What’s up?
Caller: Nothing really. But – what was I going to call about? I completely forgot.
[Andrew laughs]
Caller: I’m dumb.
Jamie: You don’t sound so excited, Lucas.
Andrew: Well…
Caller: No, but…
Andrew: Let me give you a conversation starter: We’re talking about what we expected to see in Book 7 but didn’t.
Caller: Oh yeah, Chamber of Secrets.
Andrew: Really?
Caller: Yeah.
Jamie: We kind of saw it. Well, we didn’t really. We heard of it.
Caller: Well, Hermione and Ron went down there.
Laura: We saw that Ron learned how to speak Parseltongue.
Jamie: Yeah.
[Laura laughs]
Jamie: Which was the most ridiculous thing ever.
Andrew: Now why were you expecting to see the Chamber of Secrets? I mean, was there – did you have a theory or something?
Caller: Yeah, I thought there was going to be a Horcrux down there, but yeah, there wasn’t.
Laura: Okay.
Caller: I thought that’s where the Hogwarts one was going to be.
Andrew: Oh yeah, that’s a fair point.
Laura: Okay, yeah.
Jamie: Anything else on your mind?
Caller: Yeah, there was something else but I completely forgot.
Andrew: [laughs] Okay. Well, call in once you…
Caller: I’ll call in later.
Andrew: Okay.
Caller: I’m staying for all twelve hours, so…
Andrew: All right, see you.
Caller: Bye.
Jamie: Buh-bye.
Andrew: People should write down their thoughts so they’re prepared.
Laura: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: Another piece of feedback from MuggleCast.com/Live, Kelly from Idaho writes:
“I was really disappointed we didn’t get to see more of what Snape and Draco did because there was so much about them in the sixth book.”
Jamie: That is very true.
Andrew: That’s another fair point.
Laura: Yeah.
Jamie: And going on from that, the sixth book was about Snape, the Half-Blood Prince. I thought there was going to be more to that – to the importance of that book as a whole. I know there was a huge importance to Snape as a character, but I was expecting more to the book, why she chose to name an entire book after Snape.
Andrew: Right, right.
Jamie: But we didn’t hear much about that. But, Andrew, I think now is the time after what, two hours, thirty seven minutes? To ask how everyone is and how people are hanging in.
Andrew: You mean callers?
Jamie: No, how people are doing, listening in. Because so far, this has been the longest show we’ve ever done, right?
Andrew: Oh, you’re asking us how we’re doing?
Jamie: Well, everyone. You and people…
Laura: Oh okay.
Jamie: Just in general asking everyone – not actually asking, just checking in. See if everyone is okay and still there.
Andrew: I’m fine, thanks, yeah.
Jamie: Not falling asleep?
Laura: Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m still here.
Jamie: Really?
Laura: Yeah.
Jamie: Don’t be so sure of that.
Laura: Yeah, I…
Jamie: The world is a weird and wonderful place, Laura.
Laura: It really is.
Andrew: Let’s take another call from Bethany. Hi, Bethany.
Jamie: Hey.
Caller: Hi.
Andrew: Hey, was there anything you expected to see in Book 7 but didn’t?
Caller: Hold on, I need to mute Ustream.
Andrew: Oh, thanks.
Caller: Okay.
Andrew: See, a concerned caller. I like that.
[Caller laughs]
Jamie: Awww.
Andrew: I like that in a girl. [laughs]
Laura: Whoa.
Caller: Well, first of all, Ustream says that we all love you.
Andrew: Awww. Who?
Jamie: Awww.
Laura: Awww, yay!
Caller: All of us on Ustream, the chat room.
Andrew: Oh, cool. Yeah, by the way, there’s a chat room. When you go to Ustream.tv and join the room that way, there’s a chat room, like Bethany said. And lots of – how many people are in there? Is it a good chat?
Caller: A whole crap-load. Oh my gosh, everyone is screaming. [laughs]
Andrew: [laughs] Everyone is screaming?
Laura: Awww.
Andrew: “Oh my God, we got mentioned on the live show!”
[Caller and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Cool.
Caller: I’ve been calling all morning, but I finally got in. Yay!
Andrew: Awesome, awesome. Well…
Jamie: Where are you from, Bethany?
Caller: I’m from St. Louis, Missouri. I was at the live show when you guys did the podcast.
Jamie: Oh, St. Louis. That was a fun show.
Andrew: Yeah.
Caller: Yeah.
Andrew: So yeah, was there anything about Harry Potter you wanted to talk about, specifically the thing?
Caller: Well, I wanted to see more about the love room, and the one with the brain and everything.
Andrew: Oh yeah. That’s such a shame, because that would be so cool to see visited. But – it all seems like great Harry Potter encyclopedia material, but…
Jamie: It does, yeah. And also, I think Jo just likes putting stuff in that can only be classed as awesome, like those brains. I’m not sure if they had a purpose there, but they were just cool. And also…
Laura: Yeah.
Jamie: …in the final book, the dust figure of Dumbledore. It was just cool.
Laura: Oh my God!
Jamie: I read it and I just loved it.
Laura: It was amazing!
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: I know, I…
Jamie: Exactly.
Laura: I’d love to hear more about that. And with the brains, I was kind of expecting something. I don’t know if maybe they really had any relevance, but…
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: I mean, it talked about how – what was it? Like, thoughts leave deeper impressions.
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: Or something like that, and Ron still had the scars. And so I somehow thought that maybe that might come into play, like Ron might have some sort of connection to one of the brains in the brain room, and that might have come from somebody important, or something like that. So I don’t know, but…
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: It could well be.
Andrew: Yeah.
Caller: I also have a concern because I keep getting kicked out of the Ustream chat room. It keeps saying that I’ve been kicked or banned or something.
Andrew: Really?
Caller: Yeah.
Andrew: Well, I’m not moderating it, so I don’t know.
Jamie: The chat room?
Andrew: That’s weird.
Jamie: We’re not sure about the chat room.
Andrew: Maybe because there’s so many people listening. We’re at about 860 people listening live right now. That’s a lot of people!
Caller: [laughs] Yeah.
Andrew: I’m actually getting stage fright right now, I don’t…
[Caller and Laura laugh]
Jamie: How many people are in there, sorry?
Andrew: 860.
Jamie: Ooh, nice.
Andrew: Yeah. So we’re doing good, we’re doing good. And I continue to be disappointed by the poll. Right now we’re looking at 290 votes for me, 327 for Laura.
Laura: Yay!
Andrew: So, thank you everyone. I really appreciate all your support. [makes raspberry noise]
Laura: [laughs] I certainly do.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: [laughs] Yeah.
Andrew: So, all right. Well, thank you Bethany for calling in.
Caller: Thank you.
Andrew: Bye.
Caller: Bye.
Jamie: Bye, Bethany.
Laura: Bye.
Andrew: Awww, I’m so bad. I cut – more live feedback from MuggleCast.com/Live.
[Jamie laughs]
MuggleCast 109 Transcript (continued)
Discussion: Things We Expected to See in Book 7 But Didn’t (continued)
Andrew: Ryan from Michigan says:
“We never found out what Harry’s parents’ professions were. I was dying to figure that out.”
Jamie: Yeah, that is true.
Andrew: That is something Jo said she wanted to include. Didn’t Jo say that?
Jamie: Yeah, she did. Maybe she’ll tell us in the encyclopedia.
Laura: Yeah, I think she said James’s wasn’t important, but she made it sound like Lily’s was.
Andrew: Yeah. But didn’t she say she was going to mention them in – I don’t know.
Jamie: Here’s a very interesting e-mail from Mary from Texas, [laughs] who says that she thought for sure that Dumbledore would come back as Dumbledore the White.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: Yeah.
Jamie: Which probably would have made Tolkien…
Laura: Turn over in his grave?
Jamie: Move about in his grave, yeah. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: But…
Andrew: Another e-mail, from Veronica of Long Island, New York. She writes:
“I agree that there should have been more on the veil in Book 7. I actually thought and was almost positive that Sirius would come back because of something Luna said. The line at the end of the ‘Order of the Phoenix’…”
Movie.
“…Luna says something about things having a way of always coming back at the end. Also, they keep that exact line…”
Oh, she did say it in the book? My bad.
“Also, they keep that exact line in the movie, which made me wonder if Sirius would come back at the end of Book 7. Anyone else? P.S. I think Andrew deserves a ticket.”
I did not read that part of the e-mail when I got this e-mail.
Jamie: Awww. A likely story.
Andrew: I think Veronica brings up a good point. A lot of people got their hopes up – especially in the movie, when they kept that line in the movie. Luna says something about things having a way of always coming back in the end. A lot of people got their hopes up about that. And with the two-way mirror, a lot of people were expecting to see Sirius again.
Jamie: Yes. That would have been very, very, very nice
Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah. Too many people were expecting that to happen, but…
Jamie: Well, the whole Sirius thing – it was left open about what happens when people die, and it was pretty – even though Jo said Dumbledore died, it’s a magical world, and there are ways to contact people from beyond the grave. So it was very tough to know exactly what was going to happen and Jo obviously decided not to pursue it with Sirius…
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: …and kind of with Dumbledore. So it’s very…
Andrew: Critical?
Jamie: I guess if you wanted to see Sirius then you’ll be disappointed. If you didn’t then it wouldn’t bother you at all. One e-mail, from Andy, asks why Voldemort would want to hide the cup in Bellatrix’s vault, because that seems like trusting somebody else and Voldemort doesn’t do much of that. And although he couldn’t obviously have his own vault at Gringotts, you’d think there’d be a different place he could keep it.
Andrew: That’s a pretty fair point, but I feel like we’ve talked about this.
Laura: Well, the thing is we know that Gringotts – everyone says that it’s the next safest place to Hogwarts to keep something.
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: And wasn’t there something along the lines of when you touched it, it burned you and then it multiplied?
Jamie: It did. It did.
Laura: So…
Jamie: But that doesn’t mean – when three seventeen-year-old wizards can do that, then it seems that it isn’t really a tough curse to get around.
Laura: I guess, but I mean, I think that Bellatrix was so fanatical that there wasn’t really a chance that she was going to betray him at all.
Jamie: That is true. But it just seems like trusting someone…
Laura: I mean, you notice that he didn’t give Snape a Horcrux. He didn’t put him in…
Jamie: Yeah, but I think he trusted Snape a lot more than Bellatrix.
Laura: I think…
Jamie: There was an affinity between them that transcended what there was between Bellatrix.
Laura: I don’t know. I always kind of got the impression that Voldemort had the idea that perhaps Snape might not actually be as devoted as he thought he was. He seemed to have no remorse whatsoever in killing him. And not that he would ever have remorse, but it just seemed like it was a bit too easy for him, for somebody who he would think was a devoted follower.
Jamie: I’m not sure about that, because I always thought that that part in the book was written absolutely brilliantly because Voldemort said that he regrets it, but he shows no emotion of it. But I think he really did regret it because he didn’t care about human virtues like emotions and stuff like that. He just cared about usefulness and trust and loyalty and stuff like that. So he did regret it in terms of Snape had always been a loyal servant. He had stuff to offer and he hadn’t alienated Voldemort, he hadn’t gone against him. So he did regret it in terms of the fact that he had to do something which didn’t help him achieve his goals in other ways, but he had to do it.
Laura: Yeah.
Jamie: Whereas he didn’t regret it because he was taking another man’s life.
Laura: Yeah…
Jamie: I think he and Snape had an affinity.
Laura: I guess the difference is that Bellatrix spent like thirteen years in prison for him, so there really could be no doubt there, you know? Why would somebody spend that long in prison and refuse to deny their allegiance to you if they were going to turn around and stab you in the back? So…
Jamie: No, I agree. I just – Bellatrix, I thought, was – even to Voldemort who was a complete psychopath. I don’t think he would’ve trusted Bellatrix because she flew off the rocker too much. She was completely unpredictable whereas he told Snape that he was a very, very powerful wizard. He was obviously a logical wizard. He kept him by his side and trusted him with the most important tasks. So there was an affinity that transcended Voldemort’s very primordial sort of thoughts on friendship. It was – they could help each other, it was mutually exclusive, whereas with Bellatrix it was more a “you’re my servant” thing.
Laura: Okay.
Jamie: But I know what you’re saying.
Laura: Yeah. I can go with that, though.
Andrew: Yeah, maybe it was just that. Maybe – like the e-mailer said, maybe it was just that nobody would’ve expected it to be with Bellatrix.
Jamie: I’d just have thought he’d give it to Snape a lot more – just – I don’t know.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Jamie: Maybe not. Maybe not.
Andrew: Maybe just – things. Yeah. Another piece of feedback right now comes in from Jarod of Virginia Beach. He says, going back to what we were just talking about earlier:
“Sirius did come back at the end when Harry was walking to face Voldemort in the forest.”
Well, he didn’t really come back.
Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: That’s another sensitive subject with Jo because she obviously points out that when people have died they have moved on, and to think they are going to come back is – it isn’t very healthy for you as a person because they can’t come back, and if you think they are going to come back you’re going to be solely disappointed with the shadow of the former self of the person that does come back.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: So you should move on I guess is the theme she’s trying to put in.
Andrew: Yeah. And we got some more feedback here. Actually this was sort of a good point brought up by listener Martin Warlick of Raleigh, North Carolina:
“Have you noticed the similarity between Dumbledore and Voldemort in that their downfalls included putting too much trust in people? At least before we found out what really happened between Dumbledore and Snape, all we were hearing was that Dumbledore died because he put too much trust in Snape. And Voldemort put too much trust in Lucius by giving him the diary, and in Bellatrix by putting the cup in her vault.”
So I think ultimately, it’s just even great wizards like Dumbledore and Voldemort can make mistakes.
Laura: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah, but there’s a huge difference between the type of trust that they did. Dumbledore’s was a personality flaw, and his thoughts on human nature and how people weren’t born into bad things, that sort of character, his version of trust and how he saw the best in people and therefore trusted people. Voldemort’s was that he does not trust people but he felt that he had to use someone to his advantage and he just happened to use them a bit too openly. And he learned from his mistakes, whereas Dumbledore sadly didn’t.
Andrew: That’s fair. Another caller coming in right now, Mike.
[Prolonged silence]
Andrew: Mike, you’re live. Mike, live.
Laura: Hey, Mike.
Andrew: Mike, you’re live.
[Someone yells “Mike!” in the background]
Andrew: Whoa.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Oh hey. Hey, I think your mom is mad at you.
[Sounds of a microphone being moved]
Andrew: Whoa. Awkward.
Caller: Hey, what’s up?
Andrew: Hey! Nothing.
Laura: Hey!
Caller’s sister: Mike! [laughs]
Andrew: Whoa. Hey. Oh geez, what’s going on there?
Caller: How are you guys?
Andrew: Good. How are you?
Caller: I’m doing fine. I still can’t believe you guys are talking for twelve hours straight.
Andrew: I know. Hey, who’s that person in the background? Tell them to shut up.
Caller: Mel, they say to shut up.
Caller’s sister: Bleh!
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: So what’s going on? What’s on your mind?
Caller: Oh, I just wanted to call and see how – wow, I can’t believe you guys are going for twelve hours.
Andrew: Yeah. Thanks for continuing to drill it into our heads. We don’t want to be reminded really, but…
[Everyone laughs]
Caller: I have no idea how you guys are going to do it. [laughs]
Andrew: Well, thanks. You’re just a ball of positive energy.
Caller: Yes, I am.
Andrew: Okay.
Caller: [in high-pitched voice] You guys are awesome!
Andrew: Well, thanks.
Jamie: Awww!
Laura: Awww!
Andrew: Cool. Okay. Well, do you have anything else to add?
Jamie: Any Harry Potter questions?
Caller: Well, my sister wants to talk, but… [laughs]
Jamie: Go on, put her on. Put her on.
Caller: All right.
Jamie: Brotherly love.
Caller’s sister: Hey, it’s Melanie.
Andrew: Hey.
Laura: Hi, Melanie.
Jamie: Hey, Melanie.
Andrew: Hold on one second. Let’s get someone else in here. Mikey Bouchereau!
Caller’s sister and Laura: Mikey!
Mikey: Hi, everybody.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Mikey: Guess what? Guess what, guys? Guess what?
Caller’s sister: Mikey, it’s Melanie!
Mikey: I just woke up.
Andrew: Oh wow, aren’t you cool?
Laura: You are a bum.
[Mikey laughs]
Andrew: Mikey, where are you?
Mikey: I’m at my apartment.
Andrew: Oh okay. I was – we had Matt and Alex on earlier.
Mikey: Oh yeah. They were at Tasha’s.
Andrew: Yeah. Yes. So they are. You sticking around for a while or what?
Mikey: Oh yeah. I’m good to stick around for quite a while, I guess.
Andrew: Okay. We were actually just talking about what we expected to see in the book, but didn’t.
Mikey: Oh.
Andrew: So tell me, Mikey. What did you expect to see in the book but didn’t?
Mikey: Wand-less magic.
Andrew: Oh yeah. Yeah. Especially since the cover – you don’t see any wands on there.
Mikey: Yeah. Did you guys talk about that already? Or…
Andrew: No, we haven’t. No.
Mikey: Yeah. That’s just one thing I thought because we all were like, “Oh, Harry is going to get super powerful and have wand-less magic,” and we didn’t see that at all. Oh well.
Laura: Yeah.
[Mikey laughs]
Laura: You guys remember what we were saying in London about how we really thought that the US cover was extremely misleading?
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: It just made it look like they were in this really weird alternate location. We didn’t even know what it was, and it turned out to be the Great Hall and all the shadows just turned out to be Hogwarts students, and we were kind of like, “Yeah, thanks, Mary GrandPrÈ.”
Andrew: I know. Yeah, and we actually talked about this in the first Vegas show we did on the tour and someone who was there had a great explanation for the whole cover. [laughs] And it’s a shame we lost that show, but basically it is accurate that – well, what she was saying was that, “Yeah, it was in the Great Hall. That is the scene in the Great Hall.” It just doesn’t look like the Great Hall though. That’s what was misleading so many people.
Mikey: Yeah. It’s the scene right after their wands both go up in the air, because…
Laura: Yeah.
Jamie: [laughs] Oh, this is…
Mikey: …being the owner of the…
Jamie: I better read this e-mail quickly.
Mikey: Okay, Jamie. Go ahead.
Jamie: It’s from Eric. Not “Eric” Eric, but…
Andrew: [laughs] Okay.
Jamie: …a different Eric who questions Snape’s motives when he gave Harry the Sword of Gryffindor and asks whether Snape threw it into the lake so he could watch Harry take a dip.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Wouldn’t that make Snape sound sort of like a pervert?
Jamie: Yes.
Laura: Well, you never know. Snape might have gone and seen Equus, and…
Jamie: Maybe, maybe.
Mikey: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute, guys. That scene specifically – have you guys seen that Harry Potter and the MuggleCasters fan fiction?
Laura: No.
Jamie: No. I’m not sure I want to.
Mikey: That scene is described in Harry Potter and the MuggleCasters fan fiction. I got an e-mail the other day, I’m going to see if I can open up my e-mail. I’m on my desktop, not my laptop. It’s the first time I’ve touched it in a while. [laughs]
Andrew: [laughs] There’s actually – what was I going to say?
Laura: A fan fiction?
Andrew: A Harry – [laughs] or not a Harry. An Andrew/Jamie fan fiction… [laughs]
Laura: Oh my God.
Andrew: …in the works.
Jamie: Oh yeah, I’ve heard that.
Andrew: There’s only Chapter 1, it’s like the intro. It’s like a set up for what apparently is supposed to happen.
Jamie: I’m hooked, Andrew.
Laura: Yeah. I know that…
Jamie: I’m going to carry on reading.
Laura: …there was one on MySpace a little while back.
Jamie: See what it’s like on Chapter 2. Oh my God! Sorry.
Mikey: Wow. Yeah. I don’t know, I can’t find it right now. But yeah, that’s the scene from it and I just started laughing.
Laura: Oh. Well, Mikey, you’ll have to link me to this. I’d like to see what I’ve been up to according to the fan fiction authors.
Jamie: Mikey, I’m a bit disappointed, to be honest.
Mikey: Why?
Jamie: Because – you must have had a heavy night last night, because this morning I had some problems with my Apple computer, and I called “Mikey B!” and you didn’t appear. So I thought you must have been in mortal peril or something…
Mikey: Oh.
Jamie: …because that’s the only reason you wouldn’t appear.
Mikey: I know, I know. There’s very few reasons why I wouldn’t appear when people say “Mikey B.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Mikey: Actually, I didn’t get home – all right, so I live on the West Coast, everybody, and West Coast time for me, it was 5:30 in the morning. So that’s when I got home.
Andrew: When what? Oh okay.
Mikey: I got home. And then I ended up watching TV for like another hour and a half, and so I fell asleep. And I literally just woke up because the sun was in my face and I couldn’t sleep anymore.
Jamie: For everyone listening, we had this idea last time that like in Book 7 when you say Voldemort’s name, it’s taboo, and the Snatchers turn up and pick you up and take you to the Malfoy Manor. We now say “Mikey B” and Mikey, wherever he is on Earth, has to magically appear with us in case we’re in dire need of his assistance. Mikey agreed, so now that’s in force and – so yeah, if you ever need anything just say it. Isn’t that right, Mikey?
Mikey: Yup, that’s true. It’s one of those things where – we’ve come to the conclusion that even though Harry Potter is magical, I’m pretty magical too. Just me.
[Jamie and Laura laugh]
Mikey: And so when you say “Mikey B” – if you say it like three times, [clicks fingers] I’m there instantly. And if it doesn’t work, it’s because you’re just not saying “Mikey B” right. So you have to try it different times.
Jamie: Yeah, that’s so true. Yeah.
Mikey: You have to try it a little different – so you can be like, “Mikey B!”
Jamie: Yeah.
Mikey: Or [in various accents] “Mikey B!” “Mikey B!” “Mikey B!” You have to try all the different ways, and – yeah.
Jamie: You’ve got to be very careful because if you don’t say it with enough determination and drive, you’ll splinch Mikey and just his arm will turn up or something.
Laura: [laughs] Oh my God.
Jamie: You’ve got to be like, “Mikey B!”
Mikey: All right, question, guys. Guys, question: What hour is this actually right now, please? [laughs] Because I can’t believe we’re talking about…
Jamie: This is three.
Mikey: Three?
Andrew: We’re about to enter our fourth, right?
Jamie: Yup, we’re almost in hour four.
Mikey: Okay. I’m excited for hour eleven and then the twelfth hour.
Andrew: Me too.
Mikey: I can’t wait to see what we talk about.
Jamie: I’m excited for 11:59.
Andrew: [laughs] Well, according to our live countdown through the Ustream, there’s nine minutes and three minutes – [laughs] nine minutes? I wish there was nine minutes left!
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: Nine hours and three minutes left. [laughs] So we still got a ways to go. But actually, Mikey, I’m glad you came on this hour because in the schedule we have a discussion coming up after the break which we’ll get to in a couple of minutes, about what we look forward to in Movie 7. And we’ll have a movie talk and stuff like that.
Mikey: Wait a minute, we have a schedule? How come people don’t inform me of these things?
Andrew: We have a schedule and you are a part of it, and I e-mailed it to you. I’m positive I did.
[Jamie laughs]
Mikey: What e-mail?
Andrew: Actually, I’m lying. [laughs] I don’t think I see you on the schedule.
Mikey: Thanks. Thanks, buddy.
Andrew: Was it band videos?
Mikey: Yeah. At Mac. It can be that one or the band videos at the other one.
Andrew: Is it band dot videos or band…
Mikey: Here, I’ll IM – where are you right now?
Andrew: [laughs] Okay.
Mikey: I don’t know where your name is.
Andrew: IM me. IM me. I’m on the MuggleCast Ustream.
Mikey: Yeah.
Andrew: Okay, so let’s wrap up this discussion. One more e-mail, from Allison. She writes:
“I personally expected to see Neville kill Bellatrix and I was surprised when Molly did it instead. I was mad but I did love the Molly line.”
[laughs] Oh God.
Laura: [laughs] Yeah.
Jamie: Why don’t we end on that?
Andrew: Was this not for Mikey or what? I can’t believe I just read this.
Jamie: We’ll go to a break after this. Mikey, take it away.
Mikey: Give it up for Molly Weasley!
Jamie: No, and the actual line.
Mikey: Oh gee, my modified line or the actual line?
Jamie: Umm…
Mikey: Because see, I think it’s really inappropriate.
Jamie: I agree. Modify it.
Mikey: I love Jo, but really she used a word that I think was just a little inappropriate.
Laura: Mikey, I said – I repeated the line like two weeks ago.
Mikey: Yeah, I know and I was a little appalled by that, Laura.
[Andrew laughs]
Mikey: I really was.
Laura: Yes, because you’ve never heard…
Mikey: All right – I’ve never heard that word before spoken out loud.
Laura: I don’t swear.
Mikey: My little cousins listen to the show now.
Andrew: Yeah, see…
Jamie: Ooh.
[Laura laughs]
Mikey: Yeah, and I don’t think…
Andrew: Yeah, we do have some younger listeners…
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: …which is why it’s a touchy subject. Maybe we’ll make that…
Mikey: You guys, let’s just give it up for Molly Weasley.
Jamie: Yeah!
Andrew: All right, give it up! Round of applause.
Laura: Yay!
Jamie: Everyone who’s listening around the world, clap now.
Mikey: Can you imagine Molly Weasley in the movie going, “Stay away from my daughter, you witch!”?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Mikey: It’s really easy! All you do is change the “b” with a “w” and now it’s PG!
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Yeah.
Mikey: It’s so easy!
Jamie: Yeah.
Mikey: “Stay away from my daughter, you witch!”
Jamie: Andrew, quickly before we go to the break, I have to give the vegetable for the third hour which is cabbage.
Andrew: Cabbage, okay. We’ll be taking a quick break. Let’s hear from GoDaddy guy Mason, then we’ll hit a couple of songs, and we’ll be back in about, oh, a few minutes.
Jamie: Buh-bye!
[Music begins]
Mason: What’s up, MuggleCast listeners? This is Mase here with some information that you need. Before we start off this twelve-hour live podcast, I need to tell you about GoDaddy.com. GoDaddy.com’s economy package is just $3.59 a month for a year. With the economy package, you get 250 gigs of bandwidth, 5 gigs of storage, and up to 500 e-mail accounts. But if you think that’s all, you’re wrong because when you check out, you can save 10% by entering code “Muggle.” That’s right, M-U-G-G-L-E, Muggle. Some restrictions do apply. Check the site for details. If you’re planning to build a website, take advantage of this offer. Get your piece of the internet at GoDaddy.com.
[“Come Together” by Beatles plays]
Discussion: Future Deathly Hallows Movie – Director
[“Major Tom (Coming Home)” by Peter Schilling plays]
Mikey: …show obviously, I was with Alex and we were discussing Order of the Phoenix and how he was disappointed in it, and how I kind of felt the same way too, but it was still a well-made film overall. But I want to know what you would do for the seventh movie and all that, and we’ll talk about that in a minute, but this is why Brandon is going to be great because he’s a film guy.
Andrew: Yeah.
Mikey: He knows all his stuff.
Andrew: So…
Mikey: I know, I’m rambling, as usual. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, you are rambling because I’m trying to get the stream back up because it went down. Hold on one second. [sighs] Firefox froze.
Jamie: What’s happening?
Andrew: The stream froze, so – well, Firefox froze I think, so…
Mikey: Oh. Yeah?
Andrew: Go live. Good Macs.
Mikey: So, yeah…
Andrew: This is why I want an iMac.
Mikey: Brandon, this is a twelve-hour podcast.
Brandon Nicholas: Yeah. Crazy, guys.
Andrew: Yeah. Alex told me you guys would do a twelve-hour concert.
Jamie: Are we on air, by the way?
Andrew: I’ll tell you in a minute.
Brandon: Hey, just so you guys know, Tyler is here too with me.
Andrew: Oh, really?
Mikey: Oh, is he? Tyler!
Tyler Nicholas: Ahhh!
Andrew: Start broadcast.
Tyler: One quick question. One quick question.
Andrew: All right, we’re good now.
Tyler: Are we allowed to curse?
Andrew: No, no, none of that. This is a children’s program. [laughs]
Mikey: Are we on air?
Andrew: We’re on air again. Sorry about that.
Mikey: Oh okay.
Andrew: Okay, so – okay, let’s get to the discussion. Today we’re – in this hour, we’re going to be talking about what we’re looking forward to seeing in Movie 7, because obviously it was a big book. There are some huge scenes in the book that have to translate through the movie, but then there’s also the question of what the heck is going to get cut. Now, I want to start it off by saying Alfonso Cuaron, the director of Prisoner of Azkaban, said in an interview a couple of weeks ago – actually, this was late July. I quote him as saying, “I would be really tempted because it was really beautiful,” in response to, “Would you direct another Harry Potter film?” “I just started reading the last book and something I respect is the care the producers have put in the film franchise.” So, who here would like to see Alfonso Cuaron direct?
Brandon: I definitely would.
Mikey: I would.
Tyler: Definitely as well.
Andrew: So everyone definitely would? [sighs]
Mikey: I almost think…
Brandon: I think…
Mikey: Well, no. Hold on. As much as I love Alfonso Cuaron – because I think he’s amazing. He’s definitely one of my favorite directors as of right now, and I don’t think he’s done anything that I don’t like right now. I kind of wouldn’t mind seeing Chris Columbus do it, and the only reason why is he did the first two, and to get – those are not my favorite, but they are kind of the closest to the book. You know what I mean?
Andrew: Right, right.
Mikey: And so maybe if Chris took over again – at the very end, to finish it off, his big old thing that he started – we might have this really nice long movie…
Jamie: But these movies are very sort of sparse, so I’ve always thought it would be nice to see a different person for each one, so we get seven individual special, unique movies rather than two done by one or the other.
Andrew: Yeah. But personally I think – I would want to see a lot of care put into this final film, as it’s the final one and who knows if they would ever remake the Harry Potter movie series again. Brandon or Tyler, you want to add something?
Brandon: I definitely think that Alfonso Cuaron would be amazing to film. I personally am not a big fan of Chris Columbus, but I do think it would be really, really cool to bring someone new in. My personal vote would be Terry Gilliam but I know that got voted out, so…
Andrew: What has he directed?
Brandon: He did Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Brazil and…
Jamie: Oh, that was pretty good, actually. Yeah.
Brandon: And he’s just really, really a dark director, but really into fantasy and really one of my favorites, and he could really bring that whole dark element to the film which I think it needs.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Brandon…
Andrew: I have to – go ahead, Jamie.
Jamie: Brandon – this is too serious – please give me a “Mikey B.”
[Andrew laughs]
Brandon: [imitating Mikey] I am Mikey B!
[Andrew and Jamie laugh]
Jamie: That’s awesome.
Brandon: I love you, Mikey B!
Andrew: That’s adorable. What would you like to see them – I guess we’ll start with leave in. Anyone, go.
Jamie: Doesn’t it – he has to leave in the stuff that – whoever does it has to leave in the stuff that’s important to the entire series as a whole, that is the glue that binds it all. So like, the whole Snape story, loving Lily, is something that no director could leave out. So there’s certain stuff that has to go in. And then there’s stuff like when Harry and Hermione camp the entire time, which probably could be left out a bit more.
Mikey: Yeah. But during the Harry and Hermione camping, you’ve got to make sure that we get Dan to take his clothes off to jump into that lake. Because that’s why we know Jo wrote that scene, right?
Jamie: Yeah, exactly.
Mikey: She wants to see Dan half naked again. And I’m sorry, [laughs] I did not mean to pick on Jo that way at all but – yeah. We have to make sure we put that scene in, him jumping in the lake, not doing what he’s supposed to do and just “Oh, no one’s around. I’ll jump in the water by myself.”
Jamie: [laughs] Naked.
Mikey: [laughs] Yeah. Completely! No.
Jamie: What about Tim Burton, for…
Andrew: Tim Burton? I don’t think – has he ever directed a dark film?
Jamie: Yeah, he has.
[Brandon laughs]
Andrew: Sorry, I’m not up on my directors, so don’t laugh at me!
Brandon: We liked Tim Burton ten years ago or something like that – Edward Scissorhands time, maybe – but not now.
Mikey: You mean not post Planet of the Apes Tim Burton?
Brandon: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. I don’t know, he kind of went downhill from there. I’m not saying that I don’t love the guy still, I think he’s a great director, but he really, really went downhill after. His early films were really handled with a lot of care. I think he really kind of took a turn for the worse.
Mikey: Well, I don’t know about that. I do definitely like – I liked the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Andrew: Yeah, I was going to say, I loved that but I thought that was too – well, I mean…
Mikey: It was stylized, definitely.
Andrew: Yeah.
Mikey: It’s very Tim Burton-esque but I don’t know, I definitely like his older films better, like Brandon was saying. But I think if he was given the task, he might be able to do something really cool with it. The only thing I could see though is like the graveyard scene, all the graves would be skewed, kind of like…
Jamie: [laughs] Yeah.
Mikey: …how he has it in everything. It would be like, “Oh,” you know, in all the movies he has the graves all skewed in a weird way.
Brandon: That’s the thing about Tim Burton though, is he has that specific style. I don’t think you’d want to bring that into a Harry Potter film, because…
Andrew: Yeah.
[Mikey laughs]
Brandon: …the Harry Potter films already has its own style.
Mikey: Yeah.
Andrew: Exactly. Yeah, and it’s all been set up now. I mean, everyone knows what to expect.
Mikey: Yeah.
Andrew: So if there’s this different style, say Willy Wonka style [laughs] introduced with Tim Burton…
Mikey: Well, wait…
Jamie: [unintelligible] …blockbuster.
Mikey: Well, you guys – wait, let’s think back about Tim Burton. Can you imagine him bringing some of his style into the Harry Potter movies? Can you imagine like instead of a Thestral being what it was in the movie, him having the stop-motion animation for the Thestral like The Nightmare Before Christmas, and all these characters not being CGI but actually stop-motion animation, and just being a really weird, crazy, magical world?
Andrew: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah…
Mikey: I think that would be crazy.
Brandon: …but I think a lot of them would end up having scissors hands or a lot more white makeup.
[Andrew and Mikey laugh]
Mikey: Yeah, white makeup and Johnny Depp in the background. Actually, Johnny Depp should just come in and be in the movies for the sake of just being in the movies as Jack Sparrow or something.
Andrew: Yeah.
Mikey: And being like…
Brandon: Everyone would just be dead, I think.
Mikey: Yeah, he should take over the role as Harry Potter and just win. [laughs]
Andrew: What would you want to see taken out? I mean…
Tyler: I definitely think that the final duel will – it just doesn’t fit.
[Andrew laughs]
Tyler: I think out of all the scenes it just doesn’t carry the movie along any further. I think it should just kind of end as Harry dying.
Andrew: Yeah, that doesn’t really matter, you don’t think?
Brandon: Way to give the ending. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah.
Tyler: Completely serious.
Andrew: I think you’re trying to be funny. Don’t push it.
[Brandon and Tyler laugh]
Andrew: This is a serious podcast. We – I think I would love to see all that crap taken out when Harry and Hermione are just sitting around camping.
Jamie: Yeah, and cooking fish on bonfires and stuff like that.
Tyler: That’s like half the book.
Andrew: [laughs] I know it’s half the book.
Mikey: Oh, I know what I can get rid of, the Big D and Harry whole thing. It’s like, come on. Dudley’s been played down so much, it’s like, really, do we even need to have “They’re not that bad”?
Jamie: Going back to Johnny Depp, could he play anyone? We just had a couple of e-mails saying that he’d be a good Fenrir Greyback, maybe.
[Andrew and Mikey laugh]
Mikey: Johnny Depp as Fenrir Greyback. Actually, I’m just picturing him as – all right – no wait, guys, please, I’m going to check the feedback in a minute but hold on. Everybody who’s listening, Johnny Depp as a Harry Potter character or Captain Jack Sparrow as a Harry Potter character?
Jamie: Yeah!
Mikey: Because I’m thinking – right away my brain went for this. I saw Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow with the dreads and going like, [impersonating Jack Sparrow] “Love, you don’t want to mess with me. I’m a werewolf! Pirate!” Something like that.
Jamie: You sound like the Terminator, Mikey. [laughs]
Mikey: Huh?
Andrew: [laughs] “You sound like the Terminator,” he said.
[Jamie laughs]
Mikey: Yeah, you’re missing – the thing is, I talk very animatedly. All the guys will tell me that. And I’m actually doing the sway with my hands up in the air but you don’t see that because I’m just talking, so it came out really bad for sure.
Brandon: [imitating Mikey] Mikey B!
Mikey: Yeah, it’s Mikey B.
[Andrew laughs]
Mikey: Mikey B! It’s what I do.
Jamie: Here’s a personalized question specifically for you: George Lucas?
Mikey: Uh-huh?
Jamie: What do you think?
Mikey: For a Harry Potter film?
Jamie: Yeah.
Mikey: [laughs] No. I love George Lucas, don’t get me wrong, but did you guys see Phantom Menace?
Jamie: Yeah.
Mikey: Or Attack of the Clones?
Brandon: And you’re saying that you did?
Mikey: Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. I think he did very good with the original Star Wars, A New Hope, and I think his THX – you know, American Graffiti was good.
Brandon: THX 1138 is great, but then he re-released it and it was horrible.
Mikey: Yeah.
Brandon: He added flying monkeys in it and stuff. It’s not like Wizard of Oz.
[Jamie laughs]
Mikey: But it was good at one point and also, come on, really? American Graffiti was great.
Brandon: Okay.
Mikey: Yeah.
Brandon: All right.
Mikey: So he did do some good stuff. Plus he did do – I think – I must say, Revenge of the Sith was not too bad. Not too bad.
Tyler: Whoa. Whoa.
Mikey: Dude, that light-saber fight was just awesome, okay? You can’t – come on. And even like – but you know what though? Talking to me about Star Wars is just really bad because I actually like Phantom Menace. The directing on it and the story and just the whole Jar Jar Binks scenes was just bad, but man, that pod race scene was just so cool that [laughs] I had to love it still.
Jamie: Yeah, that was cool.
Brandon: I like Star Wars but just bringing it back to Harry Potter…
Andrew: Yeah, thank you. [laughs]
Brandon: …I think it would be a horrible, horrible, horrible idea to have George Lucas direct anything involving Harry Potter. He would just ruin everything.
Andrew: I agree. He’s probably not even a Harry Potter fan.
Mikey: But come on…
Brandon: Because he’d definitely have [unintelligible] as somebody and he’d have blue screens everywhere.
Jamie: Yeah.
Brandon: And Harry Potter would be computer generated. It would be stupid.
Andrew: Exactly. Thank you. [laughs]
Mikey: Misa Harry Potter! [laughs]
Andrew: Someone said via the live feedback – Christian from Stockholm, Sweden. He writes:
“Stop dissing the camping scenes. They’re the best ones in the book!”
Mikey: Ha ha.
Andrew: What?!
Jamie: If that’s what you like.
Andrew: Yeah. If it floats your boat.
Tyler: But would you really want every single camping scene in the movie instead of the amazingness that’s in the book?
Andrew: Exactly.
Jamie: I agree.
Andrew: Yeah, we do have to…
Tyler: The balance.
Andrew: Exactly, thank you. What else…
Brandon: I…
Andrew: Go ahead.
Brandon: I would love an eight-hour movie. Really, just [unintelligible] it out.
[Tyler laughs]
Brandon: I want to see it.
Andrew: Well yeah…
Mikey: [laughs] Peter Jackson.
MuggleCast 109 Transcript (continued)
Discussion: Future Deathly Hallows Movie – Length
Andrew: …I really think WB should seriously consider investing a little more money into the movie to put – so it is longer. Because – sort of to pay tribute to being the end of the series and just the fact that it’s been something that fans have been wanting for so long, a movie that’s actually longer than two-and-a-half hours. I think one of the movies was two hours, forty-five minutes, something like that. But a four-hour movie is completely feasible for Harry Potter. Fans would sit through it, and Book 7 deserves it, I think, so…
Brandon: And you know what? It’s made them a lot of money too, so I think they just have to give to the fans after giving them so much money.
Andrew: Yeah, Brandon, I don’t know if you’ve heard this yet but Harry Potter is top-grossing motion picture of all time now – franchise.
Brandon: The franchise all together?
Andrew: Franchise.
Brandon: Wow.
Andrew: Top-grossing motion picture franchise.
Jamie: It’s made like four billion dollars.
Brandon: It used to be Star Wars.
Jamie: Yeah, more than Star Wars.
Andrew: It bet Star Wars but all the Star Wars nerds are saying that well, because of inflation, that may not be true. But right now…
Mikey: Oh, come on.
Brandon: [unintelligible]
Andrew: Huh? What did he say?
[Brandon and Tyler laugh]
Jamie: It’s made more than most countries are worth.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s very true. Anything else you guys would like to see cut out of the film? If you cut out the camping, and aside to make this a four-hour film, I think you could fit everything. [laughs]
Jamie: It isn’t a case of cutting out the camping, it’s just a case of cutting out the stuff that is there to make it look like a long journey while still giving you the long journey sort of feeling, if that makes sense.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: So like the only reason they camp all over the place is to show how difficult the task is and how hard it is to stay away from everyone. So if they can still show that whilst have them [laughs] staying in hotels and stuff, then that would be nice. Or they have one camping scene or something.
Andrew: Right, right.
Jamie: Or something like that. What about a Spielberg classic, though? A blockbuster. What do you think?
Andrew: A Spielberg film?
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: That would be fantastic, but wasn’t he approached for Movies 1 and 2, and he turned them down? Or at least Movie 1?
Jamie: Something like that, yeah.
Andrew: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah, he was approached and he said that, no – and he wanted Haley Joel Osment as Harry.
Jamie: Oh my God.
Andrew: As Harry?
Brandon: Yeah, as Harry and they all kind of booed that one.
Jamie: I see Thestrals.
Andrew: What was he smoking when he said that?
Brandon: I have a list of things.
Andrew: [laughs] Actually, Dan Radcliffe has something to say about the book being turned into film. He said this a few days ago:
“‘It’s going to be a hell of a challenge for the writer,’ he said. ‘There’s other bits in other books you can cut, but I don’t see anything in Book 7 you can cut.'”
Which is interesting.
“‘Author Jo Rowling always talks about the chapter she had written in her head before anything, when Harry’s going to face Voldemort, and I’m really looking forward to doing that. It should be powerful – if I don’t screw it up. Of course, I’m saying all this hoping it won’t be cut. I don’t think it can be, it’s so vital.'”
So…
Brandon: Hey, Andrew?
Andrew: Yeah?
Brandon: Why aren’t you doing your Daniel Radcliffe voice when you’re quoting him?
Andrew: I don’t have a Dan Radcliffe voice. [laughs]
Brandon: I don’t know who’s talking. Is it Andrew and then Dan Radcliffe? Can you please just do his accent or something next time?
Andrew: [poorly imitating a British accent] Well, sorry, I don’t have a British accent. [back to normal voice] See that was terrible, I just tried. It was terrible. [poorly imitating a British accent] “It’s going to be a hell of a challenge for the writer. There’s other bits in other books you can cut, but I don’t see anything in Book 7 you can cut.”
Jamie: That would be good if you brought it down a bit. Don’t overstate it so much.
Brandon: Wow, that was uncanny. That was like exactly.
Andrew: [laughs] Well, thank you.
Brandon: I didn’t know if that was Daniel Radcliffe over there.
Andrew: He’s actually visiting me, yeah.
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: We met after Equus one night and things have been going well. [laughs] But anyway…
Brandon: We should actually have him on the show. You should talk like him and then tell everyone and dude, your ratings would go up way high.
Andrew: You know, we actually had Hagrid on the show once.
Brandon: Wow.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Let’s not talk about that.
[Mikey laughs]
Andrew: It was an exclusive interview.
Mikey: [imitating Ben] “Rubeus Hagrid!” Ben.
Andrew: And we’re trying to have him on the show today, maybe later tonight. That would be pretty exciting. And maybe Dumbledore too…
Jamie: Yeah.
Tyler: Wow.
Andrew: …because rumor has it he’s not actually dead.
Tyler: The real Dumbledore Dumbledore?
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: Oh, the real one, yeah.
Brandon: Wow.
Andrew: Yeah, we don’t – we’re actually a pretty big podcast and we get respect from the fictional characters. So…
Jamie: And from dead people as well, apparently.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Like Dumbledore.
Andrew: Yeah. [laughs]
Mikey: We should have Hedwig on.
Discussion: Future Deathly Hallows Movie – Plot Holes
Andrew: Oh, hey now. So okay, another question: What holes have the moviemakers dug themselves into from things they have left out of previous films?
Jamie: Not much really. I’m sure they’ve been very careful and I’m sure Jo has told them they can’t – certain stuff, unless it’s a creative license they’re working with and they’re just changing the way stuff looks. They have to be very careful, but they don’t show stuff how it shouldn’t be.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Because they’ll sort of stop themselves being able to do proper important plot details later on. I’m sure Jo looks over everything and is like, “You cannot do this because it stops me being able to write this bit about where they go in Book 7,” or contradictions. There must be a big part of writing the script that’s got to be making sure nothing contradicts past books, past movies, future books, and future movies, I guess.
Andrew: Yeah. One thing – there was a big story before the release of Order of the Phoenix where it was revealed that J.K. Rowling insisted that they keep Kreacher in the film. And of course now we know why. And I would just think that they couldn’t have made any – they couldn’t have dug any huge holes because if they did, I think Jo would have said something. Can anyone else think of something else they’re in trouble with now?
Jamie: I don’t know, I don’t think so.
Andrew: I mean, I was complaining that with the veil, there wasn’t enough emphasis put on the veil in the film, but now [laughs] it doesn’t really matter.
Jamie: Well, Kendra writes and says that Dan’s eyes are blue and they never changed that, so…
Andrew: Well, that’s silly.
Jamie: No, no, no, that’s what I was going to say, that they can just change them with the contacts for the scene in Deathly Hallows when he looks into Snape’s eyes, if they put that in [laughs] which they probably should do, really.
Andrew: Yeah. That was a lot of people’s favorite scene in the book there.
Tyler: One thing that’s going to be during the movie is – something Alex put out is that there’s not enough tension involved in the film. It’s something that’s definitely prevalent in the Lord of the Rings films where you can actually feel their dread. When there’s so much dread in the fifth book, I didn’t think – yeah, I didn’t seem to feel any pain for the characters. It all kind of just moved along. I kind of just didn’t saw it. I don’t know.
Brandon: There was no climax either. The movie kind of just ended without any kind of resolutions. It’s kind of just boom and there was no height in the sense of the film, no arch.
Andrew: Yeah. I mean, that’s really how all the Harry Potter films end though, don’t they?
Tyler: Well, there has to be a lot more tension involved, especially in the sixth and seventh.
Jamie: Yeah.
Mikey: Well guys, come on. Think about – go back to the movies. Think about our favorite – the Prisoner of Azkaban. It ends with Harry riding a broom. That’s a great ending, right?
Jamie: No.
Andrew: No.
Mikey: [laughs] I’m being – I hope you guys can all hear the sarcasm in my voice. It’s like, “Weeeee!”
Tyler: We should talk about the fifth movie.
Mikey: Okay, strictly talk about the fifth movie. All right.
Tyler: Strictly.
Brandon: Strictly.
Mikey: Yeah.
Jamie: Because Mikey – they can get away with it. First of all, they can get away with flashy finishes and lines like “Don’t worry, I will be.”
Mikey: No – and I’m not being completely sarcastic. I actually liked the way that the third film ended. Not the broom part, but – Sirius said goodbye and everything was nicely closed off and concluded. And the only reason they really put that broom in there is so he’d have it in the next movie. You know what I mean?
Jamie: Yeah.
Mikey: Plus, it was kind of a funny ending. But I think overall, the third movie had a very well-done story. Not just the book, but obviously they changed so much that it was – I think the third movie is still my favorite and it’s probably I feel is the best, because as a movie it moves the story along in such a way that you don’t feel kind of bored. I remember watching the fifth movie – and don’t get me wrong. I still liked it, I thought it was cool, and seeing it in IMAX 3D was awesome. But literally when I saw it for the first time, I kind of was like at times looking at my watch, going, “How long has this movie been?”
Jamie: But Mikey, I’d say that’s because the first four were still sort of establishing the sort of plot details, establishing the sort of overall look of the Harry Potter films whereas “5”, “6”, and “7”, everything is so important in sort of wrapping up what’s happening, going on, because “5”, “6”, and “7” really are just a continuation. So they don’t have as much creative license to put stuff how they want because it’s extremely in-depth how everything works out, how the Voldemort/Harry storyline works out. So I think…
Mikey: Well no…
Jamie: …”5″, “6”, and “7” have got to be truer to the books.
Mikey: I don’t think that’s a good argument because come on, in “5” we get introduced to Dolores Umbridge and we have her walking down the hall the way they want her to do it, and they have that music, and she’s using her wand to tighten ties and move people away from kissing and stuff.
Jamie: I know. I agree, but…
Mikey: That’s style, but it’s – I don’t know.
Jamie: But that style is there because they have to show how evil she is. It doesn’t matter how they do it – it’s like in Goblet of Fire when the – what’s it called?
Mikey: The name came out?
Jamie: The Durmstrang – huh?
Mikey: When the name came out, it’s Harry Potter. What? [laughs] Why is Harry picked?
Jamie: Yeah, that’s it.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: I couldn’t believe it.
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: No, when Durmstrang and Beauxbatons came in, they have the creative license to give them – to have Beauxbatons walking in and going from side to side with those butterflies and…
Mikey: [imitating the movie] “Ahhh!”
Jamie: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. And Durmstrang to…
Mikey: And Ron looking airy at them.
Jamie: Yeah. And Durmstrang coming with those sticks. It just gave a hint of what those two schools were like and what was going to happen, foreshadowing. But they have the creative license to show what the books say but they don’t have the creative license to change the direction of what’s going on, especially in these last three books when everything is so important.
Mikey: Okay.
Jamie: I think.
Andrew: Here’s something interesting: Kyle e-mailed in via the live feedback form at MuggleCast.com/Live. He’s from Chicago. He writes:
“How about having J.K. Rowling narrate the epilogue?”
That would be sweet!
Mikey: That would be cool.
Andrew: J.K. Rowling needs a part in these films. I think that’s a great way to do it.
Jamie: Well, she’s a cameo as a photographer or something, though.
Andrew: A photographer?
Jamie: I don’t know.
Andrew: What? Oh okay. [laughs]
Jamie: I don’t know.
Brandon: I think Andrew should narrate as Daniel Radcliffe.
Jamie: [laughs] Yeah. Andrew…
Andrew: What is your obsession with me and Daniel Radcliffe?
Brandon: There’s no obsession.
[Andrew laughs]
Brandon: It’s uncanny how close you are to him.
Andrew: [laughs] Oh. Well, thank you. Unfortunately, I think you’re the only one who believes that.
Brandon: Yeah, probably.
Andrew: [laughs] Another piece of feedback, from Rebecca out of LA. She writes:
“They didn’t show the mirror in ‘Order of the Phoenix’ but it’s extremely important in the final book. How will they cover that in the final movie?”
Jamie: Hmmm.
Andrew: I think that’s a great point.
Jamie: That is interesting.
Andrew: Oh well.
Jamie: I don’t know. I mean, there are small things that could have been problems but aren’t problems, like with Cho telling everyone – sorry, ratting on Dumbledore’s Army. That could have been a problem if she had a bigger part, but I assume Jo cleared it, because I don’t see why you’d change that, to be honest, except for the sake of brevity, so you didn’t have to introduce Marietta and all that kind of stuff. But it just seems – that could potentially create a lot of problems.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Because you’ve got to show that she’s remorseful and that’s why she comes back at the end of Deathly Hallows to fight. But it just seems like – I don’t think Cho would do that.
Andrew: Hmmm.
Jamie: I don’t know.
Andrew: Let’s see…
Jamie: Lexi says that Jo could play – sorry, not Lexi. Camillo says that Jo could play one of the wedding guests in Deathly Hallows which – that’s an idea.
[Andrew and Mikey laugh]
Jamie: There’s a load of extras needed for that.
Mikey: Can you imagine Jo playing Aunt Muriel?
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah.
Jamie: [laughs] Yeah.
Mikey: Actually, would Aunt Muriel really have a major part? Well, she embeds the seed.
Jamie: The Dumbledore stuff, yeah.
Mikey: Yeah, she embeds the seed of “Dumbledore is bad.” And – so I think Aunt Muriel is probably a very pivotal character, especially because if it wasn’t for her, Harry wouldn’t have this major doubt because he doesn’t trust Rita Skeeter already, and…
Jamie: Yeah.
Mikey: You know what I mean? So it’s like he wouldn’t believe it but then Aunt Muriel says it, and she has inside information and all this different stuff to where it’s like now that that seed of doubt that is driving Harry to find out what’s going on and really kind of know more about Dumbledore…
Jamie: Yeah.
Mikey: …is all clicked to her.
Jamie: That’s why she’s important.
Mikey: And I think because she’s so important, Jo should take that role.
[Jamie laughs]
Mikey: I really think that…
Andrew: I really think you’re pushing it.
Mikey: Who better to give us the information about Dumbledore than Jo herself?
[Andrew laughs]
Discussion: Future Deathly Hallows Movie – Rating
Jamie: This could push the movie to an NC-17, 18 sort of rating…
[Mikey laughs]
Jamie: …but I want to see Bathilda Bagshot collapse and a snake come out of her neck. How awesome would that be?
Andrew: Why is that – why would that give it an NC-17 rating though?
Jamie: Well, I don’t know many children who would gain delight in seeing a person’s body completely crumble beneath them, their neck open up, and a huge python come out.
Mikey: [laughs] Huge python. Remember we had that guy who had a python when we were on tour?
Andrew: No.
Jamie: Mikey, I was expecting him to come downstairs, like an eight foot one carried his housemates, and not like a baby around his neck.
Mikey: I know! I was so disappointed. I was like, “Oh my God, he’s got a big old python! Let’s see it!”
Jamie: Yeah.
Mikey: And then it was just like a foot and a half long.
Jamie: Yeah.
Mikey: It was just like, “Wow. Okay, that’s cool.”
Andrew: There’s something else – while we’re on the subject of ratings, what do you think – [laughs] seems like a stupid question but I think it should be seriously considered. What kind of rating should they be aiming for? Why not make it R, I say.
[“Celebration” by Kool & the Gang plays]
Andrew: Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.
Jamie: Well, because they’re abandoning their demographic, aren’t they? If they do that.
Andrew: Yeah, but say a Harry Potter film is rated R because of how gory and nasty it can get with all the killing and stuff, especially at the end.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: As a parent, I don’t see why you wouldn’t take your son or daughter to see it if it’s the Harry Potter series.
Jamie: It depends on quite a few things. I mean, I think cinema sort of grosses would go down, but then people would still watch it just on DVD and TV and stuff. But it just depends if they want to stay true to the books or if they want to please their demographic and get the Harry Potter movies and market them as children’s.
Andrew: Mhm.
Mikey: Well also…
Brandon: Personally…
Mikey: Hold on one second. A point here is everyone that’s listening today – I pretty much think anyone that’s listening today by the time Deathly Hallows the movie comes out, you may not be seventeen but you’re well in the range of being able to see rated R. By then you’re like sixteen.
Andrew: That’s true, that’s very true.
Mikey: I mean, everybody that’s listening today, by the time that comes out I’m pretty sure – and now I’m not taking – I don’t really know how many eleven-year-olds or really, really young kids listen to the show and I might be completely wrong, but definitely I think if it was rated R, majority of the people that are listening today that grew up with Harry Potter would still be able to go see it.
Jamie: Abby brings up a valid point that R would make the movie no longer a children’s movie and Jo probably wouldn’t like that because she admits that although Harry Potter is for all ages because you can read it, they are marketed and she writes them as children’s books, and they teach things to children, the themes in there are designed to help your development and your childhood and stuff like that. I’ve always thought that. I know what this person is saying and that it wouldn’t be a children’s movie and might change the direction that Jo wanted to take it and I guess she has the veto.
Andrew: Yeah. I was just starting it for argument’s sake, but I agree [laughs] it will just be PG-13 and as someone points out in the feedback – let’s see, that was Emma from Sweden. They’d rather – she says:
“They’d rather remove the scary scenes than make it R rated, they would lose so much money.”
Jamie: Yeah, that probably is true.
Andrew: Too true.
Brandon: But I also think that a lot of times in movies, sometimes just the things they don’t show are kind of scarier than when they actually show it, because it leaves to your imagination.
Jamie: Yeah.
Mikey: Yeah. Like can you imagine Harry going to King’s Cross station and you hear this wailing baby but you never – you only see like kind of a blur.
Brandon: That would be…
Mikey: You never actually see the dis-formed figure that you’re dreading to see, but you hear it and it’s just like a retched sound that you’re like, “Oh my gosh, this thing must be absolutely hideous and scary looking.”
Brandon: I don’t know if you guys have seen the Alien movies, but if you watch the original ones you barely see the alien at all and they’re so scary. And then towards the end like on the later Alien movies like Alien 3, you’re actually seeing the alien and it’s not very scary because you know exactly what you’re seeing.
Andrew: Oh okay.
Mikey: Yeah.
Andrew: Hmmm, that’s interesting.
Mikey: Well, it’s kind of like Jaws even, too. Jaws is actually – if you watch that, it’s a scary movie, you know what I mean?
Andrew: Yeah.
Mikey: And you never see the shark, you see the death of the people so that you don’t see the length and the size of the shark until he says, “We’re going to need a bigger boat.”
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah.
Mikey: And it’s just like…
[Jamie laughs]
Mikey: But you got to remember that this is also a movie that literally made people not go into the water and oceans for a long time. So, I agree with Brandon. If you don’t see something and it’s left up to your imagination it can be absolutely terrifying.
Andrew: Mhm. Let’s see, what else do we want to add about this? [laughs]
Jamie: It’s going to be very interesting to see how they close the entire thing, because it is a completely different movie to every other one just because they can’t fix stuff in later movies, they can’t change stuff, they can’t explain stuff so it all has to be come out there.
Mikey: Yeah.
Jamie: So it’s going to be interesting the angle they put on it, whether they’re going to go for a sort of build-up and then a climatic end, or if they’re just going to go through it – chronologically go through everything in the book and just end it like Jo wanted. And the epilogue as well, what is going to happen with that?
Andrew: Yeah.
Brandon: I think they’ll do endings just like in the end of Lord of the Rings when it’s just like – every single story has a little ending.
Jamie: Yeah, they just close everything. That would be kind of cool.
Andrew: Celia from Alabama writes:
“The books are not written for children. J.K. Rowling has said herself that she doesn’t write the books just for children, they’re for everyone. ‘Deathly Hallows’ is not a children’s book in any shape or form.”
Yes, but they would still lose a lot of money on that front.
Tyler: Yeah.
Mikey: Oh, you know what?
Brandon: And as much as you want to think that it’s nothing about money, it really is. I mean, for making the movie for the [unintelligible], I don’t think. They’re making it for the money for the most part.
Andrew: Yeah.
Mikey: Julia from Texas – I’m reading the e-mails now – she just said the seventh book shows people dead, there’s no blood because it’s magic. So because there’s no blood, no gore like that in that sense, I think them getting an R rating would be really hard because the things they would have to emphasize to get an R rating would be really, really bad.
Jamie: Mikey, if they made 300 with no blood and just magic, it wouldn’t be as gory as it actually is, you know?
Mikey: Yeah, it’d be like…
Jamie: [laughs] If they could kill people with magic.
Mikey: Yeah, I guess. I… [laughs]
Jamie: But I don’t know. Maybe not. Maybe not.
Andrew: Here’s a good idea from Susan of New York. She writes:
“They could show a silhouette of the snake coming out of Bagshot, and Harry’s terrified face.”
Jamie: Like on the wall? That would be good.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: That would be very good.
Andrew: Huh?
Jamie: That would be very good.
Andrew: Yeah. And…
Jamie: I want to say – Andrew, the vegetable for this hour, quickly and now, before I forget…
Andrew: [laughs] Okay.
Jamie: …is beetroot.
Andrew: I hope you’re keeping track of all these.
Jamie: I am keeping a track. Beetroot for the fourth hour.
Mikey: Are you going to eat something for…
Jamie: [laughs] No, no, no. It’s to check if people are listening for all twelve hours. We’re saying a vegetable for each hour, and the first person to e-mail in at the end with a list in chronological order of every vegetable wins a special prize.
Andrew: I’m seriously ordering pizza in another couple of hours. Going to do it live on the air. It’s going to be fun.
Mikey: Wait, I think I want to order pizza right now.
Andrew: Right now?
Mikey: Well, it’s…
Brandon: Can you get pepperoni?
Mikey: It’s noon for me. It’s 12:46 and I haven’t had breakfast yet, so…
Jamie: Awww.
Mikey: No, when I said I…
Brandon: I love pepperoni pizza.
Mikey: I literally woke up, I kid you not, and came straight here so I could join you guys.
Andrew: Awww, that’s so sweet.
Jamie: That’s dedication from you.
Mikey: I really am like looking at my door in my bedroom kind of like, “I kind of want to go to the kitchen and see what food I have.”
[Andrew laughs]
Mikey: But I’m like, if I order pizza, I’ll have a fresh, hot food.
Andrew: Uh-huh.
Mikey: And I could discuss what type of pizza I’m going to order, and – personally, I’m a fan of Pizza Hut right now. They have that dipping strip pizza.
Andrew: So do it!
Jamie: Oh, that is nice. Yeah.
Mikey: That would be entertaining, huh? No?
Andrew: No, it would be.
Tyler: [unintelligible]
Andrew: I’m serious about calling in a couple of hours.
Mikey: Let’s see, I’m going to order online since we’re online right now.
Andrew: Oh okay. All right. [laughs] Okay. Let’s talk about…
Jamie: Oh, but we can’t hear that.
Andrew: No, we can’t, but he can narrate it for us or something. But one thing that we have been considering doing with MuggleCast is – [sighs] I’m going to get tons of complaints about this – turning it into more of an entertainment podcast, and the first step would be – well, the first step I think would be in the right direction, would be talking more about movies in general, besides just the Harry Potter films. Talking more – maybe reviewing movies, maybe talking about the latest news in some industries.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: So…
Jamie: Not for…
Andrew: Huh?
Jamie: Not for a while. Well, I was going to say, not for a while but we want to – obviously, we can’t talk about Harry Potter forever, but we don’t want to stop the show, do we? So it’s more like trying to continue what we’re doing without ending it completely.
Andrew: Right. So one thing I wanted to talk about right now, since we’re on the – unless – did anyone want to bring up something else, about the last film?
Mikey: Deathly Hallows, damn – hands down, best film ever.
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: Damn.
Mikey: [laughs] I kept saying “damn.” I couldn’t sleep. Hands down, best film ever!
[Echoing sounds in the background]
Jamie: That’s an Emerson Spartz quote for everyone.
Mikey: Emerson Spartz, everybody.
Andrew: From Goblet of Fire. We’re getting feedback now. Come on, Brandon and Tyler, what are you doing?
Brandon: What do you want from us?
Mikey: You guys should get a headset and just like share it. You guys should each have one earbud in and…
Andrew: That’s probably what they’re doing.
Mikey: Oh. I don’t know.
MuggleCast 109 Transcript (continued)
Discussion: Non-Harry Potter Movies
Andrew: Is it? I don’t know. Whatever. I was just messing with you. So, other movies. Do you guys want to talk about other movies? Jamie?
Jamie: We may as well, [laughs] we’ve got nine hours to go.
Andrew: Well, we’re going to take a break in a little bit because then we have a pretty good interview coming up. But…
Jamie: Well, I…
Andrew: What? Go ahead, Brandon.
Brandon: What’s up?
Andrew: Did you say something?
Brandon: No.
Jamie: I think it was me.
Andrew: Oh. Go ahead, Jamie. [laughs]
Jamie: I’m not sure. I’m getting confused. I was just going to say I had a kind of indie sort of mind change going soon. And if anyone knows Play.com, I went on there and had a sort of DVD ordering session and ordered a load of sort of independent movies, and I ordered – now that I’m thinking about it, I can’t remember them. Grosse Pointe Blank with John Cusack, it’s very good. Buffalo 66 which I haven’t seen yet, but I’ve heard very, very good things about it. My Own Private Idaho with River Phoenix, which is a very, very, very good movie. Gus Van Sant, I would like to see him do Deathly Hallows but [laughs] I don’t think that’s going to happen somehow. What else did I order? One sec! One sec! Stay online!
Andrew: [laughs] Stay online? Oh, we are going to close. We are going to shut down. One movie I saw lately was Hairspray. Anyone else seen that?
Mikey: I saw that.
Andrew: Yeah. Mikey, I saw it with you.
Mikey: Yeah.
Jamie: Which movie is that?
Mikey: We saw it with Mase, too.
Andrew: [laughs] We saw it with Mason. Mason, couldn’t – well, we talked Mason into it. Mason didn’t really end up liking it very much. Mikey, you’ve seen it, what, how many times?
Mikey: Twice now.
Jamie: Which movie?
Andrew: I’m kind of embarrassed to say I’ve seen it three times.
Mikey: Have you really?
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah.
Mikey: I’ve only paid to see it once.
[Andrew laughs]
Mikey: I saw it in an advanced screening a month and a half of working them out. It’s a good movie, and I must say…
Jamie: What movie are you talking about?
Andrew and Mikey: Hairspray.
Jamie: [laughs] Oh.
Mikey: You guys got to remember, it’s got Christopher Walken dancing and singing. It’s Christopher Walken!
Andrew: Yeah, come on. John Travolta, dressed as a girl.
Mikey: Like, can you imagine John Travolta’s resume? It’s like, I did Grease and now I did Hairspray. I was a young, hot stud in one movie and I’m an elderly, fat lady in the other.
[Andrew laughs]
Mikey: That’s such an awesome contrast.
Andrew: Yeah.
Mikey: Oh yeah.
Jamie: Well, he’s a versatile actor, I guess.
Andrew: Brandon, did you say you saw it?
Brandon: Yeah. I actually saw it thirteen times. I’m a huge fan.
Andrew: [laughs] On what?
Brandon: I actually like to dress up as most of the characters, going to the shows and waiting in line. It’s a great time.
Mikey: Really? That’s cool.
Andrew: What a loser, you saw it thirteen times? Wow, loser.
Brandon: You’re a jerk, you know that?
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: Whatever, [pauses] dufus!
Brandon: Oh.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Ooh, the insults are coming out.
Listener Calls
Andrew: Hey, but I guess we’ll take some calls now, if anyone’s interested in adding some input to our movie discussion, maybe. Let’s keep it Harry Potter related right now, and let’s see…
Mikey: Unless you like a really cool movie you want to talk about that.
Andrew: Yeah. Let’s take a call from Debby. Hi, Debby.
[Echoing sounds in the background]
Caller: Hello?
Andrew: Hi. Hey, turn your feedback down, so…
Caller: Hello?
Andrew: Hi. Turn your feedback down, so the thing…
Caller: Is this MuggleCast?
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. Turn your volume down, so we don’t hear ourselves.
Caller: Oh sorry.
Andrew: It’s okay.
Caller: I’ll just turn it off.
[Prolonged silence]
Caller: Okay, is it better now?
Andrew: Yeah, it’s better. So what’s going on?
Caller: Nothing, but I was wondering, for the listener challenge last week, did you get my Hairspray one?
Andrew: Did I get your Hairspray one?
Caller: I made one about Hairspray.
Andrew: No, I can’t say I did. Maybe you want to make sure you e-mailed it to andrew at staff dot mugglenet dot com? Send it again.
Caller: Hold on one sec. Sorry for this again, but my friends want me to shout out “SPot.”
Andrew: Okay. I have no idea what that means. Okay. Well, yeah, I’ll look for it in a little bit, okay?
Caller: Hello?
Andrew: Hi.
Caller: Hi.
Jamie: Oh, it’s dying.
Andrew: Awww, we lost the call. Darn. Let me get another person in here. Lucas! Welcome back.
Caller: Yeah, hi.
Andrew: Hey.
Caller: I remember what I was going to say earlier.
Andrew: Ahhh, it’s a miracle! Just kidding.
Caller: Yeah. You guys should submit the link to Digg like you did when you did the live reading.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s a good idea, but Ustream is already crashing with the amount of people we have on it right now, so…. [laughs]
Caller: Yeah, maybe.
Andrew: Yeah. You can submit it, go for it!
Caller: Yeah, I’ll do that. I’ll post the link in the chat.
Andrew: Then we’ll get all the Harry Potter haters on Digg, including – Kevin Rhodes included.
Caller: Yeah.
Andrew: [laughs] And then we’ll get rid of Digg.
Caller: Yeah. Thanks, bye.
Andrew: Okay.
Mikey: You can friend me on Digg.
Andrew: No, nobody wants to friend you on Digg.
Mikey: No one wants to friend me in general. It makes me sad.
Andrew: Hi, Abby!
Caller: Hi.
Andrew: Hi. You have anything to add to our discussion today?
Caller: Yeah. I actually just wanted to say that my friend and I were listening to you talk about J.K. Rowling being in the seventh movie.
Andrew: Yeah?
Caller: And we think she would be a wonderful woman to play Draco’s wife.
Andrew: [laughs] Draco’s wife?
Jamie: [laughs] Draco’s wife.
Andrew: What?
Jamie: Does Draco go for that kind of woman?
Caller: [laughs] Well, I think it would be funny to watch.
Andrew: Maybe.
Jamie: It would definitely be funny, yeah.
Andrew: Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks for calling in.
Caller: Thank you.
Andrew: Bye!
Jamie: Thank you. Buh-bye!
Mikey: Bye!
Tyler: Hey guys, I’m actually going to head out. This is Tyler talking.
Andrew: Okay.
Tyler: I have to go to a concert. But it was a blast.
Andrew: Cool, thanks for coming on.
Mikey: Bye, Brandon! Bye, Tyler!
Andrew: Bye, guys!
Tyler: I think Brandon is…
Andrew: Oh, Brandon is staying.
Brandon: I’m sticking around for a little bit…
Mikey: Oh, Tyler is…
Brandon: …if you guys could help me out.
Mikey: No, I love you Brandon. You’re welcome to stay. Definitely.
[Andrew laughs]
Brandon: Cool.
Andrew: Speaking of show-offs, Cole is back.
Caller: [laughs] Hi.
Andrew: [laughs] What’s going on? Do you have anything to add here?
Caller: Well, I was just saying – I heard you before. I had to go for a little bit, but I’m back. I heard you talk before about the seventh movie being four hours.
Andrew: Yeah.
Caller: I was like, “Oh, it has to be at least three hours or I’m going to get mad.”
Andrew: Right. Yeah. It should be, I agree. Nobody wants to build up all this hype to the final film and then – we’re all looking forward to it, “It’s the last time! It’s the last time! We’re going to be all together, seeing the Harry Potter film!” And then it’s short and we’re out of there in a couple of hours.
Caller: Yeah, it’d be like a half an hour movie. It’s like…
Andrew: Yeah. Well, I don’t think – that’d be pushing it. But…
Caller: Yeah, that would just be bad.
Andrew: [laughs] But – yeah.
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: Maybe we can start up a petition, like what happens every year with a new film.
Caller: Yeah.
Andrew: “Petition to WB to make the movie longer.”
Caller: Yeah. Seven-hour movie.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: And then people ask us to post those on MuggleNet and we’re like, “It’s not going to make a difference, so…”
[Caller laughs]
Jamie: No, no difference at all.
Andrew: Yeah.
Mikey: I think it might though, Andrew. Seriously.
Andrew: Why? No, it wouldn’t…
Mikey: I’m just picking on you. Really? They’re going to do what they want to do regardless.
Andrew: Yeah.
Mikey: It all comes down to the money. Really? That’s what the business is based on.
Andrew: Yeah.
Mikey: And if they can make more money by making it short so that way there’s more times that the movie can play in theaters, which – that’s why a lot of theaters like short films.
Andrew: Yeah.
Mikey: Yeah, they’re going to do that. And it’s not that they don’t want to make it longer, but having movies the length of Lord of the Rings is just really not good for them.
Jamie: That is true, yeah.
Mikey: But then again, you’ve got to think about it. All those really long movies, the big, epic ones like Titanic, Lord of the Rings, they all do really well, so they should…
Caller: Yeah.
Jamie: Ben-Hur.
Mikey: Yeah.
Andrew: What movie?
Mikey: Lawrence of Arabia?
Jamie: All twelve-and-a-half hours of that one. [laughs]
Andrew: How about Roots? Mason, you ever seen Roots? Mason is joining us now.
Jamie: Hey, mate.
Mikey: That was on television, dude.
Andrew: It was on TV, but it’s also now available on DVD.
Mikey: Kunta Kinte!
Andrew: [laughs] Kunta Kinte? Yeah.
Mikey: “Your name is Toby!” That’s such a great movie.
Andrew: Yeah.
Mikey: TV special.
Andrew: Yeah, thing.
Mikey: I love Roots.
Longest Film Ever Created
Jamie: Mikey, here’s a bit of trivia for you: What’s the longest film ever created? Longest movie ever?
Mikey: Oh geez.
Jamie: Weighing in at, I think, 85 hours.
Mikey: Oh, I have no clue. Should I Google Search it and pretend like I know it? Or…
Jamie: Yes, do that. Do that.
Mikey: Okay.
Jamie: But don’t tell anyone.
Brandon: Was the question “the longest movie ever”?
Andrew and Jamie: Yeah.
Brandon: Oh, I have no idea, but I know the…
Mikey: Oh, there it is. I found it!
Brandon: The longest movie in one shot is called Russian Ark. It’s one shot, the whole movie.
Jamie: There’s one shot of the entire movie? Damn!
Mikey: Wow.
Brandon: The entire movie is one shot. They cover over five different films and it’s – yeah, it’s one shot. And it’s all – there’s like thousands of extras. It’s pretty amazing.
Mikey: Yeah, see there’s a list of – on Wikipedia. It’s Wikipedia.org/Wiki/List_of_longest_films_by_running_time.
[Jamie groans]
Mikey: [laughs] And it’s twenty-seven…
Andrew: I got that! I got all that.
Mikey: Yeah. It’s The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple.
Jamie: No, it’s not. It’s The Cure for Insomnia.
Andrew: [laughs] Okay. While you guys fight it out, thanks Cole for calling.
Mikey: All right.
Jamie: I can take you any day, Mikey. Any day, any day.
Mikey: Wikipedia has never been wrong to me, Jamie. It’s never been wrong.
Jamie: That’s very true. It can’t be wrong. It only tells the truth.
Mikey: [laughs] Wikipedia only tells the truth. Oh, actually no, you’re right. “Experimental Film.” Ahhh. I didn’t look at the bottom. I said the answer before it. So Jamie is right. It’s called Cure for Insomnia. It’s 87 hours long, released in 1987.
Andrew: Very good.
Jamie: Why don’t we do that? We should podcast and everyone watches that movie at the same time.
Mikey: [laughs] Yeah, we should all start watching Goblet of Fire and do a commentary of it live with live listener feedback.
Andrew: [laughs] That’s a good idea.
Mikey: That’s unique!
Discussion: Future Half-Blood Prince Movie – Slughorn
Andrew: One more call, and then we’ll take a break. Hi, Sarah.
Jamie: Hey.
Caller: Hi.
Andrew: Hi.
Caller: I was just…
Andrew: Go ahead.
Caller: Hi, I was just wondering – you kept talking about the seventh movie, but I was just wondering because – the sixth movie is almost over, almost coming up, and I was just wondering if you had any thoughts on that. And I know we got some news about – Dan said about how Slughorn – about how he was kind of a comedic character, and I was wondering what you guys thought about that.
Andrew: Well – yeah, that’s pretty interesting. Dan actually said this the other day, because they’ve done a read-through already. They’ve done the read-through of the script, the whole cast. And apparently, Slughorn is going to be, like she said, a funny character, but then he will have his dark moments.
Mikey: Awww, I was sad. I didn’t want Sarah to go because I wanted to ask her…
Andrew: Oh, I’m sorry.
Mikey: I wanted her to do a “Mikey B” but I guess…
Andrew: Why? Does she do it or something?
Mikey: No, I just thought it would be funny because I just thought about it right now while I was actually paying attention.
[Jamie laughs]
Mikey: I mean, I’m always paying attention, but…
Brandon: I’ll do it.
Mikey: Yeah, could you please?
Brandon: Yeah, okay. One – “Mikey B!”
Mikey: Yeah!
[Andrew laughs]
Brandon: There you go.
Mikey: It’s usually – I instantly get transported to different places in the world with this “Mikey B” stuff, so it’s nice.
Jamie: But you must not abuse it. It’s very important you only call it in dire need.
Mikey: Yeah, so when you’re stranded there – or if you need a penny because you’re buying something and you have no extra change, you just need one penny, just go “Mikey B!” and I’ll be there. I’m like, “Here’s a penny!”
Jamie: Yeah.
[Andrew and Mikey laugh]
Mikey: It works!
Jamie: Or most importantly, if you’re in the Apple store and they’re screwing you around – you don’t know what to do. You’re stuck. They’re all ganging up on you – you just say “Mikey B!” and you’ll be out of there with a free iMac, a free MacBook, and five free iPods.
Mikey: Oh geez. Not true at all. Please don’t.
[Andrew and Jamie laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, Jamie, you said too much. [laughs]
Mikey: Yeah.
Brandon: It happened before.
Mikey: Stop. Jamie, no.
Andrew: [laughs] So anyway, Half-Blood Prince film – I’m looking forward to seeing Slughorn because that’s a very important character. But I feel like that whole beginning, when Dumbledore brings Harry to go and visit Slughorn – I have a feeling something like that would be a good candidate to be cut out.
Mikey: You want it to be cut out?
Andrew: No, no, no, I could see it being cut out though, that beginning, because I don’t see that as being…
Mikey: That’s like the introduction though. You can’t have – because that’s a great introduction where they poke him as he’s a big, fluffy couch.
Jamie: [laughs] Yeah.
Mikey: Like you can’t have him come in halfway through the feast in the rain and go [groans] and throw a spell at the ceiling. He can’t do that.
[Andrew laughs]
Mikey: He’s Slughorn, come on.
Andrew: But…
Mikey: He’s like, “I want pineapple.”
Andrew: But how many Harry Potter films have there been where the intro of the book is the same as the intro of the movie? Not many. I can’t think of one. So, any other thoughts?
Mikey: I can think of one.
Andrew: I’m probably wrong.
Mikey: Maybe the first one. The first one.
Andrew: Okay. The first one, and that’s it though. [laughs] Honestly, that’s it. Or is there more?
Mikey: Well actually, no. The first one – the beginning is actually – isn’t it Vernon going to work? Yeah, never mind.
Andrew: The book, yeah. In the book, it’s Vernon going…
Mikey: Never mind. Yeah, never mind. The first one is totally not like the book.
Andrew: But at least it’s before Hogwarts. There’s a scene before Hogwarts.
Mikey: Yeah.
Andrew: I guess that has to be a set-up in the first movie.
Mikey: Because he’s a baby and he has a lightning bolt scar.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: But like there’s never been a true-to-the-book opening, so that’s sort of why I can see that happening. And also I think there’s just going to be a lot of focus on the end of Half-Blood Prince, as there is really with every movie, just with going into the cave, Dumbledore’s death, all that. Anything else to add about Half-Blood Prince?
Jamie: No.
Brandon: I like Harry Potter.
Andrew: [laughs] Brandon, thank you so much for being on. You want to come on a little later on if you’re available, or do you have a life?
Brandon: No, definitely. I’ve actually talked about maybe me and Alex can come together.
Andrew: Okay, yeah. Definitely, definitely.
[Jamie sings]
Brandon: Awesome. Thanks so much for having me on. It was great.
Andrew: No problem, buddy. FightEvilReadBooks.com. Brandon is the – Brandon, what would you describe yourself as?
Mikey: The man?
[Everyone laughs]
Mikey: Brandon is just the man. He’s just awesome.
Andrew: [laughs] That’s what his business card says?
[Mikey laughs]
Brandon: Basically I’ve been summed up in a newspaper – I’m not sure which newspaper it was, but they said, “Alex Carpenter: lead man, Tyler Nicholas: bassist, Toby: drummer, Brandon Nicholas: driver, merch boy/homeboy.”
[Andrew and Mikey laugh]
Mikey: Yeah, slash – hey Brandon, can I get a slash homeboy added to my name too? Mikey B/homeboy?
Brandon: Definitely.
Mikey: Okay. I want to be a friend.
Brandon: Slash homeboy. Yeah, definitely. For sure.
Mikey: Okay, cool.
Andrew: Awesome.
Jamie: Oh yeah.
Andrew: All right. Well, Brandon, thank you for joining us today. We’ll have you a little later on when we’re like dying for content. [laughs]
Jamie: Bye, Brandon.
Brandon: See you, guys.
Andrew: All right.
Brandon: Have a good one.
Andrew: All right. Thanks. See you. With that, we’re going to take a short break. Coming up, I’m really, really, really excited about this. We have a live interview with the two creators of the “Hedwig’s Theme” – what we’ve been calling the “Crackpot Hedwig’s Theme.” That is coming up after this break. You’re listening to MuggleCast Live! Whoa!
Mikey: [imitating Andrew] Whoa!
Andrew: Whoa! Play music. Go music.
[“Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen plays]
Mikey: Ooh, I like this song.
[Song continues]
———————–