Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #276, Serial Killer
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: This is MuggleCast, your Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts podcast covering everything about J.K. Rowling’s magical world.
[Ad break]
Andrew: Welcome to MuggleCast Episode 276. It’s a big episode because it’s our first regular episode as part of the reboot.
Micah Tannenbaum: Been a while.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: Eric and Micah are here. It’s the start of a new adventure, guys.
Eric Scull: The role of Andrew Sims will be played by Andrew Garfield in this reboot. Let’s introduce Andrew Garfield.
Andrew: [laughs] I wish. That would be very cool. But we have two guests here this week to kick off this new era of MuggleCast! With every episode, I think, we’re going to have Micah, Eric, and I, and then we’re going to have another person, or maybe two. In this case, we have Laura and Elysa on, two MuggleCast alums. Hey, ladies.
Elysa Montfort: Hey, guys.
Laura Tee: Hey, it’s good to be back.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s great to hear from you both, of course.
Micah: It’s been such a long time, can I just say that? Since we spoke with each other.
Laura: Yeah, we don’t podcast together anymore, so it’s been, what, six years or something?
Eric: It’s been a long time.
Micah: Or six hours, depending on how you want to look at it.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Micah and Laura are full of sarcasm because Elysa, Laura, Micah up until two days ago…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: … Matt, and I all host this new podcast called Millennial at MillennialShow.com, and we’ll talk about that later, but that’s part of the reason why Laura and Elysa are on today. We wanted to tell you about our new podcast as well, and we wanted to test their knowledge of Harry Potter, because it’s been a while since they’ve been on MuggleCast.
Elysa: [laughs] Oh boy, this is going to be bad.
Laura: Prepare to be disappointed.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: That’s okay. So anyway, like we teased on the last episode, which was in December, we’re starting up monthly episodes. We will do one every month. We don’t have a certain time of month yet where we’re going to be recording them; we’re not sure if we’re going to have a certain day of the month where these are out, but you are going to get a new episode every month. And even if we do set into a schedule, there may come a time when, say, a Fantastic Beasts teaser trailer comes out, or we learn that Matt Smith is going to play Newt Scamander in Fantastic Beasts. We’re going to do a podcast probably right away, or as soon as we can. So new monthly episodes. We also have new album art.
Eric: Woo!
Andrew: Eric, tell us about the new album art that actually you designed, sort of. [laughs]
Eric: Yes, the new design is actually based off of an image drawn by Jim Kay, who is in charge of the new illustrated Harry Potter editions that will be hitting store shelves soon. And it’s a drawing of Hermione, and instead of holding a jar full of blue flame like she does in the first book, she’s holding an iPhone, and the iPhone has MuggleCast playing. So it’s actually keeping with the theme that we’ve had in our previous MuggleCast artwork. If you guys remember, I believe that the premiere artwork for MuggleCast back in ’05 was the US Half-Blood Prince cover – no, wait – yes, yes, with Dumbledore and Harry poring over the basin. And then it moved on to the Deathly Hallows. So we actually got some submissions, because we asked; we put a tweet out asking for some user submissions, and we really liked those, but I feel like…
Micah: But Eric chose himself in the end, ultimately. That’s what happened.
[Elysa and Eric laugh]
Eric: I wanted to do something that was more along the exact lines of what we did before. So it’s a little bit of the old, little bit of the new, is the thing, because it is a new drawing of Hermione, but it’s Hermione from year one, which is so long ago.
Andrew: Yeah, and we are going to take the art that you guys created and put them on MuggleCast.com because we know a lot of people put some time into them. But ultimately, we just really liked what Eric did, and that new art that’s from the new illustrated Harry Potter books, we liked it so much, it just seemed to work so well, so we ended up going with that.
Eric: It’s kind of an indicator of what is currently happening as well with the Harry Potter series. If we had a new book cover, like a new book coming out, or even a poster from Fantastic Beasts, I’m sure that’s what would have been used. But so it’s just kind of keeping with the times, while at the same time throwing back.
Andrew: Right. So we’ve got a lot to do today; we’ve got some news, we’ve got some old segments, we’ve got some new segments, so let’s get right into it.
News
Andrew: We’re going to start with some news, as we always do towards the top of the show. Not exactly a surprise, but Stuart Craig, the Harry Potter production designer – basically, you can thank him for the look and feel of the Harry Potter movies, the visual aspects of them – he’s back for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Eric: Woo!
Andrew: And we also found out in this same report that shooting for the new spinoff is going to begin this summer, and that’s part of the reason why we wanted to start this podcast now, because casting is going to be starting up soon.
Eric: Yeah, it’s a good time. I mean, we’ve had a nice little break here, but coming back in and knowing that things are really… the cauldron is starting to heat up again.
[Andrew and Elysa laugh]
Eric: If I can be super cheesy. But Stuart Craig coming back for Fantastic Beasts is an interesting… well, I mean, it’s kind of a – wow – obvious choice, but I feel like that way the films will look as close to each other as they want them to. It’s just a good degree of creative control, keeping the wizarding world looking the same, even though this is going to be set 80 years prior and in America.
Andrew: Yeah. I mean, I said previously that… they’re bringing back David Yates to direct, by the way, Elysa and Laura; I may be breaking some news to you.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: I mean, I’m not totally out of the loop.
Micah: They knew all of this.
Andrew: Okay.
Elysa: I did know that.
Micah: They are die hard Potter fans. They binge-read on the weekends. Come on.
Andrew: Well, so what do you two think of that? Do you guys like David Yates’s Harry Potter movies? The final four?
Laura: Yes. And also, I just like the fact that they’re bringing some degree of consistency to this as well. I think, like Eric said, it’s going to have the original quality of the wizarding world that we’re used to. I think that’s really important for the continued success of this new venture. I’m excited about it.
Elysa: I agree, I thought David Yates actually did the best job of anyone, just in terms of being able to capture the story, but at the same time, not make it too childish. There was a dark element to his style of directing, so I think he did the best job depicting the series. I think he’s the perfect choice for this movie.
Andrew: Interesting. I’ve previously described this whole setup, Fantastic Beasts, as being too big to fail. You have J.K. Rowling as the screenwriter…
[Elysa and Laura laugh]
Eric: Yeah, she’s writing the movie! It’s not being adapted; she’s writing it.
Andrew: Well, right. And then you have David Yates directing; you’ve got Stuart Craig back; you’ve got David Heyman producing. It’s the same exact crew!
Micah: And Steve Kloves, apparently, according to this article.
Andrew: Right. No, that’s true; yeah, Warner Bros. did confirm that. And I mean…
Eric: Oh, in what capacity?
Micah: Screenwriter.
Andrew: Well, I think he’s helping write.
Micah: Rowling?
Andrew: Right, yeah, because J.K. Rowling doesn’t know how to write a screenplay. It’s completely… it’s a whole different beast.
Micah: Yeah. Well, I think I’ve said this before, and part of me wonders if J.K. Rowling only agreed to this series of films because she knew that she could really have the say in terms of who would ultimately be responsible for producing, directing… a lot of these positions, they’re filled by people who have worked on the Potter films, so maybe it was something of a comfort level for her.
Eric: Yeah, there’s a trust that has developed between this large group of people. They mentioned even a guy that David Heyman mentioned on our 200th MuggleCast episode, Lionel Wigram, who’s producing even this, as well as the Harry Potter films as well. And so all these people, they’ve known them for so long, and they have this very lucrative – to use a negative word, but meaning in a good way – business relationship that produces such top quality.
Andrew: We’re going to continue with today’s episode in just a moment, but first, it’s time to remind you that today’s episode is brought to you by Audible.com.
[Ad break]
Andrew: Moving on, there’s this new J.K. Rowling book out, sort of. It’s called J.K. Rowling: A Bibliography, and basically, it seems really interesting and also really expensive. It chronicles the publication of every J.K. Rowling book from 1997 to 2013, so that means, obviously, includes the entire Harry Potter series, plus The Cuckoo’s Calling and The Casual Vacancy. And this is more for academic purposes, which is why it costs over $100. [laughs] But it was written by somebody outside of J.K. Rowling’s world, but he worked closely with the Harry Potter publishers in the US and the UK, and J.K. Rowling herself… even J.K. Rowling admitted that she is “in awe of the level of detail and amount of time Philip has dedicated to this slavishly thorough and somewhat mind-boggling bibliography.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: And it includes things like changes in each edition of the Harry Potter books, so like when a second edition, a reprint, happened within the… for a Harry Potter book, it notes all the little corrections that were made as well. It also…
Laura: Oh, yeah, I’m looking at that right now. It’s mainly the decision to capitalize certain letters in different editions.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, and just goofy things like this one example for Philosopher’s Stone, page 56, line 17 and 18: “seventeen Sickles an ounce” to “sixteen Sickles an ounce.”
Eric: [gasps] They changed the exchange rate!
Andrew: Yeah, why? Why did this happen?
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Probably in terms of alliteration, I would imagine.
Eric: Well, “seventeen Sickles” and “sixteen Sickles” are both alliterative.
Laura: True, but I guess I’m thinking in terms of the actual phonemes of these words. Like, you have that “sic” sound in “sixteen” and “Sickles.”
Eric: Ohhh. Wow, we’re talking about phonemes on MuggleCast. No, that’s impressive. I didn’t even think about that.
Andrew: Well, how about on page 72, line 25, it used to say “a shiny silver badge,” and now it says “a shiny red and gold badge.”
Micah: Oooh.
Andrew: What does it mean?
Eric: Now, that’s anti-alliterative.
Laura: I mean… I have no idea.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Now, I will say I really like the rejected titles, though. They list them here for Goblet of Fire, and I’m happy that she went with Goblet of Fire…
Eric: Oh, gosh. What are…?
Micah: … because Harry Potter and the Death Eaters doesn’t really cut it. Harry Potter and the Fire Goblet…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: … that doesn’t work.
Elysa: “Fire Goblet.”
Micah: And Harry Potter and the Three Champions.
Laura: Sounds like a bad translation.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Yeah, yeah, exactly. You put it into Google Translate, and that’s what it spits back out.
Andrew: Yeah, it just seems really fascinating. Again, you can purchase this; physical copies go on sale in April for $120. You can actually get a Kindle version now for $80.
Micah: Ooh.
Elysa: I would love it if they used this as a jumping off point to just completely rewrite something. Like if it said, “Oh, and then actually, in the new edition Harry ends up getting together with Hermione,” and everyone’s like, “What? It doesn’t say that anywhere.”
[Andrew laughs]
Elysa: “I don’t remember. I don’t remember seeing that.” And J.K. Rowling is just like, “Uhh…”
Eric: Yeah, who’s going to fact check this fact checker?
Andrew: [laughs] Right.
Eric: Who’s going to take on that massive project?
Micah: You know what I think? I think J.K. Rowling should give away some copies on Twitter.
Andrew: She should; that’d be cool. Good promotional tactic.
Micah: Right?
Andrew: Get in touch with her, Micah. You follow her now.
Micah: I’m going to tweet at her.
Andrew: [laughs] Okay.
Micah: And I’m going to tell her that this is what she should do.
Andrew: You could go in on that.
Micah: You think it’ll work?
Laura: I would probably buy something like this, though. I think it’s really interesting.
Andrew: I do too. Birthday gift.
Micah: More interesting than Goblet of Fire.
Andrew: [laughs] Wow.
Eric: Whoa, whoa!
Elysa: Tell us how you really feel.
Eric: Some old school hatred for old school Harry Potter books.
Andrew: Elysa and Laura, do you follow J.K. Rowling on Twitter?
Laura: I do, but I don’t…
Elysa: Yeah, but I don’t follow Twitter.
Eric: Let’s re-ask that question in three minutes. [whispers] Guys, go follow J.K. Rowling on Twitter.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: No, I do follow her. I just haven’t really noticed that she says a whole lot, or maybe she has increased with what she tweets recently. I feel like in the last few months, she’s commented on a lot of really big news stories, but previously, I remember I would go to her page and there were, like, two tweets on it, so I just sort of stopped paying attention.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, the reason I ask is because Micah refused to follow her up until December, and that was way after she started tweeting more, so I was just curious.
Laura: Why?
Elysa: Wait, why?
Andrew: Because he’s just weird like that.
Micah: Well, no, here’s the reason…
Laura: It’s like some power play.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: It is.
Eric: That’s exactly what it was.
Micah: No, she didn’t say anything. She kept saying the same thing, “Pen and paper are my priority,” over and over and over again, so I didn’t feel a need to follow somebody who doesn’t tweet.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: If I follow somebody, I want to see what they have to say.
Andrew: All right.
Eric: And now she is the most interesting person on Twitter.
Andrew: In other news, we’ve known for a while that the Harry Potter books are going to be republished as fully illustrated novels, and for a while, we were left wondering what “fully illustrated” means, and now we’re finally finding out. In January, Amazon revealed that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone the fully illustrated edition is going to cost $30 – at least after the Amazon discount – and consist of 256 pages. According to the book’s description, there will be over 100 illustrations, which averages out to just over five illustrations per chapter. I did the math and figured that out.
Eric: Yeah, I’m glad you did the math on that. That actually sheds a lot of light onto how many… I mean, just how often you’ll be breaking the eye from text to image.
Micah: Couldn’t they just take the illustrations from Pottermore and put them into a book?
Andrew: No, I don’t think they’re doing that. [laughs] That’d be so lame.
Eric: No, the Pottermore ones are too general. They’re too… right, because it’s supposed to be what your imagination can…
Micah: Right, you don’t see the characters’ faces.
Andrew: Yeah, which… and that’s interesting because I remember that was a whole big thing with Pottermore; they were like, “Yeah, we really set out to not change what people had in their heads with the characters,” which, like Micah said, that’s why they didn’t show the faces. But now with this one, we’ve seen some illustrations, and we know they’re showing the faces. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, it’s the artist’s… it’s Jim Kay’s interpretation.
Micah: Yeah, Hermione is in our album art, for crying out loud.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: Yeah, guys, click left on your phone two times. You’ll see our image. That’s Hermione.
[Andrew and Elysa laugh]
Eric: But yeah, so they’ve gone back to – or not gone back to – but it’s a different thing, right? When you’re selling a book, the actual Harry Potter book, it’s okay to have this artist rendering, because it’s just like Mary Grand-Pré with the chapter header images that the American books had. It was her interpretation of what each character looked like.
Andrew: And I think – we don’t know for sure – but it looks like these books are going to be wide, kind of? If you look at the placeholder art, you see that the book doesn’t look like the standard dimensions of a book, that it looks wider, and I think that’s why this thing is only 256 pages, and can also accommodate 100 illustrations with the full book.
Eric: Right.
Micah: Now, is the copy changed at all, though? To make it more simplistic?
Andrew: Yes, they’re changing “seventeen Sickles” to “sixteen Sickles.”
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: I don’t know. It seems like…
Laura: Just in case you can’t count that high yet.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: I can’t, I can’t, so it’s good that they’re doing that. It does seem, though, that these are children’s books, right? Or is it just illustrating them? Because that was the question I was going to throw out to the group, really, is do you think this makes them seem more like children’s books because they’re being illustrated? And obviously, not all adult books that have illustrations are considered childish in nature, but I’m saying for such a long time, the series carried the stigma of being a children’s book series, and so many people argued against the point, saying, “No, it’s not just for children.” Do you think this kind of goes against that?
Andrew: I don’t really know their intentions behind doing this.
Micah: Money, but anyway.
Laura: Yeah. But I mean, there are all sorts of editions of popular books that get released like this with illustrations. I’m pretty sure they’ve done it with, I mean, Lord of the Rings, for instance. I’m fairly certain I’ve seen copies of it like that. I think it would just boil down to how “childish” the illustrations themselves look, and to me, what I’ve seen so far, it doesn’t look cartoonish.
Andrew: No, they look great.
Laura: They look really, really nice.
Andrew: I mean, the level of detail, it’s going to be so fun just paging through these and seeing what he came up with. Because I know there was one piece of art – I can’t remember which one – but a character was standing in front of a door, I think, in Hogwarts, and there was tons of these etchings of names and stuff on the door.
Eric: Oh, that’s actually the Hermione shot.
Andrew: The Hermione shot, okay.
Eric: It is. In fact, somebody who saw the album art – I don’t have their username – but they suggested that we secretly scrawl our name on the door.
Andrew: Oh, right. [laughs]
Eric: So maybe we’ll update that album art. But anyway…
Andrew: So do you guys think you’ll buy these? Or at least buy the first one?
Eric: I’d like to.
Andrew: Me too.
Eric: This is a different way to experience the books because there’s… I don’t know. It’s official art because it’s coming from…
Micah: Pictures.
Eric: Yeah, but I wonder what it’s going to be like to actually read through the book and then have the pictures each page. That’ll be a different experience, right? There’s only so many times you can read the original books; there’s only so many times you watch the movies. So now here’s a different way of experiencing the series, and it’s kind of cool that it’s all new, fully realized art, over 100 pieces just in the first book. I think it’ll be cool. This excites me more than the 10th anniversary with just the same book with a different cover.
Andrew: Right. And by the way, these are going to be coming out once a year, so the first book comes out October 6, 2015, and then the next one will come out in 2016, and so forth. So it’s going to take a while for all these to be published. Understandably so, because there’s going to be so many illustrations, especially in the bigger ones. Order of the Phoenix, we’ll probably have over 200 illustrations.
Laura: Good grief, by the time these all come out, it’ll have been, like, 25 years since I picked the books up for the first time.
Andrew: Oh, yeah. By then, J.K. Rowling is going to be working on Harry Potter 8; nobody’s going to care about those illustrated books.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: “Wait, what?” [laughs] So moving on, I wanted to mention, have you guys heard of these Funko Pop! vinyl figurines?
Micah: Yes.
Elysa and Laura: No.
Eric: They’re taking over the world.
Elysa: What’s this?
Andrew: They’re super popular figurines. Funko teams up with all of these brands, including Disney and Game of Thrones. Every show and movie, anyone popular, has Pop! vinyl figures, and for the longest time, people have wondered, “When are the Harry Potter figures coming? When are they coming?” And finally, they were announced in February at the New York Toy Fair, and there’s going to be seven figurines: Harry, Hagrid, Hermione, Dumbledore, Ron, Snape… who am I missing? Is that everybody? Voldemort.
Eric: Ahh.
Andrew: And they look great. So people who love Pop! vinyl figures – and I know there are a ton of people – rejoice.
Laura: They look like Hello Kitty.
[Elysa laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, they kind of do, don’t they?
Micah: I was just going to say, I have a few from Game of Thrones, until you said that.
Eric: I do have a few. I have Daenerys and Tyrion from Game of Thrones. But then I have Belle and the Beast, Disney ones.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Such a contrast.
Eric: They’re actually all… they belong to my girlfriend. But they all have the same trademark black eyes; it’s just pupils. But the Harry Potter ones look really cute, really, really… I like every single one of them. They seem to somehow capture the character in a way that is, I’d say, above average for the Pop! Funko dolls. And I will say that I like how Hagrid is…
Micah: You’re just trying to oversell it now.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, well, that’s kind of what I do when I’m passionate about Harry Potter stuff. But anyway…
Micah: Well, look, it’s fine. I think if these were around during Potter‘s heyday, they would have sold millions of them.
Andrew: I think they will still sell millions, actually.
Eric: Yeah, one of the things that they do with Funko is they occasionally have a figurine that’s taller than the others, so Hagrid is the one that’s bigger than all the rest, which makes sense. [pause] Oh, sorry, an ad came up. But I will say that… oh, Hypable is giving me ads now. Come on, guys.
Andrew: Yeah, there’s ads on Hypable. That shouldn’t surprise you.
Eric: [laughs] No, it’s like I can’t turn it off. How did it…? Wait, where’d it go? I clicked the x. Where did it go? All right, it’s done. I was just trying to say there’s Frozen, Disney’s Frozen; they have, I think, the snowman, not Olaf, but the snow creature that Elsa creates to kill everybody or whatever to guard her temple – whatever it is – of ice. That’s the one in that set that’s super big. So now it’s Hagrid, so that’s really exciting.
Andrew: [laughs] Okay. Well, you won’t have to buy the Hermione one if you already have the Belle one, because Emma Watson… see what I did there?
Eric: Oh, hey, you’re right! You’re right. I’m just going to buy all the other Harry Potter ones and then have the Belle one in there next to Harry. [laughs]
Quote Quiz
Andrew: All right, so that’s enough for news. Micah, you’re going to bring back an old segment: Quote Quiz, quiz, quiz, quiz, quiz…! [trails off]
Micah: Yeah, so I initially titled it…
Eric: Do you guys remember Quote Quiz?
Micah: Yes. Now that you mention it, I do, especially the way that the quiz trails off at the end. Laura, Elysa, do you remember it?
Laura: I do.
Elysa: Vaguely.
Andrew: It still haunts Laura in her nightmares.
[Elysa and Laura laugh]
Laura: I don’t remember if I was very good at it.
Eric: Yeah, I don’t remember either.
Micah: See, when we were planning this show, I was going to call it Whose Line, but somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that we had done this before. So Eric, thanks for pointing it out that it was called Quote Quiz.
Eric: Actually, you’ve got to thank Terrance Pinkston, host of Hogwarts Radio, because I called him today and I was like, “Do you remember this segment that we used to do?” He was like, “It was called Quote Quiz,” and I was like, “Oh, yeah!” Apparently we used to do it after Chapter by Chapter to preview the next week’s chapter.
Andrew: Yes, that’s true.
Eric: And it was called Quote Quiz, quiz, quiz, quiz… [trails off]
Andrew: All right, well, why don’t we actually do it? [laughs]
Micah: All right. Sounds good.
Andrew: Longest intro ever.
[Elysa laughs]
Micah: No, we’re just setting the stage. Come on, man. Anyway.
Eric: Well, there’s nothing in the doc.
Micah: In that case, Andrew, you can go first.
Andrew: Great.
Micah: So…
Andrew: Sorcerer’s Stone.
Micah: Well, you have to give the character as well as the book.
Andrew: Oh, crap.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: You get extra points if you get the book as well.
Laura: Oh, man. I’m going to fail at this.
Micah: So the first quote, Andrew: “Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.”
Andrew: Oh, this sounds so… is it Dumbledore?
Micah: Is that your final answer?
Andrew: Yeah, I guess.
Micah: That would be incorrect.
Laura: I think I know that one.
Micah: Yeah, we can open it up to the group now.
Laura: Wasn’t it Mr. Weasley in Chamber of Secrets?
Micah: Yes, it was.
Andrew: Ohhh.
Laura: I just almost celebrated by saying a bad word that does not go on this show. [laughs]
Andrew: Oh, we’ve grown up. You can do that.
Micah: We’re all older now. You can say that.
Laura: Okay.
Micah: What was it going to be?
Laura: A word that I feel is appropriate for a show like Millennial and not this show.
Andrew: Okay, fair enough. All right, next one?
Eric: Well, congratulations, Laura.
Laura: Thanks.
Micah: All right, next one will go to Elysa.
Elysa: Yes.
Micah: “I say there are spots that don’t come off… spots that never come off, d’you know what I mean?”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: No way.
Elysa: I do, but I’m not sure…
[Elysa and Laura laugh]
Micah: No, that is definitely for the other show.
Laura: That is not a real quote.
Eric: I would guess…
Elysa: Okay, “I say there are spots that don’t come off…” Mad-Eye?
Micah: That is correct.
Elysa: No way. Are you serious?
Micah: Yeah!
Elysa: I just pulled a name out of a hat. That’s a miracle.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: In what book?
Elysa: I don’t… I mean, I want to… Goblet of Fire?
Micah: That is also correct.
Andrew: Wow.
Eric: Yeah, I think he’s talking about Karkaroff, right, in the scene?
Laura: Oh yeah, the Dark Mark. Okay. Now it’s all coming back to me.
Eric: Yeah, he’s talking about how Karkaroff isn’t reformed, although he’s really deflecting because he’s secretly Barty Crouch, Jr. but…
Laura: Yeah. So I totally thought you were trolling her for a second, Micah.
Elysa: I did too.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: I thought you picked a quote that was not even remotely related to Harry Potter. That was awesome.
Elysa: I was going to attribute that to Laura, actually.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: All right, Eric, this one’s for you.
Eric: Oh, great.
Micah: “You should have realized if Voldemort didn’t kill you, we would. Goodbye, Peter.”
Elysa: Why does he get the easy one?
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: That would be Sirius Black from Prisoner of Azkaban.
Micah: That would be incorrect.
[Elysa gasps]
Andrew: Wait, what?
Micah: The book is correct, but who says it is wrong.
Laura: Oh, it’s Lupin.
Micah: It is Lupin.
Eric: Lupin, huh? Lupin is the one who actually says, “You should have realized that we would kill you if Voldemort didn’t”?
Micah: Prisoner of Azkaban, Chapter 19.
Eric: No kidding. Because he’s the one who isn’t quite so hasty to kill Peter, and Sirius is the one who really is. Huh, okay. I admit…
Micah: Maybe it’s Sirius who says it in the movie.
Elysa: Yeah, I think it is.
Eric: I wonder. Well, anyway. Wow. I’m so ashamed.
Andrew: All right, and one more?
Micah: And finally for Laura: “I’m sure we’re all going to be very good friends.”
Laura: I have no idea.
Andrew: That’s a tough one.
Eric: “Hem-hem!”
Laura: What?
Eric: “Hem-hem!”
[Andrew laughs]
Elysa: Is there a squirrel on the show? [laughs]
Laura: Are you dying?
Andrew: Laura is ready to hit “End call” on Skype right now.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: I legitimately have no idea.
Andrew: I know what Eric is doing.
Elysa: As I flip through every page of every book for this quote…
Eric: [whispers] It’s Umbridge.
Laura: Oh, okay.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: And then the book would be Order of the Phoenix.
Micah: Yes, that is correct.
Eric: Yes! Redeemed!
Andrew: That was tough, though. I mean, that could be really any number of characters.
Laura: I was thinking back to, like, “Okay, did somebody say something on the train to Hogwarts in the first book?” I was wracking my brain.
Micah: It could have been Draco.
Laura: Yeah, exactly.
Elysa: I actually was going to guess Draco.
Andrew: All right, well, that’s how we play Quote Quiz. Micah, out of curiosity, how did you…? Did you just go into the books and randomly pull stuff out? Okay.
Micah: Well, I also looked for quotes from different characters, more obscure characters. Not just the Dumbledores and Hermiones of the world.
Andrew: Right, right.
Micah: Because I think that makes it a little bit more challenging. Everybody knows Dumbledore’s quotes, I feel like, for the most part.
Eric: Yeah, he does have a few of those very memorable ones. No, nice work. I’d say that was a pretty successful, pretty challenging segment.
Andrew: I like that game.
Eric: That’s a good game.
Pen and Paper Are My Priority
Andrew: So that’s an old segment, and now here’s a new segment. I am calling it “Pen and Paper Are My Priority.” Of course, this doesn’t really relate to this segment, other than the fact that that’s all J.K. Rowling would tweet back in the day. But now she tweets a lot, and if you go on some sites – including Hypable and MuggleNet, but to a lesser degree on those sites – people love to report on what J.K. Rowling said, no matter how minuscule it was. But so she’s tweeting a lot, and I thought every episode we could start looking at some of the tweets just to update everybody, like Laura, who doesn’t keep on top of everything she’s tweeting. Because she does tweet some interesting things; she’s tweeted some big things, and then there’s been medium things, and then there’s been completely useless things, and we try to cover them all in this segment if we’re not talking about them in the news. So here are a couple updates for everyone: She offered advice to a budding writer. Somebody said, “So I have this issue in my writing. I am too invested in my characters, and my plot ends up sidelined. Could I get any advice?” So I think it’s really cool to get some advice from J.K. Rowling on Twitter; that’s pretty huge. So J.K. Rowling said, “Character can be plot. Plan, plan, and plan, but stay invested in those characters.” She also addressed the next Cormoran Strike book. Somebody said, “Can Robert reveal the title?” And J.K. Rowling likes to speak for Robert on Twitter, which always amuses me. She said, “Robert shares my only writing superstition, which is that I only type the title page of a novel once the book’s finished.” So apparently, J.K. Rowling has still not finished the next Cormoran Strike novel, because she hasn’t revealed the title.
Micah: Unless it’s Goblet of Fire. Then she comes up with five of them that change.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Well, no, I mean, she doesn’t say that she doesn’t have the title; she just said that she doesn’t type it out on page, so it hasn’t been written down in the book yet. You know what I’m saying?
Andrew: True. But I think in another tweet, which I didn’t include in here, she said something about as soon as it’s finished, she’ll let us know. I don’t know. But I thought it was interesting to learn her writing superstition, which is that she only writes the title page of a novel once the book’s finished.
Eric: That’s kind of cool. There’s a finality to that, because the title page is the first page that you see.
Andrew: Yeah. Laura and Elysa will like this one: She tweeted about a big news item. “Jon Stewart is leaving The Daily Show, one of my favorite TV programs ever. That’s major news to get over your morning tea. #BritishGrief.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Elysa: God bless her.
Laura: Yeah, there was a lot of American grief going on over here as well.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: It’s very painful.
Eric: Do you guys remember…? It was at the Harry, Carrie, and Garp celebration in New York. How many of us were there?
Laura: Yep, we were all there.
Eric: Jon Stewart opened for J.K. Rowling, or intro’d her. That is the only time I’ve seen him live, but I really loved… didn’t he tell a story about his son reading Harry Potter?
Andrew: Maybe. I forget.
Laura: Yeah, I don’t remember specifically what he said. But yeah, I think the two of them have crossed paths at least two or three times in their professional lives, and it’s clear that they have a mutual admiration for each other, so yeah.
Andrew: J.K. Rowling was on The Daily Show once.
Eric: Oh, really?
Andrew: Yeah, to promote The Casual Vacancy, I think.
Eric: Somehow I missed that.
Laura: It was a really good interview, if you haven’t seen it.
Andrew: Of course it was. Those two are amazing.
Eric: Yeah, they are.
Andrew: [laughs] So then J.K. Rowling will get goofy tweets, like somebody tweeted to her, “What should I do with my life?” She responded to this; she said, “Ideally, something that makes you happy and doesn’t involve serial killing. Can’t be more specific without further information.”
[Everyone laughs]
Elysa: I love that she specifies serial killing, as though if you kill one person, though, that’s cool. Just not more than one.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: I think serial killing, you have to be… you have to kill, I think, three people for it to be serial.
Andrew: So I’ve got two more tweets. Somebody tweeted to her, “What’s your favorite brand of tea?” She said, “Lancashire Tea. I’m drinking it right now.”
Eric: Huh.
Andrew: And then finally, here’s a tweet… I think she gets asked this a lot because she seemed kind of aggravated by it. She was tweeted a question from Tumblr: “How come when Harry gets bitten by the Basilisk in Chamber of Secrets, that doesn’t destroy the Horcrux in him? Someone answer this.” So J.K. Rowling responded, “The Horcrux receptacle has to be destroyed BEYOND REPAIR, so Harry would need to have DIED. #PleaseNeverAskMeThatOneAgain.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I think she’s fed up with that one.
Micah: She’s getting feisty.
Eric: Little feisty, little feisty in that one. Although that question, to me, is kind of… I mean, I think it’s pressing, right? Because there’s this whole “Harry would have needed to have died,” but yet dying was what saved the day in the end, him dying. So I’m still a little bit confused over that question, but I’m going to obey her hashtag.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I will say, though, she does do a lot of cool stuff. She tweets about sports from time to time as well, and she actually made a bet… I believe it was with somebody in Italy…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: No, no, this is true, and she bet a signed copy of a book for some Nutella. And I think she won at the end of the day, but she thought so much of the person that she decided to actually send them the signed book anyway.
Andrew: Oh, cool. Wait, some Nutella was on the other side of the bet? The treat?
[Eric laughs]
Micah: That’s what she wanted! That’s what she…
Andrew: Oh.
Eric: I would love to send JKR Nutella. I wouldn’t touch the stuff myself, but…
Andrew: [laughs] Okay. So that’s our new segment, “Pen and Paper Are My Priority.” I hope everybody likes it, because she tweets a lot of interesting stuff on Twitter these days.
Eric: She really does, she really does. And I’m grateful for that recap. That’s some really good stuff.
Andrew: No problem. I will continue to keep an eye on it. I get mobile notifications every time she tweets because I want to stay on top of her, but I’ve been thinking about turning…
Micah: Don’t we all?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Micah! Micah.
Eric: What is this, Millennial? Come on, man.
Micah: Sorry, that was just too easy not to say.
Elysa: You shouldn’t have quit, Micah. This is what happens.
Andrew: [laughs] But what was I going to say? Oh, I may turn off mobile notifications because she tweets so much. But I want to stay on top. Not in that way, though.
This Month in Harry Potter History
Andrew: Okay, so another new segment here. I thought we should do kind of a look-back, a flashback, if you will. “This Month in Harry Potter History.” We’re only going to be able to do this for a year, because otherwise we’re going to start rehashing things.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: So wait, first of 12 times only.
Andrew: Yes. Limited run. So this month in Harry Potter history… actually, this first one is pretty fitting. We only have two items. 14 years ago, Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts were published. This was in March 2001. Do you guys remember buying these?
Elysa: Yeah, I do.
Laura: I actually remember coming home from school one day and my mom had bought them for me.
Andrew: Aww.
Laura: They were sitting on the table waiting for me.
Eric: Oh, best mom.
Andrew: So was…? I mean, I can’t remember because it was so long ago. Were we, like, excited when these came out? [laughs]
Laura: We didn’t know each other when these came out.
Andrew: No, I know, but personally, when…
Micah: No.
Eric: I didn’t even know Potter yet until that year, until November of that year.
Andrew: Oh, okay.
Eric: This is 2001, and it was after the movie that… I mean, I didn’t even read the books until 2002 in June or July. And so I’m trying to think when I would have read these companion books, but I probably would have read them after Goblet, in that three-year gap, which was only a one-year gap for me of those books. But I remember liking the books because they’re quite creative. They have this cheekiness about them. I know with… was it Quidditch Through the Ages? She has the writing in the margins of people who have previously checked the book out. And Fantastic Beasts is just funny because of all the beasts and what their classification is. It’s just really interesting stuff.
Laura: Well, and don’t Harry and Ron write in the margins of that one as well?
Eric: I think so. Maybe the writing in the margins is Fantastic Beasts, and I’m confusing them. But I remember liking them both.
Laura: I think they both have it.
Andrew: I think they both too.
Eric: Oh, okay. They’re both really funny. And with Quidditch, I remember liking the real… the origin where, like, Queerditch Marsh was, the place where the Golden… what was the bird? It was a bug or a bird or something that was the original Golden Snitch.
Laura: It was a bird, yeah.
Eric: Snidget, maybe? Golden Snidget? Something like that. Anyway, it was just totally made-up crap, but it was so fun to think that it could have happened that way.
Andrew: And they were cool, because they benefited charity. They benefited Comic Relief; over 80% of the cover price of each book went directly to poor children in various places around the world. And it was J.K. Rowling’s first sort of extra Harry Potter material.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: Because it came out after Goblet of Fire. And now we’re getting a movie trilogy based on one of them.
Eric: Yeah, I’m really glad these exist, and we weren’t… I mean, Tales of Beedle the Bard was meant to be a private thing, until eventually that ended up going the same route by being published much later, like ten years later. But I’m so glad for these relief books. They just make the world a little bit more fun.
Elysa: I do remember actually buying these, though, because I didn’t read the Harry Potter books until 2004, so I don’t remember them being released, but I do remember buying them because I felt like I didn’t buy them until 2009 or something. Because I felt like, “Okay, you know what? I’m obviously a Harry Potter fan. I’m not going to be that Harry Potter fan that goes out and buys every little thing. I’m not going to take it to that next level.” It was some weird kind of power thing. And then 2009 came around; I thought, “You know what? Screw it, I’m already moderating Harry Potter fanfiction. It doesn’t get any nerdier than this. I’m going to finally buy these books.”
Andrew: [laughs] Right.
Laura: Yeah, and then, like, half the set. You guys should see the inside of her bedroom.
Elysa: Listen, just because I have a few wands doesn’t mean anything.
Andrew: You also have a Time-Turner, don’t you? From the Noble Collection?
Laura: You have so much stuff.
Elysa: [laughs] I have the Triwizard Tournament cup, a few different things…
Andrew: Very cool things.
Eric: I assume some of those were gifts, right?
Elysa: … Yeah!
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: To herself.
Eric: I was giving you an out, Elysa. Take it.
Elysa: They’re gifts. Thanks, Eric. Yeah, that’s what they were.
Andrew: Elysa, I’m glad you mentioned the fanfiction thing. For anybody who doesn’t know, Elysa used to run MuggleNet fanfiction.
Elysa: Yes.
Laura: Oh, man.
Elysa: Now it’s out there.
Andrew: [laughs] I wanted people to know.
Laura: Those were dark days.
Eric: The dark days. And I imagine there was fanfic based on Newt Scamander; I mean, even back then, probably one or two, right?
Elysa: Oh, for sure. Yeah, oh, absolutely. I mean, there was fanfiction based off of everything. You should have seen some of the stuff we got.
Laura: She means everything.
Andrew: Yeah, well, I mean, that’s probably what the movie’s based off of. One of the Newt Scamander fanfictions.
Eric: Probably. Probably JKR was hurting for an idea, and she went on MuggleNet and went and found it.
Andrew: And on the fandom side of things, March 2007 – five years ago, it was only – wait, am I doing that math right?
Laura: Eight years ago. [laughs]
Andrew: I don’t know what I was thinking.
Eric: Wow. That’s okay, that’s okay, Andrew has done more successful math earlier in the episode.
Andrew: Right, thank you. So March 2007 – eight years ago – was the debut of “The Mysterious Ticking Noise” released on YouTube by the Potter Puppet Pals. It has amassed 159 million views on YouTube.
Eric: Wow.
Andrew: After being uploaded March 23, 2007. Let’s listen to a little bit of it.
Micah: I’ve never seen it.
Andrew: What?!
Eric: You’ve never seen it?
Micah: No.
Andrew: Well, Micah, brace yourself. It’s going to be stuck in your head.
[ticking noise]
Snape: Kind of catchy…
Andrew: Snape is a puppet.
Snape: Snape, Snape, Severus Snape.
Andrew: They’re all puppets.
Snape: Snape, Snape, Severus Snape.
Dumbledore: Dumbledore!
Snape: Snape, Snape, Severus Snape.
Dumbledore: Dumbledore!
Snape: Snape, Snape, Severus Snape.
Dumbledore: Dumbledore!
Ron: Ron, Ron, Ron Weasley. Ron, Ron, Ron Weasley.
Hermione: Hermione… Hermione…
Andrew: Micah. Micah, Micah, Micah.
[Elysa and Laura laugh]
Andrew: I want Micah to redo that with “Micah” popping in.
Elysa: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: “Dumbledore! Micah.”
Eric: That’d be awesome. Maybe for the 10th anniversary in two Marches for now, we’ll all make puppets of ourselves and go do that. Potter Puppet Pals are amazing in general, but this particular video for me is just my favorite thing that Neil Cicierega, who created Potter Puppet Pals, has ever done. It’s catchy.
Andrew: It made him who he is. I mean…
Micah: Famous?
Andrew: Yeah, that was his big video.
Eric: Yeah. It’s really the syncopation, the beat, the rhythm, the cuteness…
Micah: I hope he monetized it.
Andrew: Oh, yeah, you have to sit through an ad to watch that thing.
Eric: Yeah. But it’s so worth it.
Andrew: [laughs] It’s so worth it.
Eric: Also, there’s actually a… no, no, there’s a following. People at HP cons for the longest time would try and recreate it with their pals. There’s actually… so if you search “Mysterious Ticking Noise,” you’ll get the video, but then also, there’s a ton of people doing it. Just Harry Potter fans out in public, in appropriate places, appropriate places. It’s really inspired a generation – there I go overselling it again – but it’s a lot of fun. I can’t believe there are still people in this world – Micah – who hadn’t seen it.
Micah: I’m definitely going to check this out after the show.
Eric: Yeah, it’s a blast.
Andrew: Micah, I seriously want you to record your own version of that with “Micah” in it. “Micah.”
[Eric laughs]
Micah: All right.
Andrew: Seriously, go and do that.
Micah: For next month’s show, I’ll do it.
Andrew: Okay, thank you.
Elysa: But every name should be Micah’s name.
[Everyone laughs]
Elysa: So all of them is just “Micah.”
Eric: It’ll be like John Malkovich, right? Being John Malkovich? He goes in that world, and they’re all Malkoviches.
Elysa: Exactly.
Make the Music Connection
Andrew: Now it’s time for another old segment…
Eric: Woo!
Andrew: … this one produced by Eric, this episode at least.
Eric: Yeah, I’m giving up. You guys do it next time. [laughs] This is very challenging, but it’s a lot of fun. This was recommended – or suggested – by our good friend Tracy, Tracy Wong, who runs our transcripts, MuggleCast transcripts. And I asked her what kind of segment she would be interested in seeing again from old MuggleCast, and the answer was, M-m-m-m-make the Music Connection!
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Which never before had that trill on the “M-m-make,” but hey, it’s new and it’s old at the same time. Andrew, I have you running this for me through the soundboard, but viewers at home – sorry, listeners – may remember that Make the Music Connection was a spinoff of our other segment called Make the Connection, wherein the British Jamie Lawrence would just make stuff up and we would have to connect it to Harry Potter. Make the Music Connection was a more contemporary twist, where we would play a clip from popular music – or really any song in general – and based on the lyrics and the beat, each of the MuggleCast hosts on the episode would have to draw a connection to the Harry Potter world and Harry Potter characters, situations, that sort of thing, all based on that music clip, whatever one that they got. Each person gets their own clip.
Andrew: So who wants to go first? Micah, I’m choosing you.
Micah: Since I chose you before.
Andrew: Micah, I know, is always on top of Top 40, so this should be no problem for him. Sorry for using the “on top of” thing again.
Micah: No, that’s fine.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Micah is always below Top 40, so… [laughs]
Eric: Bringing it back.
Andrew: All right, so here you go, Micah. Make the music connection between Harry Potter and whatever this song is about to be. [laughs]
[“Take Me to Church” by Hozier plays]
If I’m a pagan of the good time
My lover’s the sunlight
To keep the goddess on my side
She demands a sacrifice
Drain the whole sea, get somethin’ shiny
Somethin’ meaty for the main course
That’s a fine lookin’ high horse
Andrew: Okay, so that’s clearly “Take Me to Church” by Hozier. [pronounces it “Hoosier”]
Micah: “Hoosier” daddy?
Andrew: Yeah. Micah, oh my gosh.
Micah: [laughs] What?
Andrew: So dirty.
Eric: Make the connection. Make the connection.
Micah: I heard a lot of “Take me to church.”
Elysa: Well done. That is the title.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Wait, that’s not… oh, excuse me. That’s not Harry-ness.
Micah: What?
Eric: Connect it to Harry Potter.
Micah: I know; I’m trying. There’s no churches in Harry Potter that I know of.
Eric: Oh. There was something about…
Andrew: Don’t you dare bring religion into this, Laura Mallory/Micah.
Micah: Oh yeah, that’s right. I forgot about her. I don’t know. It just seems almost like a theme song for somebody, but I can’t put my finger on it.
Andrew: I would say Trelawney. Trelawney’s theme song.
Micah: As she’s drinking in the tower?
[Eric laughs]
Elysa: You know…
Micah: Go ahead.
Elysa: It actually reminds me… this is probably reaching a bit. That’s one of my favorite songs, and the whole song, if you listen to the lyrics, are about just a man being head over heels, ridiculously in love with a woman to the point where… he’s saying, “Take me to church; I’ll worship at the shrine of your lies” and all this shit – or excuse me – all this stuff.
[Andrew and Elysa laugh]
Micah: Are you going with Bellatrix here?
Elysa: No, I was actually… oh, that’s a good one, though. I was actually going to go with Snape and Lily Potter, but Bellatrix is awesome. Bellatrix and Voldemort would be pretty cool, too.
Andrew: All right, so next one, Laura.
Laura: Okay.
Andrew: You ready? Here we go.
Laura: I’m ready.
[“All About That Bass” by Meghan Trainor plays]
Yeah, it’s pretty clear, I ain’t no size two
But I can shake it, shake it, like I’m supposed to do
‘Cause I got that boom boom that all the boys chase
And all the right junk in all the right places
Micah: Dumbledore.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: No, no, no. This is so clearly about Dudley Dursley and his battle against childhood obesity.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Nice. That’s how the game is played.
Elysa: That’s perfect.
Andrew: Yeah, excellent. Okay, Eric, you want to go next?
Eric: Yeah, I’ll go.
Andrew: Here’s the next one.
[“Blank Space” by Taylor Swift plays]
Nice to meet you, where you been?
I could show you incredible things
Magic, madness, heaven, sin
Saw you there, and I thought
Oh my God, look at that face
You look like my next mistake
Love’s a game; wanna play?
Andrew: Taylor Swift and “Blank Space.” Make the connection.
Eric: Oh, gosh. Just that thing about showing you magic… there’s a little bit of Hagrid in there for me because he shows Harry the magic world, but mostly I’m thinking young Lily and Petunia, who is experiencing the wizarding world for the first time through her sister. But maybe it was a mistake to show her that world, because she ends up resenting Lily? That’s the best I got.
Andrew: Okay, that’s good. That’s no Dudley Dursley, but…
Eric: Yeah, it’s definitely not any Dudley Dursley. I think Laura is going to be the MVP of this segment.
Andrew: All right, I’ll nominate myself for the next clip. I’m scared.
Eric: Okay.
[“Stay With Me” by Sam Smith plays]
Why am I so emotional?
[Andrew, Elysa, and Laura laugh]
No, it’s not a good look, gain some self-control
And deep down, I know this never works
But you can lay with me so it doesn’t hurt
Andrew: All right, so that’s obviously Sam Smith, “Stay With Me.” I mean, gosh, you could go a million different ways with that one.
Elysa: Definitely Filch singing to his cat.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Oh, nice!
Andrew: That could be. I’m going to also go with Voldemort singing to his Horcruxes.
Elysa: Oooh.
Andrew: [laughs] “Please stay with me.”
[Eric laughs]
Elysa: Well done, Andrew.
Andrew: “Stay with me; you’re all I need.” I mean, truly, that keeps them around. Okay, and then this last one, let’s just do it as a group, since we’ve all participated at this point.
Eric: Okay.
[“Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars plays]
If we show up, we gon’ show out
Smoother than a fresh jar of Skippy
I’m too hot (hot damn)
Call the police and the fireman
I’m too hot (hot damn)
Make a dragon wanna retire, man
I’m too hot (hot damn)
Bitch, say my name, you know who I am
I’m too hot (hot damn)
Andrew: Good thing this is a group one. “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson and that popular guy.
Eric: Bruno Mars?
Andrew: Bruno!
Eric: Featuring Bruno Mars. So hot you make a dragon want to retire. For me, that’s, what, first task Harry?
Andrew: [laughs] Okay.
Eric: Because he gives that Hungarian Horntail… well, in the movie, a chase. In the Triwizard Tournament from Goblet of Fire. That’s what I’m going to suggest. What do you guys think?
Micah: I just see it as a song that’s playing at a party inside Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.
Elysa: Yes, I agree.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Oooh.
Elysa: I was going to say this reminds me of the twins’ theme song. I can see them strutting down a runway to that song.
Andrew: Somebody should bring a boombox into Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes at the Wizarding World and make that happen.
Eric: And maybe “hot” doesn’t have to be literal. Maybe it’s the orange in their hair, like the fire hair kind of thing.
Andrew: There you go.
Eric: That’s cool.
Andrew: All right, so that’s Make the Music Connection. That was fun.
Question of the Week
Andrew: So another former segment that we’re continuing here on the new MuggleCast is Question of the Week. We asked people who follow us on Twitter.com/MuggleCast and Facebook.com/MuggleCast: You’re Professor Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and you want to create a new Educational Decree for Hogwarts because you’re in a particularly bad mood. What’s your new rule? So the most liked submission here on Facebook is “Educational Decree number 104: Students who receive less than perfect marks on any written assignment must serve detention listening to slam poetry by Argus Filch.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Okay. Oh, gosh.
Andrew: Sam wrote in, “On Wednesdays, we wear pink.”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Christine said, “Educational Decree number 57 and a half: Everyone must walk one broomstick length behind each other. Failure to follow this decree results in punishment by chaperoning the teenage mandrakes.” Oh my gosh.
Eric: I love that.
Elysa: These are creative.
Eric: Yeah, that took some thought there. Those teenage mandrakes who were crawling into each other’s pots, right?
Micah: Yeah they are.
Eric: You’ve got to chaperone; make sure that’s not going to happen… yeah they are.
Elysa: Oh, God help us.
Eric: Welcome back to the land of the wakefulness, Micah.
[Andrew and Elysa laugh]
Andrew: Matthew Goldenberg said, “No post on Sunday.” Rachel said, “Educational Decree number 112: All Muggle-born students must perform the worst song in Muggle history in front of Hogwarts on their birthday or on a holiday. If this is not done, they will be forced to constantly listen to it for a week.” Oof.
Eric: Huh. What is the worst song in Muggle history?
Andrew: Probably one of the five we just listened to.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: I was going to say, it probably has to be by Taylor Swift.
Andrew: Whoa!
Eric: Yeah, that was a little harsh. But the end times, end of days…
Andrew: You just insulted our entire audience, Micah.
Micah: Maybe five years ago.
Andrew: Not the first time you’ve done that this episode. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, this is the only time that he’s insulted anybody this episode.
Andrew: [laughs] Let’s see. What else do we have here?
Eric: Oh, I like this one from Danielle Brightsteen, who says, “Educational Decree 394 -“ haha “- students are forbidden from the use of fractions, and decimals are 100% required. For example, the Hogwarts Express platform will from here on out be listed as platform 9.75.”
Andrew: That’s just mean.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I like this one. “Educational Decree number 87: Students who receive detention must clean Professor Dolores’s kitty plates without magic.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: So thank you to everybody who participated. You can participate yourself by following us on Twitter, Twitter.com/MuggleCast, or Facebook.com/MuggleCast. Speaking of those, I am so happy to say that the MuggleCast Facebook has reached 80,000 likes!
Eric: Wow.
Andrew: That’s a lot of likes.
Laura: Wow, that’s insane.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s funny because when we stopped regular episodes of MuggleCast back in 2011, it only had, like, 30,000 likes. But it’s grown because we’re continuing to post news on there, so thank you to everybody who liked us on Facebook. So those are our two social media channels, and then, of course, MuggleCast.com.
Millennial
Andrew: Elysa or Laura, want to tell everybody about Millennial, our new podcast that we’re also doing with Matt? Who will also be on a future episode of MuggleCast sometime.
Laura: Yeah, let’s talk about it a little bit. So #Millennial… the hashtag is silent; it’s very important that you know that.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: There’s a hashtag in front of the title. The show was something that we had all been talking about doing since, what, November of last year? So we put a lot of planning time into it before we launched it. But essentially, the idea is that it’s the Millennial perspective of things that are going on in the world right now. But we also have some fun games that we play; we do pranks and other stuff like that. It’s just a really fun show, a really great balance between serious news and the way that we just kind of bullshit our way through some other stuff.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: So I definitely recommend you listening to it. It’s, I think, a really, really great fusion of personalities as well. We have really great chemistry with each other just because we’ve known each other for so long, ten years.
Andrew: People who used to listen to Smart Mouths will recognize that it’s sort of similar to that, but it’s a new take on it. And we’re in a golden era for podcasting, as it was recently described.
Laura: Yes, a podcast renaissance.
Andrew: Right, and I mean, that’s one reason we wanted to bring back MuggleCast, and that’s a very large reason for why we wanted to launch this new podcast. And of course, Laura, Elysa, Matt, and I are all really good friends, like Laura mentioned. Even on the MuggleCast site, if you go to the home page right there, you can see Laura, Elysa, and Matt with Jim Dale back in 2010.
Laura: Oh my gosh, that’s a throwback.
Elysa: Oh, that picture’s still up?
Andrew: Still up.
Eric: Yeah, it’s still up. We haven’t changed the layout yet. Maybe we will.
Laura: I mean, if you guys… if at the very least, you want to hear stories about some of the crazy stuff we got into while we were at Harry Potter conventions, then you should go listen to Millennial.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s a new segment idea.
Laura: [laughs] Stuff we did at Harry Potter conventions.
Eric: I’m interested. I’m interested.
Elysa: That could be its own show.
Eric: There were those times when I was…
Laura: Eric, you know some of it. You were there.
Eric: I knew some of it. There were times when I was locked out of the room or not invited, but…
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Do I want to know what was going on?
Micah: Or Ben stole your razor blade? Didn’t he do that?
Elysa: It was for your own safety, Eric.
Laura: Oh my God, I remember that.
Eric: I did flip out more than I should have on Ben for the razor blade.
Micah: Little bit.
Eric: That was one of my not-so-proud moments.
Andrew: Oh my God, I forgot about that! Oh my gosh.
Eric: It was bad. It was bad.
Andrew: That was crazy.
Micah: The funny thing is Eric still doesn’t even shave, so…
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Well…
Andrew: Yeah, he didn’t even need the razor!
Eric: Ah, yeah. That’s super funny.
Andrew: Speaking of the pictures on the MuggleCast website at the top, one time I actually met a girl in one of the pictures after we had launched this redesign, and I recognized her but I didn’t know what from. And I was like, “I know you from somewhere,” and she’s like, “Yeah, I’m on the top of the MuggleCast site.” I was like, “Oh, that’s how I recognize you!”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: That’s awesome.
Eric: “You see me from your website.”
Andrew: Right, so anyway…
Laura: “Where’s my loyalty check, Andrew?”
Andrew: So visit MillennialShow.com. You can grab the podcast; it’s there. It’s also on iTunes. And you can listen to it every week.
Micah: This sounds like a great show. I really am going to give it a listen.
Andrew: Yeah, if you listen to the first seven episodes, you’ll hear Micah, but he decided the show is not for him, and it’s okay.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Well, seven is a good number. I forgot to write in the doc; I was going to ask Laura if there was a P.O. box update?
[Andrew and Elysa laugh]
Laura: So funny enough, I still have a huge bag full of stuff that we got at the P.O. box…
Andrew: Really?
Laura: … that I just never got around to sending because most of it was general.
Andrew: I want it.
Eric: I want it. I want it more.
Laura: Here’s the funny thing: I took over the P.O. box in the day because Ben originally ran it, and if you guys recall, he was terrible at it.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: He never checked it; he never sent anybody their stuff. And so I was like, “Screw you, Ben. I’m taking over. You don’t know how to do this.” And now I have all of this stuff sitting in my closet in my parents’ house in Georgia.
Andrew: Now you’re not mailing it out.
Laura: Now I’m terrible at it. I’m sorry.
Andrew: Well, I’m going to be in New Orleans next week. Maybe I’ll drive to Cumming, Georgia and pick a bag up.
Laura: Yeah, it’s really close. It’s not a far drive.
Andrew: I don’t know if you’re kidding or not, but I’m kidding. So anyway.
Eric: I want that stuff. I want that mail.
Andrew: And Micah and Eric also wanted to plug their podcast, Game of Owns.
Eric: Game of Owns. So I don’t know how many people who listen to this podcast also watch HBO’s hit series Game of Thrones, but the fifth season of that show is just about to premiere one month from tomorrow – or perhaps one month from today, depending on when this episode airs – and yeah, right now we’re going through the books in the off-season hour, as we like to call it, the on-season. Kind of reminiscent of what we used to do with Chapter by Chapter on MuggleCast. And it’s a really great world, great series; each book is a thousand pages long, so there’s just a lot of stuff, and the adaptation is very rich. I won’t say faithful, because things are changing, but it’s very rich. Micah, what do you think?
Micah: Just like Elysa said, I agree with everything that you just put out there.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: No, I think it was a good summary of the show. And with the season just about a month away, we’re excited. We got a trailer earlier this week that we’ll be talking about in an upcoming episode. And you can check us out: GameOfOwns.com, or Facebook.com/GameOfOwns, @GameOfOwns on Twitter… it’s pretty straightforward; we tried to make it easy for people. So we’d appreciate, if you’re interested in the show or the book series, give us a listen.
Andrew: All right. And as always, you can go to the MuggleCast website at MuggleCast.com, Twitter.com/MuggleCast, and Facebook.com/MuggleCast. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Laura and Elysa, thanks for coming on. We’d love to have you on again in the future.
Laura: Yeah, thanks for having us. It was fun.
Elysa: That was fun.
Andrew: No problem. Say hi to Jim Dale for us.
Micah: Always great to talk to you.
[Andrew laughs]
Elysa: Yeah, thanks, Micah.
Laura: Yeah, Micah, I’m sure it’s going to be another six months before I see you.
Micah: No, we’re going to plan something.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: You have family in town this week.
Eric: You guys live in the same city now, right?
Laura: That’s what I’m told.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: That’s the rumor.
Eric: Well, I have a good feeling about this 12th quarter of the show that we’re going into right now with Episode 276. I feel like we’ll be hanging out with each other once again like we used to.
Andrew: Harry Potter brings people together. This August will mark MuggleCast’s 10th anniversary, if you can believe that.
Laura: Oh my God.
Eric: Yeah, it will. Yeah, it will.
Andrew: All right, we’ll see everybody in April. Feel free to send us an email, any feedback about today’s episode, any suggestions for what we can do in the future, via social media or maybe email, MuggleCast@gmail.com. I’m Andrew Sims.
Eric: I’m Eric Scull.
Micah: I’m Micah Tannenbaum.
Laura: I’m Laura Thompson.
Elysa: And I’m Elysa Montfort.
Andrew: Oh, look at that. That works so well.
Eric: Just went right into it.
Laura: Oh my God, it was like we just went right back into our old MuggleCast format intact.
Eric: I love this. I love everybody here right now.
Andrew: Aww. [laughs] All right, bye, Eric.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: We’ll see y’all next time for Episode 277. Goodbye!
Laura: Bye, guys.
Elysa and Micah: Bye.
Blooper
Micah: [reciting dramatically] “Nice to meet you. Where you been? I could show you incredible things.”
[Elysa and Laura laugh]
Micah: I can’t do it if people are laughing; it’s going to make me laugh. “Magic, madness, heaven, sin. Saw you there and I thought, oh my God, look at that face. You look like my next mistake.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]