Episode Transcript
Don Mock 0:19
All right, episode 73. We’re back, Rob.
Rob Broadfoot 0:22
73 is a wonderful number.
Don Mock 0:24
Are there any famous 73s out there?
Rob Broadfoot 0:26
Yes, I’m one. I was born in 1973.
Don Mock 0:29
Okay, well, there you go. All right. 73. That’s a wonderful number. I was thinking more along the athlete number.
Rob Broadfoot 0:37
73?
Don Mock 0:37
A sports star that had a 73. I mean, that’s an offensive lineman, football. There’s not a lot of soccer guys were in 73.
Rob Broadfoot 0:45
No.
Don Mock 0:45
Because I was thinking about what we’re about to talk about, in regards to numbers, and how does 73 tie into it?
Rob Broadfoot 0:50
I can’t think of any fam- oh, I’m yawning.
Don Mock 0:52
I know.
Rob Broadfoot 0:53
Geez Louise.
Don Mock 0:54
We’re putting the audience to sleep already.
Rob Broadfoot 0:56
Let me drink my caffeinated water.
Don Mock 0:57
Blathering on about 73, All right, today’s topic, I thought, since we both watched it. Wrapped up for good, so spoiler alerts, everybody, even though you’re gonna see the subject title on your iPod or whatever. Let’s chat Ted Lasso.
Rob Broadfoot 1:11
Ted Lasso.
Don Mock 1:12
Ted Lasso. We’ll do a little review. Talk a little bit about Apple’s marketing potentially. Some fails. I’ve got some thoughts on some opportunities, missed things like that. But three magical seasons of Ted Lasso, although I think you might jump in and say, “Was the third season magical?”
Rob Broadfoot 1:30
Ughhhhhh.
Don Mock 1:31
We might have differing opinions on the final season. That’s kind of what I’m saying.
Rob Broadfoot 1:34
Yeah.
Don Mock 1:36
I think it started, kind of came out of nowhere. I know that Sudeikis had that character years beforehand and actually did Premier League advertising or something. So it was kind of an advertorial fictional character to begin with.
Rob Broadfoot 1:51
Right, and then he evolved it, I think. He evolved the character, I think, based on Trump and the state of the world.
Don Mock 1:57
Well, he still was a dumb American reporting on- I say dumb, but he was like a silly American reporting on the highest levels of soccer. That always was-
Rob Broadfoot 2:06
Yes, but I think- and I might be totally making this up. So somebody fact check me. Rachele, fact check me.
Don Mock 2:12
Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 2:13
I think that the character had a little more edge to him. I feel like I read that somewhere and that after, and I don’t know if the Trump time was necessary or not, but just the state of the world and how we’re so on edge. Everybody’s tense and there’s a lot of stuff happening, that he then softened the character to be 100% likable.
Don Mock 2:36
The lovable-
Rob Broadfoot 2:37
The lovable teddy bear that he was.
Don Mock 2:39
Season one, I think, for a lot of people, kind of came out of nowhere.Unfamiliar with the character, didn’t have that soccer background. I think it it definitely, sometimes if we tie it into advertising it’s right place, right time, right everything, a little bit of luck involved. But it was, man we’re all in lockdown. The world is is is a burnin raging fire of Covid.
Rob Broadfoot 3:02
A lot of TV watching happening.
Don Mock 3:03
Yeah, we’re all hunkered down and here is this magical, little, silly, feel-good show that, in this dark time, for a lot of people. Or uncertain time, it was this weird little glimmer of hope, that had such great, optimistic premise and also tinged with reality. If you think about that first season, they weren’t super successful. It was just the positive mindset, the positive attitude and the love and all that good stuff. I mean, obviously, his marriage is falling apart. They’re not winning soccer games, things like that. The press is all over him. The players don’t like- you know what I mean?
Rob Broadfoot 3:41
Yeah.
Don Mock 3:42
There was a lot of negativity around him, but he withheld all that negativity, kind of forced it off, and was a positive light.
Rob Broadfoot 3:50
I think that part of it too, is the state of the world. Everybody’s just sort of jaded on all the things.
Don Mock 3:59
Sure.
Rob Broadfoot 3:59
His character is just pure innocence. I mean, just purely an innocent character, and honest. Also, the writing in season one and season two.
Don Mock 4:12
So good.
Rob Broadfoot 4:13
Season one out of the gate. The writing was so good. And just the references, the social commentary with these little amazing quips and references.
Don Mock 4:23
Well, I would call it sharp and witty. Would you call it sharp and witty?
Rob Broadfoot 4:27
Yeah, but written in such a… it’s sharp and witty-
Don Mock 4:32
But intelligent.
Rob Broadfoot 4:32
But it’s lines for a character who kind of doesn’t seem sharp and witty. Which that’s the magic of the writing, I think, on on that character.
Don Mock 4:40
He’s balanced by grumpy puss Coach Beard, who you always see reading. He’s always reading, even though he’s this cranky curmudgeon, then boom. He hits you with- bababababa- there’s the Red Hot Chili Peppers reference. I mean, there’s all these funny little pop culture reference, but then literary references, all sorts of good stuff.
Rob Broadfoot 4:59
I think also, if you think about right place, right time, a few things are happening. So, obviously, you have the rise of MLS and soccer in America. We’ve talked about this yesterday, but that’s been happening over the past decade or so. So that, and it’s now at a-
Don Mock 5:18
Fevered pitch.
Rob Broadfoot 5:19
A fevered pitch, dare we say. So I think that helped- interest in in soccer or football, depending on on what you want. Then also, you had this odd parallel of Wrexham.
Don Mock 5:32
Okay.
Rob Broadfoot 5:33
Which is almost the real world-
Don Mock 5:35
Real world Ted Lasso.
Rob Broadfoot 5:36
-Ted Lasso thing happening with Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. For those who aren’t familiar, the actor and writer who went and bought the team and Wrexham.
Don Mock 5:50
Now I would say, I think timewise, even though the purchase probably happened beforehand, they’re really weere running simultaneous during season two.
Rob Broadfoot 5:56
Season two.
Don Mock 5:59
And again, for those that don’t know, the two actors bought- now, actually, I think they bought the team and they bought the stadium in Scotland, in Wrexham, Scotland. And it is the oldest, still viable, professional sporting arena, in the world or whatever. Something like that. It’s some crazy statistic. Like it’s been running since like the late 1700s. It’s something totally insane. They, of course, filmed this entire thing, turned it into, I would say, an arguably very successful TV show on FX. Part of that it’s because of their writing and the way that they told the story. One episode’s all about why they did it, one episodes about the cast of characters, that the team… then you’ve got the fans, you’ve got the city, you’ve got “why us?” I mean, there’s a lot of fun little narratives. Then you have, obviously, the performance of the team itself.
Rob Broadfoot 6:50
I think one could make an argument. I think you’re right. I think season two was where that storyline kind of ran parallel. But I think you could argue that made Ted Lasso almost even more plausible, in a strange kind of way. Cause it was really happening in the real world. So I think that was a fortunate thing for everybody. I think that went both ways. Wrexham was like, Yes, Ted Lasso’s a hit. So anyway.
Don Mock 7:18
Hey, what is the… “The rising tide raises all ships.”
Rob Broadfoot 7:21
Yeah, right.
Don Mock 7:22
One great restaurant on the block can help promote other great restaurants on the block, that type of thing. Yeah, there’s definitely success there. I think so, out of nowhere, Boom, Ted Lasso. Everybody loves it. I would say, before we jump into really Season Two and Season Three… I’m gonna talk about our thoughts on Season Three, I would say that one thing I was very surprised at, and I would consider this very unusual for Apple, was all of a sudden, they got this hit on their hands. They have absolutely no merch, no nothing, no way to really monetize it outside of Apple TV subscriptions and things. To me, it seemed it was a natural for, Oh, in this soccer culture of everybody buying the jersey of their favorite player or their favorite team or customizing their jerseys… it was like, man, there’s no jerseys for Ted Lasso at all, for the Fighting Greyhounds. Then it was like, boom, there are black market ops everywhere, all over the internet, all the bootlegs. Everybody was buying the bootlegs, because they didn’t have a legitimate source of where to go to get the traditional AFC Richmond gear.
Rob Broadfoot 8:26
Now did they ever come out and do that, when that Season Two came around?
Don Mock 8:30
Yeah. So mid Meason Two, you finally have things. You have official merch and stuff like that.
Rob Broadfoot 8:35
You can’t do that before you know it’s a hit.
Don Mock 8:36
Now, it is bizarre, though, too, circumstances of members supply chains were all over the place. I mean, there’s countries that have no paper. I mean, let like in the world-
Rob Broadfoot 8:46
Container ships are not parked offshore, just kind of hanging out.
Don Mock 8:48
Yeah, exactly. So I do want to throw them that bone. But not having any type of merch or any type of…. it felt very unlike Apple to not foresee a way to- and again, you don’t know what you have. I agreee with you, but-
Rob Broadfoot 9:05
You can test it all you want, and think it’s going to be a hit. But I mean, there’s no way to… you’re not going to invest in all that product, if-
Don Mock 9:15
But with print-on demand and dropship… I mean, every single Netflix show has merch on the Netflix store. I don’t know, it was rare for me to feel that way about Apple, because it was oh, man, there were so many kits that would have been bought, I think for Christmas presents and things like that. But Season Two, I thought was great. I mean, I don’t know, I don’t have any specific show notes or whatever, on Season Two, and what I thought about-
Rob Broadfoot 9:44
Season Two, to me, was very much a continuation of Season One. You had some big plot shifts along the way with Nate and some of the things that happened in Season Two.
Don Mock 9:55
I think, was it Season Two, where they had already filmed everything and Apple ordered two more episodes. That’s why you got the two kind of oddball episode. You had Beard’s Night Out. I think it was- again because of Covid, because of flight restrictions, because of all these different things, they had to patchwork these weird little stories together. So I think they had only done six episodes and Apple was like, Nope, we need eight.
Rob Broadfoot 10:17
I don’t know but that would make sense. I remember Beard’s episode was a one-off.
Don Mock 10:21
Yeah, so Beard’s Night Out was really just him. And then you had the alternate one, which was Rebecca and Ted doing Thanksgiving stuff, doing donation and stuff, concurrent with a few of the players all having dinner together.
Rob Broadfoot 10:36
Going to dinner together.
Don Mock 10:36
Yeah, with- I forget the guy’s name- but him and his wife, who were actually writers on the show. That’s really his wife.
Rob Broadfoot 10:41
Wasn’t Beard one of the writers, and he ended up playing the character.
Don Mock 10:45
Roy Kent.
Rob Broadfoot 10:45
Oh, it was Roy Kent, not Beard.
Don Mock 10:45
Yeah, but Beard is a legit American outlaw soccer guy. I mean, he’s always been a huge soccer- I forget the actor’s name.
Rob Broadfoot 10:50
He’s great. Although, I thought everybody was great.
Don Mock 11:00
Everyone was awesome. Everyone was awesome. Which brings us to Season Three. Before Season Three comes out, basically the world finds out Hey, this is it. Ted Lassos done.
Rob Broadfoot 11:10
Right. Final season.
Don Mock 11:11
Final season. Yeah, we’re wrapping it up, series wrap up. I think both of us at that time had the same vibe on… You know what? I’m totally okay with that. No one wants to season seven of Ted Lasso. Hey, tell a great story, get in and get out. So I think going into it, I was like, Okay, I’m fine with that. We also knew Succession was wrapping up, Barry was wrapping up, all these things are wrapping up. I think four seasons, three seasons, that’s a great way to do it. But then we get to Season Three. And I think we have… things are different. They’re not like what they used to be.
Rob Broadfoot 11:48
No. In a nutshell, it splintered in many different ways. You all of a sudden had all of these sort of subplots happening and for me…
Go ahead and rip it, dude.
I was just trying to think how to say it. It lost its way. It was rudderless for a while, and there were certain- and I guess this happens a lot of time- I think most every subplot that was happening, I didn’t really care about. I didn’t care about the PR firm.
Don Mock 12:19
Yeah, Heelys.
Rob Broadfoot 12:20
Yeah, I didn’t care about that. I didn’t really care about Nate being the waiter at the restaurant. It just was fractured for me. Also, I think probably more importantly, for me, the writing took a hit. It lost its edge. It lost the great references. It felt mailed-in a little bit.
Don Mock 12:41
It was very fragmented away from, I think, what the core of the show was. We’ve got Rebecca on a boat to Amsterdam for an episode. You know, we’ve got, although it was funny to learn that Roy doesn’t know how to ride a bike. I mean there still were a lot of Ted Lasso truthisms for sure. But the splintering thing… I think we all knew- this is a weird one, because we all know it’s gonna wrap up- and yet Oh, Nate, the great has turned into the villain. Then it was like, Okay, make him the villain. This is awesome. He’s turned heel. But then immediately, it’s Oh, no, we got to have sympathy for Nate, because Rupert’s being a jerk and this is happening. Nate’s of the reluctant. It was like, wait a minute, well, hey, am I supposed to feel bad for Nate? Or am I not supposed to feel bad for Nate or what’s going on? Then you kind of know what’s going to happen.
Rob Broadfoot 13:35
Kinda know?
Don Mock 13:36
Giving them the benefit of the doubt.
Rob Broadfoot 13:38
It was pretty well-telegraphed.
Don Mock 13:38
You know what’s going to happen before happens. Then you have to trudge through six episodes of that. It’s like, ugh, okay, what’s going on…
Rob Broadfoot 13:45
And you lost… I mean, the whole Rupert character was great in the first two seasons. I loved the tension that they had.
Don Mock 13:45
I loved when… everybody loved when Ted beat his asss at darts.
Rob Broadfoot 13:46
Yeah, it was great. And you lost that in Season Three, too. And I get it, a wise man once said-
Don Mock 13:52
Uh-oh, what did that wise man say?
Rob Broadfoot 14:04
You got to know when to fold them. You gotta know when to walk away. And they did. So I think that, in retrospect, Season Three wasn’t as great as Season Two and Season One. But it was fine. It was a nice way to wrap it up- three season little package with a bow on it. Now we send it off to sea and it was great.
Don Mock 14:23
If you’re giving Season One and A, just for the sake of argument, what do you think, what are you given Season Three?
Rob Broadfoot 14:29
C plus.
Don Mock 14:30
C plus? Okay, see I’m still gonna give it a B plus.
Rob Broadfoot 14:33
Man, I’m gonna give it a C plus.
Now, what is your… relative to the season One, I’d give it a C plus.
Don Mock 14:41
Yeah. Relative to Season One. I don’t think it was at- I was happy with the landing. Even though some of its telegraphed, I did like that- and again, spoiler alerts, everybody- I did like that they didn’t win. I don’t want it to be… we are jaded. You mentioned it earlier, but it’s weird. aided society, if things are too good, it’s not real, things like that. So, I do like that they didn’t come in first, they came in second. Not everything broke their way. It’s not this Miracle on 34th Street amazing ending, that type of thing.
Rob Broadfoot 15:15
That’s what we have Wrexham for.
Don Mock 15:16
Yeah. Well, and yet what’s interesting about sports documentaries too, even if you talk about Full Swing, or you talk about a Drive to Survive, the F1… is, you know, now that Wrexham’s a thing. Welcome to Wrexham the show, and we know everything. Real time is happening before the show is going to happen. So we all know how the second season of Wrexham is going to end.
Rob Broadfoot 15:38
Right.
Don Mock 15:39
Right. I think that ,I mean, Man, I- again, fact check me on this one, Rachele- but I feel like that first season of Wrexham was like 17 or 18 episodes. I mean it’s-
Rob Broadfoot 15:48
It’s long.
Don Mock 15:48
It’s substantially longer than an Apple or the streaming service show. So we know where Wrexham ends, they do get promoted.
Rob Broadfoot 15:56
They got promoted.
Don Mock 15:58
So, hey, how do you keep the attention of somebody for 20 episodes, knowing how it’s going to end. It’s kind of an interesting thought to think about.
Rob Broadfoot 16:07
Well, I think, back to Ted, they had to wrap it up that way. It was telegraphed but they had to. It had to be happy. Everybody had to get along, and everybody had to kind of move on and get a good good space, which is fine. That’s exactly what the show should have been, and I’m glad they knew when to… now there’s-
Don Mock 16:30
Rumblings?
Rob Broadfoot 16:31
Rumblings of offshoots and things and I won’t, I was saying this to you earlier today. I’m done with the Ted Lasso universe.
Don Mock 16:37
Yeah, you’re not dipping back in.
Rob Broadfoot 16:38
I had a great time. It was a wonderful vacation. I enjoyed it.
Don Mock 16:40
You’re on to the next universe.
Rob Broadfoot 16:41
And now I’m on to the next universe.
Don Mock 16:43
Okay. Okay. Yeah, I’m gonna go back. I mean, if something comes up in the Ted Lassosphere, I’m gonna go back. There’s certain things I know I don’t need, so I’ll be curious as to see what they do. But this is that interesting push-pull of creativity. Sudeikis and everybody writing and creating the show, and then the intersection of art and commerce. Well, the studio’s going, Man, cash cow. I have to imagine the numbers of Season One versus Season Two versus… it’s a bar graph going up. Now it’s up, you guys are done? No! Keep this money train rolling.
Rob Broadfoot 17:16
Keep this money train rolling. I get it. But it’s also, Here’s an analogy. So if you think back to, we’re going to pick on spin offs for a second. I know you are a fan of Saul from Breaking Bad.
Don Mock 17:29
Yes.
Rob Broadfoot 17:30
Then they went on to do Better Call Saul. Which I didn’t watch. I love Saul’s character in Breaking Bad because you only saw little snippets of him here and there a little bit. It’s the same with Roy. So Roy’s gonna have a spin off, presumably.
Don Mock 17:46
A larger premise.
Rob Broadfoot 17:46
We think. Even in Season Three of Lasso, where he was more prominent of a character, it loses its luster because, you liked him- just the grumpy old codger. So the more you get rid of that, to me, it just waters the character down.
Don Mock 18:02
Yeah, lessens the impact.
Rob Broadfoot 18:04
I was trying to think of spin-offs that I have watched.
Don Mock 18:09
Spin-offs that are watched, or even better, than the original?
Rob Broadfoot 18:12
Either way.
Don Mock 18:13
I have no idea, I… television… This is gonna sound crazy. But television and movies, I consume them and then jettison them out of my brain. It takes something very special for me to really remember something. I mean, I’ll watch a movie and be like, I don’t remember a year later. I know I’ve watched it, but I won’t recall the quote that Cuyler says in the office, or that scene or whatever.
Rob Broadfoot 18:37
But generally I don’t do I Don’t do spin-offs, I don’t think.
Don Mock 18:40
Yeah. Well, I mean, I’m so down deep in the Marvel Universe, every single thing is a spin off of something else.
Rob Broadfoot 18:46
Right. But I consider that a little bit different. I don’t know why I consider it different. But probably because it’s superhero. It’s just different, for me, versus a Better Call Saul from out of Breaking Bad kind of situation.
Don Mock 18:58
Well, that spin-off, too is here’s all the cast of characters. I think the spin off you’re mentioning is we’ve just taken one of those and extracted that and we’re just telling the story from that one person’s perspective.
Rob Broadfoot 19:08
Right, right.
Don Mock 19:10
Yeah, for the most part, they don’t really work as well because it’s an ensemble. I mean, the 80s they tried a bunch of stuff. Wasn’t 227 a spin-off of the Cosby Show, or something like that. Or am I-
Rob Broadfoot 19:23
I don’t even remember. 227?
Don Mock 19:25
Okay, well, someone will fact check me and I’ll be totally wrong. I mean, there were other little spin-offs out of… network television did a lot of stuff.
Rob Broadfoot 19:32
Absolutely.
Don Mock 19:32
But again, I’m not going to recall all that stuff. All right. Well, you can send our mess-ups and all the things we incorrectly said into the hotline, and correct us from there. And where can the people send those notes, Mr. Rob?
Rob Broadfoot 19:48
Well, if they are like me and enjoy surfing the internet, they can type in worldwide web but www for short.
Don Mock 20:00
What about that http stuff?
Rob Broadfoot 20:02
Slash colon? Yeah, you got to have that. Cause we’re secure.
Don Mock 20:06
SSL certs, people.
Rob Broadfoot 20:08
Mocktheagency.com, of course and then on the socials @mocktheagency. Yeah, drop us a note.
Don Mock 20:13
Cool.
Rob Broadfoot 20:14
Thoughts on Ted Lasso or otherwise.
Don Mock 20:16
Yeah. All right. Thanks everybody. Bye.
Rob Broadfoot 20:32
Bye.
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