Why do we get bored? Boredom Researcher Dr. James Danckert says boredom is a search for meaning. Our brains' way of telling us we need to find something new.
We talk why boredom is important, why some people get bored more than others and the most boring thing in the world.
Then, it's Hoop Dreams and Caddyshack vs. Miracle and The Karate Kid as we countdown the Top 5 Sports Movies.
00:00: Introducing Boredom Researcher Dr. James Danckert
01:07: Why We Get Bored
02:11: Why Boredom is Good
03:56: What Happens When We Get Bored
04:49: Why Some People Get Bored Faster
07:59: Boredom and Intelligence
11:10: The Flow State
12:42: Only Boring People are Boring
15:13: The Most Boring Type of Person
16:59: When Boredom Becomes a Problem
18:52: The Boredom Pattern
20:57: Social Media and Boredom
24:49: Pointless
40:42: The Top 5 Sports Movies
Interview with Boredom Researcher Dr. James Danckert
Nick VinZant 0:00
Nick, welcome to profoundly pointless. My name is Nick VinZant, coming up in this episode, boredom and sports movies.
James Danckert 0:20
Boredom is this uncomfortable state of wanting but failing to engage with the world. But what we find is that the boredom prone people tend to be those do the right thing. People that they tend to worry more about the options for action. And so if you find yourself in a moment of boredom, perhaps you can do the same thing. You can reframe the circumstance to be more meaningful, to be more purposeful for you, and now you won't be bored as much.
Nick VinZant 0:44
I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance subscribe, leave us a rating or a review. We really appreciate. It really helps us out. So I want to get right to our first guest, because he studies something that may seem boring, but it's actually fascinating. This is boredom researcher, Dr James Dan Kirk, why do we get bored?
James Danckert 1:08
There's lots of different reasons why we might get bored, right? The prime one that most people think about is monotony, if something's just unchanging over and over and over again, like, you know, that sort of monotony, that repetition, that nothing's changing, that can be very boring. One of the things that a colleague of mine, one end, Van Tilburg says, too, if we find things meaningless, right? So if what you're doing, you know you feel like you're constrained because you have to do it, you can't get out of it, but you're just looking at thinking, this is pointless. This is just doesn't matter to me. And I can't see how to make it matter to me. That'll make you bored as well. There are situations too, where you know, if you find yourself trying or being challenged to do something, but it's just way outside of your capacities. Maybe before you started, you thought it wasn't going to be maybe you thought you'd be able to cope. That sort of brings me to an aspect of boredom that's really critical. I think that when we're bored, it's sort of made pretty obvious to us that we're not being very effective agents, right? We're not exercising our agency, which is to say we're not pursuing goals that we've chosen in the way that we want to pursue them.
Nick VinZant 2:11
Do we need to be bored, though? Like, is there something in our brains that, like, look, boredom is is boredom good? In a way,
James Danckert 2:21
boredom absolutely serves a purpose in our lives. It absolutely has a function that's worthwhile for us. So I don't like to make the judgment is boredom good or bad? It's what we do with it that makes it good or bad, but the signal itself is useful. It's functional. And what do I mean by that? It's it's a call to action. So what boredom is telling us in that moment when we feel it. It's saying whatever you're doing right now is not satisfying you. It's maybe not meaningful enough. It's maybe not challenging enough. You need to find something else. You need to explore your environment for something else. And when you suggest that boredom serves a functional sort of purpose in our lives, you're also sort of hinting at the fact that it might indeed have an evolutionary history. If boredom is functional, then presumably it was selected for, and if it was selected for in evolution, then presumably we can see it in other animals, and you can so anyone that's owned a dog knows that dogs get bored, right? You come home and you've got one of your shoes torn up. Well, that dog was bored, and so he tore up his shoe. He didn't have any malice in it. So, yeah, boredom is evident in animals, and it has that evolutionary history to it, and it serves that function. It serves that purpose for us. It pushes us to act.
Nick VinZant 3:32
It kind of sounds like it lets us know what we don't like, and then opens us up to trying new things.
James Danckert 3:37
Yeah, you can say it that way. I mean, I mean, I think one of the things that's sort of frustrating and negative about boredom when you're feeling it, is that when you say, it opens us up to new things, it doesn't do the hard work of figuring out what those new things will be. That's on you, right? Boredom is not going to say, Oh, look, here's an opportunity. Boredom is just going to say, go find an opportunity.
Nick VinZant 3:56
Is there something physically happening in our brain when we get bored, like, you could monitor the brain and like, Oh, I see this. That guy's bored. That girl's bored.
James Danckert 4:08
So one of the things about being bored is that you're often disengaged. You're not You're struggling to focus your attention on the task at hand. And we've shown using EEG or electrical signals from the brain, that there are sort of specific signals that are normally associated with being able to focus attention, and those signals are diminished or lowered when we're bored, right? So that sort of fits well with this story that when you're bored, you're not focusing attention well. And so one of the things that's most commonly associated with people being bored, when you ask them How do you feel, is that they'll report being restless and agitated, and this is what differentiates boredom from something like apathy. If you're apathetic, you don't care.
Nick VinZant 4:49
Are certain people more than pre certain like predisposed to becoming bored? Do people get does it vary from person to person? How quickly they get bored?
James Danckert 5:02
Yeah, so we talk about trait boredom proneness, and so some people are high in boredom proneness, and some people are low in it. So there is a wide range of how often people feel it, and there are a range of sort of individual differences that we would talk about that make someone a little bit more prone to boredom. One of the common ones that we've researched a lot is the capacity for self control. And I want to be clear here about what we're sort of talking about. This is not what a lot of people think about in terms of sort of impulse control. So some of your listeners might be familiar with this marshmallow test. You know, you put a marshmallow in front of a kid, and you say, you can have that marshmallow now, or you can wait five minutes and have three, and most kids just stuff their face with the marshmallow, right? Because they don't show the impulse control to wait for the for the for the bigger reward. And there's all kinds of work sort of suggesting that that has long term consequences in their lives, because people who demonstrate lower levels of self control have poorer outcomes for mental health and achievement and so on. And what we find is the boredom prone. People who are highly bored and prone also tend to have lower levels of self control. They tend to also there's sort of different ways in which humans pursue goals, and one of the distinctions that social psychologists will make is between what's sort of colloquially known as a JUST DO IT mode, people who get on with things, people just go from one goal to the next, and they very rapidly transition. And then a sort of do the right thing mode, people who prefer to sort of assess their options and make sure that they make the choice that's the best choice, and make sure not to make errors, and so on. And you know, each one of us can adopt these modes at different times. It's not as though you're one or the other, right? And each of those modes is good under different circumstances. It's good sometimes to sort of weigh up your options and make sure you choose the right thing, and it's good sometimes to just get on with it. But what we find is that the bottom prone people tend to be those do the right thing. People that they tend to worry more about the options for action, so they tend then to fail to launch into action because they they haven't, sort of, you know, they're not comfortable with the choices that are in front of them. So that's an individual difference in how people pursue goals that is important. There are, there are a number of others as well. We find that people who high in neuroticism, so they tend to have a lot of worry about life. They tend to be higher in boredom, proness as well. And there's even things that like people who hire in what's known as covert narcissism. So covert narcissism is a person who sort of believes the world has failed to see their talents, has failed to see how brilliant they are, and so they're sort of a bit bitter about it, but they're not the arrogant in your face, narcissist. They're just sort of a bit bitter about the fact that the world hasn't recognized their skills and talents. Yet, those people tend to also be high in boredom promos. So those are the kinds of individual differences that we know about so far that are associated with being more likely to experience boredom.
Nick VinZant 7:59
Is it tied to just overall intelligence in any way?
James Danckert 8:03
So it's an interesting question that there's not a lot of research to suggest that it's tied to intelligence, that the more or less intelligent people are more or less likely to be bored. It does have an impact on achievement. So we find that people who are more bored and prone don't tend to do quite so well in school. But it's not a big difference. It's not as though a boredom prone person goes from an A student to a D student, you know. It's more like a couple of points that are a loss, but sort of fairly consistently. So intelligence, you know, hasn't shown up as a prime factor in boredom.
Nick VinZant 8:36
Promise, the big questions that I had going into this, right? Like, okay, well, why do we get bored? And then how do we how do we keep ourselves from getting bored?
James Danckert 8:44
It's the $64,000 question, and I get asked it a lot. There's a sort of triumvirate of things that you can do when you're in the moment of being bored. I'm not sure how well this helps the chronic bored person, but when you're in that moment, the first thing to do is to take a deep breath. So as I mentioned before, one of the most common things people report when they're bored is that they report feeling agitated and restless. Well, it's pretty hard to figure out what you want to do next or what you think would be a meaningful thing to engage with when you're restless, when you're agitated, when you're pacing around, right? So just to calm down, take a deep breath and allow that restlessness to dissipate. That's the first step. The second two steps are really contemplative. And the first one would be to say, Well, why am I bored right now? What is it about the circumstance I'm in? And what that allows you to do is to perhaps reframe it, to think about it differently. So you know, people who work on assembly lines are not always bored, because they can sometimes reframe the task. There's evidence that people on you know assembly lines will say that they try to beat their personal best on the line every hour. Well, they've just turned a monotonous and potentially boring task into a personal challenge, and now it's not boring. And so if you find yourself in a moment. Of boredom, perhaps you can do the same thing. You can reframe the circumstance to be more meaningful, to be more purposeful for you, and now you won't be bored as much. And the third thing is that the other contemplative aspect to this is to sort of spend some time considering what your goals are, right? So boredom is showing us that in this moment, what we're doing is to us, not very meaningful. Well, what is meaningful to us, right? We don't spend a lot of time in our lives thinking about that. Considering, what are the goals that I have? Am I pursuing them well? And if not, can I pursue them better? And when I talk about goals like that, I want to be careful about sort of setting people up for, you know, unrealistic expectations. I'm not talking about grand goals. I'm not saying that, you know, every time you get bored, you should start to ponder why you haven't yet cured cancer. I'm thinking about any type of goal that's personally relevant to you, and they could be big and small. It could be from anything, from, you know, wanting to sort of foster better relationships with your family and friends, or wanting to get something small achieved in a hobby. Doesn't really matter what the size or scope of the goal is. What matters is that it matters to you.
Nick VinZant 11:10
I think of always in terms of like opposites. And the only thing that I can compare it to that I've heard about is like the flow state, where somebody, usually it's like extreme athletes are just totally, totally, completely focused. Can we learn anything like, does the opposite of boredom? Teach us anything about boredom?
James Danckert 11:30
Yeah, I think it does. But I think what I would say to you is that there are many opposites of boredom, and flow is only one, and flow is a fickle, fickle beast. I mean, any of your listeners who've experienced it. You know, the thing to contemplate about flow is, have you ever intentionally tried to make it happen? And I think that the answer to that is that it's very, very hard to do like you know, you you find yourself in flow almost accidentally at times. So there's two things then that I'd point out as opposites of boredom that I think are key and help us understand boredom a little bit better. So boredom a little bit better. So one is that the opposite of boredom, in all its many forms, is just being engaged. So if you're engaged with the world, either because you're curious or you're relaxing or you're in flow, then you can't be bored, right? So that is the sort of opposite of boredom. And the second thing is that it gets back to this notion, I think, of agency. So when you're the one that's in control, when you're the one choosing what you're doing. Now I don't think it's I think it's very hard for me to imagine also being bored. You're demonstrating to yourself that you're the agent, you're the author of your actions, and in that state when you're successfully expressing your agency, I think it's very hard to be bored.
Nick VinZant 12:42
Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Fantastic. Yes. What do you think about the saying only bored people are boring?
James Danckert 12:50
Yeah, only boring people get bored. It's a moral judgment, and I don't think it's right. What I think it says is that people who make that claim just deal with their boredom exceptionally well. So in the book that I wrote with my colleague, John Eastwood, out of my skull, we interviewed. We had the good fortune. I had the good fortune of interviewing Chris Hadfield, who was the Canadian astronaut who ran the International Space Station in the 2010s and Hadfield claims that only boring people get bored, and that he never gets bored. And then you have a conversation with him that goes on for a little while, you find out that's not true. He gets bored. So he grew up on a farm in southwestern Ontario, and he describes, you know, plowing the fields. You see, he really enjoyed plowing the fields. You'd see this open field in front of you and your plowed field behind you, so you could see your progress, and you can understand that, that you know you're achieving a goal and you're doing a good job. But what he really hated was this other job he had to do, which was known as as harrowing, and harrowing I had no idea what this was. He's apparently plowing a field that's already been plowed. So you're breaking up big chunks of mud and making it into smaller chunks of mud. So in front of you is mud, behind you is mud. You can't see your progress, and it's boring. And so he said that whenever he had to do that, he would challenge himself by trying to see how long he could hold his breath for. And I'm like thinking in the back of my mind. I didn't want to insult the guy, but, you know, probably not the greatest idea to be doing something like that while you're, you know, piloting heavy machinery. But that's alright. The point being that Chris Hadfield indeed gets bored, but when he does, he almost immediately finds something to occupy his mind that puts the boredom aside. And so I think that for the people who say only boring people get bored, what they're really saying is that, you know, when I get bored, I'm really quick at dealing with it. So why aren't you? And one of the things too, that we know from a recent study, again from from a colleague of mine in the UK, one Anne van Tilburg, is that there's actually characteristics of boring people that are not about how often they get bored. We code people as being boring if they don't listen to us. So if people who. Sort of a bit more narcissistic. And I mean now the kind of grandiose, overt narcissistic that commandeer every conversation and never really listen to what you've got to say, kind of think of those people as being bores. Why are
Nick VinZant 15:13
some people boring? Though, right? Like some people are just like, God, that person's boring. Is it is it them, or is it me?
James Danckert 15:22
The thing that that came out in that more recent study was that, yeah, people who just don't listen. You know, if you're in a conversation and you don't engage the other person, we all want to feel like what we do matters, but if you're the only person talking and you're the only one that's got anything that you think is relevant, then everyone else is has to sort of take a back seat, and that is not really the best way for social interactions to evolve. And so I think that's one of the main characteristics that makes makes us code other people as being boring.
Nick VinZant 15:50
Is there like, is this a mathematical formula in some way? And maybe this is a great analogy, maybe this is a terrible analogy. But can you look at certain things and be like, Okay, that is going to be boring to people. If you make a movie about this, and you put this in it, and you put that in it, and you put this in it, people are going to get bored, like, can you look at things and be like, that's boring. That's not,
James Danckert 16:15
not really, because it's it is a kind of, you know, what makes something boring or not boring is a little bit like happiness. What makes you happy is sort of idiosyncratic to you, right? I can't sort of tell you, you know what, you should do this, because this makes me happy. I shouldn't do that, and hope that somehow that that's going to work for you. And it's the same thing is true of boredom. Whatever makes me happy, or whatever makes me bored is unique to me. You know, there's millions of people out there who are philatelist that spend a lot of their time pouring over stamps and looking at stamps, and they get great joy out of it. And many of us might look at that and say, I can't imagine anything more boring. Well, too bad you don't have to, because, you know that's that just means it's not for you. So I don't think there's anything that we can point to and say that that's an objectively boring thing.
Nick VinZant 16:59
I know there's not a way to like rank this in terms of a scale of one to 10. But how big of a problem is boredom for us? Yeah, like, is it an inconvenience? Or is like, No, this is a real problem for some people.
James Danckert 17:12
Yeah, I love this phrase that someone gave me, a journalist actually gave me many years ago now that she thought that boredom was just part of the furniture of life. You know, it should be a trivial thing, and I think that people have treated it as a trivial thing, as part of the furniture of life, but it's not. It's not trivial at all. So it's, it's associated, you know, chronic boredom. So boredom proneness is associated with higher levels of poor mental health, so increased rates of depression and anxiety. It's associated with problems of addiction. So people who are highly bored and prone tend to be more at risk of alcohol and drug addiction. It's been associated with problem gambling. So people who express problem gambling, particularly people who are addicted to slot machines, they will report that they're on there because they're bored. So it's associated with a lot of ills of mental health. It's also associated with things that sort of from a societal perspective, we were really, you know, wouldn't encourage so there's a strong association between boredom and aggression. There were riots in the in the streets of London in 2011 and when people were interviewed, particularly young males, were interviewed afterwards, they said, why did you join in? Why did you join in the looting? They said, ah, it was the end of summer, and I was bored. So it's not inconsequential. And we also know it's not inconsequential from the point of view of two other domains that I think are worth pointing out. One is education. We know that if you chronically bored, that you won't do as well in your education, and so it's incumbent upon us to try and make our education as least boring as we possibly can. And I think there are other occupations where boredom could be a real hazard. So if you think about any occupation that has a high requirement for vigilance, you really need to be paying close attention to your job, but it's also monotonous. So think air traffic control.
Nick VinZant 18:52
Is there any kind of pattern to boredom, in the sense that, like people are most bored at Tuesday at 3pm or is there any kind of pattern, either throughout our days, in the sense that, like this time of year, this time of day, this day of the week, or throughout our lives, we're like, you're probably most bored between 10 and 20, or actually, it's between these ages. Is there any patterns to it?
James Danckert 19:20
There is a pattern over the lifespan. Boredom sort of tends to start rising in those early teenage years. We need a lot more data on this, but the data we do have says that it tends to rise, then it starts to sort of peak at age 17 or 18, and then starts to dip. And that's a really important point in our development, because around those late teenage years in the early 20s, that's the final stage of brain maturation. So you start to do what's called myelination, which is essentially this fatty coating that goes around your neurons and aids transmission of information. And so that myelination of your frontal cortex that's happening between 17 and 22 you're not really. Are fully developed until those early 20s years. So around that time, when you're developing the frontal part of your brain, that's really critical for self regulation, self control, goal, pursuit, decision decision making and so on. Around that time, your boredom starts to drop, and it drops off into the, you know, 20s, 30s and 40s and 50s. And in part, some of that's going to be about responsibilities. You know, Who among us has the time to be bored when you're pursuing your career, when you're raising your children, when you're doing all these other sorts of things? And then it does show there are some instances now where we see a rise into the 60s and beyond. And one of the notions there about that rise at the latest stage of our lifespan is that it's sort of strongly associated with loneliness, and so we talk about a social connectedness in that age range. And if that the people that have a good social network and good social connectedness tend not to be bored in their 60s, 70s and beyond, but for those of us who find ourselves not as connected, then boredom can become a real
Nick VinZant 20:57
problem. What's social media doing to us?
James Danckert 21:01
Technology is ruining my brain. I love this question in some senses, because there's this notion that Socrates said that that writing things down was going to ruin our brains. He was worried that if we wrote down all of our knowledge, that that would mean that our faculty for memory would just disappear. And the irony of that is, of course, that we wouldn't have even known that had Plato not written down the things that Socrates said. So you know, we have these sort of notions that every new technology, whether or not it's the pen and paper, or whether or not it's the internet, or whether or not it's social media, every new media is going to ruin our brain. So from the outset, I would say, No, it's not right. It's going to do amazing things for us. But it is also true to say that for some people, for a handful of people, and the evidence at the moment is about 4% our attachment to our phones and to social media can become problematic. So we actually talk about the phrase used is problematic smartphone use, and it has characteristics that are very much like addiction. So you continually ramp up your use of the phone, or you continually ramp up how often you turn to social media. You feel anxious when you're not with your phone, or you're not on social media. Those two characteristics are very much the characteristics that you see in addictions to substances. And that work from John al high and colleagues and from people, there's a couple of labs in China that are doing this, work shows that boredom is a real driver of this, that when we're bored, we turn to our phone because it's an easy occupation thing, right? It occupies your mind very quickly and very easily, and has the bells and whistles like a slot machine and like advertising, social media has figured out the ways to capture our attention, and so we turn to it, and it sort of like dissipates the boredom immediately, but it doesn't do a very good job long term, because we go down the rabbit hole of Twitter and we find that we've spent half an hour or, God forbid, longer, and then you get off it and you think, Well, what did I just do for the last hour? Right? It's not particularly meaningful, and it's not particularly fostering the goals that we want to pursue.
Nick VinZant 23:03
That's pretty much all the questions I got. Man, is there anything you think that we missed, or anything that like, oh, we should be talking about this, or anything like that? One thing I
James Danckert 23:11
would say is that we know too that boredom proneness is associated with self esteem as well. So people who are high in boredom proneness don't have very high they have lower self esteem. And one of the things about that we're in the process of investigating that further, there's a related concept of self efficacy. It's not quite the same as self esteem. Self esteem is about I feel good about who I am. Self efficacy is I believe I can do this right? I know I've got the skills I'm capable and I think that people who are bored and prone will have low self efficacy as well, that they won't feel like they're necessarily capable to reach the goals that they might set for themselves. And I think if that happens early in life, there's going to be long term consequences. So a lack of a sense of self efficacy as a young person you know will carry through into your into your life in negative ways. And so, you know, we always come up with the problem that these are correlations, these individual difference traits. It's very hard to talk about cause. So, you know, will, will it be the failure of self efficacy or elevated boredom that causes the problems later on, it's going to be very, very hard to determine that without longitudinal studies, but, but yeah, I do think early on, if you cope better with boredom when you're a very young person and into your teenage years, that will probably be associated with much more positive outcomes later,
Nick VinZant 24:33
I want to thank James so much for joining us. If you want to connect with him, we have linked to him on our social media sites. We're profoundly pointless on Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube, and we've also included his information in the episode description. Okay, now let's bring in John Shull and get to the pointless part of the show. What do you think is the best day of the week to take off?
John Shull 24:58
The best day is either. Monday or a Friday, because then you'll get a three day weekend.
Nick VinZant 25:03
Oh yeah, it's definitely between Monday or Friday. The question is, which one of those is it?
John Shull 25:09
But I'm not gonna lie, I don't I'd put a Tuesday or a Thursday up there as well.
Nick VinZant 25:16
Oh, okay, Thursday. I could see Tuesday. No, I don't understand the point of taking a Tuesday off.
John Shull 25:24
Tuesdays are the, usually the longest day of the week, right? Because your your past Monday, yeah, still got a long way to go. So if you can kind of just hop that hurdle and get straight to Wednesday, the week's already half over, yeah,
Nick VinZant 25:37
but then you working Monday, you're taking Tuesday off. So it's really like you've got two Mondays in some way. That's why I don't think Tuesday is going to be good. I could see Thursday getting a little bit of love for a good day of the week to take off, because Friday is kind of Friday is kind of an off day. I would actually say, my I'm going to go with Monday. I'm going to say Monday is the best day of the week to take off, because Friday's kind of already off a little bit.
John Shull 26:07
I'm happy for you. Friday is because usually, like, you have more plans on Friday night than you do on Monday nights.
Nick VinZant 26:15
Yeah, you can make you can take advantage of a Sunday so what's your day? Which? What? Which one are you picking? At the end of it, I'll pick up. I'll pick Friday. Oh, well, that's wrong. It's Monday. Okay. I polled the audience about this. It was close. 43% said Monday. 9% said Wednesday. 48% said Friday. Okay.
John Shull 26:41
I mean, that's, that seems about right? That's probably what the consensus would say. I would think,
Nick VinZant 26:48
I think taking Monday off makes the week easier. Taking Friday off gets you a head start on the weekend. Is that it? That's it. That's all I got. Man, what? A little bit distracted by the fact that your sweater slash jacket slash whatever that thing is, matches your wallpaper.
John Shull 27:06
I even have a look at I have like, a little boob pocket, or whatever they call it. Oh, the
Nick VinZant 27:11
chest pocket. Yeah, hmm. I don't think I've never seen, I've never seen any value in the chest pocket. I don't think I've ever once put something in a chest pocket.
John Shull 27:25
I think it's a very old school thing, like my father used to put pens and cigarettes in there and lighters.
Nick VinZant 27:33
That's that's the only thing. It's for cigarettes. The chest pocket can only be used for cigarettes and pens, I guess, if you work in some sort of data or engineering field or medical, but otherwise it has to be cigarettes.
John Shull 27:47
All right, here's some shout outs for you instead. Let's see. We'll start with Adeline, Glenn, Zaid, Whitehead, Jamari, Corona, Nixon Stein, Jasmine, Sweeney, zaile case, Abdullah, Foley, Cassidy, Duarte, Matteo, Lee and Paige majia.
Nick VinZant 28:08
Oh, I like the name Paige. I always like the name Paige. That's a good name. Paige Chloe. Those kind of traditional but slightly different names for a girl. Can't go wrong with the page.
John Shull 28:24
Good talk. Let's see. I really, I'm hoping that this is a good conversation, but I know you're gonna shit on it right away.
Nick VinZant 28:34
Okay, okay, okay, so at the bar low, set the bar low.
John Shull 28:39
All I'm gonna say, my I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask one question, and how you answer that, I'm just gonna move on or continue. All right, okay, okay, did you watch the gold medal hockey game?
Nick VinZant 28:49
No, I did think about it. I did think about it, but I did not watch it.
John Shull 28:55
Okay, well, I said I would move on, so I'm gonna move on.
Nick VinZant 28:59
Um, were you a fan game? Was it like? Was it a good game?
John Shull 29:05
I mean, it was from start to finish. It's probably the best hockey game I've ever seen from start to finish. Wow, not my favorite moment, but best hockey game start to finish, and damn it Nick but the highlight of the game by far, was so Team USA was heavily represented by the state of Michigan. I should point that out there the the game winning goal scorer, him and his brother are from Metro Detroit, but regardless, in the third period. The guy's name is Jack Hughes. You know what? I should bring up this photo to show you, have you seen it? You've seen it, right? No, Jesus, I don't.
Nick VinZant 29:48
Man, none of the I don't know a single thing about anything that you're talking about. I didn't watch the game. I don't know who Jack Hughes is. I'm not even sure where Michigan is. Is it still a part of the United States? I don't think that it is. That's.
John Shull 30:00
Her. So just everybody out there bringing up, and I'm sure people out there know what this is. I'm showing Nick a picture of Jack Hughes. So you see that dude's mouth.
Nick VinZant 30:08
It looks like a hockey player, right? Like I like to see, is that blood? Or is that the mouth guard?
John Shull 30:14
That's blood. So in the third period, he took a he took a high stick to his chicklets there, knocking out three of them, right? And that's the remnants, by the way, the aftermath. So they go to overtime. He scores the game winning goal, right? Yeah. I don't think you can get a more American looking photo than that. I mean, that's a fantastic photo, right?
Nick VinZant 30:36
Well, I mean, if he had a gun,
John Shull 30:39
maybe an eagle on his shoulder,
Nick VinZant 30:41
Eagle and yeah, but
John Shull 30:44
in saying that, it was a fantastic moment. The men's and women's USA hockey teams won gold, which is fantastic if you're an American fan.
Nick VinZant 30:53
Um, no, I just No no, because, like, look, my opinion on the Olympics, I've stated it before, is that the United States should win. We have 350 150 almost 350 million people. We're the richest country on earth. Like, we should win every event. So, like, when I hear the United States beat somebody else in this sport, like, yeah, we probably should have.
John Shull 31:14
But I think it's a little sweeter, because it's Canada, right. There are neighbors. They're like this, you know, our step brother, stepsister, whatever, and, like, that's their sport. Is hockey, right? That's Canadians is hockey.
Nick VinZant 31:27
It's still the population thing. Like, I just, I can't really get into it, just because it's like, hey, we beat it's like, the big city beating the town of 10,000 like, yeah,
John Shull 31:39
should have I understand what you're saying. But do you feel the same about like the World Cup? Are you not going to be excited when the US beats? I don't know, Peru, no,
Nick VinZant 31:51
because we should, like you probably won't, by the way, right? Like we should win it. You should. You're the biggest you're one of the most populated, richest countries on earth, you should win. Well, I just, I can't get like, I can't get super excited about like, it's like, keeping your kid out of jail, like you don't get credit for that. You should win.
John Shull 32:13
To your point, by the way, the United States came in second in metals,
Nick VinZant 32:20
Norway, nor which is crazy. Like, how do we lose to a country with a population of like, I don't even it's probably in the single millions. That shouldn't happen.
John Shull 32:30
Norway's population is 5.7 million compared to our 342
Nick VinZant 32:37
billion people, right? Like, I don't see how we can get excited about this. I just don't think that you can get excited about it, because you're essentially like, we have cities that are bigger than that. So I can't, I can't, in my rational, logical brain, really get excited about like, yeah, you probably should have
John Shull 32:54
that's fair. All right. Fine. Well, that, as I figured, that went to shit. Dr, MC steamy, nothing. No, I don't know that is okay. Well, he passed away last week. Eric Dane, pretty young. Dr, mix, oh, like, you know who it is now.
Nick VinZant 33:14
No, I don't, but I know, like some there's been a lot of celebrities that have been going early.
John Shull 33:18
He's been, he was married to Rebecca, gay heart, if you remember her.
Nick VinZant 33:22
No, how do you know all these things, like, how
John Shull 33:27
do you know who that is? Where is my phone?
Nick VinZant 33:31
No, I mean, like I've seen she looks kind of familiar. Is that to me she looks like Denise Richards?
John Shull 33:39
Yeah, similar so. And they were pretty popular at the same time back in the, you know, mid 90s, early 2000 How do I know this? I don't know. It's just pop culture.
Nick VinZant 33:49
Like, I've never been a huge pop culture person.
John Shull 33:52
I mean, I can tell you they're still looking for Nancy Guthrie. Did you know that?
Nick VinZant 33:56
I don't think they're at this point. I don't think that they're going to find her anytime soon. I just, like, don't think that's a crazy one.
John Shull 34:05
We talked about this a little last episode. I just, I don't get it, man, with everything and technology and like, now they're saying that the suspect apparently visited her house, you know, hours before. It's like, but you couldn't track her movements from when she left the house.
Nick VinZant 34:19
Like, well, she's not micro chipped.
John Shull 34:25
You said it really well last episode is, I've never lived in the desert or in an area that is desolate like that. So, you know, there's a lot of places where you could do something to somebody, and it's going to take,
Nick VinZant 34:39
I mean, once you, like, once you get out of the city, I don't really know. I'm always like I said before, I'm always equally surprised that they can't find them and that they can at the same time, and I don't know which one is which.
John Shull 34:54
This was an interesting question that was brought up and kind of debated, at least amongst my household. And if you had to sit down and watch one movie franchise from start to finish, would it be Star Wars or Lord of the Rings? Well, now my Okay, let, let's put a limit on Star Wars, because I know there's like 15 of them. We'll say four, five and six, the original trio that came out, you know, the 70s and late 80s, or mid 80s, I should say, or the three Lord of the Rings movies.
Nick VinZant 35:27
The three Lord of the Rings movies, I think, are the stronger movies. But once you go into like, the Battle of the Five Armies and The Hobbit trilogies, oh, man, that starts to wear on you a little bit. And Star Wars doesn't have a lot of great movies outside of the original trilogy either. Although I can make a strong argument that Revenge of the Sith is one of the best movies that they have, I wonder which which one takes the longest to watch? Which franchise would take you the longest to watch between it's probably either bond or Avengers or the Marvel movies. Yeah, it's probably, I bet it's James Bond, because they've got, like, almost 30 of them. I think.
John Shull 36:11
Have you ever seen any of those? Like the the James Bond movies, the originals, like, you know, the 60s, 70s ones? No, I
Nick VinZant 36:19
don't think I've watched, yeah, Pierce Brosnan is probably the first bond that I watched. I don't think that's a movie that you go back and watch those really.
John Shull 36:29
So according to this, the Godzilla franchise would be one of the longest to watch, because of it's 30 plus movies,
Nick VinZant 36:38
oh, because they've made so many of them. But then I feel like that is a little bit then if you also added in, like Marvel animated movies, depends how they what was else was on there? The Godzilla? Did they give you a top five? Because now I'm really okay, can I guess it? While you look this up, I'm gonna go ahead and guess okay. I'm gonna go Godzilla only because we now know that, then probably the Marvel movies and movies like The first Hulk don't count, like it has to be in that Avengers kind of timeline. They all tie together. I'm gonna go Godzilla, Avengers, ish movies bond,
John Shull 37:24
Star Wars, Lord of the Rings. So, I mean, I'm looking at this on the fly. I don't think this is correct, because this is Batman is number three, because he's been in seven movies.
Nick VinZant 37:41
Well, that would make sense. There's been a lot of Batman movies, even if you don't count the ones like Justice League or suicide squad or whatever, that he's kind of like he's there, a little bit
John Shull 37:52
like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's called, has as of 2025, 37 plus movies. So that's pretty long. Yeah, there's two that I've never even heard of, Taurus on which is a Japanese series that went for about 55 years, that had over 50 movies.
Nick VinZant 38:15
I feel like other countries don't count.
John Shull 38:18
Okay, gotcha. So it's MCU, Batman, bond in Godzilla. Those are the top four according to longevity and how many movies were made.
Nick VinZant 38:30
Hmm, okay, I would then go Star Wars, then Lord of the Rings, because there's just more Star Wars movies and Lord than they are. Lord of the Rings stuff, yeah, if you put in, if you put in TV shows, ooh, Star Wars might catch up there. Okay, Alright, which one was right? What would What did you want to watch Star Wars or Lord of the Rings?
John Shull 38:51
Oh, well, don't actually, I just, I just rewatched Lord of the Rings. The theatrical release is not the extended versions.
Nick VinZant 39:01
Oh, have you ever, I've never watched an extended version of any movie.
John Shull 39:06
I have like, it's fine, I guess. I don't know. I think, I think that it's taken out for a reason. Most times, like, there's no reason why a movie should be four hours. There just isn't.
Nick VinZant 39:19
No my How long is your perfect movie?
John Shull 39:24
Between an hour and a half to two hours? I mean, I like, I like a good you know, I don't know how you feel, but if I'm gonna invest my time in movies, I like it to be an actual movie. You know what? I mean,
Nick VinZant 39:36
I don't know when the last time that I would say that I sat down and watched a full movie, like front to back. Just watched it. It might it could be. It's definitely more than 10 years.
John Shull 39:53
Well, got pretty sick the last week, so I think I watched about 15 movies. So. Oh, I caught up in a lot of the movies I wanted to see, which was nice.
Nick VinZant 40:03
So when are you going to admit that you want people to feel sorry for you when
John Shull 40:06
you get sick? I don't. I don't want it all.
Nick VinZant 40:09
You try to get a little bit of sympathy when you get sick. You try to get a little sympathy. You probably throw in a fake cough.
John Shull 40:20
I mean, nobody needs you. Don't need to know how many throat lozenges I sucked out coming on, lozenges. I'm sorry, did you say sausages? Lozenges?
Nick VinZant 40:30
I'm sure you had plenty of sausages. Well,
John Shull 40:34
no, I'm throat sausages. I'm going, um, I tell you, the weather here, though, has been pretty crazy.
Nick VinZant 40:42
Oh my god, I'm not talking about that. Yeah, I guess we're gonna go, let's just go to our top five things. I know this is you're gonna probably go on about this forever. Are we? We're moving right on. Okay, that's fine. Move on. On to it. Okay, so our top five is top five sports movie movies. Sorry, top five sports movies. What's your number five? Man?
John Shull 41:01
I feel like I've I could have done a, I could have done probably, like an every major sport top five list, I think so this was okay, okay. This was by far, probably detail. I mean, obviously we like sports. I like sports a lot. This is tough. So here we go. My number
Nick VinZant 41:18
five one question is one, real quick, one real quick, one question, um, in any of the movies that you picked to the team, to the team you're rooting for win, or because you're in Detroit, where they've never won anything of consequence, do you always like, are you allowed to watch a movie? Do you Do you even understand the concept of winning? Because there winning. You can't watch any movies with champions, because you're not a champion. I'm a champion. So only I can watch movies where there's a championship on the line. Like, I don't know if you could even relate to the concept of a championship. Do you know, have you heard the word
John Shull 41:57
I have I Yeah. I mean you're right that? I mean, the Detroit Red Ring Red Wings haven't won the championship in a few years, but they did win it in
Nick VinZant 42:07
my lifetime. What sport is that?
John Shull 42:10
Hockey, which we spent five minutes talking about earlier.
Nick VinZant 42:14
Oh, okay, I'm only considering major sports.
John Shull 42:17
What's major sports to you?
Nick VinZant 42:21
Basketball, it's essentially just football. It's essentially football. It's football. Football is the biggest sport in America. Oh, but I won the Pee Wee leagues. Oh, great, congratulations. No, guys, I was really good in high school. That's what you're doing right now. God, we have a we got a really good high I didn't say that's what you're thinking. That's what you're thinking. That's what your mindset is. It's not a championship mindset. You don't understand what it's like to be a champion, not a champion. John, not a here's Okay. Let's get into our top five with John, not a champion shawl. Well, you
John Shull 42:56
know what that's that's a perfect segue, because my number five is about a person who you're right, never became what he thought he was going to be. And it's a it's one of the best movies I've ever seen, not just sports movies, but my number five is the wrestler.
Nick VinZant 43:15
Oh, that's a good movie. I thought about putting the wrestler on their list, but I also feel like that's, that's one of those things where, oh, that's kind of his life, too, at the same time, like that character was a little bit close to his life,
John Shull 43:29
because I can tell you, being a professional independent wrestler.
Nick VinZant 43:32
Oh, okay, sneak it in there. Sneak it in. I like it. I like that.
John Shull 43:36
That doing that, especially back in the day when you know when you had to do it, like there was no other outs for for certain people, like, if you wanted to try to make it, I mean it, it is excruciating. I mean it is, I to be honest with you, and I'm not putting down the business. I don't know how people, I mean, have that much love for something. Like, I love professional wrestling. I could not do it like these amateur and indie people do it. I mean, it's, you're going, like, you're spending years going out in front of 100 people, sometimes maybe 50 to make a hot dog. Like, still,
Nick VinZant 44:18
you have to be, I'm sure that it's the roar of the crowd, right? Like, it's something that you can just, you can't get that kind of feeling in anything else.
John Shull 44:27
Well, it is awesome. And like I said, we've, I've only been in front of like 200 people, it is awesome, especially when they like, chant like, this is awesome, or like, some random stranger tells me to go F myself, like, you know it's good,
Nick VinZant 44:42
have you? Do you have a wrestling name? Could it be John? Not a champion? Show, actually, no, the championship. That'd be a good wrestling name for you. I am
John Shull 44:51
a champion. Thank you very much. I would have a ring because we had an event this past Saturday, but I couldn't go to it because of my. Sickness, but I
Nick VinZant 45:01
have, my God, that's why you're not a champion. I was sick. I was sick. You think? Anyway, the rock or John Cena is like, I got a little cold. Guys, I can't go to Wrestlemania.
John Shull 45:16
Wow, I would. I wouldn't. I don't know if I would miss Wrestlemania.
Nick VinZant 45:21
Anyway, it's gonna be Buttercup. My number one Buttercup.
John Shull 45:27
My number five is the wrestler. What's your number five?
Nick VinZant 45:30
The Big Lebowski. Big Lebowski is a sports movie. It's about bowling. Bowling is at the center of Big Lebowski. Big Lebowski is a great sports movie.
John Shull 45:44
I am all about, you know, sports being a secondary theme, and it's still being a sports movie, but I don't think of The Big Lebowski, and the first thing I think about is bowling. It's up there.
Nick VinZant 45:58
Though, any sports movie is really just a story about, like, perseverance, and that's what the dude is doing. He's on a quest to find out what happened with his carpet
John Shull 46:08
well, so my number four is overcomes obstacles, yes. And my number four is Caddy Shack.
Nick VinZant 46:16
Oh, that's, yeah, okay. I think that's way too low to have Caddyshack. I think Caddy Shack should be much higher. My number four is a karate kid.
John Shull 46:25
Okay, I I have that on my honorable mention. I mean, it's probably the only mixed martial arts movie that I've like seen and say that I'll like,
Nick VinZant 46:35
yeah, it's the I would, yeah, yeah. I mean, does Roadhouse, Roadhouse a sports movie? No, no, not really. I guess, no,
John Shull 46:48
that's no, that's not a sports movie.
Nick VinZant 46:52
Karate Kid is the best MMA or mixed martial arts related movie by far? I don't think anything even comes close to it.
John Shull 46:59
Good Road House, you would bring up Roadhouse man, Kurt Russell, baby. Like, is that? Yeah, okay, yeah. For a second I was, No, it isn't. It's Patrick Swayze, which
Nick VinZant 47:12
is what I thought. Patrick Swayze, see, yes, that's my theory. You don't even know. I do. What's your number what's your number three?
John Shull 47:19
So this is going to be controversial, and I I left rocky off the list.
Nick VinZant 47:27
Then it makes the list wrong. Rocky has to be on there. I mean, are you going, ooh, that's another one that would actually be a really long franchise. Is all the Rocky movies. There's like five Rockies. There's like, a bunch of creeds.
John Shull 47:42
I will argue to say that rocky isn't even the best Rocky in the franchise. Oh, I agree with that 100% but in saying that, I do have a boxing movie here at number three, and it's Million Dollar Baby. Oh, okay, you familiar with
Nick VinZant 48:01
that at all? Yeah, it's, yeah. I mean, that I wouldn't have picked
John Shull 48:05
it's, it's the ultimate story of, you know, just how you work, work and work for something, and then, the blink of an eye, everything's changed. I don't, I don't know if I want to give the plot away, but it's, you know, I believe Hillary Swank won best actress. I think I might have been, but one Best Picture, not that, you know, Oscars really mean a lot to me, but like, it's, you know, I think what Morgan Freeman's in it, Clint Eastwood, I think directed it like it's did true story
Nick VinZant 48:37
based On true story.
John Shull 48:39
I don't know, but it's, it's a, I've never forgotten a certain scene, which, once again, I won't spoil the movie, but it's, you know, it's, it's one of my it's, it's like, I don't know how to say it's not one of my favorites, but if I'm, if I'm ranking sports movies, it's on my top five list of sports movies for just the moments itself,
Nick VinZant 48:58
my number three is a movie that maybe a lot of people have not heard of. Tour de pharmacy, which is a comedy, kind of spoofing the Tour de France, and it's all just about how they take massive amounts of like performance enhancing drugs. It's one of the fun it's one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. I like Tour de pharmacy.
John Shull 49:20
It's, funny because I have, I have Icarus on my honorable mention, which is the Icarus,
Nick VinZant 49:26
Icarus, Icarus, yeah, Icarus.
John Shull 49:31
I have Icarus on my list because of, you know, just the power of that documentary and what it tried to expose, which is, you know, the doping scandals that rocked the cycling world.
Nick VinZant 49:44
Oh, is that what it's about? I just know it's Icarus. I don't know. Actually know what it's about at all. I thought it was a rugby movie,
John Shull 49:54
not about No, you're no, you're no, you're thinking of Invincible or no, um. You're thinking the one with Matt Damon, God dang it. What's it called? My number two is rocky four. And Victor Rocky is what it's called.
Nick VinZant 50:10
Rocky four, in my opinion, is the best Rocky movie by far. I don't think it's particularly close. I don't think it's particularly close.
John Shull 50:17
Soundtracks perfect. Like everything about it is pretty much spot on. If he dies, he dies, all right, my number it's gonna be sappy. He's gonna be sappy. I don't think we did my number two. Oh, maybe not. My number two is Major League.
Nick VinZant 50:38
Oh, yeah, that's a good movie. I don't know if I could get it in my top 10, but that is a solid movie. No, I'd probably be in my top 10.
John Shull 50:46
I don't think a movie captures the craziness of like a sports team better than that. You have, you have dudes sleeping with other dudes wives, other people doing this. And that gets, you know, it's, it's, it's incredibly insane. So number one, my man, once again, kind of tough, but not at the same time. But my number one is, Remember the Titans?
Nick VinZant 51:12
Oh, I've never seen that movie. Guess I don't remember the Titans. Is it a follow up to the is it a sequel to the Titans? Please stop just the psycho. Is the sequel? It's not a sequel to the Titans. When you Remember The Titans,
John Shull 51:31
I don't want them to gain another yard. You blitz all night, man. It's about, it's, I mean, it's, I don't want to explain it to you. How have you never seen
Nick VinZant 51:44
it? I forgot about the Titans. I guess
John Shull 51:49
it's incredible. It's, it's maybe one of the greatest movies I've ever seen.
Nick VinZant 51:54
My number one is Caddy Shack. The greatest movie I've ever seen. Caddy Shack, that's the kind of movie I want to watch. I don't really want to watch movies to be inspired. I don't really want to watch movies to have some deeper message about perseverance and championing through and how life can knock you down, but you got to get back up. I want to watch a movie about Caddy Shack and see Rodney Dangerfield
John Shull 52:18
Well, and that's the difference. You don't need that inspiration because you're already a champion.
Nick VinZant 52:24
Thank you. Like now you understand the championship mindset. You don't need to watch a movie about Everest. You don't need to watch a movie about mountains when you're already on top of Everest. You know what the view is like? I don't need to be inspired. I'm a champion. You need all this motivation because you're so used to losing again and again and again. Like, you've got to find the way to persevere, to lose again.
John Shull 52:46
Yeah, you're, you're legit already there. Like, already there.
Nick VinZant 52:49
I'm already at the top. I don't need to watch a movie like that. That's, that's good inside, John, that's the smartest thing you've ever said. Thank you, at least today.
John Shull 52:57
Thank you, proud of you. Like, oh, I got a hefty, hefty honorable mention. Do you care?
Nick VinZant 53:06
Okay, let me hear all your honorable mentions, and I'll give you thumbs up, thumbs down on each one.
John Shull 53:10
All right. Here we go. Wait. How is everyone out there gonna know you gotta say,
Nick VinZant 53:15
I go, like, I'll give you me. All right, yeah. All right, perfect. Or again it
John Shull 53:25
I hate you. All right. Let's see. Here we go. The original Rocky, it's all right, doesn't before varsity blues,
Nick VinZant 53:37
everybody in small town America thought there was that was their town when that movie came out that's just like us. The Sandlot, it's okay, it's overrated, not as good. It's it's better in your memory than it is in reality. Mystery Alaska, don't even it's a mystery to me. I don't even know what it is miracle. Be a miracle, if I watched it days. Oh, wait. Is that
John Shull 54:12
with Will Ferrell? Nope, that's Tom Cruise, yeah, Tom Cruise. And what Talladega Nights was the Ricky Bobby One that will
Nick VinZant 54:22
Talladega Nights is the better movie. That's, if I'm gonna watch a racing movie, it's gonna be Talladega Nights and not Days of Thunder, okay?
John Shull 54:29
Bull Durham,
Nick VinZant 54:33
nothing, if I've ever heard of it. This
John Shull 54:38
is, this is actually quite fun. Kingpin.
Nick VinZant 54:43
Gets overshadowed by the better bowling movie Dave or Big Lebowski. I kind of remember Kingpin, a little bit Woody Harrelson, Bill Murray's like something, okay. I couldn't
John Shull 54:54
remember Randy Quaid. It's fantastic. All right, getting down to the bottom here, blue chip. Oops.
Nick VinZant 55:03
I don't remember which one is that. One is that? Shaquille
John Shull 55:06
O'Neal Yeah, Nick Nolte, college basketball team.
Nick VinZant 55:10
Oh, man, Shaq can't
John Shull 55:15
act Raging Bull,
Nick VinZant 55:17
supposedly one of the greatest movies of all time. But I've never seen it. I don't even know if that's, that might be something that is supposed to be one of the greatest movies of all time, that I don't even know if I've ever seen a YouTube clip of it.
John Shull 55:31
It's, it's well done. That was in the, I think that was in the, I would argue to say that the run that Robert De Niro had in the late 70s, early 80s of movies was one of the greatest runs of any actor ever. I mean, he had taxi driver. He had that. I mean, he was just spitting out bangers for like, three, four or five years.
Nick VinZant 55:57
The only thing that I would put up against it would be Arnold Schwarzenegger with a good, like, a run of really good movies that people liked you. De Niro had great performances. But I think that you could put say, like, oh, Schwarzenegger had a big run of movies that were pretty iconic.
John Shull 56:14
I mean, he had the Godfather at that point too, when those, when the other ones kind of came out. I mean, all right, let's see last but not least, Space Jam.
Nick VinZant 56:27
Oh yeah, that's a movie that, like, it's not a movie you go back and watch though, like, I'm gonna watch watch Space Jam, yeah, you know what I really want to watch again, Space Jam. Like, I don't know how to see that happening.
John Shull 56:43
Well, like any anything, they had to remake it with Lebron James, and I don't think it was very well done. I haven't seen the remake.
Nick VinZant 56:51
You can't remake a movie like that. Okay, I'm gonna give you some and you say something, okay, hoop this would be the only kind of serious movie that I thought about putting on. There is Hoop Dreams.
John Shull 57:01
Yeah, good movie. I mean, now one of my favorites that's like, white man. White Man can't jump. White Men Can't Jump. To me,
Nick VinZant 57:08
oh, that's a good movie. Yeah, that, that was a started, a whole thing that, really, that threw white men under the bus for a good 20 years. I don't know if we've ever really gotten out or the bus that was ran that run over us and White Men Can't Jump.
John Shull 57:26
Well, looking back on it, I'm not sure Woody Harrelson was the right actor to play that role.
Nick VinZant 57:32
Oh no. He was great. Do you know a white man who could was there a better was there a higher jumping white actor that you thought of? I mean, like man they should have gotten Josh Brolin. He could jump. He had Hobbs.
John Shull 57:44
What was that late? That was early 90s. I mean, yeah. I mean, I don't know, probably not. I mean, Woody Harrelson was perfect, but not perfect for that role. I don't know. I don't know how to explain my way of thinking. Air Bud. Move on.
Nick VinZant 58:04
Who makes I just want to know what the economics of the Air Bud franchise is like. Who is me? They're making money off of this. Yeah, I was see here lucrative to be making these movies with a dog. And they made like 40 of them. There's Air Bud, golden receiver, like Air Bud was doing all kinds of stuff.
John Shull 58:26
So I don't know if this is correct. This can't be right. The original Air Bud made almost $40 million at the box office. Wow.
Nick VinZant 58:39
Wait, but how much did it cost? Well, made or, like, because, like, in Yeah, earned, or whatever I think people earn, yeah, I can't use the right words necessarily, but there's a difference between, like, okay, they sold $40 million worth of tickets, or the movie made $40 million like, what was the production budget?
John Shull 58:59
I need to take up 20 seconds and name you off the entire Air Bud franchise, the Air Bud France. Here we go, starting with the first movie released August 1 of 1997 and we're going to end with a movie that is slated to be released in August of this year. Okay. Okay. Here we go. Air Bud. Air Bud, golden receiver. Air buddies, Snow Buddies, space buddies, Santa buddies, the search for Santa. Pause, spooky buddies, treasure buddies, Santa. Pause, two, oh boy, Super Buddies. Pop star, better together. Pop star, just pop star, pup star, World Tour, Puppy star Christmas and due out this August Air Bud returns.
Nick VinZant 59:48
Man, that's a good that's I don't I lost count after I we passed three and I lost interest in counting. That's absolutely okay. That might be longer than the Lord of the Rings franchise.
John Shull 1:00:00
Is I just I so I don't want to be that guy. But how many air buds Do you think they've gone through over the last 30 years?
Nick VinZant 1:00:10
Probably actually know the answer to this, because a long time ago, actually probably, like two or three years ago, we had a guy on that was a Hollywood animal agent, and he said there was around 14 different air buds that they used for the golden for one of the movies. For one, yeah. I mean, you got to have a lot of dogs, good God. And like, Could you really, if you're talking about pure bred dogs, could you really, like, look at a couple of Golden Retrievers next to each other and be like, that's a different one. No, okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of profoundly pointless. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate. It really helps us out and let us know what you think is the best sports movie. I like irreverent I think, is the word sports movies. Those are my favorite. John likes the more feel good sports movies, the more inspirational sports movies. But again, he's not a champion. Doesn't know what it's like to be at the top. That's why he's always trying to motivate it to get there. I've been at the top. I'm a champion. Don't need to be motivated. Time to relax. I.