Sausage Talk 3
Bonus · published 2023-08-05 · archive #194

[0:00:00] Unidentified: Have you seen anything? The question is there! I think that our neighborhood has moved. We're in the past. Summer ends. On Oak Street. Producer J.J. Abrams, Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor. We're gonna survive. The End of Oak Street. Directed by David Robert Mitchell. August 14th.
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[0:01:00] Geoff: Welcome to episode 160. Nope. Blindsight. Nope. I thought there was none of that. It's none of those things. This is an addendum that's probably going at the beginning of another piece of content. But maybe it's at the end. It's to provide context with what you are about to listen to. Or maybe you just listen to. So here's that context.
[0:01:22] Andrew: What? The context is the Gerplers didn't come out yet so everything we said is irrelevant in this recording as far as how we sell stuff.
[0:01:30] Geoff: Yeah. We're fucking idiots. That's the context. But we thought that the Sausage Talk was really funny and it had some really funny moments in it that we didn't want to lose. Have you said that this is for Sausage Talk? I said it was an addendum before a piece of content. I mean they clicked on the episode of Sausage Talk.
[0:01:47] Gavin: That's true. Yeah. It was just recorded. Yeah. It was recorded ages ago. We're talking about how dumb we were in that one. And then something else happened after that was even dumber than anything we touched on.
[0:01:56] Andrew: Yeah.
[0:01:57] Gavin: In summary.
[0:01:57] Andrew: And I'm sure there might be new merch that has released since then that we might need to record an addendum to the addendum to potential.
[0:02:04] Geoff: Oh for the next thing we drop a bollock on. The next thing we fuck up. Well here's the deal. Here's one piece of actionable info for you. After the last fuck up we doubled every order of every piece of f***ed face merchandise that's coming out.
[0:02:22] Andrew: Applause. Right?
[0:02:24] Geoff: I don't know if it's applause or not but we're trying to create more of the shit. It puts us in there's a greater risk of falling on our faces and not being able to make more merch. But we like we don't know what else to do. So we're just increasing the numbers on everything because we just don't want to let people down and disappoint them anymore. No that's great. It's really not the goal here is to disappoint the audience by offering them merchandise. The goal is to enrich the whole ecosystem of the podcast and this dumb joke of a thing that we're doing. But we hadn't doubled it yet when we recorded this. Or we hadn't doubled it yet when we recorded the thing you just heard.
[0:03:03] Eric: Gavin I thought your thing was so good and then it just kept on. Anyway sorry for the mix up with all the merch and hopefully you stick with us and we can get this all sorted so that way you get the thing that you want. Because we want you to have it.
[0:03:16] Geoff: And let us know if this was at the beginning of the sausage talk at the end.
[0:03:19] Eric: Let them know. Don't let me know. I don't care. Let them know. Don't let me know.
[0:03:22] Geoff: Let them let Nick know.
[0:03:24] Eric: No.
[0:03:25] Andrew: Eric.
[0:03:26] Geoff: Yeah. Eric said no. Nick said let me know.
[0:03:29] Unidentified: No.
[0:03:31] Geoff: It keeps cutting out. All you can hear is the K-N-O-W. Hello and welcome to another episode of Sausage Talk. It's everybody's favorite show behind the show. It's where we talk about the inner workings, the business end, the things that we don't talk about that aren't appropriate to talk about in the comedy of the podcast F*** Face. But we give a little bit of insight for those out there in the world who want to see very literally how the sausage is made. A peek behind the sausage. A peek behind. A peek through the casing as it were. Maybe inside the sausage. Not just behind. In. We go in. We go deep. I was looking at recipes last night. I wanted to cook some sausage. And anytime the recipe says to remove the sausage from the casing, I'm out. I just like, that seems, I don't want to deal with that. That's gross. You don't want to just move on to the next one.
[0:04:31] Geoff: The ground meat. No. No, no. I would just buy ground meat sausage then. To me. It comes that way. Why would you buy it in a casing and then remove it from the casing? The whole point, like you're buying the casing too. It's like throwing away half the food. I thought sausage was the format.
[0:04:45] Gavin: I thought it was like, but then you buy, like here, you get a sausage in a disc. You can get a sausage in a disc, yeah. Yeah, it's not a sausage. That's a sausage patty. It's a sausage patty. That's a pork.
[0:04:54] Andrew: It's a sausage patty.
[0:04:54] Gavin: That's a different thing. It could be beef. It's a different product. Or beef. Just call it beef patty, pork patty. Tiny patty. It's not a sausage. It's all sausage, dude. It's not a sausage unless it's in a sausage.
[0:05:05] Eric: Wait, the sausage is the casing? So did you guys think that when we said sausage talk it was literal or?
[0:05:11] Geoff: Yeah. I'm actually more. That's the problem. That's the problem with us. Is that there's, and this is where sausage talk breaks down, is that we're not smart enough. And everything is a dumb joke. We could easily do 15 minutes on literal sausage. Everything is always a dumb bit. Okay. We want to talk a little bit this week about merchandise. We've had a couple of high profile drops that have hit recently. Uh, we've had some reorders that have hit recently. We've actually done three runs of the protected by Falcons and the, uh, no scrumping signs, which I never thought we would revisit, but we did. Eric's shaking his head. He didn't want to at all. He was against, he was against the reorders. I'll be, I'll be really honest about that stuff. Yeah, absolutely. But, uh, but they were like, they're relatively easy to make their quick turnaround. And there was a lot of demand and I wanted people to have, uh, another shot at him because it turns out the numbers that we ordered him were, were, were pretty low. Uh, and that's something that's caused a lot of, uh, consternation with some members of
[0:06:11] Geoff: the audience. There are a lot of us out there, uh, a lot of people like in sneaker culture or in collectible culture, whether that be sports or coins or Pokemon or whatever, uh, who appreciate the hunt, right? Like a lot of the joy of getting a new pair of Air Max ones or whatever it is, is like the search and, and, and the work you have to put into to get it. I'm not trying to make anybody work, but I will, I'd be lying if I said that I, I also don't appreciate that level, uh, of, uh, consumerism. Like it's, it's a lot of fun for me. That's why I've been collecting shit since I was 15. Eric's having real trouble with his phone right now.
[0:06:49] Eric: It doesn't matter. I'm trying to get the, well, the timer died within 30 seconds.
[0:06:51] Geoff: So I'm trying to set up the timer, but that's not the, but that's, that's not really why we do what we do. Um, we make stuff in low numbers and sometimes not everybody gets it. First off, I just like to say, I think that's okay. I don't expect everyone to buy everything we sell. I think that would actually be irresponsible. I'm not asking anybody to spend that much money. What I would like is to create fresh new merchandise. Uh, let me be clear. Let me take a step back even before we get to that point and say that merchandise is, is a cost of doing business. Create merchandise to sell. There are a couple different ways that a company makes money in the entertainment industry. Ad sales, direct or otherwise are the lion's share, at least with a podcast. The other big tranche is like a Patreon subscriber model, which we don't exactly have for face, although we will be making some first only content at some point. We were pretty excited about actually, uh, in a way that makes sense. But the other one is, is the merchandise bucket. And that's a, it's, it's a wonderful field to play in because you can be incredibly creative,
[0:07:54] Geoff: which I think we have maximized with face. And, uh, but conversely, you can do the other thing where you just slap a logo on a t-shirt and then tell people if they want to support your show, go buy it. And we, I did that for 20 years in Rooster Teeth, right? I'd started, uh, I don't know if people know my history with Rooster Teeth, uh, as a co-founder, but I created the first store, the first web store and ran it. I created the second one. I created the third one, which didn't last very long. Uh, and then I created the fourth one. And then at some point we moved on, uh, the third store was bad. It was like, uh, where are these, this many stores?
[0:08:27] Gavin: Yeah. This honestly sounds exactly like, uh, f***-faced seasons. Yeah. Season three was pretty short.
[0:08:33] Geoff: We had to, because we kept breaking, we, the problem that Red vs. Blue and Rooster Teeth had early on is that there was not a store that could handle our traffic. So we would break, we would get, everything was geared up towards DVD launches. Back then DVDs, we went to hundreds of thousands of DVDs when, when they would come out. Like season three just dropped. We have to sell a hundred thousand DVDs via the web store today. There was not a web store that existed that could handle that load. I think I got the first one. Gavin was there for, Gavin was there for every bit of this as a community member. And then eventually as a, a co-worker. I was always fighting hobby. Yeah. It was always you and hobby trying to be fart. And, uh, eventually we took Yahoo down. I mean, it was like, I've told that story on the RT podcast before, but like we, we had, I think season four of RVB launched and we crashed Yahoo's web services for, their, their e-commerce services. And so I have been, I can't take credit for where the merch department is now. I, which by the way, if you don't work in this industry, I have to tell you the rooster teeth e-commerce department, the people that work there are some of the best in the business
[0:09:34] Geoff: at the level that we're at. Like they are really phenomenal. They do tremendous work and they've built an amazing machine over there. But I, I bring this up to say that I helped build that over the last 20 years. I haven't had a lot to do with in the last, you know, seven or eight, but it's something that's very near and dear to me. It's very important to me. Um, it's kind of like, I, I always talk about like Millie is my first child and Achievement Hunter is my second. And I guess face would be like my fifth or sixth kid. Uh, but somewhere in there, like my third kid would probably be the, the merch department and, and our, in our e-commerce, uh, something that I take a lot of, a lot of pride in and Eric cannot keep that phone up.
[0:10:10] Gavin: They're, they're honestly a great service department in that a lot of the time I feel like we can throw something out and it feels like we're the only department at Rooster Teeth in terms of how quickly they can get stuff made and turn around and on the shelves.
[0:10:23] Geoff: Well, they're, you're absolutely right. And, and they are a great partner to have. I call them partner. We're coworkers, but you know, we are partners in these things and they're a great partner to have because I think we're a great partner for them in that we try to provide them new, creatively challenging, different and interesting merch ideas at, at a pretty rapid fucking pace.
[0:10:46] Eric: If so, the way it it's operated is a lot of it is left to the merch department, the e-commerce team to create new stuff and come up with new ideas. And then with, uh, it kind of started with face jam and then with face, I started working very closely with them. And that's when a lot of this started where it's like, here's new ideas. And they were very hungry for like, Oh my God, you guys have ideas. Yeah. And, uh, now it's, it's Tony and Tobin and Ari and Natalie and Aaron and Mia. And we have like a team that works really hard to come up with the dumbest fucking shit I've ever seen made here. We just saw the magnet of Jeff's refrigerator and it was a room of people going, this is fucking awesome.
[0:11:33] Gavin: Tony walked in like he was holding a bar of gold and he said it's because it's a, the one of one prototype and he didn't want to drop it.
[0:11:39] Geoff: But that's, that's part of, that's partly because of the relationship we've formed. See, you don't, these things don't work in a vacuum, right? Rooster Teeth is a huge company with a lot of brands. You mentioned face jam. That's another brand. We have red web. We have all good. No worries. We have the achievement hunter. We have fun house. We have all these different rooster teeth as a brand. They all need merchandise. They all have merchandise needs that all goes through Tony and Jeff and Aaron and Michelle and Tobin and all those people. Right. And so they have to prioritize. They can like, they're a pretty robust team, but they can only work on so much at once. And I'm not trying to sound like a dickhead, but I want them to work on our stuff before they work on anybody else's. Right. Like that's the point of like, that's the point of that's, that's how you put, that's how you run a show.
[0:12:21] Eric: But like, but, but you're right to want that too, because we, the stuff that we're making is the stuff that excites them. Yes. So they also want to work on our stuff above and beyond the other things that they might be making. And it's just a matter of like, okay, unfortunately you're third in line and that's just the way. Yeah. Just by size. That's the way it works.
[0:12:42] Geoff: And sometimes that happens. But if we demonstrate that we hit home runs, I'm talking at an East Austin, at a shape, 105 degrees, 40 mile an hour pitching machine, home run after home run, after home run, we hit those home runs. It gives us a lot of flexibility and a lot of trust in that department. So that when we come to them and we say, Hey, we, we want you to make a slop a clock clock and they go like a working clock. That's a slop a clock. And we go, yeah, they go, we'll get on it. And by the way, we have a slop a clock clock coming out at some point. And I'm very excited about that. I've heard all the numbers are in the right place. There was a problem with the 10 and the 11. Gavin was the only one. I had no idea.
[0:13:27] Gavin: I didn't say it was wrong because I was like, Oh, is this like a part of the joke? Like the, uh, the 11 is on the 10. And I was like, is that supposed to be there? And then you were like talking about something else about the clock. I was like, yeah, but, but the 11 is in the wrong place.
[0:13:40] Geoff: A lot of, a lot of why it's important for us to sell out is because of the flexibility it provides and the trust it provides us. Uh, I don't think people realize, uh, especially when you deal with all the products that the company has in the e-commerce department, in the store that all live somewhere. It's housed in a warehouse, right? The every day that a piece of merchandise is in that warehouse, we lose money on it. I'm not trying to get like boring and too granular, but you have to think, think about it like this. I'm going to throw some, I'm going to throw some dumb math out. Gavin, I'll need you to help me because I'm bad at math. Let's say we made 500 album covers, 500 albums. Gavin grabbed his phone. You're not going to need that. Uh, let's say we made, let's say we made 500 albums and we made them for $10 each and I'm not counting pressing fees. I'm not counting if they have to make a mold like they did with the, with the, uh, the magnets or any of that stuff. Uh, we make 500 records. It costs at 10 bucks a pop that cost us $5,000. That's our investment that Rooster Teeth, we went to Rooster Teeth and said, Hey, please
[0:14:40] Geoff: spend $5,000 on these records. And they go, okay, we'll trust you. We'll spend $5,000 on these records. We sell out at 15 bucks a pop. That's a 50% profit. That's better than we, that's better than we usually get. But that's easy math this way. So 7,500 bucks, right? Bam. Day one, we made 7,500 bucks. We recouped our $5,000 investment and then we made a $2,500 profit, right? If we thought, well, I, maybe we'll sell 700. Maybe let's buy a thousand to be sure. We've now invested $10,000. Let's say we sell 800. That's way more than 500. That's really cool. Except we've recouped. How, how much money is that? You told me to put away my calculator. How much is eight? Eight, 800 times 15 times 15. Hang on. I could do this in my head, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[0:15:27] Eric: But hang on. Hang on. That's my calculator. Okay. Hang on.
[0:15:31] Geoff: I opened calendar. Oh my God. I really thought. $12,000. $12,000. Yeah. Okay. That's great. So we have, uh, we've now spent $10,000. And you're saying there's 500 less in profit. Yeah. There's 500 less in profit, but we're, we're still stuck. We've basically broke even, but now we're stuck with 200 albums that are just sitting in, in the warehouse. And what happens is we have to pay for them to live there every month. That's not a lot.
[0:15:58] Eric: Right.
[0:15:59] Geoff: But it adds up. And the longer that they're there, the less money we make, the longer that money is tied up in that, in that facility, like literally. And so then when we come to Tony or those guys and say, Hey, we want to make a bunch of kitchen magnets that are refrigerators that are also magnets that we can put tiny magnets on top of, they go, that's a great idea, but sell through those 200 albums that you're sitting on first, which means I then have to go back to the audience and I have to now hound you to buy it. Right. Because people, here's another thing. People only buy shit the day it comes out. Nobody, like people aren't going to the Rooster Teeth web store every day to see what, to just casually browse what new face merchandise is there.
[0:16:35] Andrew: I will say sometimes, though, it's on us where we, just with how we record stuff, we're not always the best at letting people know. Oh, no. When things are there. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. So like the skateboard was something that didn't sell super well initially on launch and then we're like, oh, nobody's buying these. And then it sold out like four days after we had that conversation.
[0:16:53] Gavin: I think the biggest, the biggest thing with the skateboard is it didn't really come from content. Yeah. It was just like a cool idea that we liked. Yeah. But it didn't, it didn't, because I feel like we're never trying to just come up with merch. I feel like a lot of our best merch doesn't ever start with that intent. It's just a funny bit. Like a, it's like a sign. And that's why when it's like rooted in content, that's the stuff that will go ape shit compared to a face skateboard that we didn't really talk about.
[0:17:17] Geoff: That's the theory of face and why, what I want to do with face in general is I want the merch that we sell because we have to, like it's a, it's a, it's a, it's the cost of doing business. I want when somebody buys something, I've been thinking about this often on my entire adult life, but when I was a roadie for the ska punk band back in the nineties, catch 22, I would sell their t-shirts and their DVDs and kids would come up to me and they would buy it. They would want to buy a t-shirt and be like, I want to get a medium of that shirt. And I'd go, uh, we're all, we're all out of medium. I'm sorry. And he'd go, what size do you have? And I go, all we have is extra large. It's way too big for you. And he goes, I don't care. I want it. I just want it. And I realized people weren't buying the shirt. They were buying, they were, they were, they were buying a memory of the moment that they were there of that experience. And that, that the item that they're buying from me in that moment is way more important than the item itself. You know, and they'll grow into it in 35 years. And they'll grow into it in 35 years now. And that always stuck out to me. Like people, like people won't, they don't necessarily want the merch. They just, they want to be, they want to either a memory or they want to touch the thing.
[0:18:19] Geoff: They want to be a part of the experience, right? We, we discovered that again in Achievement Hunter with the moon balls and then with the socks, which was, we joked around about it a lot, but it was me fucking, I decided that people would buy socks if we sold good socks. And then I argued with the merch department, different people ran it back then, wonderful people too, for six months. And finally I started talking about it in content so that people started asking about it so that then I could go to them and go, you have to let us sell it. And then socks became a huge thing. Suddenly all Rooster Teeth wanted to do was make socks for a year. It was fucking annoying, right? I couldn't get them, I couldn't get them to listen to me. And then suddenly all they wanted to do is, is, is sell socks. Uh, and that's another thing we do. We don't want to do. We don't want to, we don't want to just beat everything to death. But what I really don't want to do is just ask you to buy another t-shirt with our logo on it or a hat with our logo on it. Those are important. I buy t-shirts, I buy t-shirts from restaurants and coffee shops all over town because that's the best way to support them other than also frequenting them so that there is a place for
[0:19:22] Geoff: that. I'm not saying there isn't, but what we want to do with the merchandise is I want you to buy, like, I want you to buy a hand, a bat knob that I cut off in my backyard that still got sawdust in it. I want you to buy a baseball that Gavin and Eric and Nick and super fan Jack and I all played catch with in a field before we hit it.
[0:19:41] Gavin: Like, the screen matched baseball was a, was a great thing that we had posted to us. That's exactly what I think is exciting about it.
[0:19:49] Geoff: Oh, that's the one that, that's the first home run from that video. And to be able to be nimble, to be able to jump to the top of the line requires us to make, to, to be successful. And to be successful, sometimes we have to do it at numbers that, uh, allow us to be successful. I do want to expand to the fair. I want to offer more like we, we, we joked around about this kitchen magnet. I think that's a product that we all believe in that we think the audience is gonna, is gonna really like. And I hope so because we are taking a big swing on that one. I think we sold, we ordered 2000 of those, which is way more than we ever order, but we just couldn't make them for any less. It would have been so expensive. We couldn't sell it. That's another thing too. They're really funny or that we really are into that we just never, that we don't get made because they're not feasible or the cost to the customer, to the community member would be so high. We can't justify it.
[0:20:39] Gavin: I feel like I've been in the merch stack a couple of times being like, we can't sell it at that price. I'm not, I'm not making any money from that, but I would feel bad if people were spending that money.
[0:20:49] Geoff: We're not trying to nickel and dime anybody, but we're, we're trying to give people a richer experience and ourselves a richer experience by sharing in this comedic merch in the same way y'all are. And I said earlier, I don't want everybody to buy every piece of merchandise we make. I think that that's way too much. I want you to buy the ones that you the most identify with that are from the funniest moments to you or the moments that you latch on. And I want that to be a thing for you. Like if you have a fucking face poster in your house or a face t-shirt on or an Ian t-shirt, maybe it's a little different, but just a face t-shirt and somebody goes, Hey, what's that? And you go, Oh, it's just podcast. You should check it out. And they go, all right, whatever. And I get, I get, I get recommended 1800 podcasts a day. I don't give a fuck. But if you go into somebody's house and there's a clock that only has an 11 and only has a five on it and it says slop a clock on it and you go, what the fuck is that? And somebody goes, Oh, let me play a clip or let me, let me tell you, let me tell you why that, that I want that. I want that. I want people to have that experience. I want people to come to their house and go like, why is there a fucking, why is there
[0:21:50] Geoff: a kitchen fridge magnet on your fridge that also has magnets on it? That also opens like that also opens and has an apple in it. Why an apple? And you go, well, why do I have a story for you about out? You know, that's my theory behind merch. Uh, one other thing I wanted to mention, people have said, why don't you take pre-orders? Uh, why don't you take pre-orders? We did. We've done it many times in the past. It's a fucking nightmare for a myriad of reasons. I'll tell you why. Well, you're only legally allowed to take somebody's money for so long before you give them the product. We always ran afoul of that. And then it creates a customer service issue because invariably, if you pre-order something, a percentage of the people decide a month in or three weeks in, oh, you know, my money's better spent elsewhere. We have to issue refunds and go through that. And that's fine. But it creates a layer of customer service, uh, for a percentage that didn't exist. And with the way the world works now, I'm not confident buying anything and telling you when it's going to come in. I would hate to tell you, uh, we printed a bunch more gerplers. You guys pre-ordered the gerplers.
[0:22:50] Geoff: They'll be in April 15th and then have to go, uh, I've sent 3000 emails out to go, uh, yeah, uh, there was an issue in China or wherever we're getting this made and the supply chain broke down and now we don't exactly know when it's going to come. And then we're running afoul of government regulations and it just becomes a huge clusterfuck. That's fair. Yeah. That's also, by the way, you know, people, people love like, uh, those Patriots, not Patreon, but, uh, what are the, what are the ones where you like, uh, what are the websites where you go and you, no, yeah, there you go. Yeah. Where you say like, I want to make this key chain and you give me like, that's all Kickstarters are is pre-order machines. Yeah. It really is. It's, it's, it's a way for people to take that pre-order money and then have looser dates on when they can return the product because it's difficult, it's illegally dubious and difficult to hold onto people's money after you take it for a very long time. And I just don't like it. I don't want to take your money and not give you something for a week, let alone a month or two or three. I just, I've, I've done it many times in my history running the Roostery store and it's
[0:23:52] Geoff: never been worth it.
[0:23:53] Eric: We don't put it on sale now until it's in hand. And we've been very, we've been working really closely with our e-commerce team to make sure that's the case. Um, and then the record people got like two days later, which was insane. Yeah, that was crazy. That was like, did you see that too, Andrew? Where it was just like, Oh yeah, it's here. Yeah.
[0:24:10] Andrew: I couldn't believe it. Where I've seen like the next day people be like, ah, look at the record arrived. And it's insane. It's crazy.
[0:24:16] Gavin: We lost, we lost a lot of regulation listeners over the record. They became comment leavers.
[0:24:21] Unidentified: Absolutely.
[0:24:23] Eric: They're still around. And I'll, I'll be the first one to say like, I didn't think, I don't think anybody thought we were going to sell out that fast. No. Um, especially on this record where it was two years in the making from inception, from like the, or like initial idea to here and now it is on sale. And to me, I know that people are excited about it and we're excited about it and we're repressing it and everything. Gavin just got his.
[0:24:50] Gavin: I just got mine. Yeah. Yeah. I think we, we're just still in the, uh, we can't quite believe that that dedicated portion of the audience is much bigger now. We're still living in like season two numbers when really we're in season 98.
[0:25:02] Eric: And I don't want to, I don't want to like admonish a fan base for supporting us. Yeah. For being fervent in one. I think that's great. I'm glad you want it. And, um, I'm very quick to say like, Oh, we're not going to reprint this. And then seeing how fast it sells out. It's like, Oh, we have like, we have to, we don't have a choice. I will say that I still am firmly in the camp and I like, I'm, I always, I'll lay out my opinion. It is not my show. This is your guys' show, but I'll always give my opinion on what I feel is their best course of action. And I was ready to move on from the joke of the record. I bet I know that people wanted it and I know people still want it. And I know, but we are, we're looking at something that is like, this is a great piece and it's very cool. And I'm ready for the next thing. Right. And I know that other people aren't, but I am that.
[0:25:54] Geoff: And I kind of touched on that earlier. And that's an excellent point. Eric is that like the longer we have to, like, if we maintain the stock, if we have a thousand of those records in store, we got to talk about that record over and over again. And I don't want to live. I mean, I know it sometimes it's ridiculous. It took us two years to get it made. Um, but it really, it really wasn't a guaranteed success. I know people said you should have expect expected the demand. And, but, and I bring back because we've very rarely ordered in large numbers. I bring back the port-a-potty because I think that if you look at them, they're very similar a record, two year old joke. Port-a-potty was over a year old joke, right? Uh, funny to us. I would say the port-a-potty was a way bigger moment in the podcast and more relevant than that vinyl ever was. Also the both equally useless. The record, the record is, is legitimately, and somebody got mad at me. I said, it's in a worse format than you got it online. I'm not saying the records are shitty format. I'm saying that it's sped up like 2% and we had to cut it a little bit to make it fit.
[0:26:54] Eric: You know, like it's so, it's recorded digitally and you put it on a product, it's not mixed for vinyl at all. You're literally listening. What was it like an MP3 or something like that? Yeah. I mean, it's really, it's so funny. Like the point of vinyl record is that this is mixed on big speakers and it's meant to be listened to in this format. So we all recorded digitally. Nick mixed it down on headphones and put it on a vinyl record.
[0:27:18] Geoff: And that's the thing. It's, it's an episode that's readily available in better quality right now for free online. We were, we pressed it into a medium that most people, that's obsolete and that most people don't have anymore, but it's back like the mall. Well, I mean, it's a good, it's definitely in a, like a huge, uh, collectability phase right now for sure. Uh, but so I just don't think it was a guaranteed home run that we were going to sell a thousand of those things.
[0:27:44] Eric: For episode 16 of a podcast?
[0:27:46] Geoff: Which I'll be honest, I don't remember why we picked episode 16. It was so long ago.
[0:27:50] Eric: There's nothing. It's all the 16s. We did a bunch of episode 16s. Yeah. This was the first of them. Uh, we didn't like, there's no like special, it's the episode.
[0:28:02] Gavin: Yeah. How much would it cost to create the face, like rich, rich audio edition where we put every single episode on an individual vinyl and make a giant box set for a one of one? Nick, start speeding them up.
[0:28:20] Eric: Uh, but again, I appreciate when everyone's excited about this thing. And then, uh, I'm going to speak, uh, from just personally, don't, don't talk to me about it. I don't know what the fuck you think you're going to get, but it's not me going, Oh dude, you want a job here? Like what?
[0:28:43] Gavin: I understand what you're saying, but as a, as a regulation listener, who are they going to go to? Not me.
[0:28:48] Eric: They can go to me. They can go to someone else. They don't go to, I've been so, I've been so adamant about this. When we did the baseballs thing and the amount that I had to deal with, I just told, I texted Jeff later that night. I said, I never want to do this again. I don't think we should release any more merch. I don't ever want to do this again.
[0:29:05] Geoff: That's my big fear here is that Eric is a tremendous resource and we're wearing him down. Don't, just don't talk to me.
[0:29:11] Eric: Just go to me about it. It's not that hard. Hey, where can we find you on social media? You don't have to. Don't. Leave me alone. Do you know how many people I had to block and unblock with this fucking vinyl record? Get real. Leave me alone. What were they saying? Hey, how come I didn't get one? It didn't go on sale. How come it sold out so fast? That's me blocking and unblocking. I, this not, I don't do it. I am simply, I'm simply trying to get it to you. There's something else I can do. Eric's knocking over everything.
[0:29:42] Geoff: He's stomping around. But I guess the bigger picture, the 10,000 foot view is that we are overwhelmed with the support for the podcast in general, let alone via merch. We're trying to do something deeper and honestly a little richer in terms of the interaction between us, the merch, and the audience. We want it to mean something. We want it to be way more than a caboose messenger bag, honestly, seriously, that I made a bunch of, you know, and I made a bunch of money off or a Bow Chicka Bow Wow t-shirt or whatever. Why are you listing stuff that I bought? That stuff is great and it's, and it helped, it helped build, it literally helped lay the bricks that built this company. I'm not denouncing it. I'm just saying that where we are after 20 years of evolving as a company, where I am, I want to do something different with the audience that I think is better for them and better for us. And it helps elevate the show. When you can put the content in your hand and fuck around with it, it's different.
[0:30:47] Geoff: It's true.
[0:30:48] Gavin: I think we should, well, what's funny? When we pick an arbitrary number that we think something might sell and we're just like completely guessing, is it funnier if we sell out in two seconds of something and everyone's annoyed or if we massively over-order and then we have 800 fridge magnets in Eric's office? Over-order.
[0:31:08] Geoff: The second that happens. I'm going in the fucking trash is where they're going. The second that happens, the f*** face merch train just grinds to a holiday.
[0:31:18] Gavin: It's like, chug it, chug it, chug it. And then new ideas we send to them and they're like, eh. Talk about these magnets.
[0:31:25] Eric: And I know what people are going to say. I know people, but we're not there yet. And how come, you know, why not just do pre-orders in that case? And why don't we do, how come you don't know? And why don't, isn't that, isn't that what your department's for? Yeah. And they're making their best guess based on something that is such an outlier from what is, there's no other podcast that is doing what this does in the way that it does. Like Face Jam does weird merch. Yeah. We have weird, we have a little monkey that's going to sit on your shoulder with a magnet in his butt. So you have a little monkey that you can take around everywhere. And I decided yesterday we are stealing that. They fucking stole the idea. Immediately. What would be on our shoulder? Oh, what do you think?
[0:32:05] Geoff: It's so fucking good. It's better than their idea. It is. It makes sense. It sucks. It's so good. It's so fucking good. They're already working on it. Falcon. You can walk around being protected by a falcon literally on your shoulder with a little cap on. So you want to sell another magnet.
[0:32:21] Gavin: Yeah, but it's like a shoulder magnet. We've sold a shoulder magnet then. We've sold a fridge magnet and a bread clip magnet. That's true. Are we a magnet podcast? We might be.
[0:32:31] Eric: We might be a magnet podcast. Andrew, how do you feel about this merch stuff?
[0:32:35] Andrew: Well, it's a lot. Like, as Jeff brought up so many great points, I think in terms of like, and you as well, of not wanting to be stuck necessarily on a specific piece of merch and also wanting to maintain that feeling of collectability. I think it's so much fun to like chase after something. And the reward of getting that is a great feeling. I think it's also maybe a consideration for us of maybe finding the line of where more people are getting it as opposed to not like finding that sweet spot, which is, as you said, really difficult to do.
[0:33:07] Gavin: The sweet spot is I feel like everyone who is refreshing the page at the time we said is going to come out can get one.
[0:33:15] Eric: Yes. And I, and I will say, I want to let you continue, Andrew. I will say that that's what I thought the vinyl record was going to be. I thought, yeah, I'm like, oh, we'll sell this out with the number that we ordered. I do think we'll sell this out. Yeah. Did I think it was going to sell out in 200 seconds? Nobody did. I thought I will give everyone will have about probably 20 minutes, half an hour to get in and grab this thing, because that will be the demand, the want for this thing. There's no way it sells out. Like if you would have told me, yeah, this thing sells out in eight minutes, I would have been like, no fucking way. No fucking way. There's no chance it does that at 200 seconds. That's it. I don't want that as much as I am prickly about the audience. I want you to get the thing that you want. Yes. I don't want you to miss out. Right. But my job for a lot of this is making sure that the relationship that we have with that team, that merch team is strong and making sure that we're selling out and making sure
[0:34:17] Eric: that we're doing the best that we can. So that way we can continue to do this stuff. Yes. And again, don't want to sell out in 200 seconds. I want to sell out in 200 minutes. I want it to be sold out in like an hour or two. So that way, when you go, oh, that fucking thing, oh, I should go. It's been like 15 minutes. I should go get it. Yeah. And you can. Right. That's what I want.
[0:34:37] Geoff: The chase is great when it results in you getting the thing you're chasing. Yes. Absolutely. Let me be absolutely clear.
[0:34:45] Eric: There are so many foxes that are just pissed when they don't catch that rabbit.
[0:34:48] Geoff: Let me be absolutely clear because I talked about how much I love collectability and the chase earlier in the episode. I'm not trying to frustrate our audience in any way whatsoever. And I'm certainly not trying to frustrate the audience who doesn't like the chase. Yeah. Who just wants to give us $10 and get the fucking thing that they want. But I get that. And we're trying to find the sweet spot. But as the podcast grows, sometimes it grows faster than we realize. Yeah. And it's hard to explain.
[0:35:15] Eric: You talked about the cost of keeping something in the warehouse. And it's not just that. The upfront cost. Merch is the thing that we have to do. Yeah. That is the company wide. And like that's what you have to do as a company. You release merch. You make money on merch. Boy, you don't make a lot of money on merch. Right. Is what I've learned in the last two years. We are like with stuff with like Face Jam and everything where we just fucking kill it. Fucking switch forks and switch spoons and like all this stuff. And you look at the amount that you make and you go, holy shit. And then they go, okay. And now we're going to take off the amount like you were saying. How much it costs to make this thing? And you go, where all my money go? Yeah. You're like, why come the number small?
[0:35:56] Geoff: You're like, wow, we made $1,000. And they're like, well, the mold was $350.
[0:36:02] Eric: And you said that you wanted to not sell it for the additional $10. So that way we meet a margin because you wanted this to be cheaper for everyone to go and buy. So now you've knocked off $1,300. And you go, oh, why'd I do that? And you're like, but we sold out.
[0:36:18] Geoff: How did we lose eight bucks?
[0:36:20] Gavin: It really is what it feels like. How many records do you have to sell for something to go platinum? Half a million. And so we're almost.
[0:36:29] Eric: We're so close.
[0:36:30] Andrew: What is the lowest? Is it bronze? Is there a bronze record?
[0:36:33] Gavin: Like what's the lowest? Has a podcast ever gone platinum? Oh, that's a great question. We should go platinum. And then we'll sell.
[0:36:42] Geoff: I want to go platinum.
[0:36:43] Gavin: And then we'll sell one that is made of platinum.
[0:36:45] Geoff: Yeah. Then we'll sell the one of one platinum. Yeah. But we'll sell that one for $1. Yeah. First person that gets it.
[0:36:53] Eric: How come they can't just give me. Oh, it has to be RIAA certified. Oh, the. Recording Industry of America. The DRM guys. The first official designation of a gold record. Yep. It's RIAA. Damn. That sucks.
[0:37:07] Geoff: Well, it's got to be like sound scanned probably. Yeah. Well, can we say we went GERPL?
[0:37:13] Gavin: We can definitely say we went GERPL. We have to know that episode 16 went GERPL. So we're.
[0:37:21] Geoff: So we have to create our own.
[0:37:22] Gavin: We need a frame. This could just be for office. You know, when a record goes gold and they have them. We need a GERPL vinyl to put in a frame. And it just says, you know, this episode went GERPL.
[0:37:33] Geoff: Oh, that's great.
[0:37:34] Gavin: 500 units sold.
[0:37:36] Geoff: That's so fucking great. I want to make that. That is so fucking great.
[0:37:39] Eric: Oh, my God. That's awesome. So that's kind of like the long and short of the merch stuff. If you listen to that and that wasn't entertaining to you, I'm sorry. But that was stuff that we have to say for the people who will write me diatribes and I don't want to read them.
[0:37:53] Gavin: And that was inside the sausage.
[0:37:55] Eric: Yeah. And that's it. That's what the sausage.
[0:37:57] Geoff: There you go. But at the end of the day, it's like we're trying. We understand that specifically with this record, but with a lot of stuff, sometimes we don't order enough. There are specific reasons why we don't. But we're trying to be a little more liberal with our fault tolerance, I guess.
[0:38:14] Andrew: Yeah. I think in the same way that by supporting the merch, it allows us the freedom to create really dumb, ridiculous stuff and pursue those. That support also then allows us to create more and take more of a risk. Yes. Which it sounds like we're doing with the magnet.
[0:38:27] Geoff: Yeah, so that when we do take a risk for a product that we feel really good about, Gerpler or the magnet, kitchen magnet, then yeah, we take our big risks there.
[0:38:37] Gavin: I reckon we can find a corner of this building and call it the f*** face flop zone. And we'll just keep boxes of shit that doesn't sell in here and we'll save money.
[0:38:47] Geoff: Save money that way. How big's your office?
[0:38:49] Eric: I got moved, so bigger, but for me smaller. You want to work in the flop zone? Absolutely not.
[0:38:57] Geoff: Surrounded by comment lever shirts.
[0:39:03] Eric: I think the other. Why does your desk say shirt haver all over?
[0:39:08] Geoff: I would love my shirt haver shirt today.
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[0:40:13] Eric: I think the other thing we wanted to touch on is that I think we have a lot of stuff that we talk about where we go, Oh, they're not letting us do this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. That is partly true and also partly not exactly how this all operates. What's the example? I guess break show is a thing that we want to do weekly. And then how, like, I think we figured something out now. Yeah. But to get to this point, so much had to move and change to make sure we could get on the show floor for X amount of minutes for a time to have a set to go live against the other stuff. Because, shockingly, there's other things at this company that are being made. So, it's not just, ooh, somebody, this one person isn't letting us do this thing. Departmentally, I have to, like, work with Nick to make sure we have our bandwidth is good. So, we have something that we can edit and post or whatever. Then I also have to work with our regular post-production to make sure there's a video component for some of this stuff.
[0:41:16] Eric: Then I have to work with our production team, Shane and the like. I have to make sure I work with Tyler Stab to make sure we have things in the budget. And that's all just from, like, the production side. None of that is from, like, the creative side and does this fit in with, like, what we're trying to accomplish and what we're doing. Right. It's not just, like, when we go, oh, they're not letting us do this. That's us being reductive on purpose. Yeah, yeah. I hope that you understand that and you're not going, oh, I can't believe he's doing this to them. I can't believe it.
[0:41:49] Geoff: Who's it at? Is it Hannah or Jordan? Let me at him. I'm so angry. No, it's, and, you know, there's different kind of productions, too. Like, if I wanted to make an audio podcast, I wouldn't ask anybody. I wouldn't tell anybody. I would just make it, which is something I need to admit to you guys in a minute. But if I were to ask for money, right, if I wanted to make a hardcore tabletop show, like Hardcore Monopoly, which I created, or Haunter, which cost a million and a half dollars to make, or The Weird Place. I mean, you get it. Or any of the, well, we went to Australia and England. Yeah, no, that's cool.
[0:42:27] Eric: Did you find any ghosts?
[0:42:28] Geoff: Yeah, man.
[0:42:28] Eric: Yeah, so I don't really understand it.
[0:42:30] Geoff: Found all kinds of stuff. Or Last Laugh. Like, a show that's a higher concept, higher budget, that has to go through a formal pitch process on the creative end, where you have to create documentation and go and pitch it to a committee. That the committee, it changes all the time. The process changes all the time. Not for any reason other than it just evolves over time. But currently, I would want to go, and I'd talk to probably Doreen and Matt and Jordan and Hannah and Juan, and I would say, here's a show I want to make. Here's how much I think it's going to cost. Just get excited about it. And you do that in a couple ways, but the most common way would be to create a one sheet, right? Which is just like one page or two pages that explains the premise of the show, kind of the bulleted breakdown of the show, how it's going to run, and why it deserves to be made.
[0:43:18] Eric: Yeah, I'm thinking about, we were talking about does it do a little bit before, and that was a thing that was, like, so hung out of, like, when are we doing that? When are we doing that? And it's like, okay, what about in a month? Oh, I'm going to be in England. Oh, okay, cool. All right, well, what about, okay, what about six weeks from now? Oh, I'm at that, ooh, that's actually, I'm going to be out of town, too. Okay, cool.
[0:43:39] Gavin: I like the big list of stuff, the big stumbling blocks just to get something to the point where it's like, make that.
[0:43:48] Eric: And that's how we can do supplemental content, because supplemental content is just like Nick goes, oh, it's recorded, it's almost live to tape, there's some editing that goes into it, and then we're ready to take this thing and go, and we already have a time that's set aside, and we do that. When it's a larger production, there's more moving parts, and it might not be this whole cast, but some of this cast has a lot of other things going on. Where trying to schedule is honestly not as bad now as it used to be. I've been around a lot. You have been. You've been around a lot. Yes, I have definitely noticed that. And we've made a ton of shit. Yeah. Yeah. It's been great. Hey, can I say, I don't know if we've talked about this. There was some research, and then we can cut this out if this is something you don't want in there. Do you know I'm technically your boss? Are you? He's probably my boss, too. I'm not. I'm only, I have one direct report, and it's you. So how can I use this?
[0:44:46] Geoff: I was, by the way, congratulations on getting, on getting, given the Gavin problem. I was technically Gavin's boss for a long, even after Achievement Hunter, I think, for a long time. They're just like, nobody knows what to do with Gavin.
[0:44:57] Eric: I'll be in these meetings, and it'll be like, hey, talk to, you know, the talent that you manage, or your direct reports to see if they want to do this thing, this thing, or we have this other thing coming up, and I'll just reply with, hey, I'll just reply with, oh, that's um, Gavin's thought about it. He has been on the fence on this thing. However, he does not find that he can make this happen in his schedule.
[0:45:22] Gavin: I once found, I think it was like a preliminary, like, hierarchy, where they drew it out. It was probably like 2012 or 2013. No, just trying to figure everything out. For some reason, it was like everyone in the company under, you know, all these people. And then, right on the side, it was just me and Monty.
[0:45:39] Geoff: If that doesn't sum it up. It's like, famous Sound of Music song, how do you solve a problem with Gavin?
[0:45:48] Eric: Oh, this is exciting news. Yeah, yeah. This happened a couple of months ago. So, wait, you're here. Nope, just you. No, but he's your boss?
[0:45:56] Geoff: No, I'm nobody's boss. I haven't been anybody's boss in four years. Except for yours briefed for a little while there. How was that? Yeah, I met you. I feel like I'm a good employee. Yeah. I had no issues. Yeah.
[0:46:09] Eric: I mean, it's the other stuff when they ask me, like, can anyone have any interest in doing this other stuff? And I just go, I mean, just don't even bother asking me.
[0:46:19] Geoff: What are you reading? Oh, I don't know if it's worth reading, but I pulled up the initial pitch doc for Does It Do?
[0:46:27] Eric: Oh, really?
[0:46:27] Geoff: Just the one sheet. I haven't looked at it since I pitched it. So, that show got pitched two and a half years ago. Something like that? Over two years ago?
[0:46:33] Gavin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it something we can show?
[0:46:35] Geoff: Yeah, I don't see why not. It's just going to be interesting. I thought I could read it right now, or I could also just release it on Instagram.
[0:46:42] Eric: If you can give us kind of like, I don't know how long it is, but if you can give us some of it, then we'll take a picture. I'll give you a little... Because I remember it being pretty. It's there, and you can read it, but I do remember it being sort of like longer. Is it longer? So, the answer to my question is yes.
[0:46:59] Geoff: Here's something I want to read. All right. I'll just read like the premise. Does it do? An honest and unbiased exploration into the material efficacy of the products featured in ads seen on TV, Instagram, and TikTok. Then I go into a little thing, but here's the example I break out. And this whole, I said, I'll put this up on Instagram when this episode airs. It's envisioned as an eight-episode seasonal reality show, similar in look and tone to no idea from Funhaus. Each episode features two hosts, Gavin and Jeff, conducting experiments on products purchased from infomercials to determine does it do what it's advertised to do. To determine, the hosts simply recreate the conditions of success the product is purported to work under in its ads. This is just all me writing bullshit. But here's the example that I pulled out that I thought was funny. In example, does the tack shaver really work underwater? Water, we fill a clear bucket with water and try and dunk our heads in it to try and shave our faces. So the example I use, and that's the only example I use in the intro, is the example that ended up being episode eight that's never going to air, where I ended up going to the
[0:47:59] Geoff: emergency room. It's about three minutes long. Probably two years after I wrote that, we finally did it. And if you are interested in seeing what a one sheet looks like, if you're listening to this, go to the Instagram. I will post it and you can just see. Like, that's the kind of document I make when I have to go, or Eric now, when we have to go make and go to the company at large and say, hey, I need money. I don't want to make this. And this is why you want us to make it. This is why this show is going to provide benefit to the company in this way. And I'll just say one other thing. I also served as a creative director for a long time, so I read a lot of those. I'm going to give a little bit of credit. Chris Damaris makes the best pitch documents I've ever read in my entire life.
[0:48:41] Eric: He, for as, for as fucking weird as that guy is, he is so good on paper, man. He is so fucking good. He is so good. He's so creative on the page. It's just crazy. I feel like credit works do.
[0:48:55] Geoff: But the pitch, the pitch document he put together for Black Box Down was a work of art. I still think about it sometimes when I'm doing pitch documents. That's so interesting. Which I don't do very often anymore. But, uh.
[0:49:07] Gavin: Because I've seen him just try something as simple as like pulling a Gatorade out of the fridge and it's a calamity.
[0:49:12] Geoff: Yeah, no. Well, I don't know how long it takes him. Like, he goes into, he goes, he goes into the lab and it may take him six months to come out with that pitch document, but he will have seven, he will have a spreadsheet or a PowerPoint of seven highly engaged, well-designed pages that really paint a wonderful picture. He's very good.
[0:49:28] Gavin: He's immensely talented somewhere under there.
[0:49:31] Eric: Yeah. Last time we did an episode of Face Jam, I saw him because we share an office now and he said, I didn't say a word to him. We're the only two people in the office. Alex, quiet, quiet, quiet, quiet, do you have any Face Jam candy? Silence. And then I did and he followed me, he's like scurried after me like a little cartoon man and came in and got it and was thrilled about Face Jam candy. He makes such good one sheets.
[0:50:00] Geoff: He does. It's just, it's the stuff you guys don't see. It's the real sausage talk stuff. But Chris and then Hannah, she doesn't make him anymore, but when that was her job, Hannah is phenomenal. She's my boss.
[0:50:11] Eric: So if you have a problem with me, go directly to Hannah.
[0:50:14] Gavin: She was the producer on my show in the desert that I did a few years ago.
[0:50:17] Eric: Oh, yeah. That's fun. Yeah.
[0:50:19] Gavin: Yeah. Phenomenal. She got me a room full of kittens, which I thought was pretty impressive.
[0:50:23] Geoff: In the desert? Yeah. Wow. We have some really, really talented people working at Rooster Teeth and the audience, they see some of it, but there are talents that the audience doesn't get to see that we do. Yeah. And people like Hannah and Chris are-
[0:50:35] Eric: But they won't let us make it!
[0:50:38] Gavin: We've also, I think we're trying to work on, because I've sent about 75 really mingy slacks about it, but I can never find our supplementals on the site.
[0:50:46] Eric: I got word that that should be fixed in the next month, month and a half. So by the time this is out, that's hopefully fixed. But we will see. I've been raising a fuss about that.
[0:50:58] Gavin: Yeah, I think it's just because it's not in a season.
[0:51:00] Eric: Also, who owns F***FacePod.com?
[0:51:02] Geoff: I don't know. Is that something that- I don't know, but I bought a new domain yesterday.
[0:51:09] Andrew: Eric randomly slacked me if I knew that, and I was like, it's fair. It's a fair question to ask me, but no, I do not. I did not buy F***FacePod.com.
[0:51:16] Eric: If you own it, can you let me know? Because I need it. Thank you. Yeah. I'm trying to-
[0:51:20] Geoff: Adam Barrett asked me about it. Yeah.
[0:51:22] Eric: Yeah, because I'm part of, I'm trying to get all of this organized. So that way when we go, hey, find our stuff, you don't have to go to RoosterTeeth.com and then click on the left and go to the thing or what. You just go to F***FacePod.com. It takes you right there. Everything's there. And I'm trying to get this reorganized and clean and like, here's all of our supplemental is in a thing and everything's here and here's all searchable and it's all there. And I'm trying to get it and you have to give me the website. I can't do it. I can't do it if I don't have F***FacePod.com.
[0:51:47] Geoff: We'll give you all the slop o'clock clocks you want.
[0:51:52] Gavin: Yeah. I just think like the indexing on the way that's seasoned, just, I guess it's not the same as when it's a numbered season.
[0:51:59] Eric: It's not because it's not in that dropdown tab. You have to scroll down to bonus features where it is back. It is listed backwards in there.
[0:52:05] Gavin: But if you also, if you search something in there, it doesn't come.
[0:52:07] Eric: No, it does not. So I'm trying to get it within that dropdown where it's seasonal, which I hate, by the way. I just want to change it to years. But we're a seasonal podcast. Not according to this thing. I'm not following this thing. No, because then when we go to seven, then 98 is after that. And it doesn't make any sense. I'm not doing that. So I'm trying to get that. It should definitely go.
[0:52:30] Gavin: One, two, three, four, five, six, 98.
[0:52:31] Eric: There's no way. That's how it should be. That's how it should be. No, I'm not doing it. That's how it is on audio. Yeah. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. So there's a lot of stuff behind the scenes that we're trying to get organized and everything, but, um, is that your taxi driver? It is. How'd you get that? That's crazy. I had a friend, my friend, Jason Cryer, who does a bunch of merch for, uh, mega 64 made me that sign. I need to get organized. He made me the sign from taxi driver and it was hanging in my office at a job that I hated. It was great. Well, what's this? It's something Bickle. What's his first name? Travis Bickle. Travis Bickle. Yeah. Great, great character name. Um, uh, great in cell. We have, yeah, big time. The original, uh, we have other stuff that's coming out. We're kind of winding down on sausage shock, which is nice, but to tease some stuff, we do have a show that's kind of in development right now that I think we're excited about with face off that, um, we'll announce there was a topic that was like, how come they didn't call this other thing face off? And I, there were so many things I wrote and didn't post and just erased. And I was just like, it's like, we're saving. It doesn't fucking matter.
[0:53:29] Geoff: It's earmarked for a production that we've been working on for. Two months now?
[0:53:33] Eric: Yeah, yeah, something like that. I think that we have an idea and I, I think it's a really fun idea that we're going to be able to, to do and everything. So just keep an ear out for that.
[0:53:39] Geoff: Can I, can I just say, talking about, uh, complimenting people in the company for, uh, things that they're good at that the audience doesn't necessarily see. I've been, uh, working in this world for 20 years and, uh, some change now. Mm-hmm. And, uh, you have to be one of the most enjoyable people to produce a, a production with. You hear that, Gavin? That's so nice that he said that to you. I really, I really feel like. He's talking about my boss. I really, I, I mean, I just gotta say, like, I, as, as F*** Face has grown, our relationship has, uh, grown as well in terms of how closely you and I work together. And, uh, it has just been an absolute delight to, to run the F*** Face business with you.
[0:54:20] Eric: It's fun. It's, it's a lot of fun as, you know, difficult as it is and all that stuff. And it raises, like, my profile publicly, uh, which I'm not for. It, it definitely, like, it's nice to work on something that somebody's passionate about. And that's why, that's why, that's why Anima Face Jam and F*** Face are, like, the things that, that, those are the things, like, my time goes to.
[0:54:42] Gavin: So, you have, you have the best job in the company.
[0:54:44] Eric: I, I think so. And I've said that before. Yeah, I'm very, very happy about it. I really, I really like it. Eric, uh. Also, so, Nick, Nick is here and doing this stuff. Yeah, he gets to be part of all these things. Nick actually might have the best job in the company.
[0:54:55] Gavin: Yep, I get to tag along on a lot of stuff. And you don't get all my flack. Yeah, that's also true. Eric is so. What is this supplemental, Eric?
[0:55:04] Geoff: Not directly. Eric is so very, and this is something the audience will never see. Eric is so very good at telling me no when it needs to happen. I mean, you just witnessed it there. When I give him a crazy idea, I'm like, what if we did this? And Eric goes, we could do that. And here, and I go, maybe you need to talk me out of it. And he goes, so I'm about to. And then he'll, for like, he'll sit very patiently with me for like 30 minutes and we'll go through all the pros and cons and he'll convince me it was a bad idea. Which is something that I need. Nobody, nobody needs carte blanche. Yeah. Nobody, it's.
[0:55:36] Gavin: But also, having said that, is open to backing down on some things. Absolutely.
[0:55:40] Eric: Again, this is your guys' show. I do want to say that all credit to me, good job me, for seeing it coming where we wanted to play Ward Zone and I knew what it was going to turn into. I knew what the audience was going to do as much as they were like, no, we're not. Have you seen how many drafts are suggested every fucking day? Yeah. All goddamn day. You should do the draft of dogs. All right, shut up. Shut, shut up. It would be the same thing, but with games, and it would just be a relentless tirade of those things. But that's good engagement. Not that. No? No, I don't think so. That's people excited about what we might make. It bothers. Yeah, I don't. It bothers me because I feel like we have such a good plan and a strong plan. And when people think, nothing makes me feel like I'm better at my job than seeing somebody else think they can do it. That makes me feel like, oh, fuck, I might actually be good at this. That's, but enough about me. Jeff, you had something to admit.
[0:56:37] Gavin: Oh, yeah. I don't know. Is that the thing that you told me about and you said I acted weird about?
[0:56:42] Geoff: Yeah. So. So. This could be anything. I, you know, I was talking earlier about getting stuff made. I'm going to, there's two ways to do stuff. There's a, you can ask permission or you can ask forgiveness. I'm going to ask forgiveness guy.
[0:56:55] Eric: No one at this company is going to hear this. So keep going. You're fine.
[0:56:57] Geoff: Yeah. No, no. I'm not asking forgiveness from anybody, but my two co-hosts. I, I, I would argue that that's been my strength in the company is that I just make stuff and I, and I, and I try to do it. If I do it for free, then I don't have to get permission to make it. I felt a little weird when I joined the annual past podcast because I've got this whole business with you guys and it's really been the main focus of all of our, at least my life for the, since it started, uh, and you know, I have ammo, but that's nothing. That's just Gus and I getting coffee, but I did feel a little bit like I was cheating on you guys with annual pass and, uh, and I'll be honest, I could tell that you were a little miffed at times. Uh, and, uh, which is, you know, this is whatever you, Andrew, Andrew, were you miffed about annual? No, so, uh, I probably should have told you guys, but I started a new podcast. Okay. Well, I saw that coming. Do I know about this? I talked to you about it the night we went and got drinks with Jason and Nick when Nick helped me come up with the name for it. Was I shitting?
[0:57:57] Geoff: Was I in the bathroom?
[0:57:58] Andrew: Yeah. You've already said this.
[0:57:59] Geoff: Did I tell you I started a new podcast?
[0:58:01] Andrew: Yeah. Well, you, in the like last recording, you're like, I have a new name for a thing. I guess maybe I didn't know it was a podcast.
[0:58:06] Geoff: Yeah. Well, I started a new podcast. You didn't know what it was. I just said I came up with a name for a thing.
[0:58:11] Eric: You didn't. Andrew, you thought you knew what it was. You didn't know what it was. I didn't say it was a podcast.
[0:58:15] Geoff: I just said I came up with a name for a thing. Anyway, I started a new podcast and so far, Nick's the only person that has seen it. I don't even know if he's listened to it. Not yet. But I just gave it to him last night. Yeah. But anyway, I just wanted to. Oh, I do know. I should have. I've only just figured out what you're talking about. I should have. I should have mentioned it to you guys.
[0:58:31] Gavin: I wasn't weird about that.
[0:58:32] Geoff: Yeah, you're a little weird. I wasn't there. He was. He was like, what do you mean you started a new podcast? Am I in it? And I was like, not exactly. He's like, it's a face. And I was like, I don't know. And he was like, why?
[0:58:42] Gavin: I didn't ask any of these questions, by the way.
[0:58:44] Eric: Am I in it? Are you Jason? Like, I want to be in another podcast? Are you sure Jason didn't ask if he was in it?
[0:58:50] Geoff: It was Gavin. I could see he bristled a little bit.
[0:58:52] Eric: Is Jason in it?
[0:58:53] Geoff: Sort of like, who are you cheating on me with another? Oh, he was miffed. Yeah, he was miffed.
[0:58:59] Gavin: I was supportive over this idea. This is like the whole, this is like the whole, oh, oh, no thing where it was genuine and Andrew decided it was a weird town.
[0:59:09] Eric: It was a weird town. You're right. Yeah, you're absolutely right.
[0:59:11] Andrew: This is Jeff gaslighting you. That is different than the time I was right about your town.
[0:59:14] Eric: I'm not gaslighting him. I can tell he was weirded out by it.
[0:59:16] Andrew: It wasn't weirded out. This is like Gavin's in a bad mood thing.
[0:59:18] Geoff: He was like, you're still going to make f*** face? And I was like, yeah, man, it's not going to get in the way of f*** face at all.
[0:59:24] Andrew: What's the podcast?
[0:59:25] Eric: Yeah, what is it? Do you want to say the name? Do you want to wait? Oh, I don't care. Okay. It's called So All Right.
[0:59:32] Andrew: Okay.
[0:59:32] Geoff: That's all. So All Right. So All Right. So comma All Right. That's a good name. Yeah. I do remember. Did Nick come out with that? Nick Salmoni came up with it. Yeah. I remember him saying that. Yeah. You should have let him help you name Rooster Teeth. I didn't name Rooster Teeth. Bernie did. Oh, never mind. I can't take, I won't take the blame for that. I will. I could have hired him to help. I could have hired him to help with Achieva Hunter. Because that's a, if there is a name on earth dumber than Rooster Teeth, it's Achieva Hunter. So fucking stupid.
[1:00:03] Eric: It's not even what you did.
[1:00:05] Geoff: We weren't even happy with it when we made it. Like, I remember we were just sitting around going, like, we got to call it something. And this is better than Achieve Min or whatever we came up with. Oh, my God.
[1:00:15] Gavin: Woof. Oh, my God. I'm surprised that we never just rebranded it to Achieve or something. Like, we had all those shirts for so long. Why was it never just Achieve?
[1:00:25] Geoff: Well, we kind of were headed that way with the Achieve clothing brand. That's what I mean. But that was, that was like five or six or seven years ago. I don't know. I don't know why. I mean, I, I was peel, I was having less to do with that stuff then. Yeah. So that's a Trevor question, I guess. All right. I don't know. I think I would love it. If you, I'd probably brand recognition and all the reasons why you don't change the name of a company. Yeah, maybe. That's true. We're on a roll.
[1:00:49] Eric: Copyright.
[1:00:50] Geoff: Yeah.
[1:00:50] Eric: Um, so is this a thing people can listen to? No.
[1:00:59] Gavin: Eric, why are you being so weird about that? Sorry. Sorry.
[1:01:02] Eric: I didn't mean to be miffed by my question.
[1:01:05] Geoff: I'll release it at some point, I think, if it's good enough. Okay. It's got to go through Nick, and then it's got to go through you, and then it's got to go through Hannah, probably. Okay.
[1:01:14] Eric: Here's what I'll say. No, it doesn't. We can probably just put this out. But I don't want to put it out if it's not any good. It'll be good.
[1:01:21] Geoff: What is it? It's just me. It's just my solo podcast, where I talk about things that, this is where Gavin got a little miffed the other night. I was explaining to him. No, no, it's fine. It's okay. I was telling, I was explaining, it's where I talk about things that aren't appropriate, that don't really fit with F*** Face, or with Anima. Like, Anima, I have a specific lane I can go Nostalgia and Austin. That's great. But with F*** Face, I can, there's a comedic universe that we've built, and there are things that are appropriate for that comedic universe, and things that aren't. And things that aren't particularly funny, but I just find interesting, don't really work in to F*** Face. And I was explaining a story to Gavin, and of this rabbit hole I went down over this band, and how I was wrong about it, and he thought it sounded like F*** Face, but I don't think it did.
[1:02:08] Andrew: Did your eyes glaze over, or was it? That's almost an interesting sausage-talk point, like, I know we're wrapping this up, but like, what is F*** Face? Like, to me, anything under the umbrella, the umbrella of F*** Face is really just passion and enthusiasm for, like, whatever that thing is. I don't think there necessarily needs to be a comedic tone to it.
[1:02:27] Geoff: No, but I think it needs, I think it needs to fit in the universe, and there are things that just don't.
[1:02:32] Gavin: Maybe I thought it was, it, like, could have passed, it could have been F*** Face passing, because you just exude F*** Face by default. But yeah, I see what you're saying, I feel like there is a ton of stuff that I have no outlet for.
[1:02:44] Geoff: Like, you know more about cameras, and shutter speeds, and focal length, and the law of reciprocity, and how high-speed photography works. That would never be appropriate to talk about on F*** Face, unless there was a specific comedic reason for it. Yeah, I think I was actually talking. But it's something that you're exceptionally well-versed in.
[1:03:06] Gavin: I ended up talking about lenses on an episode of F*** Face, and I had to stop myself. I was like, wait, what am I talking about? Yeah, right?
[1:03:12] Geoff: I mean, there are, like, I mentioned that my book ended mid-sentence, right? Yeah. And I talked about that Kafka book that ended mid-sentence, but I'm not going to talk about Kafka on F*** Face, or, you know, get deep into, like, existentialism and SART, or something. Like, that's just not appropriate. But that is stuff that's interesting to me that I do want an outlet for, and part of the problem with the way I've structured my life in post-pandemic is that the only time I talk to other human beings is on podcasts. So if I don't talk about it on a podcast, I just can't talk about it.
[1:03:43] Gavin: I feel similarly in that I've always had a lot of outlets for stuff, and I could always make a very quick decision, like, is this a story that's just, is it a F*** Face story, or is it something I could just mention in passing on the RT podcast? Or is it even less than that, and I could just throw it out in, like, a random Let's Play, but I've lost so many of those outlets now that I do feel the same sort of, like, there are now things that I would talk about, but I have nowhere for them. Right. But I also don't want to make another podcast, so I'll probably just not do anything.
[1:04:13] Geoff: Well, I'm getting up there in age. I'll be dead soon, so I gotta get all these words out while I still can't.
[1:04:19] Andrew: I was just going to say, that's what I think sort of supplemental, as we do more, like, viewing the office days as, like, blocks to do supplemental stuff. I think it's sort of an interesting space to mess with those. And I guess I never really considered supplemental, this might sound ridiculous, I never considered a supplemental piece to be tied to F*** Face specifically, if that makes sense. What do you mean? Like, it's a thing that we make within the hub of maybe the tone, but not necessarily the same specific style, is how I view. Because there's stuff I think of for supplemental that I'm either developing or thinking about that I don't think fit with the show, but because it's its own thing within the hub under F*** Face, I think it still works.
[1:04:57] Geoff: Yeah, I mean, it fits, like, within the comedic universe that we've built, right?
[1:05:02] Andrew: But I think there's even potentially, like, room for, like, a serious show, but not, obviously not F*** Face specific, but, like, in the space in which we record additional stuff.
[1:05:12] Geoff: But you would think that that would live in the F*** Face, under the F*** Face umbrella?
[1:05:15] Eric: Yeah, I think it could. Okay. Yeah, I don't have a problem with that either. I don't either. I agree. But here's the problem when I have to explain it to someone who hears it third hand from someone, and they go, so you guys are doing F*** Face, like, twice a week now, or what? And then I go, ah. Yeah, I would love that. I want to do it daily.
[1:05:32] Geoff: Dude, I've been studying. I have gone through, Emily made the mistake of expressing any interest at all in old Howard Stern.
[1:05:40] Eric: Oh, that's right.
[1:05:41] Geoff: And so now we're watching, like, two hours a night of classic Stern. And first off, it is amazing how much I was influenced by him without realizing it, and then how much I was influenced by him by realizing it. You know, like, I've always cited Howard as one of my biggest influences, and how all I ever really wanted to do was create our version of the Howard Stern show. But there are so many things that I have stolen or appropriated from him that I didn't even realize until you take a couple years off, and you go back and you watch those old tapes, and you're like, oh, that definitely influenced me. Oh, that influenced me, or oh, I wish that hadn't influenced me. I wish I had, you know, there's a lot of good and bad in there.
[1:06:17] Eric: I'm going to be Jackie the Joke, man. I'm going to get, I'm going to get a jetty. My contract is up, so turn off my mic. It's going to be good. I'm excited.
[1:06:25] Geoff: We just, we just watched the Gary Love tape last night.
[1:06:29] Eric: Oh, really? Yeah. How did that go?
[1:06:30] Geoff: So good, man. So good. What was your favorite part? I did, all the moments that come from it that I didn't realize, like, I had forgotten that Hello, Hello came from that.
[1:06:40] Eric: Oh, that's the big, that's the funny.
[1:06:41] Geoff: Yeah, that's the first thing. His, his, the noins, obviously. His professional life, is it a noin? Noin, and his personal life is it, too. There was a bunch of stuff like that that they pulled out that I had forgotten about. Yeah, it's so good. The mama monkey comes from that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. When he's, like, doing that thing where he's, like, he's trying to say marriage, and he can't let himself say marriage, and he hits himself on the back of the head. He goes, he's like, so Gary from The Howard Stern Show. Gavin, you know him, right? Producer of The Howard Stern Show, the Eric of The Howard Stern Show.
[1:07:08] Eric: Oh, it's true, though.
[1:07:09] Geoff: He broke up, he broke up, he got dumped by this girl. Yes. Yeah. And she moved on. And so seven months after they broke up, he sent her a VHS. Like, she wouldn't talk to him. She wouldn't speak to him. So he wrote, he made a 10-minute VHS. The way, what they did, The Howard Stern Show, that was so brilliant, was when they found out it existed, they were like, you've got to bring it in, you've got to let us watch it, we'll have a showing. And Gary's like, there's no way. And he's like, we'll pay you. They raised, like, 20 grand, 18 grand from listeners. They let the listeners come in, and then they had a showing with these, like, eight listeners that all paid, like, two grand each. What year was this? Oh, 98? Oh, wow. I think it was before that. 96, maybe? Yeah, I mean, it was like. It's like. KC and KC's there. Yeah, so it's got to be right around that. Senator John's there.
[1:07:55] Eric: It has to be right around, like, the mid-90s.
[1:07:57] Geoff: It's got to be right at the end of Jackie. It's so good. Yeah. And then they just watch him pour his heart out to this lady and just pause it and make fun of him every second. They did multiple viewings, and each viewing, you had to pay less to get in. Yeah. Like.
[1:08:13] Eric: It is so. They. He just gets, like, two words in. And it's just pausing in this room of people cackling. And just. Cackling.
[1:08:27] Gavin: Destroying him.
[1:08:28] Eric: It's so.
[1:08:29] Gavin: It's brutal. I hope Gary Della Bate has made a lot of money there.
[1:08:32] Eric: Oh, I think. He's still there. Oh, he's worth way more than Eric, I'll tell you that. Yeah, no kidding.
[1:08:37] Geoff: He's worth, like, 50 million, I think.
[1:08:38] Eric: Oh, wow. That was always. I think that was always the way, like, Mega64 was always, like, oh, who's who? Like, you know, who's Robin and who's Fred and all that stuff. And I just went, Gary.
[1:08:49] Geoff: I've always just wanted to be. For a long time, I wanted to be Artie. For a long time in Rooster Teeth. Like, in the early podcast.
[1:08:55] Eric: For a long time, you were. I was just trying to be Artie.
[1:09:00] Geoff: I was like, let Bernie, let Bernie be Howard. I just want to be, I just want to have funny jokes occasionally. And tell a wacky story and be hammered. You know? And fuck up. Throw some CDs. Yeah. And now, then, at some point, I realized I don't want to be Artie anymore.
[1:09:14] Eric: Oh, man. This is good. We should wrap it up over the hour. But this is a good sausage talk. This was a nice little peek behind the curtain.
[1:09:22] Geoff: Thank you so, so, so, so, so, so much for your support. Thank you so much for the effort you put into buying the merchandise that we create. I promise you, every piece that we make is made with love and because we think it deserves to exist and because we think it's weird and unique and fun and a part of this big old joke that we call f*** face. And we really are sorry if you don't get every piece you want. But we kind of don't want you to buy everything. I don't think that would be financially wise for anybody unless you're a trust fund person.
[1:09:51] Eric: Yeah.
[1:09:52] Geoff: And you're worth a hundred. If you're worth a hundred million dollars, please buy one of everything.
[1:09:55] Eric: Yeah. And also, just give us money.
[1:09:57] Gavin: But if you're not, just finance season two of Does It Do If You Want. I really hope. Yeah, absolutely. You want to be a sponsor?
[1:10:04] Unidentified: Do you want to see if it does?
[1:10:07] Geoff: I guarantee you if you give us a hundred million dollars, it does. We'll make it. Yeah. Anyway, and hopefully we shed some light onto why we bitch a little bit about the getting shows made or greenlit. And a lot of time, it's just, it's honestly for us.
[1:10:22] Eric: Yeah, you know how you complain about it? More than it is for the audience. You know when you're like at Target and you're complaining about your job or whatever at Target to your other friends that work at Target? That's all this is. That's all. It's just complaining about work-to-work friends. It's...
[1:10:34] Gavin: Did you ever work at Target?
[1:10:35] Eric: Yeah. Yeah, he hated it.
[1:10:37] Unidentified: Yeah.
[1:10:37] Eric: He was the first employee at a Target. They did. It was the first person they hired at a new Target. Wow.
[1:10:41] Gavin: Did you unlock the door or something?
[1:10:42] Eric: They were hiring, they opened a new Target in my hometown and I was the first person they hired. I was the first, like, it was like, here's all, like, the managers coming in from other stores. And then I was the first person they hired to fucking push carts.
[1:10:57] Gavin: Were you tempted to be, like, first one in, last one out?
[1:11:00] Eric: Was I tempted to be the last one out of Target? Shut down that Target. Shut the lights off, fellas. At Target? Oh, man. Well, follow us at F***FacePod on Instagram and on Twitter. And you go to F***FacePod.com. And I think it takes you to the store right now. But I'm trying to just get it to take us to where I need it to go. So, again, if you own that website or know who does, please let me know. That's the only time.
[1:11:27] Gavin: Or just redirect it for us.
[1:11:28] Eric: Yeah, if you could just redirect it to our RoosterTeeth.com page. That works for now. And then just let me know. This is the only time I'm saying please reach out to me. I also hope that none of this came off as anyone complaining about anything other than me. Like, I don't think we're complaining about any of this stuff. I think we just want to kind of, like, lay bare what this is. Yeah, it's all very exciting.
[1:11:48] Geoff: And it's stuff that I love to talk about. Like, it's interesting to me. I spend so much, I spend more of my life thinking about merch than I do anything else, probably. It's just fascinating to me. And then also, keep your ears out. Someday down the road, you may listen to my new podcast, So, All Right, if it is, in fact, all right. And it's deemed makeable. And listen for a certain URL that will annoy Eric.
[1:12:11] Gavin: Uh-oh. I'm excited. Great. Bye. How was that, boss? I thought that was...
[1:12:21] Geoff: Hello, and welcome to the addendum of this supplemental piece of f***ing face content. We recorded so long ago that a lot of the content on this upcoming Sausage Talk is no longer up to date, let's say. And superseded by more stupidity. Yeah, Gavin is going to break it down for you now because he wants to make sure he's clear. Oh, you pretty much covered it.
[1:13:00] Andrew: Well, the way... Why do we... Why is this... Well, it's just shorter and not a knee, isn't it? No, it's not. I got two options. The other one was way better than this. Ah, you saw the first one then. Saw it.
[1:13:11] Geoff: What if we do one at the beginning and one at the end?
[1:13:13] Eric: Yeah, well, okay, that's good. Okay, so Nick, the first one that we did, put that one at the beginning, and then this one, where we tried to do a second take, put that at the end.
[1:13:22] Andrew: There you go. And just so people know, the Break Show is returning on Mondays. I don't remember which Monday, but check your Mondays. Monday, August 7th at 4 p.m. every Monday. Just keep looking at those Mondays and let us know where you heard about the show, because we teased it at the end of one episode, the middle of another one, and now in the addendum to this.
[1:13:54] Eric: That's what a mess. This sucks.
[1:13:57] Andrew: I'm now on board for number two of the recordings. Number two is, I think, very good as well. They're both strong.
[1:14:03] Geoff: Let us know which one you preferred, the before addendum or the after addendum. Oppenheimer made the atomic bomb, y'all.
[1:14:12] Eric: That's just crazy. That's it. We're done. We're done. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Goodbye. Did you guys know Barbie made the atomic bomb? Oh, no.
