Comparisons don't come any more cogent than that! I can tell you really reasoned your way through that one.

Perhaps one day they'll evolve to your higher plane.

It's only successful because enough fans have accepted that arrangement.

So it's "sleazy" even though the intention is naked?

Unless you are, for example, one of the 87,000 people who helped make the Broken Age Kickstarter a success. Individuals get to decide what they want to donate money to. You're free to think they're saps, but it's not like this campaign is being presented as anything other than it is.

It's not an investment; it's a donation. There's a big difference.

I think that's a function of the crew just getting better at the movie riffing as they went along. I know it's a minor controversy among some that the show got more acerbic in its later years, but it's not like it ever turned into Honest Trailers or some shit. Until the end it still retained that pleasant, homemade,…

I'm pretty sure shows have been greenlit based on less rational criteria.

Supposedly there was a little bit of butthurt from Comedy Central that the show wasn't being done through them. Mallon thought (not wrongheadedly, I don't think) that it was better to go through a major studio who could offer more financing and, in theory, reach.

He was apparently also offered a starring role in a soulless NBC sitcom called High School USA that he turned down on the basis of the pilot script's merits. The story goes that when Joel turned down the role, Brandon Tartikoff's response was to TRIPLE the offer, assuming it was a bargaining tactic and not simply…

I'd love to know what method you're using to compare the notoriety of Joel Hodgson in the 80s versus Jonah Ray in the post-internet world.

The way Odenkirk was pensively eating that pizza slice during the voiceover made it three times as funny.

There has been no hostility between Joel and the crew. It's basically been Jim Mallon versus everybody else, with the bone of contention being stake in the property. As far as I know any divisions between the actual performers has only existed in the fans' minds.

The Coen references didn't feel THAT organic in Season 1. They threw them in at every opportunity.

That seemed unambiguously accidental. I think it's the resultant shiner, brought up again this episode, that's going to lead somewhere.

That character was credited as "Mr. Tripoli" in Season 1 but aside from that easily addressable point I'm in love with this fan theory. Dodd has been acting like Sonny Corleone so when he meets a similar fate I can see Bear taking charge.

Okay you just made up for it.

Kind of a shitty thing to say.

I think the Coen Bros. references were distracting in Season 1 as well, but I just sort of learned to accept and have fun with them.

Wow. I like the way your mind works.