Gadgetory

thank you welcome to a very special all american edition of on the verge on your host Josh Topolsky and you are an auto mechanic from Ohio we've got a great show tonight an all-american as i mentioned show because it is or at least close to july 4th and we're just getting right into the good stuff we're trimming the fat and then we're going to take that fat and use it to grill delicious hamburgers to celebrate the fourth of july we've got mo rocca who will be in studio with us in a little bit talking about food and news and other things the sexual exciting ross miller ross miller sat down with Jon Benjamin who's the voice of Archer and Bob from Bob's Burgers again burgers fourth of July America but first Nathan siker are the lovely bushy-haired reporter who we love to send to the streets of New York is going to go out we'll be out on the streets of New York talking to real Americans and in several foreigners I imagine because we have a lot of tourists in New York about issues facing Americans right now and probably issues facing other people so we're going to go check out his segment and when we come back I'll be talking to maracas so stick around just over a month since Mayor Bloomberg and Citibank have unveiled the city bike bike sharing program I am thrilled to declare that as of this moment city bike is officially launched been met with a lot of criticism and praise but we want to know how the people of New York feel sir Sir you just got off the city bike how was it that's cool i like it's tough when you're wearing a suit sometimes right and it's it's really hot excuse me sir yeah you have a giant tennis racket what do you think about Citi bike you have a giant spoon how do you feel about the city bike about the city bikes yeah i think the city bikes are awesome at ya parking sucks traffic sucks put the bikes in out in out and then you don't even got to worry about you can drop it off somewhere and call it a day you just wrote a sitting back for the first time yeah was it i wrote it all of about 15 feet cuz i just got my key oh oh your name i wanna test it do you wear a helmet no you do not wear I should wear a helmet the only thing to start carrying the helmet around as a pain yeah yeah but you know what else is the pain is yeah well right now do you wear a helmet was it no but I'm gonna get one now would you use city bikes at all no but I wouldn't wear a helmet even know what is it knock it's not cool to wear a helmet it's the hair you don't want to mess up the hair those two lovely folks came prepared have a safe trip so you said you've been riding for a while you have a bike helmet your are you pretty up to date on the New York see by Klaus I think so would you mind if I ask you a few quiet I'm red shirt yeah will you lost this am how fun and freeing is it to ride without any hands on the steering wheel it's kind of like you're in an indie movie yeah that's awesome it's also very much illegal oh it's like let's must at least one hand on the handle bar at all okay Oh keep that in mind is are you holding let's see here how many earphones is a cyclist allowed to wear while riding a bicycle the correct answer would you wouldn't well you're you're allowed to wear one do you realize you're only allowed to have one earphone in its new york state law excuse me sir sorry pardon me sir how do you feel about the city bites No ok it's just you can only let have one earphone in by law against the law what you're doing people am i right so our first attempt at obtaining a city bike was unsuccessful ok English get a bike 24-hour one pass yeah I'm an adult oh shit i hit my neck hey get this bad boy just want to get on the bite sir if you wait I'm getting a bike here how it is gone back to zero nope nothing yes I want to pass yes I'm an adult dip oh that was it wait it just worked that quickly your ride code expires in five minutes we gotta go 3 3 2 1 30 there we go I finally have a city bike and I am absolutely terrified now to ride it also i just realized now I have this like in one of the busiest places in New York it's been many years since I've ridden the bike and I've forgotten a little bit excuse me sorry sorry sir first time on a city bike okay i am i'm on the bike no bike lanes over here yeah but this one's so much closer to the cars okay I'm just gonna ride to the end of the street I'm gonna do it I do it I'm riding my first city bike in New York City I'm riding my first city bike guys first time on a city bike Thanks thank you that was absolutely terrifying and exhilarating I did it ok I'm gonna walk it back when I first came out here I expected to find people hated city like that they found them to be a nuisance to litter the streets he's be sorry first time welcome back to Citi bike sorry I'm sorry I was surprised people love them people use them to get to work they found it convenient they found that it was a great way for them to get exercise my experience on a city bike has taught me that there's no better way to experience this and surrounded by eight million people who will support you through your first steps I love them they love me yes thank you totally unnecessary thank you in joining me now the lovely the talented the delightful Mo Rocca mo I'm crazy first I want to ask you something don't even do you finish that don't even finish telling me how you are uh your name mo mo is short for something yeah my um my father was a diplomat in Africa when I was born this is true you latest yep in the late 60s and he was the ambassador to Mozambique and so just mow is just you know I'm making that up i just want to see how you react to that no my mother did you have to admit i did catch that you were making up right it did but then you lied for like they knew you really eww back thank you loved well I thought once I asked in you and then you said no I would imagine that you were a liar that you would lie to my face right now I know I know I know and you were actually really thoughtful about it is I think you also thought the whole thing was loaded I've dragged Africa into way to cut very sensitive a little bit a little bit sensitive right for your day this shelly is or is not short I don't know what happened is my mother was actually she was a very sore bohemian kind of a hippie and I was worried it is you know in so I she was she was living the Mojave Desert when okay okay it's uh you don't want to help it I'm ashamed moving along so you're an Emmy and Peabody Award winner I like this just sure I've been on sort of oneness yes I did I you haven't I actually have an MDI front yes I had a statue it's a set yet I think what does that mean well no they're statuettes and a statue those is has to be large yeah step they don't give you like eight foot tall that's just not just a proximate of what you're getting exactly unless you steal the thing that's in front of the Academy which is a life-size one which is also cheap right it's just a prop you have to buy you to be equal daddy you have to buy the Emmy you actually have to buy it's actually very common for its apparently we want some some webbie's and I think that you have to buy the web ease as well not there's anything wrong with that we love the webbings continue to award us the prizes but ok so your daddy every supposedly an Emmy Award winner not but you but you and you've done a lot of stuff in news comedy you know you're doing food stuff now uh but you did children shows by did a show called wishbone which I had never seen but there are several youngsters here in the room who were telling me about the how beloved the show is for kids and it's about a dog that sort of was the doc you can tell you okay is a dog Jack Russell terrier who in his fantasy life becomes the hero of classic novels in order to familiarize kids between the ages of 6 and 11 with the themes of those books so that when they encounter them later on the final s daunting right what kind of book so it could it would be on Don Quijote I did trade ya oh ya ya know he was central pons oh wow it's a great show anyone under the age of 30 um loves it and knows that or not not anyone but most people's I mean not the skids I'm 26 all right oh then you're one of the people I don't have a TV yeah right i HEV I live in Brooklyn got oh yes I don't they take your TV away when you cross the brooklyn he drops the williamsburg bridge as a guy waiting there it's terrible hits he hands you a copy of Catcher in the Rye exactly you don't have a teeny you must be a really rolls up the cost of your jeans yeah yeah go on um I what was I saying now beside the dog you know so he would be such a Ponzi or he was uh in I I did treasure island uh in he was active suddenly became a character in treasure on the kid Jim what's his name I Christic in Treasure Island oh god in the book yeah let's say Jim that sounds wrong okay I know all right i'll totally I think it's turning Tony yes exactly problem is that code Tony you ever wish bone to perfect 10 G's horn magazine so it's not really porn magazine well that's generally where he is Phoebe to poor not know the perfect time is do you guys know do you guys know perfect 10 is it's a magazine it was a magazine from I think the 90 is yeah it's the answer the modern answer to playboy which was a lot of fake breasts at the time um perfect tenant was a magazine for connoisseurs it was the only adult men's magazine that featured models without breast implants right and that was their thing yeah they're like their attend naturally exactly and you were the one soul editor of perfect 10 and I was on I it was an unusual way that I got there the guy who ran it was a totally fascinating guy named norm Zeta who made a lot of money uh playing international poker poker tournaments and was kind of like a mathematical genius he was very nice very generous highly neurotic and he had a house in the Hollywood Hills uh with all these beautiful women there he didn't even have sex with all these women that were now she was a very neurotic guy but like having all these beautiful women around him and they were for the most part the staff the magazine uh but he says- staff by beautiful in addition having to pay out of it and it was very hard to find models without breast implants a lot of the women came from Eastern Europe because when the iron curtain fell it took a while for breast implants to pour and I guess and so uh I you think I was right right at the star is interesting as an iron curtain came down there was a lot of beautiful women of that breast implants there was also a clown glut I remember this because there were a lot of state supported circuses and they're all these clowns that couldn't find work because this is totally true yes there's nothing to do with the story but you about times were out of work because the state was no longer there was no longer like spaghetti steakhouse yeah exactly yeah yeah and so anyway so he had this magazine and uh and it wasn't he wasn't he didn't oppose breast implants for ideological reasons he just hated the way they looked and the way they found aesthetic yes that but I was the magazine's grammarian basically because he was a real stickler about poor grammar and there was very little text in the magazine but he hired me four hundred and fifty dollars an hour to pour over the copy and make sure that there were no syntax grammar punctuation errors okay so then so let's fast forward a little bit okay let's have a daily show sure tell me about how how did you get involved in the Daily Show and at what point did news become a thing that was important to you well I was always like a news junkie and so I started going around the country visiting the homes and grave sites of obscure presidents I got very interested in seeing the weird off the beaten path marginalized historic sites like all the presidents between lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt the guys with the facial hair a couple of them were knocked off like you know like Grover Cleveland he wasn't knocked off but like our James Garfield or benjamin harrison and i found that when i went to their sites it wasn't like Hyde Parker Monticello aware when you walk in you're already in awe but that the people had to really sell it to you because you might be there to use the bathroom and I met like a woman named Wonder Wheel a woman named 12 wheat wheeler in Indianapolis at the Benjamin Harrison house who volunteered their full time for 22 years and by the end of the tour she gave you she was so committed to him you wanted to sandblast Mount Rushmore replace it with a year like this why is this guy getting his due yeah you get what number what number presidency I he's 23 because he's in part of the Grover Cleveland sandwich his Grover Cleveland's 22-24 legacy yeah yeah and we don't because remember non-consecutive terms under I think about that all the time high tide in casual conversation every River up grover cleveland had non-consecutive presidential terms anyway so i started meeting to really interesting characters and at the at the warren harding house in marion ohio i met a god that was so obsessed with Florence Harding the first lady that he dressed up as her to give tours of the house in the small Ohio town and it wasn't like he was amazing people thought it was exactly doing this solo you just like I'm gonna go check out these places I've got some free time ya know I was I decided I thought you know I had this like yin this itch to do this so i did that my collected some great stories and so then somebody said you should go on The Daily Show and do these as pieces yeah so they knew that's how it started yeah that has morphed though from doing sort of comedy news you've done real news as well I mean you you sort of and I would never be interested in going on the cable net on the news on the three cable nets in doing punditry i mean i get i ran out of opinions like that said you don't know everything I'd like I'm done with our whatever what do you think man go either way but doing like something you know I my name gig is on CBS sunday morning and doing like a 7-minute piece there on and this was actually felt almost like a daily show piece on right before the the 2012 election uh I went up to to see the UM the Chester Alan Arthur birthplace because when he was president in the 1880s there was a movement of people the city was actually born in Canada so there were birth or is that and this is really back to your roots this is right is actually history on both sides of the border you found Canadians going Chester Alan Arthur was the first American Canadian president like and they were and then the people in both Eric only to the Canadian holder like listen you know that they're like this is where he secret history of America that has a Canadian president exactly and then and the Vermonters to hear Vermonters get really upset about this was just really funny yeah so what number was he uh he is 21 because Garfield is 20 and then he gets killed no stop set it yeah poor poor Garfield yeah nah not the cat is fine though he is high cholesterol from the lasagna a very dangerous you got a head she killed during the parking a poison lassan yeah like yeah okay so fat now now cooking your dear you have an interest in food and cooking I don't know if you're an interest in cooking necessarily you're gonna tell me in a second hold on don't answer that yeah but you're doing a show it's called my grandmother's ravioli explain explain my grandmother's ravioli okay well so my grandmother this is another to lie i can do know it's true actually i didn't go on my credit my grandmother was uh was a very good cock and she made really great ravioli and um and when we were little we would show up at her apartment and like you know like 10 minutes before it was tiny and wolf the food down and then kind of take off and uh anyway so this shows really about guilt abatement as I never learned how to cook and I still don't as you don't you don't really cook no so I thought I want to go and learn how to cook from grandmothers and grandfathers across the country I would I feel like grandparents would be less concerned with the health factor of their food then modern parents might be yeah in the sense that like this is this recipe requires six sticks of butter and that's no problem whatsoever solutely are there are there I mean they're the ravioli I would imagine that you had must not it couldn't be that healthy right her ravioli was it was okay had spinach inside uh no but like Millie's chicken salad had a whole lot of mayonnaise and Mary's pierogi had lots of butter I'm just trying to think of a different grandparents and gaetano only eats when he shoots and kills he's a 92 year old observer Mark Zuckerberg reacts estate he'll only he'll only eat when he kill me but he kills yeah that's caetano does that to his 92 years old he took me out shooting and uh and uh and he also said that he'd the big problem and it's it was in our this episode with the skies a real badass is that today's kids are so attached their smartphone that if their plane went down they wouldn't know how to survive if they're playing crash if the crashes in the Andes and they and they and they live yeah just very rare he says that they're probably and I said what they have cell phone coverage in the Andes yeah and there's a great question yeah exactly then they could look up like forage or something or just call the police and say can you get more right and he was really bothered by one of the areas he did like the concept he didn't like the scenario that I was painting he insisted that when the plane goes down the Andes that your cell phone breaks it just there's no way if you you let yourself on breaks maybe if it was in the overhead compartment and that got destroyed alright it wait with it's an overhead compartment it's and you're alive it's likely i i'm not i don't know either i'm confused about the whole concept of a plane crash anyway anybody surviving but but you know guy tonnos that his name i'm gonna let you know yes this is sure I mean my that's my my thought was what you'd obviously eat the people right cuz they're there but I think once they're dead you'd have to hunt them you had but you have to I don't know it's like eating a lobster don't you know you have to kill them first right Yeah Yeah right well anyway good and so on I can't remember what he said I do know that he said that this is like a really good part to eat that thing but I feel like there's a lot of fat in that right apart is that good I think so it would savory ok I think that's that we should just stop here on cannibalism where and when if I want to see this show the episode about cannibalism and others my grandmother's ravioli is on Cooking Channel on Wednesday nights uh and it is not the cooking channel their bare their realize that there's a two yeah they're about each other could you know there isn't it's just called cooking job but I think it's I always feel like a caveman when I'm saying where it is that I also I've a new show on Cooking Channel yeah but just it down there they like country actually they can't say the DA they are they said don't say that and they're gonna have to they're gonna happen it's like ending a sentence in a preposition at one point like you just have to do it like we have to get over that rule it has to be thought cooking I agree so what time on The Cooking Channel I go to see this what day what time it's on Wednesday what channel on if I'm a Time Warner subscriber which I am do you know what channel the cooking channel is on my it's on Cooking Channel Judah you know that number it is in New York is on the cooking channel it's no don't go to the cooking channel because you'll never find this show right or any others right I think actually Paula Deen is now on the cooking channel that's a bit better it's the that's the racist cooking check is that a good base didn't like it give us both thank you so much and next up Ross millar sits down with Jon Benjamin the star of archer and Bob's Burgers to see what life is like as a voice actor check it out you're a writer you're meeting your voice actor what do you see yourself first and foremost a Jew you may not recognize John Benjamin's face but you almost certainly know his voice from home movies dr. Katz Archer he played a can of vegetables in wet hot American summer we had a chance to sit down with prolific voice actor just as he was wrapping up this past season of Bob's Burgers how are you recognize and is it by sight or sound it's by smell they said oh yeah you'd get that a lot yep that's definitely John Benjamin yeah I'm not the thronged by people but said daily do you ever like you do you ever like go to like a crowded burger place it's like I'm just gonna very quietly tell you my orders no one can overhear this not many people have recognized me just by voice a couple times though hello sterling sterling listen very much oh boy smell you know what to do oh damn it god damn it what wait for it hahahaha leave it I mean if you will ask you to do voicemail I've very frequently how often do you actually do that voicemail very infrequently there's a lot of legwork and getting the voicemail up on a phone and they'll stop asking you the voicemail and I go through the menu while you wait yes there was a kid who followed me for while I was walking to the ymca for three blocks while he said it was setting it up without asking me like he decided just noticed I'm going to have you do my voicemail so he walked with me and he was like hold on like I gotta I just got to get it oh my god that's great walking with me oh shit no I just gotta set it up Oh case is it and I'm like i'm not doing it i'm on my way to the gym i can't do it no no no hold on Don press two you know doing that for like but ya wouldn't go away until I walked in the Y and then he wasn't a member that was that was the escape route he wouldn't even of his cars all right just take it in not doing your voicemail was over in the entryway despite his numerous projects John Benjamin has never actually ventured to what many argue is the next big boon for voice actors video game rolls you're one of the few boys actors who have not even touched those why is that yeah no I've never been asked and I'm a player I've played them what do you play well I I play a lot less than I used to but my son now plays so there's he's he's pulling me back in so we've been playing red dead redemption oh really yes it's just not a great game for a ten-year-old to play but there are moments he's learning about morality yes and about the West yeah and about rape I didn't know that about red dead redemption did you know that no I am playing it actually was a rape apparently a rape okay I a prompt like you actually want to rape her press X to rave yes ok that's what he said I can't find that ok so I'm not sure whether either way that's bad yes if he made it up that's really bad right like he's has right so even that the fact that that scene is lexicon is crazy when he gets there he'll don't know so this is rape yes oh dear john benjamins curling the midst of two hit shows Bob's Burgers on Fox and Archer on FX with two fundamental difference your sessions are very efficient and sometimes really quick like about an hour and a half usually for a full episode for a full episodes they do an episode in today I'm on in the studio with headphones everybody else in headphones are right yeah so so are you at that moment are you in a booth alone or their other people with you I'm in a booth alone and there's an engineer outside yeah sewing nothing is that I mean so you how often do you interact with your cast members in your actually recording are they on the telephone as well no they don't if they are true they record everybody's part separately okay so occasionally I will bump into a cast member but most of them live in LA in New York I think Jessica Walters who plays my mother lives in New York so I saw her a couple times how does that compare to a Bob's Burgers Oh Bob's Burgers is done with everybody usually together so it's much more unruly and much more funky the way it smells yep so how much add lignin can you do on that show how much is in well that's encouraged to do a lot of ad-libbing and it's not that Adam Reed doesn't encourage it it's just sort of not called for but in Bob's Burgers we'll we'll do a lot of improvisation when you are doing the different roles how do you differentiate the voice well with the chosen presently doing not much difference I thought I did suggest which was I think quickly shot down by Adam Reed like an effete accent for the spy which what would that sound like I think I don't mind I can't remember he might have the tape but you know I saw I was sort of doing this or something you know like doing a voice like make rights a spy right no I don't know but he was like no no no no like dough stop like if I wanted that I would get somebody way better at doing that accent than you we work to do I had to ask you know you go by John Benjamin mostly you're also h john benjamin the Henry when did the H go silent uh at birth you just you just stopped using it for you um I was not told about the age for a long time and then it was sprung on me like I was adopted like I am son do something to tell you your name is John but it's not just John there's an H in front of it so what I was and I was like I was what so why was it picked in it like it was never like to be used it's not Henry though hi Henry well that's what Wikipedia I'm not gonna tell you what it is but I'm gonna let them think I'm just gonna say melis humdinger then it's about humdinger well that would be crazy I mean what is a humdinger no idea it's just when those words you hear like shenanigans it's just a blowjob right in the 20s they would call it I'll have a humdinger so the H is going to be intentionally just a mystery yes I keep it that way by the only reason I've had the H was Laura Silverman who was a was on dr. Katz filled out my credit ok and she did it just to make fun of it ultimately though John Benjamin is a comedian and even when interviewing him you're never quite sure if he's being serious or if you're just part of one of his really big elaborate jokes my name is actually h john benjamin and dude there is a name attached to the age it's not just a moment but you just like the nest train like to keep people good well that is good stuff and unfortunately for you that's our show i want to thank Mo Rocca John Benjamin Nathan siker ross miller and of course you the viewer will be back next week and until then there is no until then you