How did the Sweet get involved?

Katie Dolan said that everyone else turned the show down, with Robbie Krieger and Blondie Chaplain in particular being potential guests. Katie and Gregg looked at who was booked at the Canyon Club for two months and emailed all the managers, with the Sweet getting back first.

Movie memorabilia

Gregg, Katie, and Annie Dolan went to a movie memorabilia collection and purchased many “dollar bin” items to populate the table with

Baboon: A Pep Boys Story future

“Sure feels like it’s dead in the water”, though “nothing is ever really truly dead”

Inspiration for podcast style

Patrick Bet-David podcast was a major inspiration for Tim, especially the set. “We ripped it off pretty closely”. “Fun stupid idea of calling what is essentially the same exact show a podcast”

Audio podcast

Tim obviously wanted the audio podcast to be unlistenable so people would pay to watch the video podcast, Chris and him really got into experimenting with how unlistenable they could make it

Higher stakes each season? Return to old set?

“This guy just wants spoilers” “There’s an up and down to the story”, including resets.

Oscar moments that played out differently than planned

Joe Estevez’s drunk plot line was something he made up himself, as otherwise he didn’t have much planned. He pretended, didn’t actually drink. When T and Kaili were at the drainage thing, there were all these mints and candies placed, and T immediately grabbed the mints and ate and chew them, making the alcohol tasting segment immediately afterward with the mint in his mouth funnier.

Oscar special location

Hilton in Glendale

The audience

Tim and Gregg were very worried in the first half hour that they were bombing because of the audience that was intentionally told not to laugh. Jason had 20 audience members casted, telling them to be bored and uninterested in what’s going on and that they could leave at anytime. They picked people that “we thought looked right”, so people who looked like Rialto residents that were mainly coming for free food or business lessons.

Most surprising On Cinema fan

Al Jardine’s son, Al Gore (not really). “There’s some guy that drove down the street in a pickup truck and yelled out at me ON CINEMA!! And honked at me as he kept driving” - Gregg. Paul Simms of WWDITS is a fan. Bob Odenkirk of course.

Most challenging part of directing an Oscar special

Having to be in the control room truck the entire time, juggling the technical aspects like sound, music, pre-roll, etc.Tim and Gregg help out with their improv that shapes up the scenes. Mobile truck helps them change the venue more these days

What inspired DRCS

Tim thought up the idea right before recording the Summer Audio Preview. Magic Mark Entertainment was made up right before taping Mark’s appearance in season 14

Joey P

They hadn’t worked with Eddie before and they didn’t take too long working with him to expand his character. If it didn’t work they would have phased out his character very quick. Similar thing happened with Axiom and G. Amato who were initially supposed to be small roles. “That was the most fun I ever had acting”, said Eddie

Most fun Oscar Special

For Eric, one of the earlier ones. For Gregg, the 9th one was risky which he felt was exhilarating. For Tim, he felt like this year’s special put him most at ease. 2023 special was somehow the most stressful

Dodge Charger

Owned by the studio manager for the studio where season 14 was taped. Tim saw the charger while taping episode 10 and improvised that he’d get the car if he did a good job. They asked the manager to borrow the car for the special, he said yes

Use of Ma and Pa Kettle

Mark and Gregg are obsessed with morbid information from the past

Breaks

When Toni came out with the bombastic music, Tim held his head down. When G strutted around with the lithium, it got Tim. Eric accidentally cut to Teri laughing during the very end. Gregg was able to laugh during the Joey wine segment cuz the cameras never cut to him

Sports figure

Brandon McCarthy was planned to appear