"Five Minutes of Fire": Panmunjon, Brando, The King and I

<v Speaker 1>Hey, guys, this is Mark Edwards aka Aggie Dad and
<v Speaker 1>Tiger Grad and you're listening to the Surely You Can't
<v Speaker 1>Be Serious Podcast. You know, I learned something new every
<v Speaker 1>single week from these guys.
<v Speaker 2>Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Surely you Can't
<v Speaker 2>Be Serious Podcast? Special Edition five Minutes of Fire. We
<v Speaker 2>are here talking about the lyrics of We Didn't Start
<v Speaker 2>the Fire by Billy Joel. We're covering only five minutes
<v Speaker 2>at a time, which is about to link for the song,
<v Speaker 2>so it works out kind of nicely, So please join
<v Speaker 2>us as we dive into some new lyrics today.
<v Speaker 3>All right, guys, So here are the topics that we're
<v Speaker 3>going to be covering today.
<v Speaker 2>Pen Mu John, Brando and the King and I. Okay, Jason,
<v Speaker 2>what can you tell me about pen Mujohn Okay?
<v Speaker 3>I knew nothing about Pen Mu John until I dove
<v Speaker 3>into this. This is the village where the US and
<v Speaker 3>South Korea met with China and North Korea to end
<v Speaker 3>the Korean War. So it's this village just north of
<v Speaker 3>the Korean border where nineteen fifty three it got together
<v Speaker 3>and signed that truce. Although most of the troops have
<v Speaker 3>been removed, it is still heavily armed, and both sides
<v Speaker 3>are there today.
<v Speaker 2>Is allan Alda's still there? He might be, He might be.
<v Speaker 3>So the de militarized zone, it's one hundred and fifty
<v Speaker 3>miles long and two and a half miles wide, and
<v Speaker 3>they still like do petty things to each other all
<v Speaker 3>the time. Like South Korea put up a flag, North
<v Speaker 3>Korea put up one and it was taller, and South
<v Speaker 3>Korea blasts like k pop towards the North Korea side. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>and North Korea blast propaganda from there now then no
<v Speaker 3>peace treaty was ever signed. So technically North and South
<v Speaker 3>Korea are still at war. Okayde, what can you tell
<v Speaker 3>me about Brando?
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So Brando has got to be Marlon Brando, which
<v Speaker 2>we've talked about multiple times in our past. Of course,
<v Speaker 2>Brando was a high school dropout. As a matter of fact,
<v Speaker 2>he got kicked out of high school. His dad sent
<v Speaker 2>him to military school, and he get kicked out of
<v Speaker 2>that as well, went home, was a ditch digger. Ultimately
<v Speaker 2>decided to go up to New York and study acting,
<v Speaker 2>where he studied with Stella Adler, who was teaching the
<v Speaker 2>Stanislavsky method. He had the personality that he was kind
<v Speaker 2>of difficult to get along with, but he was an
<v Speaker 2>incredibly good actor and incredibly skilled with this Stanislavsky method.
<v Speaker 2>So he was in started acting in plays and such.
<v Speaker 2>Would sometimes do very well on stage, but other times
<v Speaker 2>would kind of fall into this method thing and piss
<v Speaker 2>the other actors off, and eventually he would get fired
<v Speaker 2>from a production. Well, one of the times he got fired,
<v Speaker 2>it happened to be a very fortuitous circumstance because him
<v Speaker 2>being fired led to him getting a part in the
<v Speaker 2>brand new Tennessee Williams play called a Streetcar named Desire. Now,
<v Speaker 2>the part that he was going to play was of
<v Speaker 2>Stanley Kowalski. That part was supposed to be an older guy,
<v Speaker 2>but even Tennessee Williams, when he heard Brando Reid, he
<v Speaker 2>was like, this brought a whole new life to this character.
<v Speaker 2>The youth made it something different and something better than
<v Speaker 2>I had originally thought. In nineteen fifty one, he was
<v Speaker 2>cast in the same part in the movie Stella. So
<v Speaker 2>this very early acting role for him resulted in a
<v Speaker 2>nomination for an Oscar. He didn't win that year, but
<v Speaker 2>he ultimately did win for On the Waterfront. It could
<v Speaker 2>have been a contenda, and he was the actor of
<v Speaker 2>the time in the fifties. I mean he was basically
<v Speaker 2>the John Travolta of the fifties. But in the sixties
<v Speaker 2>he started to do some bad work, kind of fell
<v Speaker 2>out of favor. He ultimately came back, as we all know,
<v Speaker 2>in the seventies with The Godfather, where he got nominated
<v Speaker 2>for an Oscar Again. Interestingly, Stella Adler I mentioned was
<v Speaker 2>his teacher. Lee Strasberg was the other method acting teacher
<v Speaker 2>of the time, and he tried to take credit for Brando,
<v Speaker 2>but Branda was like, no, this guy taught me nothing.
<v Speaker 2>He's a moron and I don't care for him. Well,
<v Speaker 2>what's interesting is Brando of course was in Godfather one.
<v Speaker 2>Lee Strasburg was of course in Godfather Part two. Then
<v Speaker 2>of course we have The Last Tang in Paris, and
<v Speaker 2>we have Superman, which they had to film in England
<v Speaker 2>because he had pornography charges in Italy from the last
<v Speaker 2>thing go in Paris. As it turns out, in the seventies,
<v Speaker 2>also what was going on with him, He was involved
<v Speaker 2>in a sexual relationship with Richard Pryor. According to Richard
<v Speaker 2>Pryor's wife and Quincy Jones. So you know, they pulled
<v Speaker 2>him out of Superman two, but he found a way
<v Speaker 2>to put himself into Superman Thury. If you will, there
<v Speaker 2>you go, Marlon Branda hard on top that one. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>tell me about The King and I.
<v Speaker 3>Okay. So The King and I is a musical by
<v Speaker 3>Rogers and Hammerstein which debuted in March of nineteen fifty one.
<v Speaker 3>It's based on the novel called Anna and the King
<v Speaker 3>of Siam, which was written by Margaret London, derived from
<v Speaker 3>the memoirs of Anna leon Owens, the governess to the
<v Speaker 3>children of King Moncote of Siam from.
<v Speaker 2>The eighteen sixties. It was easy for you to say.
<v Speaker 3>I know there was a loving relationship there, but they
<v Speaker 3>could never really act on it. So the musical premier
<v Speaker 3>in nineteen fifty one. The stage play and film both
<v Speaker 3>debut in nineteen fifty s So you will recognize Jule
<v Speaker 3>Brenner as the star. He played the King. He is
<v Speaker 3>one of only ten people who won a Tony and
<v Speaker 3>an Academy Award for the same role. Nice I'm more
<v Speaker 3>familiar with the Chow Young Fat and Jodie Foster version
<v Speaker 3>from the nineties that was called Anna and the King.
<v Speaker 3>Some of the songs you may know are shall We Dance,
<v Speaker 3>I Whistle A happy tune, and getting to Know You.
<v Speaker 3>That is the King and.
<v Speaker 2>I Love it. Okay, guys, that does it for today's episode.
<v Speaker 2>Join us next time for five minutes of fire.