Why Is Mason Reese Crying?

Pushkin. Hey everybody, it's been a few months since our 0:00:21.009 --> 0:00:23.849 last check In episode, and since then we've been hard 0:00:23.890 --> 0:00:26.970 at work on a new season of Heavyweight. There will 0:00:26.970 --> 0:00:29.970 be four new episodes coming out, some funny, some sad, 0:00:30.850 --> 0:00:34.290 plus some bonus content like the check ins, which we 0:00:34.370 --> 0:00:38.810 think you'll really enjoy. The first new episode launches next week. 0:00:39.730 --> 0:00:42.210 But today I thought i'd share a story I made 0:00:42.650 --> 0:00:46.090 way back in twenty fifteen for a then little known 0:00:46.129 --> 0:00:49.850 podcast called a Reply All. These were the early days 0:00:49.890 --> 0:00:53.089 of Gimlet, and I was in the middle of developing 0:00:53.170 --> 0:00:56.930 what would eventually become Heavyweight, and in a lot of ways, 0:00:57.450 --> 0:01:00.250 the story that I'm about to play for you would 0:01:00.330 --> 0:01:04.930 form a kind of blueprint for Heavyweight. And like many 0:01:04.970 --> 0:01:08.850 Heavyweight stories, it began with a personal obsession, a hunger 0:01:08.930 --> 0:01:13.330 for answers, and a need to insinuate myself into the 0:01:13.370 --> 0:01:18.850 personal lives of strangers, one stranger in particular. Without further 0:01:18.890 --> 0:01:23.410 ado from the Gimlet media vaults, here is why is 0:01:23.450 --> 0:01:28.490 Mason Reyes crying right after this very important message from 0:01:28.530 --> 0:01:33.530 our sponsor. If as a child, I'd been told of 0:01:33.570 --> 0:01:37.170 a future world where there dwelled a magical TV that 0:01:37.210 --> 0:01:41.330 could play anything I wanted an infinite television jukebox that 0:01:41.370 --> 0:01:44.530 I could watch all night without ever having the remote 0:01:44.570 --> 0:01:50.850 pride from my hands. I'd say, you must be describing utopia, 0:01:51.050 --> 0:01:55.250 and this is where I find myself. Wednesday night, two 0:01:55.330 --> 0:01:57.290 thirty am Utopia. 0:01:57.530 --> 0:01:59.770 Now this all time heavyweight Champnea fight. 0:01:59.890 --> 0:02:00.370 Letty to go. 0:02:00.930 --> 0:02:02.610 There's the bell and here's guile Abel. 0:02:02.970 --> 0:02:05.090 There are things for my childhood that I've seen on 0:02:05.130 --> 0:02:08.050 YouTube that I thought I'd go to my deathbed without 0:02:08.049 --> 0:02:11.649 ever getting to revisit. Or two only undefeated everyweight champions 0:02:11.690 --> 0:02:14.170 of the world, like the fake boxing match between Muhammad 0:02:14.169 --> 0:02:18.130 Ali and Rocky Marciano that Special Effects Wizards put together 0:02:18.170 --> 0:02:21.570 in nineteen seventy to determine who was the greatest fighter 0:02:21.770 --> 0:02:22.490 of all time. 0:02:23.130 --> 0:02:30.290 Off the Ropes again, Good Body Rally by marciall. 0:02:28.610 --> 0:02:30.970 I often turned to it long after I should be 0:02:30.970 --> 0:02:31.329 in bed. 0:02:32.130 --> 0:02:35.290 Alisi the draw gasps of breath as he moved back 0:02:35.330 --> 0:02:36.329 to the center of the ways. 0:02:36.890 --> 0:02:39.370 There's the bell, Andy round one. 0:02:39.450 --> 0:02:42.250 Our bookshelves are where we project our tastes, where we 0:02:42.250 --> 0:02:45.770 announce to our dinner guests that, of course we enjoy Faulkner, 0:02:46.050 --> 0:02:49.250 the Golden Age of comics and the essays of Montaigne. 0:02:49.690 --> 0:02:52.290 But if our bookshelves are where we telegraph a version 0:02:52.330 --> 0:02:54.930 of who we want to be, then our YouTube search 0:02:55.010 --> 0:02:58.490 histories called from late hours, punching away at whiskey soaked 0:02:58.570 --> 0:03:02.010 keyboards are what we really are, the self that is 0:03:02.090 --> 0:03:06.050 led by desire rather than decorum. 0:03:06.170 --> 0:03:12.410 Play will so Love God, Am Marcil, break, will break 0:03:12.450 --> 0:03:13.850 the armory Jump. 0:03:14.170 --> 0:03:18.570 After watching Ali and Marciano for a couple of rounds, 0:03:18.610 --> 0:03:21.889 I think, wasn't there a song about Muhammad Ali? I'd 0:03:21.890 --> 0:03:22.650 once heard the. 0:03:25.090 --> 0:03:26.250 Black Superman? 0:03:27.050 --> 0:03:30.650 And then Superman makes me think, of course, of David 0:03:30.730 --> 0:03:34.690 Lee Roth heroically bounding around in leather spats and fishnet 0:03:34.730 --> 0:03:41.330 bikini underwear, and so I seek out his haunting, isolated 0:03:41.410 --> 0:03:44.850 vocal tracks that make Jump sound like an a cappella 0:03:44.970 --> 0:03:48.370 spiritual intended to rouse the faithful to action. 0:03:49.730 --> 0:03:55.330 Ah, might as well jump, job, might as well Job. 0:03:56.410 --> 0:03:59.290 The clip recalls a time when Eddie Van Halen and 0:03:59.370 --> 0:04:03.050 Valerie Bertinelli reigned as the Kim and Kanye of their day. 0:04:04.250 --> 0:04:06.970 Eddie played guitar and Valerie starred in One Day at 0:04:06.970 --> 0:04:11.210 a Time, a sitcom in which mustachioed, leather vested janitor 0:04:11.330 --> 0:04:16.529 named Schneider allowed himself into her family's apartment whenever he pleased. 0:04:16.770 --> 0:04:19.210 Very sex symbol. How you doing with the quarterback? 0:04:19.650 --> 0:04:22.370 I hope you're not letting him score any touchdowns? You know? 0:04:22.930 --> 0:04:23.170 I know? 0:04:23.250 --> 0:04:24.810 Will you keep your nose out of this? 0:04:24.810 --> 0:04:26.250 This is Julie's problem. 0:04:26.570 --> 0:04:29.529 Even though we can see almost anything we want on YouTube, 0:04:29.929 --> 0:04:33.569 there's something about the endless possibility that can cause anxiety, 0:04:34.169 --> 0:04:36.529 and so we just circle back to the clips that 0:04:36.570 --> 0:04:41.169 deliver the dopamine of childhood nostalgia. We all have that 0:04:41.289 --> 0:04:44.849 sweet spot, and for me, it's the early seventies when 0:04:44.849 --> 0:04:48.570 my first memories of being alive were beginning to form. 0:04:49.010 --> 0:04:52.250 And the figure who most perfectly evokes this time the 0:04:52.289 --> 0:04:55.570 ten letter late night search term I inevitably keep coming 0:04:55.609 --> 0:05:00.010 back to more than any other, is Mason Reese. 0:05:00.330 --> 0:05:04.249 People kept telling my mother, all, I look like a munchkin. Well, 0:05:04.770 --> 0:05:06.529 this is what a munchkin looks like. 0:05:06.690 --> 0:05:10.249 In the seventies, Mason Reese was an advert tizing phenomenon 0:05:10.529 --> 0:05:13.770 who appeared in dozens of commercials for everything from. 0:05:13.729 --> 0:05:15.969 Duncan Donuts, Do I Look like a Mudskin? 0:05:17.049 --> 0:05:23.809 To Raisin Brant and the Underwood chicken spread as on 0:05:23.890 --> 0:05:28.250 chicken spread with this adorable spoonerism that became a nineteen 0:05:28.330 --> 0:05:30.369 seventies catchphrase, like I. 0:05:30.529 --> 0:05:34.369 Told her mom, you posada words like having a burgish board. 0:05:36.289 --> 0:05:39.450 Lately, I've been trying to explain masonries and I keep 0:05:39.489 --> 0:05:43.250 coming up short on analogies. He was like the Wendy's 0:05:43.330 --> 0:05:46.929 Where's the Beef Lady, I say, or Mikey from Life Cereal, 0:05:47.609 --> 0:05:50.449 But it isn't quite true. While they were limited to 0:05:50.489 --> 0:05:55.489 one product and one memorable slogan, Mason advertised everything, and 0:05:55.570 --> 0:05:58.609 he went from being a TV commercial star to being 0:05:58.770 --> 0:06:02.089 a star star. When he walked down the street, people 0:06:02.130 --> 0:06:05.450 asked for locks of his signature red hair and blessings 0:06:05.489 --> 0:06:09.010 for their babies. One mother even named her twins after him, 0:06:09.489 --> 0:06:13.410 calling one Mason and the other Reese. When I bring 0:06:13.489 --> 0:06:15.609 him up to my mother to see if she remembers, 0:06:15.890 --> 0:06:19.169 she says, wasn't he the little boy who was so homely? 0:06:19.409 --> 0:06:20.170 He was cute? 0:06:20.810 --> 0:06:22.810 How come every writing come with you? 0:06:23.690 --> 0:06:28.369 I wish though there was something uncanny about Masonriese because 0:06:28.409 --> 0:06:31.089 of his precocity. He didn't quite track as a child, 0:06:31.690 --> 0:06:33.969 and some people even thought he was a little person 0:06:34.169 --> 0:06:38.529 dressed in children's clothing who after a day's shoot, sparked 0:06:38.570 --> 0:06:41.809 up a stogie and poured himself a bourbon. The little 0:06:41.810 --> 0:06:45.650 old man's sat eyed face, the prince valiant haircut, the 0:06:45.690 --> 0:06:48.849 scrunchy voice that sounds as though spoken underwater in a 0:06:48.890 --> 0:06:52.130 tub of buttermilk. The hair that only seemed to grow 0:06:52.169 --> 0:06:55.529 so bright red in the seventies. Mason Reese is as 0:06:55.529 --> 0:06:58.650 synonymous with childhood as the memory of sitting in a 0:06:58.650 --> 0:07:01.529 wet bathing suit on the hot vinyl backseat of my 0:07:01.609 --> 0:07:06.249 father's Pontiac while listening to an AM radio Blair American Pie. 0:07:07.770 --> 0:07:11.330 His face is the smell of my grandmother's kitchen of 0:07:11.410 --> 0:07:20.930 crayons comic books. Except in the past year, new Mason 0:07:20.970 --> 0:07:25.130 rees videos began to appear things from TV I don't 0:07:25.130 --> 0:07:28.249 recall ever having seen. It was as though my very 0:07:28.290 --> 0:07:33.489 desire was somehow having an incantatory effect, summoning deeper cuts 0:07:33.530 --> 0:07:39.730 from the past. Mason on afternoon talk show The Mike 0:07:39.770 --> 0:07:44.050 Douglas Show, tap dancing to singing in the rain, introducing 0:07:44.130 --> 0:07:46.689 Leonard Nimoy and hamming it up like an old pro. 0:07:47.170 --> 0:07:51.769 Please join me in rocketing one of my favorites, Leonard Neimoy. 0:07:53.570 --> 0:07:55.970 And then there's this it's just not right. 0:07:56.330 --> 0:07:58.730 A man that old and an eight year old boy. 0:07:59.050 --> 0:08:03.490 An ABC sitcom pilot's simply called Mason, where he plays 0:08:03.570 --> 0:08:06.730 a friendless child genius who brings home a thirty five 0:08:06.810 --> 0:08:10.210 year old man in safari shorts he met while wandering 0:08:10.250 --> 0:08:11.489 the streets of New York. 0:08:12.210 --> 0:08:15.730 For all we know he's a pervert. Oh, I don't 0:08:15.730 --> 0:08:20.850 think Mason leans that way. 0:08:22.730 --> 0:08:24.650 Well, you aren't even let sleep over. 0:08:24.890 --> 0:08:25.970 What kind of a companion. 0:08:26.330 --> 0:08:29.890 But amidst this trove of new material, I found something else. 0:08:31.250 --> 0:08:34.730 And he's doing something I understand. It's that you especially 0:08:34.890 --> 0:08:36.730 like a song that you especially are fond of. 0:08:37.250 --> 0:08:37.530 Yes. 0:08:38.050 --> 0:08:40.850 In this clip, Mason is co hosting The Mike Douglas 0:08:40.850 --> 0:08:43.050 Show and Harry Chapin is being introduced. 0:08:43.090 --> 0:08:45.570 You want to tell us who what what the song is? 0:08:45.650 --> 0:08:50.330 Or do you know? I don't? I mean, you know 0:08:50.370 --> 0:08:50.810 what it is? 0:08:50.890 --> 0:08:52.370 No, I don't want that song. 0:08:54.210 --> 0:08:56.650 Why Mason, you're not putting on that song? 0:09:00.210 --> 0:09:02.170 Now he gets he's very touched by that song. 0:09:02.210 --> 0:09:05.770 But maybe Mason, seated on his mini director's chair, just 0:09:05.810 --> 0:09:08.929 can't take it and drops the facade of the precocious 0:09:08.930 --> 0:09:13.850 TV broadcaster and collapses his face into his hands and weeps. 0:09:16.010 --> 0:09:20.010 Oh you know what song it is? Well, maybe we 0:09:20.090 --> 0:09:21.610 ought to bring you the guy with the worms back. 0:09:24.090 --> 0:09:26.410 Come on Pale, Oh, come on over here, Come on 0:09:26.450 --> 0:09:29.090 over here with uncle Mike. What I said, You're gonna 0:09:29.090 --> 0:09:32.850 be all right. This song is very touching and as 0:09:32.890 --> 0:09:35.290 you can see, and Mason's very touched by it. Is 0:09:35.290 --> 0:09:40.010 it okay? It's called Cat's in the Cradle Harry Chapin, 0:09:44.810 --> 0:09:47.730 This is for my kids and for Mason. Thank you. 0:09:58.690 --> 0:10:02.250 My child arrived just the other day, came. 0:10:02.330 --> 0:10:05.930 And as Harry Chapin sings the quintessential song of complicated 0:10:06.010 --> 0:10:10.610 father son loves Mason cries in console and he was. 0:10:10.610 --> 0:10:11.650 Talking for I knew it. 0:10:11.930 --> 0:10:15.170 And as he grew, he'd say, I'm gonna be like you. 0:10:16.450 --> 0:10:18.250 You know, I'm gonna be like you. 0:10:20.730 --> 0:10:22.410 And the Cats in the Cradle and. 0:10:22.490 --> 0:10:26.410 A little boy blue of the Man of the Moon 0:10:26.970 --> 0:10:30.050 when you're coming home that I don't know. When we 0:10:30.450 --> 0:10:33.730 get together, then this time, you know we'll have a 0:10:33.770 --> 0:10:34.450 good time. 0:10:34.570 --> 0:10:42.570 Then YouTube is a cultural repository, but it's full of fragments, 0:10:42.770 --> 0:10:47.130 broken and left over, like Roman ruins. Was there something 0:10:47.170 --> 0:10:50.450 that took place before the Harry Chapin introduction, something that 0:10:50.530 --> 0:10:53.850 was happening just outside the frame, off stage and unseen. 0:10:55.170 --> 0:10:58.410 There wasn't much context to be gotten from YouTube commenters either, 0:10:58.850 --> 0:11:02.330 most of whom were just mean, saying things like what 0:11:02.370 --> 0:11:03.850 the hell is that red haired thing? 0:11:04.410 --> 0:11:04.690 Wow? 0:11:04.770 --> 0:11:08.250 He was more horrifying than I even remember. I hated 0:11:08.290 --> 0:11:12.050 this ugly tour when I was a kid, But there 0:11:12.090 --> 0:11:14.730 was this one thing, and when I first discovered it, 0:11:14.890 --> 0:11:18.450 I couldn't believe it was true. Looking more closely at 0:11:18.490 --> 0:11:22.010 the user account the person uploading these new videos, I 0:11:22.090 --> 0:11:32.250 noticed the name was Mason Reese. I now had many questions. 0:11:33.170 --> 0:11:36.730 Why would Mason Reese upload a video of himself crying? 0:11:37.410 --> 0:11:41.410 Myself crying as a child, should such footage exist? Would 0:11:41.450 --> 0:11:44.050 be the kind of thing I'd probably never even show 0:11:44.050 --> 0:11:47.730 my closest friends, let alone the whole world. Why was 0:11:47.770 --> 0:11:50.730 Mason doing just that? And why did he post the 0:11:50.810 --> 0:11:56.050 videos now? Forty years later? These were questions I couldn't 0:11:56.090 --> 0:11:59.450 answer by just tweaking my search terms by adding more 0:11:59.570 --> 0:12:03.570 tabs to the browser window. What I wanted most wasn't 0:12:03.610 --> 0:12:07.010 to expand the frame, but to pass right through it entirely. 0:12:08.290 --> 0:12:11.170 In short, I wanted the real world. 0:12:12.330 --> 0:12:13.370 How long have you been. 0:12:13.210 --> 0:12:14.370 Acting in commercials? 0:12:15.130 --> 0:12:19.490 Well, since i'm so now I have been acting three years. 0:12:20.330 --> 0:12:22.290 That would mean you started when you were about four. 0:12:30.610 --> 0:12:32.690 What we were hoping to do is to actually look 0:12:32.730 --> 0:12:34.370 at some of the clips with you. 0:12:34.650 --> 0:12:37.530 Yeah. I don't mind doing it. Yeah, that's very interesting. 0:12:37.810 --> 0:12:53.210 Yeah, so I've started rolling you do. 0:12:54.250 --> 0:12:54.570 Hello. 0:12:54.650 --> 0:12:54.890 Hello. 0:12:54.930 --> 0:12:57.610 Mason lives in a modest, two room apartment on New 0:12:57.690 --> 0:13:00.490 York's Upper West Side. When he greets me and my 0:13:00.530 --> 0:13:03.690 producer Chris at the door, I'm surprised by how little 0:13:03.730 --> 0:13:04.010 he is. 0:13:06.810 --> 0:13:07.610 We're gonna let that go. 0:13:08.370 --> 0:13:08.970 What are you about. 0:13:09.730 --> 0:13:13.490 The haircut's almost the same. I don't know, the red hair, 0:13:13.850 --> 0:13:19.570 the eyes, the expressions, it's all there. Looking at him 0:13:19.650 --> 0:13:22.050 is intense, like seeing an old friend. 0:13:23.130 --> 0:13:24.730 Hebe now and then by the way, you might hear 0:13:24.730 --> 0:13:27.090 a fire Injine or something go by. Because New York. 0:13:27.170 --> 0:13:30.610 That's New York, baby, that's exactly right, living Manhattan. 0:13:30.770 --> 0:13:33.490 Yeah, Mason seats us in his living room, which is 0:13:33.530 --> 0:13:36.370 a shrine to his child star. There's a photo of 0:13:36.450 --> 0:13:39.730 him co hosting a telethon with Henry Winkler, a nineteen 0:13:39.810 --> 0:13:43.050 seventy three Cleo Award for Best Actor in a Commercial, 0:13:43.570 --> 0:13:46.970 and a photograph of himself jogging in Central Park with 0:13:47.090 --> 0:13:53.050 Andy Warhol and Grace Jones and looking around like you've 0:13:53.090 --> 0:13:55.650 got all of this, You've got all these photos of 0:13:55.690 --> 0:13:58.770 yourself as a kid and a lot of memorabilia. In 0:13:58.810 --> 0:14:03.010 some ways, do you feel this responsibility to that kid 0:14:03.050 --> 0:14:04.970 in a way or like, do you feel like. 0:14:04.890 --> 0:14:11.250 You're all of these pictures that you can see of 0:14:11.370 --> 0:14:13.929 me with the Batmo Bill and Peter Lupis from Mission 0:14:13.930 --> 0:14:17.410 Impossible and Leonard Nimoy and William Shatton and all this, 0:14:17.610 --> 0:14:19.890 you know, cover of TV Guys, cover of TV Guy 0:14:19.930 --> 0:14:22.010 in the book I published an I A seven. That's 0:14:22.130 --> 0:14:24.610 that's That's what I have in my living room. Yeah, 0:14:25.330 --> 0:14:29.850 in my bedroom there's not one picture. Why is that 0:14:30.530 --> 0:14:34.050 Because that's where I'm an adult. That's you know what 0:14:34.090 --> 0:14:37.570 I'm saying, And to me, that's very important. I'm a 0:14:37.610 --> 0:14:40.810 fifty year old man. That's my private area. It's just 0:14:40.890 --> 0:14:44.170 my public area. Yeah, and in private, this is not 0:14:44.250 --> 0:14:44.810 who I am. 0:14:45.210 --> 0:14:48.450 But is this is this here for like for us? 0:14:48.610 --> 0:14:50.290 Or is this here for you both? 0:14:51.130 --> 0:14:54.210 Both? Because it's a it's a great reminder to me 0:14:54.970 --> 0:14:56.490 of what I've accomplished in my life. 0:14:57.650 --> 0:15:00.650 Mason Reese is fifty, but he doesn't look it. He 0:15:00.690 --> 0:15:03.330 doesn't look it in the way his Pomeranian doesn't look 0:15:03.370 --> 0:15:07.130 his age or any age, because a Pomeranian is what 0:15:07.250 --> 0:15:10.890 it is, and Mason Reese is Mason Reese. And the 0:15:10.890 --> 0:15:14.890 world seeses on all those who are singular, unique, those 0:15:14.930 --> 0:15:18.050 who are what they are, and the world celebrates them 0:15:18.130 --> 0:15:21.450 the best it knows how, by nailing them to a crucifix, 0:15:22.010 --> 0:15:24.490 by sticking them in front of a camera, to hawk 0:15:24.530 --> 0:15:29.290 fried dough and canned meatspread. Mason hasn't made a commercial 0:15:29.330 --> 0:15:32.770 since his teens, but his life seems pretty okay. In 0:15:32.810 --> 0:15:35.530 the intervening years. He's opened a few bars and even 0:15:35.610 --> 0:15:40.330 runs his own entertainment company, borges Moord Productions. And why 0:15:40.370 --> 0:15:44.410 did he post the videos now forty years later? Mainly, 0:15:44.490 --> 0:15:46.770 he explains to me because a friend of his put 0:15:46.810 --> 0:15:50.450 together a DVD of Mason Reese's greatest hits and he 0:15:50.490 --> 0:15:52.410 thought he might as well share it with people who 0:15:52.490 --> 0:15:56.050 might be interested. Chris sets up a laptop on the 0:15:56.050 --> 0:15:59.170 coffee table. What we were hoping to do is to 0:15:59.170 --> 0:16:01.290 actually look at some of the clips with you. 0:16:01.570 --> 0:16:05.050 Yeah, I don't mind doing it. Yeah, that's very interesting. Yeah. 0:16:05.130 --> 0:16:07.290 We start off with perhaps the greatest hit of them 0:16:07.290 --> 0:16:10.170 all the Underwood doubled hand, I'm commercial. 0:16:09.930 --> 0:16:13.130 Granburry sauce and red is on chicken spread, Shorty Peter 0:16:13.210 --> 0:16:16.050 burn apple sauce on this one even made a nifty 0:16:16.130 --> 0:16:19.730 suest tomato salad. Like I told her mom, you post 0:16:19.770 --> 0:16:21.850 other words like having a burgish word. 0:16:23.810 --> 0:16:27.210 So the whole borgoschword thing at the end, uh, I 0:16:27.250 --> 0:16:29.450 mean that ended up being the money shot, as they 0:16:29.490 --> 0:16:30.850 call it. You know, that was it? That was that 0:16:30.970 --> 0:16:34.650 was the big one. It wasn't a mistake, it was planned, 0:16:34.730 --> 0:16:37.730 but it was. Yeah, And I'll tell you how. So 0:16:38.810 --> 0:16:42.610 Andy Doyle, who was the ad exac for the company, 0:16:43.330 --> 0:16:47.450 came up to me and he said, Mason, we would 0:16:47.570 --> 0:16:51.770 like you to mispronounce the word schmorgasport. 0:16:51.930 --> 0:16:53.770 That's that's interesting. 0:16:53.810 --> 0:16:56.130 And I said, well, but Andy, you know, I know 0:16:56.170 --> 0:16:58.130 what the real word is, and I don't want America 0:16:58.170 --> 0:17:00.410 to think that I'm not smart enough to know the 0:17:00.450 --> 0:17:03.010 real word. So what he did was he went and 0:17:03.010 --> 0:17:05.330 he got a yellow pan of paper and he wrote 0:17:05.369 --> 0:17:10.090 down all these words that sounded like schmart sport and 0:17:10.330 --> 0:17:15.650 I picked out borgosmort. So Andy looks at me, goes, Mason, 0:17:16.570 --> 0:17:21.450 you are really incredible. You're not gonna believe this. Borgus 0:17:21.490 --> 0:17:28.449 schmort is morgasbord in Swedish, but it's not right. Schmorgasbord 0:17:28.770 --> 0:17:31.569 is sweeh. So he lied to me. So the bottom 0:17:31.570 --> 0:17:33.209 line is the ad exact lied to a six and 0:17:33.250 --> 0:17:36.650 a half year old kid, and that commercial literally launched 0:17:36.689 --> 0:17:39.969 my career. That's what made people like Dick Havin and 0:17:40.010 --> 0:17:43.010 Mike Douglas and all the others, uh, you know, call 0:17:43.090 --> 0:17:45.649 me on the phone and say, hey, this kid is 0:17:45.689 --> 0:17:47.969 something a little different, you know, and we want to 0:17:48.010 --> 0:17:48.970 we want a piece of him. 0:17:49.409 --> 0:17:52.649 So, yeah, let's take a look at another ad. 0:17:53.570 --> 0:17:54.330 Duncan Dunas. 0:17:54.449 --> 0:17:59.410 Yes, people kept telling my mother I looked like a munchkin. 0:18:00.129 --> 0:18:03.850 Well, yeah, that was more commercial than I actually kind 0:18:03.889 --> 0:18:08.369 of regret doing. Why Well let's watch it, yeah, and 0:18:08.770 --> 0:18:11.250 you'll no at the tagline, I'll tell. 0:18:11.169 --> 0:18:13.810 You why a big bunch basket or a great big 0:18:13.850 --> 0:18:17.090 super munch basket. Tell me do I look like a munchkin? 0:18:17.330 --> 0:18:22.970 Oh? The only reason why I'm not particularly fond of 0:18:23.010 --> 0:18:27.090 that commercial was the fact that the tagline was don't 0:18:27.129 --> 0:18:29.649 tell me I looked like a munchkin? Well, what do 0:18:29.730 --> 0:18:34.810 you think happened? Every fucking place I went, you know, oh, 0:18:34.810 --> 0:18:38.050 that's the Munchkin For a year. That was just abuse 0:18:38.169 --> 0:18:39.890 after abuse after abuse. 0:18:41.250 --> 0:18:42.530 Do you want to just take a look at the 0:18:43.129 --> 0:18:44.249 Harry chapin no. 0:18:45.970 --> 0:18:47.369 Dot or not? Oh? 0:18:47.409 --> 0:18:47.689 Really? 0:18:47.810 --> 0:18:51.129 Yeah? Yeah, I mean it was I'll tell the story 0:18:51.209 --> 0:18:55.569 behind it, you know. For some reason, and I to 0:18:55.609 --> 0:18:58.729 this day, I don't know what the reason is. Because 0:18:58.730 --> 0:19:01.850 my father and I were very close, that song Cat's 0:19:01.850 --> 0:19:04.529 in the Cradle has a really hard effect on me. 0:19:05.169 --> 0:19:07.689 So people always say to me, oh, did you have 0:19:07.730 --> 0:19:11.010 a strained relationship your father? Was he always away? And 0:19:11.129 --> 0:19:15.289 the answer was no, My dad was always around. So 0:19:15.409 --> 0:19:17.929 I never really understood why I identified with the song 0:19:18.330 --> 0:19:20.409 other than the fact that I was a sensitive kid 0:19:21.330 --> 0:19:25.689 and Harry was on the Mike Douglas Show. I was 0:19:25.730 --> 0:19:29.010 the co host, and I asked him, are you gonna 0:19:29.010 --> 0:19:31.530 be seting cats in the Cradle and he said no. 0:19:31.570 --> 0:19:33.969 They asked me to do another one of my newer songs. 0:19:34.970 --> 0:19:39.809 Oh okay. So I was not prepared for him to 0:19:39.889 --> 0:19:44.649 do that, and at the age of seven, I wasn't 0:19:44.689 --> 0:19:48.369 able to, you know, figure out what did he lie 0:19:48.449 --> 0:19:51.489 to me? And that's what I must have been thinking, 0:19:51.889 --> 0:19:54.050 you know, as a young kid, and I literally just 0:19:54.090 --> 0:19:55.129 broke down and. 0:19:55.490 --> 0:19:58.129 Fell apart because you had been lied to, or because 0:19:58.330 --> 0:19:59.290 because I wasn't gonna. 0:19:59.090 --> 0:20:01.770 Be yes because the song couldn't be played. But I'm 0:20:01.810 --> 0:20:05.129 sure part of my mind was, well, why would Harry 0:20:05.209 --> 0:20:09.010 say no? I literally just broke down into a step 0:20:10.250 --> 0:20:14.330 and nobody understood why except me, my parents, and probably Harry. 0:20:15.010 --> 0:20:17.810 You know, it's a ninety minute show back then, and 0:20:17.889 --> 0:20:20.330 there was probably a good thirty minutes left in the show. 0:20:21.609 --> 0:20:24.369 And I refused to come back. And I just went 0:20:24.449 --> 0:20:26.489 down into the commissary, which was in the basement of 0:20:26.490 --> 0:20:28.649 the building, and I sat there and I had a 0:20:28.649 --> 0:20:29.810 soda or something. 0:20:30.090 --> 0:20:30.570 And. 0:20:32.330 --> 0:20:34.290 You know, I just refused. I didn't want to go 0:20:34.369 --> 0:20:35.010 back anymore. 0:20:36.649 --> 0:20:39.050 A lot of Mason's stories involved as being lied to 0:20:39.250 --> 0:20:42.409 by adults, which is sad. But what was it about 0:20:42.449 --> 0:20:45.209 Cats in the Cradle, in particular, a song to make 0:20:45.330 --> 0:20:51.050 cry if anyone neglectful dads not little boys? Is it possible? 0:20:51.530 --> 0:20:56.050 In a way, it was as though like it was 0:20:56.050 --> 0:20:59.730 sort of like you singing the song to yourself. You're 0:20:59.730 --> 0:21:03.169 both you're both a child and I don't have a childhood. 0:21:05.449 --> 0:21:09.290 All of these stereotypical things that kids do and did 0:21:09.929 --> 0:21:17.369 I didn't do. I mean I never went to a prom, 0:21:17.850 --> 0:21:25.490 I never played sports, I never took extracurricular after school activities. 0:21:26.649 --> 0:21:29.570 Did I sacrifice anything? I know you didn't ask that, 0:21:29.730 --> 0:21:34.450 but that's a log But that's a logical question. Well, 0:21:34.449 --> 0:21:38.570 I don't know, did I I don't think so. I 0:21:38.609 --> 0:21:43.409 often tell people that when you've written an elephant in 0:21:43.449 --> 0:21:47.889 the Barnum and Bailey circus, been an NBC correspondent for 0:21:47.929 --> 0:21:52.369 the News, piloted the Goodyear Blimp. I wasn't in the 0:21:52.409 --> 0:21:57.090 Goodyear blimp. I flew the Goodyear blimp. When you've gotten 0:21:57.129 --> 0:22:00.649 to do all the things that I did, algebra is 0:22:00.689 --> 0:22:06.409 pretty fucking boring. I'm a very unique circumstances. My mother 0:22:06.490 --> 0:22:11.209 and father every day of my life life said I 0:22:11.250 --> 0:22:14.529 love you to me, and every day of my life 0:22:15.449 --> 0:22:18.449 would give me a kiss and a hug, and this 0:22:18.530 --> 0:22:21.010 coming that they loved me. And like, my mom called 0:22:21.050 --> 0:22:22.850 me this morning and she wanted me to I was 0:22:22.889 --> 0:22:26.850 wondering yesterday for three hours, literally like vacuuming the floor 0:22:26.850 --> 0:22:30.290 and cutting her toenails. You know, that's not what some 0:22:30.409 --> 0:22:32.009 wants to do to a nine year old mother, but 0:22:32.050 --> 0:22:34.290 I was doing it because I'm a nice boy. 0:22:35.449 --> 0:22:38.050 I just thought, just in light of what you were saying, 0:22:38.250 --> 0:22:41.649 if we just watched the one with your where your mother? 0:22:41.970 --> 0:22:44.850 Sure I could watch them. 0:22:45.010 --> 0:22:50.209 Yeah, there you go. When when did you first discover missus? 0:22:50.209 --> 0:22:53.490 Reeve said, this young man was a bit precocious. 0:22:53.850 --> 0:22:59.090 My mom was a good looking, broad beautiful. He was 0:22:59.129 --> 0:23:02.129 born April eleventh, I'd say April twelveth. 0:23:04.369 --> 0:23:07.169 He is, to say, the least, an unusual child. 0:23:08.090 --> 0:23:11.690 How do you and he can on fabulously? Yeah? 0:23:12.209 --> 0:23:16.210 We yell, we fight, but we love each other a lot. 0:23:16.609 --> 0:23:19.090 I want to bring his father out. Okay, Mason, do 0:23:19.129 --> 0:23:20.289 you want to bring your dad? Huh? 0:23:20.570 --> 0:23:20.929 Believe? 0:23:21.010 --> 0:23:22.490 Will Bill Reese please them? 0:23:33.449 --> 0:23:35.249 Yeah? Tell me about his reading? 0:23:36.050 --> 0:23:36.489 He reads it? 0:23:36.530 --> 0:23:40.490 What level between tenth and eleventh grade? 0:23:41.129 --> 0:23:41.929 That's incredible. 0:23:42.649 --> 0:23:44.609 Does he attend a public school? 0:23:45.169 --> 0:23:48.930 He attends a Montessori Method school. Why do you think 0:23:48.970 --> 0:23:49.810 you're welling up? 0:23:50.369 --> 0:23:52.770 Allows him to progress pretty much at his own case? 0:23:53.129 --> 0:23:58.850 Well again, you know, I mean to some extent because 0:23:58.850 --> 0:24:00.970 my mom and dad probably still loved each other at 0:24:00.970 --> 0:24:03.409 this point in our lives. You know, things were a 0:24:03.449 --> 0:24:08.530 lot simpler maybe for me. My parents had not divorced yet. 0:24:10.209 --> 0:24:11.809 My two brothers and my sister and I were all 0:24:11.929 --> 0:24:14.809 very close. We still all kind of lived together for 0:24:14.850 --> 0:24:19.489 the most part. So yeah, I think that a lot 0:24:19.570 --> 0:24:23.250 of it is uh, hearkens back to a simpler time, 0:24:25.490 --> 0:24:29.249 more care free perhaps though even though I had a 0:24:29.330 --> 0:24:31.689 job to do, it was still more care free because 0:24:31.689 --> 0:24:34.769 I was a kid and a lot of responsibilities have 0:24:34.810 --> 0:24:37.810 not been put on my head yet. You know, it's 0:24:37.810 --> 0:24:42.649 funny my mom doesn't understand YouTube, you know. I mean, 0:24:43.010 --> 0:24:45.489 she kind of gets it, but doesn't really fully understand it. 0:24:46.369 --> 0:24:49.369 I showed her this clip and I jokingly said to her, 0:24:49.449 --> 0:24:51.770 but maybe it was true. I said, that's probably the 0:24:51.850 --> 0:24:59.850 last time you ever kissed dad. Well, and I do 0:24:59.970 --> 0:25:02.970 love my dad. 0:25:01.290 --> 0:25:14.249 No, God, when you're a kid, you cry because you 0:25:14.290 --> 0:25:17.010 feel lied to, because life is unfair and you don't 0:25:17.090 --> 0:25:20.929 understand anything. And then as an adult, you cry because 0:25:20.970 --> 0:25:24.810 life still isn't fair, but you do understand it. You 0:25:24.929 --> 0:25:30.489 cry because you do understand it. By nineteen seventy seven, 0:25:30.810 --> 0:25:33.649 Mason's dad would begin spending more and more time at 0:25:33.649 --> 0:25:36.929 the company he started, and eventually he'd convert part of 0:25:36.929 --> 0:25:40.050 his office into a living space where he could spend nights. 0:25:40.850 --> 0:25:44.129 In his early teens, around the time the commercial offers 0:25:44.129 --> 0:25:48.090 started to dry up, Mason's parents would divorce, and Mason 0:25:48.090 --> 0:25:51.689 would move into the office with his dad At eight 0:25:51.810 --> 0:25:54.450 thirty in the morning. When employees began to show up, 0:25:54.850 --> 0:25:57.209 Mason would sometimes still be lounging around in his T 0:25:57.330 --> 0:25:58.290 shirt and underwear. 0:25:59.250 --> 0:26:01.129 We're going to visit more with the Reese's following this, 0:26:01.209 --> 0:26:01.930 We'll be right back. 0:26:07.090 --> 0:26:10.249 At one point, while watching the videos, Mason tells me 0:26:10.570 --> 0:26:14.770 that he realizes the commenters can be mean. Oh my god, 0:26:14.850 --> 0:26:18.050 what a freak. He was so ugly. What kind of 0:26:18.129 --> 0:26:21.970 talent did this kid have? He says, quoting them, I'd 0:26:21.970 --> 0:26:24.050 be a liar if I said it didn't affect me. 0:26:25.889 --> 0:26:28.250 When I ask him why he hasn't disabled the comments 0:26:28.250 --> 0:26:31.330 for his videos, he seems genuinely surprised that you could 0:26:31.369 --> 0:26:35.489 do such a thing. He pauses to consider it, but 0:26:35.570 --> 0:26:38.209 as of today he still hasn't done it, and I 0:26:38.209 --> 0:26:40.690 don't think he ever will. It would mean not being 0:26:40.689 --> 0:26:45.290 able to receive any of the nice comments like this one. Hey, Mason, 0:26:45.850 --> 0:26:48.209 thank you for these. They would not have been the 0:26:48.250 --> 0:27:07.609 seventies without you. This episode was produced for Reply All 0:27:07.649 --> 0:27:10.449 by me Jonathan Goldstein Will, along with Chris Neary, Tim 0:27:10.530 --> 0:27:14.729 Howard Struthie Pennaminini, PJ Vote, and Alex Goldman. It was 0:27:14.889 --> 0:27:18.170 edited by Alex Bloomberg, John Dolore and Bobby Lord mix 0:27:18.209 --> 0:27:21.530 the episode. We'll be back next week with a brand 0:27:21.609 --> 0:27:25.050 new episode of Heavyweight