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