You're watching YouTube, the cable access of the 21st century. It's Wednesday. It's 4:00 PM where I am, and it's time to talk about movies and answer your questions. Welcome to Dan's World. Max Mayfield, it's going to be one of those streams. Uh, yeah, it looks like it's going to be all right. See, let's see. Take two. Hi, Dan. Can you hear me now? Okay. I don't know what happened. Apparently, I set everything to, uh, as I usually have them here, and my, uh, software here, Streamyard, decided to, uh, switch to my microphone on my phone for some reason. This is just not my week. I don't know what's going on today.
Okay. Well, you could see me, but you couldn't hear me, and I should have checked the chat earlier. Um, oh boy. Okay. Well, to catch you up and for the non-lip readers out there, uh for everybody except for John Boy Media who's uh watching this video, welcome back to the show. Um we're this is take two. We have a lot to talk about today. If you didn't see charts yesterday, then you may not have heard about the snake that was in this studio yesterday. We are going to go deep down into that whole story because that was quite something. We're going to discuss that. We are also going to talk about the trailer for the new Harry Potter uh series that hit earlier today. We are also going to talk about the new Lord of the Rings movie uh that is reportedly in development with Stephen Cobear as a key creative. So, there's a lot to discuss there.
We're going to take your questions as we always do and your comments. I'm seeing I'm already seeing so many uh people that are commenting here. So, if you want to leave a super chat, I will definitely get to your question today as I've been doing the last few weeks. I'm trying to get better also about uh answering chats or or questions that come in uh in the regular chat as well. Uh but I'm going to be juggling a lot today. So, let's jump into it.
Before we get to any of that though, uh this was another thing I didn't really have a chance to talk about on charts this week because there was just so much to get to. so much box office news and the origin story of this whole snake thing. There were a couple of people who passed away uh in the last week or so that I wanted to mention and we'll do it right up at the top here. The first is uh Nicholas Brendan who uh for many people was uh was known as uh Xander on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We had a whole segment on Buffy the Vampire Slayer last week. That original show is much beloved by many people and uh he was from what I've read very engaged with the fan community. A lot of tributes coming in from his former cast members and uh it's it's just been kind of a for people that were into those sort of teen shows of the 90s, it's been a rough year so far. Uh so I was very sad to read about his passing.
And then of course, uh I would have to mention Chuck Norris as well who had many stages in his career uh as a martial artist. he had the distinct pleasure. I mean, one of one of Bruce Lee's greatest on-screen fights was with Chuck Norris, and that's how he originally sort of made his mark was as a martial artist. He then transitioned in the 80s into an action star in the missing and action films, and others. He was part of the Expendables crew. I actually loved as as as corny as Expendables 2 is, I love the teamup scene with when you get Stallone and Willis and Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris and everybody on screen at the same time. Then in the 90s transition to television, Walker Texas Ranger, a show that many people knew him from, even if they hadn't seen his movies. I've never seen the show Walker Texas Ranger, but I'm very familiar with it through Conan O'Brien and his classic bit, the Walker Texas Ranger lover, which kind of brought him to a whole new audience, even people that didn't watch that show. And then as we got into the 2000s, he sort of became famous for being himself, for being Chuck Norris.
A very memorable cameo in dodgeball. I remember that was one of the funniest parts of the movie. Still is. And then of course in the earish days of this era of the internet as a meme, you know, Chuck Norris memes, one of the first things I remember seeing being shared around the internet and early social media and everything like that. So Chuck Norris, somebody who went through so many different stages of his career and really ended it as an icon just as himself and he seemed to really kind of embrace that. Uh so big losses I think uh on both accounts for Chuck Norris as well as Nicholas Brendan and of course uh my thoughts go out to their friends, their family and their fans.
Okay, so let's get into the saga of the snake in the studio. Strap in because this is uh this is quite a quite a story. Uh so I'm going to try not to belabor it, but there's a lot of moving pieces to this story. It all started on Sunday afternoon. Now, as you know, this past Sunday was a week from the Oscars. I did an allnighter the night of the Oscars. I was exhausted most of last week and I was trying to get stuff out for the channel and I actually made a conscious decision early on Sunday. I said, you know, I could work on some stuff today, but I'm going to give myself permission to just relax, to take the day off. I, I was still kind of shaking off the last bit of that Oscars all nighter because it takes me a few days now to shake off staying up all night like I do with the Oscars. So, it was about six o'clock on Sunday night. I'm in my house. I'm laying on my couch. I was actually feeling a little tired and because I gave myself permission to take the day off, I decided, hey, you know what? I'm going to take a nap. I wanted to take a little snooze. And so I was I had either just fallen asleep or I'd been asleep for maybe a minute or two when I heard uh some clinking of glasses from my kitchen. Now, I, I have a a bar cart with some wine glasses that are kind of hanging. And and at first, I think cus I was half asleep, I thought that I was still living in California because that's what you would hear when we were having a little tiny earthquake. So in my brain, I was like, "Oh, we must be having a little tiny earthquake." But then I remembered I don't live in Arkansas anymore. I live in California. So it definitely wasn't a little tiny earthquake. So what was it? Was there like a big truck that drove by? And then I heard one of the glasses fall off of the bar cart. It didn't break, but it definitely fell off. So that to me says, "All right, there's something on that bar cart now. I should mention, as I've said on this channel many times before, I have been traveling for most of this year and I've been away from home more days this year than I have been home. So, I in the last in the previous week, the week uh leading up to the Oscars and after the Oscars, I had found some evidence that I thought maybe I might have a mouse or mice or something like that. It wasn't like widespread all over the house. I hadn't seen a mouse. I hadn't anything like that, but I looked and I saw, you know, like a little thing on the floor and I'm like, "Oh, yeah, that could that could be a sign of something." But again, it didn't look like a critical problem that I had to take care of right now. I was really busy last week. I had planned to call my uh pest control company on Monday to say, "Hey, can you come out here and do what you need to do?" So, it was it was in the back of my mind that that might be going on in the house.
So, I thought, "Okay, I know what this is. I do have a my a mouse or something and it's up on the bar cart and we we'll go see what's going on. So, I get up. I go into my kitchen. And for those that have a phobia of snakes, and I understand if you do, uh we're going to be showing some pictures now. So, if you want to go audio only for a little bit, then uh you're you're more than welcome to do so. I get up, I go into my kitchen, and this is what I see. Here comes the picture. Get ready. That's what was on my bar cart making all that noise. And I have to say there's a your brain does something when you see something and you know what it is, but you can't quite process it. And that's where I was for about 10 seconds was I was staring at it and I knew that it was a snake, but my brain was not quite ready to accept that I was looking at what I was looking at because to be honest, I did never I never expected that I would have a snake in my house. Uh who would? And this was not a small snake, by the way. This was a pretty chunky snake. I mean, this snake was, uh, substantial. And so, uh when the snake saw that I had seen it, of course, the snake froze. This is a picture I took of the snake when it froze. And it just stayed there on the bar cart staring at me and I was staring at the snake. Uh, and so there was about a minute then of me staring at the snake. And really, we were just I was just kind of looking at it because once my brain had accepted that I was seeing what I saw, um I decided I I didn't know what to do. I I I completely froze. I I admire people that uh that know what to do in these situations immediately. I'm not one of those people, especially again because I was expecting to see a mouse, maybe even a rat, but a snake. A snake was not in my anticipated series of options if we were playing the video game. this is not in my drop-down menu of options to deal with. So once I finally recovered from that, I decided to do the only thing that that I could do in that moment that I could think to do is I took a picture of the snake. One of what one or two of the pictures I just saw you uh showed you and I went to Listen, AI is not acceptable in many forms, especially when it comes to the arts, but it can be useful as a research assistant. So, I the only thing I think to do is take a picture of the snake and put it in Google Gemini and say, "Can you tell me what kind of snake this is?" Uh, which is what I did. And it thought for a second or whatever AI does, and it says, "Yeah, this looks like a king snake or a rat snake. They're harmless. They eat mice and rodents and stuff, etc." Um, okay, that's great. However, I trust it as a research assistant. I do not necessarily trust it like with my life. So, it was nice to know that this was probably a harmless to me king snake or ratnake. Uh, but I I was not ready to stake everything on it. That was number one. Number two is I have never handled a snake before and I'm not a big fan of snakes. So, I didn't have the experience necessary to handle this on my own.
As I mentioned, this was at about 6:15 on a Sunday night. Now, if you live in the south, you'll understand this. The number of businesses that are open on Sunday in the South is about 25%. Once you get past 6:00, that number drops down to about 10%. So, there was no professional service available to me at that time to call and say, "I've got a big snake in my house. Can you come help me handle it?" And so, I did the next best thing. I called my best friend. We've been friends for 30 years. He lives about 10 minutes away. And I knew because he showed me the video that he had had a snake not in his house but that had been climbing up on the outside of his house and that he had been able to handle that and and and relocate the snake. So I called him and I just said theoretically if I was looking at a six-foot snake in my house right now what would I do? And he said what kind of snake is it? We talked a little bit about it. He said well do you think you can get it? I said not really because it's in the barcard. It's intertwined with all these glasses and I'm and I'm also terrified of it. Uh, and so he said, "Well, I don't have my car because my wife took the kids down uh to see uh their grandma today. So, I don't have my car, but if you come get me, then I'll come I will help you handle the snake."
This was my first choose your own adventure fraction fracture point in this story because I had a choice to make. I could one stay home, keep the snake in sight and attempt to handle it myself or two leave the snake for 20 minutes, go pick up my best friend and get help his help and relocate. We weren't going to kill it, by the way. I And that's another thing I want to stress. The ratnake was doing what it does. Uh, and what it does is actually a positive thing. I am perfectly happy for it to do what it does, not in my house. It can do it outside my house all at once. It's beneficial. I love it. I love that it does what it does, just not inside the confines of my home. So, I didn't want to kill it. I wanted help to get it in a trash can or something and take it outside and we put it somewhere that is again critically not inside my home. But to get my friend to help me out with this, I would have to leave. So, I made a couple of critical mistakes here. Number one, I thought about putting up some kind of a camera to record the snake while I was gone so that if it were to move that I would know where it was. But I was a little shaken and I wanted to go get my friend as quickly as I could. So, I opted not to do that. What I instead opted to do, and this was critical decision number two, I decided to erect my own snake barrier that to my untrained sensibilities would prevent the snake from leaving the kitchen area should I go and pick up my friend. And I did that. It was very makeshift, but I was somewhat proud of myself. I said, "No snake's getting through that. It'll be right back when we come. It'll be here when we come back. We'll take it outside. We'll have a beer. We'll do whatever." So, I decided to leave. I left. I went and got my friend. We came back 20 minutes later. The snake has disappeared. It's gone. There's no trace of it. There's no snake snake prints, nothing. And we scoured the kitchen. We looked everywhere. We looked on top of cabinets. I looked all throughout my den and I swear I looked in here. Now, I was a little frazzled at the time, so I can't guarantee you, but I swear that I looked in here and it was just gone. And let me tell you, the only feeling worse than knowing that there is a snake in your house is the feeling you get when you know that there was a snake in your house, but that you no longer know where that snake is. that is somehow worse than the active feeling of knowing that there is a snake currently staring at you in your house.
So, I had a couple of options. I could uh I couldn't call anybody to come get the snake till the next morning because, as I mentioned, everything was closed. So, I could stay home and just assume that the snake had gone outside. Or I could do what I think any reasonable person would do and go sleep at my friend's house. Uh, luckily, as I said, his family was out of town, so uh, they had the extra room where I could sleep, and I opted for the second option. And, and and my buddy even said, he was like, he's like, "H, you know, it probably went outside. You're you're probably fine." And then he took a beat and he said, "Of course I'm saying that about your house. If it was my house, my kids would be staying here tonight." I'm like, "Yeah, exactly." So, I went I stayed at his house Sunday night, got up on Monday, called uh my uh exterminators or my pest control. They don't the pest control is really what it is. They they didn't deal with snakes at all. They said, "Well, we can come see if you've got a a mouse or a rat or something, but we don't handle snakes." I'm like, "Okay, well, I get it." So, then there was another company that does handle snakes. Uh they're the ones that if you saw charts yesterday, you saw the video of them removing the snake. I'm going to show that video again here today. They were like, "Yeah, we can come check it out, but we can't come till tomorrow," which would be Tuesday. I said, "Okay, that's cool." Um, so I was in and out of the house a little bit on Monday taking care of some stuff and I looked around and I still didn't see it.
Uh, and so I stayed at my buddy's house again Monday night. Tuesday morning they're showing up at 10:00. I have charts to do. I prepped charts at my friend's house, but I still wanted to get the show out on time. So I figured, okay, well the snake is probably gone. It probably went back outside where it it came from. So, what I'm going to do is go to go to the house early, about 7:30, 8:00, shoot charts. I'll be done shooting charts about 9:00. I'll be close to, you know, I'll at least be close to the end of editing it at 10 when the snake people come and they can do what they need to do and then I'll get to show up about on time. But I I I couldn't just assume still assume that the snake was gone. So, I got home and I started sweeping this house um as I had done before. I had a flashlight. I was looking underneath everything. everything. And finally, the last room I check is the studio. Now, I don't know if you could tell from the video I I showed you, but the snake was here. Literally right here is where the snake was. I was over there by the door, literally on my hands and knees with a flashlight looking under stuff. And the last place I looked, I shown the light underneath these shelves and there was the snake. So, I did not shoot charts with Dan as I had planned. That's why the show was so late on Tuesday and instead I erected another makeshift barricade. And I have to say that I think this one was much more effective than the first one because that is the closed studio door. What you can't see and there's not much of a seam or a crack underneath that door. I also stuffed a blanket under the door and then I put that big Rubbermaid there and that was initially my first barricade. Then I put the suitcase there and the cardboard box and then the bigger cardboard box uh in front of that to block off the hallway. And I mean, physically there was no way anything could get underneath that door. Uh but my brain didn't understand that. And and if you ever want to know how slow an hour and a half can pass in your mind, um try waiting an hour and a half between the time you trap a snake in someone in a room in your house and the time that the people who are coming to get the snake can arrive because it was like like if you remember how long it seemed like Christmas took to come when you were a kid, triple that. Uh because that's how long it it it took or how long it felt like it took. So, finally the snake people show up. And here's the video I'm going to show you. I didn't play it with audio last time. This is the moment that the snake was caught in the studio. Uh, and uh, this is it with audio. So, let's take a look at this video. Yep, that's him. Sorry. Yeah. Uh, my favorite part of that video is some reason, number one, I sound way more southern in that video than I've ever felt in my life. Maybe I just felt like like such a southerner having to call somebody to get a snake out of my house. But I love that the only thing I can think to say as I as I recorded, by the way, from the safety of the doorway in case the snake got away from the handler and like flew through the air uh at me. dumb. I I thought that the only thing I could think to say was, "Yep, that's him." And like it's a police lineup. Like they the the cops had just arrested like he the snake had stolen my handbag. Like, "Yep, that yes, officer, that's him. That yes, sir. That I'm IDing this. I am IDing the snake. That is the snake." So, anyway, the snake has been relocated. I don't care to know where. I don't need to know where. Not here is the only location that is appropriate uh for me to know. The snake has been relocated. But I have to I have to mention that this house, it looks like a crazy person lives here because okay, the reaction that I got after I uh mentioned this on charts yesterday, I've gotten a few reactions. Number one was saying, "Rat snakes are good. Rat snakes kill mice. Rat rat snakes keep the, you know, the vermin." And I agree with that 100%. I'm not asking for anybody to demon demonize the snake. I saw Zootopia 2. I got the message of that movie. I'm not demonizing this rat snake or or or any other snake that does not pose a threat to uh to to people. What they do is very important, but again, as I said earlier, not in my house. Uh but not what I'm looking not what I'm looking to do. I saw a couple people that were just like, "Oh, I would have grabbed it. Oh, you know, they're harmless. I would have just grabbed it and put it in a box and driven it down the road." And I'm happy for you if that's how you would have reacted. I'm I'm very happy if that's within your capabilities. That's not within my capabilities. I wanted to call and again I also didn't want to just assume chat GPT or Google Gemini or whatever was correct in their assessment of the snake. I felt like the professionals were better equipped to handle it.
Those reactions are understandable. The ones that I don't understand and there have been multiple are the people that have said either, "Oh, it's good now, but just wait till you find out it laid eggs." And the other one is, well, hey, they got one snake, but how do you know there's not another one? Because first of all, that's just mean. That's just that's just mean. That's a mean thing to say to somebody who just had who just had this this snake pulled out of their house. Number two, do you think I haven't been thinking that every single minute for the last three days? Do you honestly think that that has never crossed my mind? that I haven't that I didn't literally lie awake in bed last night thinking about it. The I every room I enter, I'm sweeping every room in this house like I'm Jack Reacher when I every door is closed and every door that I open, I've got a flashlight under here, under there. I swept my bedroom four times last night and there was and that was after I closed all the doors when there's no physical way for anything to be in there. I swept it thoroughly once and then three more times and then stayed awake for another hour and a half worried that somehow I missed something or did trust me the concept that there could be another snake in this house has crossed my mind. It is very it is very much at the forefront of my mind and uh so so you don't worry no one needs to point that out. I I get it. Trust me the eggs I thought about it. Trust me, I will be doing continuous sweeps of the house and until I feel satisfied, which I think will be probably two to five years from now. Uh so trust me, those things have those things are already in my brain. I don't need anybody else to bring those up. So that's just mean that's just that's just a mean thing.
Uh another thing that a lot of people have said, I've got a lot of responses like, "Well, if it's a rat snake, you know, it's probably in there tracking mice or a rat." Yeah, I know. I I I understand why it was in the house and well, you need to handle that, too. Yes, I'm aware of that. Listen, there there when there's a snake in your house, there's a list of priorities, an and an an order of actions that you take. And number one on that list of of priorities, now if you're again, if you're the person that would just say like, "Oh, don't worry about the snake. I got to figure out this mouse thing first." That's great. Good for you. For me, 100% of my attention goes to where is the snake and can I get it out of my house. Then we go to let's figure out the underlying reason for the snake being here. And I've been taking care of that. I had pest control come today. They checked it out. They said, "Yeah, you definitely have something." And they're they're they're you know, we're we're going to address that uh as best we can. Uh but yes, I'm very well aware that there was an underlying reason uh why the snake was in here. I can only worry about so much. The the human brain has only so much capacity to think. Uh and I've been so mortally terrified of the snake that being mortally terrified of a of the a rat uh or whatever uh there's not much real estate there. Don't worry, I'm sure it will come. But yes, I understand the snake was here for a reason. I'm working on that. I actually the last thing I did before I came on the air right now was to approve a quote for them to come out and do some uh some work around the house to to sort of minimize the chance of this happening again. Kind of remove some stuff from the side of the house, seal up some stuff outside. By the way, another piece of information I can't unlearn unless it's otherwise secured. It turns out your drier vent, it's like a doggy door for snakes or mice, rats, whatever. I guess they can just come in and out as they please. Uh the wildlife guy that was here yesterday was just like oh yeah no you know the little flap was up on the dryer vent and you know probably came in through then and you know dryers it's just there's just empty underneath so they can just kind of come and go as they please. That's a wonderful piece of information that'll never leave my brain. I can't unlearn that. And guess what? Now you can't either. Uh so we're going to be we're going to put some mesh on that drier vent. We're going to seal we're going to seal that that entry point up and we're going to do some mitigation and stuff. So, I'm taking steps, but but we're but we're going one at a time.
But this house it looks like a crazy person lives here because I am I, I just want to I don't I don't want anything else to happen. So, like I my my buddy was like, "Put flower down." Because if you put flower down in front of the doors, if the snake crawls back and forth through, then you'll be able to see that the flower is disturbed. So like every entryway in and out of the kitchen and in and out of the laundry room where the snake came in and is like is covered with flower now because I want to track the snake coming in and out. And then you see up there that that little up the top of the screen. That's the door between my kitchen and my office. I've I've done like a lay miser rob barricade there to try to make sure nothing's coming through there. It's l it's literally like it's it's like uh Arthur Fleck lives here. It's like I'm Phoenix's Joker and this is my mad house. I'm just walking around stepping over flower lines, sweeping every room with a flashlight and worried that the impossible could literally happen at every second.
So, uh trust me, whatever secondary problem you have considered happen is happening here, I have already considered it as well. So, uh the snake may be gone and for my mental health, I am just assuming that it is the only snake in this house. I I'm not I'm I'm acting as if it isn't, but I have to allow myself to believe that it was and everything else is being taken care of. Uh but anyway, we're already half an hour into the show and we spent on the snake thing already. But it's it's Listen, this is this never happened to me before. I have relatives that are like retired that this has never happened to before. I I understand if you don't think it's a big deal. Ah, it's just a steak. It's fine. kind of was just like, "Okay, listen. It's easy for you to say that looking at it happening in my house." I'll just say that. It's easy for somebody who's like, "Oh, it's just a rat snake. They're harmless. It's like, yeah, he wouldn't have hurt anybody." Again, you can look at it in my house and think that. I would challenge you to react the same way if it was in your house. And I'm not a country boy. I'm not a guy who's used to go around picking up snakes in the fields and, you know, throwing them out. That's not me. Never has been. I know I live in Arkansas and everybody assumes we live on a farm. I don't live in a farm. I live in the suburbs. I live five minutes away from a Slim Chickens and a Walgreens. I This is not This is not normal for me. Um so, you know, this has been this has been something. This was my this was my slow week, by the way. This is how my year has gone thus far. This week was the week where everything was supposed to slow down and I catch up on a bunch of things I've been meaning to catch up on and take it easy a little bit. No, it's been all snake all the time since Sunday, but uh we're we're getting there better. We're getting there better. We're getting there. I'm I'm better off. And uh I also want to give a shout out to uh the people that came out and got the snake. Natural State Wildlife Solutions here in Arkansas. Uh they were very great to deal with. They didn't actually know that they were going to be getting the snake when they showed up. They thought they were going to be looking at the, you know, outside and figuring out the entry point and all that. And then when they showed up, I was like, "I have the snake. I trapped it like I'm, you know, some kind of amateur uh Steve Irwin or something." And they were just like, "Oh, you got it. Okay. Yeah." And went and got the the net and stuff. But yeah, no, that's they they were great to work with and they're coming back to do some stuff and uh I appreciate their work. But yeah, uh so that's the that's the saga of the snake. I'm just looking at some I would move if it was me. Well, the problem is I just did move. Uh the problem is uh yeah, I would move. Snakes are no joke. I just moved in here a few weeks ago or a few months ago. I it's it's it's it's no I I can't move. This is my h this is my house. The snake doesn't get it. The snake doesn't get the house. Uh this one I've seen a lot. Danaconda. Yeah, it kind of feels like that. Um, yeah. It's it's uh it it uh it's it's going to take it's going to take a minute for me not to be not to be creeped out by this. Uh the Danakana saga is hilarious. I'm sorry, Dan. Well, actually, I mean, that is kind of the point. Like, I understand I understand that it is like objectively kind of hilarious and that's why I wanted to share it. Like, if I actually was just like, "Oh, man. Oh, this like I'm traumatized like like for for everybody other than me, I have to acknowledge objectively it it's only not hilarious to me and even I find it kind of funny, which is why I wanted to talk about it on the show. Uh but uh this has been uh the new Anaconda's on Netflix today. Some serious viral marketing. If I find out that Ted Sarandos put that snake in my uh in my house, I'm going to be very upset. Uh Ted, I know that I've been critical of Netflix somewhat in in the past, but Ted, if this was some kind of viral marketing, uh I don't I don't appreciate it and I don't like it. Uh but yeah, anyway, so that's the saga of the snake. Um I will keep you posted on if there are other uh developments and if another snake is discovered, then then I'm I'm going to burn the studio down is what I'm going to do. We actually at one point when my friend and I were here looking for the snake and we couldn't find it, he was like he was like, "Well, we could do this. We could do this." And I kind of took a step back and I looked at the kitchen door and the door to my office which are right next to each other and I was like, "You know what? We we could also just wall off this whole part of the house and then pretend we'll never just go we'll just not go in there again." Not knowing, by the way, that that would have trapped me just even closer in confines with the snake, which I I again assume was in here the whole time, and I just didn't see it. Um, yeah. So, how's your week been? That's been my week. Um, it's been quite an adventure. Okay, so that's the saga of the snake. Let's get to a couple more things before I get to your questions. And we have so many comments. I'm going to try to get to a bunch today. I can already tell this is probably going to be a long show mainly because I talked about a snake for half an hour. Uh but let's talk about this new Lord of the Rings movie that is in development. This broke I think yesterday. Stephen Cobear who uh as he said I saw an interview he had with Peter Jackson is going to have some free time starting in the summer is going to uh be one of the writers and has helped to develop this new Lord of the Rings film.
