The Origins Of "Armando"

He's amused Cam Newton. He's been insulted by Charles Barkley. He's interviewed Matthew McConaughey. And he's taken on Big Blue Nation.

It's time for The Drive with Josh Graham. You are on a Thursday drive WSJS NewsTalk Sports for the Triad, where for about the hundredth time, we got a bombshell Dan Schneider story this morning. But can something actually be a bombshell if it's the same thing that's being reported every single time? Hey, this guy's a predator. Man, that organization's dysfunctional. Do you know they got problems in DC? You know this guy has a bit of a Napoleon syndrome?

That's been the word on the street. It's crazy. Who knew that this guy wasn't a great owner? So that's not really the tack that I want to take hours before Washington is set to face Chicago tonight. A game that you can listen to right here on WSJS later tonight.

I actually want to spin this a different way. Dan Schneider took over the Washington football team. Washington commanders. I guess they were the Redskins when he took over at ninety nine. I don't necessarily know how to refer to Washington in the past. I guess they were the redskins.

Yeah. So he took over the Washington Redskins in nineteen ninety nine. And since then. Perhaps the worst NFL franchise of the last twenty two, twenty three years.

And this is a question I've been thinking about today. How much has Dan Schneider nuking Washington played a role in the growth of the Carolina Panthers in the state of North Carolina? It's like when you talk about the Patriots dynasty.

There have already been books written about it. I don't think you can tell the story about how dominant Belichick and Brady were in the AFC East without talking about the rest of the AFC East. Just how bad the Dolphins were and the Jets were and Buffalo before Sean McDermott took over.

It was pretty grim and the Patriots stood out. You can't tell a story about their dominance without telling that piece. Similarly, I don't think you could tell the story about how the Panthers have become the most popular team in the state of North Carolina, college or pro. Without telling the story about how bad Washington's been over the last twenty two, twenty three years since this owner took place.

Since this owner took over. It's hard to explain to people under twenty five years old. But Washington used to have a strong foothold in this state, not just, oh, they were the most popular team before nineteen ninety five because they were the closest team to the state of North Carolina.

All that you can understand. But it goes further than that. Washington was football royalty. That's what's missed. Joe Gibbs won three Super Bowls in a 10 year span. How many coaches win Super Bowls? Three of them in a 10 year span.

That doesn't really happen. And when you think about Riggins and you think about Theismann, those are two of the most beloved players of the 1980s. Then Doug Williams won a Super Bowl first black quarterback to do that. So in the culture, Washington, our nation's capital, that football team, it was a strong brand, man.

And a lot of that changed. When Snyder took over in nineteen ninety nine and immediately started chasing franchise savers, air quotes, the Steve Spurrier of the world and Deion Sanders. And I don't need to go down the entire list if you're a Washington fan, you know exactly what I'm talking about. While that was happening, the Panthers have been, by almost every single measurement, a better organization than Washington since nineteen ninety nine.

You want to talk about on field success? I think the Panthers have as many Super Bowl appearances as Washington has playoff wins in the last twenty three years. Two Super Bowl appearances for Carolina, plus a conference championship appearance to boot.

Carolina's had much better players. Who's the best Washington football player of the last twenty three years? Sean Taylor?

Maybe? I'd take Julius Peppers over him. All due respect, RIP.

To you, that entire deal. I was a huge Sean Taylor fan. Cam Newton was a league MVP. Luke Kuechly, a defensive player of the year. I'd take three or four, maybe five Panthers.

Steve Smith before I take one Washington Redskins slash footballer slash commander. Carolina's been a better organization from top to bottom. Not to say that Carolina hasn't had scandals. Jerry Richardson.

Probably most noteworthy of that. And even in the 90s, late 90s, as Snyder was taken over, Rake Ruth comes to mind. That wasn't great.

Obviously, Fred Lane. So I'm not completely absolving Carolina. I'm not saying they're a perfect organization by any means. I just laugh when I hear Panther fans act aggrieved. Oh, goodness, we're such a tortured fan base. Shut up.

I mean that like a brother. I've grown up in the state of North Carolina, and I'm just telling you, you sound stupid when you say, oh, we've got it so bad. Our owners. Terrible. Read that story today that Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta wrote on for ESPN. And you tell me if you have it worse than Washington fans. Read about how bad their stadium is. And you tell me in uptown Charlotte, at that beautiful stadium in uptown, how bad you have it.

I would love to hear about it. Oh, but you know, we've never won a Super Bowl. Washington hasn't sniffed it under Snyder. Hasn't come close to winning anything. Oh, we don't have good enough players in RG. Come on.

So just know this is a lesson in life, man. Odds are somebody's got it a lot worse than you do. And Washington has it a lot worse.

336-777-1600 if you want in on Twitter at WSJS radio. Dan Snyder deserves credit for the growth of the Panthers. In this state, the popularity in this century, I don't even know for sure if Washington, because of how bad they've been. I don't know if they're the second most popular team in the state. North Carolina has become such a populous state over the last two decades as Washington's been bad.

As a result, it's been a transient state. Lot of Cowboy fans like our guy B. Dot, six man of Tar Heel basketball or a lot of Pittsburgh Steeler fans.

A lot of people from the Northeast. When you saw that stadium filled up with 49er fans Sunday, those weren't people flying all the way across from the West Coast. No, those were 49ers fans from the West Coast who just so happened to live in Charlotte now. That's what that was. That's what we saw on Sunday. So we've become a more populous state. And the Panthers have been better than Washington's been over the last couple of decades to the point where people have forgotten at one point they were football royalty. Well, don't forget about your bandwagon fans, too, that are just going to go to whoever the best team is right now.

That was a good running joke that in the mid 2010s you had fans that would hang up the RG3 jersey and then put on the Cam Newton jersey. Absolutely. And I may or may not have been one of them back then. Oh, goodness. Shifting things.

It's good to be back in our studios, located off North Main Street in uptown. It's a wrong button. Yeah, it happens. Yeah.

Chubby fingers over there and a little over five minutes. You'll hear perhaps the greatest story Steve Forbes has ever told us. And I do not say that lightly. So stick around for that. But staying in hoops, I submitted my ACC preseason ballot this morning. And here's what it looks like. I kind of separate it into four tiers. Well, I have four tiers of ACC basketball teams, four teams that can win it.

That's the top tier. I have Virginia winning the ACC, as I shared with you yesterday. But would it surprise me if it was North Carolina? No. Would it surprise me if it was Miami? Would it surprise me if it was Duke?

No. Those are the four teams I think can win the ACC. I think that's your top tier slam dunk ACC or NCAA tournament teams.

Then you got the next group. Four more that I think are solid NCAA tournament teams. Teams that if things go their way, if you don't have injuries, you they should be in the field. Talking about Florida State, who I have five with Matthew Cleveland coming back.

They dealt with a lot of injuries in January and February. Virginia Tech, you're defending ACC tournament champions. They do lose Aline.

They do lose Cave Aluma. But Mutts comes back who, along with Reece Beekman, might be the best defensive players in the conference and Leaky Blacks included in that conversation. Seventh, I have Notre Dame. Boston College, I have at number eight. Those are the teams I think are NCAA tournament quality that I could see getting into the field if they have good years. Probably three of those four will end up getting there. But I think it's really little separation from between those four teams.

Then you got four more that could sneak into the field. Talking about Syracuse, who always seems to be right there on the bubble. Wake Forest, what exactly are you going to get from a lot of those incoming players? Louisville, no idea, but Louisville has the pedigree and they've brought in a lot of transfers. Maybe they can get it done under Coach Payne. I have them eleventh. Clemson's just the ultimate question mark.

No idea what to do with them with P.J. Hall being injured this offseason. He could be an all-ACC player if he's healthy.

And then I think you got three bad teams. Taquavion Smith's great. Everybody else isn't for NC State. Georgia Tech, don't really see anything there. Pittsburgh, oh boy. Dead man walking Jeff Caple.

Really feel badly for that guy. But that's what I got in my ACC rankings. I have no clue what to do with Player of the Year or Rookie of the Year. I'm not going to go with Armando Baycott just because I don't think his stats are going to be what they were last year. And some will hold that against him. And the reason they're not going to be that way is not anything to do with him.

It's more he doesn't need to put up those types of stats anymore. I'm not going to pick a Cavalier or a Seminole. Too many guys in the rotation for Florida State.

Virginia, I don't need to go over what they're not offensively. So I'm going to go a little chalky and pick Isaiah Wong for the numbers that are put up. And then be in a top three team for Miami. And Rookie of the Year, which guy from Duke? Not going to take Darique Whitehead because Darique a little banged up in the preseason. I'll go with Derek Lively, who is the highest recruited player of this class, according to 24-7. All-ACC, Taquavion Smith, the point guard, might be a sneaky Player of the Year candidate. Wong, of course. Jaden Gardner, including a player from the best team in the league, according to my rankings. Armando Bacot, got to have him in there in all-ACC.

And then here's the bit of a surprise. Andrew Carr. I believe what Wake Forest is telling us about him.

I think he might slip under a lot of radars and be a first team all-ACC player from Wake Forest. A reminder, all of the coach interviews that we did at ACC tip off yesterday can be found on our podcast channel right now. The Drive with Josh Graham, iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Anchor. They're all there from Steve Forbes telling the greatest story he's ever told us.

Spoiler, he vomited on a kid. To John Shire telling us that he's not going to mess with a good thing with Cascadas every time we touch at Cameron Indoor. Or playing not verbatim with Hubert Davis and B-Dot. It's all there. A lot of really good stuff. Player interviews that aren't even going to make it on air at any point. The only place you can listen to our conversation with BC's Quinton Post or the guy I think is going to win ACC Player of the Year, Isaiah Wong from Miami. You can find player interviews, Dane Goodwin who might have the best hair in the ACC.

You can find that again on our podcast channel. Subscribe, rate, review, do all those good things, but only if they're five star reviews and nice things. Because I'm a delicate little flower. My feelings get hurt really easily.

You say mean things about me. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get to our guy Armando Bacot. Armando. You're going to hear that drop quite a bit because it's not often we have the guy on the show. Thus his name comes up and W.D. is contractually obligated to play that sound every time he visits.

So that's where we had to begin. We had to get to the bottom of a few things with number five from Carolina and here's how it sounded alongside B-Dot. Here at ACC Tip-Off where we're being joined now by a name that, if I say it, will elicit a sound like it has the last three years going on four years of the show. It's Armando Bacot that's joining the program.

B-Dot's alongside as well. And you're cringing when you hear that, Armando. Yeah, I am. Why? I don't know. Because it's horrible. It's terrible. Thank you, B-Dot.

It's terrible. When he sent it to me, I said Armando has no clue how this is going to be used and how frequently it's going to be used. He was just filling a cameo request, man.

You got to let my man. I was just checking the box. I remember when I came up with it, I was sitting next to my wife. We were in Colorado.

It was July 1st. I'm like, we need to capitalize on NIL. These guys, we need to put money in pockets. I was broke, man. We needed some money. If you're broke, you get desperate, man.

You start thinking hard. We helped you. If I would have gotten that request today, I might have would have canceled it.

Broke your streak. Are you committed to giving us a new video, a new drop that we can use for the next basketball season? How about this?

How much money do I need to buy back? I mean, how much do I got to pay you all to buy the rights back to that setup? All right. You don't have to pay us anything. Here's how you do it.

You just redo it. Yes. And we'll delete that one. You name a price, I'll buy back the rights. It's great.

It was NIL money for Mr. Bangkok. Now it's back in my pocket. That's pretty good.

Okay. How hype is it when BDOT is getting people fired up at the Spiff Center? Oh, man, we love it, man. I'll be trying to control myself, but, man, you give me hype, though, for sure. You do your thing. I love you.

That's my dog, BDOT. It's been a great addition, though, just having him being able to, you know, get the stands hype and get the fans lit. I mean, it's great. I mean, you don't see that a lot. And I can remember just going to different places like Clemson, but, man, obviously not as lit as BDOT and some of the other schools.

But, I mean, there's nobody like BDOT in the country. It's like we're in an NBA stadium. You hear that? That's teed up.

Can I get that as a drop? That's honest. I haven't been able to get around to other stadiums, so I don't get to see. So hearing it from Armando, I appreciate that.

Armando. One of my favorite moments of last year was when somebody was asking you in regards to you seeing Jeff Goodman at the Final Four. Do you see other tweets that sometimes you use for motivation, and I was walking into the room, you smile, you point, oh, yeah, I remember when Josh picked Virginia to beat us in the ACC tournament. Yeah, 100 percent. I seen all that for sure.

How often do you use social media as motivation for you? How many tweets have you pulled of my bad takes, for example? I mean, I was talking to Matt before this.

I'm like, man, this guy, he got some terrible takes sometimes. For my Josh? Oh, man, the Virginia one.

I was like, what? See, we just killed him. And I knew he's, no, this year is a totally different UVA team because obviously I don't want to stir up. That's a good team this year.

But I mean, last year I knew he was going to beat him, and then I just thought it was funny you said that. Do you ever keep the positive ones, though? That's what I wonder. No.

For what? It's like the media. Everybody, you take the negative stuff and you lead the positive stuff. That's what always happens.

Like, Dot, he'll get on me. He's like, oh, man, you hate our team. I'm like, well, I picked you guys to win the Coastal in football. Oh, well, I didn't see that. I just saw when you said that Virginia was going to win.

Exactly, because everything is magnified when it's negative. By the way, football team's going to win the Coastal this year. We're going to beat Duke this weekend. It's going to be amazing. I'll be at that game at Wallace Wade.

They got the chrome lids that they're going to be wearing. Can I ask Mondo a question? What's that? Can I ask Mondo a question? Yeah, please. If you are to win National Player of the Year this year. If. That's a big if. I said if. I said if. Okay, just making sure the if is in the side. It's not that much of a stretch, but nevertheless, if you were to do that, that means that they would put your number in the rafters. Mm-hmm.

The number five, which is normally for a guard, but you, as a big man, have made number five super successful. Do you even think about stuff like that going into the season? Or are you going to tell me, no, I don't care about individual awards?

Yeah, no, for sure. I want to go win the National Player of the Year. That's no question. And, I mean, I definitely want to try to retire that number five in the front row because, I mean, you think all the great players, hey, you want to see that award number five, like Marcus Page, Tony Bradley, I mean. Coda.

Coda. That's what I'm saying. So many great players at that award number five.

And just to think it's not retired yet. I mean, I think that'd be great. And they didn't give me a little bragging right. Especially with my coaches because, I mean, man, you know how to trash up. You and Coach May. Tell them what you and Coach May, man. You see it all the time.

And he mess with me all the time. So it'd be great to be able to do that. Brady Manick, I remember last year, was telling me there was such a stark difference from his level of recognition on campus from the moment he walked in to go into the Final Four that it's something he's always going to remember. In your case, your first year was the under 500 season. And then COVID hits.

And then Roy leaves. And you get off to a rocky start a year ago. Now you're kind of like a folk legend, it seems like, on campus. Have you noticed that difference? Have you had time to reflect on how your experience on campus has evolved the last three or four years? Yeah, I mean, I'd say campus got a lot lighter. But just in terms of just popularity, I think even my freshman year, I mean, I was always really big in Chapel Hill. But I've seen more, like, on a national level. Like, I can remember, like, right after the Final Four, I went to the Dominican Republic. And I mean, I had people, like, annoying me there. And then just everywhere I go now, it's like that.

So I would say definitely more on a national level. They're annoying you in other languages? Yeah, exactly. Big Baycott. You know, he's on Outer Banks next season. Oh, he is? Yeah, he's like a huge cast member. I don't really watch TV shows, though. I don't either. You watched Outer Banks.

I binged Outer Banks just because I was going to be on that. OK, fair enough. Well, we're going to get a new video. So the rest of it, the earth is scourged of this sound. So this might be the last time we hear this sound. Let's hear it.

Let's enjoy it. Armando Baycott. Armando.

Let's hope that's the last time we hear it. Thanks for the time, Armando. No problem. Appreciate y'all. We appreciate him, even though he did have quite the dig there, right in the middle of that.

It's pretty good. It was casual. Did you catch him kind of taking a dig? I set myself up for it, but boy, did he jump on a pipe bomb down the middle. This guy, he got some terrible takes sometimes. This guy's got some terrible takes sometimes. It's true. When you're in the opinion business, you're going to get some wrong, like picking North Carolina to beat Virginia or picking Virginia to beat North Carolina in the ACC tournament last year.

But did you notice the backpedal? Did you notice when he started to talk about, oh, I don't know about this year, though. The sense at ACC tip off yesterday was everybody knows that North Carolina is probably going to be preseason number one. Everybody knows North Carolina is going to be number one in the preseason AP or the preseason ACC poll. But when I talk to basketball people, I'm talking former players, media who really follow the sport year round and coaches, they know Virginia's there. They know Virginia's right there. So when Baycott takes the, oh, this year, it's totally different couching it. He knows as well because he's really smart.

That's true. Well played. Mm hmm.

Do you know about the origin of the Baycott drop? It wasn't like, what's that site called where they can you can like celebrities can make appearances or make video messages for people? Cameo?

Cameo. Well, that's where we got the video from him. Right. But why did we get him to do it that way? I don't know. I don't know the story.

Okay. Let's go back to November of twenty nineteen, three years ago when he was making his debut in Chapel Hill. And I thought he was going to be a one and done. That was the bad North Carolina team with Cole Anthony that finished under five hundred. One of the worst Carolina teams of the last few decades. I thought he was going to be a one and done.

So it was funny to us to have a drop every time he did something because he was a pretty good player on the team. And since I'm a sappy person and one of my favorite movies is a movie called About Time. Which had a prominent song in it with Rachel McAdams and some awkward redhead finding love.

Shocker that Josh Graham loves that movie. There's a song called I Mando, which is an Italian song. So it's not in English what you're about to hear. But this is where the drop came from. For those who don't know, I feel like there's always new people being added to the show, may not ever listen to the show before, understand the bit. Even the producer of this show doesn't know where it comes from.

So I feel like we have to let people in from time to time. This is the song that the drop originally came from, from the movie about time from that soundtrack. This is the song. So I thought, his name's Mando.

So that's going to be the drop. And we played that, the song, that portion, Mando. We played that, the actual song for the first two seasons he played for North Carolina.

And then NIL became a thing. And as I told him, I just filled out a cameo request and I attached that piece of audio to it. I explained to him. He's not telling the full truth. He just didn't read it. Where I told him, hey, we've been saying this on the show every time your name is mentioned. And he knew who I was because I covered the team, right? So he was checking the box because he wanted some money, but I explained it in the drop and that's what he did. So now that he knows the deal because he follows us on social media and all that, I expect a better performance.

But after the cameo request for the last year and change, this has been the drop. That's brilliant. That's the story. That is brilliant. You know what?

We don't give ourselves enough credit. Like we're really creative around here. I just, that, that is the story. And I know nobody else that there's no chance that I stole a bit from somebody or something.

I'm a sappy person. One of my favorite movies is about time and that's an Italian singer. I don't understand what he's saying, but he says, so we just started playing that drop. And then one time Robert got sick of it and wanted to get rid of it. And then listeners were threatening to like burn the radio station down.

Robert would want to get rid of it. He was, oh man, I remember during, before we actually got the NIL drop. So like two full basketball seasons, we played the original sound that you heard from the song.

Robert was so sick of it. We were so convinced that he was going to lead to the NBA after the second year. I remember during the show, looking across the glass, when the news drop, the graphic came up and we thought he was going to be going pro and he decided to come back, Robert put both hands on his head, oh no, he's coming back for another year. And now he's coming back for another year. So I hope that we get this thing back. We get this thing turned around before the start of basketball season.

He said in the interview, but also afterwards, don't want to do it here at the event. Want to do this on my own time. Want to do it right. Want to do it right. Got to be ready for it. Come correct. Do it right.

So we'll let him do that. Would you like to know what movie you're watching next week? I'd love to. Checking the poll real quickly. This has only been up for like a half hour or so, not a lot of votes on it, about 50, but still decent enough sample given how wop sided things look.

I'm going to call the race. With 51% of the vote between Jaws, Silence of the Lamb and The Shining, all movies that WD has not seen, despite being a scary movie aficionado, didn't say aficionado, I said I like them, you said you love scary movies. Name five scary movies that you like. Scream, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, oh, there you go, oh, sorry, get out of here, 51% of the vote goes to The Shining, really, I would have thought Silence of the Lamb. Well, I have a second 38%, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, which I would venture to say is the greatest horror movie of all time, that's your movie for next week, get excited.

Thrilled. Hey Triad, this is Rich Eisen, catch me this evening at six for The Rich Eisen Show, now back to The Drive with Josh Graham. We went 0-3 in our college picks last weekend, 2-0 in the NFL though, that's not a winning week though, our standard's higher than that, we're going to bounce back, and Graham's gambling, we're still a game over 500 for the season, I've got a fiver here, and after we're done with that, you'll hear from Jim Laronega, who we had a chance to chat with, a team that I think is going to be top 3 in the ACC again this year, you'll hear from Coach L shortly, but right now, I've got 5 picks to deliver. If you're a home team getting points in the NFL, odds are I'm taking you.

Odds are that's the case. Tonight is one of those cases. Chicago's getting a point, this game looks gross, but I'm going to side with the home team because last week, as I said, 2-0 in the NFL, we were on Chicago, and by a half point Chicago came through for us, so we're going to be on the Bears again, Bear Down! Against the Washington Commanders, who have a lot of bad PR surrounding them right now, a lot of bad juju if you will, I think it ends up getting Ron Rivera fired as a result. Chicago, I don't know how they win this game, it might be 15-14 or something weird, but they're going to win. Seahawks, getting 2 and a half at home against the Cardinals, I would make a bird sound, but they're both birds, Seahawks, you got Geno Smith, put up some numbers in New Orleans, put up some numbers against Detroit, Seahawks score quite a bit, and I like Pete Carroll, and I like that organization, I think they're a frisky team.

Arizona on the other hand, a lot of talent, and I think this is the last week of DeAndre Hopkins suspension, I watched him up close though so I was not very impressed. I don't like that coach, I don't like this organization, I don't like picking that team on the road, especially when that team is laying points, so this is general principle. Bad organization, inept team, bad coach, going on the road, giving points, take the home team. They're doing that with Seattle, outright they win, but I'll take the 2 and a half.

Tell them to bring me my money. To the college game, TCU, Horn Frogs, sound the horn, they have a guy named Brian Estridge who once upon a time used to broadcast Appalachian State, who every single time there's a score says, sound the horn, hit the horn. Horn Frogs, best offense in college football, facing Oklahoma State, who survived last week against Texas Tech, but had to be on the field for 104 plays, that defense. Now you're playing the best team in college football, offensively at least?

That's pretty tough. So I'm going to go, TCU here minus the 3, TCU's also 4-0-1 against the spread this year. There hasn't been a game they've not covered, or I should say that they've lost, they had one where they pushed. I'm going to trust that's the case in Fort Worth again by going with the Horn Frogs. Hit the horn.

Tell them to bring me my money. It's TCU, Kentucky, not a big fan of that school or of that fan base. I don't know if Will Leviss is going to play in this game, Saturday night in Lexington in the bluegrass, but they're getting 4 and a half, and I think they pound the rock, play good defense against the team that likes to sling it, everything's great for Mississippi State right now. I hear people say they're the best one-loss team in college football, Wake Forest, I took that personally.

No, I think a lot of good vibes, Mike Leach, he's a wizard and has all this advice and he's so good and fun, Kentucky Smash Mouth, man. Tough loss against South Carolina last week, they bounced back. They're getting 4 and a half at home. I don't think they need it. I think they win this game outright.

Tell them to bring me my money. Love this pick. This is the last one I've got, Utah, USC. Ever since the first couple of weeks, everybody's kind of taken USC for granted.

Oh yeah, well, Lincoln's got it figured out. This might be a playoff team and here they are flying up the rankings and all that, but they've had a number of close calls. They haven't covered a handful of times. Meanwhile, Utah, nobody's paid attention to them since they lost their first game of the year at Florida. Still a really, really good team. That is physical.

That is at home. Laying 3 and a half points, Chris Felica, the Bayard ESPN had this stat. Since 2015, there have been 15 instances where a team 6 and 0 or better was an underdog to a team with at least two losses.

Those 15 teams that were unbeaten went 3 and 12 straight up. Utah lay the points against the USC Trojans. I think the upset, it's not an upset because again, they're favored. I think they hand USC their first loss. It's the most Pac-12 thing to happen. It's going to take a little bit more time before USC is fired up as this real national contender.

Tell them to bring me my money. In review, Bears tonight, Seahawks on Sunday, TCU lay the points in college football, along with Kentucky getting points at home against Mississippi State and Utah lay in the three and a half. Those are my five picks for this week. The social network can wait. We're going to give WD a horror movie next week on Twitter at wsgsradio.

Which one should we give WD that he hasn't seen before? Before we figure that out though, his assignment this week was to watch Dazed and Confused 1993, a movie that originally was a flop. Nobody went to go see it. And then years later, it kind of was picked up as a cult classic and now one of the more popular movies of the 1990s, given all the things that happened in it and who some of the actors were, what they became to be, what they went on to be, I should say.

Let's get into it. Let's see what WD thought about watching it for the first time, unless you're talking about Star Wars. Let's start with what you liked about Dazed and Confused. Considering how late it was when I watched this movie last night, I was dazed and confused while watching it.

See, probably good that that's the case. A lot of people who dabble in a specific type of activity say that this might be near the top of the movies to watch while you're dazed and confused, so to speak. Like the Slater character in this movie.

What did you like about it? I liked the scene where Makana, I don't remember character's names other than- Wooderson. I remember that and I remember Mitch. Little Mitch-y.

I hate Mitch. Even though Tim Lincecum's entire career, everybody called him Mitch Marner because he was a pitcher and looked just like Mitch from Dazed and Confused, except it was pretty clear the way that they edited around it that the kid who played Mitch could not play baseball at all, and he probably couldn't act either, but maybe we could save that for what we didn't like about the movie. What scene did you like? I liked that scene when Wooderson and the gang, they walk in the bar, as soon as they open the door, the song, Here Comes the Story of the Hurricane, which is just a world-class song to play when you're walking in slow motion in the bar. It's impossible to look as cool as those guys looked while that song was playing and they walked into the emporium or whatever it was, the pool hall, while everybody was playing pool.

Yeah, because they were introducing Mitch to the upperclassmen. That whole sequence was probably one of my favorites. Are we including that in the same scene as when they got O'Banion, when they got Ben Affleck's character with paint, when they pranked him outside afterwards? Are we roping that in?

We could rope that in. That is the best scene of the movie, in my opinion. I just like McConaughey.

I'm a big fan of his work. Magic Mike, he was great in that. This was his first ever movie. First time he was on screen in a movie was this movie, and he got lines. So this isn't the first time he had lines, no. First time he's in a movie was a movie that, when you think about the iconic lines in it, they are cited to McConaughey.

I don't know how well the character of Wooderson ages, but you could just tell he was going to be a star when you watch this. What didn't you like about it? Also, just a great representation of high school, this movie. Great point on your part.

It best captures it because it's just people getting into cars. It has no substance. You don't know who you're hanging out with. See, in movies, it's always so cliquish where, oh, this group only hangs out with this group, and this group only hangs out with this group, and they never cross-pollinate. And this movie is like, do you got a joint, or do you got beer?

Do you have a fake ID? That's what's important here, and I don't really care what group you're in. We're all going to the same place, and nobody really has a routine or a plan.

It's just every night could be something special because none of us has anything going on other than we're piling into cars and heading somewhere. And being dazed and confused. That's right. Really, really, really good point on your part. So what I didn't like, I found myself rather annoyed by that scene with the cheerleaders, and where they're, I guess it was the hazing things that were going on with the- Oh yeah, the initiations.

The initiations. Really? You could just rope this in. I think I'm with you. The meanness of high school.

Yeah, like that cheerleader captain? This is something, when you talk about the next generation of young people, people that are in high school right now, when you look at some of the celebrities like Billie Eilish and others who are teenagers, what they are very uninterested in is what differences people have. Like, well, what's your race? What's your gender? What's your sex? Whatever.

They don't care. I'll just wear what this person's wearing. Well, you're a girl, you can't wear it.

I like the way that that looks. Correct. Okay. It hasn't even processed in my head that I should think less or more of somebody given their race or what their gender or any of that is. And in high school, the idea of hazing today just sounds ridiculous.

It does. Like, when I was in high school, I got hazed. There was hazing.

I never got hazed. It was an inaccurate depiction of what high school was like, depending on where you were at, of course. But, you know, I bet you today that something people watch, well, why are those people being so mean? Well, why? I was terrible. Why is Parker Posey being as mean as she is in this movie?

Yeah. So also the cheerleader captain, she had a laugh like one of my exes that annoy me. So I didn't like that.

Work a little bit harder, you little bees. Didn't care for that. Best quote.

I've got a few written down here. Wooderson. The correct answer is any quote from Wooderson. Right.

I think he only has like five or six lines in the movie, but they're all world beaters. I'm not going to go, all right, all right, all right, because that's what everybody would say. I don't know. Say, man, you got a joint? No.

Be a lot cooler if you did. I love those redheads. L-I-V-I-N. Just pick them like any, any Wood...

Okay. Any Wooderson quote, but one. I don't think you could say your favorite one about, it's what I love about high school. I get older and...

They stay the same age. That's the only one you can't pick, Wooderson quotes that are the best. What do you have in terms of a Rotten Tomatoes score? Well, I had read where this movie flopped initially. But this is the audience score. This is not the critic score. It is the audience score. Let's try an 84. 90, go. That's been At The Movies, Fazed and Confused edition.