Episode 374 · The Studio Revamp
A Christmas K-Hole | The Tim Dillon Show #374
Dec 23, 2023 · 52:44 · 364,000 views · 22 segments, 107 moments indexed
Tim dives into a reporter’s bad trip, pointing at the void, a potential studio merger, dodging debt together and the ultimate team builder.
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- 1 min
Santa Claus Cold Open and Tour Dates
#Tim opens in character as a fake Santa Claus ad, listing upcoming tour cities before revealing it's a paid advertisement for himself.
2moments
- Santa Claus endorses Tim Dillon tickets across multiple tour dates as the perfect gift.
- Santa admits this is a paid advertisement before calling Tim a prick.
Tim DillonSanta ClausFoxwoods CasinoAtlantaAtlantic CityBethlehemBostonBrea+9 more
- 1 min
Would Santa Support What's Happening in Gaza?
#Tim, dressed as Santa for the bit, muses that Santa is lucky to be dead so he doesn't have to confront Gaza or Matthew Perry's death.
2moments
- Tim opens the final episode of the year in a Santa beard, notes his nose is mostly gone
- Tim poses whether Santa would support what's happening in Gaza if he were alive today
- 2 min
Matthew Perry, Ketamine, and Vicodin Confusion
#He riffs on Matthew Perry's ketamine overdose, initially confusing it with a Vicodin habit, and describes ketamine as Hollywood's new 'it drug' used to 'realign neural pathways.'
5moments
- Tim asks how Matthew Perry died, establishing it was a ketamine overdose in his hot tub.
- Santa's response to elves using ketamine therapy: that's just using drugs.
- Tim admits he assumed Perry's death was from Vicodin addiction since he was taking up to 46 pills a day and it damaged his liver.
- The actual cause was ketamine, not the Vicodin Tim expected, which he describes as unfortunate.
- Ketamine described as the new trendy drug in Hollywood, unlike Ozempic which makes you less fat.
- 1 min
Ayahuasca as Career Advice
#Tim mocks LA people using ayahuasca and ketamine not for real spiritual growth but to cope with reality and advance their careers.
3moments
- Tim explains ketamine (Special K) as a drug meant to realign brain pathways, which he used to do with ecstasy.
- Everyone in LA is constantly realigning their neural pathways via ayahuasca, ketamine, and other drugs because reality feels too bleak.
- Tim identifies the real reason: people say they can't deal with the reality of what's happening and need drugs to escape it.
- 3 min
Santa the Obamacare Salesman and the Chicken Costume Incident
#Tim recalls his old job dressing as Santa Claus to sign low-income people up for Obamacare, including a story about competing for attention with a costumed chicken at a restaurant.
5moments
- Tim was a Santa who signed poor people up for Obamacare in bad neighborhoods, supplementing his stand-up comedy learning.
- Poor people are depressing around the holidays—getting shot, sick, or working shifts—whereas holidays are really for rich people with feasts and church.
- When Tim was poor Santa in a poor neighborhood, everyone was broke and unhappy, asking him healthcare questions he couldn't answer while sitting in a truck.
- At a Spanish chicken restaurant on Long Island, people wanted photos with Tim instead of the actual chicken mascot, who was also signing people up for Obamacare.
- The government sent out costumed characters—Santas, chickens, the Kool-Aid guy, SpongeBob—into the streets to get low-income people to sign up for Obamacare.
- 1 min
Government Mascots Selling Obamacare
#He expands on the idea that the government used cartoon characters like SpongeBob to make healthcare more approachable to suspicious low-income people.
2moments
- Government strategy of using cartoon mascots like Clifford the Big Red Dog or SpongeBob to sell health insurance because people find them less creepy than actual doctors in suits
- Tim pivots to Matthew Perry and complains about his cold sore hurting his face
- 5 min
Ayahuasca, Ego, and the Posthuman Future
#Tim argues that LA people abusing ketamine and ayahuasca are actually the most egomaniacal people he knows, and connects the drug fad to studios wanting a 'posthuman future' without workers.
9moments
- Tim on why ketamine clinics might not be a good idea for people with addiction histories, despite their use for PTSD.
- Ayahuasca was never intended for career advancement or getting Netflix roles.
- People take ayahuasca trips specifically to focus more on themselves, which defeats the supposed purpose of spiritual evolution.
- Tim argues that if ayahuasca actually worked, people would return fundamentally changed and leave Los Angeles entirely.
- Self-proclaimed shamans are con artists; people doing ayahuasca every three weeks end up worse than before.
- Deaths from ketamine in hot tubs are being dismissed as acceptable because it supposedly rewires neural pathways.
- Major studios openly discussed wanting a posthuman future without humans on Earth during the strike.
- The real fight isn't about pay—studios want humans gone entirely and replaced with AI-generated content.
- This is why everyone needs ayahuasca and ketamine: they're coping with the reality that their industry wants them to not exist.
ayahuascaketamineArtificial IntelligenceGinny & GeorgiaNetflixPTSD
- 11 min
Tim reads and mocks a Hollywood Reporter article about a writer's disastrous ketamine clinic experience, mocking the purple prose and comparing the unregulated 'ketamine waitress' industry to how Michael Jackson was killed by enablers.
12moments
- Hollywood Reporter article: writer goes to ketamine therapy clinic and has a bad trip.
- Tim on ketamine users he knows: not one of them is in a good mental place.
- Article claims ketamine's disassociative effect helps users escape ego-driven thinking.
- People in LA do ketamine because they think it'll make them more famous and successful.
- Writer describes the ketamine clinic setup: dim room, faux leather recliner, young technician with unclear credentials.
- Writer has a bad trip, enters a k-hole: confused about reality, paranoid, feeling unconscious in a void.
- Tim: ketamine is just a drug, like heroin in a smoothie—putting heroin in something doesn't change what it is.
- The article's writing is terrible: clichéd bad-trip descriptions that sound copied from drug experience forums.
- Tim questions whether ketamine therapy actually helps anyone or if clinics just push repeat appointments.
- No doctor's note required to get ketamine therapy—anyone can walk in and get injected.
- Tim compares backlash to his controversial take that marijuana is for teenagers, not people in their 30s.
- The real problem isn't ketamine itself but the application: anyone can walk in and do as much as they want with no oversight.
- 1 min
A Santa-themed ad read for Morgan and Morgan personal injury law firm, citing car accident statistics.
4moments
- Tim delivers a Morgan and Morgan personal injury law ad riffing on Santa delivering presents between 6 p.m. and midnight.
- Morgan and Morgan described as America's largest personal injury firm with over 100 offices, 800+ lawyers, and $15 billion recovered for 3.3 million clients over 35 years.
- Tim contrasts the difficulty of delivering presents to all boys, girls, and others with how easy it is to submit an injury claim with Morgan and Morgan.
- The firm's fee structure: free unless they win; contact via forthepeople.com/Tim or by dialing *LAW* (*529*) from a cell phone.
- 2 min
Continuing the Santa bit, Tim promotes Helix mattresses for himself, the elves, and Mrs. Claus, including a joke about sleeping in separate rooms due to snoring.
4moments
- Tim compares his need for sleep to Santa Claus preparing for Christmas Eve
- Helix beds outfit the North Pole, from the elves' small ones to Mrs. Claus's separate room due to his snoring
- Marriage requires sacrifices over time; he and Mrs. Claus are partners in power like the Clintons
- Helix mattresses offer customizable firmness, softness, temperature, and whatever else you need
- 5 min
Warner Bros-Paramount Merger and the Death of Cable
#Tim argues entertainment mega-mergers like Warner Bros and Paramount won't save a dying industry, since cable TV and appointment viewing are permanently over.
10moments
- Warner Brothers and Paramount mergers create massive conglomerates chasing each other's assets.
- These mergers don't generate cash flow because the industries are dying.
- Cable is completely done—people are cutting cords and never going back.
- Broadcast TV is dead; TGIF and Boy Meets World aren't coming back.
- Nobody will ever care about the Academy Awards or Emmy Awards again.
- The only celebrities anyone recognizes in Los Angeles are the midgets from Selling Sunset.
- Celebrity tour buses in LA drive confused tourists past houses they can't see, pointing into empty canyons.
- Tourists from out of town are sold a lie that Los Angeles is always beautiful and sunny.
- The LA tour experience parallels New York guides pointing out exact landmarks—here they just point into voids.
- All these mergers ultimately amount to nothing because there's nothing left to see.
cable televisionCBSDiscoveryDisneyFoxParamountViacomWarner Brothers+10 more
- 2 min
Hollywood Tour Buses and Confused Tourists
#He describes riding past LA tour buses full of confused tourists who only recognize reality TV 'midgets' from Selling Sunset, pointing at empty canyons where celebrity houses supposedly are.
5moments
- The entire business is over—Hollywood is already dead, Tim tells his agents and managers.
- Aquafina no longer has a Black accent despite her rap career being her entire identity.
- Tim watched Crazy Rich Asians and found the racial accent performativity so severe he noticed it.
- Hollywood expects audiences to forget Aquafina's Black accent ever existed, which Tim refuses to do.
- Tim won't think of Aquafina as someone who speaks normally after her whole career was built on that accent.
AquafinaCrazy Rich Asians
- 1 min
Aquafina Losing Her 'Black Scent'
#Tim jokes that rapper-actress Awkwafina no longer performs a 'black accent' in interviews despite using one heavily in Crazy Rich Asians, calling it emblematic of Hollywood amnesia.
2moments
- Tim on David Zazo: all he wants to do is build a company so big that no one really knows why it's failing.
- The goal is diffusion of responsibility — make the company so large that nobody knows what's going on or who to blame.
David Zazo
- 2 min
Big Daddy Zaslav and 'Too Big to Fail' Mergers
#Tim explains David Zaslav's strategy of building companies so enormous that failure becomes diffuse and unaccountable, comparing it to how banks became too big to fail.
3moments
- Making companies as big as possible creates diffusion of responsibility—no one can know why they fail
- Marvel movies failed because after 15 years adults finally stopped wanting to watch people in costumes
- Tim describes Zaslav's strategy: merge Paramount with Warner Brothers to create something too big to fail
MarvelWarner BrothersParamountprivate equityketamine therapy
- 3 min
Banks, Goldman Sachs, and Emmett Till on Ice
#He extends the too-big-to-fail idea to Wall Street's revolving door with government, then imagines a merged media giant funding absurd 'social justice' projects like an 'Emmett Till on Ice' show while firing employees.
8moments
- Banks became too big to fail, so they do whatever they want and pay fines without consequence.
- Goldman Sachs and the Treasury Department operate as a revolving door, with executives moving between them to create favorable laws.
- Massive conglomerates tell everybody to fuck off because they're too big to fail and own everything.
- NBC Universal owns theme parks, television stations, and a movie studio, making money everywhere and not relying on any single revenue stream.
- Tim describes how a massive entertainment company could indulge its obsession with social justice by producing something like Emmett Till on Ice.
- Companies only survive by becoming so big that they can afford to produce prestigious projects alongside commercially questionable ones.
- The goal of corporate mergers is to eliminate people while keeping the valuable assets and intellectual property.
- Tim acts out firing employees immediately after a successful acquisition, telling them to leave and get ketamine therapy to reset.
Goldman SachsNBC Universalcorporate consolidationChaseYellowstoneParamountMission: Impossible
- 1 min
Debt and the Warner-Paramount Numbers
#Tim compares the debt loads of Warner Bros Discovery and Paramount, riffing that couples where both partners are equally in debt actually have less resentment than mismatched ones.
2moments
- Paramount's Q3 debt of $15.6 billion versus Warner Bros.' $43 billion — Tim on why two equally indebted partners actually work better together than mismatched couples.
- Shared debt between couples creates less resentment than one person being responsible while the other owes nothing.
Paramount GlobalWarner Brothers
- 1 min
IP Breakdown: Terminator, Harry Potter, and the Godfather
#He lists the specific franchises each studio would bring to a merger, from Mission Impossible and Top Gun to Harry Potter and the DC Universe.
4moments
- Being in massive debt creates a nice life of dodging everyone—not answering phones, using PO boxes, thinking every public call is a process server.
- When two people both have debt, Discovery is the bigger fish with $28 billion market cap versus Paramount's $10.3 billion.
- Warner Brothers Discovery acquiring Paramount would consolidate Terminator, Transformers, Mission Impossible, Top Gun, Godfather, Paranormal Activity, Scream, and Star Trek under one studio.
- Warner Brothers' current stable already includes DC Extended Universe, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings.
- 4 min
Tim runs through actresses like Susan Sarandon and Melissa Barrera getting dropped or fired over statements on Israel-Gaza, calling the industry newly ungovernable.
7moments
- Writers Guild and SAG faced internal fights over Palestine statements, with some members nearly losing jobs.
- Jenna Ortega left Wednesday and Scream, likely to avoid the escalating controversy.
- Hollywood used to control people through sexual blackmail and compromising material on actors and executives.
- The blackmail system forced closeted gay people, addicts, and pedophiles to comply with studio demands.
- Under that system of control, top-tier actresses rarely spoke out or deviated from the script.
- Tim argues the control structure is gone now—nobody can silence anyone anymore and it's pure chaos.
- Civilians and regular people are telling celebrities to shut up, but the damage is already done.
Jenna OrtegaMelissa BarreraSusan SarandonHollywood power dynamics
- 2 min
How Blackmail Used to Run Hollywood
#Tim argues Hollywood used to function through sexual blackmail keeping stars in line, but a new generation of self-made, internet-famous sociopaths no longer need the old studio system to control them.
6moments
- Sociopathy has always existed, but Hollywood once had a top-down paramilitary structure where the biggest sociopaths controlled the smaller ones.
- Tim argues we've raised an entire generation of sociopaths who don't need institutional gatekeepers because they believe fame has intrinsic value.
- Kids with phones and MacBooks can bypass the old system where Hollywood locked stars in a castle on a hill and forced them to toe the line.
- The institution would control celebrities by forcing them to appear on morning shows, stand awkwardly next to Hillary Clinton while 10,000 Maniacs plays.
- Tim doesn't care that there's no coming back from this; he sees it as natural that things must die for new things to live.
- The people left in Hollywood are either on ketamine in the valley getting injected with drugs or flying to Peru to drink ayahuasca, unable to admit it's over.
fameHillary ClintonWeinstein people10,000 Maniacs
- 2 min
Rogan Killed Hollywood, and Entering 2024's Chaos
#Tim credits Joe Rogan with helping kill the old media system, plugs his own Rogan appearance, and previews 2024 as an unprecedented chaotic election year.
5moments
- Tim's episode with Joe Rogan is out on the Joe Rogan Experience.
- 2024 will be one of the most chaotic years in history, the third election Tim will cover on the show after Trump and Biden.
- Colorado knocking Trump off the ballot raises questions about eligibility, with other states like California now considering the same move.
- Everybody's off the leash now—media is still beholden to paychecks, but nothing can be framed the way it could have even five years ago.
- The year ahead will be the craziest anyone can picture, complete utter insanity.
- 2 min
Gratitude, Loss, and Hollywood's Doom Movies
#Tim reflects on being grateful just to be alive to witness the coming chaos, mentions people who didn't make it to this point, and mocks Hollywood for only making bleak collapse movies like Leave the World Behind and Civil War.
6moments
- Tim on gratitude: the only thing that matters is being alive in this moment to witness whatever comes.
- A lot of people didn't make it to now—like the lesbian barbecue person who used to make him brisket.
- Tim criticizes Hollywood for making apocalypse and collapse movies instead of stories about things being okay.
- Leave the World Behind and A24's Civil War film are examples of hack filmmaking obsessed with societal disintegration.
- Make something nice for once—about people who love each other, about a country that works.
- Stop making everything about people killing each other when audiences are already getting enough of that in real life.
Leave the World BehindA24Donald TrumpBiden familyChinaIsraelPalestineRussia+2 more
- 1 min
Tim thanks listeners, runs through the tour city list again, and signs off for the new year on Patreon.
1moment
- Tim lists tour dates across multiple cities and directs fans to timcomedy.com for tickets