Transcript
AI, Comedy, and the Classic Vacation (Hour 2)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Tue Jul 29, 2025
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Welcome back tonight, light folks.
For act two of this Tuesday Night broadcast here from downtown, beautiful downtown Green Bay on a gorgeous night.
I hope it is gorgeous wherever you are joining us from in Wisconsin or beyond if you're listening on the stream or the app.
Great to have you with me.
If you missed hour one, we have a fun question tonight and it's
Where the AI is everywhere every and I use it myself when I'm writing stuff and I need to do research I check with chat GPT or AI through Google But the question tonight is is it okay for people to use AI to enhance their social media?
photos unlike dating sites Or just on social media.
I don't really have a problem with that I know people that do that and they kind of make it obvious So that's not as big a deal.
They're just having fun, but some people want you to think they look like that
But especially on dating sites, it seems a little weird, I think.
And you're gonna have some explaining to do.
Probably when you meet someone who's swiped left or swiped right, you didn't really answer the question, Conrad, when I asked you if you're on any dating sites.
a yes.
Would you do that?
Well, let's
If anything, put a worse picture on there.
Then when you meet someone and they start looking at you, they're like, get down on it.
They go crazy.
I think that's a safer bet.
We talked about Happy Gilmore 2 in the first hour.
Conrad liked it, didn't love it, even though he's a huge Adam Sandler fan and a fan of the first Happy Gilmore.
He also liked Fantastic Four.
So we talked about that it's vacation folks vacation drop today in 1983 if you have a favorite line a favorite character Please share it with us.
We'll talk a little bit about that at 720 with our next guest Mike Siegel right now without further ado Let's get back to our current guest.
He is joining us over the stream all the way from beautiful Oshkosh, Wisconsin He is the founder of laughable productions and the funniest comedian in Oshkosh competition, which is
in the mix and winding down.
Round four is August 15th at the Oshkosh Arena.
You can get tickets at the Oshkosh Arena website or show up and pay cash.
If you're there before 7 p.m.
on August 15th, it sounds like a great time.
Ben, before we just talk to you about comedy a little bit, any closing thoughts on the contest?
Um, yeah, I do have some closing thoughts in the contest.
I also have some thoughts on your AI social media.
Oh, please.
I think you're getting on the verge of like catfish in there a bit.
You know, if you've ever seen
the
show catfish where, you know, you they confront people because they're pretending to be someone that they're not.
I mean, you can manipulate your photos enough to kind of catfish someone.
Not cool, man.
Not cool.
Okay.
That's, finally, we got a really adamant, and I haven't read through all the texts here.
I imagine most people agree with you, but like, that's, I agree with you.
And when is it okay to say, like, are there sites out there where you can just be whoever you want?
And I guess if you're not meeting in person, that's okay, right?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, there definitely probably are sites out there that you can.
you can be someone you aren't.
But for a dating site, you know, you should want to present yourself as authentic as possible.
And I think there's a difference between using a filter on a picture and like editing your butt to look better or your cheeks to look or taking the bags out of your eyes.
You know, those are just things that, you know, are probably not not going to be looked on well when you meet that person in person if you do.
if you get that chance.
I'm not trying to throw you under the bus here or anything, Ben, but I did see a profile and someone had the name Gen Biles, and it looked an awful lot like you.
Older picture, maybe?
I don't know.
Good luck with that though.
Wait, really?
That's so funny.
I'm married, so I'm married, so I'm not on
very many dating sites.
Yeah, I don't, uh...
I don't have, I'm also not on any dating sites.
I'm also happily married.
As you can see behind me, you know, I like to flex and show off my beautiful life.
That's a great photo.
Yeah.
Is she on any dating sites?
I hope not.
I don't know Ben that well that I can make
jokes like that.
She says no.
She's on any dating sites.
All
right.
I
don't mean to pry.
But yeah, I have had a public, I was a public figure once upon a time in elected office and there were some trolls that used to come after me.
So it won't surprise me if there was a Jen Biles out there that was impersonating me.
That's right.
Spot on.
Well, I hope not.
And if there
is someone, I
hope it enhances your comedy competition.
So give us a closing thought on the competition.
And then I got a couple more questions for you.
Then we'll let you get down with it.
your evening.
Absolutely we would love to see you round four on August 15th at the Oshkosh Arena for Oshkosh's Funniest Comedian and then please please please mark your calendar for the finale Saturday September 13th at the arena with Josh Blue.
It is going to be such a fun night and we want to sell that place out.
There's going to be a lot of people, a lot of fun, a lot of jokes told.
You might see some of the best comedians in the area, and you get to see Josh Blue.
So please come support.
You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, our website, laughfullproduction.com.
Otherwise, we'll see you at the Oshkosh Arena.
Those are my last thoughts, Pete.
All right, I
have one more question, and I can't believe
I
didn't ask this sooner, especially because I know we have a lot of Wisconsinites listening.
Are there beverages?
Can people buy a libation or get some food?
Oh, yeah.
OK.
Yes,
there is there is both beer, seltzers, wine, spirits, cocktails.
And then they also open the 1212 bar and grill, which is attached to the Oshkosh arena for a fish fry before the show as well.
Oh, wow.
So if you want to come a little early, have an old fashioned have some fish, and then come see some comedy.
You know, we love that because the more people drink, the funnier we get.
So throw down some beers, old fashioned and come hang out.
You got all the bases covered.
That's great.
Ben Giles is my guest.
Check out the funniest comedian contest.
The next round takes place August 13th, August 15th, I'm sorry, at 7 p.m.
at the Oshkosh Arena.
Tickets available at the Oshkosh Arena website, or you can pay cash in person.
But it sounds like it's going to be a great time.
And then also keep in mind the date, September 13th, for the absolute finale of this really cool contest.
So who are your favorite comics, Ben?
Uh, growing up, I loved Chris Farley, you know, Wisconsin native.
Um, I thought his SNL sketches are, are so funny, not only funny, but timeless.
You know, you can still watch those on YouTube today and.
get a great laugh.
I also loved Robin Williams, not only as a comedian, but a voice actor and an actor in all of his movies.
But recently I've been on a Shane Gillis kick with the tires TV show.
I don't know
if you've seen that.
I think he's hilarious.
He actually reminds me of one of my friends who I think is hilarious.
And his style of humor, very dry and a lot of animated faces.
My wife would cringe if I said Theo Vaughn, but I'm gonna say Theo Vaughn.
I love listening to him interview people and he's had some crazy guests on.
I mean, he got to interview the president.
Like, you imagine a stand-up comedian in the 90s interviewing the president.
That's just wild that that's where we're at now.
But I really like watching Theo, even though he is a little out of pocket at times.
And then...
I don't know.
I'm trying to think of others.
Jeffrey Asmus, he went to school with me at W Madison.
And we used to hang out at parties together, you know, before he made it big.
He's touring all over the country now.
I love watching his content on Facebook and Instagram.
And I wish him the best.
And I hope he remembers our beer chugging days.
But yeah, those are probably some of my favorites that I've drawn inspiration from, for sure.
And those of you listening, if you have not seen Shane Gillis, I don't know all of his stuff, but his joke about the Special Olympics is one of the funniest things I've ever heard.
So it's worth a Google.
And then Ben, before we let you get out of here, have you seen, are you binge watching anything you could share?
Have you seen any of the summer movies?
I am
kicking myself because I still have not seen Superman.
My wife just got me hooked on Schitt's Creek.
I have been watching Schitt's Creek.
We are almost through season one, and we have been binging that.
We've been watching it for, I think, three days, and we're through season one already.
So those are the two biggest ones.
But I am so excited to go see Superman.
It's just hard when you have a child, a little baby at home.
You know, you got to get a babysitter and all of those things.
But I'd love to see the Man of Steel on the big screen.
for sure.
I saw it, it was pretty good.
You'll have to come back on after you see it and we'll have a discussion and let's get you
back on
before the final round.
It sounds great and thank you for doing this for the community and bringing more laughs to the comedy world, especially in Oshkosh.
Great stuff, Ben.
Thank you,
Pete.
All right, we'll talk soon.
That's Ben Giles.
Check out the funniest comedian in Oshkosh competition happening right now.
The next round is August 15th, as I mentioned.
Really good stuff.
If you want to get in on our question of the night, folks, is it okay again?
Let's just be honest.
There are truly maybe seven really attractive people in the entire world.
The rest of us are just, we just make up, take up space, and we all want to look better.
We work out, we eat right.
Everything we do, basically, is to look better.
So tonight's question is, is it okay for people to use AI to enhance their dating site photos or social media?
And we've got, here's from the social media, this is our buddy Mike Mercury, very funny comedian from Madison says, here's what Google's AI says about it.
Using AI to enhance social media or dating app photos is a complex issue with both potential benefits and drawbacks.
While it can be a way to boost confidence and improve first impressions, it also carries the risk of misrepresentation and privacy concerns.
Triple hashtag con.
Mike says, I agree with their assessment.
And as such, I'm going to stop thinking altogether and we'll just rely on AI to tell me what's up.
I don't think you could go wrong with that, Mike.
And if you're lacking a few jokes, if you need some new material, use AI for that too.
Who's gonna know?
Thank you, buddy.
Ross from Crawford County.
He's in the 608 says, should a person use AI to enhance their social media presence?
It's a hard question for a guy my age.
I don't know if it would ultimately make any difference.
I think people are still able to discern the reality from the unreality that AI can lead us to.
If a person falls for AI enhancement, then that's the person that obviously you want if you're going to use AI to enhance your social media.
So be careful what you ask for.
Boy, that's a conund — that's interesting.
If you make yourself look better, you're going to attract the kind of person who's going to fall for that.
Sounds like a great life to me.
Well done, Russ.
John Murray in the 6080s in Madison says, we all know that adding AI to convey your deeds will change the game.
I want the derelict on the other end to shine through with all their true color.
Of course, everyone embellishes a bit and that is enough BS to deal with.
It's not like John's kind of in the middle there.
Yeah, or he's just kind of all around annoyed by the question.
Thank you, John.
Tom from New Berlin says, Vacation, when Chevy Chase and John Candy interact and Candy telling Griswold, the park is closed.
Great scene.
I totally agree with you, Tom.
Tom's in the 4014.
John Candy has such a small part, but it's so great.
Bridget in the 818 says, sure, why not?
AI is here to stay.
And Bridget, I assume is a woman, is telling us it's okay to enhance our dating site profiles.
So there you go, Con.
looks like
going on chat GBT tonight.
Open up your profile and get to it, man.
You're not getting any younger.
Get yourself out there.
Oh, wow.
You don't want to intimidate anybody.
You can look at Chris Casper then.
All right, so Mike Siegel is coming up, folks.
Be part of the show.
Text us.
Let us know what your answer is to our question of the night.
And what else do we cover?
I felt like we diggers hotline.
Yeah, we did diggers hotline.
It's not a hotline for guys who just like to dig.
Yep.
Okay.
I'm one of those guys.
I gotta be honest.
All right, Mike Siegel is coming up next, folks.
It's Peach Wabba at Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're
listening to Civic Media
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
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I shouldn't have made an assumption that Bridget is a woman.
Because remember, I did that with Chris, but I've not ever met a guy named Bridget.
But Chris with a K, I went woman, I was corrected twice, now I'll never get it wrong again.
So Bridget, if you are a man, a big burly man like Chris Casper.
His fight's coming.
Every time I'm mentioning Casper's name, he's probably like, oh man, next time he's in Mattis.
I'm gonna kneecap him.
All right, so this is exciting, folks.
It is a 720, as promised.
My next guest, a very funny guy, a comedian and host in the past.
He's hosted such shows as If Walls Could Talk, What You Get for the Money, TBS's Movie Break.
He's also the host of his own podcast, a very interesting and insightful and funny podcast, TravelTales.
He joins us now over the stream, Mike Siegel.
Hey, buddy.
Hey, Pete, how are you doing?
I'm doing
very well.
Where are you right now?
I am in the beautiful capital of our 49th state, Alaska, Juneau.
No, I don't.
That's why I'm asking.
If you hear a strange clanging noise, it's because it is an old school radiator in this hotel that I think was built in the Roosevelt administration.
And by that, I mean Teddy Roosevelt.
So wait,
are you on a ship?
You're not on a ship then, you're actually-
No, no, no, I'm in my hotel.
I just got off one.
Gotcha.
And I'm spending the night here, and tomorrow I gotta fly to San Francisco to get on another ship.
And then I'm coming back up here.
And then I'm doing, yeah, I'm doing about five different ships in three weeks.
And it's a lot, but hey.
Bill's got to be paid, Pete.
You know
how it goes.
They do know how it goes.
So you've done a lot of these ships, Mike, and I know you kind of have a love-hate relationship with them.
Like you said, they pay the bills.
You like to travel.
I don't know if you go anywhere exotic on the ships or not.
It sounds like sometimes you do, but what are the best things about working cruise ships and the worst things?
Well, like you said, I have gotten to go to some amazing places that I wouldn't have...
Made it to before or it would have been very expensive like Antarctica.
I've been there Wow, and that one was a really, you know high-end cruise.
So it was Less than and is a trip tip for anybody who doesn't Antarctica cruise if your ship is over 450 passengers You can't get off it So you can you have you can watch it from the and it is incredible, but you can't get off So I was in a smaller really kind of high-end luxury one and we got to take little zodiac boats
To the the beach head and we still got to walk around with penguins walking all around us and that was pretty incredible Wow, so that's one two and I just got back like earlier this year.
I was in South America and I got to and they let me off I I saw the date I went wait a minute because it was dropping me off in Rio de Janeiro and I said I think that's around
Like Mardi Gras time and it was it was like two days before Fat Tuesday So I said, you know what and this is the thing if they if I just say hey look, can I fly back?
You know four days later as long as it's from the same airport.
They don't really care They have to cover my travel.
So
Yeah, so I just got a hotel I got think I got the last hotel room available in Copacabana Beach and
because I always wanted to see it.
So it's a little things like that.
I try to maximize the travel.
I thought
you were going to
say you went on a ship to South America and kept going south and then you went to the South Pole Lake.
And then I thought it'd be cool if you branded yourself.
This is like the Poles comedian.
He's got all these great jokes about
the North Pole.
Well, in Antarctica, you got to get the ship and it's either you get it in Chile or Ushuaia, Argentina, which is like the bottom of South America.
And you're
only like visiting
Little that arm that's closest to it and it's Arctic is huge.
So you're only seeing a little piece of it But yeah, it's pretty good and then you got across the Drake Passage, which is Crazy that was like they say you either get the Drake Lake or the Drake Shake and the lake is like, you know a smooth ride because it's about I don't know four days at sea or something like that and But I got the lake going down and the shake coming back up and it was like four or five days of just
Huge waves like crashing over the yeah over the window and stuff like that
when you're up there when you're in the North Pole And you said you were looking at penguins.
I wasn't at
the south
oh, so I'm sorry
Antarctica get a globe Pete.
I thought you meant I thought you meant
the main article not that subpar ridiculous stuff.
No, but
like
how cold was it like seriously like How cold were you
you're on a boat?
Yeah, I mean, sure.
I mean, it's windy on deck.
I mean, it's crazy windy at any time you're at sea.
Yeah.
But there, you know, you have to go in there summer, which is our winter.
So I think I was there in like January, February.
And honestly, then we had a couple of days that when we went ashore one day, there's like a Chilean naval base down there that we went to.
And it
was it was sunny and like in the probably fifties.
Yeah, and but you know, it does get cold, you know, Wisconsin cold not crazy We're not going to the actual pole.
I mean to go to the actual South Pole is super hard and super expensive and you got to fly in I mean, that's the only way to do it.
Yeah with that attitude
So, uh, so how was Mardi Gras Mike?
Yeah, the carnival was pretty crazy and it's one of those things where I've been I've been a Mardi Gras New Orleans
And that was in my 20s and I've been to things like octoberfest and munich and stuff like that But you know, it's one of those events that I went there and now I'm a man of a certain age Pete as you are I think
you
and I are the same age Yeah, it was one of those things where it was like this would have been a lot more fun in my 20s And not when I'm getting tired Yeah, you know, maybe with a group of friends because I'm just you know, I'm this older middle-aged guy by myself watching people
You know, dancing half naked in the street and it's like, okay.
Nobody wants to see a guy
over 40 do that or hunched over a 20 year old you excuse you like, oh, that guy's having a great time.
But the
guy
is just like, oh, look at that pathetic soul.
I always say, like, yeah, I like to blend in wherever I go.
And then I realized in five seconds on the sidewalk there, I wasn't going to blend in because like I was wearing clothes.
And them, not so much.
Them, not so much.
Three pieces of string is considered an outfit.
Oh, I know.
It's
awesome.
This is Peach Waba at Nightlight.
Mike Siegel is here.
We're going to do the news and come back and talk about the movie Vacation.
And I think Mike's probably had a hell gig.
Maybe he can share with us from one of these cruises.
It's Peach
Waba at Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Two night lights.
I am Pete Schwabba.
Great to have you with me this Tuesday night back here on the home court after a wonderful week in Madison back at WGBW making sure Conrad does not get into trouble.
Tomorrow night on the show, who do we have Conrad?
I lost my, let's share for some reason.
some
now.
Milwaukee film critic Matt Miller.
We've got Kim Mothy from Appleton talking about Myla music.
Yep.
And then, what else do we have?
I can't find my list here for some reason.
We've got the... Curator of Mustard Museum.
The Mustard Museum in Madison.
Curator Barry Levinson, no relation to the other Barry Levinson, who's a famous film director.
But Barry is great and he loves Mustard.
He's coming on to celebrate National Mustard Day.
When I was in Madison last week, I...
At breakfast with my son and my niece at this place and I saw this really cool building the national mustard I don't know if it's the national mustard museum or a more regional mustard museum, but They know they're mustard folks.
That's all you need to know.
So that's tomorrow night a night light
Hopefully, you'll join me tomorrow as well.
Right now, let's get back to our guest, Mike Siegel, the very talented comedian and host of the TravelTales podcast and numerous cable shows.
He's had a stellar career and- Steller!
Now he's in a hotel room.
Where are you again, Mike?
Juneau, Alaska.
Yes.
I'm in Juneau.
And it's so funny when you said, when you were talking about vacation, the movie, the mustard museum is something Clark Griswold would go out of his way to visit along with the second largest ball of twine, which is only three short hours away or six short hours or whatever it
is.
I love when the, with the bartender in the place where they go and dodge city, ignores them.
And then Chevy Chase finally says, Hey, underpants.
Oh,
that's so great.
Great, the kid's deaf.
I said he's deaf now.
And then he always says, oh,
what's the difference?
It was fun anyway.
Let's talk about vacation, Mike.
Today is the 42nd year, right?
Anniversary, dropped in 1983.
Yeah.
So where do you rank that, Mike, with some of the better comedies in the 80s, like the John...
Hughes comedies or Fletch or Caddyshack, Ferris Bueller.
Well, it's another thing that I remember watching the National Lampoon documentary and realized that a handful of these writers pretty much shaped my comedy outlook on everything.
I mean, everything that they did from Animal House into, you know, John Hughes came out of there.
Yeah.
You know, he wrote Vacation, which was based on a National Lampoon article.
that he wrote.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so that's up there, for sure.
And it hit me hard, too, because, you know, I was, I think in high school when that came out, but my family did that trip, you know, from Chicago to California to go to Disneyland.
And we stopped at everything.
I think we stopped at the Petrified Forest.
We did the London Bridge in Arizona.
I don't know if you ever saw that.
No.
It's in I think it's in Lake Havasu City.
Okay, and look that up.
Yeah That's a replica of the London Bridge or it's an actual Piece of the London Bridge.
I don't know how it worked, but it's yeah some guy brought it out to Lake Havasu in the 70s and it's still there You can go see it but the petrified forest and all that I remember, you know, it was the old Route 66 yeah through St.
Louis and You know, Oklahoma City and Amarillo and all that
So yeah, I remember doing it and that was my first trip to the West Coast ever and that was it was pretty mind-blowing to see what I was watching on TV You know to those of us from the Midwest Pete, you know it like a desert is completely foreign mountains Mountains were a really big deal.
Yeah, and so to see those mountains and like wow I couldn't believe it.
You know, this looks like Charlie's Angels
It also, in a weird way, gave me an appreciation for the Midwest, especially when you fly and you see how, like, I love the desert now.
I didn't always.
And mountains and the ocean and all that, I flip for.
It's great.
But I also remember flying back to the Midwest and seeing how green it was and thinking
how
cool that was.
But you're right, Mike.
Vacation, Harold Ramis directed it, another heavyweight from the National
Land
Poon.
And we all took those trips, too.
It seems like out west.
And I remember as a kid going, this is terrible, because we camped.
We had a pop-up camper.
We weren't campers, but my mom and dad bought a camper after we moved to Wisconsin.
We took it out west.
And all I remember is sand everywhere.
But I look back on it fondly.
We saw Colorado and the Grand Tetons and Old Faithful.
Those trips are so fun.
Why do you need my address?
We'd like to send a mailer.
Ryan DeWilmer is so great.
He comes out and he tells him how much the tents are.
It's like 45 bucks for three tents.
And I think Clark says that's a little steep.
And he says, oh, they're very nice tents.
And that price, that price includes scenery and wildlife fun.
Wildlife fun.
And they get to one of them and it's like, you know, the canvas is all collapsed and it's like water and there's a duct swimming in it.
Oh, right.
The pool.
Yeah.
The pool.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, I remember we had a we had an RV too We're so well.
We had a motorhome
and then we
went from that to a camper But we never took we didn't take that all the way across but we we used to go down to Florida with it and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina from Chicago.
That's where we did a lot of the camping thing.
But yeah, I couldn't No desire like an RV has just like a certain smell to it and you're right once sand gets in it's in there, you know, it's never it's never coming out
totally.
But no, it was a great, it was a great trip.
And and AM Radio Pete, the entire time.
And I remember, so I pegged the year as either 7677.
Because I remember the song, you know, we go into a different market, your radio would pick up each top 40 station.
Because, you know, back then here, it was either top 40 country, or Jesus, those are the three options on the radio.
So, the top 40, I remember we were hearing Dancing Queen by Abba.
Oh, yeah.
Hotel California.
Hotel California, Dustin the Wind.
Stairway to Heaven, maybe?
Nah, the top 40 now we skip, but those three I remember distinctly we would hear every, like every hour it seemed on the hour.
And it's just ingrained in my memory.
We had my dad growing up.
He's a great dad.
We have a great relationship, but I never understood why he didn't like rock and roll music.
My dad was raised with Irish tenors, and he's a singer, and he loves classical music.
And we were driving through Provo, Utah.
I don't know how we made our way up to Utah, but I said, my mom was telling us about Provo, and my dad, this is an actual quote, he said, well, any town that plays classical music on an AM radio can't be all that bad.
And I'm just in the backseat shaking my head going, you
know.
This is gonna be a long ride.
Listen to some kiss or something.
Do you have a favorite character, Mike, from Vacation?
Well, Chevy has just great lines in that thing.
I mean, it's pretty amazing what he does in that thing.
Real tomato ketchup in.
Oh, and the girl, they're at the farmhouse and the girl is like stirring.
The Kool-Aid with her arm.
Audrey, can I help you with the Kool-Aid?
Just like, she's got her whole arm in the, please.
Just great lines, but I love it.
I can't do the lines because they're all foul, but the,
uh,
when he finally snaps in the rain and they're trying to bail and they're in Arizona and they just drop off.
They're
dead.
His dead mother-in-law and his brother-in-law's house and they want to leave and they're like, we just want to go.
He's like, what?
You're going to bail out now?
Nobody's leaving the lines because they're all filthy, right?
Yeah,
I also like the when he's when he gets caught with Christy Brinkley in the pool and Beverly D'Angelo who's always my like favorite I love Beverly
D'Angelo as a kid and
she says Clark Do you like that girl?
We swimming naked with her.
Do you like that girl?
And he says that girl.
No, she's ugly She's
ugly
Hey, we
have a
Conrad said he pulled one of those scenes.
What scene do you have, Con?
in
yeah.
That's gotta be filthy.
Yeah, it's beep.
Let's do it.
Beeps are funny.
All right, here's the Clark losing it scene from vacation in honor of Mike
Siegel.
I don't want to be in the car anymore.
I want to go home.
I don't want to go to Wally World.
Clark, under the circumstances, I wouldn't mind if we just went home.
In retrospect, it seems like a pretty bad idea driving out has been one disaster after another.
Yeah, it's been a real drag, Dad.
Maybe we can try it some other time.
Wally World's overrated anyway.
What do you think?
I think you're all f***ing ahead.
We're 10 hours from the f***ing...
and you want to bail out.
Well, I'll tell you something.
This is no longer a vacation.
It's a quest.
It's a quest for fun.
I'm going to have fun, and you're going to have fun.
We're all going to have so much fun when we eat plastic surgery to remove our damn spiles.
You'll be whistling Symphony Duda out of your ass.
I got to be crazy.
I'm going to pilgrimage to see a moose.
Praise Marty Moose.
Holy shit.
Dad, you want to
ask for something?
Don't touch.
So great.
I want to say my favorite scene and it's hard to pick one, but is I love when they go to pick up the family truckster and he's with Rusty and Eugene Levy is the car salesman.
And because you
didn't order the metallic P and tell it metallic P no Antarctic blue.
He's just repeating.
I want my super super sport wagon with the optional rally fun pack.
This
one
beats the hell out of the truckster, but I want to make you happy.
Have you seen- You're taking the tribe, you're taking the tribe across country.
The family truckster is the way
to go.
This is the car you should be driving.
Mike Siegel is my guest and we're talking about vacation.
It dropped today 42 years ago.
I can't believe it's that old, but Mike, did you see the remake with Ed Helms?
And also, what are your other favorite vacations if you have any?
I did not see that one with Ed Helms, but I did see the originals.
I think they did four, right?
Maybe five.
There's Vegas, European, Christmas, and did they
do one
other one?
And you know my theory on comedy sequels, Pete.
There's never been a comedy sequel as funny as the first.
And if you can name one...
You know, we've tried this on a driving game, you know to pass the time right come up with a comedy sequel That's funny or the first and you can't you can't you just can't and it's summer better summer good.
Yeah, most of them are disappointing so Two was bad.
European was not good other than the couple scenes that are funny.
They're constantly driving.
Yeah around the roundabout he can't go left or yeah, and And then but Christmas
is a winner.
Christmas is fun.
Christmas vacation is a winner.
Still not as good as the original, I don't think.
No, but good.
And the other one, it was just out of Vegas.
I think they're just milking it at that point, which, you know...
And
everything
happened.
Everything they do is for money.
But why did the first one have to be remade?
Like, why don't you take Ed Helms, who's hilarious, and call it something else and make it a vacation movie?
It's not like you can't do that.
But it's inevitably forever going to be compared to the first one and that you just can't do that.
Oh, yeah, sure.
I mean, they can, you know, you can borrow plots.
There's always going to be road trip movies with families.
I mean, it doesn't have to be vacation.
They don't have to be the Griswolds.
They don't have to be...
but you know i mean it's built-in audience they're trying to you know less marketing on their part i guess right yeah it does it does kind of taint the original but i hope people seek out the original first absolutely because it's so great uh i mean you would never get away with some of the jokes too now like you know dragging the carcass of the dog
When you look back on it, like, whoa, boy, Pita would be all over you.
That one in the scene in St.
Louis that Harold Ramis said he's ashamed of, and he wish he wouldn't have put that in just from a racial standpoint.
But Mike Segal is my guest.
We're going to do a very short break and come back and talk about his podcast, Travel Tales.
And I'm going to ask him where I should go.
That's coming up next.
It's Nightlight with Peach Waba on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Welcome back to Night Light.
I'm Pete Schwabba.
Got a few more minutes here before we close out this Tuesday night.
My guest is Mike Siegel.
He's the host of the Travel Tales podcast and has hosted many TV shows and is a touring national standup comedian.
Mike, let's talk about Travel Tales.
Such a great, I mean, you were like kind of in the ground floor with Travel Podcasts, right?
I've been doing it, yeah, since 2011, amazingly enough.
So, yeah, I kind of got in.
In early but now to the like you know everybody has a podcast so It's nice that I did get to Garner a little bit of a loyal audience While you still could I wouldn't know how to break through now with a different show and the thing about travel is it's also a very visual thing so a lot of people you know, I would have Done a YouTube channel by now or some kind of visual thing.
Yeah, I don't know I kind of like the art of
interviewing and talking to people and kind of long-form interviews and things like that and just kind of getting to know somebody so and I think part of it's also after being on stage for so long and being on an actual TV and stuff
You know, it's kind of nice to not have a camera on me sometimes.
Sure.
It's
nice to... You
started the podcast about traveling in 2011.
You didn't actually start traveling until 2016, and you somehow
pulled
that
off, but...
I
could tell you make it, Pete.
That's right.
If people were going to give a listen, where would they find it?
In what episode, Mike, would you have them start with if one jumps
out at you?
Oh, boy.
There's so many hundreds.
It depends on kind of what they're into.
We've had a guy recently who climbed, made it to Everest, did the actual top of Everest.
We've had a girl who just moved to, she was from the US and Texas and decided, went to London once and decided she wanted to move there and made it happen.
And now she's got her own podcast helping people move.
To abroad and I'm getting a lot more of that these days a lot of expats
Because
it just seems to be more more more Americans are interested in leaving.
Yeah, or the or at the very least having a second passport or just even if it's not permanently you the the pandemic taught a lot of people that they could work remotely and If you
can
work remotely, it's like why not, you know, there's digital nomad visas that a lot of Countries have that you can go there.
All you have to do is prove you make a certain amount
every month or and You could say for a year or whatever it's like.
Hey,
maybe I'll
go live in Thailand for a year or something You know again if you have kids, it's a hard thing, but a few young person in their 20s.
If you can make it happen Why not?
I mean that wasn't an option for us back in the day
Okay, so I have one more question for you and
I talked about this a little bit at the beginning of the show.
I haven't been too many places.
I kind of missed my window there.
I was in my 20s.
I was
happy to be seeing America do and stand up.
And that was all I needed at that point in my life.
But what would you tell someone like me or one of my listeners who hasn't really gone anywhere exotic or to done much international traveling?
Where would you tell them to go if they could only go one place?
Well, I mean,
One of the things we always try to do is make sure people know that it's not as expensive that they think it's going to be.
We're so used to traveling around America.
People would ask me, how do you spend three weeks in Asia?
How can you afford that?
I'd go, people spend more at a weekend in Vegas, literally, than I can spend.
I can spend two weeks in Asia for what people spend.
Yeah, I mean, if you're talking five on a weekend, you could spend $500 a night on a hotel room in Vegas and you haven't even eaten or gambled or seen a show yet.
You're a drink.
Lost the kids college funds.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So it doesn't have to be.
So if you have any kind of points, you know, there's whole websites devoted to getting points and miles and utilizing those.
But if you've never been anywhere first, I think one thing that really opened my eyes.
My first trip was after college.
I'd never left the country before that.
And just go to Europe.
It's very easy to get around.
It's safe.
You'll see a bunch of different cultures in a small window of time.
And you've heard so much about it, your life, and you've seen it in movies and know all about it.
You never get a true feel until you're there.
So it's very easy to get around with the trains and now with the Euro where you're not changing money.
every country like we used to.
It's just easy.
So I would go to Europe first and then use that as a jumping point.
It's a great point too.
And you can see there are a lot of countries close together like that.
It's not like
you're
going to New Zealander.
Yeah, that's a great answer.
I mean, you don't have to go halfway around the world.
I mean, you just got to hop over the pond and, you know, and if you can only do one, you know, go to the UK for a little bit.
That's not intimidating.
There's not a real culture.
and there's no language problems, so any of those are all good.
I just want to hear someone say.
Fresh in your drink, Covna.
We got a text here, Mike, from Ross in Madison, whose favorite vacation line is, you might have said this before, he says, I don't know why they call it hamburger helper.
Helper.
That's just fine by itself.
That's great, Ross.
Thank you.
Tom from New Berlin says, hilarious.
Tom says, thanks Pete.
Great show using AI to enhance your profile.
It's called a Comover.
Oh, that's good, Tom.
Thank you.
Where
are you?
Oh, I forgot.
Oh, go ahead.
I forgot a great line when, when the cousin Eddie walks out and he sees the trucks for the first time, he's like, is that you?
Oh, she's a beaut.
Love those green walls.
And another one, you just made me think of when he hands Clark the white shoes.
And
Eddie
says, our member last time he remarked how much you like mine.
And Edna starts yelling and Clark shuts the door in her face and just says, I love him, Eddie.
Mike, so fun.
Thank you for making time for the show tonight.
Even though you're in a hotel room, it's great to talk to you and great to talk vacation and travel tales and all that good stuff.
Hope you're well, buddy.
Thank you.
No, it's great to talk to you always.
It's fun.
Yeah, we'll talk soon on what I like to call the telephone and we'll catch up without all these people.
What is that?
Oh, what?
We just text
them.
We can swear then, right?
I can do the extra
line.
You can swear as
much as you want, and I hope you
do.
I
had a boy.
All right, Mike Siegel, folks.
Thanks so much, Mike.
Thanks, Pete.
We'll be back tomorrow night with Matt Miller, Kim Mothy, and...
Barry Levinstein.
I keep closing my window.
Barry Levinston will be here, too.
All right.
Thanks so much, folks, for your text.
Thanks to Mike Siegel.
Thank you to Ben Giles.
And on behalf of the lovable producer, Conrad, goodnight,
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