Mike Darnell

Mm-hmm.

And I think Mike Darnell, who is an incredibly famous TV executive, who basically put American Idol on the map, was looking for other feathers in his cap about like how to push reality TV into that monoculture of must-watch television, and he with Nellie Galan, they really did, right? The first season of The Swan was seen by 9 million people, and the finale, which ultimately was a pageant, beat out the numbers for every other pageant that was on air that year.

And that's what made it so shocking when it got almost, in my opinion, too grotesque and audiences like literally turned off in season two.

'Cause the difference between America's Next Top Model is that went for 20-plus seasons, right?

Um, so, [laughs] uh, yeah.

So Mike Darnell was that sleazy guy from Fox who decided to change the original premise and, um, you know, make some ugly chicks hot.

[laughs] So the ladies are like, "Uh, what? We're gonna compete.

Why are we doing that?" And then they also have to do these, like, 360 photo shoots where they give them these, like, prison underwear, like men's prison underwear, that's all, like, four times too big for these ladies.

... surgeries done-

... to them.

That was his name.

What is his name?

Mike Darnell.

Mike Darnell.

Was the head of Fox reality-

But what I did was it forced me to then go, I'm going to develop a brand new form of magic that they can't go online and figure out.

that they can't that i'm going it it forced me to get more creative and i stood in a place where i'm like i'm going to start from scratch and that's what it did for me when the mass magician came out that guy that created that show um mike darnell was the head of fox tv and mike darnell was like this rock star you know television producer uh for the head of fox now he's out of warner brothers and he i had this show and he loved it and he was like I go, why would you do this thing, Mike? And he goes, it's going to force magicians, I think, outside the box because it's the same old thing all the time.

And sometimes it frustrates me in the art form.

I see all my friends, they're all buying the same trick and they're all doing the same trick.

I have a responsibility to create.

And that is where I went, okay, I'm going to take the sphere.

I'm going to take this other thing I had with Mike Darnell at Fox.

And now it's with, you know, pretty big major company.

Yeah.

Um, Mike Darnell was the Fox head of alternative programming, and I actually remember that weirdo too.

I, I think he came into-

Mm

Yeah.

Now we meet Mike Darnell, who wears a leather jacket and so desperately wants to be Chris Cornell.

But, like-

Ooh