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The Wait For It Podcast
Hosted by MrEricAlmighty and PhilTheFilipino, the guys discuss all things in Pop Culture from movies, gaming, anime and anything in between. New episodes every Wednesday, all you have to do is...WAIT FOR IT!
The Wait For It Podcast
PHILuminati Fan Theories Part VI
Ever wondered why Ted Mosby from 'How I Met Your Mother' may paint Barney Stinson's stories with a vibrant brush of exaggeration? Or why Charles Miner from 'The Office' might feel threatened by Jim, leading to his constant hostile behavior? Buckle up, listeners, because we're about to take a deep dive into these fascinating fan theories!
As we navigate the intricate dynamics of these beloved shows, we're also going to explore the controversies and theories buzzing around 'The Office'. Did David Wallace have a PR disaster due to the documentary about Dunder Mifflin Scranton? Was Toby used as a shield to deflect all the controversies? And we'll also discuss the possible connection between Chris Traeger in 'Parks and Recreation' and the many characters of the show. All these mind-boggling fan theories are waiting for you in our conversation today!
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Welcome to your go-to source for entertainment Wait for it Gaming, wait for it Anime Plus Ultra, mr Eric Almighty and Phil the Filipino. Yeah, they've got you covered and all you gotta do is Wait for it. Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Wait for it podcast and welcome to the August edition of Faluminati Fan Theories. I'm your co-host, phil Smith, aka Phil the Filipino. Thanks so much for your patience here this week with this episode as, as you can see, it is releasing a couple of days late. You know, life just happens and needed a little extra time to get this episode all put together and released for you. So, again, always appreciate the support and the patience you know while we just kind of work through all of this. So podcasting is hard, as you guys have heard us talk about before, but really excited about this episode. We'll be talking about a couple of different shows, four theories, as usual, and I think there are some good ones in here. I'm really interested to hear some of y'all's feedback, even the feedback of those of you that never listened to the episode. You just watch the clip on Instagram or TikTok and get mad. So that'll be fun.
Speaker 1:If this is your first time checking out Faluminati Fan Theories. It is an episode in which I find various fan theories, usually from Reddit, about all of your favorite TV shows, movies. You know, pop culture in general. So if you enjoy this and you're looking for more of these, just search Faluminati in the podcast app of choice and you'll find the whole series. And for all of you returning listeners, welcome back. Thank you guys. So much for all the support. Hope you've enjoyed all the content we put out thus far here in August.
Speaker 1:But without further ado, let's go ahead and jump right into this. Why wait any longer? We already had to wait a couple extra days. So let's get into the first theory here about one of my favorite shows. About one of my favorite shows of all time how I Met your Mother. How I Met your Mother is the show in which Ted Mosby, the main character, is telling his kids the story about how they met their mom and for some reason goes into a lot of very uncomfortable and unnecessary detail about his journey of finding their mother. I have a really weird relationship with how I Met your Mother because, again, it is such a very special show in my life and it kind of speaks to like the inner romantic, I think, and a lot of us, a lot of people that are fans of the show, I think, use the show to believe that you know, sometimes a you know, a storybook romance can happen to you. But Ted Mosby and I've talked about this before is just not a very good person. Especially upon rewatches, I've really grown to like him less and less.
Speaker 1:The only character that I think that stays constant throughout the entire show is Marshall. Like all of the main characters are relatively flawed, and also, I mean, that's just people. People are flawed, so. But one of the characters that's painted probably in the worst light of all of them is certainly Barney Stinson, and this theory from Kermit the Fraud in 92 states that Barney is nowhere near as bad as Ted makes him out to be. Ted is an annoying douche and exaggerates Barney's stories to make himself look better. They go on to say, ok, I don't really have much proof to this, but it's a theory I've had for a while now.
Speaker 1:Ted does a lot of crappy things during the run of the show, and something I think is important is that Ted is the one telling the story to his kids. We only ever hear one perspective on the whole thing. Why would you tell your own children, especially your daughter, that someone they've called Uncle Barney their whole lives repeatedly lies to women in an attempt to sleep with them. I mean, a lot of Barney's antics border on rape and I feel like if I heard my dad bragging about my uncle pulling this shit, I would cut contact with him immediately, and I feel a lot of episodes where Ted's doing something bad. He immediately swaps to a story about Barney doing something worse, which makes me feel like he was trying to make himself look better. Also, let's remember that we see other members of the group talking about really private shit that they shouldn't know but do anyway, like intimate details about their sex lives that they definitely would not have told Ted. Yet he's the only one telling the story. Now, if you're a fan of the show, you know that this is a very popular theory within the fan base and actually this is one of the theories that has been acknowledged by the actor that portrayed Barney Stinson, which, of course, is Neil Patrick Harris. Another user MonTJW6, points out that Ted is bragging to his kids about his own sexual conquest but won't admit to them that he smoked weed and refers to it as a sandwich. Really kind of shows how much of a dick he is.
Speaker 1:Recently watched the episode where they find out about Robin Sparkles and the whole episode. Ted is begging Robin to tell him and continuously tries to trick her into telling him and then when Barney goes to reveal the secret he's like no, no, it's Robin's secret and we must respect her privacy trying to save the day, which also backs up this point Again. I hope I didn't like glass break this for you guys. I think a lot of people that are fans of the show know that Ted Mosby is a pretty bad person. The only wholesome one here is Marshall. Even Lily has stink on her. They're all not great, Robin too, but Marshall Marshall stayed good throughout. Let's just ignore the fact that in the final seasons Jason Siegel had absolutely no interest in playing the character anymore and they kind of wrote him really, really weird. But we're not going to talk about that today.
Speaker 1:Let's move into back to back office theories here. This first one is in regards to Charles Miner, who was a character that appeared mostly in the Michael Scott Paper Company run of episodes. That was actually one of my favorite arcs Probably my favorite arc in the entire show was the Michael Scott Paper Company, and Super Blue has a theory on why Charles Miner does not like Jim. When Charles Miner first comes to the Scran Branch, jim is wearing a tuxedo as a joke to show how little he cares about Dwight's memo on appropriate workplace attire. We're led to believe that Charles now doesn't like Jim because he doesn't take his work seriously. But I believe that's not the case. Charles is threatened by Jim and it makes a ton of sense why he would be.
Speaker 1:Jim has been seen as a strong company asset for years, despite his attitude towards his job. Evidence the company loves Jim. He was in line to take over the Stamford Branch before Josh left the company and was then offered to be the number two in Scran if he decided to go back with the merger. When Jim shows hesitation in deciding, jim says the company will do whatever it takes to keep him on board. Next, jim is in serious consideration for the VP role. When Jim was getting fired from the company, it seems he was nailing the interview and he likely would have gotten the job if he hadn't decided on staying in Scran and trying to make it work with Pam instead. Horrible decision, by the way. And also, david Wallace often goes to talk to Jim about work stuff instead of Michael because he trusts Jim's opinions and ideas. This is why Charles dislikes Jim. Charles has the job that the company wanted Jim to have. Jim was on track to be their golden boy after Josh left but turned it down for a life with Pam.
Speaker 1:In becoming a VP, charles likely hears from the higher-ups talk about promising employees and he probably got wind of Jim having interviewed for VP before. When you think about how Charles treats Jim, it almost doesn't make sense. Jim goes out of his way to try and work harder to get on his good side, but it doesn't work. When Jim tries to get more information on a task he was assigned, he's talked down to and basically ridiculed for possibly not knowing what to do. When David Wallace comes to the branch and wants to speak with Jim and Charles about work, charles says he'd rather have Dwight because Jim has been a disappointment. It never made sense to me that Charles would call him a disappointment when Jim is likely working harder than he has for any other boss. I think he called Jim a disappointment just to make him look bad to David. Charles wants the company to think Jim isn't that great, hence the ambiguous task and constant looking over Jim's shoulder to make him uncomfortable. Why would Charles actually be worried about losing the VP job? Well, because the two VPs before him were both fired and the company is again struggling to meet numbers. Even with a new VP, he might fear for the security of his job and since he knows Jim would likely be next in line for it, he's trying to nip it in the bud to avoid any competition.
Speaker 1:Now, what about the short period of time where Charles likes Jim because they both played soccer? He was faking it. Jim was not confident at all when talking about playing soccer and Dwight even picked up on that. I think Charles knew Jim was bullshitting him and he wanted to put Jim in a position where he would look bad if he didn't admit he was lying. Phyllis, getting hit in the face with the ball is the exact type of thing Charles wanted to happen. During the game, despite Charles being the one who kicked the ball, he immediately made it Jim's fault. Kick the ball too. That's always been such a weird scene to me. Why is he kicking the ball so hard? Charles wasn't disliking Jim. He was purposely trying to sabotage his chances to get a better job at the company to avoid competition with promising employees.
Speaker 1:Lots of positive comments on this one, some people pointing out it's also the same reason Ryan clashed with Jim when Ryan was in that position, even half-assed in the job. Jim has always been a company asset, which is why he should have ended up with Karen and not Pam. There's no reason for me to bring that up again, other than to remind everybody that Pam is the worst, but I like this theory. Ej Selba plays this role fantastically and it was always just so strange. No matter what Jim did, it was just like Charles completely wrote him off immediately. This would explain why.
Speaker 1:Let's get to the next Office one here, which is from Primetime22, who states that Toby was fired because the release of the documentary revealed to corporate that he was a terrible HR rep. In the finale of the Office, Dwight fires Kevin due to his years of incompetence as an accountant. When the rest of the Office tries to fight this, their only defense is that Toby will not allow this to happen, only for Dwight to reveal that he is also firing Toby. Dwight firing Toby is somewhat significant due to how easily he is able to achieve this. Over the first seven years of the series, we watched Michael try and fail to get rid of Toby. He's unable to do this because Toby is technically an employee of corporate, who will not allow Toby to be fired without cause. However, the finale takes place after the airing of the documentary. This means that nearly a decade of workplace ethic violations were revealed to corporate and the general public for the first time.
Speaker 1:Nearly every act of harassment, racism, violence and general misconduct that the Dunder Mifflin Scranton branch ever experienced is neatly documented. Whether these events were recorded by Toby or not and we know he probably didn't report all of them due to him not reporting many of Dwight's complaints against Jim at the end of season two, david Wallace clearly did not like the content he saw in the documentary. At the talk back he says it's like seeing a documentary about how your food is made. It's kind of disgusting. You learn a lot, but I didn't want to know any of it. He also probably has something of a PR nightmare on his hands due to how much the Scranton branch was able to get away with for so long.
Speaker 1:It would make a lot of sense for Dunder Mifflin to use Toby as the scapegoat for all of the documentary's controversies. These events almost always fall under HR and the fact that Toby allowed it to happen for so long doesn't look good on him. He's even the cause of many of these issues. Besides, corporate can't lay off the entire staff, as they're presumably still the company's most successful branch. They're also essentially celebrities within the company too. It's also very possible that Toby as a person is a cause of a lot of controversy due to Michael portraying him as a villain, just like Joe Exotic's. Years of war against Carol Baskin are now putting the latter in the negative light. It's very possible that Toby is a very similar degree of negative notoriety. Evidence of this may include just how sad Toby is. In the finale he makes it very clear that life has not worked out for him since the airing of the footage, unfortunately for him. That's also not a great look to have for your company. So in the end, dwight probably didn't fire Toby. It was very likely David Wallace trying to salvage Dunder Mifflin's image after the release of the documentary.
Speaker 1:I think there are some valid points in this theory. I don't totally buy into it, though, and a few people point out some good reasons in the comments. The comment that I think carries the most weight is from Tiberius. It says maybe, but we only see a fraction of what goes on in the office, we get the rough edit. The actual documentary in the show is pretty short. From what I remember, if the documentary makers focused a lot on Jim and Pam and the feel good stuff, a lot of the transgressions committed by the staff probably didn't air In season nine, episode 18. In the promos we find out that the documentary is airing nine nights in May. So we probably got about nine hours of footage over the course of 10 years, which is weird for the documentary to only be nine episodes. So I think that it'll cut out a lot of stuff and Dunder Mifflin ultimately would have had control over what was and was not shown in the final edit. So I appreciate the amount of depth that this person went into for this theory, but I don't really think it makes sense. Toby's always just been a pretty mopey dude anyway, so you know him being sad in the finale. I don't necessarily think correlates to anything, but what do y'all think about this one? I definitely like to know.
Speaker 1:Let's get to the very last one here. This one's from Parks and Recreation. This one is incredibly short and I don't know if this was an intentional decision, but I like the theory nonetheless, and it is from Reddit, user readingshell or readingshell, I don't know either. One of those. Parks and Recreation introduced Chris Traeger to teach everyone the cast's names. I like 15 characters and as a new viewer, I was bad at remembering their names. Then Chris Traeger comes in and says everyone's first and last names, and then I knew everyone's first and last names. I think they did this on purpose, because they realized that they had a ton of characters and viewers might have trouble remembering everyone's names. Enter Chris.
Speaker 1:I do not think that this was done intentionally. However, it worked this way. You know, there definitely are quite a few characters to keep up with and then, as a lot of these comments point out, chris Traeger shows up and all of a sudden it's Ann Perkins, ron Swanson, leslie Nope, april Ludgate, and these are characters and names that I'll never forget because of Chris Traeger. So, as I said, I don't think this one was intentional, but it certainly worked that way. So you know what kudos to them for that. If only every anime I've ever watched had a character like Chris Trager to help me remember all the names, that'd be great. But folks, that is it for the August edition of Illuminati. I hope you enjoyed those theories.
Speaker 1:Again, I appreciate the patience on the delayed episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to find our link tree link, and you will find all the rest of our content and social media pages. Everything you need, especially the link to our Patreon, which you can sign up for for exclusive benefits, things such as early access to episodes and shoutouts based on your tier, like our patron Briar gets each and every single week. So if you find yourself wanting to support the show a little bit more, you can do that, or you can head on over to your podcast player of choice. Leave us a five star review, 10 stars, eight plus whatever it is that they do wherever you're watching. Another really great way to support the show and a free way to do that.
Speaker 1:So, folks, I am your cohost, phil Smith, aka Phil the Filipino. Do not forget, we release new episodes every Monday and Wednesday with additional content over on our Tik Tok page and all you have to do is wait for it. So I heard you're looking for a go to source for entertainment. Wait for it. Gaming, wait for it. Anime Plus, ultra. Mr Eric Almighty and Phil the Filipino yeah, they've got you covered and all you got to do is wait for it. This is the wait for it podcast.
