‘How Did This Get Made?’ Will Be Watching ‘Cats’ Tonight In Live-Stream Event To Support Voter Registration

Just in case you need something to do on a Friday night, the longest-running and most popular bad movie podcast improv show How Did This Get Made? is doing a virtual-live show tonight at 9pm Eastern about the movie Cats. Hosts Jason Mantzoukas, June Diane Raphael, and Paul Scheer will be coming to you live from your internet!

Tickets for the show can be purchased here for $21 and all proceeds benefit the charity When We All Vote that encourages registration for every citizen. If you can’t make the show, the live stream will be up till tomorrow night at 11:59 pm.

By popular demand they also just did another ticketed episode for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a two and a half-hour robot bashing brain scramble that Paul Scheer quixotically described as “The greatest story ever told.”

If you couldn’t tell, he was making a joke. Actually, he told me that his rule for Transformers movies is that he will only talk about them for charity. He said he had to watch another one under duress that had Anthony Hopkins in it to support the L.A. Children’s Hospital.

At this point in conversation, Jason Mantzoukas cut in to ask, “Is there a plan in place to make sure you watch all the Transformers movies?”

To which Paul responded, “If a charity needs me to watch Transformers, then I guess I will do my civic duty. We all have to do our part and my part is to watch Transformers movies to raise money.

The show started almost ten years ago back when, as Paul explains, nobody had a podcast and you had to explain what a podcast was to get people to come on your show.

Paul and June are married and they had just watched Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, that Paul describes as “the Godfather Two of Wall Street sequels” and in conversation together with Jason they had so much fun pointing out what was wrong with the film that they decided to make a podcast. They started recording the show in a studio that was also used for band rehearsals so they had to meet in between drum and guitar solos.

A fan community formed around the show pretty quickly, and they told Jason in person or on the show website what movies they should watch next.

The demand for them to do Transformers had been building for quite some time with two obsessed fans of the film who identified themselves as Michael Bay, and MBay.

Paul related the story to me which is also described in their recent mini-episodes. He said he started receiving packages of Transformers DVD’s that said they were from Michael Bay and then more DVD’s, and then VHS tapes that were copied from DVD and then fans at live shows would dress up like Transformers and hand them DVD’s. I know this might sound weird and creepy, but Paul says it became an elaborate fun thing that their audience was enjoying.

Eventually, as the number of DVD’s received topped 100 they decided to finally review the film and invite the two fans to be on for charity. In fact, they even produced T-Shirts that read “Michael Bay Say’s Vote!”

The reason they held off for so long Jason says, was that they usually find more interesting things to talk about when people are telling stories as opposed to giant robot battling CGI slugfests.

So, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was definitely out of the ordinary for them, but the movie CATS that has driven critics mad is completely within their wheelhouse because it’s a weird, possibly terribly film, but it’s very accessible

Tonight is their first ever virtual live show and none of the hosts have watched the film yet, and they are very excited!

Fans have a chance to be part of the show in the chat and by asking questions and suggesting sing-alongs and all sorts of madness, while Jason has been doing vocal warm-ups all week in preparation.