Dear MoveOn member,
Hello, people of Earth! And hello, people of the MoveOn email list!
Our names are Paul, June, and Jason, and we won’t lie, you’ve probably seen us on some of your favorite television shows or movies—but we’ll get to that later.
We were watching the Democratic National Convention this week and heard President Barack Obama say something interesting: “We do not need four more years of bluster and bumbling and chaos. We have seen that movie before, and we all know that the sequel is usually worse.”
We happen to know a little something about that. Well, the movie part, at least.
For the past 14 years, we’ve been hosting a podcast—ahem, a very successful podcast—called “How Did This Get Made?” where we watch delightfully terrible movies and then joke with each other as we figure out how the hell they ever made it into a theater. (edit: This is June, and I’d like to go on record saying that some of us are forced to watch them.)
No matter what June says, we have a blast doing it, and we think our fans have a blast listening to it too. We hope so at least, since our podcast gets 40 million downloads a year! We’ve also won awards. So many awards. Just trust us.
But while the three of us are all actors, writers, and comedians by trade, we’re also Americans who can see just how important this election is and how historic an opportunity we have to not just defeat Donald Trump but elect Kamala Harris with her new, joyful vision for our nation.
We wanted to do something to help, and we figured there was no better way than to harness our fanbase and host a live virtual podcast taping for “How Did This Get Made?” where all profits from ticket sales go straight to supporting MoveOn’s 2024 election plan to turn out 1.5 million voters in key battleground states and districts.
We decided to take a page out of Barack Obama’s playbook and use our show to talk about one of the most infamous sequels of all time: “Troll 2.” Our fans have been asking us to do it for years—and to help MoveOn, we finally decided to give in. We even convinced our friend Adam Scott to join us on the livestream on Friday, September 6.
OK, our friends at MoveOn have told us that we should probably tell you who we are, just in case you didn’t immediately recognize our names (and how DARE you if you didn’t).
I’m Paul Scheer. You may have seen me on “The League,” “Veep,” “Black Monday,” the new movie “Twisters,” or maybe you’ve even read my New York Times bestselling book, “Joyful Recollections of Trauma.”
June Diane Raphael here. You may have seen me on “Grace and Frankie,” “New Girl,” “Parks & Recreation,” or on my other podcast, “The Deep Dive.” Or you could have read my guidebook to help women run for office, “Represent: The Women’s Guide to Running for Office and Changing the World.”
And I’m Jason Mantzoukas. You have probably seen me play an unhinged lunatic on shows like “The League,” “Parks & Recreation,” “The Good Place,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” and the Disney+ series “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.” Or, perhaps you’re one of the MANY fans who have screamed “GEOSTORM” out of nowhere at me on the street because of that one episode of the podcast. Please stop doing that.
And you all know Adam Scott from “Parks & Recreation,” “Big Little Lies,” “Severance,” and whatever else he gets up to. He can tell you himself.
We’re excited to get together to talk about this fantastically horrible film while also raising a ton of money to support the great work that MoveOn will be doing over the next 72 days.
It’s going to be a blast, and we don’t want you to miss it. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard the podcast before; going in blind might even be the better option for this one!
Will we see you there? We better see you there.
–June, Jason, and Paul
P.S. June here again. Listen: Do I want to watch a movie about what I can only imagine are evil troll dolls? Of course not. But my rights to control my own body and the rights of every single other woman, girl, trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming person in the country are on the ballot this November, and it is up to us to do absolutely everything we can to elect a president who will restore and protect abortion rights across the country. That’s Kamala Harris. And MoveOn has been turning out voters and winning elections for 25 years.
Want to support MoveOn? The MAGA right is declaring war, and Project 2025 is their battle plan. Project 2025 threatens our rights, attacks communities of color, hurts middle- and working-class families, and undermines our democracy. But we will not back down or let Trump steamroll our nation.
Will you donate to power MoveOn’s election plan, stop Trump, and ensure Project 2025 is never enacted?
MOVEON POLITICAL ACTION, https://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. MoveOn Political Action – PO Box 96142, Washington, D.C. 20090-6142.