The Murdoch Mysteries Podcast | Ethan Suplee

0:00 I was so horrified at the idea that they were going to electrocute a dog.

0:04 I was like, "Oh my god, if they kill this dog, I'm out.

0:07 I'm not going to finish watching the show."

0:09 I am Jason Muse's super fan.

0:11 I'm Matt Goring, and our friendship is

0:13 basically just boiled down to Murdoch Mysteries.

0:16 Way to leave me out, guys.

0:17 I'm like a third wheel on here.

0:19 My name's Ethan Sli, and I'm friends with them, too.

0:22 We're often in other cities together watching

0:25 Jay play video games talk about Murdoch mysteries.

0:28 Now the real question.

0:30 Can we turn Ethan Slee into a fan in under an hour?

0:36 I now have officially watched an episode.

0:40 Who's your favorite character?

0:41 My favorite character, I think, was the I want to know something.

0:51 Is season one episode one the episode where there's like

0:56 a a beef in Toronto between AC and DC and Tesla's in it?

1:01 Yeah.

1:01 So I watched episode one.

1:03 I did it.

1:03 Okay.

1:03 Great.

1:04 Great.

1:04 It's a great episode.

1:05 Edison versus Tesla.

1:06 Yeah.

1:06 You've seen it.

1:07 And right off the bat you get to meet Murdoch.

1:10 You get to meet Crabtree.

1:12 Dr.

1:12 Ogden.

1:13 Yeah.

1:13 It's like right off the bat and you get again Tesla Tesla.

1:16 Like oh my god Tesla's in this show.

1:18 It was awesome.

1:19 how you it like opens up with those two giant electrical the Tesla coils.

1:25 Yeah, the coils that just looked awesome and and to me

1:28 it was right away I was like what is this?

1:30 Like you turn on right around things are sparking and that it's like music

1:34 that would have been that would have been

1:35 something you would have seen back then too.

1:37 It was worldrenowned this competition between Tesla and Edison.

1:41 the demonstrations that he did with elephants and in this case dogs.

1:45 Does it say something about us as a culture?

1:49 And and maybe it's just me and I'm exposing myself,

1:52 but I was so horrified at the idea that they were going to electrocute a dog.

1:57 I was like, "Oh my god, if they kill this dog, I'm out.

1:59 I'm not going to finish watching the show." No, I agree with you.

2:03 It is such a weird feeling.

2:04 Like if I see an animal in a show or a movie get hurt, you're like, "Oh my god,

2:09 you're all right." But if it's a person, you're like, "Oh,

2:11 that's cruel." But like it's it's mean

2:14 and that person has something wrong with them.

2:16 But you know, it happens.

2:17 So there's a lot of themes that we see in Murdoch.

2:20 So many characters, but there's a lot of repeated themes that we see.

2:23 You get to meet Crabtree in episode one, right?

2:26 Yeah.

2:26 What a unique character.

2:29 Yeah.

2:28 His disposition, it almost seems like whimsical, but he's such a Mac.

2:35 Yeah.

2:34 Like what a suave suave guy.

2:36 He shows up and he's like, "I'm here to check on the dog that we saved."

2:41 Right there.

2:41 That's when I was like, "Oh my god, he's he's amazing." Like for him to be like,

2:45 she's like, "What are you doing here?" And he's like,

2:46 "Oh, I'm checking on the dog."

2:48 Who Who is your favorite Who's your favorite character?

2:51 My favorite character, I think, was the the younger guy.

2:55 He's like a younger.

2:56 He's a younger Constable.

2:57 But I only say him because like Murdoch's too obvious.

3:02 Murdoch's such a badass that like I feel guilty saying he's my favorite,

3:06 but I think he's probably my favorite and I'm just going like,

3:09 don't be so obvious, Ethan.

3:10 Go for the young dorky guy.

3:12 Yeah, I like that.

3:13 Yeah, I love the fact that he was like maybe not improving on Tesla's ideas,

3:18 but able to like stand toe-to-toe with Tesla and understand and then

3:22 almost explain Tesla's and ideas in a way that I understood them better.

3:27 It was a really cool sounding board in that way.

3:30 One of my favorite things about this the the series is the way

3:32 that they take knowledge that if at that time Murdoch had done the homework,

3:38 which he's he's a man who who educates himself, cuz he makes a comment.

3:41 He's like, "If I wanted to destroy his electronics,

3:44 I would just hit them with a basically an EMP."

3:48 Yes.

3:48 In a time where I think I think the EMP was invented in 1956.

3:52 But Tesla being a scientist would know

3:54 there was a thing called the Carrington event

3:56 that happened in 1815 or something like

3:58 that that was basically solar flares and created AMP.

4:01 Yeah.

4:01 For them to take that and and and be like he would know this.

4:04 He would probably know this.

4:05 It fried all the telephone lines.

4:06 They make connections that you like you have to read about and to understand.

4:12 It existed in theory.

4:14 Therefore, it's fair use for them to use.

4:17 Like it's all theoretically possible.

4:19 Everything he's doing is without within the realm of possibility.

4:23 It's just way more kind of inventive than we normally get.

4:27 It's a It's a really smart show.

4:29 We have a bunch of cool Murdoch's inventions here on the table,

4:34 which I'm very excited.

4:35 We don't have to do it on right now,

4:37 but I would love to me mention each name of these if we can name them all.

4:42 Could you do it?

4:42 I might have to go.

4:44 Can Can Ethan do it?

4:45 I can't mention any of them.

4:46 Can you tell me what the thing in the center is?

4:48 On my view, it's very small.

4:50 Not the hat behind it.

4:52 To me, it looks like an ostrich's head.

4:55 The night vision's an ostrich.

4:58 I believe those are the night vision goggles.

4:59 And then we have Are these the first rendition?

5:02 Yeah, this is the season two night vision goggles.

5:06 So, aside from the the the inventions, the gadgets,

5:09 what do you think about the the like the verbiage,

5:11 the way that they speak in the show?

5:13 You know, I sometimes I think about period stuff and going back to that time

5:17 and and like how language evolves and like it being hard to understand,

5:21 but everything was coherent.

5:23 For me, the thing I liked the most was the fact

5:26 that like I don't really understand the difference between AC and DC.

5:30 So, they took these complex ideas and parsed

5:34 them out in a way that it was palatable

5:36 for me that I took it in and didn't feel like I had no idea what was going on.

5:40 Sticking with the ver the Victorian verbiage, I want to play a game.

5:43 Do you mind playing a game with us?

5:45 Just real fast.

5:46 I'm going to give you guys a Victorian word that would have been used,

5:48 maybe even has been used in the show.

5:51 And I want to see if you guys can take a stab at giving me a definition.

5:58 Victorian.

5:58 I like it.

5:58 I'm ready.

5:59 Balihoo.

6:01 To make a Balihoo.

6:03 You might even exclaim this.

6:04 You might even yell this.

6:05 Bali.

6:07 Balihoo would be you've made quite quite a bali who

6:11 like a a mess.

6:12 Uh kurfuffle.

6:14 It is an extravagant fuss.

6:17 All right, one more.

6:18 We got tickity boo or darbies.

6:21 Which one do you want?

6:22 It's almost like boooo kitty.

6:25 It's a little like

6:26 Is it almost like boooo kitty?

6:27 Like it's a term in of endearment?

6:29 No.

6:29 No.

6:30 A ticky boo.

6:31 I would say that uh everything appears to be ticky boo.

6:35 Good to go.

6:37 Good to go.

6:37 Sounds right when you put it in that context.

6:40 Yeah, in good order.

6:40 It means in good everything's fine.

6:42 Jay nailed it.

6:43 Everything's fine.

6:44 There we go.

6:45 E.

6:45 Right.

6:46 Tickety boo.

6:46 And what's the last one?

6:48 Derby clash.

6:49 Uh, darbies.

6:51 Darbies.

6:51 You might be slapped in darbies.

6:53 Handcuffs.

6:53 There you go.

6:55 Oh, handcuffs.

6:56 I was thinking it was like a a person or something at first.

6:59 Darbies.

7:00 Handcuffs.

7:01 I like not even just the the words like that.

7:03 The Victorian words.

7:04 Just the way Murdoch speaks like

7:07 eloquent eloquently if it is very much so they're well spoken.

7:11 One of the scenes well spoken they are when I think about the actors reading

7:15 the scripts like having to memorize the dialogue

7:18 and then also saying it in that way.

7:21 I wonder is it just like

7:23 is it a learned language?

7:24 Is it like easy is it easy for them?

7:26 Was it hard when they first started?

7:28 And um do they wind up speaking like that at home?

7:32 Like what have you?

7:33 Like what what have you, George?

7:35 Yes.

7:35 Exactly.

7:36 That's that's that is the one of the the most popular Murdochisms out there.

7:40 Yeah.

7:40 Yeah.

7:40 Yeah.

7:41 Exactly.

7:41 So, I have a question.

7:42 There's so many unbelievable science moments in Murdoch.

7:47 I I thought it would be fun if we did a little myth busting.

7:52 Okay.

7:53 Ethan brought up the first episode,

7:55 so we can stick with the first episode for this example.

7:57 In the episode, a woman is killed

8:00 by electricity and a rubber handle conducts electricity,

8:05 which it's not supposed to do.

8:08 Yes.

8:07 But they figured they solved that, too.

8:09 There's graphite in it.

8:11 Sealed itself, but it still had it in there, so it's still a conductor.

8:15 So, is is graphite really a conductor?

8:18 And does it does it melt?

8:19 Because apparently in the episode, it melted the plastic sealed, right?

8:24 It hides it hid it hid its own evidence.

8:27 Does that would that have happened?

8:29 Yeah.

8:29 Would that would that have happened?

8:30 But what is what is the what is the burning point of graphite?

8:34 Can we can we look that up?

8:35 See what I feel like it I feel like it would have the melting point of 700° C.

8:40 So So the electricity is

8:43 so incredibly hot.

8:44 That is so incredibly hot.

8:46 But but didn't he say that it was like a,000?

8:49 Was it 12,200 volts?

8:51 No.

8:51 No.

8:51 I think in that they were talking about like 10,000.

8:53 Okay.

8:53 So 10,000 volts could

8:55 or 20,000

8:57 20,000 a 20,000 volt source with sufficient current or amperage

9:02 and power could certainly heat and uh heat and potentially sublime graphite.

9:07 But the volt voltage figure alone uh so it's not so much about

9:10 the voltage as it is the current which is what the episode is about.

9:13 I feel like in the late 19th

9:15 century a lot of scientific milestones were happening.

9:20 So, I feel like it would be very

9:22 easy to go like within this 50-year time period, or maybe that's even too much.

9:27 Within this 20-year time period, what happened?

9:31 What discoveries were made?

9:33 And we can now weave that into the show.

9:36 Were they careful to um allow these inventions

9:41 or these scientific discoveries to fold out

9:45 year overyear accurately in time or did they just go within this period of time?

9:51 Here are a bunch of theories that were come up with.

9:53 So, this is where this is where my nerdiness comes

9:55 in a little bit because usually while I'm watching episodes,

9:59 I'm also on my phone googling, was this was this invented?

10:05 Like, was is this is this canon?

10:07 Is this right?

10:08 Should this be here?

10:09 And I've only found maybe three items that were out of place so far.

10:16 And one of like one of them was a record player

10:19 just because the model had the model hadn't come out yet.

10:22 Uh, another one was a technique for finding

10:25 whether or not blood was animal or human.

10:28 Yes.

10:28 Uh, which was one of the things they did.

10:30 They used the antibodies and it creates like

10:32 a cool brown line between the antibodies and the blood.

10:35 It's very cool science.

10:36 Uh, but that technique hadn't been published yet.

10:41 So, it was off by just a just like a year.

10:44 Everything else that I've looked up has been just on the button.

10:49 It's almost like they looked ahead and said,

10:51 "All right, when can we start using these different inventions?"

10:55 I like the G the GPS like

10:58 I believe they called it uh geographic

11:00 probabil probability sensor or something like that.

11:03 And Inspector Troy goes, "Ah, GPS." Yes.

11:06 Yes.

11:06 Uh hopefully by the end of this episode,

11:08 you'll be enough of a fan that we'll be talking season 19 here shortly.

11:13 If you do go through uh Acorn like they've got all the old movies which is it's

11:18 an interesting uh juxosition when you look at both

11:21 of the old the original movies and the series very

11:24 there were movies there were Murdoch they started off as movies

11:29 with a very very different tone so much so that the the lead

11:33 Yanuk Bashon uh who plays Murdoch originally they they gave him

11:37 the movies to kind of get an idea of the character and then

11:40 eventually said don't watch those We're We're going in a different direction.

11:44 So, he's not Murdoch in the movies.

11:46 He's not.

11:47 No, they brought Peter Outerbridge,

11:48 the actor that plays uh Murdoch, into the Murdoch series.

11:52 So, we do actually see him.

11:54 You know what was cool?

11:55 I did jump ahead to what I believe was this most recent season,

11:59 but I saw Dave Foley in an episode and then the idea

12:04 of of finding an episode with you in it too, Jay, was cool.

12:08 So, I think that's really awesome that the show has been

12:11 on long enough that you can have like recognizable guest stars.

12:15 You know,

12:16 I've actually heard uh from from a number of people that especially in Canada,

12:21 it's a right of passage.

12:23 Like if you've been on Murdoch, like that's how you know you've made it.

12:26 There's a show before I watched Murdoch, there was a show called Lost Girl.

12:30 Um and so many people from that show is on this show.

12:34 um in in his Shatner's on the show.

12:37 You know Rush, the band Rush.

12:40 Mhm.

12:39 Uh Getty Lee, the bass player, he played a character named Tom Sawyer.

12:43 Astronaut Chris Hadfield was on for an episode.

12:46 It was It was a space

12:48 Wait a second.

12:49 Tell Tell me about how they work in space in the late 19th century.

12:56 It was an episode about Martians.

12:58 Oh, wow.

12:59 That's exciting.

13:00 The the nice thing about Murdoch that we

13:02 see is that uh it's almost like an anthology.

13:05 Every episode connects to the other one, but every episode has a different feel.

13:08 And you have some of those episodes like the the the holiday episodes.

13:12 They they generally tend to have more of a whimsical feel to them.

13:16 During the like Halloween episodes,

13:17 they will do big silly goofy monster stories and then

13:23 they tie it back in a fun way like it, you know, it's just Crabtree Dreaming.

13:27 Yeah.

13:27 They did a musical episode which was awesome the way they did that episode.

13:32 A lot of shows have done it by like stepping into other universes.

13:36 Uh and Murdoch does it through science in a really cool way.

13:41 When you see it, you'll know.

13:42 Do I have to watch 900 episodes to get there?

13:46 350 episodes is not nearly as much as you think.

13:49 350 episodes sounds like uh Mount Everest.

13:53 I want to pivot.

13:54 Like I I knew you had a podcast.

13:56 I didn't know you were writing a book.

14:00 Yeah.

13:59 Can we hear a little bit about the book?

14:01 It's a memoir.

14:03 I'm I'm on my third edit with my publishers.

14:07 I'm I'm late on a deadline.

14:08 I was supposed to have it back to them.

14:10 It's been consuming my entire life these past few weeks.

14:15 So, yeah.

14:16 And we will get the inner workings of Ethan Suple in there.

14:18 Huh.

14:19 Yes.

14:20 Yeah.

14:20 Well, it will all be laid bare.

14:22 Every time I sit down to my computer to write,

14:25 it's like opening a wrist and pouring out my life onto it.

14:28 And it starts from you being a baby boy,

14:31 being on uh Boy Meets World, and then so on and so forth.

14:35 I hope you mentioned Mle Rats.

14:37 Mle Rats is in there.

14:38 Yes.

14:39 That's beautiful.

14:40 I can't wait to get I hopefully I will get a signed copy from someone.

14:44 I've I've been checking out your podcast.

14:46 Will you tell Will you tell everybody about

14:48 your podcast cuz it's really it's such a I relate.

14:51 you and I have had conversations and all of that.

14:53 You know, I um I was put on my first diet at five.

14:57 Throughout my childhood,

14:58 I was then moved from every onto every fad diet that hit Los Angeles.

15:04 Whether it be like night shades are bad or there's things

15:07 in lectins that will kill you or just eat meat or for me,

15:12 I thought I believed for a long time that carbohydrates

15:14 were the sole thing that was making me fat.

15:17 And it turns out after many years of trial and error losing weight and gaining

15:22 it back that I eat carbohydrates every

15:24 day and I'm perfectly fine eating carbohydrates.

15:26 I thought of my obesity and my weight as the problem.

15:32 And that point of view eventually changed to seeing

15:36 that obesity was a symptom of a problem.

15:39 And largely the problem was in my behavior,

15:43 in my proclivities, in my compulsions.

15:46 And once I started working more on my mental health,

15:50 I was able to kind of be successful in my physical pursuits.

15:55 So, the podcast I do, American Glutton,

15:58 is kind of an open freefor-all in this area because I'm not anti, you know,

16:06 the Gundry method or carnivore or keto,

16:09 but I do want to talk about like potential pitfalls

16:12 in all of those things and potential pitfalls in calorie counting.

16:16 Eventually, just tracking my calories

16:19 and my macronutrients was successful for me.

16:22 That doesn't mean it's going to be successful for everybody else.

16:24 It really does come down to realizing that we all

16:27 in this area are individuals with with our own preferences.

16:31 And you know, the only thing that I ever butt up

16:35 against at all is somebody who says everybody needs to do X,

16:38 Y, or Z because that doesn't ring true for me.

16:42 But I'm not going to challenge them and say your diet sucks.

16:46 You know, even if it didn't work for me, it could work for somebody else.

16:49 It's so incredible that we have like the wealth of resource that we do nowadays.

16:53 Could you imagine the tips that you would

16:56 have gotten from people in 1900 on dieting?

17:00 Yeah, I mean that's an interesting um point of view to take,

17:04 but I think that one of the factors that compounds this and one

17:08 of the reasons we see obesity so out

17:10 of control in North America is the environment.

17:14 Like we have worked from, you know, the late 19th century,

17:19 early 20th century through today to make food production so efficient.

17:25 Yes.

17:25 True.

17:26 In Murdoch, we see the first hot pretzel.

17:29 Yeah.

17:30 And hot dogs.

17:30 And they're like, they have this new invention.

17:32 It's it's delicious.

17:33 And like us nowadays,

17:35 it's like I'll crush five of those and then drink a root beer afterwards.

17:38 Well, and there's a hot dog stand on every corner, right?

17:40 An LA like for example.

17:42 I'm curious because I I know how hard it was for me to get from 330

17:45 to to 170 and and the numbers aren't as as important as people think they are.

17:49 They're really not.

17:50 But from from your your your heaviest to where you are now,

17:55 what what is that journey been like?

17:57 My heaviest is I went into a a a rehab, a drug rehab in 2001,

18:03 and in order to go to this drug rehab, I had to be weighed.

18:08 Like that was just part of intake.

18:11 and they didn't have a scale that could accommodate me.

18:13 So, I had to purchase a freight scale and have

18:17 it shipped to the facility out in the middle of Oklahoma.

18:20 I weighed 536 lbs.

18:23 I will be honest, I didn't lose weight in rehab.

18:26 I in fact gained some weight.

18:28 And then when I came out of it,

18:29 I was just really kind of focused on staying sober.

18:34 And so, I didn't think about my weight for a year.

18:37 And one day I woke up and I was like, "Oh,

18:40 I have something else to do." Like, there's more work to be done here.

18:44 And that's when I started working on my weight in earnest.

18:48 And I lost and gained hundreds of pounds multiple times.

18:52 And every time I'd lose weight, I really wanted to pretend I was solved,

18:58 that I was fixed, that I was done.

19:00 I was now a normal person.

19:02 Part of maintaining my weight was becoming

19:05 really honest with myself that this is

19:08 this condition for me similar to substance use is a chronic not acute condition.

19:14 It took me so long to like go oh this is the same this is pretty much the same

19:20 thing with food but food is even slightly more

19:22 complex because I have to eat every day you know and it's socially acceptable.

19:26 food is food is socially acceptable when we go out to eat to celebrate

19:30 and so like figuring out food was a lot more

19:32 complicated and when I admitted to myself that this is

19:36 also a chronic condition that's going to be with me

19:39 for the rest of my life and I have to accept

19:41 that and be okay with it but there are tools

19:44 that I can manage it I can find a structure

19:48 of eating and exercise that is going to produce

19:53 or be in harmony with the life I want to live.

19:57 Can you give any advice for anyone who's stuck and they feel like

20:00 they can't take that step to losing weight and and feeling better and such?

20:05 I lost weight a number of times and every time I lost weight,

20:09 I was disappointed because my life was not profoundly better.

20:14 There were things that were better.

20:16 I could fit in an airplane seat.

20:17 I didn't have to get an extension.

20:19 My feet hurt less.

20:21 My lower back hurt less.

20:22 And these were things I could recognize that were improvements,

20:27 but I would get a minute or two of joy out of that and then

20:32 it would be gone and my life would be relatively the same.

20:36 I wanted to lose weight and and feel self-confident.

20:39 I wanted to lose weight and be a better father,

20:41 a better husband, a better friend, a better co-orker.

20:44 And so what I really tried to do was go like, well, I can be a better husband.

20:49 I can be a better father.

20:51 I can be a better friend, a better co-worker.

20:53 None of that actually has anything to do with weight loss.

20:56 So, how can I start doing all of that today?

21:00 And then if I want to work on my body, I'm going to do it really,

21:04 really slowly and not have this mad dash to a finish line because everything

21:10 else that I've associated with weight loss

21:13 actually has nothing to do with weight loss.

21:15 And then finding a diet that wasn't impossible, didn't make life suck.

21:19 You know, there were so many diets where I was like, well, okay,

21:22 I can suffer through this for 30 or 60 days,

21:26 but it's really those 30 or 60 days are going to be miserable.

21:30 I'm going to be crabby to my wife, crabby to my kids.

21:32 My work is going to suffer.

21:34 I don't do that anymore ever.

21:36 My diet is basically just when I want to lose weight,

21:40 it's just a slightly different version of how I eat to maintain my weight.

21:43 You you found that knob where if you want to put weight on, it's

21:48 just a little bit higher higher caloric intake,

21:50 a little lower if you need to lose.

21:53 That's right.

21:53 But the types of foods I'm eating are exactly the same.

21:56 Finding that place is such a such a such a challenge.

21:59 So, congratulations to you.

22:01 Like, you have crushed you have you have set the standard.

22:06 Thank you, Ethan.

22:08 Thank you so much, man.

22:10 Are you going to watch more Murdoch?

22:12 I am.

22:12 I am.

22:13 I think it's a good show.

22:14 I really, really liked it.

22:15 I didn't know what I was turning on when I turned on the first episode.

22:19 The production value and the quality of the show was so high.

22:23 I just assumed, "Oh, I'm in the most recent season." And then I was even

22:28 surprised when I turned on a new episode cuz I was like,

22:30 "Oh, I must have been in the first

22:31 season." Cuz clearly these people have aged 20 years.

22:34 So, you know, it's one of those things like if

22:37 you put on really old episodes of Law and Order,

22:40 you feel like you're watching a show from the

22:42 19 Blackberries in the background and

22:45 pages and and none of it's dated because it's all dated, right?

22:50 Yes.

22:50 Well, here's my other question for you guys.

22:52 I don't generally consume stuff like this on my phone or computer.

22:58 How would I do that on my TV?

23:00 So, being in the United States, you could watch it through Acorn.

23:04 So, if you go to Amazon Prime, uh, you can subscribe to Acorn.

23:08 Uh, you can get all of the episodes there.

23:10 And then for the Canadian viewers, they can they can watch on CBC Gem.

23:15 I'm excited to see the inventions that they roll out over those 20 years.

23:20 Ethan Suple, thank you so so much, buddy, for jumping on with us, guys.

23:26 I'm so uh I'm so grateful and I just want

23:30 to say thank God Jay has a real outlet to talk

23:34 about this show a little bit out of his system

23:38 by the next time we sit in a car for 2 hours.

23:41 Thank you.

23:42 Did we turn Ethan into a a Murdoch fan?

23:44 I I think we've closed this case.

23:47 Watch full episodes of Murdoch Mysteries on CBC and CBC Gem in Canada.

23:51 If you're in the US, you can catch it on Ovation and Acorn TV.

23:54 And UK viewers can catch it on You and Alibi.