The Retro Innovation of ‘The Pitt,’ With Lead Producer John Wells

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It's got incredible visuals, jaw-dropping action and a cinematic achievement.

Avatar Fire and Ash now playing in theaters and now nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects and Best Costume Design. It is Thursday, February 26th. It's a pretty big statement about Hollywood these days that I show the pit on HBO Max feels kind of revolutionary.

It's a procedural medical drama on a platform that made its name avoiding shows like procedural medical dramas. Cost only about $5 million per episode, about half the price of a typical procedure drama. There's 15 episodes per season at a time when many streaming shows are doing six or eight episodes

and here's the biggest shocker. They made the pit in Los Angeles, mostly on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank. That didn't just happen. It's the result of a strategic play by HBO Max and the lead executive producer John Wells to bring back the feeling of those perceived broadcast TV dramas of the 80s and 90s.

And it worked. The pit is not only a major hit, it's one of the two shows on HBO Max that charts on the weekly Nielsen Top 10. It's also one of the best drama series I mean last fall. The second season is now airing.

So I thought it was a great time to have John Wells on the show. He's got one of the great TV producing resumes and Hollywood history. ER, the West Wing, Shameless, Southland, Animal Kingdom. This goes on and on. He was also president of the writer's guilds while asking about that.

And he's worked with so many people in town that he's always one of the most popular

guys in the room. I was certainly true when I said hello at the director's guild awards the other nightmare. Of course, he's show one. We're going to talk about the novel slash retro business model for the pit.

I was influencing the development of other shows, HBO Max, trying to do a cop show now on the similar model. Some of the tax incentive issues in California, how an upcoming episode of the pit involving ice had to be scaled back a bit. Lots more to talk about.

So today it's John Wells and how to make a hit show in LA without going broke. I'm the ringer and puck. I'm that felony and this is the town. Okay, we are here with John Wells, writer, director, producer, executive producer of the pit founder of John Wells Productions former president of the writer's guild of America.

Did I miss anything? No, I think that's it. You know, it's funny. I was thinking back to how I know you and you were part of one of the most notorious Hollywood round, Hollywood, round tables of all time.

Do you remember this? I do. It was like 2009, 2010, in the middle of the writer's strike in Aaron Sorkon, who you worked with many times at West Wing, obviously, we were in the middle of this and he spouts this line where he said something like, if the writers want to make more money, they should

write better. And we're saying they were like, Aaron, you're sitting with the president of the writer's guild. And a guy that you have worked with for years, you can't say that to him. I just really left me out in the cold on that one.

Yeah. I imagine you probably had some words with him after that was all over. We've been working together so long that I was not surprised, you know, very unbranded for him.

“And I think your response was very even killed, very unbranded for you.”

You know, I was the president of the guild. I was, I needed to have a measured response, right? Of course. All right. So I wanted you on to talk about the pit because there's many issues, business issues that

come up with this show that I think, you know, there's a bit of a lot written about it. But I wanted to talk to you specifically about the model for the show, how you guys are trying to, you know, have a template for other shows to follow to keep this kind of old school broadcast style quality show in existence in the streaming age.

The first of all, I wanted to why was it so difficult?

Why is this considered innovative to do 15 episodes? So on a broadcast style model, for a streaming service, like, why is this, why was this a thing? You know, it's interesting. People talked to me, it come up to me and say, how in the world do you do 15 episodes? And I was like, when you're, I did 66 between three different shows between West Wing

and Iran. Third one. So no, it's, I think there are a lot of things. One, the shows themselves in the competition during the streaming wars. It got bigger and bigger.

And they just became because you're trying to attract a lot of eyeballs. You had a lot of very well-known people who were appearing these and the, and literally, when

“you're doing world building, just the CGI and everything that you have to do to get”

it back on the air and how expensive they are. It made it more and more difficult to do a lot of episodes.

streamer show, you know, because we were going to be on HBO Max. And that can duplicate the sense of having a lot of story, a lot of episodes. And more importantly, allow the audience to become connected to a show again. I mean, I think one of the things we have lost with the shorter episode shows that don't appear except every couple of years is the, is the connection that the audience has with

those characters. And the desire to come back and make it part of their lives. Totally agree with you. You know, what we used to talk about it is, is water cooler, but now, of course, it's all social media.

People want to show that they're show that they connect to it, that they can find it. They can tell it to people about it. And then the next day, after they've watched it or after the weekend, after they've watched it, they can talk with their friends about it, talk about it, change social media, tweet about it, do whatever you want to do.

“I think that's actually an important part of the viewing experience.”

And we've gotten away from it into the streaming simply because of the size of the show, is how long they take to produce the streaming, the drop-all of the episodes, you know, at once Netflix model, which makes it very difficult. Again, none of these are particularly original observation for me, but we all have this experience of having watched something and come, you know, on a, they got dropped as a full

six or eight episode or even coming in and saying, "Hey, are you watching in the other person?" I'm only on episode two. I don't want to talk about it. Or you finish it and you're like, "Wow, that's a great cliffhanger.

Can't wait to pick it up in two and a half years when they get around and make it more." So we were, you know, Warner Brothers' approach is about doing some more HBO Max and also David Zasselot, just about, you know, "Can we do it?" And we were like, "Well, absolutely. I don't know if the audience is primed for or not, but the advantage of doing this show

on HBO is that we can, on HBO Max is that we can do it realistically, which gave us a new thing to show where to talk about with these medical professionals. Actually, see what they really go through. God, Zasselot must just love this show. It's exactly his dream.

It wins the awards. Everybody talks about it.

“It does huge ratings and it doesn't cost an arm in a way."”

Now, there are real efficiencies that people are aware of when you can build a single set and shoot on it, you know, and we shoot nine day episodes and we built the set at the beginning of it. It was an expensive set that having built on it, we shoot it on it every single day. Yes.

Another whole backstory that was, you know, the original idea was an ER sequel and we're not going to get into the lawsuit or any of that stuff. I do want to talk about some of the business issues with the show because you guys shoot this in LA and because of that and because you get a pretty big tax credit for it. Some of the financials on the show are public and, you know, you employ according to the

filings, you employ about 1,000 casting crew members.

You film 135 days in state and you spent about $65 million for this second season.

Is that the entire budget that you get a credit against or like, what percentage, 15 episodes cost about how much per episode? The per episode, you know, this year is a little more than last year but we were under $6 million per episode. Okay.

Yeah. So that's about 75 million for a season which is pretty darn cheap for the number of episodes that you're getting. Out of it, and I imagine there are efficiencies that you can use for going season to season. Yeah, we have a built set so we're just back shooting on something that we bought last

year or so. Yeah. Right. And I'm only, you know, we're only a couple of episodes into season two but there's not a lot of outside shots on the show.

It's about one day one shift so you're there the whole time with the workers. But last season you did go to Pittsburgh, right, and shoot a couple of scenes. Yeah. And we did again this year. We go and shoot sort of the beginning in the end and then a couple of scenes when

people walks outside of the hospital or up onto the helicopter pad. But no, it's it's almost entirely shot on stage in Los Angeles.

Was that always the plan?

“You, I thought you moved it from Pittsburgh in order to get the credit, right?”

And no, we were, it was always the plan. And a large part of that was we knew from the beginning. We used each season now. We've used around 250 speaking parts. And so just the economies of being someplace where you have, you know, over two

seasons, 500 actors that you can hire. If you're in Pittsburgh or if you're in most places other than New York City, you're going to be flying hundreds of actors in very quickly. So that's one of the real advantages of it. And we get a great crew that's a, that's a California crew that wants to be home and

it's happy to be home. And so all of that works really well. I know it's like the old school dream that people have. They don't got, they don't have to go to Bulgaria to make their show. I think we literally had three crew members out of the 150 crew members leave after the

first season who didn't return in the second, you know, who's your lead casting director

on the show? Kathy Sandrichen. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing cast.

Everybody is amazing. She was originally.

She's like, how many people are there every week?

So maybe on the fantasy.

“Well, and you have to find these extras, said it to sit in the waiting room, the entire”

season. When they come in for seven months, we have a reading library that Noah founded. It's just off, just a little like a library of books and, and so underneath most of those blankets are, are actually books that people are reading. They have a little club and the few of them have read as many as 12 or 13 books during

the seven months. So, and these guys literally, they sit there and the, because they have to be there and those scenes when they walk by the waiting room and it's the same people for the entire season. Yeah.

And they're fantastic because they have, they're actually told what it is that they're

in for and they're, they go through props and everything every morning.

And then the day is, is planned out. So they know when they're going to get their meal during the, during the entire time, when they're going to get their x-rays, et cetera, for every single patient. It's a, it's a, it's a really beautiful thing that the AD staff does.

“So, you, you must have people reaching out to you other producers saying, how did you do”

this and how can we do this? And what advice do you say to them? Like, why haven't we seen copycat shows that are on this model? Well, things go slowly. I think there are several that are in various processes of trying to do it.

And they will be able to do it. It's, in large part, and I want to be really frank about this. The support that we got from HBO Max to do it once we came in and said, this is what we're planning to do was a tremendous and allowed us to do it. There was not a lot of second guessing what we're up to.

So, larger the budget, the harder it is to get a full buy-in and create a freedom. Yeah, this is not that much of a risk. I mean, did you think it was a risk?

Well, you always think that something might not work, but I didn't feel like I was, you

know, spending $14, $15 million an episode for something, and that is a huge risk. Well, and it's a proven star in this genre. You've done this show version of it before. This has got, and yeah, yeah, like this is a no-brainer to me. The thing that was surprising to me is that not just that it was a good show that people

watched, but that it became an award show. Because you don't typically see procedural type shows get that award's attention. And I know the HBO brand goes a long way in that regard. And it would have been a uphill battle if this was for CBS or P.Cock or somewhere else.

“But the fact that you executed on the level to get the award's attention, I think, was”

the surprise. Certainly surprised to us, I would be lying if I said we weren't surprised. At the same time, I think the community really embraced it, particularly acting community, because all of these wonderful actors who are getting to work on the show. And I think that's a big part of how we ended up getting all that attention along with

the medical professionals who saw it and said they're really doing it, what we do, the really showing what we do. Yeah, we were talking before you came on about how one of Craig's family members is a doctor and it's pretty damn accurate. It's as best we can.

Yeah, I also think the award stuff is helped by exactly what you said. People want this kind of show to succeed. You know, severance is a great show and people love it, but it's the streaming style show. Our tour driven drops every 10 episodes or whatever, every 3 years, and it's like little

movies. This yours is a television show in the old school way. Do you think TV is headed that direction? Do you think we're kind of emerging from the streaming era and kind of regressing a little in the kinds of shows that we're going to embrace?

Well, I would say that I don't think it's necessarily a regression. It's a kind of storytelling that we've done since the beginning of television. And streaming is increasingly becoming, as I think it has to, becoming just replacing broadcast television. You know, there's a reason that the streamers are competing for live sports and, you

know, live events and, and because they're really providing the same go to one place and try and see a lot of different things, have lots of different choices that we had during the cable TV broadcast and cable television system. So I think there's those face for everybody. I think the people want these kind of shows.

I think people still want to see good sitcoms that they can laugh at and then they want to see the upper, the additional version of it that's happens on streaming. What's interesting though is that when you look at the weekly nails and charts and what really performs on streaming service, it's these library shows shows with 200, 300 episodes, you know, NCIS, you know, Bob's burgers, West Wing, these shows that have huge libraries

that people still get into and yet when you look at the originals being produced by most streaming services, it's not that they're not even trying to create the kinds of shows that could go 100 or 200 episodes.

license those shows. We don't need to make them because we can license them and what brings people into the service is new, new, new, new, the fire hose, something you haven't seen yet and the comfort, the old library stuff is what keeps them and what eats up the hours, but we want the new.

And I don't know if I necessarily agree with that.

I feel like a new show that can deliver 100, 200 episodes is going to ultimately deliver

more value both now and into the future. And if you're making it in Netflix or Amazon or one of the others and you can own it

“and control your destiny, then why not take more swings in that arena?”

Well, I think you're on to some, I think that's actually where it is headed. And when you look at what's going on right now where Netflix would like to buy one or others or why are they buying one or why are they buying one, that's the reason. And for that expertise, but I think you're also going to see many more attempts to keep shows going. And when you look at like what happened, you know, they're doing another

season of Ted Lasse. So that's extremely important to Apple. They want more of those. I think if they could do 10 seasons of Ted Lasse, they would do 10 seasons of have you heard what's today, because it's making. I haven't, I don't really follow. If there is a situation where there was ever leverage, the number, I mean, still the number

one show an Apple when we turn on. If they don't have something new, it's always in the

top 10. I'm like, at this point, who has subscribed to Apple TV plus and has not watched Ted Lasse or is it just people watching it over and over again? They just want to

“feel good. I think that's the case. I mean, I, you know, we have West Wing and, um, and”

made 167 of them. I think and I can't tell you how often I run into people who say I just watched West Wing again because it, oh, I did it during you. Yes, it may be feel very good. And my father and I was doing right now. He's like, oh, man, that John Goodman, he's a great addition. Like, oh, yeah, that happened. Well, we get all different. Because that's we did a show that I was really proud of called animal kingdom for TNT that went on Dead Netflix

and did really well this last summer. And people stop down the street all the time and to say, I love your new show on Netflix. And I'm think they're talking about untamed to

which we did and they're all like, no, no, no, animal kingdom. I think, oh, well, he made

it 11 years ago, but sure, but new show on Netflix. Right, grandson told me that when his show time show, your honor went on Netflix. And, you know, it was on show time during the pandemic and people, you know, didn't really know. It happened. It's a good show. So on Netflix people think it's like, I know, that's a whole separate topic. And someday, if this deal goes through, maybe all of your shows is permanently, permanently beyond Netflix. Yeah,

it's, but I do to your point. I think what we're going to see is a combination. I think we're going to see, you know, what would be the same thing is the way that the whole theatrical distribution system worked, which was you had certain blockbusters that came and drove people into the theaters. And then you had a number of other shows that were on going

“that were important. So I think we're going to see shows that have multiple episodes”

that everybody's going to be moving towards that, but not as the only model. It's going to be a combination of things. Life sports event, limited series that come back on, that people connect to every couple of years. You're just not going to be able to do a house of dragons every year, no matter what you wanted to do. It's not going to happen. Did you see that NBC is saying that they're bringing back a version of pilot season? It's

not quite the same. It's not like when they used to make a hundred or whatever, but they are going to try more, which seems smart. Well, look, it's what HBO Max does. They didn't do it on our show because the on the pit because the set itself to build it was large enough and expensive enough that it didn't make sense. But they, they make pilots to see if it's working. There's a lot of advantage to it because you get a chance to see what's working,

not working. You make adjustments into your writer's room. There are real advantages to it. So I think it got a bit of a bad rap back in the day. Well, there were too many. I mean, the notion of doing, you know, 20, 30 pilots to pick a couple shows like that to me doesn't make sense anymore. And doing it all at the same time and competing for the exact same people. Exactly. I mean, I was thinking back to that. It was nuts. You know, you had these business

affairs. People sang up all night doing these test deals on 10 different shows that we're all shooting at the same time. Yeah. Crazy. So that doesn't make sense. But I do think that the era of these straight to series and, you know, without testing stuff out, like you can do that, but you're, you know, you're not going to have the same kind of quality I don't think. So you're a believer in that. Well, I'm a believer in it for certain things. I think

there are times when it makes a lot of sense to do it. But again, trying to do it in this where you're competing where you've got floor actors that everybody wants for 30 shows was in the same with Clooney, a hot commodity when you were casting ER. Well, that's complicated. He was somebody who people felt was going to break. He had done a couple of failed. But he and kept getting cast. He was like the Kyle Bornheimer. He's done a bit early 90s. That guy

we wanted him for it. He wanted to do it. He actually George was sort of fantastic on the

“lot, known well on the lot for going around and getting all the scripts before anybody got picked”

up and deciding and hoping things that he'd want to do. But he said he wanted that part and he told less moon vest. He wanted that part. He had another thing that he was going to be the lead of

that he didn't want to do. And he came in and said, I want to do this. So, he was the first person

who got cast on the show. Was no widely last? No, while he was dead last. He was just fun and 21, 22 year old kid who was waiting tables and West Hollywood. So, yeah, with the hard conversation to get him to come back, it was his idea. He wanted to, you know, like so many people and it's one of the advantages of doing a show in Los Angeles. He in the years since we did ER. He hadn't worked in Los Angeles. He'd done a show in Vancouver. He'd done a show in New Orleans. He'd done a show. And

he's got a family and, you know, the desire to come back is those we ended up doing shameless in Los Angeles because Bill Macy would do it if he could be in Los Angeles because he had two young girls. So, people want to be at home. They want to see their families. We have great

crews. And if we can figure out the way financially to make it work for the show, they're tremendous

advantages to shooting in Los Angeles. I know, that was the craziest thing when I found out that shameless was made in LA because you could not tell how long would you go to Chicago? We went we went a couple of different times a year for like two weeks and and got a lot of stuff. But there's also a lot of North Hollywood that the back alleys and the laundromats look a lot like Chicago. Right. All right. So, let's get to the how the tax incentives work on this because not every

production gets what they want, correct? So, what percentage of your budget is offset by the California tax credit? I don't actually know that I can tell you it's probably 20 somewhat percent all done. You know, I'd have to go and ask somebody in the accounting office. But it makes a difference. It makes a huge difference for us. And particularly since if we were going to make 15 of them, the FHBO was going to commit that upfront, you know, everything that we could do to make

“that more a less of a risk for them at this number was very important. Was it still more expensive”

in LA than if you had gone to Pennsylvania? No, Pennsylvania would have more, be more expensive. For some of the reasons that I told you earlier, one is to fly people and fly people in and out and the availability of the crew and particularly for this show, we do a lot of prosthetics and there's a lot of visual effects and things that we do that would have been very difficult. So, if I look away and I can't watch. Yeah. Yeah. So, there's a lot of skilled work

that goes into the doing of it. By the way, I heard that I don't think the episode is aired yet, but I heard there is an ice situation on an episode coming up this season and that HBO actually asked you guys to tone it down a little. Is that correct? Well, no, not tone it down a little bit. If there is an ice situation coming up because it's a real issue in emergency rooms and in fact, there was just recently a New York Times article about it, even though we shot this a couple

months ago. No, they just want to make sure it was balanced. The thing we have to be careful about when we're talking about any of these issues, when we're talking about vaccines, when we're talking about the way in which the healthcare system works, is to make certain that we're actually presenting both points of view because we're not really in the business operation of the choir on the show. There are real issues about immigration and there are real issues about immigration

enforcement within public health system in which you really need people to come in.

“So, that's what we were dealing with. And they just wanted to make sure it was balanced, but they”

weren't saying don't do this or don't do that. In fact, quite the opposite. We showed them a lot of the research and they were like, yeah, that looks like good story. And do you think that was a creative note? Or do you think that was a politically-minded note? We don't want to ruffle any feathers. This show is getting a lot of attention now. Yeah, I mean, not that I heard from them specifically, so I couldn't really guess. I can say that all of this are approaching what's going on in this

country right now with a certain trepidation and also awareness that there are some possible

risks to telling certain kinds of stories. But when we first pitched that I thought, oh, you know,

this was right when we were getting ready to shoot it right when the Netflix Warner Brothers was you know, negotiate with Paramount, Netflix, Comcast to ever. That's kind of what I'm getting. Yeah. And so I was a little like, I'm going to let them know that we're doing it. I don't want to be in a situation where it's a surprise. And their response was, good story, just make sure it's balanced and we're not just treating the situation as if it doesn't have

other points of view. I actually think that we're trying to appeal to a broad audience, so we know that there are plenty of people in our audience who have a different point of view

and the nurses? And if as long as it's truthful, I think that people stick with us. And the emergency room is a great setting for these kinds of issues because they all come up. It's like the one place where everybody in society mixes. And you don't know who's coming through the door next and what they might believe. Yeah. And we also are in a world in which people don't feel as comfortable. We have people who feel very comfortable expressed in our opinion.

But most people are nervous about expressing an opinion because they don't know. You've been on Twitter later. What the reaction is going to be one-on-one on Twitter. You get to do it without actually having to say it to somebody's face. That's true. So we try to think conscious about that. Do you follow

“the guild politics as much as you once did? How are you feeling about the upcoming negotiations?”

Well, I haven't been on the boarder in office for years. So I try and stay informed. But you know, you're a sounding board I would guess for people. What are you thinking going in? What is the appetite out there for another strike? I just feel like it would be so devastating. I don't think there's an appetite ever really for a strike to tell you the truth that usually gets, you know, every strike is a failed negotiation, right? And it just usually means that people were talking

across purposes. I think that the specifics now are such that they should be able to really

negotiate. But you never know if it's not received well, you know, the health plan, the pension plans,

the difficulty people have with employment that changes at employment. These are all real issues. The writers go this into hiring hall, but they do need to be concerned. As members need to be concerned on how do we best protect the members? Because the guild is really there to provide health and pension. It's there to, you know, protect credits and to make certain that people get paid at certain minimums that are negotiated. Well, the numbers have been scary. The drop in employed

writers that drop in wages, I mean, that with fewer episodes, it really, it's come down, especially since the last strike. It's there's no question that, you know, that we were headed

“into a retrenchment in the entire industry. Everybody sort of knew it. And I think that was part”

of what led to the strike on both sides, which is fears of what was coming. But then it almost exacerbated. I mean, I get death messages all the time from people like, what did we do? Like,

and, and I don't, I know it's not, I'm not blaming one side of the other. That's always the

problem, which is, you know, when you're in a situation in which there's a lot of fear about what's coming and, you know, AI, particularly at that time, but still now is an issue. Both sides can can clinch up a bit in the negotiation and then you end up in these impasses. And at the end of it, you always look at each other with whatever you end it up, negotiating for and say, why couldn't we done that on the back of a napkin at the polo lounge

like in 1956. Yeah, I'll give you my pinky ring if you guys don't strike. Yeah. I mean, part of that's because the business has changed so substantially. I mean, you know,

“and the way in which people employ does change so substantially. I mean, you know,”

very difficult. All right. Well, I appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you very much. Good luck with the rest of the season. Thank you so much. Nice talking to you. We're back with the call sheet Craig. We have now been doing the town long enough where we have a sequel to a movie that we have previously discussed in a call sheet on the town. Congratulations. I know. It's all the horror films. Five nights at Freddy's, Screams, Megan.

They can turn those out. We've been doing the show more than three years than we've had a couple of horror sequels. And now we have Screams 7. Scream 6 was the biggest of the of the screen movies. And it's opening weekend. It opened to 44.4 million on its way to 166 worldwide. Not bad. What are you thinking on this one? Because the tracking is at about 43. We're taping this a couple days in advance. But the tracking I've seen has been 43 from NRG. Some of the other services have

it higher than that. Why don't we set the line at 45? I feel like, you know, from a horror perspective, 2026 has been a little slow. Need Campbell is back in this movie. She was not in Scream 6.

It was the only Screams she's not in. Never Campbell, Craig. Please. Oh, it's never Campbell.

Oh, it's always been never Campbell. Oh, it's been never. Oh, she's got a show. She's a genuine Gen X icon. So please do not disrespect her. You're right. But then we just did wild things on the real hospital. So I should have gotten that right. You know what? You know what I respect about the screen movies. I have not seen the recent ones that like this new trilogy reboot. But they're really good at casting young stars. I mean, Scream 567, Mikey Madison, Jack Quay,

Jenna Ortega, they're really good at casting young up and cumbers in these movies. Yeah, they were taken over. The franchise started a dimension, which was a Weinstein company, and then we threw all the bit of from bankruptcy, and all of that nonsense. They were taken over by Spyglass,

spats in the past when he ran MGM. He was kind of a, uh, not a very friendly figure.

But he's done well with this franchise. And this one, you mentioned young stars. They famously fired Gary Barber fired Melissa Barrera off of this movie for some posts that he did not agree with

that he said were anti-Semitic. She claimed they were just pro-peace. They were pro-Palestinian.

Probably not going to see a lot of that press in the run up to this movie. They are not doing

“a lot of press in the run up to this movie. Exactly for that reason. Um, but I think this movie”

is going to perform. I'm going to take the over on 45. We should also say this movie is directed

by Kevin Williamson for the first time. He's the original writer of Scream. He has not directed any

of the movie. So this is the directorial debut for Scream. And I think it's only the second movie he's ever directed. Yeah. He was a big deal in the 90s. He created Dawson's Creek, which, uh, you know, gave us James Vanderbeek. And he is a, I know what you did last summer.

“He wrote that. Yeah. He was a very big deal. And it's interesting. I think for the,”

the old school fans, they will appreciate them coming back for this one. Um, are you taking the over? These movies just feel very reliable to me. So yes, I will. Okay. Yeah. Well, but this would be a slight improvement over the last ones. But I'm going to, I'm going to take it. I'm going to think that

“I think that we'll get about 45 probably a little more. All right. That's the show for”

day. I want to take my guest John Wells. Pretty super choral back. Art is just a little fancy John Jones. And I want to thank you. We'll see you next week. [MUSIC PLAYING]