Cursed Popcorn Buckets and the Art of Hurting Your Darlings

The modern movie theater popcorn bucket, Red and Blue argue, has an unspoken requirement: "for it to be a popcorn bucket, it has to be cursed." The implications must be "phallic or fuckable." For Return of the Jedi, they propose a giant Jabba the Hutt with his mouth open, maybe even "a little Leia minifigure on the back with a chain around it." A Yu-Gi-Oh! bucket shaped like the Millennium Puzzle would be "impossible to put down because it's pointy on the bottom." The Alien chestburster could be "another salacious crumb variant where it's like he comes out of the popcorn, but the popcorn's all in the chest." Horror fans, they note, would love this — and they're not joking: "Call us. We will license."

The Fractal Complexity of Research

When asked how they handle the fact that everything interesting is "fractally complex," Red and Blue offer a philosophy born from years of making introductory videos about history and mythology. The fractal complexity itself is "the love of the game — the fact that there is always more to learn is the point." The harder problem is feeling unqualified no matter how much research you do. Blue's advice: "That's perfectionism. You take that out back and shoot it."