A Mediocre Time with Tom & Dan: Episode Notes

Episode: 895, "Tom & Dan in a Tizzy"
Hosts: Tom Vann, Dan Dennis (with Ross McCoy in studio) | Guest: Michael McWhorter ("Tizzy"); pet expert Sam (Zoom, opening segment)

Sponsors / Ad Reads

• Core Flooring Center (coreflooringfl.com): Owner Corey works in the Winter Park showroom. Made-in-the-USA waterproof laminate, vinyl plank, wood and carpet, plus dustless tile removal. 0% financing for 24 months, prices starting around $1 a square foot, and 10% off flooring and labor for a limited time if you say Tom and Dan sent you. Dan's sister-in-law Alex redid her condo with them, and listener Eddie the Biker is about to call them.
• Fairvilla (fairvilla.com): Halloween costumes built to last for years, mix-and-match pieces, and a range from sexy to non-sexy, including onesies, festival wear, shoes and roller skates. A host mentions his handmade leather kilt. Multiple Central Florida locations.
• Bud Docs (buddocs.org): Medical marijuana recommendations with Dr. Shen Latte. Locations include Hunters Creek, Tampa and Melbourne, with same-day appointments. After the first in-person visit, renewals are virtual. Pricing: $99 for transfers, $125 for existing patients, $175 for new patients. They also share dispensary first-visit deals. The hosts read a listener email: when the listener said he heard about Bud Docs on a podcast, the doctor guessed Tom and Dan right away.

Segment Rundown

1. Straight Talk: pet expert Sam. Dan opens by saying his dog Dansby has dermatitis and sends him a hello. Sam joins on Zoom from the South Shore of Montreal. He walks 35 dogs off leash in a 175-acre private forest and jokes that he keeps count by counting legs and dividing by four.
2. Caller Harold and Bilbo. Harold's 8-year-old rabbit-hunting dog keeps tearing up his mattress and got into his kratom powder. Sam suggests redirecting the dog's search instinct into a scent game on command. Harold gets more and more profane, and the hosts drop the call.
3. Caller Susan's bandana dogs. Susan has about 16 rescue miniature dogs that won't keep their color-coded bandanas on, and she floats spray adhesive or hot glue as a fix. She also says the dogs drink sweetened coffee and that she lives in Barbados. Sam steers her away from all of it and suggests frozen chicken or beef stock instead. Another profane caller gets put through by mistake and is asked to hang up. Sam spells out his website, and the hosts call it a "snake eyes" day for live radio.
4. Show open and introducing Tizzy. It's the Friday free show, with Ross McCoy in studio. The hosts joke about Sam losing dogs to polar bears and treating forests like everyone has one. They introduce longtime friend of the show Michael McWhorter, known as Tizzy, the guest with by far the biggest following they've had.
5. The Predators video flashback. Around 2011 or 2012, Michael was a listener who did the After Effects work on the hosts' Orlando Predators "300 kick" video. He also animated their logo spin, which the show used until about a year ago. This is also the show's original connection to Rick Ross.
6. Tizzy's film origin story. A Details magazine piece on Robert Rodriguez and his book "Rebel Without a Crew" convinced Michael, then working moving and AC installation jobs, to go for it. He left film school early to learn on sets. He bought a DVX100 with help from his grandmother, found local bands through MySpace's search tool to shoot their music videos, and won a RED camera contest plus a $25,000 grand prize.
7. Music video editing career. He built a reputation as a fast editor working at a flat rate, then ran a Miami post-production facility. He has cut more than 300 music videos, including work for Hype Williams, Beyonce, The Pretty Reckless, Rick Ross, Pitbull, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Daddy Yankee and reggaeton artists. The hosts relate his speed to their own fast-moving small business and to Tony Palmiotti's cruise business.
8. TikTok beginnings. Vine's limits appealed to him, and he started making TikToks while waiting on renders. His first viral clip, a fake beard-shaving video set to Imogen Heap that he almost deleted, became a trend. Annoyed by misinformation spreading on TikTok, he began debunking it, which grew into identifying people seen behaving badly on video.
9. How identification works. Victims started asking for help when police said they'd charge someone if he could be identified. Often he finds the person and passes the information along without ever making a video. Dan shares how a single Instagram post identified a man who dented his car door within 14 minutes. Tizzy calls the internet "one giant small town," and the hosts bring up the birthday paradox and six degrees of Kevin Bacon.
10. Ethics of internet justice. The hosts compare cases like the Hawaii monk seal incident and Steve Bartman. Tizzy says he "swings a pretty big hammer," so he weighs whether the backlash would fit what the person did. His test is whether anything that happened before the camera rolled could justify what's on screen. He won't post addresses or phone numbers and discourages threats. Example: a man who punted a kitten in Texas and kept bragging about it was later fired, arrested and fined.
11. Self-identifiers and threats. A man who punched a woman messaged Tizzy on his own, which identified him. A man who posted slurs alongside a photo of his own business card left a threatening voicemail, and Tizzy answered by sending him Florida's stand-your-ground statute. Tizzy says he is in therapy for the toll the work takes, and his therapist compared him to the canary in the coal mine. Also mentioned: critics who object when he posts something lighthearted, like a Garth Brooks concert.
12. Garth Brooks and "hands of leather." A callback to an old bit about a Garth song involving a widow and a farmhand. The hosts float a "leather hands" T-shirt.
13. Celebrity followers. Alan Ritchson followed Tizzy before he was cast as Reacher and later thanked him for being an early supporter. Channing Tatum messaged him about Publix fried chicken. The follow Tizzy was most excited about was composer Michael Giacchino, known for the Up score and Werewolf by Night.
14. Getting the Discovery show made. Greg Grunberg of Heroes reached out, and they developed the show over about three years with the production company behind Snapped. A Discovery subsidiary had it first under a working title like "Disturbing the Peace." Then the head of main Discovery described exactly that show in a pitch meeting and claimed it. It survived merger uncertainty and executive turnover, and Tizzy values that it created crew jobs.
15. Lawyers, blurring and the title. Corporate fear of lawsuits led to some faces being blurred late in production, though everyone shown had already been identified. A fan suggested adding a QR code that links to the unblurred originals. The favorite working title was "How to Catch an Asshole," marketing rejected it, and "Dirtbag" stuck after someone used it as a placeholder in emails. It airs internationally, including in Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea, which sets off a riff on Kim Jong-un responding to it. There's also a tangent about promo press kits, like Dan's American Idol hoodie with thumb holes.
16. Jacksonville Beach dock clip. They play Tizzy's video of an older couple at a Jacksonville Beach condo harassing teenagers who were fishing off a dock. One of the kids later told Tizzy he just wanted to catch a sheepshead to take home and eat. Neighbors identified the man, reportedly retired from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. They discuss "one bad day" as no excuse. Dan brings up his fear that a neighbor would post a selectively edited clip of their July 4th hose dispute.
17. Repeat offenders and cold cases. Tizzy recognized a Las Vegas livestream harasser by his voice when he resurfaced in California pepper-spraying women. In one stream, a woman broke his nose, which helped confirm it was him. A Washington DIY auto shop firebombing remains unsolved and bothers him. He has found people with no social media through wedding photos posted online. Minority Report vs. Terminator jokes follow.
18. Cruise and Trail of Terror plugs. About 230 people are booked on the Tom and Dan Cruise 2027 so far, a group of inside cabins remains at the original price, and the deposit is refundable. The hosts plan a vendor walk-through video at the St. Cloud Trail of Terror.
19. Crude locker-room tangent. A short off-color bit about flexibility, a college acquaintance, and how earlier generations passed around homemade videos compared with today.
20. OutKast x Waffle House collab. Merch includes tees (Andrea got Dan the bootleg-style vintage tee and a storefront tee), a work shirt, a hoodie, a jacket, a bucket hat and a $70 laser-engraved spatula on pre-order. The hosts brainstorm other music-and-restaurant pairings: Jimmy Buffett with Orange Julius or Hooters, then Limp Bizkit with Hooters as the winner, with a crude sauce joke.
21. Caller Debary Joe on Buffett. He points to "Why Don't We Get Drunk" as Buffett's love song. A host remembers a raunchier live lyric. Then a mention of McDonald's Hello Kitty x Godzilla Happy Meal toys, how small Happy Meal fries are now, and why McDonald's apple slices never brown, plus a tip on soaking pumpkins in vinegar.
22. Toys R Us comeback. On a father-son steak dinner, Tom and his son Tommy passed the old sunken Toys R Us on 436, which is now a Hobby Lobby. Tom's wife Crystal had bought signage when the Oviedo Mall store closed, and Toys R Us is returning there. The group debates whether standalone toy stores can survive when kids prefer iPads.
23. Old toys and collecting. A host remembers Stompers 4x4s, and the group pulls up photos. They also cover airport-gift toys, KB Toys, Micro Machines and their fast-talking pitchman, and GoBots vs. Transformers. Dan admits he was sad when Maisie gave up her American Girl dolls for dance. They reminisce about in-store game demos like the Game Boy kiosk at Zayre. A host tells how ordering Harley-Davidson diecast models online killed the fun of the hunt, and the collection was donated to a church sale and thrown out. Also mentioned: McFarlane toy crate exclusives and West Coast Choppers' Jesse James.
24. Band intro and plugs. XCOM (teens from Venice Beach) with "Fake ID," which Tom heard on SiriusXM. Mo's Comedy Jam moves to a Saturday at the Funny Bone with Ross producing. Merch Man Eric is clearing out the storage unit and posting old BDM shirts for $5.
25. Tizzy's hot mic and AI scheduling. It turns out Tizzy stayed the whole previous segment without anyone realizing. There's a bit about a host's new AI calendar assistant mangling entries like "Ross McCoy." Tizzy explains anemoia, nostalgia for things you never experienced, like Gen Z missing Blockbuster. Drive-in theater memories and Michael vs. Tizzy nicknames follow.
26. Banned from TikTok. Tizzy's account with 8.1 million followers is banned for the fifth time in about four months from mass reporting. He says the TikTok Creator Fund pays very little, though a friend made far more from it. YouTube and Facebook still pay. Instagram pays almost nothing. He talks about shadowbans and fans who say they were silently unfollowed.
27. Followers vs. real reach. Tom vents that brands go by follower counts even though the show's engagement is stronger, and Tizzy explains bot-detection tools. They talk about niche creators like the Chinese-buffet food-poisoning guy, the one-star hotel blacklight reviewer, and "Johnny Sips," along with brand deals that fall through when brands look at Tizzy's content.
28. Leverage with Discovery. The network first treated Tizzy as "on-air talent" and made a low offer, which he laughed off because he makes more per post. Because he doesn't depend on the show, he kept the freedom to post what he wants. A listener named Westmoreland jokingly unfollowed over the sauce bit. Big Boi is into owls and serious grilling, and Guy Ritchie makes grills for celebrities.
29. Famous followers roundup. The hosts compare notable followers, including Amy Kaufeldt and the A Day to Remember drummer. Pete Holmes once followed someone and made them afraid to tweet.
30. Wrap and final plugs. Ross plugs his Orlando talk show and a Whatnot copper sale. Tizzy plugs his show and describes the first episode's infamous road-rage incident: the woman involved first agreed to appear, her attorney talked her out of it, and she later complained the episode made her look bad. The hosts sign off until Monday.

Key Dates / Plugs Mentioned

• August 5 (premiere): Tizzy's Discovery Channel show (said on air as "To Catch a Dirtbag" / "How to Catch a Dirtbag"). Eight-episode first season, now on Discovery, HBO Max and Discovery+, with international releases coming.
• Tonight (day of recording): Ross McCoy's Whatnot sale at All American Bullion FL.
• Next Thursday: Tom and Dan film a vendor walk-through at the St. Cloud Trail of Terror.
• October 9 and 10, then two more weekends: St. Cloud Trail of Terror at Peghorn Park. Six dates total, tickets at tomanddan.com.
• Upcoming Saturday (date not given): Mo's Comedy Jam at the Funny Bone, tickets at mocomedyjam.com.
• Ongoing: $5 clearance of old BDM shirts and other past merch at tomanddan.com.
• Ongoing: Core Flooring 10% off for a limited time, Fairvilla Halloween costumes, and Bud Docs same-day appointments.
• January 31, 2027: The OutKast x Waffle House spatula pre-order ships.
• 2027: Tom and Dan Cruise 2027 (tomanddancruise2027.com), about 230 booked. Refundable deposit holds the price, and a few inside cabins remain at the original rate.
• Follow: Tizzy as "Tizzy" on every platform (TikTok currently banned). Sam's pet website was spelled on air, but the transcript is unclear.

Notable Guests/Callers

• Michael McWhorter (Tizzy): In-studio guest. Social media creator, music video editor, and host of the Discovery Channel dirtbag show.
• Sam: Pet expert and off-leash dog walker from the South Shore of Montreal, on Zoom for the Straight Talk segment.
• Harold: Caller with a hunting dog named Bilbo that destroys mattresses. Dropped for profanity.
• Susan: Caller from Barbados with about 16 rescue miniature dogs and a bandana problem.
• Unnamed caller: Put through by mistake, cursed on air, and was asked to hang up.
• Debary Joe: Caller who corrected the hosts on Jimmy Buffett love songs.
• Ross McCoy: In studio. Host of the Orlando talk show and producer for Mo's Comedy Jam.
• Listener email (unnamed): Bud Docs patient whose doctor guessed he heard about it from Tom and Dan.
• Westmoreland: Listener who messaged that he "unfollowed" over the sauce joke.