So recently, I was on the backside of lacking content and deadlines started to rear their heads in the direction of my posterior. I had a haunch on how to handle this pain in the hindquarters. CBC’s The Nature Of Things always offers us a tail in content when we’re running a little behind, so when they offered a cheeky option along with last week’s ep, I chose to get to the bottom of their next episode, Butt Seriously. You may think I’m a lazy bum for taking a seat and watching this assload of info, butt I guarantee it’s great content, and everyone is a big fanny of this kind of subject so derriere. Okay, that was a bit tushie, so I’ll get into the back-end of this episode and stop kicking your booty with my arse-nal of buttocks synonyms. There are so many, according to this episode.
When I was a kid, we were taught that butts were gross in Elementary school, thanks to a poster that featured both animal butts and a cigarette butt. Butt in reality maybe butts are more fascinating than those poster designers would’ve thought. They may have been trying to stomp out smoking but it could’ve gone a different way because we all have talked about butts for years, what with parents calling their toddlers little butt’s and letting them watch a YT channel called Little Baby Bum, to 8-year olds singing songs about butts while reading Dav Pilkey’s and Andy Griffith’s literature, to even in highshool where Sir Mix-A-Lot’s hit is still as rockin’ as ever even into adulthood when you’re getting some… uh, I’d better back up. The important thing is we talk about butts no matter what our age. I’m sitting on mine right now typing this out, and TNOT decided it was time to talk about it in 45 minutes and give us some info as well as make us ask questions that we never thought of while learning things we never knew. It’s a taboo subject for sure, your mother forbids from you talking about human genitalia, so when you read a book with toilet humour and butts, you feel an incredible high because you feel like you’re reading content that’s not allowed. You don’t talk about it much in adulthood because the mirror makes you wonder if you’re a funhouse reflection or if you truly are gaining weight from sitting around. Then there’s the functions. Fortunately, nobody talks about what it’s like on the commode. Believe me, we got enough of that on the Internet already. Besides, there’s more interesting subjects in this doc that you probably never considered. I mean, I didn’t.
I’m talking about butts being used as Tupperware for all that excess fat, how people appreciate a subject even if it’s such an embarrassment, the evolutionary subject of which came first: the butt or the mouth, and creatures that breathe through their rears. This Anus news was new to me, and being curious as I was, I had to ask some questions, but had to be careful in not being too anal. I spoke to Anthony Morgan, the host of this episode, (and more to come) during a rare perfect storm in Toronto. If it hadn’t been for that perfect storm, we wouldn’t have been able to connect via Zoom. I guess I wasn’t done with the synonyms, but I’m about to let this interview free. Let’s get ready to Rump-le!
HNMAG: So you’re talking about butts. Was it hard to stay serious with such a subject?
Anthony Morgan: I think the most surefire way to guarantee that you’ll be mocked and laughed at mercilessly is by doing an episode on butts and taking yourself seriously. I think the crew was aware of that and we all had fun with it.
HNMAG: And blending serious with silliness must’ve been complicated for a short period of the episode’s timeframe.
Anthony Morgan: Yeah, it was complicated, but I really love to explore anything from the playful to the profound. I feel like science encompasses all of it and I don’t really want to orphan any parts of that. I like that we got to delve into insect butts and rather big butts, but also talk about really important stuff. Like the fact people don’t talk about their butts in that it can be threatening at times because people are too shy sometimes when they have to go talk to their doctor with a problem back there. It can literally be life and death for people.
HNMAG: And what were you thinking when you came up with the idea of such a discussion?
Anthony Morgan: I didn’t come up with the idea, I jumped onto the project a little bit later then I will be in future episodes. By the time the announcement was made that I was going to be the new host, we’d already been sort of partway through production with certain episodes so this is one that I learned about a decent amount into its production. But this one I jumped on with both feet in was hilarious. It was exactly the kind of product I was hoping to do and can bridge the gap in the public between the words ‘fun’ and ‘science’. I think people take science too seriously, and this seemed like a perfect product to cut through this tension.
HNMAG: Did you and/or CBC have to fight over the possibility of censorship?
Anthony Morgan: I don’t actually know, I’m not privy to some of those Behind-The-Scenes details. But I do know that I believe this is the first episode ever, of The Nature of Things that will have a nudity warning in it. I imagine there was some doing to get that done, and I’m pretty proud to have that under the ol’ belt.
The majority of the episode consists of Anthony going on a long journey to different places, but ultimately talking to all kinds of people. My next interview questions had me asking him about his interview process. How about that?
HNMAG: What kind of awkwardness did you have deal with when talking to all the doctors and scientists?
Anthony Morgan: When you’re talking about something as sensitive as butts, there is inevitably going to be a bit of awkwardness because social taboo. Because that’s a weird thing to start talking about and I think when folks are talking about it, they’re feeling weird and silly and kind of goofy. The more we got to talk to our experts, the more I noticed that I forgot to notice that it’s awkward. I brought it up at Thanksgiving with my family and everyone was like “Why is this guy talking about anuses?”
HNMAG: And when speaking with people on the street, did you get any particular reactions that you couldn’t possibly show?
Anthony Morgan: Well, yes. There wasn’t anybody that fully stripped down and got nude, to show off what their mama gave them or anything like that. We were on the street asking for people to list off as many names for butts as they possibly can. I’m sure there are some that even like boorish people who are a little more permissive would’ve blushed at some of the things that people were saying. We had to filter some for sure.
HNMAG: And where did the idea for butts as storage come from?
Anthony Morgan: Well, I think it just came as an honest exploration of why butts are so fascinating. In some ways they have been sexualized, and people know butts a lot. If you want to sell a lot of different products, you just gotta put a butt on it and people will work. That’s a really fascinating thing that our perception is kind of biased. We just kind of followed our perception and talked to researchers and they pointed to us to evolutionary reasons that people tend to find certain kinds of butts more and less attractive.
HNMAG: When hanging out with Maureen, did some of the facts freak you out?
Anthony Morgan: This is something about turtles, I don’t know how many people know this, but I never knew that some turtles could breathe out of their butts. That was a really surprising thing to learn. I wouldn’t say I was freaked out by it, unless you imagine doing it yourself, people do something like that but it’s not really breathing. It’s a lot less fun than that.
HNMAG: How did the question of mouth or anus came first come to mind?
Anthony Morgan: When you’re making an episode about science of the butt, you ask yourself what things can we explore, what kind of things are interesting. You’re really looking for mysteries, and there was this mystery that we stumbled across working with one of our researchers in Norway. A charming guy, Andy. His whole research is centred around solving this mystery, of which came first, the mouth or the anus? The fact that there was a mystery there was astonishing to us. We had no idea there would be any mystery at all. I guess people just don’t think about it and the fact that biologists thought about still don’t know show we that we have to talk about this.
Questions and researching wasn’t all that Anthony did. He got a chance to go to an art museum as well, try his hand at drawing, get involved in an operation, and even go searching for turtles. Why? He’ll answer those questions in the next batch.
HNMAG: When drawing the butt, was it difficult to follow along?
Anthony Morgan: I’m not much of an artist, it’s not really where my skillset lies. It was tough, but I had a really good teacher. We had a resident expert life painter there who guided me through the whole thing and she was just phenomenal. It’s a weird experience a little bit, because even in normal circumstances, for a life drawing class you’ve got the art that’s in the centre and a collection of painters around. Everybody’s focused on their work, and in my case it was kind of nice but slightly unusual because we walked into a soundstage instead. Just me, this artist, and our model and it was a quite different, but really exciting to step into something new that I didn’t do. I feel like it went well, I’ve got the picture up on the wall.
HNMAG: Was it uncomfortable to get involved with a colonoscopy?
Anthony Morgan: Yeah, I was just profoundly grateful to be there because a colonoscopy, I’m trying to think of a procedure that’s more personal and private than that. Our subject was generous enough to let us be there for the whole procedure. It’s really valuable for us to understand it and to be there because helping people understand what exactly happens in a colonoscopy, why they’re so valuable and important, what could happen, things to look for, what they can tell us about their bodies. It was the most important thing to us. Once it started, you’re a little squeamish at first because you imagine a tube and a camera up your butt might be a little bit uncomfortable but very quickly we all became very comfortable with it. That was just fascinating to see a doctor guiding us through this.
HNMAG: You looked like you had a lot of fun looking for turtles. Was it hard to adjust to getting through all that water?
Anthony Morgan: That was my first time even wearing those hip wader things. Y’know, the ones that go up to your nipples to keep you dry? They work like a charm, they’re super waterproof but the water that day was particularly cold and just walking around in there, you can’t really tell to see all the wood and dirt and detritus that you’re trying to balance on. Then you’re terrified because if you tip over, your protective wetsuit turns into a big bowl to collect as much water as possible. I was pretty nervous, and it was definitely tricky to get used to. I just tried to follow their lead.
HNMAG: You mentioned earlier how you learned turtles breathing through their anuses. How weird was it to figure out that was possible?
Anthony Morgan: You don’t think about it, why would anybody think about it? Then to take that information and use it to figure out some good to do with it. That was an amazing thing to me. You can take what we learn about how turtles breathe through their butts and apply it to humans who are having trouble breathing ordinarily. Then maybe expand their lifespan, reduce their suffering and maybe help in some unexpected ways thanks to weird science.
HNMAG: Now that people know more about the back-end, do you think they’ll start questioning the front-end next?
Anthony Morgan: Yes, I do. I certainly hope so, I’m interested in using science to explore what people are interested in. You’d be hard pressed to make the case that people aren’t interested in the front-end of things.
Well, it’s time for this interview to come to an end, I hope it gave you di-rectum to plant your patootey down for this hole episode that will kick booty. Okay, now I know I’m cracking up. You bet your bippy I’m gonna stop. Anyways, Butt Seriously airs on CBC and CBC Gem this Thursday Jan 18 at 9PM.