Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Andrew Sanford | News | June 9, 2026
Promotion for movies is an ecosystem all its own. Whole teams are devoted to connecting with other teams to make sure a celebrity is in the right place at the right time to explain what they think a random hashtag is. Creative types will go on podcasts, appear on TikTok livestreams, and play games on someone’s Twitch channel. All of it is in service of making sure that the movie gets seen, even if some of it can end up sounding like a bat-s*** insane moment that feels like it belongs in a movie itself.
Patton Oswalt recounted such a moment on his recent visit to Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend. The duo was discussing promotion, with Conan having clearly just been run through the Toy Story 5 promo machine. He doesn’t say it directly, but he makes references to all of the silly things you have to do for promotion while noting that he was told Tom Hanks and Joan Cusack had to do them as well. It’s pretty funny, as he sounds a little frustrated, but he also makes it clear that he’s enamored by the whole thing.
When it gets to what Oswalt has dealt with, he mentions promoting a film called Goat, about a goat who plays basketball. To make sure people saw the film, Oswalt and the cast went and did goat yoga, which I had honestly been unfamiliar with. Apparently, it’s when you do yoga while friendly little goats run around. Sounds harmless enough, and probably pretty therapeutic. That wasn’t what Oswalt got, however. Instead, he had a goat standing on him and spraying feces across the room.
That alone would make for a pretty silly story, but it’s the next detail that takes it over the edge. Oswalt goes on to explain that, as the goat is launching pellet-like fecal matter into the air, someone in the room sees a story on their phone and says out loud that the U.S. had just begun bombing Iran. It is the perfect odd confluence of events that makes for an insane story. There’s even a dreamlike quality to it.
It also plays into Oswalt and O’Brien’s shared love of history, as they joke about how it would be shown in a 40s newsreel. The whole interview has a more laid-back feel to it that is very delightful. Both of these men have been hugely influential to me, so I’m likely a little biased, but I rushed to listen when the episode dropped, and it did not disappoint. Come for the goat turds, stay for Conan and Patton ragging on a Martin & Lewis knockoff that sounds too ridiculous to be real.
