(upbeat music)
(dramatic music)
- Aristotle,
Descartes,
Nietzsche,
and now,
Katie
Marovitch, me.
For centuries, the world's most brilliant philosophers
have pondered the many questions of the universe.
Join me as we continue this quest for knowledge.
This is The Rank Room.
(dramatic music)
Tonight's question is what is the worst marriage proposal?
I'm Katie Marovitch, and today I am joined
by experts Michael Trapp.
- That's my name.
- Caldwell Tanner.
- My name is that.
- Grant O'Brien.
- Is also my name.
- Grant, please begin.
- Absolutely, I'd like to submit
as the worst marriage proposal
a flash mob.
- Mm.
- Yeah, you're walking across the Brooklyn Bridge.
- Great bridge.
- You're having a beautiful, Autumn afternoon.
New York crisp air blowing up the river
and all of the sudden,
a bunch of strangers start singing Elton John's Your Song
at you, now the harmonies are great,
but you're surrounded by people you don't know,
and just when the song hits the high point,
somebody kneels down and proposes marriage to you.
- What a terrible idea the public proposal is in general.
- As a rule.
- And it feels like it's held up as being like,
oh, how romantic, and just like, a generally awful idea.
- What if you making this important decision
hinges upon the judgment and opinions of several strangers
who are just bearing down on you from both sides.
Both sides?
Going this way on the bridge--
- Surrounded.
I wanna be clear too.
- Where are they on the bridge?
- The hump.
- Is there any escape?
- There's not, there's not.
- So they have, they have emerged from both sides.
- That's right.
I participated in this particular proposal too,
I was hired as a singer.
- You're implicit!
- The other thing with flash mob is it becomes a worse
marriage proposal the farther we get
from like 2008.
- Flash mobs are done.
- [Katie] Oh yeah.
- They were done years ago.
- Like a big group dancing in a mall,
it shouldn't, that doesn't happen anymore, right?
- There'd be a like a legitimate concerns like,
these are maybe Nazi's, like what is happening?
(laughing)
- Yeah, the world has changed.
We can't handle flash mobs anymore.
- She said no right?
- She said yes.
- Wow.
- Which undermined my point a little bit,
but she said yes.
(laughing)
But I didn't like it.
- Tonight I would like to propose
as the worst marriage proposal,
a special interest cruise.
Mine exists more in the realm of theoretical than Grants,
which seems like a real thing that happened to him.
- Yes, it was.
- But since mine is theoretical, I would like to submit
that a worse marriage proposal obviously means
that the person says no.
- That makes sense.
- So with that in mind, they're saying no,
you've already booked passage
on this cruise, so once they've said no,
you have at least a week left
to share in a very tiny room with them.
The fact that it's a special interest cruise
means that it was probably a cheap cruise.
- For clarity, like a special interest cruise,
we're talking about like, you know--
- I'm thinking something either like maybe everyone
on the cruise is a ventriloquist,
maybe it's a character cruise but they
didn't get copyrighted characters, so it's knockoff stuff
like you know, cookie enjoyer.
- It's a three 11 cruise.
- And Gambit the toad, you know, things like that.
Three 11?
- Yeah, the band.
- The band yeah.
- Not the date.
(laughing)
- Never forget.
- So do you see them as being interested in the hobby?
- No, they're not even into it,
especially the partner who's being proposed to,
certainly not into it.
- I wanna go back to something you said before,
which I think is notable for a bad proposal,
which is you do it on like day two of a five day event.
- You do it way too early.
- [Katie] Yes.
- You gotta wait, generally, right?
- Absolutely.
- You gotta put that at the end.
- Yeah, that has to be the end
after a perfect vacation.
- And then both of yours so far involve
being trapped on bodies of water.
It's like there's nothing but water around you.
- It is bad.
- You are in decision jail, that is what a proposal is.
- You're surrounded by water and people singing at you.
- I'm also, I'm baffled when I find out
about people who've proposed and didn't
discuss it in depth before-hand.
- Oh yeah.
- 'Cause you shouldn't surprise someone
with this life decision like that.
You should have been talk-
you should have had a spreadsheet.
- They have to know it's happening.
You can't just spring this on someone during a vacation.
- You have to like any other major life decisions
where it's just like I need an answer right now,
do you want to buy this house?
Like what?
(laughing)
- I didn't even know I was in the market.
- Would you like to go?
- I would like to go.
Just changing your Facebook status
without telling anyone.
- [Caldwell] Very good.
- [Grant] Yeah.
- You know when you like log onto Facebook
and it's got all the bullshit just like,
hey, good morning Grant, like, we just wanted
to say good morning, or like, remember two years ago
when you ate a big taco?
And just like one where you wake up and that notification's
like hey, we saw your relationship status changed
and you're married, congratulations.
- You're presenting like a Black Mirror right now.
- But the thing about this Black Mirror
is it could happen right now.
- But there's no engagement.
- I mean engaged could work too.
I think anything where like it takes that surprise element
and makes it very public, and also,
you can't even discuss it in person with that.
You just wake up like, what are you talking about?
I guess I'll just message you
to figure out what this is all about.
- I could see someone thinking that's cute.
I could see someone like okay,
she's asleep, I'm gonna get onto her Facebook,
I'm gonna change her status.
She'll have a bunch of congratulationses in the morning.
- I could see that though,
someone being like, this is so cute.
All of her friends will see it
and her family at the same time.
- Against their will, that's what's important here.
- It's terrible, but I could see it being cute.
- Nothing is cute online.
- No.
- That is true.
- My idea for the worst proposal is
say it with pubic hair.
(laughing)
Picture this.
- I already am.
- Thank you, you're living with your significant other
and over time you have been collecting their pubic hair.
- This is not where I thought it was going.
(laughing)
- Trimming it when they're asleep,
taking it from the shower, things of that nature.
One day they come home and you have laid out
their mounds of pubic hair to spell out
"Will you marry me?"
- Now.
(laughing)
We all have.
- Questions.
- This would take years perhaps.
- Well yes, proof that you've had a long, relationship.
- You've got a ripe amount of pubic hair.
- Now, don't say ripe.
- You've got a ripe amount of pubic hair.
- No.
Where I thought you were going with this
was more of a shaved message.
- No.
No.
(laughing)
- 'Cause that I'm on board with.
- Not at all, this is you collecting,
that's what makes it so awful is you're
collecting some else's pubic hair,
forming it into little letters.
- Is it just on the floor?
- It could be on the floor.
It could be in a nice location.
If you're at a hotel--
- It could be on the bed.
- Yeah, it could be in the bed.
- Where are you?
- I changed my mind, I love it.
- Thank you.
- That's so much pubic hair, like I don't--
- Exactly.
- Where are you storing this?
- Probably in little boxes.
- Wouldn't the person notice they wake up
and they're like I'm balder than I was yesterday?
- You just gotta collect from the shower.
- Yeah, you could do that.
If they shave--
- You've gotta pick it--
- You take it from the razor if they shave.
- [Grant] You have to pick through--
- If they wax, go to the, visit their wax or--
- Would you allow for regular hair as well?
- I think it has to be pubic hair.
- [Caldwell] Okay, all right.
- Well then how are you sorting that out in the shower?
- Yeah you gotta sit there with like tweezers.
- Okay, if you--
- But that shows commitment.
- Yes,
love takes work, guys.
- And it's weird if you and your significant other
have the same type of hair.
- Not, it's not that weird.
- I know my hair.
- Pubes are basically the same.
Pubes are, that's one of those things that's like universal.
- Oh, Grant, Grant, Grant.
- What a beautiful thought, guys.
- We all have the same pubes. - We all have the same pubes.
- Okay.
- That's it for this preview of The Rank Room.
If you enjoyed it, I have fantastic news.
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Okay fine, stay.
(soft music)
Go!
- As you lean in, as you slip the ring
on their finger, you lean in and you just whisper,
it's just a prank, bro.