This is on the Media's Midweek Podcast. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

Last year at this time, nine months into the pandemic, many of us kept apart from one

another, missing out on all the gathering, yam eating, relative screaming, football

watching, and other holiday-inspired habits of Thanksgiving. Not this year, now, Vax

than tested, maybe even boosted, we gather once more, like a bunch of gosh darn superheroes.

And so, for this very special Thanksgiving edition podcast extra, we're re-airing the story

of a lovable, dysfunctional family full of superheroes.

Back in 2005, the Academy Award-winning animated Pixar film The Incredibles enthralled movie

goers with its campy 60s noir aesthetic, its nuanced portrayal of family gender roles,

and its memorable cast of superheroes. And one of those superheroes, the gifted son named

Dash, was played by a real-life kid, the former child actor Spencer Fox, who's been trying

to outrun his own brush with superheroism ever since. On the media cars fondant Micah

Lowencher as the story.

When I met Spencer almost a decade ago, I was told by a mutual friend to not bring up

the Incredibles. But I did. The edition was crazy. They said, if you have any fun voices

or impressions, you're welcome to do them. And so I did an impression of my grandpa,

just being like this like, oh, Jewish man, you always talked about it, it's like time

in the arm like the silver eagle. I guess it's like nickname in the army was like the silver

eagle. And they reacted very strongly, huge stomach laughter like the hands up in the air.

He gets the gig and Pixar flies 10 year old Spencer and his mom out to at San Francisco

studio. A cork of animated filmmaking is that you don't often get to record with the other

actors. So Spencer taped the dash parts in a handful of intense one-on-one sessions.

...