Let's talk about that!

♪ (theme music) ♪

- Good... Mythical... Morning. - Thank you for staring at our faces every

day by making us a part of your daily routine, 'cause today we are

talking about staring at faces. So get with me brother, 'cause this is exciting.

- I was staring at their faces. - This could be quite an experience today.

- Based on a study, okay? - Mm!

- So there is science. - A study!

There is boopity-boop done by someone else that we are gonna highjack for our

entertainment purposes today and see what we can see, Rhett. Psychologist

Giovanni Caputo from the University of Urbino... Urbeeno? in Italy, conducted--

- He's my favorite Italian researcher. - Giovanni Caputo?

- Yeah. - He conducted some face experiments,

okay? Two of them, to be exact, that we are gonna replicate because of the results

he got. I'm hoping we can get similar results. The first experiment, he took a

medium-sized mirror and one person, put the mirror about half a meter away from

the furson's-- the person's face. Or the furson's pace.

- Yeah. - And dimmed the lighting in the room,

and then, after... Got the person to stare at themself for about one to two minutes,

- Okay? - Right.

And then, after that time, he just grilled them on what their experience was like.

All 50 participants-- 100 percent of the participants-- experienced some form of

- dissociative identity effect. - Awesome!

Meaning, their face started to morph or melt away or weird things happened.

- And we're gonna do this. - Oh yeah. They said that they saw

apparitions of strange faces. Some people saw deceased parents or archetypal--

archetypal... I practiced that word and I still don't know how to say it. Portraits.

- Like archetype portraits. - I think you can say "archetype."

- Archetype? - Archetypal.

Or monsters. I know how to say "monsters."

- Oh, monsters! You got that. - The next experiment, the Dyad Staring

Experiment, was two people about a meter away from each other...

- Mmhm. - Staring into each other's eyes in a

- dimly lit room for ten minutes or so. - That could get weird!

- Okay? - For lots of reasons.

This is not romantic; this is experiment... buddy type stuff.

- Experimental. Experiment buddies! - We're gonna be experiment buddies.

(silly voice) Not romantic, man. Experiment buddies.

- (crew laughs) - 'Cause this could be-- if you do this

- with a romantic-- - Come over my house, we're just

- experiment buddies. - (all laugh)

- Yeah, try that line on somebody. - (normally) Oh gosh.

- (crew laughs) - 90 percent of the people who

participated saw deformed faces. Like, the other person's face melting, okay?

- Yep. - 75 percent said they saw a monster.

50 percent said they saw aspects of their own face in their partner's face.

That's weird. I'm excited about this because I used to look-- do this as a kid,

stare at myself until things started changing in the mirror, and I'm not even

an Italian scientist. I'm just a kid. I was a kid.

- Not yet. - Yeah.

But today we're gonna become that and maybe you'll see one in your own face

or in my face. Let's get to it, guys! Let's go to the

Face Morphing Into a Monster Zone!

Okay, Rhett, as you can see, I've placed you in front of this mirror. Now, I have

not done this, but this is how I want us to do it.

- I like it. - (Link) Just-- no. It's not about how

you look. This is about becoming something that you don't. (laughs)

- What? - I don't know, it's like the

terminology I'm using. "Become something you don't."

- Okay, cool. - You're gonna stare at yourself and

I'm not gonna ask you questions, because I don't want you to respond and start

speaking, because I think that the facial movement of speaking will bring you out

- of it, okay? - Yeah.

So I'm gonna let you just come out of it and report to me if and when you see

your face morph and become something... you don't.

- Okay. - (Link) Okay?

Let's see if I can become something I don't.

All right, so whenever you're ready, just start staring at yourself and I'm just

gonna stand here and stare at you, waiting for you to report back to me.

♪ (suspenseful music) ♪

- I became a skeleton. Like re-- like re-- - That fast? Come on.

No, I'm serious. My eyes are kinda dark, and the mouth is dark 'cause of this

lighting, and it just like... 8 seconds into that, it was like Halloween time.

Right there in the mirror. I'm not making it up.

- Okay. - I'm being completely honest.

- All right. - I became something I don't.

- I don't a skeleton. - (laughs)

- I do a human. I mean, I am a human. - Right.

- (crew laughs) - All right, now, whenever that happens

this time, just stick with it and let's just go deeper into "don't"

and see what happens.

♪ (suspenseful music) ♪

(Link) What? Okay...

He's come out of it, people. He's gonna report back to us now.

You know the original Planet of the Apes?

- Yeah, like the rubber masks? - I became one of those.

- Really? - Yes! I began to see myself as one of

the guys from the original Charleton Heston...

- A talking monkey. - I became a skeleton and then I became

- a talking monkey! - Next time that happens, start to talk

and see if you can stay in it while talking.

Lemme just go a little bit deeper.

♪ (suspenseful music) ♪

- My nose... was migrating... - (laughs)

- Your nose was crawling off your face? - The nose was migrating and my entire

face was becoming a paint-by-numbers painting.

What do you mean? Like, there were numbers on your face?

- (Rhett) No, I mean like the patches... - (Link) Like geometric color patterns?

were just color. It was like there was a hair patch and a beard patch and a

nose patch, and the nose patch was moving. I was a paint-by-numbers painting that was

being moved around. This is the coolest thing ever. I wanna look in the mirror

- more often! - Yeah, you already do it enough.

- Do you want me to go? Can I go? - Yeah, you should experience this.

Okay, lemme get in there.

- Okay! - (Link) Were you pullin' my leg, man?

No, listen. I am being completely honest. Everything that I said I saw, I saw.

- (Rhett) It's freaky, man. - (crew laughs)

- All right, lemme go under. Here I go. - You think you should take

- your glasses off? - Lemme try it first like this.

(Rhett) Okay.

♪ (suspenseful music) ♪

You a skeleton yet?

- (all laugh) - I forgot to breathe while I was doing it.

- Yeah. - My eyes got bigger. Like anime eyes.

- A little bit. - A little bit of anime.

- But lemme take the glasses off. - (Rhett) Yeah, go for the glasses off.

- Whoa. I look weird. - (chuckles) Yeah.

- I was immediately morphed! - (crew laughs)

- Okay. - Yeah, do that.

That's just two black holes where my eyeballs used to be. That's just how deep

- my eyes are set. - (Rhett) Just relax.

- Okay. - Just let the monkey happen.

(laughs)

♪ (suspenseful music) ♪

(laughs) My face started to shrink into, like, a baby face.

- (laughs) - Like, my eyes got bigger but my

entire face got smaller and became a baby face.

You became Baby Face, the artist, or you became a baby face?

I became a baby-sized face. I did not produce Toni Braxton.

- Okay. - (crew laughs)

- Okay. - Go under again, man. I mean, this is

- great. This might be our new hobby. - I'm gonna try to... I can see my

- eyeballs like this. - (Rhett) Oh, wow. Mm.

♪ (suspenseful music) ♪

My mouth disappeared entirely. Flesh... it's like--

- (both) Flesh Mouth. - Like horror-movie mouth, right?

Yeah. It's like mm! mm! mm! And then this eye started to creep over here.

- Yeah, you got moving features as well! - But my nose never moved and this eye

- never moved. - But you didn't become paint-by-numbers?

- No, I haven't... - Because my whole beard became

- just beard. - Lemme see if I can get a beard. Hold on.

"Let me see if I can get a beard," is what the man just said.

♪ (suspenseful music) ♪

Yeah, make a face like that.

♪ (suspenseful music) ♪

- Oh, shoot! - (all laugh)

Oh my gosh. This eye... this whole eye started moving this way. It got a little

bigger and then the eyeball started drifting within the socket like it was

leaving a hole, but I couldn't scream because I had Flesh Mouth... again.

- You got Flesh Mouth again? - I didn't get Flesh Mouth again,

- I was too focused on-- - Got a case of Flesh Mouth!

I started to look like that guy, the German dude in Indiana Jones, Raiders of

- the Lost Ark. They started melting. - (Rhett) The end scene, right, yeah.

Well, let's take it up a notch and let's stare at each other.

Yeah. Staring buddies.

Okay, now we are gonna see if we can find faces in the other person's face.

- (Link) Or stuff. - I've already become a monkey and

you became Baby Face. Let's see where we can go now.

- (laughs) All right. - Maybe I can make you become Baby Face.

Let's try to minimize the amount of times we come out of it.

- Yeah. - (Link) So as not to distract the other

- person from seeing the other person - Right.

- become something they don't. - (laughs) Yeah.

- Okay? - And can you-- I want you to take

- your glasses off, please. - Oh, yeah. Now, even that's gonna

- be freaky. Just me. - Well, more of your life I've known you

- without glasses than with glasses. - (Link) Oh, really? I feel naked.

Ready?

♪ (suspenseful music) ♪

- You're smiling. - I really am smiling.

- (Rhett) Your face morphed into a smile. - (laughs)

- Can you not do that? - (Link) Well just staring at you like

this is weird. Can I just smile the whole time and just see what happens?

Yeah, just whatever-- just keep it consistent.

- (both laugh) - You're like...

(Link laughs) I don't look like that, man. I was looking at you. Look at me.

- I'm gonna smile. - Okay.

Just like in every gradeschool picture we had together. And you make that face

you made in every gradeschool picture, which was like... "I'm tryin' to be cool."

- No, I wasn't trying. - (both laugh)

All right.

♪ (suspenseful music) ♪

- (laughs) - (fart noise)

- What did you-- did you just fart? - No, it's my seat.

- My seat-- my seat farted! What? - You became-- (laughs)

- Already? - You became Howdy Doody.

- (all laugh) - (Rhett) And it was, like, the most

- Howdy Doody... - (Link) What is that?

- Like a marionette puppet? - The Howdy Doody! You are Howdy Doody.

Like, that's how much Howdy Doody you became to me.

- Shut up. - Like, you're becoming something I don't

wanna look at. Like you're becoming a being that I'm frightened of.

- Okay, okay. - (Rhett) Sorry. You were so Howdy Doody

that I broke.

♪ (suspenseful music) ♪

- (all laugh) - I know, I'm smiling like Howdy Doody!

- (laughs) Howdy Doody! - It's like... 7 seconds into every stare

- you start going... - (Link and crew laugh)

(Rhett) Just don't smile, man! It's not funny. This is research! This is Italian

- research. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

- Think of the Italians, man. - Okay. Here we go.

♪ (suspenseful music) ♪

(laughs nervously) You started to scare me! I'm like-- my eyes are watering.

- I'm starting to get scared. Um... - Did I become something I don't?

(Link) Well, 4 things happened. Your eyebrows became like a flying bird

coming towards me and it was like... I wasn't aware of your eyes anymore,

just your eyebrows became like a swooping bird. And then the whole right

side of your face disappeared. It was like all you had was the left side of your face.

And then your left eyeball-- the side of your face that was still there-- started

getting bigger and migrating off of your face, and that's when I got scared.

One of your eyes is turning into flesh. Like, you are a man without an eye--

- an eye that was never born. - Like my eye didn't born?

- Your eye never born. - (Link laughs)

- Okay. - Okay.

I'm gonna try to focus on a different part of your face now.

♪ (suspenseful music) ♪

- Tom Selleck. - Really. Mustache?

No. You became a person wearing a Tom Selleck mask. You became somebody who,

in 1985, they went to the Halloween store and they were like, "I wanna be

Magnum P.I." 'Cause Magnum's face was out here and then Link's eyes...